Virtual Workshops - Essay Example

 Virtual Workshops Virtual Workshop 2: Content Analysis Media Details: These are reports highlighting two news coverages announcing the judgement for Saddam Hussein and the different reactions of people from all over the world. The reports were recorded for the purpose of performing a content analysis, with one broadcast from ABC and another from a commercial channel : Network Ten. Both were recorded on November 6. Topics: Saddam Hussein Sentenced to Death (Network Ten) – Saddam Hussein Sentence Reactions (ABC) The televison report focused on several emotional reactions raised regarding Saddam Hussein's death sentence. The categories of the content analysis were to determine whether the media focuses on the rage and hostility associated with both the trial participants/civilians or whether the media highlights sympathetic and objective viewpoints. Throughout the course of the analysis, I discovered 13 different instances on both ABC and Network Ten where the camera switched to Saddam in order to highlight his immediate reaction to his judgement. Further, both networks focused on the presiding judge four times to observe his reaction to Saddam's anger. ABC's broadcast was to illustrate civilian reactions to the verdict, but opted not to provide any negative reactions from any individual which felt the judgement was too severe. Other news media has suggested that there are a significant number of individuals who were sympathetic to Saddam Hussein's sentence, but these television broadcasts appear to dismiss this likely to support its internal viewpoint. My formal categories were designed to show frequency in video that highlighted rage and hostility and frequency of video which illustrated sympathy or disturbed reactions to the verdict. The content analysis format allowed me to establish the precise number of times that the news organization opted to illustrate any of these factors. One of my categories dealt with the social status of the trial participants (career, relationship to Saddam, etc.), which achieved no results in trying to determine whether people varying social status held differing opinions about the death sentence. Other than Saddam and the presiding judge, I could make no determination about social status as the media opted not to offer background information regarding the other trial participants. This failure could be remedied in further analyses by formulating categories for research that can be more readily displayed in the chosen data used for observation. In terms of future research, I might suggest that using the category of "intensity" might offer further data regarding whether the instances of emphasizing a media agenda are witnessed in terms of how media interactions take place. For instance, facial grimaces or smiles (in this case applying to the Saddam verdict) and their frequency within a form of media might suggest the emphasis being placed on fulfilling a biased media agenda. Virtual Workshop 3: Observation This is a content analysis report based on the observation carried out on people using a public transport. The key players of the scene are the middle class workers, including both men and women. There were 22 people on the transport and among them six are women and others were men of the age group 20-50. Most of the men inside the carriage of the public train are reading magazines or newspapers. Two younger men were operating their mobile phones, both text messaging and conducting voice calling. All of the women remained silent, with two of them reading a women’s magazine. One woman was frantically looking at her watch while the other three seemed to be working in the same organization, so they were in discussion about their workload and their domestic affairs. Except for the three women, all the others were seated apart, leaving large spaces between each other’s seat. Except for the mild voices of the three women, the engine sound, and ring tones nothing significant in terms of interpersonal communication could be heard. Observation made on emotional aspect: At some time point the three women expressed a mild laughter at their discussion. Two men sitting at my right side just looked spontaneously, four men sitting on the left just gave an inquisitive look at them, and other men and gave a serious look implying that they have been disturbed by the unusual sound, which broke the long silence. The two other women were looking at each other in quiet curiosity. The woman who had been frantically checking her watch showed signs of sadness; her face sullen as if she maybe had not slept the night before. I noticed that she kept looking at me, the young men, and the co-workers making me wonder if she wasn't hoping that someone would ask her if she needed help or sympathy. In terms of emotional reactions, the co-workers were obviously the focal point as the sound of laughter was the only catalyst to make others even seem aware that other people were present. In my first observation, I realized that I was trying to set the stage for particular activities and was rather oblivious to the "underlying" factors of what was causing the silence and particular activities. After trying to assess the emotional activities, this was when I paid particular attention to the woman who was obviously disturbed by something unpleasant as well as the existence of an uncomfortable silence through diminished social interaction. I learned through this observation that a researcher must be prepared to make an analysis not based on a singular objective, but be open to different aspects of their surroundings to fully measure the events that occur between people. The diagram given below shows the emotional interaction that takes place between the observer and the other people. Virtual Workshop 5 Working with focus group: Introduction: The topic for the discussion session is “Health Consciousness among Youngsters” The world is experiencing a great deal of health problems with almost all countries plagued with diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity and arthritis. Awareness among young people is required compulsorily to reduce the rate of health issues in the future. This discussion is focused on what young people feel in regards to various health issues. Target Group Selected: Students of the age group 18-22. In total, six students were included in the session. This target group is selected from the academic population which included three men and three women to ensure diversity of thought. Time for Discussion: 1 Hour Place for discussion: Outdoors Seating Arrangements: The host was standing at the centre and the participants were seated around in a circle arrangement, which was very useful to ensure they were comfortable. List of Questions Prepared: 1. What do you know about health issues of the present world? 