Key Players In Malaysia Airline Industry Tourism Essay

Key Players In Malaysia Airline Industry Tourism Essay This chapter includes research background, problem statement, research objectives, research questions, and hypotheses of the study, significance of the study and chapter layout. Research background provides the overall phenomena and background of the study. Problem statement consists of the issues that should be emphasized and more deeply develop in the research questions and hypotheses. After clearly point out the research problem of the study, the research objectives to be accomplish and the research questions to be answered are discuss in the following as well. Hypotheses are developed from the proposed theoretical framework. Next section will be significance of study which briefly explain the importance and the contributions of this study. Last section will be briefly outlines each chapter of the research report. The state of the airline industry is truculent currently and the demand has decrease sharply caused by many factors which is affected to the Airline Company. Besides that, the global airline industry has forecast of deeper loss according to the international air transport association. In recent years airline industry has been suffering from severe turbulence and faced its longest deepest crisis. However, at the macro-economic level Asia Pacific growth is impressive because Asian carriers led profitability with US$1.5 billion while other region are struggling such as US or European carrier lost in US billion. In the region operating margins averaged less than 2%, still the best performance in the world but most are below the 7% to 8% needed to cover the cost of capital and give investors an acceptable return. Initially, the crisis caused by the downturn of economic crisis, the external shocks such as the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks, and the SARS epidemic. The industry economic impact is estimated at RM 11.9 trillion, which is about 7.5% of the world gross domestic product annum. However, according to the the total passenger traffic in airline industry has expanded rapidly with increasingly by 5% between 2000 and 2005, with an actual drop in 2001. (WTO, 2007). The development of air transport is an important foreign exchange earner in the service sector and developing comprehensive network of airport to facilitate trade, tourism and speed up socio-economic development. In Malaysia, the Malaysia Airport Berhad was incorporated in year 1991 focuses on operation and management. Malaysia airport has continually restructured and able to operate the airport with expensively business direction recently. In addition, the airline service in Malaysia consists of the domestic and international. The international airport in Malaysia only located in certain states which are in Kuala Lumpur (KLIA), Penang, Langkawi, Kota Kinabalu, and Kuching. Some of the domestic airports are located in every other state such as Perak, Kedah, Melaka, Sabah and Sarawak. There are four different types of the airline companies in Malaysia such as Malaysia Airline System which is MAS, Air Asia, Firefly and Berjaya-Air. Furthermore, these airline companies are in different position and they are using different strategy to target different group of customer. There are three different type of Airline Business Model in Malaysia such as full-service carriers, low-cost carriers and charter carriers. Full-service carrier like MAS is defined as an airline company developed from the former state-owned flag carrier, through the market deregulation process into an airline company. On the other hand, low-cost carrier like Air Asia and Fire-Fly is defined as a low fare or no-frills airline, and they are designed to have a competitive advantage in term of costs over a full-service carrier. Lastly, charter carrier like Berjaya-Air is defined as the airline company that operates flights outside normal schedules, by a hiring arrangement with a particular customer. The only function is to transport holidaymakers to tourist destinations. Due to the decrease of growth rate and revenue, airline companies in Malaysia are having a high competition in order to acquire and retain the customers. Therefore, the primary competitive weapon that Airline Company used is the price. Besides that, they need to search more other ways to increase their service quality and product differentiation to obtain the market advantage. The strategies that Airline Company adopted are the implementation of capacity controls, differentiated pricing by market segment, frequently flyer programs, and improving on-time performance to induce passengers repurchase intention. Hence, the airline industrys competition is very fierce. In order to gain competitive advantage, the important factor is improving the airline service quality to the passengers. According to the Ostrowski et al (1993) shows that airline could acquire and retain their customer loyalty if they are continuing to provide perceived high quality services. As the conclusion, Airline Company provides the superior service quality is important and it is the main agenda for all airlines in order to remain competitive. Key Players in Malaysia Airline Industry International Airline Company Local Airline Company Jetstar Asia Airways Malaysia Airline System Cathay Pacific Air Asia Bangkok Airways Fire-Fly China Airlines Berjaya-Air Air Japan Airfast Indonesia Vietnam Airlines Korean Air 1.2 Problem Statement Travel is the dream for every people as it can let people to achieve a relaxing mood and