Humanness on The Internet

Today, the internet plays a big role in our daily lives, especially in communication. Previously, people sent letters or faxes to their business counterparts. In the informal context, people used to make phone calls whenever they had to contact people. However, today, people can easily deal business by sending the paper work through emails. People no longer call each other, but they chat online. Internet seems to make our lives easier. Internet saves our time. Hence, we can save our time to do other things.

On the contrary, internet causes people to depend on it too much. For instance, people say that they cannot live without the internet these days. The net becomes a very crucial part of their lives; furthermore, some even become addicted to it. When this happens, people no longer use the internet as a tool for communication. Thus, it leads people to connect to the internet anytime and anywhere.

So, how can we employ the internet in human communication without sacrificing the ‘human’ aspect of communication??

As human beings, people have emotions. In order to show emotions, people have to communicate face to face in order to perform it. One way to show your emotions is communicating via the phone to substitute the face to face communication. It is believed that the ones speaking are able to convey his/her emotions through his/her voice. In the internet context, people cannot totally communicate their emotions. People express their opinions and ideas via words. However, this might not be the case anymore. Due to the technology advancement today, people can communicate via the video conferencing.

In reality, even though the video conferencing helps us to convey our emotions as depicted in our facial expressions through in the web, it still lacks the basic human feelings. People cannot totally feel the deep emotions through image on the screen only. People have to meet each other in order to do it. Hence, traditional face to face communication still has more advantage.

In today’s technological advancement era, it is impossible not to use technology as a part of our lives, but we have to limit ourselves. We use the internet as a medium in communication, and not to depend our communication solely on the internet. Hence, we have time to engage in the real world communication, which is the face to face communication. Thus, limiting our time in engaging on the internet is necessary. Additionally, knowing the right way to use the net is also crucial which means not to be addicted to the net.

Is there any other way that we can employ the internet without sacrificing the ‘human’ aspects??

MEDIA HEGEMONY

What is media hegemony?? According to Antonio Gramsci, the media in this era represents the views of the powerful elite with political and economic power. The media does not let public express their ideas, especially the opposition views. Opposition views are banned. The media only shows whatever news that benefits the powerful elite.



For instance, there was a time where media hegemony exists in Indonesia. It was the time called “New Order” during President Soeharto regime which lasted for 32 years. He was well known for his authoritarian leadership. The media at that time was not free to make a full coverage of the national and international news. They had to get approval before they were able to publish the issue. The media was oppressed especially in publishing article that comprises critic to the government. The most evident phenomenon was the closing of several print media, such as, Tempo magazine. The magazine company was forced to close because it reported negative critic that offended the ruling government.

At that time, government established a media organization to ensure the media freedom. However, the media organization turned up to be the government watchdog in the media industry. Every negative critic and opinion about the current leader was repressed. At that time, media hegemony was practiced because it was one way to ensure the continuity of the leadership. However, the hegemony collapsed in 1998. Since democracy was introduced, media gained their freedom to make a full coverage of every news around the country and around the globe. This era was known as the “Reformation Era”.



Today, technology advancement plays a big role in the media industry. For instance, the rise of the internet as the ‘new media’ serves as a medium to deliver the news. Mobile phones and television enable the media industry to deliver their message efficiently. Hence, people’s knowledge are not limited to one point of view only. People absorb a lot of information from the media today. Due to the vast information that they can access, people view things from many perspectives. Hence, the viewer are more educated today.

Additionally, democracy also plays a major role in today’s media development. Since the rise of democracy, the media are able to publish critics about the current issue in the country. The pressure from the authority no longer exists. No opposing views are banned. However, the civilians’ voices have to be delivered in an ethical manner. It should not be delivered arbitrarily.

In today’s context, with the technological advancement that lead to more educated viewers and democracy, is it still possible for media hegemony to flourish?? Is media hegemony a healthy style for the media industry??

AFFAIR_Interpesonal Communication

In a marriage, couples are tied together in a ritual that declared them as unity. It is the last stage of the coming together relational model development by Knapp. In a marriage, there are certain rules and norms that have to be maintained in order for the marriage to last forever. They include honesty, openness, share, fidelity, care, love, sense of responsibility, and many others.

When we talk about fidelity, many public figures are reported to have extramarital affairs. Those who are engaged in affairs ranges from various sectors, such as, entertainment, sports and politics. Infidelity can cause conflict in a marriage. The conflict can be resolved in either positive or negative way. From the positive side, the one who are cheated choose to forgive his/her partner. Hence, they remain as husband and wife, and move on with their life. On the other hand, conflict can leads to further coming apart stages in the Knapp’s model which are differentiating, circumscribing, stagnating, avoiding and terminating. In the worse situation, these stages lead divorce.



