Thursday, October 31, 2019

Popular Music Youth And Education Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Popular Music Youth And Education - Essay Example According to this paper the author further gives a detailed explanation of the relationship between popular music and education. In this section, the need to integrate pop music in education is overly emphasised. The author concludes the essay by giving an overview of the general importance of music. Autobiographical account of the author’s relationship with music. It makes a conclusion that from the foregoing discourse, it has been established that music surrounds our day to day activities in our diverse cultures. The most outstanding outcome of this essay is that music has a great impact on the academic performance of individuals. Available studies reveal that about 90% of individuals with post graduate degrees participated in music education during their school days. Similarly, schools that spent a big chunk of money on music education post very impressive academic performance in general. It has been indicated that music education increases one's success in the society because such people rarely get involved with drugs and substance abuse. This argument is further supported by research findings that indicate that an education in music increases overall brain activity. Moreover, children that are exposed to music at an early stage in their development possess better reasoning skills than their counterparts who had a different orientation. It is for this reason that students who are good in math, science, and engineering have a craving for music.

Monday, October 28, 2019

John LockEs View on Innate Knowledge Essay Example for Free

John LockEs View on Innate Knowledge Essay John Locke, a renowned English philosopher in the seventeenth century, argued against the pre-existing prevalent belief of innate knowledge, such as those led by Descartes. Many of Locke’s arguments begin with criticisms on philosophers’ opinion on innate knowledge, notably Descartes. Therefore, many of Locke’s arguments are direct rebuttals of Descartes and other philosophers’ beliefs about the existence of innate knowledge. To arrive at the conclusion that innate knowledge is impossible, Locke comes with various premises and rebuttals that add weight to his arguments. First, Locke emphasizes that knowledge and ideas are learned through experience, not innately. He argues that people’s minds at birth are ‘blank slate’ that is later filled through experience. Here, the ‘senses’ play an important role because ‘the knowledge of some truths, as Locke confesses, is very in the mind; but in a way that shows them not to be innate’. By this, Locke argues that some ideas are actually in the mind from an early age but these ideas are furnished by the senses starting in the womb. For example, the color blue and the  Ã¢â‚¬Ëœblueness’ of something is not that which is learned innately but is some is learned through exposures to a blue object or thing. So if we do have a universal understanding of ‘blueness’, it is because we are exposed to blue objects ever since we were young. The blue sky is what many would acquaint with blue easily and at a young age. Second, Locke argues that people have no innate principles. Locke contended that innate principles rely upon innate ideas within people but such innate ideas do not exist. He says this on the basis that there is no ‘universal consent’ that everyone agrees upon. Locke quotes that ‘There is nothing more commonly taken for granted that there are certain principles universally agreed upon by all mankind, but there are none to which all mankind give a universal assent’. This argues against the very foundation of the idea of innate knowledge because principles that garner universal assent are thought to be known innately, simply because it is the best explanation available. However, it cannot even be an explanation for such belief because no ‘universal consent’ exists. Rationalists argue that there are in fact some principles that are universally agreed upon, such as the principle of identity. But it is far-fetched to claim that everyone knows this principle of identity because for the least, children and idiots, the less-intelligent ones are not acquainted with it. There are several objections to these premises and arguments that are outlined above. The argument by Locke that there are some ideas that are in the mind at an early age gives credence to argument for the innate ideas. For ideas to be furnished by the senses later on there has to be ideas that are laid as foundations. If such ideas are innate, as acknowledged by Locke, no matter how trivial or less significant these ideas may be as one may argue, such claim could give weight to the idea of innate knowledge. Innate knowledge or ideas, after all, doesn’t imply that all ideas are innate because as one can see, there are things that we learn through our experiences and encounters in life as well. So as long as there is even the basic principle that is innate early in life, then innate knowledge can be known to exist. The validity behind the claim that there is no ‘universal consent’ is also questionable. Locke argues that no principle that all mankind agrees upon exists because there are those who are not acquainted with such principle, notably children and idiots. However, the terms children and idiots are somewhat misguided. How are children and especially the idiots categorized? Is there a specific criteria used for those who are classified as idiots? It is hard to generalize that idiots or those who are deemed less intelligent are not acquainted with certain principles because at times, intelligence is not the best indicator of someone’s knowledge or ideas. There are many intelligent people out there who take their status for granted and do not think, contemplate or make an effort to their best extent. The objections that are made against the initial arguments can be defended in certain ways. Regarding the objection that since there are innate ideas in the mind at an early age, innate knowledge exists, the term ‘innate’ should be thought of again in greater detail. Innate knowledge has to be significant enough for us to recount to be considered such. Thus, there comes a risk with considering the ideas within our minds early on as innate. For example, the knowledge of our hands and feet maybe imbedded to us at a very early stage. The knowledge of using our hands and feet are not so significant. The knowledge that we gain through our use of hands and feet could be vital knowledge that we may recount throughout. Throwing a baseball properly under a coach’s instructions is an example. Also, there is the claim that intelligence cannot be the sole indicator of one’s acquisition of ‘universal consent’ and that there isn’t a clear distinction of those who can understand universal principles to those who cannot. However, the important focus here should not be on defining ‘idiots’ and intelligence but on that universal consent is hard to be assembled by every single mankind. Therefore, more should be considered than just innate knowledge that could garner universal consent. Empirical principles that are derived from experience could garner universal assent too. For example, the fear of ‘dying’ or ‘getting seriously injured’ could mean that people would not jump out the roof from tall buildings. And this belief could be universal among all.

