Archetype and Nationalism in Tolkien’s Silmarillion

ABSTRACT This thesis demonstrates the relationship of fantasy fiction, archetypes, and nationalism in one of fantasy fiction, namely Tolkien’s The Silmarillion. Fantasy fiction, with the stereotype of escapism, is less appreciated. This thesis is written in attempt to give more appreciation to fantasy fiction. Analysis to show the relationship of fantasy fiction, archetype, and nationalism is carried out by applying archetypal approach and Frye’s concept of mythos. This analysis is aimed at determining the position of the story in Frye’s mythos taxonomy and its values.The values, then, are compared with values found in English nationalistic discourse. The result of this analysis indicates that the story of The Silmarillion can be classified as tragic mythos. However, tragedy in the Silmarillion is elaborated differently from the characteristics of the mythos suggested by Frye. Tragedy of The Silmarillion is collective in its nature. The uniqueness of tragedy in T he Silmarillion is read as representation of fellowship spirit value in English nationalistic discourse.The Silmarillion also shows wisdom and historical continuity values parallel with values found English nationalistic discourse. From these values The Silmarillion shows that pastoral life with its collectivity, wisdom and tranquility as an ideal life for English people. Keywords: fantasy, archetypes, nationalism, Tolkien v ABSTRAK Tesis ini menunjukkan keterkaitan fiksi fantasi, arketipe, dan nasionalisme yang muncul di dalam salah satu karya sastra fantasi, yaitu The Silmarillion karya J. R. R . Tolkien.Fiksi fantasi, dengan stereotip sebagai fiksi yang dianggap hanya memberikan tempat untuk melarikan diri dari kenyataan dan fiksi yang lepas dari nilai-nilai realitas, kurang mendapat apresiasi yang cukup. Untuk memberikan apresiasi terhadap fiksi fantasilah tesis ini ditulis. Analisis untuk menunjukkan keterkaitan fiksi fantasi, arketipe dan nilainilai nasionalisme pertama-tama d ilakukan dengan melakukan analisis plot cerita dengan menggunakan pendekatan arketipe dan teori mythos Northrop Frye. Analisis plot ini dilakukan untuk menentukan posisi cerita di dalam taksonomi mythos Frye dan nilai-nilai yang dikandungnya.Nilai-nilai ini kemudian akan dibandingkan dengan nilai-nilai yang ada dalam wacana nasionalisme Inggris (England). Dari analisis yang dilakukan terlihat bahwa cerita The Silmarillion tergolong dalam mythos tragedi. Namun, sifat tragedi dalam The Silmarillion berbeda dari ciri mythos tragedi Frye yang terkonsentrasi pada satu individu. Tragedi dalam The Silmarillion bersifat kolektif. Keunikan tragedi di dalam The Silmarillion ini dianggap mewakili nilai kebersamaan yang juga merupakan salah satu nilai keinggrisan dalam wacana nasionalisme Inggris.The Silmarillion juga menunjukkan nilai-nilai kebijaksanaan dan keberlanjutan sejarah yang di dalam wacana nasionalisme Inggris dianggap merupakan nilai-nilai yang khas Inggris. Dari nilai-nilai dalam The Silmarillion yang paralel dengan nilai-nilai dalam wacana nasionalisme Inggris tergambar bahwa kehidupan ideal Inggris adalah kehidupan pedesaan yang penuh kebersamaan, kebijaksanaan, ketenangan dan memiliki keberlanjutan sejarah. Kata kunci: fantasi, arketipe, nasionalisme, Tolkien vi