explore to the world wide. With the needs of people to travel around the world, it helps airline industry to continue expand their business. However, many external factors have been affecting the airline industry hard to perform well. At year 2009, economic crisis lowered the purchasing power of traveler. People try to save their money and reduce the frequency of travelling. This has cause the sales performance of airline industry decrease dramatically. Besides, the diseases such as SARS and H1N1 have been frightening the people to travel to another country. People rather stay at home for their health purpose. Political stability of one country also becomes an important factor lead to the willingness of people to travel. The unstable political condition such as Thailand will cause people not to travel to that certain country. The external factors are giving a big impact on the sales performance of an airline company. The highly competitive of airline industry after the entrance of AirAsia Airline in year 2001 caused the airline company need to use more strategies to attract the customer. At the first, Malaysia Airline monopoly the airline industry which there is no other airline company competes with it. Since AirAsia Airline enter into the market offering the low cost air flight to the customer has been making the airline industry become more competitive. In order to retain the customer Malaysia Airline also tries to promote their air flight ticket at lower price at non peak season to attract the customer. Nevertheless, customer still switches between Malaysia Airline and AirAsia Airline often. This in turn means low cost air fares does not increase the customer satisfaction to continue patronage to the particular airline company. We need to discover the factor which to enhance the customer satisfaction in order loyal to only one airline company. There is lack of research from the past studies towards the factor which can increase the satisfaction of air flight passengers. Therefore, we need to do this research in order to figure out the factor that cause the customers satisfy with the service quality of airline service. Research Objective The purpose of the investigation of this study can be divided into two categories which are general objective and specific objectives as below: General Objective The objective of this study is to determine the relative impact of three dimensions of service quality (reliability and customer service, convenience and accessibility, and in-flight service); airline image and passengers satisfaction on repurchase intention among Malaysian airline passengers. Specific Objective To examine the impact of service quality in term of reliability and customer service, convenience and accessibility, and in-flight service toward passengers satisfaction and airline image. To examine the impact of service quality in term of reliability and customer service, convenience and accessibility, and in-flight service toward passengers satisfaction. To examine the impact of service quality in term of reliability and customer service, convenience and accessibility, and in-flight service toward airline image. To examine the impact of passengers satisfactions toward airline image. To examine the impact of passengers satisfaction toward repurchase intention. To examine the relative influences of passengers satisfaction, airline image on repurchase intention. Research Questions We tend to improve our understanding whether there are any interrelated of each dimensions of the service quality, airline passengers satisfaction, airline image towards future passengers repurchase intention by answer as below questions: Does Airline service quality (reliability and customer service, convenience and accessibility, and in-flight service) have positive effect on passengers satisfaction and airline image? Which of the dimension of the service quality contribute the most to the customer satisfaction? Which of the dimension of the service quality contribute the most to the airline image? Will passengers satisfaction enhance airline image? Will satisfied passengers lead to their repurchase intention? Will passengers satisfaction and airline image influence passengers future repurchase intention? Hypothesis Below are the hypotheses that covered in this study: Hypothesis 1a H0: There is a positive relationship between reliabilty and customer service with passengers satisfaction H1: There is a negative relationship between reliabilty and customer with passengers satisfaction Hypothesis 1b H0: There is a positive relationship between convenience and accessibility with passengers satisfaction H1: There is a negative relationship between convenience and accessibility with passengers satisfaction Hypothesis 1c H0: There is a positive relationship between in-flight services with passengers satisfaction H1: There is a negative relationship between in-flight services with passengers satisfaction Hypothesis 2a H0: There is a positive relationship between reliabilty and customer service with Airline Image. H1: There is a negative relationship between reliabilty and customer with Airline Image. Hypothesis 2b H0: There is a positive relationship between convenience and accessibility with Airline Image H1: There is a negative relationship between convenience and accessibility with Airline Image Hypothesis 2c H0: There is a positive relationship between in-flight services with Airline Image H1: There is a negative relationship between in-flight services with Airline Image Hypothesis 3 H0: There is a positive relationship between passengers satisfaction and airline image. H1: There is a negative relationship between passengers satisfaction and airline image. Hypothesis 4 H0: There is a positive relationship between passengers satisfaction and repurchase intention. H1: There is a negative relationship between passengers satisfaction and repurchase intention. Hypothesis 5 H0: There is a positive relationship between Airline Image and repurchase intention. H1: There is a negative relationship between Airline Image and repurchase intention. 