His war secret is out, Prince Harry returns to England - Globe and Mail

His war secret is out, Prince Harry returns to England - Globe and Mail

So here's the basic summary of the article above. Lieutenant Harry Wales, more popularly known as Prince Harry returned to England from Afghanistan because the secret of him going to Afghanistan got leaked to the public domain and the Ministry of Defense said Harry is being withdrawn immediately. Sir Richard Dannatt, head of the British army thought that Harry should never be in the military and argued against him going to Iraq, saying it was an "Unnecessary risk" . He was later forced to take Harry to Afghanistan. “I got here on Christmas Eve and going from bullet magnet to anti-bullet magnet" Said the 23-year-old Prince Harry in one interview. Also, when asked why he joined the military he answered "I think dressed in the same uniform as numerous other people, thousands of other people in Afghanistan, will give me one of the best chances to be just a normal person".

Harry's feeling towards joining the army relates to the French social psychologist, sociologist, and amateur physicist Gustave Le Bon's ideas 'The Crowd'. A crowd is a group of people with a collective mind, and inn the collective mind, individuality is dimished, so the heterogenous (diverse) is drowned by the homogeneous (common) and the unconscious becomes predominant. Therefore, that is the perfect place that Prince Harry wanted to be in, to basically lose his identity and just become one out of thousands of other soldiers, in order to feel 'normal'.

I guess this feeling happens to people who see something but cannot attain it or has not experienced it. Whether it is a prince who wants to feel normal, or an 'Average Joe' who wants to be a prince. However, Harry joining the military (a crowd) may not actually be the best way of exeriencing a normal life. There is a difference because the military is a collective mind, on the other hand people's daily lives are far form that. We tend to hold onto our individuality and boast about our uniqueness, especially people in Harry's Age group. Therefore, Harry did experience equality because in the military individual intellect and individuality is diminished and his royalty means nothing.

Here's a short Video of Harry in Afghanistan.

Sevigny, Alexandre. "The Medium Is the Message." Communication Studies 1A03, Sevigny, Alexandre. Hamilton, Ontario, Canada: McMaster University Custom Courseware Production Services, 2004. 177-184.

Vote for Nicole Hemmer's bid to become Miss World Canada. She's from McMaster!

McMaster University student Nicole Hemmer looks all made up and ready to go in her photo as one of the contestants of Miss World Canada. The website contains the contestants' profiles including Nicole's. The profile goes through all of Ms. Hemmer's hopes and dreams, from listing her favorite hobbies "modelling, travel basketball, yoga, dancing, travelling, seeing different cultures, public speaking and spending time with family" to mentioning her humanitarian and voluntary work in the past "Nicole loves to volunteer her time and has volunteered over 100 hours with various charities" ; basically sugar coating her life to attract more voters. That is what Beauty Pageants are all about in a nutshell. Contestants try to show their physical beauty and accentuate their attractiveness through all types of mediums. Whether it is on-stage interviews or talent shows.

Don't get me wrong though. It is not simple to win a beauty pageant. The girls need to be great communicators in order to impact the judges and the audience. One of the main things the girls need to do is to check their posture and gesture. A topic which Adler covers. He states that 70% of messages are conveyed through non-verbal communication. A hefty amount, and an asset to the contestants, as most of their communication is non-verbal. Now do not get confused, beauty is not the same thing as attractiveness. Beauty is being blessed by good genes and having a symmetrical face and beautiful features. Attractiveness on the other hand has to do with posture, confidence, and basically the way one carries him/herself. For these beauty contestestants, beauty is basically a given. Most of the girls are good looking, so these contests are more heavily weighed on attractiveness.

Moreover, I have found a similar type of contest as well, where attractiveness (in other forms) must be conveyed in order to score with the votes, and that is the political elections. Taking the American Presidential Election for example, the senators need to show personality (verbally) and good policies in order to get votes. Corrispondingly, beauty pageant contestants need to also show their personality (non-verbally) and talk about world peace and all that junk that the politicians also mention. People like John McCain and George Bush use their emotions, or rather use emotionally stirring speeches about terrorists being "jealous of America's freedom" (Even though America isn't the only free country) in order to win debates. However, someone like Ron Paul, a man who knows what he is talking about, just states facts and reveals the truth in order to win his debates. So John McCain may have won in the bathing suit competition, so to speak, but he has lost in the Q&A part haha!

Ron Paul on the other hand may have done poorly when it comes to his image because the republican party does not like to hear the truth, but he did great on the Q&A part because some citizens wanted to hear the truth. I will leave you with some videos of Ron Paul and John McCain and you be the judge.