Questionnaire on fashion brands Essay

Factors Affecting Consumer Preference of International Brands over Local Brands Zeenat Ismail1âˆâ€", Sarah Masood2 and Zainab Mehmood Tawab2 1 Department of Social Sciences, Institute of Business Administration – Karachi 2 Students of Institute of Business Administration – Karachi Abstract: This study was conducted in order to determine the consumer preferences of global brands instead of local ones. It is also designed to find out the buying behavior patterns of young Pakistani consumers Consumer evaluates products based on information cues, which are intrinsic and extrinsic. A number of factors affect the consumer purchase decisions. The results suggest that most important factors that influence a consumer’s final decision are the price and quality of the product in question. Since the consumers usually associate the price of the brand with its quality, a brand priced too low is generally perceived as a low quality product. Similarly, a product priced too high may not be affordable by many. Other factors that have an impact on the consumer preferences are: consumer ethnocentrism, country of origin, social status, price relativity with the competing brands and family and friends. The research was conducted in Karachi and the samples selected included 200 people of age 16-24. The data collected for the research was through a questionnaire and was conducted in two popular shopping malls of the city and two universities since the target audience was largely the youth. Calculations were then analyzed and interpreted using a percentage of respondents and through frequency distribution tables and charts. Keywords: Consumer preference, International brands, Local brands 1. Introduction Globalization is an inevitable phenomenon that is leading the entire world towards becoming one market, a global village. Not only has the process of globalization aided immensely in the exchange of goods and services, information and knowledge through the reductions in international barriers, but it has also led the world into becoming a real single universal community comprising of people from different cultures, thus resulting in the shrinkage of the world. With the world becoming a single market, globalization has had a major contribution in enabling the organizations worldwide to step out of the restricted domestic markets and to set up their operations across the globe with confidence. This has largely led to a decline in the importance in national borders and a greater emphasis on what the consumers actually demand; be the consumers located in the very country in which the organization exists or an entirely different part of the world. Moreover, with the rapid increase in global competition, companies that strictly adhere to and cater to the needs of the local markets are finding themselves at a disadvantage and gradually loosing the competitive advantage that they so much strived to achieve. However, for some products and services â€Å"the tastes and preferences of consumers in different nations are beginning to converge on some global norm† (Holt 2002). From a consumer perspective, however, reactions to the prevalence of global brands seem to vary among the different customers. On the one hand, consumers seem to value and admire global brands and regard such brands as a status symbol. On the other hand, global brands are often criticized for threatening the local differences and imposing the western cultures on our society, leading to a loss of cultural identity. 2. Purpose of the study: âˆâ€" Email: zismail@iba.edu.pk Tel #:+92(333) 3775545 Fax #:+92(21) 38103008 54 This study is aimed at determining consumer preference of the youth of international brands instead of national or local brands in Pakistan. There are various factors which influence consumer purchase decision. Such as  Country of origin, price of the brand fashion, family and friends, brand name, availability, advertising campaigns, consumers’ ethnocentrism etc. The study is also designed to find out the buying behaviour patterns of the young Pakistani consumers, attitudes towards global and local brands and the preference for foreign brands. 3. Literature review Brands have been constantly reviewed and redefined in the marketing literature and there are numerous definitions for ‘brand’. A definition of a brand by The American Marketing Association (AMA) in the 1960s (Keller, 1998:2) is â€Å"a name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or a combination of them, intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and differentiate them from those of competitors.† For consumers, when deciding between brands which are in the marketplace will include brands as an element to determine the qualities of the product rather than employing their time to enhance their knowledge of the product in information searching activities. Therefore, consumers use brands as cues to make decisions to purchase or try products (Ger et al., 1993). 4. Quality Perceived quality is defined as the consumers’ judgment about an entity’s (service’s) overall excellence or superiority (Zeithaml, 1988 and Rowley, 1998). Research also indicates that consumers value global brands especially for their assumed high quality and prestigious image (e.g., Nguyen, Barrett and Miller 2005; Steenkamp, Batra and Alden 2003). An internationally well-established brand name can act as a â€Å"halo† constructs that effects quality beliefs (Han 1989). If a brand is perceived as globally available, consumers are likely to attribute a superior quality to the brand, since such quality is thought of as a prerequisite for international acceptance. 5. Country of origin The country of origin effect has been defined as â€Å"the positive and negative influence that a product’s country of manufacture may have on consumers’ decision making processes or subsequent behavior (Elliott and Cameron, 1994). 1991). Infact in the words of Nagashima (1970), COE can be defined as  Ã¢â‚¬Å"the picture, the reputation, and the stereotype that businessmen and consumers attach to products or brands of a specific country. This image is created by such variables as representative products, national characteristics, economic and political background, history, and traditions†. The literature on country-of-origin effects is quite rich and covers the topic from different perspectives in different countries. Some studies have shown that country of origin also has symbolic and emotional meaning to consumes, and it plays an important role along with other attributes such as quality and reliability in shaping consumers attitudes toward products. Moreover, attitudes and perceptions of consumers toward brands and products will depend on categories, for instance, electronic goods from Italy may be perceived as a poor quality but Italian clothing would be perceive as fashionable and high quality (Bikey and Nes, 1982). This would be differently perceived with Japanese brands as Japanese electronic goods would be perceive with positive attitudes and Japanese clothing will be negatively perceived. 6. Price Researchers found out that once consumers perceive a price difference between local-owned and foreignowned brands, price dissimilarities begin to affect their preference for local-owned brands. Therefore, since price is also one of the most important extrinsic cues that consumers use when evaluating the product/brand (Hansen, 2005), we test the impact of price against consumer’s ethnocentric tendencies to determine at what point consumers are willing to forsake preference for local products for a greater price discount with foreignowned products. 7. Social status 55 Authors have stressed that consumers may prefer global brands because of associations of higher prestige (Schuiling & Kapferer, 2004; Shocker, Srivastava, & Rueckert, 1994; Steenkamp, et. al., 2003). Global brands may have a higher prestige than local brands due to their relative scarcity and higher price. Furthermore, global brands may also stand for cosmopolitanism. Some consumers prefer global brands because they enhance their selfimage as being cosmopolitan, sophisticated, and modern. Conversely, according to Ger (1999), local brands tend to be targeted and positioned based on a deep cultural understanding and therefore create â€Å"a sustainable unique value and offer the symbolism of authenticity and prestige†. Still, consumers have been found to have no intrinsic preference for global brands (De Mooij, 1998). 8. Friends and family Reference groups include groups or people whom one can look up for guidance and ask for opinion. These are important source of influencing the brand purchases. Reference group include friends and family who influence ones buying decisions due to special skills, knowledge, personality. If a friend had a bad experience with a product, it is more likely that one will refrain from buying it. However many studies found out that, knowledge that consumers obtain through direct personal experience will be perceived to be more trustworthy than information from other communications. This results in more strongly held beliefs (Swaminathan et al., 2001). 9. Research Questions The reasons for consumer preference of global brands over the local ones. The product attributes that are mostly considered by consumers when buying a brand. The demographic characteristic of consumers who buy foreign brands more frequently. 10. Research methodology This study is a descriptive study and more of a qualitative nature and was conducted to identify and analyze the reasons why consumers prefer international brands to national brands when purchasing consumer goods. The sample for this research included the 200 consumers whose ages ranged from 16-24 years from Karachi. Simple random sampling was used for this study. Questionnaires were used to collect primary data. The questionnaire included closed ended questions and Likert scale is used in most of the questions. These questionnaires were distributed to collect data from the students of  Institute of Business Administration itself as well as the students of Institute of Business Management. Apart from this, we also visited Park Towers shopping mall and The Forum, the two leading shopping malls in Karachi, with the aim of collecting data for our research from the shoppers there. 50 questionnaires were distributed to each of the universities and shopping malls in equal proportion to males and females. We mainly classified our population according to gender. Frequency distribution and bar charts have been used to evaluate the results. In addition to this, the means of different factors that influence consumers’ preferences of the local and global brands were used to determine which factors are considered the most by consumers when purchasing different brands. 11. Findings and Discussion 11.1. Question 1: Do you use international brands products? 56 According to the data collected, 72.5% of the people used international brands of which 60 were male and 85 were females. 18.5% of the people questioned claimed to use international brands occasionally, whereas, 9.1% of the people claimed not to use global brands at all. As indicated in the pie charts above,18.5% of the people who used the global brands sometimes included 28 males and 9 females, and those who did not use the global brands consisted of 12 males and 6 females. 11.2. Question 2 If an international brand and a national brand are priced same, would you prefer the international brand? The purpose of this question was to evaluate and discover how important a factor such as price is in determining whether the consumers would go for the domestic brand or stick to the global one if both the products were in  the same price range. The results found out that 76% of the consumers would go for the international brands whereas 24% would still purchase the domestic ones. 11.3. Question 3 Do you consider where a product is manufactured when purchasing it? F r e q u e n c y d i s Responses This question was asked to discover how much importance the youth lay on the country of origin as a factor when making a purchase. The results revealed far different results compared to what had been stated by the review of previous researches done. As indicated in the graph, the youth was found to be mailnly ignorant of the country in which the brand was manufactured. Majority of the consumers (76% males and 88% females) did not consider it as significant a factor as to affect his or her purchase decision. 11.4. Question 4 It is said that people buy international products so that they can be accepted in a particular social group. Do you agree? 57 The results to these two questions confirmed the general perception that exists in our society, that is, the global are purchased as a status symbol. The youth mainly bought foreign branded products to be able to fit in a particular social group. This occurs largely because peer pressure tends to be high at this age, and most of the people find themselves being victims of inferiority complexes. The results to the first of these questions indicated that on average 75% of the youth (71 males and 79 females) purchased the international and local brands as a status symbol. These results were further enhanced by the results to the next question, which showed that 72% of the males and 68% of the females did, infact, believe that the people purchased the international brands to be able to fit in a particular social group. The table above compares the means of the different factors in influencing consumer preferences of the global brands over the local ones. The means, expressed in percentages, indicates that amongst all the factors, the quality of the branded product was considered the most important factor in shaping the consumers’ purchase decision. The current trends and fashion were found to be just as important, but the price of the product was not found to be more important than the prevailing fashion and styles. The reason why 85% of the people decide to buy a particular brand was mainly because it was reflective of the ongoing fashion and there were only 5% people on average, who did not give importance to the ongoing fashion when purchasing a product. The results revealed that price was rated as the third most important factor in influencing consumer choice, whereas the quality of the product was considered the most significant, followed by the current trends and fashion. Mean number of people ( in percentages) Yes Sometimes 76% 16.5% Price of the product 4.5% 13.5% Country of origin 87.5% 7.5% Quality of the product 75% 15.5% Status symbol 85% 10% Current fashion and trends 64.5% 17.55% Family and friends 60% 20.5% Ethnocentrism No 7.5% 82% 5% 9.5% 5% 18% 19.5% Country of origin, as a factor in influencing consumers’ choice of the brand was hardly a significant factor, since 82% of the people, on, average claimed that they did not consider which country a product is manufactured in when making purchase decisions. Only 4.5% people, on average, claimed that they do consider the country of origin when purchasing a brand. The ethnocentrism factor was considered by 60% of the people questioned. This indicates that most of the people believed that as a Pakistani we should buy our local brands rather than giving preference to the global brands, however, this was what they believed to be the ideal scenario. In practice, our people, especially the females were found to be extremely prone to the global brands. According to our findings, 78% of the females were not willing to even substitute the global brand with a domestic if the foreign  brand is not available. The males, however, were not found to be that prone to the foreign brand. The results also show that status symbol is also perceived to be a major factor in shaping consumer purchase decisions. The above table reveals that 75% of the people linked the branded product with their social status when actually purchasing it. The table provides a summary and ratings of the factors influencing consumer preferences of the national or international brand. 12. References 58 [1] Balabanis, G., Diamantopoulos, A., Mueller, R. and Melewar, T.C. (2001), â€Å"The impact of Nationalism, patriotism and internationalism on consumer ethnocentric tendencies†, Journal of International Business Studies, Volume 32, pp. 157-75. [2] Batra, R., Ramaswamy, V., Alden, D.L., Steenkamp, J.-B.E.M., Ramachander, S., 2000. Effects of Brand Local and Nonlocal Origin on Consumer Attitudes in Developing Countries. Journal of Consumer Psychology 9 (2), 8395. [3] Bilkey, W.J. and Nes, E. (1982), â€Å"Country-of-origin effects on product evaluations†, Journal of International Business Studies, Volume 13, pp. 89-99. [4] Crawford, J. and Lamb, C. (1981), â€Å"Source preferences for imported products†, Journal of Purchasing and Materials Management, Volume 17, Winter, pp. 28-33. [5] De Mooij, M. (2004). Consumer behavior and culture. Thousand Oaks: Sage. [6] Elliott, G.R. and Camoron, R.C. (1994), â€Å"Consumer perception of product quality and the country of origin effect†, Journal of International Marketing, Volume 2(2), pp. 49-62. [7] Han, C. M., 1989. Country Image: Country Image: Halo or Summary Construct? Journal of Marketing Research, 26(May), 222-229. [8] Hansen, T., 2005. Perspectives on consumer decision making: An integrated approach. Journal of Consumer Behaviour 4 (6), 420-437 [9] Heslop, L.A. and Papadopoulos, N. (1993), â€Å"‘But who knows where or when’: reflections on the images of countries and their products†, in Papadopoulos, L.A. and Heslop, N. (Eds), Product-Country Images: Impact and Role in International Marketing, International Business Press, New York, NY, pp. 39-75. [10] Heslop, L.A., Papadopolous, N. and Bourk, M. (1998), â€Å"An interregional and intercultural perspective on subcultural differences in product evaluations†, Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences, Volume 15(2), pp. 113-127. [11] Keller, K., (1998), â€Å"Strategic Brand Management†, Prentice-Hall, New Jersey. [12] Kinra, N. (2006), â€Å"The effect of country-of-origin on foreign brand names in the Indian market†, Marketing Intelligence & Planning, Volume 24 (1), pp.15-30. [13] Lantz, G. and Loeb, S. (1996), â€Å"Country of origin and ethnocentrism: an analysis of Canadian and American preferences using social identity theory†, Advances in Consumer Research, Volume. 23, pp. 374-8. [14] Mazumdar, T., Papatla, P., 2000. An Investigation of Reference Price Segments. Journal of Marketing Research (JMR) 37 (2), 246-258. [15] Nagashima, A. (1970), â€Å"A Comparison of Japanese and U.S. Attitudes Towards Foreign Products†, Journal of Marketing, Volume 34, January, pp. 68-74. [16] Netemeyer, R.G., Durvasula, S. and Lichtenstein, D.R. (1991), â€Å"A cross-national assessment of the reliability and validity of the CETSCALE†, Journal of Marketing Research, Volume 28, pp. 320-7. [17] Nguyen, T., Barrett, N., Miller, K., 2005. Perceived Brand Globalness: Antecedents and Out-come – The Case of Vietnamese Consumers. Proceedings of the 34th EMAC Conference, 24-27 Mai 2005, Università   Commerciale Luigi Bocconi, Milan, Italy. [18] Shocker, A. D., Srivastava, R. K., & Ruekert, R. W. (1994): Challenges and opportunities facing brand management: an introduction to the special  issue. J. Marketing Res., 31(2), pp. 149-158. [19] Steenkamp, J-B., Batra, R., & Alden, D. L. (2003): How perceived brand globalness creates brand value. J. Int. Bus. Stud., 34, pp. 53-65. [20] Summer, W.G. (1906), Folkways: The Sociological Importance of usages, Manners, Customs, Mores and Morals. New York: Ginn & Co. [21] Wang, C.K. and Lamb, C.W. (1983), â€Å"The impact of selected environmental forces on consumers willingness to buy foreign products†, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Volume 11(2), pp. 71-84. http://amcy5.com/projects/marketing/amcy20.htm