2. Can you list some of the diseases? 3. What kind of reasons you would suggest for theses diseases? 4. Are you interested in reading books which contains focus on diet and health? 5. Would you like to listen to documentary shows on advices for a healthy life? 6. Do you think that eating habits determine our health outcome? 7. What is your best advice to keep good health? 8. How did you come to know of the health issues? 9. Do you have any personal suggestions to conduct special awareness programs for the health issues? 10. What do you know about health care aspects? 11. Are you interested in contributing your support for such an awareness program? Report : From the above discussion, it is understood that both the focus group participants reflected their views quite differently based on gender. Result of the discussion: From the above discussion it was discovered that girls show inquisitive feelings toward health issues and they are particularly concerned about weight. The entire sample group of women discussed their knowledge of health issues to include breast and cervical cancer, weight management, as well as diabetes. Four of the men indicated they are not substantially concerned with any particular health issue or health care, with only one respondent indicating any interest at all in the health care system. Two of the men indicated that they were aware of issues such as prostate health, leading the host of the focus group to realize that any concerns over health are widely gender-related. Feed Back: Two women were found to be a little doubtful regarding their level of knowledge of the health topics, but asked many questions about my personal understanding of health issues. The men appeared to grow restless midway through the focus group, indicating that they were not overly concerned with increasing awareness of health issues. One student said that his family had no history of health issues and that he would not be concerned until his health started to fail. The general learning of this focus group is that young women are primarily more proactive when it comes to researching or inquiring about health; and is usually focused around strictly women's health matters. Work Shop 5 - Experiment: The Stanford Prison experiment has taught a lot of things regarding human psychology and the effect of punishment. In terms of determining whether this experiment was ethical, one must gauge their perceptions of right versus wrong. Since the students consented to become part of the experiment, I believe no ethical barrier was crossed. The aim of the experiment was to understand the psychological effects of imprisonment and arrest procedures, as well as psychological effects on guards. The narration of the experiences from the participants deviates our opinion to analyse it as harsh and mildly unfair to the prisoners. The setting and trial was very useful, in the sense that the experience creates a valid awareness of what exists within the arrest and prison system. Despite the short-term psychological impact on the participants, I believe this was a helpful experiment designed to shed light on the emotional trauma of the prison and arrest process. Without this experiment's results, perceptions of prison life would be merely conjecture. The elements of a classic experimental design are settings that are constructed with additional consultation from persons of the same field, just like in the aforementioned experiment. However, these experiments are quite difficult to organize, since it requires not only the exact set up, but recruiting interested participants is the major aspect of guaranteeing success. Imaginary Experiment : People of different religious denominations are notified that in order to raise community awareness of the Muslim community, their local churches will be holding an Islamic celebration day in which several members of the local Muslim community will be speaking at the church. This experiment would be conducted in order to witness the reactions of the regular church participants and determine whether the reactions are positive or negative and whether the church attendance on this particular day is less than usual. A post- Islamic celebration day poll will be conducted from the non-Muslim churchgoers to gauge their final reaction to the Muslim speakers. This experiment would test the validity of a hypothesis of unjustified discrimination against Muslims in light of non-Muslim group perceptions of terrorist-related organizations. There are no substantial ethical issues in this at all, as it could potentially serve a positive outcome to genuinely raise awareness of Muslim frustrations. Regarding the practicality of the experiment, I would have to say that it is not only feasible, but would only require the consent of specific church leaders and several Muslim groups who might be willing to participate and speak at a different denominational church. The cost of this experiment would be quite minimal (if any) and could measure the reactions of non-Muslim citizens on a large scale population. Read More