There are numerous names that emerge when we talk about sex scandals that involve public figures. In the politics, there are the former US president Bill Clinton; Franklin Delano Roosevelt; Dwight. D Eisenhower; John.F. Kennedy, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, former governor of New York David Paterson, Larry Craig, John Edward and many others. In the entertainment sector, there are Mick Jagger, etc. In the sport field, there are England footballer John Terry, heavy-weight boxing champion Mike Tyson, NBA player Kobe Bryant, MLB player Alex Rodriguez and many others.



The most recent extramarital affair involves the well-known world class golfer Tiger Woods. It is reported that he has cheated his wife. After a long waiting since November 2009, Woods finally appeared in the public. On February 20, 2010, Woods has made his apologize for his affairs. Since the day he was caught with his affairs, his wife Elin Nordegren has not made any public appearance together with woods to show her support. Similarly, on the day of the press conference, Nordegren remains silent and did not make any public appearance.

From the public eyes, we see that the Knapp’s coming apart stages apply to Woods condition. They either differentiating, circumscribing, stagnating, avoiding or terminating each other. It happens because of the affair that causes conflict. If the conflict is resolved in a functional way, it can strengthen their relationship. On the other hand, break of the relationship can also happen. However, what happens domestically remains closed to the public.

What do you think about extramarital affair? What effect will it bring to a couple’s relationship? Is it most likely that they will experience conflict and ended at Knapp’s terminating stage which is divorce? Or is it most likely that they can remain in the interpersonal relationship?

What's your perception??

What do you think when you see these pictures?? Will you think that the glass is half full or half empty?? What about the pie, a half full pie or a half empty pie?? Finally, the guy, is he having a half full head of hair or a half empty head of hair??

There is no right or wrong answer regarding these questions. Everybody perceives things differently. Therefore, a person can think of things as half full or half empty. When a person thinks that the thing is half full, he/she looks at things from the positive point of view. Conversely, when a person thinks that the thing is half empty, he/she look at things from the negative perspective.

There are many factors that can influence a person’s way of perceiving things. In the selection process, there are individual characteristics, mass media, habits of family or friends, psychological state, and many other things within a person’s environment. For instance, a person’s current psychological state can affect his/her way of perceiving things. Current psychological state can also impact a person’s decision making ability. When a person is experiencing hardship in his/her life, such as, retrenchment, he/she might see things negatively at the moment she is experiencing the hardship. It is because that his/her mood might not be good at that time. On the other hand, when a person is feeling extraordinary happy, perhaps because that day is his/her birthday when everyone in her family tries to make him/her happy, he/she might see perceive things in a positive way.

From the example, it shows that many factors in our environment can affect our way of perceiving things. There is no right or wrong way of perceiving and interpreting things. It is just the way different person with different thought which resulted from his/her cultural, social, economical background perceive the things. Hence, what do you think about perception?? Is it possible to make everyone perceive things from the same perspective??

Modern Communication Models

Nowadays, people like everything that saves their time. Similarly, in communication, people like the easy way to contact or inform each other about a certain happenings. This can happen through mobile phones, where people can call and deliver their messages through phone conversations. People can also text their friends or colleague about the important information that their friends or colleague should know. If it is not necessary to meet each other, people will like to communicate with each other through this high-tech communication tools.

Another way to communicate is through the online tools. For instance, the social networking websites are experiencing their popularity in the recent years. One of the popular websites is Facebook. Through Facebook, people can do many communication actions, such as, send a message, chat and post a comment. Those that I have mentioned are only the basics. There are many other things that you can explore once you have a facebook account. You can play various games, like mafia wars which my brother plays every day and you can also post as many pictures as you wish. In addition, people can make new friends who they get to know from their close friends and people can also find their old friends from their kindergarten or primary school who they lost their contact, probably since they moved to another school.

Hence, are the mobile phone and the online communication tools going to replace the traditional face to face communication completely?
I don’t think so. One of the fundamental reasons is that we are social beings. As for the mobile phone case, people still need to meet each other after they talk in the mobile phone. Let’s say if you talk with you colleague about an important business agreement which requires both of you to meet up and talk about it, then you will need to arrange a meeting. What if we can just talk on the phone about the agreements in detail and just send the agreement to each other’s office to be singed? Well, apart from that, as a social being and in order to satisfy the transactional model of communication, people need to arrange meetings (face to face communications).

According to the transactional model of communication which improves the linear (one way communication) and the interactive (communication without face – face meeting) models, communication is a process of simultaneous exchange and mutual influence and exchange between communicators. Transactional model of communication also happens within the existence of the surrounding environment. Hence, a physical existence of the two communicators is essential. Likewise, in the facebook case, even though the online communication seems to be efficient and engaging, people still need to interact directly by doing a face – face communication. Additionally, come friends in the social networking sites are only online friends who you do not meet in the real world. This strengthen the idea that face – face communication is a better way of communicating where you get know real world friends and not “online friends”.