How does Grace Nichols convey the life of the slave women in her poetry? Essay

One way Grace Nichols shows us how the slave women had to live is by saying what they had to do for their captors. In her poem ‘We the women’ Grace says ‘we the women who cutclearfetchdigsing’. The idea of not putting spaces between each work shows how hard they had to work without a break. Grace also says ‘we the women who toil’ which also shows how hard they had to work. The simile ‘whose deaths they sweep aside as easy as dead leaves’ shows how much they were hated and seen as pieces of rubbish. The use of the word ‘we’ in the poem shows just how many women had been captured and a gives a sense of empathy with the slave women. The sun in this poem is shown as a bad figure even though it gives life. To the slaves it is bad because it makes the labour they have to do even harder than it should be. The slaves tried to cheer themselves up by singing. The verb ‘sing’ in the poem has a religious connotation which shows their belief in God. However, this belief is doubted by the suffering they have to endure day after day and also because their prayers go unsung, as Grace says. We see with the used adjective ‘unadorned’ that the slaves were treated badly, misused and badly dressed because appearance did not matter to the captors only work. Grace Nichols uses repetition to convey the harshness of their lives as well. The words ‘old dry-headed women leaning on her hoe’ are repeated in the poem ‘Up my spine’ to show how bad their condition was and how mistreated they were. It also shows the amount of heat exhaustion they get and the lack of rest they have. Their heads are burnt by the sun and the skin is dry. Grace also says in that poem that they have to work even if they are injured and hurt. This shows how much they disliked slaves but had to use them for work to make money. The phrase ‘Way back time when she had a fall’ is used to show that there is no medical help for the workers so they work till they die. Grace uses the senses to convey how awful the slaves’ lives were in this poem as well. Two examples of this are ‘I see the pit of her eye’ and ‘I hear her rattle bone laugh’. This also conveys the physical state that the slaves were in and how they looked. However their captors did nothing to help as it did not matter to them what they were like as long as they worked. The second example gives a feeling of hatred to the poem as she thinks that the slaves would want revenge on the overseers for what they did to them. After all no-one would want to work all day for nothing. The simile ‘twist up and shaky like a crippled insect’ which also conveys their lives. In the poem ‘Water pot’ the workers are slaving away in a plantation centre. Grace says in it, ‘there’s a water pot growing from her head’. This is because the slave woman is carrying it on her head whenever they needed water which, in the heat, is often. It also shows how much work they had to do and for how long every day. Grace says in this poem as well that they are like cattle ‘always hurried’. This conveys how badly they were treated and actually what the captors saw them as. The words ‘tried to walk like a woman’ is used to show how injured they were because of work and the fact they could not walk properly. Grace implies that the slaves had to pull themselves erect to keep some self-esteem, to keep going and not give up, and to show the overseers they will survive whatever they throw at them. However a vast number of slaves died during the 18th century alone. ‘Ala’ is a poem about a woman killing her own child and then being punished for it. In the poem, the slave has given birth to a child which she does not wish to keep because of who the father is. In this instance the father is one of the overseers/captors who raped her. This poem also symbolizes the horror the slave women had to go through and the fact that the title is a religious word meaning ‘god’ their cry for help to their God. The woman who is being tortured is lying on a board with her arms and legs spread-eagled and staked to the ground. This is an implication of Jesus as he was crucified on a cross. The overseers see this woman as a ‘rebel’ and are making an example to the others by killing her publicly. She is the scapegoat. Grace uses repetition here to show to us what was in line for the other women if they did the same. She also says the slave has sent the new-born soul winging its way back to Africa. This implies that the baby is an angel as it has not been forced to work or put through any physical labour. Grace says the soul has gone to Africa because it is where most of the slaves originated from and it is then free. This woman is being eaten alive by red ants as a form of capital punishment for her actions. The personification in the line ‘and the sun blind her with his fury’ adds to the cruelty. The sun is a male figure and so takes the side of the men. The other slaves then pray to God for the deceased woman to be accepted in the pocket of his womb. This is a link up with the baby who was also killed. They are asking for the both of them to be free. Another poem Grace uses to convey the lives of the slave women is ‘In My Name’. This poem goes on about the horror the slave women had to go through. In this instance the baby is not killed therefore it is the opposite of ‘Ala’. The slave is in labour, giving birth to her ‘curled bean’ as Grace describes it. The woman’s belly is an arc of black moon. This shows how unwanted the babies are and that the fathers are the overseers. The colour ‘black’ is evil and we get the impression of what birth is like the way she squats over the dry plantain leaves and commands the earth to receive you. The baby is being dropped here onto the ground because there are no medical facilities available. Grace says the baby is ‘my tainted, perfect child’. This is an oxymoron because she is saying two virtual opposites together. The hatred towards the overseers raping them is shown in the words, ‘my bastard fruit’ and ‘my strange mulatto’. The second example shows that the baby’s father’s parents are mixed race and the mother does not like this. It will always remind her of the slave drivers or her captors if she ever escapes from their grasp. Where as the first shows how appreciative the overseers are of the baby but not the mother. She wishes it wasn’t born so it did not have to become a slave. Grace uses the words ‘my sea grape’ to show how far they have had to travel before arriving at their work place or deathbeds in many instances. At the end she says ‘now my sweet one it is for you to swim’ showing that the baby should make its own decisions on its life and to begin its journey. Overall Grace Nichols poems show her hatred towards what happened to her ancestor’s long time ago and what is still happening today in some places. She believes ruling on it should be stricter and so there will be no slaves left.

US National Security Policy and Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

US National Security Policy and Analysis - Essay Example For a fact, these may be general American citizens, dignitaries, or even American soldiers. As such, the issue of national security is very significant in the US and falls under the mandate of the US president and the US National Security Council. The National Security Council (NSC) offers the US president a principal forum for considering national security and foreign policy matters (Snow, 2010). Indeed, the Council's function has been to advise and assist the President on national security and foreign policies where the president chairs all NSC meetings (National Security Council, 2012). The National Security Act of 1947 established the NSC in 1947. This paper will address the National Security Act of 1947 and the fault lines in relation to US national security policy. Under normal and geographical circumstances fault lines refer to ruptures of physical fault lines on the earth’s surface that are usually caused by earthquakes. However, in context of US National security, we will refer to fault lines as the representative of the traumatic events that have shaped the environment we inhabit today. Indeed, the events tend to alter the environment and require adjustment in the posttraumatic period (Snow, 2010). How these fault lines changed US national security policy Fault lines have changed the US national security in many ways. ... How the US has responded to those changes US have responded to these changes by forming the federal bureau investigation that investigates such fault lines, handles them, and draws the right preventive procedures. It is also working with nongovernmental organizations to minimize their effect (Snow, 2010). Reversibility of fault lines Indeed, fault lines are not reversible since they are natural and cultural occurring. As such, there is no way that the Federal US federal government can reverse fault lines. However, the government can initiate measures to combat these fault lines hence enhancing natural security in our environment (Snow, 2010). Predictability of fault lines In some cases, fault lines are predicable using detailed intelligence, and a lot of research. Indeed, where the government can see the faults via its agencies, it is always easy to show fault lines. However, where faults are not visible, it is equally hard to predict fault lines. Subject to the inability to predict the fault lines, it becomes challenging to denote the new fault lines the international system will encounter in the future. It requires professional knowhow and a lot of research to identifying â€Å"fault lines† when it comes to national security. At the same time, the identification of the fault lines may not be significant in matters of national security as by the time they become visible, national security is already at lapse (Snow, 2010). Summary of the National Security Act of 1947 The National Security Act of 1947 main aim was to mandate a major reorganization of the foreign policy and military establishments of the U.S. Government by formalizing the Department of Defense with Secretary of Defense who reports directly to the

A part of case report Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

A part of case report - Essay Example It proceeded to establish a close relationship with the different game developers with it as the dominant partner. Nintendo controlled the operating system; issued licenses to game developers and producers of games software, and; controlled the manufacture and distribution of game cartridges and imposed royalty. The result was that it raked in most of the potential profit of the whole system although consumer value originally lay in the software (Grant 1104-1105). With the recent release of Nintendo’s latest video game console, the Wii, it was able to maintain its contending position in the industry through the use of reverse positioning strategy, taking advantage, in effect of the rush to outdo competitors through the use of newest state-of-the-art micro-components. This strategy took into consideration the disruptive forces brought about by new technology that changed the video game console industry value driver of profitability: as newer, cutting-edge game console microchips were invented, older ones became passà © and their prices rapidly dropped. Nintendo took an opposing approach by using instead older chips to minimize production costs. The result allows the company to sell at a much lower price per unit than its main competitors and higher profitability return for each of the Wii sold. On the other hand, its competitors Sony (for PS3) and Microsoft (for Xbox 360) which tried to outdo each other by using state-of-the-art chips both lost money (Afuah 215). The success of the Wii launch is underpinned by the bargaining power of buyers that is naturally inclined to lower-priced products which also offer competitive quality. With the launch of the Microsoft Xbox 360 in late 2005, the Nintendo Wii in late 2006 and the Sony PS3 in early 2007, it is evident that a perceptible change in the competitive dynamics of the industry is taking shape. In the past, the winner-take-all characteristic of the video game industry had been shown with the domination of

Native American Indians Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Native American Indians - Essay Example Many of them believe that diseases and illnesses are forms of punishment from the gods from making them angry. Some believed that if a person plays his part in his environment and conduct himself so as to please the gods he will be spared from illnesses and misfortunes. Others believe that these are a part of the cycle of life. In earlier times their little contact with the wider society helped to form some of their beliefs. Traditionally, the Indians put diseases into two general classifications. One was diseases that were termed as environmental causes such as injuries, intestinal disorders and rheumatism (Trafzer 96). These were illnesses and diseases that could be attributed to apparent causes. The treatment for these types of illnesses was found in the natural environment. This included animals, medicinal plants, and minerals. Many of these natural remedies were kept in every home and a knowledgeable family member would use the appropriate remedy to according to the disease or illness. The second type of disease was that caused by supernatural forces. The causes of these diseases were not as apparent or easy to determine as the former category of diseases and illnesses. The Indians had their own health personnel to cure these illnesses. The healer had to possess certain characteristics before he was allowed to practice. One of the major qualifications was to be honest, brave and humble. These practitioners were also called to intervene in the treatment of those who had illnesses that were not readily cured by normal home remedies. Some of the methods used by the practitioners or tribal healers were charms, dances and prayers. The tribal healers are normally in possession of paraphernalia including animal parts. These were supposed to ward of evil spirits. The Indian believed in a number of supernatural causes of diseases. Prevalent among these causes were sorcery, taboo violation, and soul loss. They believed that any illness is

CVP analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

CVP analysis - Essay Example Cost–volume–profit (CVP) is an administrative management tool used in economics (Weygandt, 2009). It is a basic model designed to assist in making short-time decisions in economics based on costs incurred in the business The information on CVP influences determination of break-even analysis. Break-even spot shows the point at which the net income is zero. Analysis of CVP makes use of variable and fixed costs. CVP examines the dynamics experienced in profits accrued by businesses due to changes in the volumes of costs of various products and their sales. It is through CVP that a venture identifies the progress of his or her business and makes sound decisions. CVP analysis has a number of assumptions, which also are the same as those for break-even analysis. The analyst assumes that costs behave in a linear manner throughout the activities. The classification of costs is possible and accurately stated depending on whether fixed or variable. The other assumption is that ch anges in costs are due to change of activity. All products from the invested capital have a market value and that there is no product inventory required once the product is ready for sale (Balakrishnan et al, 2009). The analysts using CVP technique provides information about the products. The analyst also needs to know the levels of sales and volumes and the amount they need to protect the investment from making loses. The other information required by the analysts is the capacity for the analyst to determine the effects of increasing or decreasing the fixed costs. Successful analysts must have the capability of approximating the amount of funds required for expenditures and the magnitude of risks required (Balakrishnan et al, 2009). Profit equation using CVP analysis Analysts using CVP starts by determining the business profit using the profit equation as shown (Weygandt, 2009). Profit = Total revenue -Total costs Since the costs are in two divisions, i.e. fixed costs and variable costs, the equation becomes Profit =Total revenue -Total variable costs -Total fixed costs Profit is a function of the contribution margin. This refers to the amount of invested capital in this discussion (Balakrishnan et al, 2009). The total contribution margin is the difference between the total revenue and total variable costs. The calculation of contribution margin may also occur per unit production. This margin is necessary in consideration of the effects that volume has on a business profit. Realization of profits in a business takes place upon covering of sales equivalent to the fixed costs. This means that any unit sales above the fixed costs become profit. The overall profit equation in CVP analysis, therefore, becomes (Weygandt, 2009). Profit =P * Q - V * Q - F = (P - V) * Q – F Where; P _ Selling price per unit V _ Variable cost per unit (P _ V) _ Contribution margin per unit Q _ Quantity of product sold (units of goods or services) F _ Total fixed costs Cost-Volum e-Profit Graph (Weygandt, 2009) This is a graph that shows the bond amid the total income and total costs in a business. This graph also shows how profits change with time depending on different activity volumes. In the above graph, the loss decreases with increasing volume of sales. At the same time, there is an increase in the contribution margin. At the point, where the cost intersect with the revenue line, this point known as break-even point above which profits are evident. In the case, where there is income tax, the business after tax calculation makes use of the formula; After-tax profit = Pretax profit –Taxes. Pretax profit = (Tax rate -Pretax profit). Pretax profit = (1 - Tax rate). Snap Fitness business The principles of CVP are applicable in a number of business organizations, for example, in starting a snap fitness business. This small venture requires a small amount of capital to start. In addition, it takes a short time for the investor to reach a break-even