Saturday, October 26, 2019

Influence of Twitter and Social Media in UK Elections

Influence of Twitter and Social Media in UK Elections Role and Influence of Twitter and other social media platforms during recent UK elections Introduction: Over the years, social media platforms have rapidly grown as a sphere for political activism due to its wide outreach. Sharing of information and news available across the social media networking sites in various ways is now turning into a vital strategy for the political leaders and parties to campaign (Thorsen, Jackson and Lilleker, 2017). Political leaders across the world have begun using Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites as a medium for political communication and marketing during election campaigns. The political parties try to increase the reach of their election campaign by channelling their message through the young audiences’ personal networks (Thorsen, Jackson and Lilleker, 2017). The leaders are able to gain support either through direct interaction with the individuals or through messages that are shared within their connected social circle (Bright et al., 2017) This study talks about the extent to which Twitter and other social media networking sites played a decisive role in the recently held two elections in United Kingdom in relatively quick succession in 2015 and 2017. It will also assess how much did these platforms influence the political parties’ strategy during the campaigning.   Twitter and 2015 UK General Election The social media has been a part of the Britain’s electoral scenario for a while since the 2015 general elections. With Twitter being a well-established social media tool in UK, Segesten and Bossetta (2017) notes that the UK became the second largest country after United States following the British Twittersphere having an estimated 14.8 million accounts in 2015. The 2015 general elections which was influenced by the social media for the first time saw Twitter being dominated by left-wing Labour party with 58,000 uses of #votelabour as compared to centre-right Conservatives 25,000 uses of #voteconservative (Bartlett and Jones, 2015). Other parties including UK Independent Party had 15,000 mentions with #voteukip and 27,000 #votesnp for SNP (Bartlett and Jones, 2015) Margetts (2017) highlights that while the electoral success of the Conservatives was attributed to the giant expenditure of  £1.2 million on the negative Facebook advertising targeted at Labour candidate Ed Miliband, it was the Labour’s â€Å"bottom-up† campaign on Twitter which drew the attention of the users. The Twitter campaign accounts of all the 8 political parties and leaders had produced a total of 22,397 tweets throughout the elections (Jensen, 2016) but of those about 13% of tweets were informative while generating only 2 % of mobilizing content (Segesten and Bossetta, 2017). Even though the Labour and Conservatives tried to drive voter engagement, the mobilizing messages by them lacked as against the UK Independent Party (UKIP) and Scottish National Party (SNP), who tweeted number of times a day targeting specific constituencies (Segesten and Bossetta, 2017) As (Lewis, 2015) notes that most of the politicians and their party used the social media platform as a digital marketing tool without interacting with the voters personally. Even the content posted on Twitter and Facebook appeared to prove the loyalty of the party rather than drawing the attention of the new potential voters. 2017 UK General Election: The â€Å"first-social media† election The GE 2015 had the potential to be the first social media election (Reuters, 2015) but the 2017 UK general elections was dubbed as the first social media election in the country. The GE 2017 which was announced as a â€Å"snap election† by Prime Minister Theresa May ahead of the 2020 date in order to make Brexit a success (Boyle and Maidment, 2017) saw social media platforms specially Twitter turning into a political battleground for the political parties while attracting many first-time young voters (Thorsen, Jackson and Lilleker, 2017). The number of Twitter users in 2017 rose to 16.4 million from 14.8 million in 2015 within the election period (Bright et al., 2017 cited Statista, 2017). The social media became the dominant source of political news and information (Gallacher and Kaminska, 2017) more than the traditional media which influenced both the political candidates and public’s opinions throughout the election. â€Å"Labour† was yet again the most active political party on social media to strategically plan and use their social media presence innovatively on a larger scale as compared to Conservatives. The party began its online campaigning even before the elections began to appeal and target the young voters while investing in a huge effort in using Twitter and Facebook to encourage them to register their vote (Booth and Hern, 2017). Polonski (2017) notes that even though the Labour lagged in the election polls throughout the campaigning, it won the battle for â€Å"votes† on â€Å"social media election† by gaining the highest number of votes as against the Conservatives (Booth and Hern, 2017). The impact of Crosbyn and Labour party’s active engagement with the voters led to 622,000 people (GetSet, 2017) supporting the party in the final 24 hours of the registration period alone. Jeremy Corbyn himself tweeted on his personal Twitter account on a regular basis as a result of which 26% of his posts urged the public to vote for the party (MarketMakers’, 2017). During the entire campaign as Thorsen, Jackson and Lilleker (2017) note, Labour garnered over 1 million shares on Facebook, which was three times more than the Conservatives besides posting over three times as often. While the Conservatives spent over  £1 million on negative Facebook adverts attacking Labour candidate Jeremy Corbyn (Kentish, 2017) and focusing on strengths of Prime Minister Theresa May, Labour focused more on gaining supporters by uplifting their campaign on both Twitter and Facebook (Kentish, 2017)   Even though Labour party did not win the election, the social media did increase candidate Jeremy Corbyn’s online popularity among the new age voters on Twitter (Polonski, 2017), which led to the Labour’s election result witnessing its share of vote rise by 9.6 points to 40 %, considered to be the highest increase in a single election since 1945 (GetSet cited The Guardian, 2017) Twitter as a news source and sharing of junk news: During the 2016 US presidential elections, the presence and sharing of fake news and targeted advertising on social media platforms were largely debated. Though there were distribution of strongly opiniated content with a political twist, but fake news was unable to make its way on Facebook and affect the outcome of elections (Littunen, 2017). Similarly, in a study by Oxford Internet Institute highlighted by (Littunen, 2017) it was found that only 11.4% of â€Å"junk news† stories were shared as compared to 33.8% during US election. Though social media users shared five links to professional news and information, they even shared one link to junk news during election campaign (Howard et al., 2017). However, in another study by Bournemouth, it was found that while 13 % tweets were regarding junk news, 54% tweets were linked to the professional news and information sources and about 16.5% of traffic was generated by highly automated accounts about UK politics (Thorsen, Jackson and Lilleker, 2017) The BBC was the most popular news source being shared with 22.7% of the content coming from this source, followed by 17.7% links directing to the Guardian’s website (Howard et al., 2017).   A majority of various other political content shared was from public generated sources like blogs and civil society organisations, whose links were more as compared to the links to junk news. However, unlike the 2016 elections where it was claimed that the spreading of fake news propelled Donald Trump to office (Tait, 2017), the UK election results did not see any influence of fake news circulation. An analysis by Buzzfeed (Bauchowitz and Hà ¤nska, 2017) noted that among the 30 most frequently shared URLs, the Conservative supporters had shared almost 13 story links attacking Corbyn and Labour and only 2 stories were related to Conservative policy. On the other hand, Labour supporters shared 14 stories attacking conservatives while 7 focused on Labour’s policy (Bauchowitz and Hà ¤nska, 2017). Meanwhile, on Facebook there were more links to negative stories about Corbyn and absence of positive story links to May. Twitter Analysis: Hern (2017) highlighted a study by the Oxford Internet Institute which stated that the â€Å"Labour† party dominated the conversation on Twitter, with almost 40% of tweets on election-related hashtags and provided the digital strategists an analysis of Labour winning the ‘social media election’ (Thorsen, Jackson and Lilleker, 2017). On the other hand, the Twitter saw only 26% tweets about Conservative party, with the SNP, UKIP and Liberal Democrats receiving 19 per cent, 9.6 per cent and 5.7 per cent, respectively (Hern, 2017). According to Twitter data (Gallacher and Kaminska, 2017), about 88% of the Labour candidates created account as compared to 73% of Conservative candidates.   With almost 63% of the online population (Polonski, 2017) using Facebook each week, of which 80% constitute the younger generation aged between 18 to 24, it makes Facebook the most widely used social networking site in the UK. During the 2017 election campaigning, Facebook was the most crucial social media channel on which content of articles or videos were shared 16 million times (Littunen, 2017) related to Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn. Even though the most talked about politicians in the top 20 political subjects during the election on Facebook were Theresa May and the Tories, it was the Labour which gained popularity and whose posts were shared almost a million times (Shammas, 2017). This proved how the social media influenced and enhanced a serious political engagement while leading to young voters expressing their political opinion.   But (Thorsen, Jackson and Lilleker, 2017) notes that Twitter had the most crucial role to play throughout the GE 2017 campaign as the retweets made were more than the number of tweets as compared to the original tweets being only about one-quarter of the total GE2017 discussion. The Twitter debate around GE 2017 which was dominated by the pro-Labour conversation hashtags (Cram et al., 2017) also witnessed the ongoing issue of â€Å"Brexit† as one of the top three most popular hashtag. Not only the external issues but also the hashtags introduced by various broadcast media outlets heavily influenced the GE 2017 Twitter debate (Cram et al., 2017) Brexit, which continues to be the hottest topic till date, saw an increase in the tweets and posts by the Conservatives from 20 per cent to almost a third while the Labour did not post any content related to it during the campaign (Express, 2017) With the Labour party focusing on social issues especially healthcare as a part of the online campaigning, the posts on the party’s Facebook and Twitter pages were being shared almost three times more in total by the users (Cecil, 2017).   Twitter was the most powerful tool used by the Labour for which the party (Booth and Hern, 2017) had spent a huge amount of money just to promote its single #forthemany  hashtag. Corcoran notes (2017) that Corbyn’s video message on the day of the election had over 88,000 engagements and 1.6 million views which prompted his followers to vote for him whereas May’s  lengthy status update attracted only 12,000 engagements (Corcoran, 2017) The Labour which was much more active in posting content more than the Conservatives and any other party successfully generated about 2.5 total interactions as compared to the latter which had only 1 million interactions. Although 90% of shares, likes and comments for Labour was a result of their video posts (Thorsen, Jackson and Lilleker, 2017) Even though Labour was a way ahead of the conservatives, the Conservatives did saw a jump in its page for a brief period on May 27 following a video post encouraging its followers to share it if they didn’t want to elect Corbyn as their PM (Corcoran, 2017). The video had about 150,000 engagements and almost 9 million views. Despite being considered to be the highest number of views for any other political campaign video in the British history, the young voters were more inspired by the positive messages by Labour than the negative tone of the Conservatives (Reid and Ma, 2017) The GE 2017 online campaigning witnessed a tough war between the two major parties with the Labour page receiving more number of shares, likes and love reactions as against Conservatives page which saw more comments on less posts besides receiving angry reactions to majority of their posts (Corcoran, 2017) Out of every five posts on Twitter or Facebook by Conservatives, four posts had mentions of either Theresa May or Jeremy Corbyn, an increase from 75% to 84% (Express, 2017) Due to the elections being called early only 63 per cent of the 2015 candidates used Twitter during GE 2017 as compared to 76% percent of the candidates in GE 2015.   But, the twitter activity increased, with candidates having a Twitter account posting 86 tweets in 2015 (Technology Review, 2017) to 123.5 tweets in 2017. Frequent Mentions and Postings: Twitter witnessed Jeremy Corbyn as the most mentioned account with 1,367,392 and Theresa May at only 654,417, much more than their respective parties where @uklabour was mentioned in 323.027 tweets and @conservatives was mentioned almost 307,550 times (Cram et al., 2017) While #BBCqt was the most used hashtags followed by #GE2017, #VoteLabour was the third most used Labour hashtags (Thorsen, Jackson and Lilleker, 2017). Here, mainstream media also pla During the beginning of the election campaign, Corbyn had more than twice the number of followers on both Twitter and Facebook as that of May’s accounts (Cecil, 2017) and by the end of the election Corbyn also gained more supporters than May. With a 45 per cent increase in the number of followers on Twitter and Facebook pages of Corbyn over the campaign, the numbers reached from 850,000 each to more than 1.2 million (Cecil, 2017) More than the Labour’s account, Corbyn’s personal Twitter account had Labour supporting engagement which led to Twitter attracting more Labour supporters as compared to Conservative engagement driven by May’s account (Bauchowitz and Hà ¤nska, 2017) The generation of famous femes by @laboureoin ended up being an exceptionally effective strategy for encouraging retweets conveying a socialist message (Cram et al., 2017). While conservatives posted about 10 to 20 posts a single day, the Labour interacted more with its supporters through social media by posting over 30 posts (GetSet, 2017) each day across all the social media platforms. Though the savvy use of social media platforms effectively by Corbyn and Labour helped them drive reach out to young first-time voters (Cram et al., 2017), the microtargeting advertising strategy of Conservatives was effective (Wendling, 2017) but because it did not go down well with the public’s view led to their failure over social media (Wendling, 2017). It can be said that instead of shaping the public opinion, the social media was simply contemplating the opinion. According to the data by YouGov (Yaxley, 2017) the Brits believed that the broadcast media including 42% of television, print media including 32% of newspapers and magazines had more influence on them over social media, which only had 26 % influence, regarding how they decided to vote. But about 50 % young voters (Yaxley, 2017) believed that it was the social media which helped them choose whom to vote for as it was not only primary source of political information but also helped them communicate with the politicians directly. While television still remained the first influence for the votes, social media turned out to be the second most influence on votes by younger voters aged between 18-24 years old (Yaxley, 2017) With the social media campaign which encouraged young voters to register their votes, the Labour party was able to add a total of 33 parliamentary seats and outnumber the majority held by the Conservatives. The Labour party believed that the effective use of social media helped them win the seats they lost during the GE 2015 with their message videos being able to reach to 30% of the UK Facebook users (Crabtree, 2017). Conclusion: The result of the GE 2017 would have been quite different if social media did not play a major role and influenced the campaign, as Twitter and Facebook only helped the Labour party transform its fate and gain support through its powerful messages. The GE 2017 saw a massive use of Facebook and Twitter but the political leaders and parties did not make their presence felt on other popular social networking apps including â€Å"Instagram† and â€Å"Snapchat† much. Even though they lack the share feature, these apps are built around close ties which would have helped the parties and leaders make the content strongly effective among peer to peer (Thorsen, Jackson and Lilleker, 2017). While Snapchat was hardly used during the election, Instagram too saw only 33,200 followers of Labour and 6,555 followers of Tories (Thorsen, Jackson and Lilleker, 2017) The social media networks give the politicians and their parties an opportunity to engage in new forms of community building and allow the general public to enter their political arena through direct interaction (Gibson, 2015; Gibson et al. 2016). The parties are able to mobilise not only members but also non-members to raise their voice and put forward their opinions on their behalf during elections (Bright et al., 2017 cited Karpf et al). The new resources that such tools generate clearly offer a considerable boost to parties’ capacity to fight and win elections (Lilleker et al., 2017) In order to reach out to the users, the political parties made use of the social media as a powerful tool by sharing video messages only because the broadcasting of any political advertising outside of official party is banned from UK television (GetSet, 2017). The emergence of political attack ads (GetSet, 2017) which was prevalent in the 2016 Presidential campaign was also seen for the first time during the 2017 general elections. The success of the leftist Labour party in UK during the 2017 election on social media and the right Republican party by Donald Trump during 2016 US elections has been given to savvy use of Twitter and the immediate sharing facilities of social media by the leaders and followers (Segesten and Bossetta, 2017). Even the results of the election show how a well-planned social media campaign with a targeted audience can prove beneficial to any political party.   Witnessing the huge reach of social media in the US 2016 GE and UK GE 2017, it can be said that the social media platforms are now providing the politicians a new way of utilising their power. But, it is also to be noted that with social media becoming increasingly crowded and dripped with fake articles and clickbait articles (Polonski, 2017) it gets difficult for many political leaders and parties to build meaningful relationship with the public (Polonski, 2017) The social media especially Twitter brought the volatility and change within the political mobilisation and collective action in the GE 2017 (Margetts, 2017) Twitter is obviously not illustrative of the voters as a whole and along these lines it is not really a clear impression of the many, not the few. While Twitter cant be utilized to anticipate elections and (Cram et al., 2017) the mind-boggling support that GE 2017 saw for Labour and Jeremy Corbyn may not be completely reflected in the polling booths, it is a helpful tool in giving us the mind-set of the individuals who are spurred enough to remark on social media platforms. References: Bartlett, J. and Jones, A. K. (2015) ‘Who won the Twitter election campaign battle?’, The Telegraph, May. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/politics-blog/11590772/Who-won-the-Twitter-campaign-battle.html. Bauchowitz, S. and Hà ¤nska, M. (2017) How the General Election 2017 Campaign is Shaping Up on Twitter, LSE. Available at: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/eurocrisispress/2017/06/05/how-the-general-election-2017-campaign-is-shaping-up-on-twitter/ (Accessed: 1 January 2018). Booth, R. and Hern, A. (2017) Labour won social media election, digital strategists say, The Gaurdian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/09/digital-strategists-give-victory-to-labour-in-social-media-election-facebook-twitter (Accessed: 29 December 2017). Boyle, D. and Maidment, J. (2017) ‘Theresa May announces snap general election on June 8 to â€Å"make a success of Brexit†Ã¢â‚¬â„¢, The Telegraph, April. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/18/breaking-theresa-may-make-statement-downing-street-1115am1/. Bright, J. et al. (2017) ‘Does Campaigning on Social Media Make a Difference? Evidence from candidate use of Twitter during the 2015 and 2017 UK Elections’, (June), pp. 1–33. Available at: http://arxiv.org/abs/1710.07087. Cecil, N. (2017) How Jeremy Corbyn beat Theresa May in the social media election war, Evening Standard. Available at: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/how-jeremy-corbyn-beat-theresa-may-in-the-social-media-election-war-a3564746.html (Accessed: 30 December 2017). Corcoran, L. (2017) Here’s how the UK election is playing out on social media, Newswhip. Available at: http://www.newswhip.com/2017/05/heres-how-the-uk-election-is-playing-out-on-social-media/ (Accessed: 1 January 2018). Crabtree, J. (2017) Facebook is playing a decisive role in UK politics and regulators are starting to take note, CNBC. Available at: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/23/facebook-social-media-influence-on-elections-and-democracy.html (Accessed: 4 January 2018). Cram, L. et al. (2017) ‘UK General Election 2017: a Twitter Analysis’, Neuropolitics Research Lab, 2017, pp. 1–11. Available at: http://arxiv.org/abs/1706.02271. Express (2017) ‘General Election 2017: Labour races into lead over Conservatives’, Sunday Express. Available at: https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/806658/General-Election-Labour-Conservatives-social-media. Gallacher, J. and Kaminska, M. (2017) ‘Facebook needs to be more open about its effect on democracy’, The Guardian, June. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/12/general-election-social-media-facebook-twitter. GetSet (2017) THE IMPACT OF GETTING YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY RIGHT: UK ELECTION 2017, GetSet for Growth. Available at: The impact of getting your social media strategy right: UK Election 2017 (Accessed: 1 January 2018). Hern, A. (2017) Labour dominating election conversation on Twitter, study finds, The Gaurdian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/may/31/labour-dominating-election-conversation-on-twitter-study-finds (Accessed: 29 December 2017). Howard, P. N. et al. (2017) ‘Social Media and News Sources during the 2017 UK General Election’, (JUNE), pp. 1–7. Jensen, M. J. (2016) In the 2015 General Election campaign, politicians used social media to broadcast to voters rather than converse with them, Democratic Audit UK. Available at: http://www.democraticaudit.com/2016/02/02/social-media-and-political-campaigning-a-look-at-the-2015-uk-general-election-campaign/ (Accessed: 03 January 2018). Kentish, B. (2017) ‘Tories â€Å"spent more than  £1m† on negative Facebook adverts attacking Jeremy Corbyn’, Independent, June. Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/conservative-social-media-strategy-attack-jeremy-corbyn-labouir-twitter-facebook-video-stormzy-akala-a7784406.html. Lilleker, D. G. et al. (2017) ‘Social media campaigning in Europe: mapping the terrain’, Journal of Information Technology & Politics. Routledge, 0(0), p. 19331681.2017.1397239. doi: 10.1080/19331681.2017.1397239. Littunen, M. (2017) An analysis of news and advertising in the UK general election, openDemocracyUK. Available at: https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/analysis-of-news-and-advertising-in-uk-general-election (Accessed: 02 January 2018). Margetts, H. (2017) ‘Why Social Media May Have Won the 2017 General Election’, Political Quarterly, 88(3), pp. 386–390. doi: 10.1111/1467-923X.12408. MarketMakers’ (2017) The UK’s most social election yet?, MarketMakers’. Available at: http://www.marketmakers.co.uk/the-uks-most-social-election-yet/ (Accessed: 02 January 2018). Polonski, V. (2017) From voices to votes: how young people used social media to influence the General Election, Election Analysis. Available at: http://www.electionanalysis.uk/uk-election-analysis-2017/section-5-the-digital-campaign/from-voices-to-votes-how-young-people-used-social-media-to-influence-the-general-election/ (Accessed: 02 January 2018). Reid, A. and Ma, A. (2017) ‘Conservatives did not once use social media to encourage voter registration, study finds’, Independent, May. Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/conservatives-voter-registration-social-media-not-use-encourage-facebook-twitter-election-2017-a7756736.html. Reuters (2015) Social media and the 2015 general election, Reuters Institute. Available at: https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/risj-review/social-media-and-2015-general-election (Accessed: 03 January 2018). Segesten, A. D. and Bossetta, M. (2017) ‘A typology of political participation online: how citizens used Twitter to mobilize during the 2015 British general elections’, Information Communication and Society. Taylor & Francis, 20(11), pp. 1625–1643. doi: 10.1080/1369118X.2016.1252413. Shammas, J. (2017) ‘Facebook may have lost Theresa May her majority as young general election voters flooded social media with pro-Labour posts’, The Sun, June. Available at: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3767326/facebook-theresa-may-majority-general-election-voters-pro-labour-posts/. Technology Review (2017) How Tweets Translate into Votes, MIT Technology Review. Available at: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609229/how-tweets-translate-into-votes/ (Accessed: 02 January 2018). Thorsen, E., Jackson, D. and Lilleker, D. (2017) UK Election Analysis 2017: Media, Voters and the Campaign Early reflections from leading academics. Bournemouth: Centre for the Study of Journalism, Culture and Community. Wendling, M. (2017) Election 2017: Was it Facebook wot swung it?, BBC. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-40209711 (Accessed: 02 January 2018). Yaxley, D. (2017) Brits believe traditional media mattered more in the 2017 general election, YouGov UK. Available at: https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/08/04/brits-believe-traditional-media-mattered-more-2017/ (Accessed: 01 January 2018).