1.6 Significance of Research This study is crucial to the services provider or the airline company as well as the airline industry. Customer repurchase intention is one of the factors that will affect airline company business. Hence, this research will provides a better understanding on how airline service quality apply in service industry and how its dimension identifies the customer perception of airline service quality in airline industry customer perspective as well as their satisfaction and airline image affect repurchase intention. The airlines that focusing on retaining customers and influence their repurchase intention as the main source of competitive advantage. The airlines respond rapidly to increase pressure to restructure, consolidate and segment the airline industry will achieve competitive advantages in which airline service providers improve and tailoring their services and winning consumer preference and substantial customer base. In this context, this study aim to give a clear picture to airline service provider about the main driver affecting passengers satisfaction, airline image and passengers repurchase intention. Besides, customer repurchase intention affected by passengers satisfaction that the customer purchases are potential repeat purchases when they satisfied with the airline services provided by service provider. By understand the significant of the repurchase intention and the determinanat factors drive repurchase intention lead the following study more comprehensive, future supplement and prove the proposed framework. In addition, researchers wish to identify the factors affecting Airline consumer toward the perception of service quality provided by several airline company in Malaysia. Moreover, this will create a good reference for those Airline Industries Company, marketer and academic people to make a further discovery and improvement of the airline service in order to attract and retain more Malaysian using local airline services. Due to competitiveness in airline service industry, gathering of this data will lead to a better understanding of the influencing level of the attributes on customer satisfaction. In return, researchers look forward to the opportunities for Malaysia Airline market share will expanding and increasing the usage rate of Airline services in Malaysia Country services. 1.7 Chapter Layout Chapter 1 is the description of this research overview. This chapter outlines the research background, research problem statement, research objectives, hypotheses and the significance of the study to the development of management theory and practice. Chapter 2 is the description of the literature review. This chapter is to build a theoretical foundation for the research by reviewing relevant journals and articles to identify research issues which are worth researching. Besides that, this chapter also provides a theoretical framework to proceed with further investigation. Chapter 3 of the research project is the description of the methodology. Thus, it describes how the research is carried out in terms of research design, data collection method, sampling design, operational definitions of constructs, measurement scales and methods of data analysis. Chapter 4 is the description of data analysis. The chapter presents the results of the research after analyzed feedback from respondents. It includes several sections such as descriptive analysis, scale measurement, and inferential analyses. Chapter 5 involves discussion, conclusion and implication of this study. This chapter attempted to provide a summary of statistical analyses, discuss the limitations of the study as well as provide recommendations for further research and overall conclusion of the entire research objective set. 1.8 Conclusion As conclusion, this chapter provides a brief overview of the research. The direction, insight, and scope of the research will be presented to support the following chapters. Therefore each variable will be discussed in detail and the proposed conceptual framework will be illustrated by the following chapter 2.

Drama and Theatre Studies structured records

‘Use of space' explored the broad topic of social and professional satisfaction and happiness. In order to highlight the universal implications of our piece, we decided that it was necessary to use diverse characters allowing the audience to identify with aspects of each persona's issues. Initially, we brainstormed several different problems that could affect an individual's happiness in the work place, and came up with the fundamentals for five characters. The original basis of my character came from my own anxieties towards life. During devising we were contemplating university choices and starting to arrange our lives after college. As a group we all felt anxious and many felt a lack of direction. This insecurity we felt towards leaving the secondary education system, led to the creation of Pamela (the character I played. ) After discussing Pamela's initial characteristics, focusing on her feelings of anxiety and confusion we had