Individual Development Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Individual Development - Essay Example Competence - Industry versus Inferiority - School-age / 6-11 years. Fidelity - Identity versus Role Confusion are adolescents / 12 years till they are 20. Questioning of identity. Who they are, how they do fit in? Where they are going in a life? Erikson believed, that if the parents were to allow their children to explore, they could conclude their own self. Conversely, if the parents incessantly push him/her to be conventional to their views, these teen will face personality confusion. This is the stage that relates to this paper’s topic of discussion. Others include; Intimacy versus isolation, generativity versus stagnation and the eight and last stage being Ego integrity versus despair (Erikson, 1982). As the authors have noted (Connell 1995; Frosh, Phoenix, and Pattman 2002; Svahn 1999), ideal masculinity and stereotypical is often connected with hardness and strength. It is true that events stem from the past, but still, nearly all girls and boys would likely not be pleased to speak about their weak spots so explicitly, but would rather try to turn them into assets, into unpleasant experiences that in the end prepared them to be more independent and stronger, that is, something putting them more in conformity with masculine standards or ideals. Their nests are normally permeated with political awareness in various ways, and according to them, there is nothing not to be viewed as political. This case is a clear example of how adolescents may reflect upon matters of gender roles and identity, and make personal decisions about what they desire be like, not necessarily as boys or girls, but as individuals. Conversely, there is always a cost to pay for those deviating from ideals and norms. Though no generalized claims may be made on the foundation of this matter, it is still a fact that adolescents, who contravene gender stereotypes, besides tells tales of bullying and/or social exclusion (C. Frosh, et al, 2002). The issue here concerns

Descriptive Statistics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Descriptive Statistics - Essay Example The contention behind internal consistency checks is to ensure that the research questions produce consistent responses in the case of the respondents. It is common practice to insert similar questions in research surveys in order to gauge whether respondents answer these questions similarly (Berg, 2001). Research in marketing often entails working with a number of different variables in order to establish the relationship between such variables. Typically the data collected in order to carry out social sciences or marketing research relies in large part on quantitative research backed up by qualitative research to fill out the missing gaps. The use of large sets of quantitative data such as in the current research poses a number of problems in itself. For one thing, there are a number of variables who could be related to each other and may have an impact on the overall hypothesis. Such relationships between variables may pose strong or weak connections in one or more variables that need to be investigated. A preferred method to carry out such investigations is to use a factor analysis (Creswell, 2009) to determine the degree of correlation between various variables. Often a number of variables may be related to each other such that other variables may also exert an influence on the overall relationship. This can only be determined by utilising a proper factor analysis which may be related to but differentiated from principal component analysis (Bartholomew et al., 2008) The current research has focused on eliminating a number of problems from data collection and analysis by relying on factor analysis and internal reliability examinations. Descriptive Statistics Descriptive statistics are utilised in order to describe the major characteristics of a data set (Dodge, 2003). The contention in utilising descriptive statistics is to summarise the data set for analysis. In addition, descriptive statistics ensure that the respondents for a study all fall into the sub group being studied. For example, in the current research the aim is to describe the brand image habits and perceptions of ordinary consumers from the middle class. In this case, descriptive statistics ought to ensure that the respondents come from the middle class in large part or else the responses may be markedly different since the brand perceptions may be markedly different between consumer groups. The major descriptive statistics related to the respondents for the current research are presented in the tables provided below along with explanations. Favorite Brand: Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid APPLE 64 40.3 40.3 40.3 BLACKBERRY 19 11.9 11.9 52.2 HTC 9 5.7 5.7 57.9 LG 2 1.3 1.3 59.1 MOTOROLA 5 3.1 3.1 62.3 NOKIA 20 12.6 12.6 74.8 SAMSUNG 33 20.8 20.8 95.6 SONY ERICSSON 7 4.4 4.4 100.0 Total 159 100.0 100.0 The first issue of importance was to establish which brands consumers subscribed to in connection to the cellular phone market. A number of differen t brands are available that subscribe to the tastes of different market segments so it was important to establish how the current cellular phone market was distributed. The results from the survey indicate clearly that the largest market leader is Apple (40.3%) followed by Samsung (12.6%) although it must be recognised that the proportion of Apple users and Samsung users differs significantly. Nokia (12.6%) and BlackBerry

Differences Between Capitalism and Socialism Assignment

Differences Between Capitalism and Socialism - Assignment Example Remarkable progress was achieved in the fields of infrastructure development and industrialization and the capitalist maximized their profits, but the state of affairs of the labor class of the society remained the same. As the standard of living of the elite class and the capitalists increased with the increased productivity, the disparity and discrepancy between different social classes went on to increase and the lower classes started to protest about their miserable status of living. This led to the development of another socioeconomic ideology which was later called socialism. Socialist thinkers such as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels declared that state is responsible for safeguarding the basic rights of each and every individual of the society and the ultimate objective of the states should be to provide better services all the classes of the society, irrespective of their financial status (Balcerowicz, 1995). Capitalism Capitalism is a system of economics in which the producti on and the distribution is the ownership of individuals or corporations and the development is proportional to the accumulation and the reinvestment of the profits generated in a free market economy. In simple words the person or the group of persons who have invested its capital, and thus put their money on risk, are entitled to enjoy absolute authority over production and distribution and also the profits generated through the investment of capital. The industrial revolution compelled a considerable number of people living in rural areas to move to the cities in order to enjoy the advantages of industrial revolution. This led to the concept of buying the services of people in return of wages and thus a working class was created in the society, but in contrast to the aspirations of the common people, the working class could not improve their working conditions because they were considered as a means of maximizing profit by the capitalists and were exploited bitterly (Davis & Scase, 1987). The pioneers of capitalism advocate increase in productivity as the greatest advantage of this economic system which results in the economic growth of the society and thus the living standard of each and every individual is improved because resources are utilized to their fullest. Moreover the competition in a free market economy improves the quality of the product which is being produced. However, in the early days with the absence of labor laws and human rights protection agencies capitalism resulted in the exploitation of the labor class by the elite and the promises of better living conditions and improved quality could not be realized. The desire of the capitalists to maximize profits makes the economy money-oriented which promotes a materialistic approach of running the economy. This approach made capitalism very unpopular among the lower classes of the society in the 19th and 20th centuries and thus the new systems of economics like socialism and communism were adopte d as new social ideologies. During the later part of the 20th century, labor laws were formulated and made strong and human rights charters were adopted which greatly improved the state of affairs of the working class in capitalism. The development of these laws and some other laws related to trade and free market economy has helped capitalism to emerge as the strongest and the most-practiced system of economy and a new

A Book That Has Had an Impact on Me Essay Example for Free

A Book That Has Had an Impact on Me Essay During my fourth year of secondary school, I became acutely aware of the Women’s Rights Issue. I made an attempt to re-examine many of the cultural norms that I had previously accepted as just being the natural order of things. One of the paths I took to expand my awareness of the female psyche involved womens literature. That is why I spent one weekend of my life in bedcrying, laughing, feeling sometimes confused, and often, incredibly angry and distraught. On that rainy Humboldt Friday night I had decided to read The Womens Room. The author, Marilyn Fridey, describes the lives of several women from the 1950s to present. These women are nothing out of the ordinary. They either go to college and then get married, or they get married without bothering about the pretense of collegeafter all, they know that college is only a way to find more economically promising husbands. Myra, the main character whose life is traced throughout the book vaguely wonders why she is not content cooking pot roast, scraping shit from the babys diapers, and picking up her husbands dry cleaning. See more: Strategic Management Process Essay Her only solace is the neighborhood of women who share concerns over coffee in the afternoons. They wonder why Katherine, a Catholic woman who has 9 children and an alcoholic husband, committed suicide. She had a normal life, they thought, she just should have talked her husband into using birth control. As for the rest of the women, including Myra, their lives, fears, disappointments and yearnings, were much more subtle, yet equally suicidal in their quiet desperation. Many years down the road, Myras life finally changes. Her husband has made it, the kids have grown, and life is easy economically. Myra has a nervous breakdown. Once recovered, she divorces, and becomes a graduate student at Yale. Though painful and difficult, it is here that she comes to terms with herself, realizes her potential, and learns to live with herselfnot necessarily happilybut at least honestly. After I finished the story of Myras world that Sunday evening, I woke up in the middle of the night sobbing uncontrollably from a terrible nightmare. Though I couldnt remember the dream, I came to a profound realization. Myras life was my mothers. Most of my life I had revered, respected and admired my father for going to college, being intelligent and worldly, having power and control. In short for being a man. My mother always seemed too wishy-washy, easily trodden upon, overly dependent because she had chosen the role of housewife, mother. I rebelled against the tradition, and feared wearing those chains someday. Consequently, I strove to be like my father. Until this book, I never realized how much more courage it took for a person to live within a stifled role, and find contentment by living through other people. During that night of crying I understood my mother for the first timeI respected her inner strength, compassion, gentleness. Ever since then, my relationship with my mother has evolved, and we are very close. I will probably never adopt the role in life that she chose to take, but I now respect her for her life, and understand the reasons why she made those choices. Reading of Myras evolution as a female changed the way I feel towards myself, my feelings and compassion for my mother, and provided me with a much more sensitive view towards the lives of many women in our society today.