Thursday, October 24, 2019

The Active Future as Divine :: Philosophy Religion Papers

The Active Future as Divine Normally, activity is regarded as discernible, but according to relativity theory whatever is discernible lies in the past of the discernible. Only the present subjective immediacy is properly active. Subjectivity is properly understood as present becoming; objectivity as past being (so Whitehead). I propose that we extend the domain of subjective immediacy to include the future as well as the present. This future universal activity is pluralized in the present in terms of the many actualities coming into being. Subjectivity is the individualization of becoming, and so can apply to the future as a whole as well as to particular present subjects. The future as divine grows out of Whitehead's revisions of traditional notions of omnipotence and omniscience. But he separates creativity (best understood in terms of Hindu and Buddhist thought) from the God of Western theism. This separation can be overcome if God is future creativity individualized in its own realm, which is the source of the creativity within each of us. Ordinarily we think of the future as a blank background on which we imaginatively project our plans, hopes and fears. Or we may consider it as a receptacle, passively registering the conditions the present and past lays upon it. Once all these conditions are completed, it comes into being-only then it is no longer future but present. As long as it is still future and still indeterminate, we do not see how it could be active. How could the future actively receive and respond to its world? Besides the ordinary passive future we are all familiar with, I wish to propose a notion of the future which can serve as the appropriate mode of divine activity. First, I need to show how an active future is possible. Then I must try to show that God can be appropriately conceived as the activity of the future. In this account I shall be relying heavily on the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, primarily as found in his main work, Process and Reality (1929). In part I shall be presenting his ideas, while in part I shall be building on them in ways he did not foresee. The future is usually considered to be exclusively passive because it lacks any discernible activity. Most deem whatever discernible activity there is to be present, relegating to the past whatever is no longer active. This makes good sense for those who assume that world is constituted out of enduring substances, but it makes less sense if the world is conceived in terms of events.

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

A Synopsis of the Movie Edward Scissorhands Essay

Edward Scissorhands (1990) tells us a story about an artificial man, Edward ‘Scissorhands’, who was made by a lonely inventor in his mansion atop a hill near a small town. Long after his inventor’s death, Edward is brought into society by Meg, a local resident and encounters many new and interesting things as he attempts to belong in civilization. The text explores concepts of belonging to groups or communities and a sense of belonging in relationships shown by Edward’s endless struggle to find clarity and purpose. A sense of isolation can come from one’s difference to others, whether it be physical, mental or spiritual. Edward’s hands made out of sharp scissors are iconic of his separation from the rest of society. They create a physical barrier between him and others which greatly limits the amount of physical contact Edward can have with others and the rest of the world and in turn creates a sense of isolation. This is carefully and noticea bly communicated by Burton through the use of colour and contrast. Specifically, Edwards initial costume is completely black leather, decorated with metal studs and rings. His hair is jet black and very messy and his face is pale white. This along with Edward’s mansion, a dark place riddled with cobwebs and falling apart, so far away from society, juxtaposes fantastically with the bright and vibrant colours of the town, the houses and the clothes and outfits of the townspeople. He in fact only finds a sense of belonging when he is shown kindness and outreach by Meg. She gives him clothes to wear, which although do not seem to break his theme of darkness and dullness, do still symbolise his inclusion and belonging in their society. She also offers him purpose, letting him use his scissors to trim her garden hedges and in doing this, she turns what Edward, among others, fears to be tools of destruction into tools of creativity and resultantly breaches the barrier between Edward and the world. This gives him a sense of belonging within Meg’s family and the rest of the community. A sense of belonging can also be achieved though relationships with others. Edward finds love when he first lays eyes on Kim, Meg’s daughter. At first she is quite intimidated by Edward and does not quite feel as if he belongs there but she gradually warms to him as everyone else does and shows him deserved kindness, making him feel as if he does belong. However this feeling of connection is eventually lost when Edward is falsely accused by Joyce of sexual harassment and framed for robbery due to his innocence and loyalty to Kim; â€Å"(I did it) because you asked me to.† He is driven out of town after further misunderstandings in which he accidentally hurts few people and it becomes clear that he can’t quite belong their because of the sole fact that the vast majority of the townspeople can’t seems to understand him. His escape from the town and its community is symbolised by Edward tearing off his clothes to reveal his original apparel. Burton uses a motif in the film; the falling of snow-like ice shards as Edward makes ice sculptures with his Scissorhands. This is used to symbolise both Edward’s connection with Kim and his final state and residence in the film. In a key scene, Kim dances under the falling ‘snow’ and this is basically the exact moment she falls for Edward. When he is driven away, he spends his time making sculptures and this has the effect of making snow over the town. Kim as a grandmother tells us â€Å"Before he came down here, it never snowed and after, it did.† The snow is metaphoric of the lack of warmth in his life, as he longs for Kim’s love. Edward’s journey of belonging is full of changes. Through his experiences we can learn and see that one can attempt to belong somewhere, whether they seem to belong there naturally or not but they may not truly succeed.