to decide her plot. Her lack of control and direction led us to create her objective to gain a secure role in the work place to solve her anxieties. After creating the fundamentals of each character we discussed as a group their characterisation. The role of Pamela primarily emerged through a series of role-plays. Firstly, I performed as her character in different situations allowing me to develop her personality. The remaining members contributed as supporting characters in the role play and often suggested ways to present her. I feel that my understanding of Pamela's persona emerged during the staging of her box monologue. Through this monologue we hoped to communicate to the audience Pamela's feelings of anxiety and confusion towards her professional future. As a group we felt the most effective way to portray this was through the use of physical theatre, therefore, the remaining members of the group adopted the role of a maze in which Pamela was metaphorically trapped. During the staging of this sequence I had to deliver my monologue whilst struggling through a figurative maze. As a performer I was sensitive to my characters claustrophobic feelings allowing me to successfully communicate her anxieties to the audience. Throughout the staging of this monologue the remaining group members concentrated on the performing space I was given. Although it was frustrating for me to be contained to a very small performing area, it allowed me to sympathise with my characters feelings of confinement and eventually resulted in a very successful portrayal of Pamela. During devising our characters, we were aware that each individual had to adopt a dream persona in the ‘fantasy' scenes. We hoped to communicate to the audience contrasting characteristics in these persona's, to highlight their desire to escape the frustration they feel towards reality. Whilst creating the character Angela's ‘fantasy' persona we analysed the reality Angela. Angela shows boredom towards her monotonous life. Through her character we hoped to communicate to the audience the necessity of having hobbies and dreams. The fantasy Angela emerged through the improvisation of a Latin American soap opera. We created the vivacious and dramatic character Maria who starkly contrasted Angela. As a group we agreed that the performance of Maria should be melodramatic and exaggerated to further contrast Angela's tedious reality. It was important to introduce a character for Maria to interact with to inject more energy into the scene. Through discussion we settled with a clichi love story and decided to introduce a male character who Maria is having an affair with. It was essential for this scene to maintain intense energy levels to contrast with the previous office scene. Firstly, we researched typical novella characters to influences our roles. I suggested that the group members in this scene (Helia and Payam) should highlight the sexual attraction between the characters. Initially this provoked awkwardness between Payam and Helia; therefore, we felt it was necessary to introduce an activity to make the two more comfortable with each other. We used several team building exercises to make Helia and Payam more physically comfortable with one another; the most successful was the leading the blind exercise. Through this exercise the participants were forced to be more sensitive towards each other, in partners one partner was chosen to lead the other blindly by the tip of the nose. Through constant contact and reliance this was very successful in making Payam and Helia more at ease. Similarly, it helped to distance the novella character to the actor. Through exaggerated physicality and melodramatic acting techniques the actor was dissociated with the character. Costumes successfully contributed to the portrayal of my character in the murder mystery fantasy. I played a stereotypical, stock detective character originally based on the Agatha Christie character Hercule Poirot. Initially I struggled to effectively portray this character because it was such a contrasting role to my reality. Physicality was a very important aspect of this character because of the desired effect we hoped to achieve. We had chosen to use melodrama and clichid anecdotes, therefore, it was important that the audience drew parallels between my character and Poirot for comedic effect. Through further independent research I discovered Poirot's defining feature was a French trench coat, and I decided to rehearse wearing this item. Surprisingly, the trench coat allowed me to connect with Poirot's physicality and personality, through wearing the coat my characterisation improved and allowed me to successfully perform as a response to Poirot. How the group planned for a range of responses from the audience. Initially we intended to present a serious production highlighting the importance of life satisfaction parodied through working life, based in an office. However, during the initial devising stages we decided to introduce fantasy scenes to contrast the monotonous office scenes and highlight the significance of dreams and ambition. As a group we showed interest towards comedic genres and felt that these would juxtapose the natural and static nature of the office scenes. However, although many of our fantasy scenes were intended for humorous effect a few were interpreted by the audience as humorous without intent. Fortunately, we decided to perform a dress rehearsal to a mock audience to gain an understanding of the successful aspects of humour the results were unexpected. Through devising the silent