Black social movements Essay Example for Free

Black social movements Essay Race is used by social scientists to refer to distinctions drawn from physical appearance (skin color, eye shape, physiognomy), and ethnicity is used to refer to distinctions based on national origin, language, religion, food, and other cultural markers. â€Å"Race has a quasi-biological status and among psychologists, the use of race terminology is hotly debated In the United States, race is also a socially defined, politically oppressive categorization scheme that individuals must negotiate while creating their identities. † (Frable , 1997, 139) Before the Black Power Phase of the Black Social Movement, blacks displayed a decidedly dualistic worldview. After 1968, a trend toward a black perspective, which is almost as significant as the dualistic frame, becomes apparent. A reactionary, extreme pro white position is seldom advocated: The dualistic, integrationist ethic was perhaps stronger in the past than it is today, although it is probably still the dominant ideology among blacks. Finally, over the past 25+ years, a nationalistic black oriented ideology has become increasingly important in discussions of black affairs. The racial and ethnic identity terms are often used inappropriately in psychology. While black immigrants to the United States may have a racial identity as black, their ethnic identity reflects their country of origin; racial identity is much more likely to be problematic in the United States than ethnic identity. Whether a researcher assesses racial identity, ethnic identity, or some combination may only be clear after reading the Methods section of their report. EVIDENCE OF IDENTITY CHANGE: 1968-PRESENT The Black Social Movement had two phases: (1) the Civil Rights Phase, which lasted from 1954-1967 and (2) the Black Power Phase, which began to take hold from 1965-1967. (See Exhibit 1) 118 or 73% were conducted during the period 1968-1977. Of these, 22 (19%) were Black group oriented, 84 (71%) were personal self-worth related and 12 (10%) applied personal self-worth and Black group oriented measures on the same sample. A significant number of both Black group and personal self-worth studies from this period show blacks with an increased in-group orientation and adequate to above average levels of self-esteem. (Allen et al, pg. 161)The Black Movement has increased the probability that more blacks will superimpose a black orientation upon a greater variety of situations. As a perspective, the extent to which the world view of the mainstream group (Americanism) has been internalized by a Black person is not one of self-rejection as it was in the past. As a result, some 20 years later and as a side product of the mind set change, Hip-hop (music) was created in the mid-seventies as black social movements began to take less noticeable role in the African-American communities and mainstream media, and replaced by electoral politics. â€Å"It has deep sixties cultural and political roots; Gil Scott-Heron and The Last Poets are considered the forebears of rap. But once the institutions that supported radical movements collapsed or turned their attention elsewhere, the seeds of hip- hop were left to germinate in American society at large-fed by its materialism, misogyny and a new, more insidious kind of state violence. † (Ards, 1999, p. 11) This suggests racial motivation impetus more of a political-cultural propensity rather than a psychological trait. All along, even during the racial segregation and Jim Crow, Blacks have consistently had a high sense of personal worth. The Black Movement probably had a less dramatic effect on the personal identity as opposed to the reference group orientation of black people as whole. Blacks have had, and continue to have, a multifaceted reference group orientation that determine behavior depending upon the situation being confronted. BLACK ELITE LIBERAL CONCEPT Is this America? Land of the Free and Home of the Brave? Fannie Lou Hamers question still rivets attention, for it is at once radical and conservative, communitarian and individualistic, a plaintive cry and a hardened protest, fiercely American and defiant of America. (Robinson, 1997, p. 179) While not a new paradigm in and of itself (and while certainly reductionist), Cedric J. Robinson, in Black Movement in America, calls for framework forces one to consider social movements. He points out that the very success of black activism during the Civil War would point the way toward future divisions within black political culture. Both free black leaders and the masses of Southern slaves who rebelled against their masters turned a white war into a battle over slavery and racial injustice. (Newman, 1999, 683) Slaverys destruction, ironically, removed a common focus of protest, and more importantly, enticed certain black elites to accept the liberal concept of changing American political culture by trying to join it and reform it from within. These elite representatives were largely irrelevant in Robinsons eyes, for the black masses focused on community-building and autonomy (Robinson, 1997, p. 92). The black social movements of the 60’s and 70’s single indicator of common social beliefs may simply be related with other dimensions and intangibles yet to be discovered or even recognized. In brief, due to the impact of during the ten to fifteen year span, black consciousness and awareness had become so pervasive throughout the black population that by the late seventies†¦Ã¢â‚¬  a single item tapping common-fate solidarity was adequate to capture a fully politicized sense of group consciousness. Of course, other changes in the political landscape may also contribute to such a shift. For instance, collective political efficacy among black Americans may have been enhanced by the growing number of black elected officials. † (Bobo Gilliam 1990) A generation has almost passed since the social activisms of the late 50’s and upheaval turbulent 60s and birth of modern day public black social movement. There are now thousands of black elected and appointed officials throughout the United States. Southern presidents have been elected to the White House since 1976, both of whom received the overwhelming support of the African American electorate. A great deal of literature has been devoted to the position that Black working people and the poor challenged the â€Å"system† by establishing, ad hoc or organized significant black social movements that were rooted simultaneously in a political and social tempest. However, thus knowing that a person has a strong black identity will not inform the listener about the nature of his/her personal identity; however, it gives considerable insight into the persons value system, political posture, and cultural stance. REFERENCE(S) Deborrah E. S. Frable , 1997, Article Title: Gender, Racial Ethnic, Sexual andClass Identities. Journal Title: Annual Review of Psychology. Volume: 48. Page Number: 139+. Angela Ards, 1999, Organizing the Hip-Hop Generation. Magazine Title: The Nation. Volume: 269. Issue: 4. Publication Date: July 26,1999 Page Number: 11. Cedric J. Robinson, 1997, Black Movements in America. (New York: Routledge,. p. 179, 92 ) Rich Newman, 1999, Black Movements in America. Journal Title: The Historian. Volume: 61. Issue: 3. Publication Page Number: 683. Walter Recharde Allen, Geraldine Kearse Brookins, Margaret Beale Spencer,1985, Beginnings: The Social and Affective Development of Black Children. Publisher: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Place of Publication: Hillsdale, NJ. Bobo, Lawrence. 1988 Attitudes Toward The Black Political Movement: Trends, Meaning, and Effects on Racial Policy Preferences. Social Psychology Quarterly 51:287-302. Gilliam, Franklin D. , and Kenny J. Whitby. 1989 . Race, Class, and Attitudes Toward Social Welfare Spending: An Ethclass Interpretation. Social Science Quarterly 70:88-100.

Characterisation in 2D Animations

Characterisation in 2D Animations The main problem that animation faces is that it is an overtly fake diegetic form. The viewer is presented with a constructed reality of drawings and paintings, which may represent the real world, but unlike photographic film, does not look like it. The challenge therefore is to create characters that may believably inhabit their particular diegetic reality. Animators have strived to find a way to resolve this issue through their character design and an awareness of how to deliver narrative information through their characters. This essay will illustrate the solutions that animators have found to make their audiences believe what is put in front of them. In 1914 Winsor McCay took up the (self-imposed) challenge of making dinosaurs live again via animation. The result was Gertie the Dinosaur a semi-live act with McCay performing onstage with the projected film behind him. Gertie herself was obviously an animated projection and to make her believable she had to have a strong individual character. McCay achieved this through his own interactions with the character of Gertie. He talks to her and asks her to perform tricks, which she obliges to do. We are also drawn attention to the fact that she is thirsty and she drains a lake. The performance would climax with her picking up McCay (as he exits the stage.) and bounding of the screen with him on his back. Through this series of call and response between the live action McCay and the animated Gertie, McCay creates the illusion of human understanding within the animated dinosaur. There is also at one point a look of glee in her face after a fight scene when she throws the defeated mammoth into a lake. Through the human interaction and the animation McCay has anthropomorphically endowed the animated creature with human emotions: he has made her believable to the audience by giving her recognizable human traits. In his book Understanding Animation Paul Wells recognizes that the use of attributing animated animal characters anthropomorphic characteristics has become a mainstay of character development. It will be discussed in further detail later in the essay. The basic principles of characterization as a narrative strategy in animation have been summed up by Wells. The character may be understood through its costume or construction, its ability to gesture or move and the associative aspects of its design. It is pertinent at this point to discuss these aspects of character design. Regardless of if an animated character is an animal or human, animators rarely try to completely reproduce natural form. As such the problem is that they are presenting viewers with unnatural looking beings. If the viewer is to accept the characters shown before them, the characters themselves must be presented as believable. This is why animators rely on exaggeration of individual features to suggest certain character types. Halas and Manvelldescribe this in their book the technique of film Animation. Characterization is achieved by the distortion of shapes and forms big eyes, big mouth, big nose, large head small body etc. What is stressed by animators is the gesturing parts of the body, particularly the features of the head. The eyes, nose, mouth and ears are all vital in creating the illusion of human emotion. There is a general rule of thumb with regards to which shapes go with what characters: kind gentle characters tend to have soft rounded faces with wide smiles and large rounded eyes. Porky Pig is a great example of this principle. He is the embodiment of the jolly fat man. Villains on the other hand are much more angular. They often have a rather sharp chin and small eyes and a crooked mouth that somehow lends itself to a wicked smile. They are often presented as grotesque, much like the Evil queen in Snow White and her incarnation as the old crone. These generalizations serve as visual shorthand for the viewer; they optimise the impact of the character through economy and allow the viewer to make connections and process narrative information about the characters more quickly. In the words of W ells, animation manages to compress a high degree of narrative information into a limited period of time through a process of condensation. This method of economy and condensation was born out of functionality as much as anything. Partially it was due to the fact that cartoons are usually very short. As such narrative information has to be delivered with great speed. Also when television became the dominant domain of the animated short, characters had to be easily recognizable on the small screen. Its much easier to do this by recognizing one or two strong individual characteristics than several small ones. Most importantly however the simpler that a character is to draw, the quicker they become to reproduce. They rely on caricature and stereotype to relay narrative information quickly and succinctly. Halas and Manvell go on in their book to describe the visual style of Tom and Jerry in terms of the aesthetic principles of animation: The drawing and coloring have an economy and a visual impact that matches the overwhelming vitality and sometimes the crudity of the action and characterization. This highlights the importance of economy. Extraneous details can confuse the situation and detract from overall characterization. What is needed is a just a couple of well-chosen details. In 1917 Max Fleischer invented the rotoscope. This device allowed animators to successfully mimic natural movement by blowing up still frames of photography and allowing the animator to copy them exactly. Max and his brother Dave were both inspired by the work of Winsor McCay and between them were instrumental in the development of both technological and character development of animation. The rotoscope worked by using a drawing board with a frosted glass center. One frame of photography at a time was shone onto the glass and the image was traced. It provided an accurate reference of movement and articulation so that on screen movement could be replicated with a lot more fluidity. By doing this animators were able to draw more complicated figures in a believable and convincing way. Richard Willams has drawn examples of some of these more complicated characters in his book the animators survival kit. The examples that will be discussed here are the representation of the young and old woman as drawn by Williams. By taking two examples of opposing but similar characters, we can see how the rotoscope paved the way for the development of characterization in animation. The young woman is characterized mainly be her curvaceous figure. She has a strong convex curve along her back and an hourglass figure that extenuates her breast, slim waist and shoulders. She stands upright and tall. She also has sleek long legs and flowing long hair. This form communicates her youth vitality and energy. The old woman by contrast has a much rounder concave curve of the back, which seems to curve round into her body giving her a rounded torso. The breast is also molded into this rounded torso that desexualizes her. Her hair is also shorter. She is hunched forward making her look tired and weary. The lower body is also rounded and she wears a long skirt to cover the legs. In contrast we see only the ankles and feet of the old woman and she is given short dumpy legs. These two examples s how the importance of form and shape in delivering character information. These two figures could represent the same character at different ages but the presentation of form provides us with completely different information about the characters. Williams also stresses the importance of movement to illustrate character. As stated earlier this art of animation was greatly enhanced by the development of the rotoscope. The way that a character moves can be fluid and smooth which would suggest grace or elegance. Alternatively movements can be jerky or plodding, which will in turn infer characteristics of weakness or foolishness. Again he uses examples to discuss and illustrate the main differences between the masculine and feminine walk. The feminine walk is smooth and elegant. She keeps her legs close together and as such the footsteps run straight along the line of action. As a result there is very little up and down body movement. The feminine walk seems to glide along the line of action. The masculine walk however is much more aggressive. The feet are kept well apart, far out from the line of action. The masculine walk is a full on stride, which makes the character as wide as possible. There is much more up and down movement on the body. This makes the walk much more kinetic and at the same time suggests power and strength. Much like the generalizations about character form, these conventions can be subverted to comic effect or to deliver more information. For example a Masculine walk may become a drunken walk if the feet are allowed to cross the line of action. (I.E. if the right foot passes across the center of the body and steps down on the left and vice versa.) Through these examples it is clear that the way that the animator makes the character move is vital to characterization. The Fleischer brothers were also responsible for two of the most beloved cartoon characters of the thirties: Popeye and Betty Boop. These two characters are archetypes of hero and heroine character traits. It seems only fitting therefore to discuss how these characters are so distinct, and the methods used to give them such strong individual identities. Popeye originally appeared in Comic strip form some years before his screen debut in 1933. During this time of American economic depression he was a figure of aspiration for the workingman. As a navy man he had a career that stood for American strength and pride; this also made him stand out as the champion of the just causes. As such he was the embodiment of the strong everyman in times of hardship. He is identified as a sailor by the uniform that he wears with style and pride. He embodies the macho sailor stereotype by striding along with a sailors walk, feet apart rocking from side to side. He also has the iconic tattoo of an anchor on his arm; this marks him out as a man who figuratively wears his heart on his sleeve. His physical appearance is defined by the exaggeration of his muscle; importantly however Popeyes strength comes from eating spinach. Although he is always strong and muscular, it is not until he eats the spinach that he has the strength needed to defeat Bluto. After he has eaten the spinach his forearms are inflated to appear three times the normal size. As Wells points out Popeyes masculinity is predominantly defined by the association between his own organic expansion and the strength of hard metal or machines. As his muscles grow they either transform shape into anvils or air brakes or we see moving pictures of locomotives or battleships on his form arms. Po peyes physical strength therefore is amplified by the imagery but he also associated with American mechanical or military strength. Popeye is remembered for his fights with Bluto but the important thing to bear in mind is that he is not a troublemaker and is usually a very amiable character. He has the characteristic rounded face of the jolly fat man. He walks around with a smile making jokes to himself and being generally full of life. There is also his voice that characterizes him as a salty old piece of seaweed. It is only when his girlfriend Olive Oil is put in jeopardy that he is called into fight; thus he is characterized as a rescuer rather than a man of violence. Betty Boop first appeared in 1930 in the cartoon Dizzy Dishes. Her Face and body defined her femininity; she has a large head with huge childish doe eyes and full red lips. She also has the typical hourglass figure with a full bust that shows of a lot of cleavage. She was also a dancer and her movement and walk were characterized mainly by the feminine swing of the hips. After the first cartoon her skirts got smaller and smaller and she became much more overtly sexualized. She was an embodiment of femininity or at least the male fantasy of femininity. The blend of sexual charge and childlike innocence that came through mainly from her eyes and her distinctive voice disturbed the censors. Her raunchiness was toned down after the Hayes code of 1934. Now that the development of human characterization has been addressed; it is important at this point to addresses the role of anthropomorphism again. The rise and success of the animation of Walt Disney, Chuck Jones and Tex Avery are prime examples of how the lending of human characteristics to animals and vice versa has created some of the must vivid and enduring icons of animation. Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck et al have become such fixed images in the popular psyche that it is important to understand what made these characters so memorable. When dealing with animals we must bear in mind the association that people already have with those particular beasts. Any given animal will have a mythology and literary tradition that comes with it; by being away of these traditions animators have been able to associate these ancient traditions with their own creations. For example foxes are sly and cunning; sharks are ferocious and unforgiving; horse and lions are heroic and noble creatures both ferocious yet majestic. When an animator is devising a character they tend to marry the preconceived ideas that people have about a particular beast with the traits they desire for their character. This is what wells calls associative relations and opens the form of animation into a narrative dialectic that requires an extra-textual understanding on behalf of the viewer. A good example of how the principle of associative relations works would be Kaa from The Jungle Book. The snake has a literary history that dates back to the story of Adam and Eve. It was the seductive yet untrustworthy snake that facilitated mans fall from paradise. The snake is sly; professing friendship but always has his own agenda. The snake glides along the flow in a smooth fluid motion, which is at once deadly and seductive. Kaa is attributed with these characteristics through legend and association. This is further illustrated by his ability of hypnotism, which is of course a human discipline. He talks to Mowgli and soothes him to sleep with soft words and hypnosis in order to eat him. In dealing with associations that are so deeply rooted in the common psyche the characters themselves become instantly memorable. Animal characteristics can also be applied to human characters. Heroes are often seen riding horses; the horse itself is a creature of nobility and heroism; and the tradition of the hero on horse back is one that has permeated every folklore around the globe. The human therefore basks in the reflective glory of its animal companion. The best way to summarize the use of anthropomorphism in characterization is to say that the human in the animal identifies the human character within. In turn the animal in the human illustrates and enriches the character of the human. Animators create artificial worlds and diegetic domains for characters to inhabit. As mentioned at the outset of this essay the problem is that the animated world we are presented with is so overtly fake that it is a challenge to make the characters believable. Animators exploit the fantasy element of their work; they draw attention to the fact that we are presented with talking pigs and indestructible heroes through comic exaggeration of their abilities and their follies. However what Animators do manage to do; is insert enough natural movement and recognizable human emotion into their creations that we except them fully as real believable characters within their own right. Bibliography Bordwell and Thompson. (2001) Film Art: An Introduction, New York: McGraw Hill. Canemaker, J. (ed.) (1988) Storytelling in Animation: The Art of the Animated Image Vol. 2, Los Angeles: AFI. Griffin, H. (2001) The Animators guide to 2D Computer Animation, Oxford: Focal Press, Halas, J and Manvell, R. (1968) The Technique of Film Animation, Norwich: Focal press Limited. Wells, P. (1998) Understanding Animation, New York: Routledge. Williams, R. (2001) The Animators Survival Kit, New York: Faber and Faber.