Videos

Ron Paul

John McCain

John McCain

John McCain

1-Ron Paul Vs. John McCain

2-Ron Paul Vs. John McCain

3-Ron Paul Vs. John McCain

Sevigny, Alexandre. "The Medium Is the Message." Communication Studies 1A03, Sevigny, Alexandre. Hamilton, Ontario, Canada: McMaster University Custom Courseware Production Services, 2004. 121-133.

The Year In Pictures (2007) - Vanity Fair

This Vanity Fair "2007: The Year in Photos" shows actors/comedians/musicians Eddie Murphy and Jamie Foxx with beautiful singer Beyonce in a shared picture for their 2007 movie Dreamgirls. As many people already know, Eddie Murphy is the least successful out of the three when it comes to his music career. With one notable song called "Party All The Time" in 1985 that was written and produced by Rick James. He began his career as a very successful comedian turned actor, and it was all down hill from there. Similarly, Jamie Foxx shared the same career path. However, Jamie Foxx ended up winning an Oscar for his roll as Ray charles in the 2004 movie Ray. Beyonce Knowles has also had a great deal of success in her career, winning five grammy awards in 2004 alone.

So the question you might be asking is, why is Eddie Murphy there? He never played a serious roll before, and his 2002 movie The Adventures of Pluto Nash cost $120 million dollars to make and it only grossed about $7 million dollars total. I believe that the same way Harold Innis said that ideas move from the periphery to the center, when the idea sells out, it moves back out to the periphery. For example, when a new actor or comedian first hits it big, he is coming from the periphery, because he is fresh and new, and he is moving into the center.


However, if the enterainer loses his control of the fame and "freshness" he will sell out and remain in the center for a while. This is precisely what happened to Eddie Murphy. He made a few movies which did very well in the theaters. Yet, later on Eddie was pulled over by a police officer with a transvestite prostitute in his car. When asked why the prostitute was in his car, he replied "I'm married with three children. I'm not going to be out there screwing hookers off the street or anything like that. I'm just being a nice guy... I was being a good Samaritan. It's not the first hooker I've helped out. I've seen hookers on corners... and I'll pull over... and they'll go, Oh you're Eddie Murphy, oh my God, and I'll empty my wallet out to help"... (NNDB)



Shortly after that Eddie Murphy disappeared from the entertainment scene for a while and only appearing as a voice actor in the animated movie Shrek. This was basically his move away from the center and back in the periphery. This way, it is possible to make a comeback. An entertainer must move back to the periphery so that he can come back with a fresh look and attitude in order to be accepted back by the public. Therefore, the promotional picture for the movie Dreamgirls above is the perfect comeback for Eddie Murphy with a "matured" character, and rocking the same old smile.

Sevigny, Alexandre. "Minerva's Owl." Communication Studies 1A03. Hamilton, Ontario, Canada: McMaster University Custom Courseware Production Services, 2004. 1-16.

Morals, Mormons and Mitt

What, you ask? Well, "Morals, Mormons and Mitt" is a National Post article following the journalist Allen Abel and his encounter with Mormons concerning the upcoming election. He met a black mormon woman named Monica Lauren Robinson who shared her story with him and declared that neither she or her fellow mormons would vote for Mitt Romney just because he is a mormon himself. When Monica was asked who she was voting for she replied "I guess I'll have to figure that out soon,". They were also angry at the fact that his religion has been recieving so much attention from the media while other candidates have not.


Let us look at McLuhan's theory of media of a minute. Media extends and amplifies the senses, increasing the relative importance of that sense. For example, the Wheel being an extension of the leg. Another example is clothing being an extension of our skin. Thus, the theory of media being the extension of our bodies and of who we are can lead to stereotypes. In Mitt Romney's Case, him being a mormon is an extension of who he is and therefore he is subject to stereotypes and sometimes criticism. This is a very interesing video that I found on youtube of McLuhan's theory.



Being a muslim, I have noticed that whenever a criminal on television happens to be a muslim, the media seems to emphasize that fact, and if the criminal was not a muslim, their faith would not be mentioned. Now that could be extremely dangerous, it could spark anger within the group that is being stereotyped. When it comes to the mormons, if Mitt Romney is not elected because of his religion, there are sure to be many complaints from the people of his faith. However, when looking at the bigger religions like Islam, it could cause far more complaints and anger towards the west. When a large group of people is seen as violent by the west, it does not mean that those individuals are particularly more violent or aggressive than everyone else; it is an alert or a signal that those individuals have been mistreated. For the muslims in particular, they have been physically harmed (wars, bombs etc.) and they have also been mentally or psychologically harmed through the media. It has affected the muslim people's social lives and how they are perceived by the world. I will leave you with a short documentary on youtube that gives a glimpse of muslim and Arab Stereotypes.



Sevigny, Alexandre. "The Medium Is the Message." Communication Studies 1A03. Hamilton, Ontario, Canada: McMaster University Custom Courseware Production Services, 2004. 23-30.

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