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Not until recently, people portrayed extreme sports participants as unskilled risk seekers, who don’t appreciate life and usually have either addiction to danger or an unhealthy desire to prove themselves. Although the majority held a negative attitude on extreme sports when extreme sports first emerged, extreme sports have not disappeared but have gained popularity and acceptance as time goes by. Today, the society realizes that doing high risk sports are beneficial to individual in unexpected ways. In fact, extreme sports intensify people’s lives emotionally, intellectually and physically. People become more emotionally stable when encountering danger by doing extreme sports, because extreme sports help them to know more about fear. As the fear of excessive height and speed help human ancestor to survive, the fear passes down to people today and keep people from the cliff and help them avoid the danger of crashing (Leahy). While people are born with the fear, extreme sports expose people to great height and speed. Therefore, extreme sport participants face a high level of fear, which triggers panic constantly. So the challenges and benefits of extreme sports are discussed in this essay.
Get original essayWhen I started to snowboard, the height of the mountain frightened me so much that my body was stiff when I slid down from the snow trail at first. However, gradually, I felt better and could control myself to do new performance even if I still feel fearful. The change of my feeling results from my enhanced experience on snowboarding. According to Brymer and Mackenzie, when different individuals encounter the same problem, each of them interprets the problem with their own feeling, motivation, and knowledge. In other words, as for the people who have no or little experience in extreme sports, a low level of danger overwhelms them. However, to those who do extreme sports often, they can control themselves better because of their experience. The reason behind the positive change is that extreme sports offer people lots of opportunities to face panic. The experience of fear helps people become familiar about panic attacking and find strategies to deal with it. A mountain climber, who could not put himself or herself together at first, gradually have become sensitive to panic and found a way to calm down. The climber says, “I could often feel the panic rising, and I used to talk myself” (Brymer and Schweitzer 482). Thanks to the experience of mountain climbing, this climber is capable to notice the rise of panic and control his or her emotion quickly.
Extreme sports teach participants to use “coping mechanisms” (Chavez) to deal with panic and objectify fear. The ability to maintain emotionally stable helps them have a good clarity and good judgment, and then they can make the best use of their mind and body. When facing challenge, extreme sports participants panic less often and waste less time on emotion compared to others. Experience on extreme sports allows them to get distracted less and thus perform better. Not only helps participants get rid of panic, but extreme sports experience also influences participants body’s natural status in the presence of danger. Although still experiencing panic rising, extreme sports participants experience excitement when they encounter with danger. Our body states connecting to fear reaction are generally telic state and paratelic state. When in telic state, people tend to be primarily serious, goal-oriented and arousal avoidant. Telic state is the one that people naturally stay in. When people first start to participate in extreme sports, only a few of them enjoy the existence of fear and the triggered panic. People generally want to reach the end of the process as fast as possible. As a result, they are goal oriented and the extreme sports make them suffer. Then, according to the research of Kerr and Mackenzie, the more excessive arousal that the new starters feel, the more anxiety and scared they feel. However, for those skillful extreme sports participants, doing extreme sports is more enjoyable as they switch to the paratelic state more. Paratelic state is a more spontaneous, playful and arousal seeking state, where activities are pursued as ends within themselves, and attentional focus is absorbed in the process- oriented goals of the activity.
As seen from this essay, to keep themselves safe and make progress in extreme sports, extreme sports participants focus on their performance more than their negative emotion. While learning new skill and feeling panic less, participants find pleasure in extreme sports. Then excitement comes with high arousal brought by danger. Rather than running away from danger, extreme sports participants connect excitement with extreme sports and start to seek thrill and adventure. Gradually, extreme sports no longer make them suffer. As the extreme sports participants experience positive emotion, the natural body states of them in the presence of danger also change. Since extreme sports participants switch to paratelic state more often, their body remembers this state and makes it the dominant state when experiencing fear later. As a result, when facing challenge in real life, people with experience in extreme sports feel less afraid and more excited. As excitement is a positive emotion, people embrace it and thus hold a more positive attitude toward challenge. Thanks to the extreme sports, participants experience this emotional transformation, which encourages people to accept challenges that benefits them in life.
The telephone was a creation by Alexander Graham in the year 1876 with the careful advisory of his financial associates Gardiner Hubbard and Thomas Sanders. Their innovation and success eventually manifested into the AT&T Company during the year 1885, and it acted as Bell’s secondary to plan and build the first operational long-distance network. AT&T was introduced to the company the whole Bell system after it purchased the assets from Bell, in the year 1899 (Strother, 2002).
Get original essay1927, the long-distance telephone service was launched in London as a two-way radio at the cost of $75 for a period of 5 minutes. In 1956, the Submarine telephone-cable service was offered to Europe since the AT&T company radio-telephone service had become blotchy (Bray et al., 1974). Formerly the AT&T Company acted as a monopoly with the resentful permit from the U.S. The transpacific cable service was introduced after suit of civil antitrust came into the agreement with the department of justice in 1964 (Schlesinger, 1987).
Small and large competitive companies in the rural and urban are working together to face the dominant carriers in the U.S. which are Verizon Wireless and AT&T as they gather more dominance over the wireless market industry. Comparing the outcomes to its rival competitors, AT&T Corporation displayed a total revenue reduction in 2018 first-quarter annually by -3%, despite increased revenue by its competitors by 4%, during the same period. Due to stiff competition in the market’s small-scale carriers in the rural setup such as MetroPCS, even the giant carriers like T-Mobile USA and Sprint Nextel, AT&T has been working on its product and services to remain the giant in the industry (Coll, 2017). The emerging branded corporations have mirrored significant issues, which has advanced the industry to a duopoly. Regardless of their orientation, both rural and urban carriers have common policies apprehensions within the allocated spectrum, roaming data and operation of devices (Coll, 2017).
Over the previous year, AT&T and Verizon Wireless have been able to dominate the broader spectrum of wireless plus the subscribers of mobile phones in the entire country. Currently, the two companies have partnered dominance of about 70 percent of the wireless industry. The rival competitors way behind regarding the overall number of subscribers. Towards the middle of the year 2012, Verizon recorded a sum of 111million with regards to its wireless consumers, whereas AT&T had 105 million subscribers of the same wireless product. T-Mobile and Sprint recorded 33 and 56 million subscribers respectively (Bray et al., 1974).
The data management issue arose after it was discovered that a prison-based mobile corporation known as Securus was dashing out services that facilitated prison officers to monitor and track cell phones in America within a short time. The allegations preceded an investigation that was conducted by Senator Ron Wyden. The investigation led to the finding that privacy of location was a significant issue of concern and this prompted the auditing of the communications big players and their affiliations with other data corporations that deal with customer data business. According to Angwin et al. (2015), a top-secret room was discovered in one of the company's network amenities in San Francisco in the early 2000s. The room, which was referred to as room 641A, contained the National Security Agency's (NSA) equipment for capturing and analyzing the traffic passing via fiber optic cables within the facility. Precisely, the cables were a part of the Internet central source and a system identified as a splitter was sending a copy to the secret room. The implication was that the NSA was accessing everything because the pipes did not carry just AT&T customers' data but everyone’s (Angwin et al., 2015).
The careful analysis discovered that brokers were responsible for selling locations of Americans to the top investors without their knowledge to the extent of sharing it even with the web portals. These actions are supposed to be met with dire consequences of nullifying such companies. Other findings that were made included the smart bug location that would have enabled an individual to trace the data location of mobile users secretly (Coll, 2017). The internet service providers have asserted to minimize the transaction of data location of their customers, though it is not promised to be a long-term venture until they are satisfied that they can fully safeguard their consumer's data location via advanced systems of technology.
AT&T has started to minimize the distribution of their consumers’ data location with the companies that act as middlemen. Moreover, the corporation has started terminating their agreements with the data location trackers. However, sharing of data would still be vital especially when it comes to issues like preventing fraud and call routing. They are determined to safeguard the security and privacy of their consumer’s location. Whereabouts and inform their customers regarding their execution plans to nullify their contract agreement with these middlemen companies (Sandoval, 2014). The corporations’ top agenda is to safeguard their customer’s details, on the other hand, their termination of agreements with the brokers for the data location services is also necessary for the entire safety of the end consumers and also ensuring potential lifesaving services like roadside emergencies are also taken into consideration. This means that the company will not indulge into location agreements contract not unless they are fully satisfied that their customer’s location data is privatized through advanced technological systems (Sandoval, 2014).