Killing Kids Essay -- Biology Essays Research Papers

Killing Kids M is nine years old(1). At this young age she has already beaten and tortured a 4 year old girl to death. She presents with absolutely no remorse about the incident. Any regret that she does exhibit is due to the fact that she understands that she is expected to feel apologetic about the incident, not because she intuitively feels remorse. D is ten years old (1). He has already killed a four year old girl because she "was annoying" him. He slapped her so hard that she fell to the ground and consequently died. While in the hospital, he was observed holding another patient's head under the water even after he was told not to do so. S is 10 years old and refuses to go to school. Instead, he runs across the street to play video games with his friend. When he is not over at his friend's house he sets fires for "fun". In addition, he often asked to carry drugs for his father with whom he has intermittent contact. He has been arrested for shop lifting from a local grocery(1). Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris walked into school on April 21, 1999 and killed 23 other people before finally taking their own lives(2). All of these people exhibit symptoms of conduct disorder. Conduct disorder is an inability to follow rules and behave in a socially acceptable way. People with this disorder exhibit aggression towards people and animals, are destructive towards property, are deceitful and seriously violate rules set by authority figures(3). Moreover, there are usually problems in the home such as divorce, poverty, child abuse, neglect, or parents that carry their own psychiatric diagnoses. In addition, patients with the disorder often carry other diagnoses such as oppositional defiant disorder, mood disorders, anxiety, attentio... ...sorder , Part of the University of Virginia Institute of Law, Psychiatry, & Public Policy website. http://www.ilppp.virginia.edu/juv/ConDis.html. 8) Counseling Children with Conduct Disorder , Part of the Counseling Today website. http://www.conseling.org/ctolin/achives/conduct.html. 9) A Double-Blind Study of Risperidone in the Treatment of Conduct Disorder, Published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and found on the Find articles.com website. http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m2250/4_39/61909235/promt.jhtml 10) How Youngest Killers Differ: Peer Support, On the New York Times website. http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/040900rampage-youth.html. 11) The Threaten, Seethe and Unhinge, Then Kill in Quantity , On the New York Times website. http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/040900rampage-killers.html.

Essay on Characterization in Rappaccini’s Daughter -- Rappaccinis Dau

Characterization in â€Å"Rappaccini’s Daughter†Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚        Ã‚   The dialogue, action and motivation revolve about the characters in the story (Abrams 32-33). It is the purpose of this essay to demonstrate the types of characters present in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s â€Å"Rappaccini’s Daughter,† whether static or dynamic, whether flat or round, and whether portrayed through showing or telling.    The tale takes place in Padua, Italy, where a Naples student named Giovanni Guascanti has relocated in order to attend the medical school there. His modest room is in an old mansion watched over by the landlady, Dame Lisabetta, a two-dimensional character given to religious expletives like, ``Holy Virgin, signor!'' She seeks to make the customer content with his lodging; she answers Giovanni’s curiosity about a garden next-door: ``No; that garden is cultivated by the own hands of Signor Giacomo Rappaccini, the famous doctor. . . .† As a character, old Lisabetta never develops beyond this single aspect of her personality of trying to make the customer happy. Later she sells information to Giovanni so that he can enter the garden by a secret entrance.    Giovanni in his room can hear the water gurgling in Dr. Rappaccini’s garden, from an ancient marble fountain located in the center of the plants and bushes; this sound â€Å"made him feel as if the fountain were an immortal spirit that sung its song unceasingly and without heeding the vicissitudes around it. . . .† Of particular interest to Giovanni is â€Å"one shrub in particular, set in a marble vase in the midst of the pool, that bore a profusion of purple blossoms, each of which had the lustre and richness of a gem.† As striking as the plant of the purple gems is â€Å"a tall, emaciated, sall... ...ed nature,† at the feet of her father and Giovanni. Beatrice, in the course of the story, passes from isolation to love and to a full realization of the truth, thus she is very dynamic; not static like her father. Giovanni is equally dynamic in developing into a loving person, and then reverting into an almost hating person because of the acquired malady.    WORKS CITED    Abrams, M. H. A Glossary of Literary Terms, 7th ed. New York: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1999.    Hawthorne, Nathaniel. â€Å"Rappaccini’s Daughter.† ElectronicText Center. University of Virginia Library. http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/browse-mixed-new?id="HawRapp"&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public    Kazin, Alfred. Introduction. Selected Short Stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne. New York: Fawcett Premier, 1966.            