movie fantasy scene, we were expecting humorous results due to the slapstick nature of the comedy, however, we had to take into account the clichi and overexposed format of the silent movie. As a group we discussed the possibility that the audience would not react well to this scene due to the lack of originality. Throughout popular culture for the past fifty years in some opinions this genre has been exhausted, therefore we had to be prepared for an underwhelming reaction towards this particular scene. In order for the humorous response to be successful we decided that the content of our silent movie had to be obviously inspired by original content. As a group we decided that we were not going to aim to be original in this scene but aimed to create a polished and skilful tribute to silent films. It was important for us to consider different attitudes towards comedic genres. In particular silent films and slapstick comedy often generate various opinions. Through discussion we discovered that in our group of five alone there were several different opinions regarding slapstick comedy. Personally, I contributed an annoyance towards the genre explaining that I found it tedious, patronising and often crude. However, contrastingly, Payam presented his enthusiasm towards slapstick comedy and defended his fondness towards slapstick comedians such as Lee Evans and Charlie Chaplin. Therefore we were initially prepared for an audience varied responses to the slapstick moments throughout our piece. This discussion led us to consider our target audience. Due to the content of our play we discussed that it transcended a fixed target audience, any age group could respond to the implications and the messages we were hoping to portray. However, because of the universality of our play we discussed different attitudes towards aspects of the play. Firstly, we evaluated that a younger audience would react better towards the humorous aspects especially ages between 12 and 19, therefore we decided to target the humour to this age group. We initially decided to do this by exaggerating our humorous stereotypes and characters physicality to the extreme. However, during a viewed rehearsal run it became apparent that our characterisations needed to be exaggerated, especially in our silent movie scene. Through discussion we came to the conclusion that older audience members would react well to the stereotypes used in out murder mystery fantasy. In particular the detective stereotype took inspiration from the fictional character Poirot. Generationally, we were aware that a younger audience member would be alienated by the introduction of this stock character because they would not be able to identify with the original. The characterisation of the detective also played a large reliance on the audience members, creating a pantomime like effect. Whilst playing the detective character I often made eye contact with the audience and projected jokes to them, therefore their reactions were very important at these stages. We used lighting to gain more audience reaction during this scene by up lighting the audience subtly allowing the performers to see their reactions and in turn play off their reactions to the humour. During the novella fantasy scene, melodrama was employed. An argument between Carlos and Maria the Latin American characters led to Maria slapping Carlos around the face. This prompted a shocked reaction amongst the audience because they were not expecting it. Difficult reactions from the audience- racist generalising Latin American, stereotyping French maids, stereotyping in general we had to be sensitive towards the audience whilst approaching these scenes. Explore the impact of social, cultural and/or historical conditions on your devised piece. – Vicki Marks. Our devised piece ‘Use of Space' is socially and culturally influenced by traditional conventions of popular culture. Foremost, we decided to exploit the familiarity of these conventions to highlight social perils. Most poignantly we decided to highlight the implications of a female in the workplace and comment on the fact that women still earn substantially less from their employment than men. We chose to emphasize this by going against traditional clichis. Primarily, the character of Nicky symbolised an ambitious business women hoping to succeed in the workplace. To highlight her characters struggle to be successful we altered the traditional female clichi. We felt that typical stereotypes of women came from medieval genres; furthermore the clichid format was a damsel in distress being rescued by her knight in shining armour. For this social comment to be accessible to the audience we simply chose to invert the roles of the typical damsel in distress and knight in shining armour. This resulted in highlighting the fact that women are capable of metaphorically ‘rescuing' themselves, in turn reaching success without help, showing the capability of women and hopefully promoting sexual equality in the workplace. Additionally, through our research into the presentation of women in conventional medieval drama, we learnt the historical relevance of female roles. In a traditional damsel in distress story women are patronised and demeaned. To emphasise the inequality between the sexes we chose to use contrasting levels. For example we chose to place the damsel on higher levels than the knight; this allowed the damsel to take a more commanding role. However, throughout we made constant references to the traditional format through humour, by showing the characters awareness of the reversed