Firstly, data packages run in different intensities, and most may operate suitably even if they are not relegated to the company’s fastest and most expensive storage tiers. The company will reduce costs and enhance system quality once they consider the needs of the end-user that are connected with all data set. Notably, this will likewise be improved by shifting data that is not performance-sensitive towards less energetic tiers. Today, tiered systems of storage are not perfect yet. As such, data may only move in between the tiers at a prolonged rate and operate the risk of negating benefits due to failing to keep up with data usage rate (Bray et al., 1974). However, they are likely to run into situations whereby the company must pull back raw data into a high-performance location of their Information Technology stack. Notably, their storage system ought to react to changes in performance as well as requirements throughout the life cycle of the data in case they want to prevent latency and bottlenecks issues (Bray et al., 1974).
Secondly, the company ought to prevent data from falling into the wrong hands through scaling. Data is amassed in the company as it expands, and, if it is critical data like intellectual property or employee-generated unstructured information like emails and file versions. Precisely, this data can't be compromised. While the company grows, they ought to track usage of data and deliver uninterrupted aid for all storage tiers to make sure the general system is correctly prepared and managed to scale (Bray et al., 1974).
Thirdly, users do not comprehend systems and, therefore, it is the responsibility of the company to make sure they stay in touch with clients to solve the current issue. In most cases, training staff for the goal and utilization of a given set of information systems is hard and fruitless. Consequently, the underlying goal should be to deliver a seamless consumer experience and conceals the systems from which the information is coming. Nonetheless, this does not mean only that only a single enterprise-wide system should be availed containing all the data. Always, there will be the need to include numerous information systems, yet the information included within them ought to be displayed in a human-friendly manner (Coll, 2017).
The following is a SWOT analysis of The American Telephone and Telegraph Company. Notably, since the need to prevent data leak is directly proportional to profitability, the analysis addresses the current market extensively. As earlier indicated, the NSA's aptitude to spy on huge amounts of internet traffic in the U.S has relied on its extraordinary, decades-long partnership with AT&T (Sandoval, 2014). While there is extensive evidence that American telecommunications corporations worked in close connection with spy agencies, newly revealed N.S.A. records have branded the partnership as unique and particularly productive. One of the documents categorized the relationship as “highly collaborative,” while another one explicated AT&T’s “extreme willingness to help (Angwin et al., 2015).”
AT&T is involved in a wide array of classified activities, which date from 2004 to 2014. Moreover, it has allowed the NSA access via various techniques protected by distinct legal rules. Notably, this access includes billions of emails that flow across the company's domestic networks (Angwin et al, 2015). As such, AT&T provides technical aid when carrying out court orders allowing the wiretapping of communications especially when there are threats that require immediate investigation and time is of the essence. Angwin et al. (2015) asserts that AT&T gave email traffic access many years prior to Verizon's consent in 2013. Hence, the company's ability to provide foreign-to-communication traffic has been especially essential to the NSA because large quantities of internet communications in the world pass through U.S. cables. This information will help solve the data management issue since the timely discovery of a prison-based mobile corporation dashing out services and enabling prison officers to monitor and track cell phones in America within a short time shows the company’s ability to handle communication issues (Angwin et al, 2015).
Abilities: In the US, AT&T currently spans across the majority of urban areas. The company offers both LTE and 4G coverage through several other techniques. All while they are providing for around 350 million people. Notably, when put together with the company’s enhanced backhaul, these carriers ought to improve AT&T's network capabilities as well as offer better mobile broadband speeds used in video and data services. Importantly, this company strives to exceed possibilities in the range of locations, to reach the most people as possible. Precisely, in certain areas, customers can have access to broadband Internet connectivity through wireless fidelity technology (Sandoval, 2014).
Broadband Offerings: The communications industry goes on moving towards Internet-based technique with the capability of blending wireless services and traditional Wireline. The company hopes to continue focusing on widening its high-speed U-verse broadband as well as video offerings. Additionally, AT&T's leverage and size should allow it to use the advantage of the progressing telecommunications space through the enhanced spectrum, data services, and capacity (Coll, 2017).
Tighter Margins: The price wars involving the leading service providers of wireless phone have been hurting overall success at AT&T. Also, when competing with other company’s similar phones has persuaded customers to leave AT&T. Most importantly, pay-as-you-go and low-cost plans from such peers have negatively impacted AT&T. Moreover, this carrier’s spending to update infrastructure and networks have augmented expenses and improved its already substantial debt obligations (Bray et al., 1974).
Ability to Adapt: AT&T has a complicated structure and vast size, which increases its struggle to conform to a wireless connection that is always changing. Other corporations might tweak the programs for discount payment as well as data offerings more often and avoid disturbing a vast customer base (Bray et al., 1974). Therefore, AT&T must stay cognizant of the changes in FCC regulations to evade impacts on its aptitude to gain capacity and spectrum.
Acquisitions: In the recent past, AT&T bough out DirecTV for a lump sum of $48.5 billion. This offers the company accessibility to the 18 million subscribers of DirecTV’s in Latin America. Moreover, it boosts the cash flow potential while producing yearly cost savings. Also, the extra free flow of cash is currently crucial for the company because it has decided to make a substantial investment in its lineup concerning both broadband and wireless (Angwin et al., 2015).
Improvement Spectrum/Capacity: The speeds of data transmission as well as general usage have grown tremendously over the last few years. Therefore, wireless carriers have seen soaring costs when it comes to lifting spectrum and capacity, especially in densely-populated metropolitan regions. Generally, wireless providers compete according to reliability, accessibility, transmission speed, and price (Angwin et al., 2015).
Continued War on Price: Notably, Sprint has established new strategy directly focused on Verizon and AT&T. Upon crossing over to the competitor, the company is going to provide half price specials and exclusive deals. As such, these deals are likely to harm the market share of AT&T’s. While consumers generally win during such price wars, they result in the general suffering of service providers’ margins (Angwin et al., 2015).
The American Telephone & Telegraph Company has structured its business undertakings into four central operating segments. The first is the Wireless Division which encompasses internet services and cell phone. The second segment is Wireline Division, which includes voice product lines for the local as well as long-distance businesses, consumers, and government services. Notably, this segment also provides data product lines like video services, access to the Internet, not to mention several other business services offered by the company. Thirdly, the company has Divisions for Advertising Solutions, which involves advertisement of print directory. Lastly, there are other Subsidiaries such as payphones and operating services (Angwin et al., 2015).
The Porter's Five Forces analysis analyzes the competition level in industry and also the development of business strategies. Notably, the company has managed to install surveillance equipment in more than seventeen of its Internet hubs in the United States. This is far more than the achievement of its primary competitor, Verizon Communications Inc. Most importantly, AT&T’s engineers also used new surveillance technologies first, which the NSA invented. Therefore, the current trends indicate a partnership, but not a predetermined relationship, as documented in one of NSA’s reports recounting the association between the two entities (Brandom, 2017). Therefore, Porter’s Five Forces elements that are related to AT&T has been explained and analyzed below.
High level of Competitive Rivalry: Before the expiration of patents in the 1890s, AT&T stood as the only corporation offering telecommunication services. Nonetheless, after these patents, 6000 new corporations joined the market. Hence, the degree of competition was higher. The company remained a monopoly in the industry until 1980 when the United States' government, as well as the Justice Department, split it up into minor companies. At present, four main companies exist in the telecommunications sector: AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile. The main rival of AT&T is Verizon because currently, it has a higher number of wireless subscribers compared to AT&T. Also, the wireless market is mostly saturated, and there is 91 percent of users now using mobile phones, and the sole method of increasing sales is through stealing clients from opponents (Brandom, 2017).
Moderately High Threat of Substitute Services and Products: The primary service provided at AT&T is communication and people have been using diverse communication tools. Therefore, the direct alternative of the old wireline telephones is the wireless cell phone communication. With the introduction of the internet, increased modes of voice communications services on the internet have gained much popularity like Skype, VOIPs, Viber, and Whatsapp. Anyone can stream almost anything directly from different smart devices with internet connectivity; hence, the number of cable subscribers is also decreasing (Brandom, 2017).
High Buyer’s Bargaining Power: In the past, the telecom industry would have been regarded as a monopoly and AT&T had the highest number of market share. Nevertheless, patents that AT&T held expired and after its split up into smaller companies, there was a loss of market share and an increase in competition within the industry. Due to more opponents within the market, the clients have increased option to pick from and are additionally price sensitive. In other words, they look for better membership plans. The customer-base has significantly expanded from 300k members to more than 3 million. To prevent consumers from seeking membership in other telecom firms, these companies have been using extensive contracts to make its profitable for clients to remain loyal to the company and additionally boosts their switching expenses (Brandom, 2017).
