Assignment 8: Propaganda in Advertising/PR

(1) Beautiful people: The type of propaganda that deals with famous people or depicts attractive, happy people. This makes other people think that if they buy a product or follow a certain ideology; they too will be happy or successful. (This is more used in advertising for products, instead of political reasons)

In this propaganda, they tried to use the famous athlete, Kobe Bryant, to sell their products, especially basketball products. Kobe Bryant is a successful basketball player. Almost everyone knows his great achievements in his basketball field. With the image of him, people would have more will to buy the products of Nike.

(2) Slogan:  A slogan is a brief, striking phrase that may include labeling and stereotyping. Although slogans may be enlisted to support reasoned ideas, in practice they tend to act only as emotional appeals.

In this propaganda, the slogan "WHEN THE WORLD TALKS, HE STRIKES" expresses Kobe’s heart, confidence and dedication. It kindles people’s drive and will. That makes people think of him and this product immediately when they heard of this slogan.

http://www.nike.com/nikeos/p/nikebasketball/en_US/theblackmamba/

Assignment 7: Electronic News

Hong Kong TVB PEARL seven thirty news – 2/18/2011

1) Opening (0:08)

2) A staff member of Bank of China was found not guilty over the alleged mis-selling the mini-bonds (2:18)

3) The death inquest of Manlia hostage crisis continues (1:58)

4) Legislative Council Finance Committee approved 7.7 billion in funding for Shan Tin to Central Link (2:02)

5) Wu Shu-chen will not serve a 17.5 years corruption sentence in prison (2:04)

6) A court in Beijing upheld an eight years prison sentence gave to a Chinese-American geologist (1:40)

7) China’s central bank raised required reserves for lenders by 50 basis points (0:33)

8) Ocean Park recorded its 100 millionth visitors (0:42)

9) Hong Kong Computer Fair in Cheung Sha Wan attracted long lines of bargain hunters today (0:36)

10) Radiation from the largest solar flare in four years is expected to reach Earth no later than tomorrow (0:57)

11) Sports and weather reports took about 10 minutes after reporting the news

Ads aired

1) Coca cola

2) TRESemme shampoo

3) Clean Hong Kong Campaign (advertisement by Government)

4) Prince jewelery watch

5) Hong Kong Broadband Network (Internet Service Provider)
* Each of them took about one minute

The lead story, “A staff member of Bank of China was found not guilty over the alleged mis-selling the mini-bonds” is about Lehman Brothers mini-bonds voided because of financial tsunami; bondholders down the drain. People are thinking ways to solve the problem. This staff member involved of false words to sell mini-bonds to six customers, was charged with nine others, fraudulently to induce investment in the crime, and she was the first sale of Lehman Brothers mini-bonds trial of the bank staff. This was chosen as the lead story since it grabbed the attention of the Hong Kong people. The anchors are calmness, but sometime smilingly during broadcasting the news. 

Assignment 6: Television

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmInloBLcn0
• Length: 6:50
• Description: It is a banned cartoon which is produced by Warner Bros. This is one of the chapters of Lonney Tunes named “Southern Fried Rabbit.”
• Chapter 2: Media Impact
• Question: Why this cartoon was banned in the U.S.?
• Answer: It was banned because of the violence taught inside the video.

Assignment 5: Movies or Recordings

I have interviewed my mom for the blog entry of this week, which is about recordings. My mom was born in Hong Kong. She was influenced by Hong Kong music industry since she was young.

When she was a teenager or 20ish years old, she loved to listen to the Canto-pop songs, especially Sam Hui’s and Leslie Cheung’s. Both of them are the famous Canton-pop singers in Hong Kong, and Leslie Cheung was also considered as one of the founding fathers of Cantopop while Sam Hui is considered to be the first major superstar of Cantopop. My mom appreciates them very much as she said Sam wrote a lot of good songs which was popular in Hong Kong music in the late 1970s; with its simple lyrics and light-hearted nature, they appealed to the Hong Kong masses, especially the working class. She bought most of his CDs back home and listened to them before she went to bed every night at that time. And Leslie is impressed by his handsome face and good voice. My mom said he was a successful actor and singer at the same time; he did really great jobs in his entire life, so he was voted into CNN's "top five most iconic musician of all time" placing behind Michael Jackson and The Beatles. Both of them are my mom’s idols. Besides, Albert Au is also one of her favorite singers; he is a Hong Kong English pop and Cantopop singer-songwriter and DJ. My mom loves to listen to his radio show, which makes her feel relaxed. Sometimes, he will invite some guests to sing folk songs with him. Until now, she still loves to listen to their music, and she keeps on listening to their recordings in leisure time.

She thinks there are many changes in the music industry in Hong Kong, especially the culture and the singers’ qualities. Firstly, in the lyrics of the songs, in the past, they were simple and inspirational. But the songs now are quite influenced by pop-culture; some of them are even ridiculous and don’t make sense now. So, this is one of the reasons that my mom is still listening to the old songs (from my point of views). On the other hand, the singers’ qualities are becoming worse in Hong Kong in these recent years. Singers just pay attention to their appearance but not singing techniques. The most important is tons of fans are supporting those “singers”, which make some of the singers who don’t have a good appearance can’t even have a foothold in the manufactory of music. This would not only corrupt its values, but also give teenagers a wrong message that they could be a “singer” as easy as they thought. Although my mom will listen to some songs that I am listening now, she is still addicted to songs of 1970s throughout.