roles. I feel that this was very effective because we were culturally aware that a modern day audience would be aware of the clichi allowing it to become humorous in itself. Whilst devising another characters fantasies we settled on the concept of a traditional Latin American soap opera. We chose to use this format to contrast the tedious nature of the characters work life. This idea initially was influenced by the popular television series ‘Ugly Betty' showing clips of traditional Latin American soap opera's or novellas. This genre was particularly useful because of the melodramatic acting techniques used, to give this scene authenticity we chose to have the characters speak a few words or phrases in Spanish and maintained a Spanish accent throughout. Surprisingly, the use of accents and clichid Spanish phrases created a comedic effect, the audience reacted well to this humour. To further the humorous effect we exaggerated the Spanish personalities getting inspiration from the Mexican cartoon character ‘Speedy Gonzales' which allegedly depicts a stereotypical Mexican. Through popular culture we were aware of many of the love clichis also apparent through this scene, in particular the over poetic declaration of love using the analogy of the ‘fake red rose. ‘ Initially, we wanted to explore the format of a silent film in order to highlight the importance of communication, but were anxious to use such a challenging convention on stage and were worried that the audience would become confused. However through research we were able to adopt this style very successfully. Silent movies were made before technical advances allowed an audience to view a film with both images and sound. We wanted to make our silent scene as authentic as possible therefore through our research into silent movies we noticed the projection speed and decided to significantly slow the scene down; some scenes were intentionally slowed down further in order to accelerate the action, particularly in the case of the slapstick moments. One of the main messages of our production was the importance of job satisfaction. There have been many recent surveys and articles surrounding job prospects and the amount of people dissatisfied in their current job placements. We therefore decided to show a group of characters that want to break free from the confinements of an unsatisfying job to highlight the importance of passion and dreams. We feel as young adults embarking on our working lives and starting to make important decisions that will shape our futures, it is very relevant that we have shown our anxieties towards working life. Work related stress is also socially rife especially in western culture therefore; through one of our characters we showed the importance of maintaining hobbies outside of a job to hopefully indicate that money is not the most important thing. Use of Space is an escapist piece; the fantasies represent each character hoping to escape the constraints of their tedious, impassionate lives. Dream worlds are a commonly used plot device in fictional works, most notably in science fiction and fantasy fiction. The use of a dream world creates a situation whereby a character (or group of characters) is placed in a marvelous and unpredictable environment and must overcome several personal problems to leave it. The dream world also commonly serves to teach some moral or religious lessons to the character experiencing it a lesson that the other characters will be unaware of, but one that will influence decisions made regarding them. When the character is reintroduced into the real world (usually when they wake up), the question arises as to what exactly constitutes reality due to the vivid recollection and experiences of the dream world. How acting techniques or design elements and the use of dramatic form were consciously employed to achieve intended effect. The dramatic form of ‘use of space' was inspired by abstract theatre. Our devised piece does not follow a typical chronological time sequence; it has a warped sense of time due to our introduction of ‘fantasy' scenes. Dreams allow the repressed parts of the mind to be satisfied through fantasy and let the mind express things that would normally be suppressed in the waking world. Dreams may also offer a view at how future events might proceed; this is similar to running future events through the mind, for instance a work presentation or a job interview. As a group we identified dreams as an interaction between the unconscious and the conscious. Therefore we wanted to highlight the contrast between reality and fantasy. To begin with we discussed using contrasting lighting effects to show an obvious transaction between reality and fantasy. To express the abstract, fantasy scenes we felt the audience would react well to pink colour fill lighting. This was successful because, the unnatural pink lighting allowed the audience to be aware of the abstract format of the scene. We also relied on the audience's familiarity with clichi dream scenes shown in popular culture. Dream worlds are a commonly used plot device in fictional works, most notably in science fiction and fantasy fiction. Lighting is often used similarly when representing a dream, often flashing lighting is used and mists to show the audience the unreality. As a group we took this into account and decided to use soft lighting throughout the ‘fantasy' scenes by using a flood effect to fill the whole stage. Flash lighting was also used subtly during the transaction from a reality scene to a fantasy scene. We decided as a group to