Low threat of New Entrants: In the early days, AT&T faced a minimal challenge from competitors because they had patents and, hence, the new entrant's risk was more significant. Conversely, after the expiry of the patent, the company suffered new competition influx whereby around 6000 joined the industry. The budget necessities for establishing a business within this industry were also higher. Precisely, this was because of a considerable capital needed to set up the system towers. Currently, the wireless system market is intensely saturated at 91 percent, such that there is no profitability for new companies entering the market (Brandom, 2017).
Moderate Supplier Bargaining power: AT&T applies two network equipment vendors, which are Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent (Brandom, 2017). Notably, this alliance has strategically made them enjoy scale economies. These suppliers hold higher leverage over this company because they require quality materials for building these networks. Therefore, the suppliers' bargaining power is moderate.
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Get custom essayBased on AT&T’s primary history and competitors identified in the paper, there is no doubt that the organization is a major player in the telecommunication industry. However, a current data management issues in the organization needs to be resolved else it will lead to other problems like hacking and identity theft. As such, this necessitates an understanding of the general methods as well as ethical tactics for handling this management issue. Additionally, some of the identified methods have worked in the past. Notably, the strategy identified for addressing the data management issue and the two alternative strategies point towards the issue of market trends in the telecommunication business (Coll, 2017). This is evident in the SWOT analysis and Porter's Five Forces model.
AT&T is a multinational telecommunication conglomerate that is situated in the United States. It has its headquarters in the Whit acre Tower that is situated in downtown Dallas, Texas. The company happens to be the world largest telecommunication company currently. It has also been ranked second in the world map in providing telephone services (AT&T, 2017). In the United States, it has been ranked as the largest company in providing fixed telephone services and broadband subscription television via DIRECTV. These services combined with the company’s legacy U-verse services make it the leading pay television operator.
Get original essayStatistics that were carried earlier this year show that the company is ranked the 12th in all the companies around the world regarding profits, revenues, markets and assets valuation(AT&T, 2017). In the year 2016, it was ranked as the largest telecommunication company regarding revenue. According to brand finance, the company by 2016 was the 18th biggest mobile telecom operator with 134 million customers. This success has been attributed to the company's immense investment in fiber, wireless networks, and internet protocol. The overall customer base of the company is believed to currently have a customer base of 6.2 billion wireless subscribers.
In this report, we are going to look at the company’s human resources posture. The report will be based on the following issues within the company:
The human resource department in the company is tasked with balancing the interests of five stakeholders within the company. If the department does not carry out its functions with high degree of sensitivity, some stakeholder’s interests may be ignored (Fortune, 2017). In most cases, employees are always in the suffering. The HR department has done and is doing a great job of educating its staff and touting its horn about its contribution towards achieving better standards.
AT&T’s human resource department is oriented to ensuring a productive workplace by ensuring the engagement and energizing of the employees. This is done by:
Monitoring the culture. AT&T Company is well known for its strong culture of providing quality services its customers. This culture has overseen the growth of the company. The human resource department has a major role in maintaining and monitoring this culture. It does this by ensuring that only highly skilled and qualified employees are employed in the organization. The department also works to ensure that this culture is well spread across all employees in the organization through holding frequent workshops and seminars.
Owning the company’s overall talent management procedures. The HR department of the company joins the other departments in the issues that pertain to performance management, management development, career paths, succession planning and other relevant aspects of talent management. The HR has usually consulted the strategic leadership of the company in planning and executing strategies.
The HR has been responsible for recruiting the superior staff. The department believes that for the company to thrive, the strategic management should be made up of a qualified and intelligent body. The department hires managers who are responsible for hiring the superior work force. The department has worked hard to ensured that good leadership is provided to the company, leadership, scheduling assistance, training, systematic hiring and recruiting process, interview, selection, monitoring and more.
The department has ensured that there is an overall strategic compensation plan. The department has constantly guided the various managers of the organization by determining salary ranges. The department has frequently carried research on how to implement the best employee benefit programs.
These programs work to ensure that the organization obtains and retains the best employees. The department has been responsible for controlling costs and selecting the best approach among the various options. The department has been responsible for recommending strategies for the organizations that will help it attain its strategic goals. This includes recommending the current products and services that the organization is planning to take part in. The departments have always led the organization to growth by initiating human resource programs and processes.
The department has also been responsible for resolving issues that pertain to employee-management conflict. The department has held some coaching forums with the managers and executive on how to develop effective working relationships with their employees (Smith,2015).
The company has strived to protect and provide quality middle class careers. They ensure that its wage rate and benefits are among the best in the state. It aims at attaining quality and cost effective health care coverage and benefits that are the best for its employees. The company has continually subsidized quality health care for its present workers, defendants and retirees currently, the organization is committed in bargaining for a contract that will oversee for the provision better middle-class union careers with highly competitive benefits and wages. The company has maintained the flexibility that it needs to operate in the industry that currently happens to be the most competitive in the market place.
Statistics show that the company incurs more than 5.3 billion dollars in providing health and welfare benefits. This includes almost 4.5 billion dollars that are related to the medical benefits.
The 5.3 billion places the company on the top 500 list of the Fortune 500. It ranks ahead of Harley-Davidson, Polo Ralph Lauren, Big Lots and Dick’s Sporting Goods. This shows that it is greater than the annual revenue of Facebook’s advertising. The company provided its users with resources and opportunity to plan, build and secure a healthy retirement fund through providing the pension and saving programs.
The strategic management and leadership of the company consist a panel, nine individuals:
For years now, the major function of the strategic management has been the acquisition of large scale operations and transformation (Donovan, 2016). Currently, the management is concerned with executing on the available assets to best serve the client’s need. They have worked to break down silos, change the company’s culture by incorporating collaborative thinking and innovation. Much focus has been directed to executing the complexities in its growth plan. The management has been spending a significant amount of the company resources in creating programs that are versed in business, management and leadership learning
The company’s master strategy is being the only telecom provider company that every user may need by connecting the users anywhere-anyway.
Cost. The strategic management has worked to ensure that the company is adequate in this regard by positioning it to offer competitive pricing for all it services that are rendered to the public.
Differentiation. The decision by the management to collaborate with the Apple Corporation in promoting the iPhone has differentiated the company from its competitors. The company does not operate in the niche market.
Geographic coverage and mix intensity. The company has been positioned in a global market where is has been the leader in wireless coverage through providing services and products such as voice-IP, HSPDA, voice PTT and video share.
The leadership has worked to ensure the company is comprised of an inclusive culture and diverse workforce. This has helped the company to attract and retain the best employees who bring in innovative products and offer solutions to meet the needs of the customers. The company's history of innovation is as a result of people from a diverse background who join to connect the world. The company welcomes all points of views. The senior leadership of the company is held responsible for leading the company's diversity initiatives. The diversity of the company starts right from the senior management that consists of people from diverse backgrounds who spearhead some initiatives within their unit. The diversity strategy aligns with the set objectives and the leadership priorities in primary areas.
Currently, the company is among the largest employers in the United States. An average technician that secure a contract with the company earns up to $90,000 regarding salary and another$43,000 in benefits. The company's call center rep makes away with a salary of $67,000 and $40,000 in benefits. The company received over 190,000 applications for 12,000 technicians and wire line call centers. The company has been committed to providing great benefits to its employees and has no plan to reduce the employee wages on its contracts shortly.
The company provides a comprehensive package for its union employees. The company provides broader and extensive benefits to its employees more than in any industry in the US. They include savings, medical, dental, vision, pension, life insurance programs, leaves, flexible spending accounts, disability LTD, health reimbursement accounts, commuter and voluntary benefits. It costs the organization $133,000 and $ 107,000 to compensate network technician and call center representatives respectively.
The company operates under a code of ethics where the company's officers, director, and employees are guided by the company's expectations and values. The code intends to:
The company’s code of business conduct gives guidelines to the employees on how to make ethical and responsible decisions. Employees are supposed to sign the code annually. The management works to ensure that the company is in line with the legal issues that govern its operations. In social responsibility, the company foundation has contributed over $ 100 million to the United Way Agency through national, regional and local grant support. In the year 2005, the company donated over $ 6 million to the agency in helping it to maximize community impact at community level. The company is also committed to supporting national and local relief agencies in helping people with immediate needs. Reports show that the company with its employees provided generously towards the Hurricanes Rita and Katrina in the year 2005.
The management is aware that dedicated, diverse and talented employees are essential to the success of the business. The company works under a philosophy that provides the employees with opportunities to grow and develop their skills and abilities. The company understands the importance of cultural competency. The company offers its occupational employees and the management an opportunity to get involved. The company has some employee resource groups that are welcoming to all employees from different diversities. These resource groups support the commitment to inclusion and diversity through their effort in the workplace. They represent employees from all works of life. The company recognizes the goodwill and value that the groups have towards attaining its set objectives. Since the year 2005, the company initiated tuition program that helped a good number of candidates from all works of life, 58% of whom were female and 37% were individuals of different races. The company provides seminars and workshops for its employees to enhance their job knowledge.
