Imagine you are sitting on an airplane, one of the many you were flying with in the last couple of month. This time you are flying from Amman to Barcelona. You planned to do this trip already for years, your big dream, traveling the world, seeing all this major cultural differences and unique foreign places. You thought to travel from city to city would be a good idea, since nowadays the biggest amounts of citizens are crowded in the centers, the metropolis, and the cities, there, you were convinced, you would be able to find the greatest, unique cultural differences and originalities. But now after 2 month of traveling you feel disappointed, something went wrong, yes you heard about a lot of different histories and you saw all those antique places but something always seemed to be the same to you, something that never made you feel that you discovered something accentual different between Asia, Europe and the US.
No matter where I went, if the Pyramids in Cairo, Jerusalem, New York, Paris, Prag or Tokyo. Yes I saw amazing sides, but a couple of meters walk away, there were all this familiar things waiting for me. To buy Coke in the desert is easier than to find mineral water and MC Donald’s has in every place a lot more than just one branch. A women in Tokyo had my green shirt, what I was buying back home in Zara, the family I staid with in France had the same IKEA table than the Hotel in Saudi Arabia. And in case I feel like Pizza, Fries or ice-cream, no problem, Pizza Hut and MC Donald’s are always just around the corner.
In Europe people complain about Americanization that is pushing aside their individualism. In Asia people complain about westernization, that is taking over and push aside their own traditions and things they were proud of. Americanization, westernization became often used words in world society. We are copying, going global, big companies buy small ones and conquer the world. If I want to go shopping in South Africa, Asia or Europe, I don’t have to search long and find what I already know from Home. I even could find the order of products in my favored shop back home, in countries on the other side of the globe.
Do people still believe that we have an individual, national life? A life they are predicting according their national norms? Of course we all have still our local traditions that you may just know if you are living in one place for a number of years. But what is about the big picture? What is my impression of a country after I spend one night in a fancy Hotel in all of the different continents, the first impression? Is it not natural to look for things I know, I can identify with? And will you find those things within a very short time, during for example just the first taxi ride through a new city? I did!
The problem is, that I as a western person, find my home known products, but what is about Asians coming to Europe, yes, most of our products are made in their countries but made by their branches or is not standing behind this western management and money?! The west, as a whole including America is dominating the world and yes it might be although a political tool. With the standards of today’s technology, the strongest do not have to make war or using arm force to remind others of their presents. It is enough to spread labels and marketing ideas and all by a sudden the strongest powers are present, everywhere not by war or arm force but in the simple there in our every day life.
Mittwoch, 10. Juni 2009
Sonntag, 24. Mai 2009
The improvement of voter’s right by the internet
Government in democracies is always thoughtful to enable better and free elections
to every citizen. Why should not the internet be used in order to reach this goal?
Voting online could make it easier for voters to express their personal opinion in some countries were free speech is not given. No one would be able to know for example who the face behind the voting paper was. Personal manipulation would be almost impossible since no one would hand in his voting paper to an official canvasser. Not to fear the actual voting process, would reduce the pressure that can be opposed by parties on their voters and in the same way the force of corruption could be decreased. Voters could know with a certainty that it is almost impossible to reconstruct their identity after using a public computer for example.
Nowadays still a lot of countries in the world apply to the problems of oppressed elections. In Syria for example dissidents become jailed for their political engagement. Only because everyone has the right to vote, that does not mean there is a right for actual free expression of thoughts. According to an article published by BBC on the 22 April 2007 Syrian citizens seemed not strongly interested in the outcome of the elections in 2007 and former political prisoners were stripped of their civil rights and could not stand in the elections or vote.1 This power policy in Syria dominated by only one party leads to pressure in the population. If voting could be more anonymous, face to face or state to citizen pressure would be abandoned by online voting, maybe the political picture in Syria would undergo a surprisingly strongly and fast change.
An additional important point for the improvement in free elections is the flow of different information ensured by the World Wide Web. The information an individual can have excess to, is taken nowadays out of a much wider pool than newspapers and TV news were ever able to transmit. The Syrians, like all other citizens on the world would be able, under the requirements that they have the ability to read, to choose their source of information on their own and it might be much more difficult for a one party government or a dictator to limit the flow of information. Out of this base of free excess to all kind of information combined with anonymous online voting the outcome of elections should be much more likely to represent the real proportion of citizen opinion. According to the article by Jair Amichai Hamburger “E-empowerment: Empowerment by the Internet“, one of the first E-voting experiments brought surprisingly high success rates. “In the first binding political vote in Arizona in March, 2000, there was a 676% increase in voter turnout. Since then, many governments have considered the possibility of conducting national elections through E-voting. “2(Hamburger, p.4784)
Online voting would be a new step forward into the interconnection between reality and Internet, as well as a hopefully helpful tactic to improve democratic political systems.