only use subtle flash lighting during the transition because we did not want to reproduce the clichi formats of a dream sequence, we felt that this would undermine the intended serious messages we were trying to relay to the audience. Firstly each fantasy scene is triggered by an action and a simple freeze frame to link the office reality to the dreams. This use of gestus was an acting technique developed by Bertolt Brecht which reflects the characters emotional conflict through a brief frozen action. Gestus was employed during the transaction from my characters monologue to her fantasy scene. As a group we discussed our desired effect of the gestus and decided to show an obvious link between the character's emotional conflict and the freeze frame, for the audience's accessibility. We therefore decided to each come up with a simple freeze frame highlighting the principal emotions of my character, due to the lack of direction my character was feeling we chose to physically interpret the emotion confusion. Coincidentally, each member of the group similarly replicated a curled up freeze frame with their hands clasping their heads. As a group we decided that this composition showed the audience the characters basic feelings of confusion. Sound plays a big part in our production. Our opening scene begins with a metronome to highlight the artificial nature of the office scene and the rhythm of a monotonous life. We decided to open with a metronome to cause a feeling of anticipation through the audience; the ticking rhythm exaggerates and builds tension therefore immediately engaging with the audience before the action begins. The metronome rhythm also acted as a beat to keep our opening routine in time. The beat and the routine showed the audience the typical rhythm of an unsatisfying job. Due to the intimacy of our staged environment we decided not to use microphones because we wanted the sound to be raw and natural even in the fantasy scenes to accentuate the fine line between dreams and reality. This also made the audience feel close to the actors and therefore able to relate to the performers more easily. However to contrast this effect we chose to show all costume changed on stage employing the popular Brechtian technique Verfremdungseffekt through using this we hoped to communicate that the audience's reality was, in fact a construction. During the silent movie scene we used clichi silent movie music. We wanted to stay authentic to a conventional silent film therefore we had a pianist. This music contributed to the atmosphere and gave the audience vital emotional cues. Silence is also an important tool in our production because it is in contrast to the loud interludes of music for example in the silent movie fantasy. Silence was often used after intense sections of dialogue or monologue. For example during my characters monologue the volume levels of my voice were used to create intensity building up to a climax. The silence during my characters gestus freeze frame is poignant because when the sound is taken away the audience begins to focus more on the movement and the emotion of the character, the silence intrigued them. There are many different characters and settings in our play; therefore we decided that our set should remain very neutral. We designed our set in a deliberately ambiguous way, so we could move easily between fantasy and office scenes. We decided that altering the layout of the stage and the set between each scene would prove noisy and would distract the audience's attention. We were however very aware that a permanent set would become boring and the audience would lose interest, nevertheless we decided through rehearsals and a practice production that the intensity of the action made up for the lack of set changes. We used two black oblong boxes as the fundamentals of each scene, occasionally changing the positioning of them to create a different atmosphere. We chose not to have a specific setting contributing to the representation of free-flowing images within the characters mind. However, we decided to introduce an element of decaying society preoccupied by work ambitions and promotions through the use of broken computer monitors, keyboards, mice, and disks positioned around the stage. This gave the stage an overall look of disarray and immediately introduced the audience to the conflict within the characters in the production. How research material was gathered and used within the process. – Vicki Marks To begin the devising process our group was presented with five quotes that took inspiration from different aspects of life, this supplied us with an excellent starting point for developing a challenging piece of theatre, however our initial responses to the stimuli shaped our early work and many aspects were later changed as the piece matured. Firstly each member of the group decided separately which quote inspired them and worked towards abstractly analyse the meaning of these quotes. As a group we were drawn towards the quote â€Å"fear is a dark room where negatives are developed. † We felt that this quote gave us enough scope to produce a brainstorm surrounding the analysis of it. After analysing the quote through a brainstorm we decided to focus on the idea of fear. These fear aspects of the quote lead our group to research and gain an interest surrounding common phobias. As an initial response to phobias we decided to explore phobias that restrain and dominate everyday life. As a group we were interested in the psychological effects of irrational fears, through discussion, we realised