Tuesday, October 22, 2019

Search for E.T. essays

Search for E.T. essays Can the Earth be the only place in the Universe that harbors life? Most astronomers don't believe this is true. Certain statistics in the Universe provide evidence that living beings may be common place through out the universe, on planets of other stars besides the sun. In this paper I plan to discuss the various viewpoints of those that believe that extraterrestrials exist and have even been visiting Earth, and the viewpoints of skpetics that believe that aliens don't exist and have not been visiting Earth. To get into the topic we must first start at the base of the subject. First the question must be dealt with of life being only indigenous to planet Earth. One of the most basic materials that are essential to form life are basic carbon compounds. These carbon compounds are very abundant throughout the Universe. Carbon compounds exist not only on planets but on comets and free floating asteroids and gas clouds in space. Although, even with the abundance of all these compunds in the Universe the chances of these compounds forming into living beings aren't so great, however it is true that the odds of carbon forming into life sustaining compounds is greatly increased with an increase in time. The Universe works on a basis backward to the human way of thinking. The Universe becomes more orderly with time while we would tend to think that time breaks down structures. This means to us that the chances of life evolving on any part of the Universe increases as time moves forward. Another factor that is necessary for life evolving is a Star's size. Our Sun is a very ordinary star in terms of it size and temperature. Statistics show that there are billions of stars like the sun in our galaxy alone. ( Henbest & Couper, 1989, paragraph 5 ) Life evolving in one of these star systems may have developed in the same way humans have. Philosophers have argued for centures about how to define life. " If we study living things on the Earth, we find...

Monday, October 21, 2019

Political Campaign essays

Political Campaign essays Volunteering for the Joe Birkett Campaign. Our volunteering lead us to the Joe Birkett campaign for Attorney General. Our volunteering all took place on being pollwatchers for the Birkett campaign. This volunteering started the night before when we meet up with the Birkett staff at Hawkeyes Bar and Grill for his rally at night. We received all the documents about being a pollwatcher and filled out all the paperwork for the upcoming day. We learned the rules as to what to do and what not to do and along with being at the rally were able to get our picture taken with Mr. Birkett. So the following day we were at a Birkett office on 111th street where we received our tasks for the day. It seemed that there were a lot of problems with voter fraud in the 3rd, 15th and 21st precincts and we were to go to the polling places and observe the election judges. Being a largely Democratic region we were told just to call the cops if we had any problems whereas a pollwatcher was threatened earlier. This brought about the most valuab le lesson from the whole campaigning assignment, in that individuals are very serious about voting. We never realized it in that we have been voting since we were given the right, and you don't see it when you go in to vote. But when you show up supporting a Republican campaign in a largely Democratic region, you realize how serious the election really is. So going to the 15th precinct first on 59th and Pulaski, we came across problems in we thought were propaganda being closer than the 100 linear feet from the door. But as one of the election judges pointed out to us, they measured it from the furthest inside door and showed that it was within the legal limits. At all the polling places we were to visit we were supposed to take a count with number voting, spoiled ballets, and absentee ballets. So we placed a Joe Birkett sign next to the Lisa Madigan sign and were off after a while of watching several doze...

Sunday, October 20, 2019

The Significance of the House in Beloved essays

The Significance of the House in Beloved essays In Toni Morrisons Beloved, the house is an important presence throughout the novel; it is present as a symbol in most of the significant events that occur within it. This novel taken on a gothic dimension, in that the house is portrayed as a character. Its personality becomes similar to those of its inhabitants; the house takes on their psychological conditions, and the surrounding societys culture and history. In a general sense, the house changes along with the fortune of its inhabitants; it is a living, growing force present as a backdrop and a unifier to the events of the novel Beloved. In the beginning of the novel, when the house is described as being spiteful, full of a babys venom, it is referring to the way the house takes on the character of the ghost. The character of the time also affects the house-Baby Suggs comments how every house out there in America is built on the bones and blood of slaves, in part referring to the way the growth of American society at that time was driven by slavery. The house symbolizes a history that must be confronted, because the past cannot be escaped. Especially evident when Paul D first walks into the house, is the evil that has been stewing for centuries of impressments and injustices. He realizes the extent of the strangeness of the house and Sethe herself. What Stamp Paid later tells him about her history only confirms it, and makes the emotional and psychological weight too much for him to handle. On the other hand, for Denver, the house in which she lives is a comfort. The house is her life, and when Paul D first arrives, he disrupts the delicate balance of solitary existence with the house and causes Denvers breakdown. He invades her relationship with the house-especially when he throws the ghost out of the house-just as Beloved invades Denvers relationship towards her mother. When Denver approaches the house, she does it as if she is a...

Saturday, October 19, 2019

Lockerbie Blast Culprit Freed Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Lockerbie Blast Culprit Freed - Assignment Example The Scottish government made a unilateral decision to release Megrahi, who was received with immense jubilation and festivity in Libya. Mr. Gaddafi, the Libyan president, received him personally.   John F. Kerry said Merahi’s release â€Å"turned the word ‘compassion’ on its head† (Adam, 2009).A lot of distaste and anger over Mr. Megrahi’s unprecedented release was exhibited across the geographical divide, but great fury was observed in the US, which has regarded as outrageous and disgusting the frenzy with which the bomber convict was received in Libya. In a special report to The Washington Post, Adam reported how the family members of the victims reacted towards this eventuality. A case in point among many is that of Glenn Johnson, the father of Beth Ann, who died on her way home from London where she was studying, said in an interview that he was just devastated as a person who killed 270 people and had no compassion for them, could be given com passion. He termed it as ‘another tragedy’ that families had to suffer. A 57-year-old Libyan Abdel Basset Ali-Megrahi who was convicted for this terrorist attack and sentenced to serve 27 years of a life sentence was released on grounds of compassion that he is dying from prostate cancer.ConclusionThe Scotland government, through her justice secretary MacAskill, subverted justice by releasing Abdel Basset Ali-Magrahi back to Libya and considering that this was a heinous crime, in fact, first class terrorism, the embittered parties has express right to vie an appeal.

Friday, October 18, 2019

Challenges And Benefits Of Mammalian Cloning Essay

Challenges And Benefits Of Mammalian Cloning - Essay Example This is indeed, far from reality! Daily life experiences we go through and the environment we are brought up in play a decisive role in making us what we are irrespective of our genetic similarity with a parent or a sibling. Another big challenge in the way of mammalian cloning is the widespread conception among people that cloned mammals are perfect and that all weaknesses have been weeded out from them. This, again is nothing more than another theory about mammalian cloning that is frequently referred to by the opponents of cloning. Last, but not the least, mammalian cloning is threatened by people’s religious beliefs and practices. Practicing people from many religions are simply against the idea of mammalian cloning because they consider it to be fundamentally the expertise of God, and believe that no human can or should make an attempt to cross the limits. Although many of the generally believed theories about mammalian cloning are far from reality, yet they have posed ma ny hurdles in the way of research and development in the field of mammalian cloning and implementation of the techniques thus found. Benefits: According to Dr. Richard Seed who is a leading proponent of the technology of mammalian cloning, knowledge about cloning has been developed to such an extent that methods may soon be developed that would not only retard the process of aging in mammals, but also reverse it (â€Å"Benefits Of Human†).

Relationship between Stock Market Prices and Macroeconomic Variables Essay

Relationship between Stock Market Prices and Macroeconomic Variables - Essay Example This is an indication that the indexes will rely majorly on the stock prices of the major companies in the capital market. Therefore most financial experts like relying on this index as it is closer to representing the real market. According to Madura (2008, pg 347), the index is calculated by considering the stock price of five hundred biggest companies in the market. It explains that the companies are selected based on their market capitalization. To understand this dynamic relation the relation between the stock price and the variables in the macro economy, a clear and incisive analysis of the effects of these variables on the financial markets is required. This paper examines some of the relationships between the stock prices and market indices and the variables of the macroeconomic environment within economies of countries like the United States and England. Â  The GDP of a nation covers all the products and services produced in a single financial year. In Berezina (2012) opinion, it covers the entire products, from the smallest item to the largest possible item and services purchased by the consumers in this economy. It notes that investors pay keen attention to indicators of sustainable growth in the GDP of an economy to make decisions on investment. When the report shows that there is growth in GDP, many investors will be attracted to the economy. This translates to higher stock prices as investors rush to acquire stakes in companies within these economies. In the absence of growth, the investor confidence is low and the stock prices are likely to slump. This is usually reflected in the performance of the index of the market. Analysts believe that the performance of a market over a financial year will reflect the overall performance in GDP. For instance, Madura (2008) explains that economic factors that affect the stock prices includ e indicators like GDP (Madura 2008, pg 270).