Direct Digital Democracy :: Technology Government Papers

Direct Digital Democracy The central question of this paper is whether or not the rise of the Internet – and, in general, new communications technology – alters â€Å"the limits of the human capacity for self-government.† My answer to this question is no. Advancements in communications technology, no matter how significant or revolutionary they may at first seem, ultimately have no fundamental effect on man’s literal capacity to govern himself. The Internet, like the television, the telephone, and the transatlantic telegraph before that, all have one basic thing in common: each is a tool and not a force of nature. Each must be comprehended, manipulated and applied by an individual, using his own rational faculty and according to his own devices. The technology itself – although complex – is fundamentally no different than the spear, the wheel, the stirrup, the combustible engine, or the space shuttle. Technology does not change man’s fundamental nature, but it does affect how well he lives, what he does, where he goes, and how quickly he can get there. Will the Internet alter the American political system? Indeed it will, and to a large extent already has, by facilitating the work of current government officials and representatives within our present system of representative democracy. But will the Internet revolution drive the American system of government toward direct digital democracy – a â€Å"third transformation† as significant as the transformation from Athenian direct democracy to American representative democracy? Most empirical evidence suggests it will not. Normatively speaking, political scientists ought to retain James Madison’s view that the purpose of gove rnment is to prevent tyranny of the majority and to constrain evil. Therefore, contemporary politicians should openly oppose measures that seek to alter our existing institutions in an effort to make them more conducive to direct democracy, whether digital or not. This Madisonian view of government is neither the sole standard of government in contemporary American society, nor is it the frontrunner among competing political ideologies. I would argue that the mythology of liberalism or populism is accepted as just and revered by most average Americans. In the 2002 Presidential Election, George W. Bush defeated Al Gore in the Electoral College vote, thus winning the presidency, but lost the overall popular American vote by a significant margin.

The Discovery of DNA

It is amazing how important things are being discovered by persons who spend most of their lives dedicated to research. It is perhaps more amazing how a scientist discovers one thing while trying to discover other things. Imagine if no one was patient enough to conduct experiments to prove their assumptions. If that was the case, we would not know today that DNA is the genetic material. This paper will discuss how DNA was discovered, its structure and the scientists who contributed to the discovery.Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is considered as the molecular blueprint of life that can be passed to the next generation. It was discovered in 1953 (University of Georgia, 2007) from experiments seeking to understand bacterial pneumonia which claimed many lives during the twentieth century. During these experiments, researchers stumbled into discoveries which later on became the reagents for further experiments leading to the discovery of DNA as the genetic material (O’Connor, 2008).D NA looks like a twisted ladder wherein rungs are secured by two out of four molecules that are interlocking. These molecules are nucleic acid bases. The four molecules include thymine, adenine, cytosine, and guanine (University of Georgia, 2007). Certain scientists have been notable for conducting experiments leading to the discovery of DNA. One of these was Oswald Avery whose team was trying to find out how to treat lobular pneumonia. From his experiments, he proved that DNA indeed carries genetic information.During that time, many people believed that the gene would be made up of protein and not nucleic acid (WGBH, 1998). Another scientist which contributed to DNA discovery was Frederick Griffith who, in 1928, conducted an experiment utilizing pneumonia bacteria and mice. Recent studies pointed that Griffith’s experiment was one of many others hinting that DNA was the hereditary material. Griffith assumed from his experiment, wherein he used a smooth (S) and rough (R) strai ns of Streptococcus pneumoniae on a mice, that polysaccharide coating was the cause of the illness to the mice.Further into his experiment, he found out that something in the living cell, and not the polysaccharides, caused the disease. Later on he speculated that the R strain bacteria he injected into the mice has absorbed the dead S strain bacteria’s genetic material. Furthermore, he speculated that the protein contained in the chromosomes was not the genetic bacteria due to the finding that heat denatures protein (Biology at Clermont College, n. d. ). At first, Avery was skeptical of the results of Griffith’s experiment. However, other researchers further studied Griffith’s findings.In 1931, Sia and Dawson found out that transformation, a process wherein one strain absorbs the genetic material of another strain and becomes that bacterium, could also take place in liquid cultures of pneumococci and mice. In 1948, Linus Pauling found out that proteins are shape d in alpha helix, which looks like a spring coil. Another significant discovery took place two years later, when Erwin Chargaff discovered an important foundation of the description of DNA: nitrogen bases in DNA varied, but some bases occur in one-to-one ratio.Pauling’s findings have further aroused interest into two researchers, namely: Francis Crick and James Watson. They were not the only ones interested in studying DNA. Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin from London were also studying DNA. Franklin discovered the possibility that DNA can occur in two forms. It depends on the humidity of the air. Franklin figured out that the molecule’s phosphate was located on the outside. Watson and Crick, determined to redeem their studies after a failed model, conceptualized that there are two chains of nucleotides in the molecule.These two chains were in a helix, as what Franklin has discovered, but one chain was moving to the opposite direction of another. Furthermore, they believed that the strands of DNA molecule served as the template for the other. The strands separate during cell division. In addition, a new half is built on each strand. The team found out that this was the way DNA reproduces without change in its structure (WGBH, 1998). The discovery of DNA was considered as the most important biological work and it has paved the way for further experiments and studies. Crick and Watson won the Nobel Prize for their findings. References Biology at Clermont College. (n.d). DNA structure and function. Retrieved January 30, 2009, from http://biology.clc.uc.edu/courses/bio104/dna.htm O’Connor, C. (2008). Discovery of DNA as the hereditary material using Streptococcus pneumoniae. Nature Education, 1(1). University of Georgia. (2007). Study suggests how DNA building block might have formed. Retrieved January 30, 2009, from http://www.world-science.net/othernews/071102_adenine.htm WGBH. (1998). Watson and Crick describe structure of DNA. Retrieved January 30, 2009, from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/do53dn.html

Themes in Frankenstein

Shelley uses multiple narrators, nested and frame narratives and an epistolary style to tell the story of Frankenstein. Comment on the effect of these and why she may have done this.Mary Shelly’s novel â€Å"Frankenstein† was written in 1818. The author uses different types of techniques to create a variety of different narrators and points of views by using a form of epistolary. Frame narration is also another great part of the novel that supports the complexity of layers in the book. These help present the suspicion element, characters point of view, the similarity between the main characters, and allow the reader to develop a personal opinion without the author resorting to the device of an omniscient narrator.The book starts with the letters from Robert Walton describing his voyage to the North Pole and his sighting of an ill man, who Walton later nurses back to health â€Å"A man in wretched condition† pg.11. After a recovery, the stranger, Victor Frankenste in, tells him the story of his life. The letters set up the novel and create suspicion due to the reader not knowing what the significance of these letters is. However, Walton is the first of the characters that tells his story, which gives the reader an advantage to conclude for himself about his opinion towards the different characters. This device, frame narrative, establishes a complex layer of stories, hence, the reader listens to Victors story, so does Walton, and Walton’s sister to him.Throughout the story, Victor occasionally interrupts and addresses Walton directly, or when Walton signs the letters he is sending off to his sister. These are the first encounters with the different language devices that Mary Shelly uses to create more depth in addition to a different structure to other books. Moreover, the reader is compelled to give more attention to the book, in order to understand the plot, and have an own opinion about the different situations in the book.Furthermo re, the letters also display the similarity between Walton and Victor, since they both seek to discover and complete objectives for the world. For example Walton describes how it will benefit the entire human race â€Å"Inestimable benefit on all mankind to the last generation† (pg.16 Walton) and Victor states that it will reveal the greatest power in the world â€Å"pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation† (pg.49 Victor). The ambition to figure out the answer drives them both to their death and that of other innocent lives, demonstrating how the pursuit to solve such mysteries, with desire and determination, can result differently than one’s expectations.On the other hand the letters also surface the resemblance between other characters. Walton and the creation, Frankenstein, both present their loneliness and their wish to find a friend to share their stories. The isolation and loneliness in the novel is one of the most significant themes, which are presented throughout the form of epistolary. In the opening of the letters Walton expresses his lonesomeness â€Å"I shall commit my thoughts to paper, it is true; but that is a poor medium for the communication of feeling.I desire the company of a man who could sympathize with me, whose eyes would reply to mine. You may deem me romantic, my dear sister, but I bitterly feel the want of a friend† (Shelley 10). This is one of the first encounters with the theme, but later on this suffering repeats itself with the creation, Frankenstein, ‘When I looked around I saw and heard of none like me. Was I, the, a monster, a blot upon the earth from which all men fled and whom all men disowned?'†Chap. 13 pg. 105 The most appropriate reason why Mary Shelly would come to such a structure, would be to show the similarity between a normal human and a creature, also known as a monster, and matching hopes of not resulting abandoned. Mary Shelly questions here if humans and monster share a similarity, and if the humans can also posses these qualities of monsters. This insight to the emotions and perspectives of the characters, establishes an insight for the reader to their feelings and deeper thoughts, as well as a bond between the reader and character. Mary shelly motivates the reader to develop a personal opinion about these characters and the entire story and to judge whether or no the creature is a monster or simply misunderstood.Frankenstein has a very creative structure that helps create a meaningful effect on the reader, and compelling story. This form of frame narration, multiple different perspectives, provides us with the opportunity to develop our own opinion towards the characters and their actions. Not only opinions  are formed, but we also come to realize that creatures and humans, in this novel, share certain similarities. These can be interpreted that us humans have traits, similar to monsters , or the other way around. Overall, the novel has effects that cannot be established if the form of epistolary would have not been applied. This shows the complexity of layers in this novel and how the variety stimulates the story and provokes the reader.