The company has performed remarkably in managing global talent. The company has been able to enjoy authenticity through inviting openness and innovation(Nicole, 2012). Management of talent has enabled the company to stabilize its growth path as the employees are more willing to share their talents for the good of the enterprise. The TIP website has been a valuable tool for the employees to exercise their talents and innovations for the company (Nicole, 2012). The global talent management model plays an instrumental role in motivation for its employees. The Employee success stories are highlighted by the company. This works as part of motivation by recognizing their great work. Decentralization of talent management has enabled a clear understanding of individual abilities. In that respect, talents are utilized appropriately.
The application of technology has assisted the company in keeping abreast with the dynamic technological environment of the postmodern society. Technology has enabled the company to able to prepare its workforce for the future. The company has been able to transform to a software-defined, mobile-first environment. Technology has made it possible for the creation of a pipeline of employees with different skills needed for success at both personal and organizational level. &T engaged in partnership with Udacity to launch the Nanodegree program that was meant to equip learners with basic skills in line with the needs of the Software Economy. Lastly, The technology at AT&T has enabled the organization to expand its corporate responsibility program by helping thousands of students to acquire the much-needed post-modern skills.
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Get custom essayThe report was on AT&T as a multinational telecommunication conglomerate that is situated in the United States. It has its headquarters in the Whit acre Tower that is situated in downtown Dallas, Texas. The report will be based on the following issues within the company benefits and compensation, business leadership and strategy, diversity, employee relations, ethics and corporate Social responsibility, organizational and employee development, talent management and technology. The human resource department in the company is tasked with balancing the interests of five stakeholders within the company. If the department does not carry out its functions with high degree of sensitivity, some stakeholder’s interests may be ignored.
To further illustrate how the attachment theory can be utilized in social work practice, in the essay it will be featured with a case study as a practice example. Pseudo-names will be applied to the individuals of the case study in accordance with the HCPC regulation to respect and protect the confidentiality of the service users.
Get original essayMariatu is a single mother aged 35 from an African in heritage. She lives with her son Lamin aged 8 in a one-bedroom flat in south London. Lamin attends a local primary in their area. Jonny, Mariatu’s husband abandoned his family five years ago and she has not heard from him ever since. Within the last 2 years, Mariatu has been made unemployed due to an incident of verbal aggression to a customer at her workplace. She has also been involved in criminal activities to help fund her alcohol and drug addictions. Lamin has been involved in a number of physical fights with his classmates. Teachers have described Lamin’s behavior as walking towards his classmate with a smile and later hit them. When Mariatu in under the influence of drugs and alcohol, she sometimes hits her child. Non-accidental bruises have been identified on Lamin’s hand and on several occasions teachers have reported on her son attending school without the correct stationery. The family was referred by Lamin’s school due to concerns of general neglect on the child’s health including, the presence of non-accidental bruises on his hand.
It is evident that the fundamental goal of the social worker is to address the issues of child abuse and neglect. This could be achieved by the social worker, investigating multiple agencies record to verify whether Mariatu and her son are known to local authorities. From the findings, the social worker could make a judgment on whether Lamin is classified as a child ‘in need’ under section seventeen of the Children Act 1989. However, If Lamin is not classified as a child in ‘need’ the social worker may still need to perform an assessment on the family( Carr and Goosey, 2019)
Attachment theory might help the social worker assess, observe and plan her work with Mariatu and her child. He or she could commence by applying an attachment perspective to explore Mariatu’s early childhood experiences, which might provide an understanding for her relationship with her child. As postulated by attachment scholars, there is a direct correlation between insecure attachment patterns and the transmission of violence (Killeen and McClellan 2000). The social worker could use The Adult Attachment Interview (Bifulco et al, 2004) to assess Mariatu’s quality of close relationships and how she utilise social support services. After this, the social worker could encourage an attachment-based intervention with Mariatu and her child to promote healthy and sensitive parenting.
From an attachment perspective, Lamin’s poor behavioral control towards his classmates maybe caused by poor parenting. According to Lishman (1991) children’s attachment styles are heavily influenced by the actions of their attachment figures. Therefore, if parenting is dysfunctional or abusive, this might affect children's ability to predict parents’ behaviours, which in turn impact on how they organize their behavior. Thus, Lamin walking up to his classmate with the intent to interact but hit them instead could indicate unpredictable and inconsistent parenting. However, Killeen and McClellan (2000) noted that not all children who experience domestic violence or witness abuse mimic the footsteps of their careers.
As illustrated above, attachment theory can be a useful guide to social workers when working with dysfunctional families such as the above. This is because it provides a powerful model of understanding on the impact that poor parenting can have on children's development and their ability to form relationships with their peers and their future offspring. However, It is evident that attachment theory should never be used alone as a basis for planning when working with children and families, but as part of a holistic approach. This is because; Attachment theory does not take consider problems that arose from differences in race, social class, or gender. With reference to Mariatu’s circumstances, the urtication that lead to her being sacked could have been caused by a customer being verbally racist to Mariatu, resulting in retaliation and leading her to lose her job. Moreover, the Attachment theory fails to take into account non-European cultures (Beckett and Taylor,2016). Mariatu is from Africa in a heritage which is a collective culture, the abandonment of her husband could have caused her and her family disgrace which in turn might have contributed to an increase in alcohol and drug intake losing control, and hitting her child.
Another theory that could be used alongside attachment theory to address the above case could be the Person-centered approach. This approach seeks to understand the essential needs of Mariatu and her son and what can be done to achieve their needs. The social worker may need to explain what support and services are available for Mariatu and her son and how they can access these services. For example, therapy to address Mariatu’s drinking and Lamin’s poor behavioral control. The person-centered approach also emphasizes on self-empowerment, to achieve this, the social worker could encourage Mariatu to take the lead in solving her family’s problem. Given that, empowering clients is a core principle in social work intervention (Roger,1961).
Furthermore, the anti-oppressive practice involves making sure that all service users rights are not being breached, in that, the social worker involved in this case must prioritize the needs of Lamin but also be respectful to the family’s human rights, including the right to private and family life (Helen and Goosey,2019)
Lastly, attachment theory could be used alongside the assessment triangle utilised by social workers, to assess Lamin’s needs. This triangle outlines the importance of caregiving but also provides the social worker with an ecological approach that considers
Lamin’s developmental needs and socio-economic needs as well as it explores how factors such as culture, education, and their effects on Lamin’s development (Department of Health (2000b). Therefore, this approach could explain Mariatu’s preoccupation of her family’s finances as affecting her ability to meet Lamin’s emotional and physical needs, resulting in her son attending school without the appropriate stationery.
To conclude, this essay has highlighted the core principle of Bowlby’s attachment theory along with Aisworth’s findings from the strange situation tests and how this knowledge is applied to social work practice when working with children and families. Moreover, this paper has outlined the strength and weaknesses of applying an attachment perspective to dysfunctional families, similar to those featured in the case study. Although attachment theory provides social workers with empirical information on the importance of secure caregiving for a child's emotional development throughout their life course, causation must be emphasized as attachment theory should never been utilized in isolation but as part of a holistic approach when working with service users.
The production of energy for domestic consumption in Australia is currently dominated by coal, oil and gas, with only a minor component from renewable sources. Although Australia has significant reserves of uranium and is one of the world's main exporters of the mineral, it does not itself exploit nuclear power. Australia has long debated the possibility of utilising its excess source of uranium for more than trading. To use Nuclear energy domestically has become a nationwide debate that continues today. This is an overarching debate with many individual aspects that are debated some of the focal points of the debate are waste disposal, location of nuclear plants, education and emissions. This advisory report will deconstruct the prevailing issue that underlies every debate, acceptance of nuclear energy by the Australian public. It’s acknowledged in all Nuclear energy conferences in Australia that public acceptance and bipartisan and long-term energy policies are essential prerequisites for large-scale nuclear investment. Wide-reaching consultation is critical and that the keys to the success of nuclear energy use in Australia are transparent policy development, widespread community consultation, in-depth psychological research and a robust regulatory system, capitalising on Australia’s strong regulatory history. The focus of this report is the perceived risk and social psychology of the potential for nuclear accidents. Previous research shows that a major accident at a nuclear reactor strongly affects laypeople's attitudes toward nuclear power It is crucial to understand the public perception of the risks and effects of a nuclear accident. We can do this through various psychometric models that explain the public’s perception on nuclear power before and after major nuclear accidents.