Controversy between Safe and Pure Drinking Water Essay

Controversy between Safe and Pure Drinking Water - Essay Example Health impacts of some of the contaminants in drinking water are not clear; however, the availability of contaminants does not always mean that they will harm an individual’s health. The basis for determining safe drinking water is the national or international guideline, with the significant one being the WHO guideline for quality of drinking water. Drinking water can be obtained from two basic sources, which include surface water like reservoirs and rivers, and groundwater. Water has natural contaminants, especially inorganic contaminants from geological strata upon which water flows, and different microorganisms and chemical pollution. Generally, ground water is less susceptible to pollution compared to surface waters that are prone to various sources of fabricated contaminants. Moreover, in case there are no improved water management, the unhealthy residues of substances used in its treatment can lead to pollution, giving rise to presence of deposits in water pipes. In add ition, contamination of drinking water can occur during the distribution of water arising from materials like iron, which corrodes and releases iron oxides into the supply system. Diffusion process taking place in plastic pipes may result in contamination of drinking water; for example, split oil in the surrounding area may result in water problems concerning its taste and smell. Drinking water treatment applied in public water supply includes a series of treatments that vary in accordance with the requirements of supply and nature and susceptibility of the source. Water treatments comprises of systems that coagulate, flocculate, filter and oxidise drinking water. The common oxidative disinfectant is chlorine and it provides effective and robust protection against pathogens. Standards upon which the safety of drinking water is gauged are revised regularly and supported by detailed documents that describe the various aspects of safety (Larason). Pathogen contamination of drinking wat er causes diarrhoea disease and is a significant characteristic of the drinking water quality. This problem is a result of water contamination by faecal substance, particularly human faecal substance comprising of pathogenic organisms. Many regions in developing countries, pathogens remain a significant cause disease. Therefore, breaking the faecal-oral cycle is crucial by preventing the entry of faecal matter into water sources and treating drinking water in order to kill pathogens. Nevertheless, such approach needs to function alongside hygiene practices like hand washing, which helps reduce the chances of person-to-person infection. Detecting and enumerating pathogens in water is not appropriate in many circumstances because of the difficulties and resources necessary; therefore, only two kinds of pathogen are used as indicators for faecal contamination. There is the assumption that once the indicators are detected, pathogens like viruses could be presents; thus, the appropriate action is necessary. Nevertheless, the time taken in analysing the sample means that if there is contamination then, the contaminated water will get to the consumers and probably it will be consumed by the time the analysis results are obtained. Moreover, the small volume of water sample implies that monitoring is not adequate for ensuring safe drinking water (Workshop on Emerging Drinking Water Contaminants, National Research Council 202). The most serious contaminants of water are chemicals that occur naturally and they are found in groundwater. Waterborne contaminants bring about disease in

Thursday, October 17, 2019

Ahad Ha'am's Idea of the Spiritual Center Research Paper

Ahad Ha'am's Idea of the Spiritual Center - Research Paper Example He is also known as the founder of Cultural Zionism and strived for "a Jewish state and not merely a state of Jews.† He left an extensive impact on Hebrew culture, with his equivocal political imprint. The collection of his essays comprises of the four-volume ‘Al Parashat Derakhim (At the Crossroads; 1895–1914), remain among the most influential ever written by a modern Jewish intellectual. The leading figures of twentieth-century Judaism labelled him as a ‘prime inspiration’. They include Israel’s first president Chaim Weizmann, Hebrew University chancellor Judah Magnes, poet Hayim Nahman Bialik, Kabbalah scholar Gershom Scholem, and theologian Martin Buber. Ahad Ha’am's idea was his most famous; this was known as cultural Zionism. It was based on the establishment of small settlements in Palestine which aimed at resuscitating the Jewish spirit and culture in the modern world. According to Rabbi Dr. Louis Jacobs, Ginsberg saw what he cal led "absolute spirituality" (ruhani ha muhlat) as the very essence of Judaism, which had always set its face against material concepts of the divine. In the vision of cultural Zionism, a small number of Jewish cadres speaking Hebrew as well as who were well-versed in Jewish culture would settle in Palestine.

Recommendation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 2

Recommendation - Essay Example Moreover, the availability of the loans could lead to high prices for the autos hence putting the consumer at a disadvantage. The paper presents the following recommendations to solve the issues presented in the case. The first recommendation is for the banks to reduce the period of repayment of the loan. The longer the period, the higher the risk because the political or economic environment may change over time. Another option on the same is to charge high interest rates on longer years of repayment and low interest rates on few years. By so doing, the consumers will be prompted to go for the fewer years and be sensitive to borrowing that will reduce their borrowing rate. The banks, on the other hand will also be able to get profits within a short period of time and be less vulnerable for offering the loans on a short term basis. Another recommendation is for the banks to base their lending on the payment history of the customers if they had previously borrowed the loans. However, for the new customers, the banks should relate lending to the income and payment abilities of consumers. Considering such elements will lead balance between the banks and their clients. The customers will not be strained to pay the loans while the banks will have a higher surety that the loans will be paid. Another recommendation to solve the problem is based on the root cause of high lending rates. The banks are said to be lending largely due recovery from to a recession period where many of them made big loses. Therefore, this paper recommends that such situation can be solved by government involvement. Government involvement, either through direct involvement or subsidies, could offer financial support to the banks or do away with the need for them to largely lend in order to increase the number of sales. It will also reduce the amount of borrowing from the public. Finally, instead of high lending rates, car scrapping

Wednesday, October 16, 2019

Controversy between Safe and Pure Drinking Water Essay

Controversy between Safe and Pure Drinking Water - Essay Example Health impacts of some of the contaminants in drinking water are not clear; however, the availability of contaminants does not always mean that they will harm an individual’s health. The basis for determining safe drinking water is the national or international guideline, with the significant one being the WHO guideline for quality of drinking water. Drinking water can be obtained from two basic sources, which include surface water like reservoirs and rivers, and groundwater. Water has natural contaminants, especially inorganic contaminants from geological strata upon which water flows, and different microorganisms and chemical pollution. Generally, ground water is less susceptible to pollution compared to surface waters that are prone to various sources of fabricated contaminants. Moreover, in case there are no improved water management, the unhealthy residues of substances used in its treatment can lead to pollution, giving rise to presence of deposits in water pipes. In add ition, contamination of drinking water can occur during the distribution of water arising from materials like iron, which corrodes and releases iron oxides into the supply system. Diffusion process taking place in plastic pipes may result in contamination of drinking water; for example, split oil in the surrounding area may result in water problems concerning its taste and smell. Drinking water treatment applied in public water supply includes a series of treatments that vary in accordance with the requirements of supply and nature and susceptibility of the source. Water treatments comprises of systems that coagulate, flocculate, filter and oxidise drinking water. The common oxidative disinfectant is chlorine and it provides effective and robust protection against pathogens. Standards upon which the safety of drinking water is gauged are revised regularly and supported by detailed documents that describe the various aspects of safety (Larason). Pathogen contamination of drinking wat er causes diarrhoea disease and is a significant characteristic of the drinking water quality. This problem is a result of water contamination by faecal substance, particularly human faecal substance comprising of pathogenic organisms. Many regions in developing countries, pathogens remain a significant cause disease. Therefore, breaking the faecal-oral cycle is crucial by preventing the entry of faecal matter into water sources and treating drinking water in order to kill pathogens. Nevertheless, such approach needs to function alongside hygiene practices like hand washing, which helps reduce the chances of person-to-person infection. Detecting and enumerating pathogens in water is not appropriate in many circumstances because of the difficulties and resources necessary; therefore, only two kinds of pathogen are used as indicators for faecal contamination. There is the assumption that once the indicators are detected, pathogens like viruses could be presents; thus, the appropriate action is necessary. Nevertheless, the time taken in analysing the sample means that if there is contamination then, the contaminated water will get to the consumers and probably it will be consumed by the time the analysis results are obtained. Moreover, the small volume of water sample implies that monitoring is not adequate for ensuring safe drinking water (Workshop on Emerging Drinking Water Contaminants, National Research Council 202). The most serious contaminants of water are chemicals that occur naturally and they are found in groundwater. Waterborne contaminants bring about disease in

Tuesday, October 15, 2019

Recommendation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 2

Recommendation - Essay Example Moreover, the availability of the loans could lead to high prices for the autos hence putting the consumer at a disadvantage. The paper presents the following recommendations to solve the issues presented in the case. The first recommendation is for the banks to reduce the period of repayment of the loan. The longer the period, the higher the risk because the political or economic environment may change over time. Another option on the same is to charge high interest rates on longer years of repayment and low interest rates on few years. By so doing, the consumers will be prompted to go for the fewer years and be sensitive to borrowing that will reduce their borrowing rate. The banks, on the other hand will also be able to get profits within a short period of time and be less vulnerable for offering the loans on a short term basis. Another recommendation is for the banks to base their lending on the payment history of the customers if they had previously borrowed the loans. However, for the new customers, the banks should relate lending to the income and payment abilities of consumers. Considering such elements will lead balance between the banks and their clients. The customers will not be strained to pay the loans while the banks will have a higher surety that the loans will be paid. Another recommendation to solve the problem is based on the root cause of high lending rates. The banks are said to be lending largely due recovery from to a recession period where many of them made big loses. Therefore, this paper recommends that such situation can be solved by government involvement. Government involvement, either through direct involvement or subsidies, could offer financial support to the banks or do away with the need for them to largely lend in order to increase the number of sales. It will also reduce the amount of borrowing from the public. Finally, instead of high lending rates, car scrapping