Report for the Promotional Plan of Hot and Chocolate Tea/Coffee

REPORT FOR THE PROMOTIONAL PLAN OF HOT AND CHOCOLATE TEA/COFFEE OF COSTA COFFEE MODULE NAME : MANAGING FINANCE AND MARKETING IN BUSINESS MODULE CODE : TH600B1E SUBMITTED TO : O’HALLERAN ERIC, LONGART PEDRO SUBMITTED BY : RATHEESH VISWANATHAN – 21208850 RESHMI PRABHAKARAN USHA DEVI – 21205617 SUKHWANT KAUR MANN – 21207381 INDEX 1. INTRODUCTION 3 2 BUSINESS PORTFOLIO 3 3. SMART OBJECTIVE 3 4. PROMOTION TITLE 7 5. WHAT WE NEED TO BE DONE? 7 6. BUDJET CONSIDERATION 7 7. WORKING OF SEVEN P’S 8 8. CLOSE SCRUTINY AND COST 8 . RETURN OF INVESTMENT 9 10. CONCLUSION 9 11. BIBLIOGRAPHY 10 1. INTRODUCTION This report is submitted on behalf of the marketing plan for a franchise branch of Costa Coffee located Ealing Broadway in West London of United Kingdom Costa coffee has a fabulous history to be poured in each cup of tea which is served to the customers. HISTORY Costa coffee was founded and established by Sergio and Bruno in the year 1971. The first cup of cof fee was served in Newport Street, London. Gradually Costa gained its reputation by providing coffee to local caterers and delicatessens.After seven years, Costa brothers opened their first shop and by the end of 1995, Costa coffee was spread into 41 Costa stores. It was in 1995 Costa Coffee was purchased by Whitbread PLC and from there it has grown into more and more locations to over 2000 stores world – wide. Over the last 40 years a lot of things had changed but the endless passion for creating great tasting of coffee still lies in the heart of Costa. VISION Costa Coffee is committed to provide the best hospitality experience to its customers with a range of hospitality products which includes hotels, restaurants and leisure clubs.MISSION â€Å" To serve the best coffee in the true Italian style. † 2 BUSINESS PORTFOLIO Over 40 years of excellence Costa had builded up and inevitable reputation of coffee excellence. This goodwill is created by a whole control of the en tire processes that is from harvesting and selection of coffee beans, the roasting of Italian masteries, the choice of machines and compliance for the various procedures of manufacturing beverages and overall ensuring that the same quality of excellent coffee is served to the customers of Costa coffee all around the world.Three different sizes are there for Costa which will serve the customer in 3 different sizes, Primo, Medio and Massimo and the customer can choose from any of Unique blend of Mocha Italia, or decaf, whole or skim milk and add an extra dose of espresso, flavored syrup, cream, candy or chocolate. 15 factors are combined and help to form the perfect Costa Coffee. On over all of these, in each store all over the world regular controls are imposed to ensure consistent and qualitated Costa products and a Barista Mastero (coffee expert) is there in each Costa Coffee to ensure the excellence of drinks served. MARKET IN UKThe deep rooted heritage and unique quality of coffe e had made Costa the market leader here in UK. Over 1,300 stores are operated by Costa or via its individual and corporate franchises. Costa coffee can be found everywhere the customers need for a great coffee. Such as high streets, airport & rail stations, shopping centers & retail parks, motorway & forecourts, hotels, cinemas, hospitals & universities, visitor attractions and leisure venues. In addition to the Costa stores, Costa coffee is also available at over 4,000 premium locations; travel, contract catering, pubs bars & restaurants and hotel & leisure venues.CURRENT MARKET SITUATION The current macroeconomic market condition was a complex one and regular effort must be required for the right tracking of the same. PESTEL Analysis Political Costa coffee beans are growing especially in developing countries. So if taxes imposed on the farmers in those countries increased it will make Costa should pay a higher rate for the coffee they purchase and any of those fluctuations in taxa tion levels will ultimately be passed over to the customers. Economical The economic recession that was happened in 2008 are still creating challenges in the business of Costa Coffee firmly as a whole.Consumers became more conscious with their discretionary spending due to the high unemployment and debt in person and the situation is still prevailing as the same Social/cultural People are spending considerable amount of money. As per the recent survey of Costa’s market experts we found that the annual expenditure of people in London for tea was money on coffee was ? 623million and tea was ? 738 million. Customers are going to coffee shops not only for drinking coffee but also to relax and for even unofficial meeting also. TechnologicalThe latest technological advancement is Senseo which is a better and cheaper coffee machine which can be very much helpful for home usage which can be adversely affecting Costa coffee. Environmental As a part of environmental awareness coffee co mpanies will have to be aware about the way their coffee beans are produced and the way to manufacture and sell their products. Design their supply chain Legal U K, a decade ago pulled out of the ICA (international Coffee Agreement) that set export quotas for producing nations and kept the price of coffee fairly stable.Coffee quotas and price controls ended. Since the deregulation farmers have suffered and their earnings have dropped. Many have struggled to make a living so have given up. International trade regulations/tariffs – Trade issues will affect Costa predominantly when exporting and importing goods. Target Customers Detailed research and strategic studies have been conducted to identify the class and categories of customers. While evaluating their consumer market the conclusion was that the ideal consumer’s economic profile will be; 1.Upper Middle Class: Our recent surveys show that 68% of the total coffee consumers of London were upper middle class people or high economy class people. Hot coffee and hot chocolate coffee was mainly consumed by these class of people. 2. Privileged Class: These classes of people also enjoy the tea more than coffee. Thus we can capture a strong hold on the market of tea and gear up the promotion of hot and chocolate flavor of tea. While the age demographics will be: 1. Students and Youngsters: Students and youngsters consider coffee shops as a gathering spot rather than consuming the products.Here we can utilize the grouping of these people as a sales boost up 2. Professionals: These categories of people were both interested in coffee and tea products as well as they utilize their tea or coffee consumption for unofficial meetings. 3. Families: Families are usually weekend customers and leisure time customers. 4. Mature Consumers: Matured customer groups are ideal for consumption of Costa products because according to our market study most of the people of these groups are theoretically addicted to tea or c offee.We can blow up their mind towards consuming our targeted product Gender and Ethnic/Religious Background was researched to have minimal or no effect on the choices concerning coffee made by consumers and their patronage of coffeehouses. Competitor Analysis The renowned coffee brands which are prevailed in UK were Starbucks, Caffe Nero, Coffee republic, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Coffee Bean Peet's, Caribou Coffee, Cafe Coffee Day, Barista and Mochas. Amoung these we are experiencing a competition with one brand that is Starbucks. Costa Coffee and StarbucksStarbucks is the prime and most intimate competitor of Costa Coffee. Although we are in the prime market position in UK, Starbuscks occupies the position of leader in the coffee shop market with an international market of over 50 countries. Costa occupies the second position on the base of international presence in 27 countries. Both companies had extremely excellent financial performance from 2005 to 2010. However in 200 9 Starbucks had made improvements in their cost structure and therefore the liquidity is better than Costa Coffee since it managed its short-term debt payments.An important factor for both companies is globalization because most leading firms in the food service market expand their operations to other countries. Anyway the future success of both the companies will be based on their operations within UK. Situation analysis – SWOT Strengths As we look into the strengths of Costa coffee, it is showing continuous growth which pasted up their market leader position. Costa had an excellent brand name and brand visibility. Another strength is the wide range of products and value for the money.Costa has a club card which will focus on customers loyalthy. Another peculiarity is that Costa has its own roastery that ensures quality of coffee. Also they are providing the extra bit of unique taste by training baristas within their own training academy. Weaknesses The major weakness of Cos ta is that even though it is operating globally, they are relatively in only few countries worldwide. Another problem is the difficulty to control and maintain brand standard with their franchise store. Limited range of cool drinks available in Costa is another point of weakness.Opportunities We are finding our own opportunities in global market by developing products or drinks such as organic products/cool drinks etc. Another merit include s the introduction of online /telephone ordering system . Entry to far East is another opportunity because of the chilled weather hot chocolate tea will help us to boost up regular sales proportion Threats We are facing major threats from existing coffee chains and fast food outlets. The intense price competition is another threat. As we develop new recipe that means imitating the recipe more quickly . SMART OBJECTIVE Our SMART objective is to increase the monthly sales of hot and chocolate tea/coffee in Costa Coffee by 30 % within 7 months of ca lculated marketing campaign. 4. PROMOTION TITLE A promotion title should always be a suitable caption that can steal the hearts of public which conveys the idea of product/commodity along with our tradition that induces them to consume our product. After a lot of ‘inventions and innovation’ Costa introduce its promotion title as â€Å"Feel the best tea and coffee in  the true Italian style. † 5.WHAT WE NEED TO BE DONE? For the achievement of our preplanned objective we have decided to open 3 promotional stalls for exclusive sales of hot and chocolate tea/coffee within the circle of Ealing Broadway. Within the same we will introduce a special high street offer to our targeted product. Here we calculate that we can drive revenue through increased consumer awareness about that particular product. Supporting promotion to drive people to the outlets should be done with by leaflet distribution within the area circle and advertisement in selected local newspaper. . BU DJET CONSIDERATION The table shown below details all about the total cost of the marketing statregy of Costa Coffee of Ealing Broadway within 7 months of calculated period |Marketing Strategy |Costs for Seven Months | |Equipments from ? 800 – ? 1100 + Signage from ? 45 – ? 300. |Maximum ? 1,400 | |Local Newspaper Advertisement |Maximum ? ,000 | |Leaflet distribution |Maximum ? 1,500 | |Miscellaneous expenses |Maximum ? 500 | |Total  Advertising Costs |Maximum ? 6,400 | 7. WORKING OF 7 Ps Product †¢ Our brand name is our signature.The name of Costa signifies luxury, excellence and perfection all over the world. †¢ The image of Costa is luxury †¢ The theme of Costa, from the brand logo, the color scheme of the premises, to the entire feel of our business is warm tones & relaxing colors. †¢ Costa’s reputation for excellence applies not only for the exceptional coffee but also the insistence on perfect service. Price †¢ The prices of al l the products are comparatively higher at . But this is offset by the outstanding quality and discerning tastes at .One of the reasons for choosing the privileged and higher middle classes in the target market is the prices. Place †¢ After thorough research, and competitive analysis the perfect locations in terms of exposure, accessibility and competitive edge have been acquired. †¢ The inventory and easy transport facilities have also been a part of the deciding factors while choosing the appropriate locale. Promotion †¢ Brand name is enough to muster the required target market. †¢ Most of the awareness will be through the word of mouth of people amongst the masses. Hence the reputation is more that counts. 8. CLOSE SCRUITNY AND COST COTROL Two methods of evaluation and scrutiny will be done with related to this promotional plan. A weekly review will be conducted by the Area Manager and evaluate the weekly expenditure and progress of the promotion and the same will be reported to our corporate office. Moreover that a monthly review will also conducted by 2 of our corporate marketing and finance professionals for strict scrutiny of cost control and marketing implementation. 9. RETURN OF INVESTMENTWe are expecting minimum sale of 70 cups of hot and chocolate tea/coffee per day. 70 cups per day @ average RP of ? 3. 50 Gross profit = ? 51450 – Expense of promotional plan = ? 6400 Net profit = 45050 We can expect the Return Of Investment and calculated sales growth within 7 months of period. 10. CONCLUSION Costa Coffee has been able to remain one of UK's leading coffee brewing companies for more than a century now primarily because of the execution of the company’s branding and positioning strategies to perfection.Add to the mix the company’s dedication to high quality of service and the formula for success is at hand. Moreover, the utilization of the appropriate knowledge management tools is necessary for their products t o reach out to people even in different cultures. However, certain points have to be taken into consideration by Costa Coffee regarding knowledge management tools. Since their income is relatively higher than most coffee brewing companies, the time for implementation of their chosen knowledge management tools would take longer than usual, aside from being expensive.But since the goal of Costa Coffee is towards a long-term dominance and stability in the brewing industry, then the pursuit of this promotional campaign will be beneficial for the company in the long run. BIBLIOGRAPHY About the Foundation (2012)[ online]  Ã‚  Ã‚  http://www. costa. co. uk/costa-foundation/about-the-foundation/, (assessed on 12 jan 2013) Costa Coffee Marketing Plan for China (2012)[ online]  Ã‚  Ã‚  http://www. ukessays. com/essays/marketing/costa-coffee-marketing-plan-for-china-marketing-essay. hp  , (assessed on17 jan 2013)      Countless Studies Reveal Healthy Attributes (2012)[ online]  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  www. coffeescience. org  -, (assessed on 7 jan 2013) Dunn Bros (2012)[ online]  Ã‚  www. dunnbros. com  , (assessed on 5 jan 2013)   Ã‚   Dunn Bros Franchise Press Releases–(2012)[ online]  Ã‚  Ã‚  www. restaurantresearch. info   , (assessed on 5jan 2013)   Ã‚   ESRI – Business Information Solution – Products Report Zip Code –(2012)[ online]  www. esribis. com   , (assessed on 9 jan 2013)   Star Tribune article by Jim Buchta, pub 9-19-02 â€Å"Dunn Bros. Coffee Breaks the Mold – With Every Store† US Census Data