1. BBC. (2007). Retrieved 24. 5. 2009 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6580517.stm
2. Yair Amichai-Hamburger, Katelyn Y Mckenna, Samuel-Azran Tal. empowerment: Empowerment by the Internet. Computers in Human Behavior, Vol. 24, No. 5. (September 2008), pp. 1776-1789.
to every citizen. Why should not the internet be used in order to reach this goal?
Voting online could make it easier for voters to express their personal opinion in some countries were free speech is not given. No one would be able to know for example who the face behind the voting paper was. Personal manipulation would be almost impossible since no one would hand in his voting paper to an official canvasser. Not to fear the actual voting process, would reduce the pressure that can be opposed by parties on their voters and in the same way the force of corruption could be decreased. Voters could know with a certainty that it is almost impossible to reconstruct their identity after using a public computer for example.
Nowadays still a lot of countries in the world apply to the problems of oppressed elections. In Syria for example dissidents become jailed for their political engagement. Only because everyone has the right to vote, that does not mean there is a right for actual free expression of thoughts. According to an article published by BBC on the 22 April 2007 Syrian citizens seemed not strongly interested in the outcome of the elections in 2007 and former political prisoners were stripped of their civil rights and could not stand in the elections or vote.1 This power policy in Syria dominated by only one party leads to pressure in the population. If voting could be more anonymous, face to face or state to citizen pressure would be abandoned by online voting, maybe the political picture in Syria would undergo a surprisingly strongly and fast change.
An additional important point for the improvement in free elections is the flow of different information ensured by the World Wide Web. The information an individual can have excess to, is taken nowadays out of a much wider pool than newspapers and TV news were ever able to transmit. The Syrians, like all other citizens on the world would be able, under the requirements that they have the ability to read, to choose their source of information on their own and it might be much more difficult for a one party government or a dictator to limit the flow of information. Out of this base of free excess to all kind of information combined with anonymous online voting the outcome of elections should be much more likely to represent the real proportion of citizen opinion. According to the article by Jair Amichai Hamburger “E-empowerment: Empowerment by the Internet“, one of the first E-voting experiments brought surprisingly high success rates. “In the first binding political vote in Arizona in March, 2000, there was a 676% increase in voter turnout. Since then, many governments have considered the possibility of conducting national elections through E-voting. “2(Hamburger, p.4784)
Online voting would be a new step forward into the interconnection between reality and Internet, as well as a hopefully helpful tactic to improve democratic political systems.
1. BBC. (2007). Retrieved 24. 5. 2009 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6580517.stm
2. Yair Amichai-Hamburger, Katelyn Y Mckenna, Samuel-Azran Tal. empowerment: Empowerment by the Internet. Computers in Human Behavior, Vol. 24, No. 5. (September 2008), pp. 1776-1789.
Dienstag, 12. Mai 2009
Loosing our knowledge
Like argued in our lecture in the age of television and internet the ability to develop knowledge is decreasing in our society. The TV, as well as the internet supplies its users with short messages and insufficient background knowledge. The goal of education through media seems to disappear and entertainment becomes central in its stead. Where will this lead us?
An example that came to my mind was that shows for children on the TV got increasingly limited in their educational massage and complexity. Twenty years ago there were shows on TV explaining to children the space, how they make milk and how Pasta becomes Pasta. Today my sister is watching shows on Television with animated pictures, imitating reality. The main characters talk in words that do not exist in the vocabulary of the mother tongue. They watch much more TV than children 10 years ago, today in average a 8-10 year old child spend 3:17 hours per day in front of the TV. (Retrieved at April 4, 2009 from: http://www.tvsmarter.com/documents/stats-kids.html) Children get to watch TV before they are even able to talk and learn from what they see on TV, from fast changing pictures, short, unconnected massages. One intensive discussed show in Europe was the Teletubbies, for many an example for the “stupidity” of the way how TV is teaching children. Parents started to criticize the show, as their children started to adopt the blurred pronunciation of the Teletubbies, instead of spelling words clearly. (You tube, Retrieved at April 4, 2009 from: www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiaLOzP1lCA) This real life example gives evidence to the argument of the lecture, that society suffers a decrease in education by TV.