Visions for International Education Essay Example for Free

Visions for International Education Essay Klafki introduces terms like increasing interrelations, mutual dependencies, fate of all continents, cultures, states and societies when addressing the core problems our modern world faces at the turn of the century. A world, which has shrunk since the tunes of Walt Disney’s â€Å"It’s a small world after all†¦..[1]†, and in the aftermath of wars, trade and spheres of progress – appears to be closely knit. The points he makes are very clear through the discussion on 6 complexes of development, though you could look at them solitarily, they are very much intermeshed, as he points out. The entwinement of both individual capabilities and society focus, is very evident in all 6 points, be it: information availability or existential necessity. I couldn’t agree more; unfortunately conflicts exist in our own society, while promoting and claiming a route of tolerance and inclusion on one hand, we wish to be selective and limit the amount of â€Å"fugitives† we can accommodate annually, on the other. First, Klafki approaches education and educational science from a universal standing, where conditioning and development have to have common ground globally. There are many perspectives to developing knowledge and awareness and students of the future need to have an international stance to problems at a very early age. Although he tends to draw a very utopian picture, he keeps focus through his discussion with five key issues towards implementation and involvement. First key issue is â€Å"the problem of peace† and its educational value, as he addresses it, which consists of two main elements: 1. Macro-sociological and macro-political causes of threats to peace or of wars. 2. Moral justification for wars if there are any. The second key issue, he reflects upon, is that of â€Å"environment†, again globally and in conjunction to â€Å"accountability and controllability of scientific-technological development† he addresses the possible need to assist the lesser developed countries in global interest by removing blatant inequality through insight to First world knowledge. An excellent point and one very much current through efforts like movements such as â€Å"Camp for Climate Action[2]†. Klafki makes points on 3 main tasks for dealing with this global initiative towards educating the youth of tomorrow about the environment: 1. Awareness of ecological obligations and the consequences of unchecked tech-eco development. 2. Appreciation of developing energy-saving and environmentally sound consumer behavior. 3. Realization of maintaining, monitoring and further development of initiatives at an international and local level: glocal commitments. Third key issue addresses the inequality which certainly exists within societies and internationally between social classes, gender, employed/unemployed. He points out that at a national level and where the task of inter-cultural education really poses itself, is between a countrys foreign nationalities and even between them and the native population. The fourth key issues, as he puts it, are threats and opportunities amidst a vast and evolving field of new technical control, information and communications media. These tools should be embraced critically and included in any form that can boost education, while weighing the pros and cons of their effect on the user, through both possible social consequence and media misuse. Nay to both euphoria and phobia, but involve them in furthering didactic concepts in the classroom. His fifth and final key issue is on inter-personal engagement, involvement, recognition and responsibility: I-You relationships are central and enlightenment is very much the field for this issue. Now just because we are able to agree across the board on these issues being the basis, problems are not solved, because enlightenment is simply our first global quest. We need to maintain concentration on the key issues to succeed at the international level of education and promote discussion and debate via national curricula. In fact, if we are merely able to promote the significance of these key issues, then solutions can be nationally various and toned, as long as they are based in general for those who are potentially concerned. Soundly enough we also need to address four fundamental attitudes and abilities, which can assist in our quest towards global teachings and classroom practices: 1. Ability to criticize: as well as receive by furthering a point, suggestion or solution. 2. Ability to argue: to contribute to a better-founded insight on all angles of cognition. 3. Empathy: in understanding a counterpart – even if a solution is far from the scope. 4. Networked thought: interrelationships that connect everything with everything. Even after all of these discussions, it boils down to time and teaching – planning and teams. There is a clear necessity to organise and discuss reform: 1. How should class activity be blocked for lessons? 2. Should lessons be in 45 minute intervals or 2 hours? 3. The responsibility of the teaching team and its structure: How much or how little? These are simple questions and a minute contribution which need to be addressed, if there is to be any fruitful outcome through this process. The interrelated educational principles of exemplary teaching and learning, method oriented learning, action-oriented teaching and co-operative learning, all need a more fluid approach. Mutual trust is a necessity and with a realistic approach to implementation and evaluation we are well on our way – whether it seems utopian or not.

Monday, October 14, 2019

Defining And Analysing Emotional Labor Philosophy Essay

Defining And Analysing Emotional Labor Philosophy Essay Emotional labor is the control of a persons behavior to display the appropriate emotions. This means that if a person wants to conform to social norms it will have to show certain emotions. The concept of emotional labor affects every aspect of life. This paper will examine emotional labor in service industries. Definition Arlie Hochschild defined for the first time the term of emotional labor as the work done with feelings as paid employment. Hochschild pointed out that people control their emotions at work and in the private life. Whenever someone changes something in order to conform to an ideal, something that every human being does, it is emotional labor. Another definition comes from Chu and it says that emotional labor is the control of a persons behavior to display the appropriate emotions. For example, if you are a customer service representative, the 80th person asking the same question must be answered as thoroughly as you served the first person. Otherwise, you are not doing your job of providing customer service because that 80th person has no idea that youve answered the same question 50 times. They just need an answer. The jobs requiring emotional labor are either face-to-face or have voice contact. It has been proved that people can feel if the person at the other end of the line is smiling. Attitudes and behaviors at work An individuals belief about job, working place or working team is shaped by emotions. Emotions affect behaviors at work. Research shows that individuals that are within your inner circle are better able to recognize and understand your emotions. The connection between emotions and emotional labor can be explained by the Affective Events Theory. Howard Weiss and Russell Cropanzano are the researchers that have studied the effect of six major emotions categories in the workplace. These are anger, fear, joy, love, sadness and surprise. Their theory states that specific events that take place in the workplace cause people to feel different emotions. These emotions can be good for the job, for instance by inspiring actions that can benefit others, but it could also be bad, by inspiring actions that could impede others. For example, imagine that a coworker unexpectedly delivers your coffee at work. As a result you may feel happy and surprised. If that coworker is your boss you would probably feel proud. Studies have found that positive emotions at the workplace may inspire you to do things that you hadnt planned to do before. Such things could be volunteering to help a colleague with a project. On the other side if you were unfairly treated by your boss you could experience negative emotions that could make you withdraw from work or act mean towards a colleague. Over time, these tiny moments of emotion on the job can influence a persons job satisfaction. Hochschilds types of emotional acting There are three types of emotional acting: surface acting, deep acting and genuine acting. Surface acting is expressing an emotion without actually feeling that emotion. This is the most concerned type of emotional acting in the workplace because it has the most side effects. Surface acting most often involves putting all the negative emotions, such as anger, annoyance, sadness, etc. behind and substitute them with positive emotions, such as happiness, excitement, care, etc. because the customers expect it. For example the hairdresser of a crying child cutting its hair off may smile and act sympathetic without actually feeling so. Deep acting takes surface acting one step forward. This time, instead of faking an emotion because someone expects it, an employee will try to experience the emotions they are displaying. In the case of the hairdresser cutting the hair off a crying child, the hairdresser may empathize with the child by thinking what its like to be in the childs shoes. In this case the hairdresser might understand that the child is scared being in an unfamiliar environment and the hairdresser may genuinely feel sad for the child. Genuine acting happens when individuals are asked to display emotions that are aligned with their own. If a job requires genuine acting less emotional labor is required because the actions represent the individuals true feelings. In conclusion, when it comes to acting the genuine your actions are the less emotional labor a job requires and the more your actions in the surface acting part are the more emotional labor a job requires. The feeling rules In order to understand emotional labor we have to see what determines the correct emotional response to a situation. In Hochschilds book is being described a set of feeling rules, which Ashfort and Humphrey also called the display rules, rules that people use in order to identify what is the appropriate behavior. These feeling rules describe what the correct response for a work situation is and they can either be part of the job training or just manners. Most big companies usually have a set of policies that teach the employees how to conduct with customers. This case is about the written feeling rules. A good example for written feeling rules is McDonalds that encourages sincerity and enthusiasm but also a sense of humor in their service personnel. But most of the feeling rules are unwritten as in the case of manners. The feeling rules are also connected with the cultural background. For example if two managers from different cultures meet they both act correctly for their cultures point of view but they could very easily offend the other one accidentally. In the Australian work place people would generally be polite and show respect regardless of how the interlocutor reacts. The most evident moment when emotional labor occurs is when something goes wrong and the customers are unhappy and dissatisfied for a number of reasons. In most situations the employee should remain calm and polite even if the customer irritates or upsets the employee, as the case of most situations. This is the form of self control and the feeling rules are very important in these situations because the employees know they must be polite. Ashforth and Humphrey define ten dimension that include trustworthiness, courtesy, approachability and understanding, a set of feeling rules by which employees operate, whilst the customers expect good service. The expectation of each dimension changes with the customers moods. But it is also possible that the customer has expectations that are unreal and cannot be satisfied. In this situation even if the employee works according to the feeling rules, the customer would not be satisfied. Some service industries such as flight attendants, medical professionals or call center operators are the subject of higher expectations. These service industries are the ones that spend a lot of time interacting with people. This interaction includes the customers expectation to good service. For example good service from a flight attendant includes politeness, a caring attitude and happiness. The feeling rules would have to change according to the age of the passengers. For instance, a flight attendant will have to behave differently to a child, a teenager, their grandparents, etc. People decide according to the feeling rules how to correct emotional response to a situation. But if something goes wrong in this system there are harmful consequences for the individual. The aims of emotional labor The main aim of emotional labor is a positive affective display in service interactions, such as smiling, politeness, friendliness, which are positively associated with important customer outcomes, such as intention to return, intention to recommend a store to others and the image of overall service quality. Dealing with emotional labor All service industries are connected to interaction with customers. These jobs require the employee to be nice and polite to the customer no matter how the customer treats him. This may lead in time to negative effects. Sandi Mann discusses in his book that having to manage your emotions in such way may lead to work stress. This stress may cause hypertension, heart diseases, even exacerbate cancer. This is because people usually tend to surface act. Surface acting can cause detachment from own emotions and individuals may suffer, as a result, burnout that may lead to dissatisfaction with the quality of work completed and doubt the effectiveness, this leading the sufferer to leave the job. So imagine the case of a stewardess. If care and friendliness is completely lost due to emotional stress, burnout or so on, the key element of the job will be gone and the customers expectations will not be met. As consequence, customers will not come back and they will probably not recommend the airline anymore. These serious side effects are most concern of human resource management. Human resources can prevent this emotional cycle by using different methods in different situations. There is necessary to develop strategies in order to avoid problems with the employees. There are two types of strategies: organizational and individual strategies. Organizational strategies Some of the strategies that the management can use within a whole organization in order to reduce stress and therefore to avoid surface acting are as follows. First of all, the management can organize meetings with the employees to discuss the extent of stress and to find out if stress is widely spread in their company. Additionally, by debriefing the employees a company can prove for stress-causing factors and so, conduct a survey and inspect the workplace for stress causing factors. Another important aspect is to improve communication by hiring trained professionals or supervisors for the employees to talk to when they experience negative events so that they can receive advice to identify surface acting and receive good feeling rules by which to operate. Also in order to help the employees a company can use hotlines where the employees can call if they have problems. A company can also improve job and organizational design in order to prevent stress-causing factors. For instance, a company can offer babysitters, cooking courses so that all the employees could come together and have some fun. Individual strategies There are also strategies for individuals, especially because employees tend to stress themselves out. To avoid this, they can do some physical exercises, in order to be active and to reduce stress symptoms. Also, hobbies are very good to find relaxation and amusement. Additionally meditation is a good tool to gain inner peace and harmony, two basic elements for protection against stress. To conclude, an assertiveness training gives the employee the chance to develop self-confidence and self-awareness so that the employees are able to establish themselves and to become accepted in the working group. In order to apply everything stated in this paper we decided to take the example of emotional labor and Santa Clause. Christmas exemplifies consumerism in western society and it is a period of traditional ritual activities. All over the world Christmas themed services tend to encourage fantasy that lead to enjoyment of the customer. The center of the store has the purpose to enhance the buying experience and increase the probability of purchase. The provision of a warm, emotional delivery by an employee, as observed by Sutton and Rafaeli, promotes sales when customers expect to receive such individual friendliness. Therefore in order for the customers to feel good, the presence of Santa Clause in the store becomes a seasonal public relations addition for the image of a shopping center. Santa is a specialist public relations agent whose image relates to good looks, good sounds and good character. For children and adults, a visit to Santa is part of the Christmas ritual. A Santa interacts with individuals and in his work he has to deliver a personal performance of generosity and happiness. In order to be a Santa Clause people usually have to attend a Santa School. In this school the actors will learn some rules about how to be a Santa. One of the most important rules a Santa has to know is that he is not allowed to talk about politics, religion and life. In the Santa School the personality, experience and values of the actor are being mediated. This is because a Santa usually gets visited by all sorts of persons. Each visit is unique and the Santa needs to know how to handle it. He also requires independence of thought and action in order to be able to address to all possible variations of topics and ages of the visitors. In addition, a Santa also learns that he is not allowed to make promises and must know the attributes of all current popular toys so that he can look authentic. When Santa actors are comfortable with their roles, the case of volunteering being a Santa, it takes very little effort to shape feelings as they are similar with their own feeling. But nowadays there are a lot of people that must do this job in order to get paid. So the people that havent asked to do this job. And to those people the emotional labor required is huge. They always have to put a smiley face and be nice, because most of the visitors are children and they can get hurt very fast. So applying a part of the things that weve pointed out in our paper would probably motivate the Santa employee and makes this job easier. Conclusion Emotional labor is the control of ones behavior to display appropriate emotions. Feeling rules help to execute it. Surface acting happens when an individual has to fake emotions leading to health issues, such as frustration, burn-out, depression or emotional exhaustion. Deep acting happens when an individual actually feels that emotion. Human Resources Management can prevent these problems by using different strategies such as employing trained professionals or supervisors. It must be pointed out that Human Resource Management has to make emotional labor to a source of job satisfaction and to enable the employees to act deeper. All in all we believe that everyone in the sphere of action should deeply think about their own behavior and reactions in order develop self-awareness, and further to develop social awareness, so that individuals can become aware of others needs and wants. To sum it up it is a big problem for the management to deal with emotional labor because for one working in a company and doing the same thing every day it will end up feeling like a routine that leads to surface acting.