Get original essayVarious studies have investigated the public perceptions before and after major nuclear accidents. The majority concluded with the result of a negative perception of nuclear energy being common. After the accidents at the nuclear power plants in Chornobyl in 1986 and on Three Mile Island (TMI) in 1979, many studies investigated people's attitudes toward nuclear power comparing laypeople's opinions of nuclear power before and after the disasters by comparing the findings of different samples both over time and between countries. In addition, a few longitudinal studies investigated attitudes assessed before and after the catastrophic events. Hence, the nuclear accidents accelerated the decline in public support of nuclear power.
A study investigating beliefs, attitudes, and behavioural intentions toward nuclear energy in the Netherlands within a sample of Dutch citizens two months before the Chornobyl accident (1986), one month after the accident, six months after the accident, and one year and seven months after the accident. Notably, Nuclear technology has advanced many generations since the Chornobyl plant and Australia would be implementing the latest generation design. One month after the accident, analyses revealed more unfavourable attitudes which became less antinuclear five months later. At the end of 1987, attitudes were more antinuclear than ever before. Furthermore, subjective probabilities of the occurrence of catastrophic accidents were found to be high immediately after the accident with the linear trend over time, in relation to those subjective probabilities, and the levels of concern decreased. The results underline the predominance of the perceived catastrophality of consequences attributed to nuclear energy in the public's perception and evaluation of this technology.
It is this kind of perception that Australians also reflected in a study that took a nationwide survey before and after the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011. The survey showed most respondents (42%) willing to accept nuclear power if it would help tackle climate change. The post-Fukushima results show a majority of respondents (40%) were not willing to accept nuclear power as an option to help tackle climate change, despite the fact that most Australians still believed nuclear power to offer a cleaner, more efficient option than coal, which currently dominates the domestic production of energy. Expanding the use of renewable energy sources (71%) remains the most popular option, followed by energy-efficient technologies (58%) and behavioural change (54%). An online questionnaire was conducted to achieve the highest response rate. The same questions from 2010 were used in the 2012 questionnaire, only more questions were added, to enable comparisons and identify changes in public opinion. It is clear through these studies that the perceived risk of a nuclear accident provokes public opinion against the use of nuclear power. Notably, most participants answered that they didn’t trust the Australian Government to run nuclear plants safely. Most participants also agreed that they needed more information to form a clear opinion about nuclear energy. This implies the need for education where factual and easy-to-understand Australians hold intrinsic values to place and the thought of anything jeopardising forces people to look for alternatives. Renewable energy is an option that the majority of the Australian population accepts as a viable source for future domestic energy. However, there are many faults in renewables most notably its efficiency is too low for the Australian domestic demand.
Looking at a study from the UK, participants who lived within proximity of a Nuclear plant undertook a Q-method factor test which measured their viewpoints on 4 main factors. A total of 90% of participants didn’t not support the building of another plant. All the statements relating to the nuclear threat received high rankings, and the perspective emphasized, above all, a perceived need to stop using nuclear power and to move toward using renewable sources of energy as soon as possible. Nuclear power was regarded as risky, and neither clean nor a “necessary evil” that might be required to help combat climate change or improve the U.K. The Australian public has shown to hold similar values always with a focus on renewable energy as the future.
Understanding perceptions of risk are important to the development of nuclear plants in Australia as the public's perceptions of risk are influenced significantly by the characteristics of authorities' warning messages. Also, characteristics of the risk area population, such as resources, gender, or socioeconomic class, can influence understanding, belief, personalization, and response to warnings which could be of concern to Australia. Previous research suggests that both risk and benefit perceptions determine acceptance of nuclear power. Furthermore, people's perceived benefits of a secure energy supply seem to have a stronger influence on acceptance than do perceived risks.
A study on ‘the social psychology of public response to warnings of a nuclear power plant accident’ showed respondents reported higher levels of risk perception and lower levels of trust, perceived benefits, and acceptance regarding nuclear power plants after the nuclear accident compared to before. The findings indicated that the nuclear accident in Fukushima resulted in a more negative perception of nuclear power and, hence, had important implications for the image of this energy technology among the public, at least in the short term. More specifically, the study examined how this event affected the degree to which trust, perceived benefits, and perceived risks influenced people's acceptance of nuclear power stations. The results of the statistical modelling within this study showed that even after a nuclear accident, perceived benefits remain the most important determinant of acceptance, compared to perceived risks. An implication of this finding for communication with the public after a nuclear accident may be that focusing on both the risks and benefits of nuclear power will change the public's acceptance of nuclear power. A similar study analysing the Australian public’s perceived benefits and risks should be laid out before the development of powerplants.
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Get custom essayIn summary, through psychometric model-based studies, it is clear the Australian public currently, accepts renewable resources as a future energy source and is more opposed to use of nuclear resources. Through a thorough investigation of various studies, results show that the Australian public’s sensitivity to the perceived risk of a nuclear accident would be detrimental to their well-being. The perceived risk of a nuclear accident is also an important factor with many studies showing participants would still choose alternative sources of energy over nuclear. It is also clear that the public perceived risk of a nuclear accident was heightened after the accidents at Chornobyl and Fukushima. At this current stage the current viewpoints for Australia’s future energy sources, correlate strongly with renewable resources and this is evidently the best option for the psychology of the Australian public.
Donating blood is undoubtedly a great way to save lives because it benefits both the recipient and the donor. The blood supply in a country is correlated to voluntary and unpaid donors because they are the most secure blood donation group with the lowest risk of transmitted illnesses. However, the Malaysian National Blood Centre points out that nearly all states confronted the issue of finding and maintaining blood donors. Thus, the purpose of this journal article is to examine the relationship between gender, motivation, and impediment variables for blood donation within younger age group blood donors (between 18-26).
Get original essayIn Kota Bahru, Kelantan, Malaysia, 391 young blood donors signed a declaration of agreement to participate in this research. The authors conducted the study utilizing a series of a questionnaire created by specialists who had previously examined this issue, with their permission to adapt the questions. The questionnaire was available in Malay and English versions to facilitate respondents’ responses. Besides the questionnaires, the authors also used the Cronbach’s alpha test in accessing the authenticity of the obtained data and used Pearson’s chi-squared to examine the relationship between blood donation frequency and the chance of repeat blood donation.
Referring to the data collected, the factor that most encourages youth to donate blood is the altruistic thinking of one’s existence (98%), where 98.9% of females and 96.1% of males selected this option. In today’s technologically advanced and self-centered culture, they possessed strong desires to help others and carry social responsibility in donating blood. Furthermore, 95% of female and 93.8% of male respondents point out that they are inspired to donate blood because the country is experiencing a blood supply deficit (94.6%). Besides that, 90.5% of female and 87.6% of male participants agreed that a comfortable atmosphere for blood donation helps motivate young people to donate blood because youth are more likely to donate again when they are satisfied with the donation environment and having a pleasant experience throughout the donation procedure (89.5%). Moreover, 70.2% of females and 72.1% of males chose peer-influenced (70.8%) as one of the significant motivating factors in donating blood. The results show that getting word-of-mouth and spiritual support from friends who are blood donors can increase a person’s probability to donate blood. Lastly, 66% of female and 58.1% of male respondents in the research mentioned that they are motivated to donate blood because it makes them feel like a hero (63.4%).
Based on the information gathered, the most discouraging factor towards blood donation rated by 35.1% of female and 22.5% of male respondents was they dislike missing classes to donate blood (30.9%) because blood donation clashed with the class time. Thus, changing the timing of blood donation to weekends or prolonging the blood donation period as they can donate blood during their free time or after school. Next, 9.9% of female and 7% of male participants are reluctant to become blood donors because they are hemophobia (9.2%). This problem can be solved by instilling an early education or sharing experiences by repeat donors to minimize their concern about blood. Moreover, 9.2% of females and 7.8% of males felt worse after donating blood (8.7%) because they experienced side effects, such as mild headaches, dizziness, etc. It can avoid by urging donors to increase their water consumption before starting to donate blood. Whereas 7.6% of female and 9.3% of male respondents also rated that donating blood is excruciatingly unpleasant (8.2%). The pain during the donation process can reduce by administering some local anesthesia or attracting the attention of blood donors. Lastly, 7.3% of females and 7% of males felt that donating blood is irksome (7.2%) as it is time-consuming (6.9%). The solution is to arrange sufficient staff and keep an eye on the donation process from time to time, which can effectively reduce the duration of blood donation.
In this research, they discovered that the most appealing incentives in recruiting or retaining young blood donors are by giving out the items painted with the logo of blood donation (87%), such as T-shirts, mugs, etc. It followed by providing a free snack bag after donating (78.5%), including a bottle of beverage mineral waters, a small muffin, etc. Next, young people entice to blood donation because of the food shopping vouchers (74.4%). Therefore, these are the top 3 rewards that most attract young people to become blood donors.