Additionally many argue than an increase in passivity on the side of the learning by using the TV as main educator is observable. A study, represented in the „Science Daily“, Journal, “indicates exposure to language via television is insufficient for teaching language to very young children. To learn new words, children must be actively engaged in the process with responsive language teachers." (Science Daily (July 2007), Retrieved at April 4, 2009 from: http://www.news-medical.net/?id=24816) With the TV children learn passive, they may start to imitate and copy, like the Telletubbies phenomenon but they are not actively involved, or challenged to use their brain actively or even their body to reach a usable result. They are missing to reflect what they know and to evaluate, if what they know is write, usable or not. So kids get used to learning with no effort on their part, in other words watching TV is actually training their brain to be lazy. Then when it's time to start school, learning takes effort and is quite boring compared to TV and may be experienced as overstraining.
According to Einstein, passive learning is not enough; it needs involvement and imagination to use knowledge. The understanding of how to use knowledge is essential for the progress of our society; it needs imagination rather than only to possess knowledge. When we loose our ability to criticize and judge, we easily become dependent on others and believers in everything we see, dependent on the things we might have become used to and a passive auditorium. We become unable to use the full abilities of our brain and lack the desire and imagination to find progress. “Imagination is more important than knowledge, for while knowledge points to all there is, imagination points to all there will be.“(Einstein)
To sum up our society needs to wake up and to start to work active against watching TV as main activity or using it as the main educator, in order to stop the lose of our activity, imagination and set an end to the decrease in gaining usable, applicable knowledge. In order to reach this and to change our future parents should play an active role in leading their children away from watching TV, imitating and physical as well as mental passivity to more activity, creativity and self-thinking.
An example that came to my mind was that shows for children on the TV got increasingly limited in their educational massage and complexity. Twenty years ago there were shows on TV explaining to children the space, how they make milk and how Pasta becomes Pasta. Today my sister is watching shows on Television with animated pictures, imitating reality. The main characters talk in words that do not exist in the vocabulary of the mother tongue. They watch much more TV than children 10 years ago, today in average a 8-10 year old child spend 3:17 hours per day in front of the TV. (Retrieved at April 4, 2009 from: http://www.tvsmarter.com/documents/stats-kids.html) Children get to watch TV before they are even able to talk and learn from what they see on TV, from fast changing pictures, short, unconnected massages. One intensive discussed show in Europe was the Teletubbies, for many an example for the “stupidity” of the way how TV is teaching children. Parents started to criticize the show, as their children started to adopt the blurred pronunciation of the Teletubbies, instead of spelling words clearly. (You tube, Retrieved at April 4, 2009 from: www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiaLOzP1lCA) This real life example gives evidence to the argument of the lecture, that society suffers a decrease in education by TV.
Additionally many argue than an increase in passivity on the side of the learning by using the TV as main educator is observable. A study, represented in the „Science Daily“, Journal, “indicates exposure to language via television is insufficient for teaching language to very young children. To learn new words, children must be actively engaged in the process with responsive language teachers." (Science Daily (July 2007), Retrieved at April 4, 2009 from: http://www.news-medical.net/?id=24816) With the TV children learn passive, they may start to imitate and copy, like the Telletubbies phenomenon but they are not actively involved, or challenged to use their brain actively or even their body to reach a usable result. They are missing to reflect what they know and to evaluate, if what they know is write, usable or not. So kids get used to learning with no effort on their part, in other words watching TV is actually training their brain to be lazy. Then when it's time to start school, learning takes effort and is quite boring compared to TV and may be experienced as overstraining.
According to Einstein, passive learning is not enough; it needs involvement and imagination to use knowledge. The understanding of how to use knowledge is essential for the progress of our society; it needs imagination rather than only to possess knowledge. When we loose our ability to criticize and judge, we easily become dependent on others and believers in everything we see, dependent on the things we might have become used to and a passive auditorium. We become unable to use the full abilities of our brain and lack the desire and imagination to find progress. “Imagination is more important than knowledge, for while knowledge points to all there is, imagination points to all there will be.“(Einstein)
To sum up our society needs to wake up and to start to work active against watching TV as main activity or using it as the main educator, in order to stop the lose of our activity, imagination and set an end to the decrease in gaining usable, applicable knowledge. In order to reach this and to change our future parents should play an active role in leading their children away from watching TV, imitating and physical as well as mental passivity to more activity, creativity and self-thinking.
Sonntag, 29. März 2009
Child pornography
The Internet as an open and public network changed the communication structure of our society and introduced new forms of crime. The problem of child pornography increased over the last years and new solutions have to be found, in order to eliminate the threat opposed upon our children. Due to the internet the public and governmental institutions got aware of the increased number of people, who become attracted by child pornography online.