Sunday, October 13, 2019

Constructivism Essay -- Philosophy Philosophical Learning Essays

Constructivism What is constructivism? Constructivism is a philosophy of learning that "refers to the idea that learners construct knowledge for themselves---each learner individually (and socially) constructs meaning---as he or she learns (Hein, 1991, p.1). In other words, "students construct their own knowledge based on their existing schemata and beliefs"(Airasian & Walsh, 1997, p.1) Constructivists deny the existence of one "true" body of knowledge that exists independently of the learners and espouse the idea that "there is no knowledge independent of the meaning attributed to experience (constructed) by the learner, or community of learners (Hein, 1991, p.1). Knowledge is "a personal and social construction of meaning out of the bewildering array of sensations which have no order or structure besides the explanations...which we [the learners] fabricate for them (Hein, 1991, p.1). To construct a meaning to the philosophy of constructivism, the misunderstandings of constructivism, its value in the world of teaching, a nd its influence in instructional technology will be discussed. Misunderstandings lead to an Understanding Because constructivism is sometimes viewed as a new pedagogy rather than a new philosophy of learning, many incorrect assumptions are made about its implications and applications to learning and the learners. By examining some of the misunderstandings surrounding constructivism, one can gain an understanding of the nature of constructivism and how its implications can be successfully applied to teaching. The first myth of constructivism is that "students should always be actively and reflectively constructing"(Clements, 1997, p.1). The constructivists view learning as "an active process i... ...The fallacy of constructivism. Clio, 24(3), 4 pages. Available at: Galileo Periodical Abstracts. Hein, George E. (1991, October). Constructivist learning theory: the museum and the needs of people. Paper presented at the CECA Conference in Jerusalem, Israel. Kamii, Constance and Janice K. Ewing. (1996). Basic teaching on Piaget’s constructivism. Childhood Education, 72(5), 4 pages. Available at: Galileo Periodical Abstracts. Lunenberg, Fred C. (1998, June). Constructivism and technology: instructional designs for successful education reform. Journal of Instructional Technology, 25(2), p. 75- 82. o’Donnell, Angela M. (June, 1997). Constructivism by design and in practice: a review. Issues in Education, 3(2), p. 285-294. Wilson, Brent G. (1997, March). Reflections on constructivism and instructional design. Instructional Development Paradigms, 18 pages.

Saturday, October 12, 2019

Pushing the Gender Boundaries in Sports :: Expository Essays

Pushing the Gender Boundaries in Sports When women and men participate in sports dominated by the opposite gender there is often overwhelming objection to individuals defying the norm. Often women are the people who attempt to participate in so called non-traditional sports. But just as importantly, men are struggling against a similar resistance. An example of this is when men participate on field hockey teams dominated by women, creating positive and negative implications to the game and also socially. However, individuals who make the move across gender boundaries in any sport are helping pave the way for equality in a sector of our society that is still bound to traditional sex roles. Historically field hockey was introduced in the United States to women. However, the game that originated in Europe and is played virtually all over the world is also played by men. The anomaly of only women playing field hockey is just an issue in the US and has lead to the recent controversy of men participating on all female teams from elementary school to the college level. Although title IX requires that equal opportunity for participating in sports be given to both males and females, the debate on the costs and benefits of this statute is still heated. Those who oppose men participating in field hockey claim that their presence on the field will change the nature of the "women's" game. The greater strength of men could make the game more aggressive or even violent, and potentially overpower the female athletes who are participating along their side. There has been a valid and long-standing claim, stating that female participation in sports provides an arena where girls and women can become empowered and gain confidence to face life's battles. Many people see men as a threat to this value suggesting that a mans presence on the field could intimidate the women, thereby dominating the game, and taking away a safe place for girls to grow and find their own strengths. Another argument in opposition to men participating in field hockey, as well as other female dominated sports is aligned with the idea of equality. It is suggested that despite title IX, females have yet to gain gender equality and are still not given the benefits that their male counterparts receive. Therefore, male participation in the traditionally female sports would be giving men opportunities that women are still fighting for.

Friday, October 11, 2019

A Book Review of Native Son by Richard Wright

Strong interest in Wright's life, his work, and his influence continues in the 1980s and 1990s, although with not quite the same emphasis as in the preceding four decades. The focus of attention has shifted somewhat, with studies of Wright's political vision diminishing and analyses of his craftsmanship and literary sources increasing.The great majority of scholars and critics during this period are in general agreement about the centrality of Wright's position in African-American letters and his great importance in American and modern traditions, although some reappraisal of a negative sort has also developed, especially among those expressing dissatisfaction with Wright's portrayal of female characters.And with the publication in 1991 of the Library of America editions of Wright's major work, the critical response to Wright has entered an important new phase in which fundamental questions are now being raised about which texts are the most authentic representations of Wright's actu al intentions and which texts are highest in literary quality.Wright's achievement in Native Son was not only to project the experience of American black people, in all its raw brutality but also to form it into a rich, coherent, balanced vision of life. Wright attracted in some ways to Western culture because of its tradition of Enlightenment rationalism that promises political freedom to oppressed people. Wright was deeply suspicious of other aspects of the West, especially its history of racism.Although characters like Bigger Thomas are initially described as alienated from both self and community, they experience genuine selfhood and become a participant in the life of the spirit by establishing kinship with others. I envision Bigger Thomas as caught between these two opposite qualities of Western culture, for he is both victimized by Western racism and also achieves selfhood in a very Western way through â€Å"revolutionary will, individualism and self consciousness† (p. 311).The slum conditions of the South Side so vividly portrayed in Native Son had been the daily reality of a decade in Wright life ( 1927- 1937). He had lived in a cramped and dirty flat with his aunt, mother, and brother. He had visited hundreds of similar dwellings while working as an insurance agent.The details of the Chicago environment in the novel have a verisimilitude that is almost photographic. The â€Å"Ernie's Kitchen Shack† of the novel, located at Forty-Seventh Street and Indiana Avenue, for example, is a slight disguise for an actual restaurant called â€Å"The Chicken Shack,† 4647 Indiana Avenue, of which one Ernie Henderson was owner. Similar documentary accuracy is observed throughout the book.Wright drives his story forward at a furious yet skillfully controlled pace. The full drama is unfolded in just about two weeks. There is first of all the prophetic killing of a rat in the room where Bigger, his mother, his sister and his brother live in quarre ling, desperate squalor.Then Bigger, who has a bad name as a braggart living by shady devices, goes out to meet the poolroom gang environment provides. He plans a hold-up he is afraid to carry out. To hide his cowardice he terrorizes one of his friends.You see his character. That is the point. Wright is champion of a race, not defender of an individual wrongdoer. Bigger gets a job as chauffeur in the house of Mr. Dalton, who is a philanthropist toward Negroes and owner of many Negro tenements. Mary Dalton, the daughter of the house, and her friend Jan, a supernally noble radical, make him drink with them. Through an accident, Bigger kills Mary Dalton.That is the first murder. There is a gruesome dismemberment to hide the crime. Bigger thinks of demanding money, and makes his girl, Bessie, help him. His crime is discovered. After that there is the flight, the second murder, deliberate and brutal, the manhunt spreading terror over the whole South Side, then the spectacular capture and the day of reckoning in court for all concerned.Apart from the ideas that give it volume, force and scope, Native Son has some magnificently realized scenes: in the early part, where Bigger, a stranger and afraid, as Houseman said, in a world he never made, gropes for freedom from the walls that hold him; in the flight across the roofs and the stand high over the world, in the jail where processions of people come to see him, at the inquest and in the howling mob outside the court.The measure in which it shakes a community is the measure of its effectiveness.