The findings of this study are young blood donors in Kelantan, Malaysia, possessed a positive behavior toward blood donation. It also examined a good understanding of what stops youngsters from becoming blood donors. With this, I believe this article was beneficial because it allows the blood donation agencies to improve on the deterring factors mentioned in the report, so the number of young blood donors can gradually increase in society.
During our investigation our main research aim was to identify the extent to which the public are manipulated and influenced subconsciously via the material exploited through large conglomerates and the media texts that they release. It was decided that for this to be effectively assessed, it would be essential to have a real life case study that we could delve into, and as a result landed upon the prolific Rupert Murdoch, an Australian-American media mogul who owns a large proportion of the biggest media platforms in the UK today. This, paired with an anchoring towards the theories of Marxism, provided the grounds for our investigation. Media here highlights the way in which a market is dominated by large businesses, and how the likes of Rupert Murdoch use his ownership and majority over the UK’s circulated news to assert his views over a vast audience whilst also being an influence on UK government and politics.
Get original essayKarl Marx and his work was essential to the investigation into how society was influenced in the twentieth century, and it is interesting to consider that this is still extremely apparent in the twenty-first century also. It is important to consider his prolific work in accordance with today’s society with regards to the hegemonic ruling class, which has been investigated by numerous theorists delving into the investigation of audience perception and influence. This formed the foundation for our academic podcast, where we were able to consider these things through a modern day lens in relation to current political issues and a world abundant in media texts. Marxis adopts the theory that “dominant ideas in any society are those that are drawn up, distributed and imposed by the ruling class to secure and perpetuate its rule,” and this is arguably still relevant and available to see in some of the most recent media texts. Here, the ruling class are those at the heart of the largest conglomerates and as a result are able to project what they wish onto their readership through the distributed media texts.
According to Marxist theory, the bourgeoisie are the hegemonic ruling class as they are the only ones wealthy enough to create and distribute texts, and so use the media to their advantage to manipulate and control the proletariat, here being the working class who make up the majority of these texts. The media texts distributed by larger conglomerates, in this case, the bourgeoisie, are done so purposely to lower the working class intelligence and sway their political views and opinions. Today, the likes of Rupert Murdoch fill the role of the bourgeoisie in this instance because their ownership of the largest media platforms means that they are untouchable, and as a result can release whatever they wish into the public sphere. One might say that ‘democracy requires diversity and pluralism with the media reporting and providing platforms for different politicians and interest groups to present their views’. However, ‘many examples of media concentration which have a damaging and distorting effect upon the democratic process have occurred.’ This has been prolifically featured in numerous articles featured in newspapers owned by Murdoch, suggesting that Murdoch has developed a political alliance with the conservative party in the past. Murdoch’s has an undeniable hold over print media, particularly in the UK, and this is ‘testimony to Murdoch’s brilliant, intuitive and ruthless instincts’.
Rupert Murdoch has dominated the largest media platforms to date. Murdoch owns and The Daily Mail, The Times and The Sun, and many more of the largest newspapers and media producers internationally, but more specifically dominates that of the UK. Murdoch has been at the forefront of many scandals involving these newspapers, for example, Murdoch's newspaper, The Sun, has in the past been accused of working alongside the government, directly with the conservative party. This is undeniably of great concern to the public, putting across more political views originating from the conservative party than their oppositions. This therefore questions the public’s freedom of opinion, since they are unknowingly being fed biased views originating directly from one political party. As Douglas of the BBC put it, “The idea of one man or company controlling a large proportion of the nation's newspaper and broadcasting interests is an issue of public concern - particularly when that person takes a close interest in the political agenda of his newspapers and one of them claims to influence general elections”, readers of this media text are unknowingly guided into a false sense of security because they would be reading a text that they would assume to be impartial, when the reality is quite the opposite. Media texts, unbeknown to us, are allocated key roles to play, being social, personal and political. This is to ensure it the public are informed with regards to global issues and updates whilst also allowing individual consumers, in some cases, to decide what they gain from these media texts, whether it be it to gain political enlightenment or not, and it is supposedly holding the intention of aiding the reader in making an informed decision. That said, journalism tends to make information a commodity, and as a result is sold to people in a certain light rather and under certain circumstances suitable to the reality of the agenda of an article. Consequently, a true presentation of the reality is never given. In this case, Politics is a sensitive subject and Murdoch is well aware of this. Through his ownership, Murdoch is denying his vast readership of the information otherwise leading them to make an informed choice on who to support with regards to politics. Murdoch is questioning the issue of free-will here, by attempting to adapt the current public sphere and constructing an false one in which his newspapers are benefiting from easily influenced, passive readers who absorb the headlines and articles without acknowledging the level of bias. The cheap price of these papers and its focal news values specifically targets the working class. The articles written in paper are intended to be an easy read and often portrayed as entertainment to attract this particular group of people, yet at the same time will be disguising the political agenda written amongst the text and illustrated in the pictures. Murdoch is able demonstrate and enforce his own political beliefs on and to the masses through these texts.
In support of Marxist theory, the hypodermic needle theory offers the viewpoint that the messages behind the media texts and the information being sent out is ‘injected’ into the minds of the mass audience. The hypodermic needle theory suggests that the audience is passive, and the ideas that they are subjected to are injected into their minds where opinions are changed or reinforced, depending on the producer’s message encoded into the media text. Marx’s theory has similar aspects to the hypodermic needle theory, as he believed that the bourgeois purposely distributed media texts that would lower the intelligence of the proletariat to control their political views and opinions. In conclusion, the hypodermic needle theory supports Marxism in that the public are continually manipulated by the media, however, it is worth considering that an audiences reaction to a media text is shaped by a person’s cultural experiences and views, and this would mean that instead, the audience are not passive, but able to shape their own reception of a text and avoiding manipulation. Especially more recently, with movements of equality, feminism, sexism and the like, people are beginning to receive media texts and experiences in different ways than ever before. However, Stuart Hall’s offers an alternate point of view, where his theory of encoding and decoding contrasts to that of the hypodermic needle. Hall’s theory suggests that as a reader, our reaction to and acceptance of a media text directly relates to our thoughts, feelings, experiences and opinions and so not everyone will react to the text in the same way. According to Hall, a reader will have one of three reactions to a text based on their individual feelings and experiences; the dominant reading, the negotiated reading or the oppositional reading. This theory lends the idea that media conglomerates will never truly hold power over the readership or be intirely effective in the intention of the text. Harold Laswell’s communication theory suggests that a vital filter on mass produced media texts is ownership, and that this must be considered while analysing the intention of a text and the reality that it illustrates. This is painfully visible in todays circulation of media texts due to wealthy conglomerate owners being biased as to what is featured in the production of texts, just as Murdoch has done in alignment with his political preferences. In this way, the theories of Karl Marx are still profoundly relevant in today’s society and it is clear that in the light of politics and at the hands of the likes of Rupert Murdoch, this is becoming more and more obvious in the media. As Hiroki Ogasawara of Kobe University puts it, “He [Marx] taught something always along with and in line with ongoing situations. He taught us how to profoundly understand and intensely describe the “concrete” in cultural and social fields”.
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Get custom essayThrough in depth analysis of psychological research and a recurring theme in criticisms of Rupert Murdoch and the like, my group was able to build an argument based on the case study of this untouchable media mogul, paired with a real life example of Brexit. This modern day example analysed through Marxist theory allowed to see a direct correlation between the fundamental ideas of Karl Marx and the themes that are still undeniably relevant today. We were able to establish that, indeed, audiences are still being unknowingly influenced in the same way that they were during Marx’s era, thus his theories are still evident in some of the most widely circulated media texts today. During the podcast, we were able to stick to our script because we knew that our argument was undeniable while considering the power hungry side to Rupert Murdoch and the media texts produced at the hands of this. Through the podcast, we were able to flag up the key issues in journalism today, and in some ways warn the listener with regards to the content that they are exposed to each day in newspapers, on the television and online in todays technological age. I felt that our chosen topic was a complex one, which required extensive analysis into the key ideas of the media texts that potentially outlined our argument into the topic of audience influence. As a result, we found ourselves with an abundance of sources and an uncertainty with regards to which of these would be appropriate and concise enough to use in our project. Once decided, we still had a lot of ground to cover and as a result the editing process to the podcast was extensive. This is because our area of academic debate was specific and relatable to many people, especially with modern case studies of Rupert Murdoch and Brexit. As a result, we produced a clear and concise argument, one which truly highlighted the key issues of bias that are evident in the media today.