The internet showed increasingly children involved in pornography and the pedophile pictures get more and more demanded by a part of the online users. Children of all ages get forced to appear as actors in pornographic videos and on pictures. Babies as well as teenagers get raped, sexual abused and tortured online. According to statistics of the German Federal office of criminal investigation the number of preliminary proceeding against owners and consumers of child pornography increased from 2000 to 2006, from 1592 to 4545 preliminary proceedings. The increase dabbled in only one year from 2006 with 4545 to 2007, 8832 preliminary proceedings against owners and consumers of child pornography[1].
Accordingly only an increase in control can protect children from the abuse online. The control over the net and blocking of pornographic sites should be provided by governmental institutions. The blocking and control itself may not solve the problem but increase the awareness of society and raise a moral understanding against pedophile behavior. These public understanding and awareness could lead to a long term change. Pedophilia and the use of children in pornography is clearly a criminal act and should be sentenced by courts actively. The German government announced this week the cabinet decision to block the excess to sites, that includes child pornography and are planning on extending this law in the future, to prohibit adults the contact to children online entirely[2].
The Internet may have increased the excess to and publicity of pedophilia, like proven in the Statistic above; therefore it is now in the hands of the society and governments to fight this crime in public. It is possible that not the Internet skipped the scales towards an increased pedophile behavior of society. Who can prove that pedophilia did occur to a reduced amount in former times, it is possible that our society hold the same potential for pedophilia over the past years. Due to the internet, current cases can not remain secret anymore and have to be faced by society and governments. Only through the open use of the internet, pedophilia could be recognized as a serious public problem. Internet users and the police can be easily alerted to pornographic crimes. The police is able to receive much easier a wide overview over the current situation regarding pornographic crimes. The Internet and its public network can help to raise awareness and knowledge about the issue of child pornography and bring a long term change, when knowledge, moral understanding and laws become introduced in the right way by our governments.
[1] Bundeskriminalamt.(2008). Retrieved March 25, 2009 from http://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/2396/umfrage/ermittlungsverfahren-gegen-besitzer-kaeufer-von-kinderpornografie/#info
[2] ZDF. (28.03.2009). Retrieved March 25, 2009 from http://www.heute.de/ZDFheute/inhalt/22/0,3672,7540342,00.html
The internet showed increasingly children involved in pornography and the pedophile pictures get more and more demanded by a part of the online users. Children of all ages get forced to appear as actors in pornographic videos and on pictures. Babies as well as teenagers get raped, sexual abused and tortured online. According to statistics of the German Federal office of criminal investigation the number of preliminary proceeding against owners and consumers of child pornography increased from 2000 to 2006, from 1592 to 4545 preliminary proceedings. The increase dabbled in only one year from 2006 with 4545 to 2007, 8832 preliminary proceedings against owners and consumers of child pornography[1].
Accordingly only an increase in control can protect children from the abuse online. The control over the net and blocking of pornographic sites should be provided by governmental institutions. The blocking and control itself may not solve the problem but increase the awareness of society and raise a moral understanding against pedophile behavior. These public understanding and awareness could lead to a long term change. Pedophilia and the use of children in pornography is clearly a criminal act and should be sentenced by courts actively. The German government announced this week the cabinet decision to block the excess to sites, that includes child pornography and are planning on extending this law in the future, to prohibit adults the contact to children online entirely[2].
The Internet may have increased the excess to and publicity of pedophilia, like proven in the Statistic above; therefore it is now in the hands of the society and governments to fight this crime in public. It is possible that not the Internet skipped the scales towards an increased pedophile behavior of society. Who can prove that pedophilia did occur to a reduced amount in former times, it is possible that our society hold the same potential for pedophilia over the past years. Due to the internet, current cases can not remain secret anymore and have to be faced by society and governments. Only through the open use of the internet, pedophilia could be recognized as a serious public problem. Internet users and the police can be easily alerted to pornographic crimes. The police is able to receive much easier a wide overview over the current situation regarding pornographic crimes. The Internet and its public network can help to raise awareness and knowledge about the issue of child pornography and bring a long term change, when knowledge, moral understanding and laws become introduced in the right way by our governments.
[1] Bundeskriminalamt.(2008). Retrieved March 25, 2009 from http://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/2396/umfrage/ermittlungsverfahren-gegen-besitzer-kaeufer-von-kinderpornografie/#info
[2] ZDF. (28.03.2009). Retrieved March 25, 2009 from http://www.heute.de/ZDFheute/inhalt/22/0,3672,7540342,00.html
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