Thursday, October 10, 2019

Karl Marx Essay

Karl Marx is one of the most reputed philosophers of the 19th Century. Born in 1818 in a middle class family, Marx studied law in Bonn and Berlin and later plunged deeper into the ideas of Hegel and Feurbach (Wheen, 2007). It is after receiving his doctorate in philosophy in 1841 from the University of Jena that he moved with his family to Paris where he became a radical revolutionary communist and teamed up with Friedrich Engels, another radical philosopher of his time. They collectively authored the pamphlet â€Å"The Communist Manifesto† which was later published in 1848. In this pamphlet, Marx passionately asserted that all human history was dominated by class struggles. Furthermore, he predicted that they would culminate into the fall of capitalism and rise of communism (Wheen, 2007). Karl Marx later moved to London in 1849 where he broke his political and religious isolation to author Das Kapital, sometimes referred to as the â€Å"Bible of the working class† (Wheen, 2007). In this book, Marx developed very philosophical ideas related to the crises of the working class and the implicit struggles between laborers and owners of industries. The works and ideas of Karl Marx in his book Das Kapital were later edited by Engels after his death in 1833 in London (Wheen, 2007). The ideas of Karl Marx established a school of thought known as Marxism, or what later came to be popularly known as the Marxist doctrine. His writings consummated the main ideological currents of 19th century. These included the classical English political economy, French socialism and the French revolutionary doctrines of the time. Marx, throughout his writing, had envisaged a social revolution that would see the fall of capitalism and the rise of socialism as a dominant ideology. These predictions later became evident after the death of Karl Marx in what was considered to be a process of socialization of labor. Wheen (2007) contends that this transformation would be possible to accomplish by the proletariat in sustained struggles with the bourgeoisie. This led to the development of ideas evident in Marxism and the conflict theory that form the bedrock of Marx’s works. Karl Marx’s Conflict Theory. Conflict theory is a Marxist perspective and  conceptualization of the way in which society is structured. This perspective depicts society as characteristically dominated by conflicts (Collins & Sanderson, 2008). Conflict is the determinant of how resources are allocated and who benefits the most from such allocations. Power is also acquired through conflict, and once such power is acquired, it is used to dominate the less-powerful and to benefit a few people. Collins and Sanderson (2008) cited that the basic form of interaction in the human society is not consensus but competition, which culminates into persistent conflicts. Each party or individual competes against perceived rivals with the goal of gaining advantage and dominating the other. The theory presented by Karl Marx underscores the fact that conflict, and not consensus, dominates designed mechanisms through different classes in the stratified society, interacts and relates to each other (Collins & Sanderson, 2008). The rich and the powerful use conflict to threaten their poor subjects and to maintain the status-quo. The poor on the other hand, organize and use conflicts to push for a revolution that will overthrow the powerful that are enjoying the privileges of capitalist structures. These tensions are thus sustained by the need of each group to have its interests dominate the structures and operations of the society. Karl Marx contends that the society is stratified into two main social groups. These are the proletariat and the bourgeoisies. The conflict between these two large social groups results in what Marx considered as revolutionary change. The probable source of conflict between the proletariat and the bourgeoisies are the desire of the proletariat to have ownership of means of production, such as factories, power, land and other valuable resources (Collins & Sanderson, 2008). The bourgeoisies, on the other hand, are not willing to relinquish these resources and give up their privileged positions of power and overwhelming riches and investments. Karl Marx on Class and Class Conflict. According to Karl Marx, society is stratified into classes. The classes comprise the bourgeoisies, land-owners and the proletariat. The propertied-upper-class is the minority, while the proletariats are the majority. Wood (2004) notes Marx’s dissection of the  dominant features of each of these classes in most of his works. For example, the bourgeoisies own the means of production. This is due to the huge investments they have made into factories and machines in the industries. The land owners have rent as their primary source of income. The proletariats are owners of cheap labor which they offer in exchange for wages that they use for their basic subsistence (Collins & Sanderson, 2008). Investment gives the bourgeoisies a lot of profit. Marx conceptualized the structure of the society in relation to the two major classes. He is focused on the inherent struggles between the proletariat and bourgeoisies which is the engine that pushes the occurrence of social change through revolutionary movements. In the understanding of Marxists, class is defined by the level of wealth and power that one possesses (Wood, 2004). This power is used to sideline other classes from property and positions of power. Bourgeoisies use their power to serve their personal interests and amass more wealth at the expense of the proletariat. These three different classes, in the understanding of Karl Marx, have different interests which pit them against each other (Wood, 2004). For example, the bourgeoisie are interested in safeguarding their investment in the industries, maximizing profits and minimizing costs. This makes them engage the proletariats as laborers in the farms to achieve this objec tive at relatively minimal wages. The proletariats on the other hand, organize and mobilize themselves to collectively push for better wages, conditions of work and strive to overcome the repressive and exploitative forces of their masters in the industries and factories. Thus, they struggle to join hands and, through revolutionary movements, overthrow the bourgeoisies and control the industries and factories (Wood, 2004). These conflicting interests are what pit the social classes against each other. Conflicts, and not consensus, therefore, characterize the society as noted by Marx who had envisaged such a society founded on constant conflicts. The struggle between the classes is likely to widen with time as the conditions of the laborers deteriorate further. This is likely leads to disintegration of the social structure. Collins and Sanderson (2008)  asserted that conflicts between proletariats and bourgeoisies would translate into an industrial revolution. This would mark the triumph of the proletariats over the bourgeoisies, leading to increased access to capital and means of production by proletariats. This, according to Marxists, would mark the end of capitalism and the onset of socialism characterized by public ownership of the means of production. The fall of capitalism and bourgeoisies will, therefore, create a classless society as political power withers away due to industrial revolution led by the proletariat (Wood, 2004). Thus, according to Marxists, class and class conflict are the forces behind societal transformation and not any other evolutionary processes. Radical revolutionary movements are likely to create a new social order in the society in which capitalism gives way to socialism as witnessed by the industrial revolutions that altered the social order in Russia in the 19th century. Karl Marx on Alienation. The philosophical ideas of Karl Marx on alienation were relevant in his radical reformation periods that saw the fall of capitalism (Otteson, 2011). Although these ideas were mainly considered to be philosophical in the 19th century, alienation, as was espoused by Marx, since then has become a real social phenomenon in the 21st century discourses that are propagated by contemporary social science scholars. The most outstanding aspect that Marx wrote about was economic alienation or alienated labor. According to the writings of Karl Marx, one of the front forces behind conflict between bourgeoisies and proletariat is the fact laborers felt separated from the products of their own labor (Me%u0301sza%u0301ros, 2006). Marx asserted that in a capitalist society, workers were forced to remain on the job and work extra hard in order to earn and sustain themselves (Me%u0301sza%u0301ros, 2006). He was against alienation which is caused by strong forces of capitalism and predicted the rise of communism in which laborers will no longer work to live but live to work. With the fall of capitalism and alienation, wage earning slaves will be free men who will work and enjoy the value of their labor. In a capitalist society dominated  by bourgeoisies, the production capacity of an employee is 100%. However, the employee does not benefit directly from these products. He only earns 10% of the proceeds of his work, which he only uses for daily subsistence. In communism, one would directly benefit from 90% of the proceeds of his labor and only lose 10% which will be spent in other production processes. Marx contended that in a capitalist society, workers are alienated even from the products that they produce (Me%u0301sza%u0301ros, 2006). A laborer working in an industry that manufactures oil becomes so much alienated from the product that he or she produces to an extent that even in his or her own household he cannot afford the oil, yet he needs it and contributes significantly to its production. The ideas of Karl Marx on alienation were very accurate considering that many labor union movements advocated for the welfare of workers in the modern society (Otteson, 2011). There are employees who work in a milk processing plant, when ironically back at home they do not take the milk, not because they do not need it but because they cannot afford the milk. Alienation as presented by Karl Marx in his conflict theory is an explanation of a situation in which man is separated from valued resources, opportunities, processes and decisions in which his input ought to be reflected (Me%u0301sza%u0301ros, 2006). The laborers at the time of Marx’s life did not have opportunity to say a word on the amount of wages they earned as compensation for their work. Yet, their role in the industrial production processes was very significant. The masters determined the wages, number of hours worked, when to grant leaves for recuperation and so on. In fact, Marx was very concerned with how the surplus value of products processed in the industries manned by workers benefited the workers themselves. Marx asserted that in a capitalist society, the surplus value only makes the rich richer as the workers become more impoverished. So worked up were the laborers that they were even alienated from their own families and private lives. They did not have time for recreation, family sessions or other community forums. Marx sadly puts it in his writings of Das Kapital that  leave or absence to workers in a capitalist system was hard to come by (Me%u0301sza%u0301ros, 2006). But when such leaves were finally granted, they were only meant to help the workers recuperate and get extra strength not to benefit themselves but their masters who would then register a rise in surplus value in the industrial production. Alienation, according to the writings of Karl Marx, can be seen to occur in four different ways. Me%u0301sza%u0301ros (2006) contends that workers are alienated against the products that they produce; they do not benefit from them much, the production process especially through specialized division of labor, from the community and from himself. In a capitalist industrialized society, specialized division of labor is used to promote alienation under the disguise of enhancing efficiency and effectiveness in production. Marx argues that an employee, concerned purely with the repair of broken down machines in industry producing oil, may not have enough experience with other production processes in the industry. The owners of the industry alienate them from this knowledge out of fear that such knowledge might empower workers to compete against the factory owners. Karl Marx on Consciousness. Consciousness as defined by philosophers refers to how people or a person defines and understands himself (Wood, 2004). The concept of consciousness as presented in the writings of Karl Marx was basically bent towards understanding and identification with one’s class. It is this consciousness that would push the workers (proletariats) to join other proletariats and put forward a united battle against one common social group, the bourgeoisies. Wood (2004) asserts that consciousness would enable workers gain awareness that they all had shared experiences with other laborers, the bitter experience of alienation, exploitation and oppression by capitalist bourgeoisies (Wood, 2004). This consciousness would push the workers to rise against the bourgeoisies and launch protest and revolutionary movements that would lead to the fall of capitalism and the onset of communist’s ideologies. Marx used the term â€Å"class consciousness† to illustrat e this level of awareness on the part of the workers. There are scholars of Marxism who have argued that the concept of consciousness was used by Karl Marx to depict class as a very subjective dimension in a  capitalist society. The concept of consciousnerss forms the skeleton of Marx conflict theory. The proletariat will only rise to confront the bourgeoisies after realization that all workers had common problems, all originating from the bourgeoisies. Such awareness by itself is inspiring enough to stir up revolution and protests against the bourgeoisies (Wood, 2004). Marx argued that it was false class consciousness that continued to sustain the forces and the influence of capitalist ideologies. The proletariat had misrepresented their identity, position in society and resigned to fate, preferring to remain in subordinate positions as the bourgeoisies took advantage of this and used their positions to exploit and dominate the economy (Wood, 2004). Members of subordinate classes, such as workers and peasants continued to suffer in the hands of the dominant bourgeoisies as a result of false-class-consciousness. The upper class, on the other hand, has their consciousness right as they believe they should remain dominant owners of the means of production. Conclusion Karl Marx’s works have influenced and continue to influence sociological academia and studies in the field of economics. Although some of his ideas, like conflict theory have been criticized by scholars since then in the contemporary sociological theory, conflict perspective remain to be a very popular sociological perspective, while Marx remains in academic records as one of the great scholars that contributed to the growth of sociology and its relevance in understanding human interactions and relationships in the society. Contemporary scholars, including critics of Marxism, continue to draw on his works to develop new concepts and ideas aimed at offering more accurate explanations of various phenomena in the society.