This case study will examine how audiences engage and participate with a multiplatform product – The Netflix original series, The Witcher, 2019.
Get original essayMulti-platform television, alternatively recognised as multiplatform entertainment or transmedia storytelling, is a method of storytelling that is streamed across manifold entertainment channels and bestows audiences with a substantial selection of opportunities to engage with a story world through content, products, activities and social spaces on a vast variety of social media platforms. The dispersal of both live and on-demand content to connected devices including but not limited to: PC’s, tablets, smartphones, gaming consoles and connected televisions. The augmented competition instigated by the escalation of technological convergence and digitalization has formulated media institutions to reposition television as an active medium to enable audience interaction with content producers and other audience members through an interactive secondary screens, such as social media and promotional events. Conventionally, the remote control was the only interactive feature utilised by passive television audiences. Now, audiences can effortlessly access a second screen device to dynamically engage and interrelate with media producers and other audience members.
The Witcher series operates under Netflix Inc, which is an American media-service provider and production company. The company's primary business is its subscription-based streaming service which offers online streaming of a library of films and television programs, including those produced in-house, in over 190 countries. As of April 2019, Netflix had over 148 million paid subscriptions worldwide, including 60 million in the United States, and over 154 million subscriptions total, including free trials. Netflix utilises the term “original” to delineate between movies and series that are exclusive to its platform, and those that are aggregated from other studios after first being made available elsewhere. Original can refer to content such as ‘The Witcher’ that are self-produced, programming like Narcos that are licensed exclusively from other studios and branded as Netflix originals, or licensed content such as ‘You’ and ‘Riverdale’ that may air on TV in some markets but stream first on Netflix in other parts of the world.
Spectators are encouraged to utilise interactive technologies to enrich their experience within the fictionalised universe of The Witcher and other broadcasted series. Netflix has publicised a synergistic map of the setting of The Witcher, better known as ‘The Continent’. The site is packed with extracts of surplus information that enhance the characters' back stories and allure you further into the realm of The Witcher. Nevertheless, the key element that makes the site so enticing is the visual presentation. The site is a treasure trove of beautiful design components, clever and engaging interactivity and CSS animation, all of which conglomerate to convey a storytelling experience of the highest order. Viewers of the fantasy drama can utilise the map to trace the timelines of Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri, as well as outline all of the notable events in The Continent’s history, including the war of Nilfgaard and immense turning points for subsidiary characters such as Jaskier and Calanthe. These four separate timelines make it simple to comprehend not only where all the major events in our heroes' lives occurred within The Continent, but also when they took place in relation to other characters' milestones. The Witcher's 'Map of the Continent' website is a perfect example of how to bring dissimilar media together to create an absolute and compelling storytelling experience.
Moreover, a fan of The Witcher generated an incredible augmented reality filter for social media, including Instagram and Snapchat, that features Geralt, the protagonist of the series. Fans have come out in force sharing their creations, with another fan creating a snapchat filter that he called, ‘Witcher Eyes’, it became popular with players of the game and fans after the release of the Netflix series. Several hashtags also trended on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, since the release of promotional content prior to the show airing. Henry Cavil, whom plays the leading role of The Witcher himself, began posting exclusive teasers and snippets on Instagram in July of 2019, the most popular hashtags consisted of: #TheWitcherNetflix #TheWitcher #Witcher #GeraltOfRivia #WildHunt. Hashtags create immense visibility for a campaign, and help to reach the target audience by applying relevant hashtags that the spectators are already following. When used to promote an event or series such as The Witcher, the hashtag not only connects the product with the followers, but the followers with each other.
Furthermore, Netflix delivered a full Witcher celebration to Los Angeles fans for a one-night-only event on December 3, prior to the series release, called ‘The Witcher Fan Experience’. The Witcher Fan Experience allowed fans to see the series before it hits the web. Prior to the show, viewers came into ‘The Continent’ for a big fan fest with photo ops, trivia, interactive stations, giveaways, and a walk-through experience that will put them directly into Geralt of Rivia’s intricate and perilous world. Correspondingly, ‘The Witcher School’ is a real life adventure inspired by the Witcher, there have been 29 organised events, 2150 trained Witchers from over 52 countries since the launch. Fans have been purchasing tickets and travelling to the Polish wonderlands to engage in the festivities. The partakers eat, sleep and train in a real castle turned into a true Witcher’s lair for the duration of a week. Classes with professional tutors teach participants archery, sword work, blacksmithing etc, they are then sent on quests and face enemies in combat. These interactive features allow audiences to indisputably engage with the realm of the Witcher and form connections with people with similar interests.
The impact of such inclusivity and participation allows the audience to immerse themselves within the fantasy world and connect with the story along with each other.
The extent to which audiences engage with multi-platform television profoundly relies on the audience role, content genre, and media platform characteristics. Audiences are able to connect with multiplatform television through several techniques such as spectators, consumers and fans. Despite mixed reviews from critics, Henry Cavill’s ‘The Witcher’, series is scoring big with audiences, The Witcher was the third most in-demand original streaming series in the United States between December 18th through December 24th. The show currently has a 56% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes among critics but has a 93% approval rating among audiences based on over 12,000 votes. These numbers also seem to reflect audience engagement with the series as it is superficially one of the most viewed series of 2019. The Witcher’s use of multiplatform television has enabled audiences to shift between
Embracing the differences of your subjects is a skill not known to come easy to most; especially, when the subjects are viewed from a conditioned perspective, which translates after birth life means following rules and do what the white man says. The grit that is required to be willing to stand alone in their current oppressed zeitgeist and activate positive change for those future vulnerable subjects under the authority of white rulers, which could be any person with high authority to hinder the abilities of men, children or women -- in our case, women -- is intergenerational. Printed texts exist as evidence of women, black women, who were initially activated to free themselves in the sense of physical freedom and humanitarian freedom. These influential texts are the byproduct of embracing their subjects’ differences and communicating to the public of women’s rights. They are humans, humans with similar attributes as men -- authoritative subjects -- which do not limit or hinder them to become less of a person.
Get original essayThat being standardized, Audre Lorde, a black-lesbian activist, writer of powerful messages activating black women's talent or black women scholars to be engaged in all of the creations and confabulates in our country, is not a mere two-centries-later coincidence. Audre Lorde essays have been influential in activating positive change for black women's talent and scholars to be engaged in all creations and confabulate in America. She fought for women's rights, sexism, rights for homosexuals, and equal rights for women of color, which makes her another hero to extended intergenerational women who may be lacking the freedom to express their creative intellect within the same world where subjects try to get away with oppressing the pawns of our world. Sojourner Truth, is a black anti-slavery activist, with a one-for-her-zero-for-court who is selected by a deity to empower those before her in her current time and all of the future generations. They are not the two black women activists in our global history, nonetheless; they are two consistent black women in our country that focus on the initiation of change for a turnaround of women --for the benefit of women regardless their pigmentation and able-bodiedness -- in the arts and sciences and women prohibited from acquiring such fundamental enlightenment.
The enlightenment that our fortunate non-white-pigmented women have in our country is grandiose. It is no argument that women of color have an opportunity to learn without being birthed into a scenario where they have to earn an education after slavery; their academic education begins instantaneously from parents, guardians, neighbors, television, social media, and so forth. The unforgivable implementation our country allowed in the 1850s where thousands were enslaved in America influenced Sojourner Truth to fight against slavery. A true American legend who fought for women's rights, too, during her whole life. In her time, Truth gave one of the most haunting speeches of all time about women of color and women's suffrage. She was a fighter and didn’t want to leave until her words were through. In 1851, she spoke for the Women's Convention in Ohio. Truth used her body and identity to prove her point and she commanded, “Ain’t I a woman?”. Unfortunately, if we look closely, we can see that women are being treated the same way 170 years later in America and everywhere else around the world. In her speech, she argues her point about womanhood and the different illustrations that white rely on. Pointing out why black women can not have the same rights as white women. Why colored men get their rights, but not the same as black women? Sojourner started her speech on seeking for equal rights between colored men and the female, “I am women’s rights. I have as much muscle as any man, and can do as much work as any man … as far as intellect, all I can say is, if women have a pint and man a quart- why can't she have her little pint full?” (Truth, 64).
Truth argues her centuries about feminism and focuses on the daily animate experiences of the African-Americans and women that are very much minor to the white male population in America. She goes on and points fingers at the white male dominant, portraying them as the real enemies and why every African American women should focus on their real struggles.
After a century, black women are, however; struggling to have their presence perceived appropriately in academic halls and art exhibits where their creativity is luminous. Women experienced a sense of empowerment to seek education, freedom, and independence, making it the fountain for a rise of the feminist movement. Audre Lorde’s involvement, however; changed the perspective of that primitive feminist ideal in which our country ill-defined and poorly construed - a hero. Lorde is among many women of color to empower a positive change in history, becoming another hero to extended intergenerational women who may be lacking the freedom to express their creative intellect within the same world where subjects try to get away with oppressing the pawns of our world.
A poet, mother, lesbian, and fighter for women's rights. Lorde dedicated her life to fighting and addressing justice for women's rights, sexism, rights for homosexuals, and equal rights for women of color. In her essay, The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle The Master’s House, women across nations know of Audrey through the academic conference in the 1970s for where feminist scholars congregate. During her speech, Audre calls out the academia for rejecting women of color feminists. Further elaborating for salvation can only occur when any woman of color’s voice is included and not separated by the power of the other. Her main focus and argument of the speech were about difference and independence. Independence lets the leader and the hegemony to transform which that states when we act independently, we are acting in connection with everything. Audre’s main focus was the separation of walls between the powers of white feminists and women of color. Her point on the difference was as long as we are valuing and working in an interrelationship manner, we can cause huge hegemony and separation between ourselves. Lorde states utterly clearly about white feminists causing the separation of power, and the existing power towards white male dominant taking over feminism. Lord’s final argument was about wanting a new structure towards feminist and queer women of color. “Divide and conquer, in our world, must become defined and empowered”. Her argument teaches women across cultures that ignorance can become the real separation between one kind and can cause a huge suspension rather than wanting change. The separation will affect the community that we as true feminists fight for. It will affect the generation now and the next generation if we as a community don’t ask for a new structure.
Regardless of any of Truth’s speeches or Lorde’s point of view, there is absolutely no denying that their statements and need does not remain relevant today in our society. 170 years later, we see women such as Pauli Murray, Maya Angelou, and Audre Lorde that have experienced womanhood in such a way. These women have challenged white women’s ingenious patent and trust towards womanhood. They fought with their voices and their bodies not just for equal rights but for all women of color. As feminists, we have to acknowledge what these women have fought for and know that it is beyond our interpretations. Trans women and most importantly women who are immigrants have lower incomes than most male workers in this country that work fewer hours. Sojourner Truth's “Ain’t I A Woman?” is very much accurate in today’s contemporary slavery, which is why we as women need to continue on being active in our pursuit to fulfill in becoming authoritative, moreover; it shows that the vision of freedom that we believe especially as women of color who are oppressed every day, is not near imaginative and it is going to take a long time of not having to face such issues. They demonstrate that perseverance and appropriate influence will result in positive change, inevitably. This is the reason why I am able to write this essay in response to their selfless efforts for women like me to learn willingly and express my thoughts respectfully.
Located approximately 37 miles west of Krakow, Auschwitz was the largest concentration camp complex established by the Nazi regime in April of 1940. Containing three other subcamps within the camp which all used prisoners for forced labor, one doubling as a killing center. Nazi Germany gained this area of land after invading and conquering Poland in 1939. The three main camps of Auschwitz were called Auschwitz I, established in April 1940, Auschwitz-Birkenau (also known as Auschwitz II) established in October 1941, and Auschwitz-Monowitz (also called Auschwitz III), established in October 1942. “The best estimates of the number of victims at the Auschwitz concentration camp complex, including the killing center at Auschwitz-Birkenau, between 1940 and 1945 are: Jews (1,095,000 deported to Auschwitz, of whom 960,000 died); Poles (147,000 deported, of whom 74,000 died); Roma (23,000 deported, of whom 21,000 died); Soviet prisoners of war (15,000 deported and died); and other nationalities (25,000 deported, of whom 12,000 died).” Reports claim that police and the SS deported at least 1.3 million victims to the Auschwitz complex within the years of 1940 and 1945, of which approximately 1.1 million were murdered by the camp authorities. In November 1943, the SS decided Auschwitz-Birkenau and Auschwitz-Monowitz would become independent concentration camps, but that only lasted until November of 1944 when Auschwitz II was reunited with Auschwitz I. Auschwitz III stayed independent and was renamed the Monowitz concentration camp. There were many commanders of the Auschwitz concentration camp complex including: SS Lieutenant Colonel Rudolf Hoess, from May 1940 until November 21943; SS Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Liebehenschel, from November 1943 until mid-May 1944; and SS Major Richard Baer, from mid-May 1944 until January 27, 1945. While Auschwitz-Birkenau (November 1943 until November 1944) the commanders of the camp were SS Lieutenant Colonel Friedrich Hartjenstein, from November 1943 until May 1944; and SS Captain Josef Kramer, from May to November 1944. Unlike Birkenau, Monowitz kept one commander with the name of Captain Heinrich Schwarz, who commanded the camp from November 1943 to January 1945.
Get original essayAuschwitz I was constructed in April of 1940 near Oswiecim in an abandoned Polish army barrack. The SS Authorities used prisoners to expand the camp using forced labor, clearing about 40 square kilometers as a development zone to be reserved for exclusive use in the camp. Prisoners from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp were moved to Auschwitz to serve as the first prisoners of Auschwitz I, where they had be incarcerated for repeated criminal offenders. Polish political prisoners from Lodz via Dachau concentration camp and from Tarnow in Krakow District of the General government were also of the first to be introduced to the camp. Auschwitz was constructed for three main reasons, like most concentration camps; “to incarcerate real and perceived enemies of the Nazi regime and the German occupation authorities in Poland for an indefinite period of time”, “to provide a supply of forced laborers for deployment in SS-owned construction-related enterprises (and, later, armaments and other war-related production)”, and “to serve as a site to kill small, targeted groups of the population whose death was determined by the SS and police authorities to be essential to the security of 3Nazi Germany.” Like other concentration camps, Auschwitz I had gas chambers and a Crematorium. At first, engineers developed an improvised gas chamber but after time they constructed a larger, permanent gas chamber. SS physicians conducted medical experiments, such as forced sterilizations and castrations of adults. and pseudoscientific research on infants, twins, and dwarfs. SS Captain Dr. Josef Mengele is the best-known of these kinds of physicians. The “Black Wall”, standing between the medical-experiments and the prison block, was where SS guards executed thousands of prisoners.
The construction of Auschwitz II, also known as Auschwitz-Birkenau, began in the area of Brzezinka in October of 1941. The Auschwitz-Birkenau camp had the largest total prisoner count of all three camps. Birkenau was divided into ten different sections separated by electrified barbed-wire fences. Just as Auschwitz I, Birkenau was patrolled by SS guards, including SS dog handlers- after 1942. The Camp had sections for women, men, a separate family camp for Gypsies deported from Germany and Austria, and a family camp for jewish deported from the “Theresienstadt ghetto”. Auschwitz-Birkenau played a central role in the German plan to exterminate the Jews of Europe. Zyklon B gas was introduced during the summer and fall of 1941 and used as an instrument of mass murder in the gas chambers at the Auschwitz complex. The SS initially converted two farmhouses near Birkenau to use as gas chambers until the SS judged these facilities to be inadequate for the scale of gassing they planned. In June of 1943 four large crematorium buildings were constructed. “Each [building] had three components: a disrobing area, a large gas chamber, and crematorium ovens. The SS continued gassing operations at Auschwitz-Birkenau until November 1944.”
Auschwitz III, commonly known as Buna or Monowitz, was established in October of 1942. The prisoners it housed were assigned to work at the Buna synthetic rubber works, near the outskirts of Monowice. In 1941 German conglomerate I.G Farben built a factory in which the executives intended to deed concentration camp labor to fabricate synthetic rubber and fuels. I.G Farben devoted more than 700 million Reichsmarks (Approximately 2.8 million US dollars, in 1941 terms) into Auschwitz III. The SS had transported prisoners from Auschwitz I to the “Buna Detachment”, initially by foot but later by rail, from May 1941 to July 1942. The prisoners who were deployed at Buna lived in Auschwitz III. Monowitz also had a Labor Education Camp for non-Jewish prisoners who were believed to have violated any German-imposed labor discipline.
In late january 1945, SS and German police forced over 4,000 prisoners to evacuate Blechhammer, a subcamp of Auschwitz-Monowitz, on foot. The SS was estimated to have murdered about 1,000 people during the march to the Gross-Rosen concentration camp, due to have fallen behind, those who could no longer continue, illnesses, or even some Jews’ unsuccessful attempts to hide. After much delay, the SS conveyed around 3,000 Blechhammer prisoners from Gross-Rosen to be at the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany. On January 27, 1945, the Soviet army bombarded Auschwitz, Birkenau, and Monowitz, liberating more than 6,000 prisoners, most of which were ill and or dying.