one of our member's arachnophobia and decided to research real life stories showing the influences of phobias. We began to gain an understanding of the psychological effects of living with an irrational fear, this allowed us to contemplate the way a person living with a phobia views the world. This topic particularly appealed to our group because three of the members were studying a course in psychology and took a specific interest in phobias. Through research we were drawn to highlighting different perceptions of the world, this is initially why we decided to show a dream or fantasy of each character. I was currently studying Margret Atwood's dystopian novel â€Å"A Handmaid's Tale. † And inferred parallels between dystopian societies and living with a life altering phobia. As a group this led us to discuss the concepts of normality and initially directed us to create a dystopian society to base our phobic characters in. However, we felt that through creating a dystopian society we were overcomplicating the piece and decided in order to create an accessible message we would have to simplify the plot. Many of our responses to the quote were detached and impersonal; therefore we decided to take a more personal approach to the analysing the quote. We wanted to create a more abstract approach to analysing, consequently, rather than brainstorming we played a word association game. Our earlier research indicated to us the potential of exploring fear; for that reason we opened by associating responses to the word ‘fear'. This resulted in a discussion of our apprehension and anxiety towards our futures, each member of the group was in the process of applying to university and planning the next step of their lives. It was important for us to follow our dreams and mistakes in choices at this stage worried us and we were sensitive to the idea of being stuck doing something we were not passionate about. This discussion allowed us to infer parallels between our fears towards losing our passion and job satisfaction in the work place. This led us to create a work place scenario, highlighting different characters problems with the way their lives have transpired. Although we had created an initial scenario we had to decide how to highlight the importance of job satisfaction and dreams. This is where our ideas surrounding an exploration of dreams and fantasies linked in with our running idea. How group skills contributed to the development of the drama. – Vicki Marks As an ensemble, we had many different approaches to the production of our devised piece. Firstly, after the initial discussions of the basic structure of ‘use of space' we decided that each member should separately prepare an initial suggestion for a fantasy scene. Subsequently as an ensemble we modified each member's idea to fit the characters objectives incorporating each group member's requirements. Two of the four fantasy scenes required only two characters, therefore allowing the two remaining members to direct. This particularly put pressure on the team and initially certain members of the group did not respond well to being directed, however, we had to be flexible whilst blocking a scene and be open to criticism and changes. Considering the ensemble approach to devising we wanted each member to experience directing each scene, this also allowed us to incorporate more than one member's objective for a particular scene. Therefore, we often resorted to switching roles mid scene to appreciate the way each member would perform certain characters and situations. I feel that this successfully allowed us to create two dimensional characters and by including aspects of everyone's ideas created an overall satisfaction towards each scene. Each member of the group had a monologue allowing the audience to understand each individual characters state of mind. The preparation of a monologue is often very personal, initially, Helia and I scripted each monologue, but we worked as a group throughout the blocking and performing, however, this proved difficult. Due to the individual approaches of a monologue, taking control of scripting them was ineffective. This approach resulted in confusion and the monologues were less emotionally effective, because members struggled to connect with them on a personal level. Therefore, firstly, we each took our monologues separately and worked on the content through closely analysing our characters objectives and intentions. After we were happy with the essential content of our monologues we worked as a group to develop them. Group timing was essential during the silent movie fantasy, due to a lack of dialogue the scene required carefully choreographed action, which required the group to work carefully in relation to one another. At one stage of this scene, Helia was required to jump on Payam's back and knocked to the ground. In order to prevent any injuries we applied a partnering system, involving a free member of the group shadowing Helia, providing support during the initial stages of rehearsals. During the later stages of devising the murder mystery scene we became uninspired with the outcome An evaluation of the ways in which ideas were communicated to the audience. – Vicki Marks Throughout the devising process we focused predominantly on comedic genres, to allow the audience to access the central messages through humour. Although we were aware of the comedic value of each scene it was difficult to predict the audience's reactions, therefore we decided to perform it to a small audience during our rehearsal to evaluate which areas of humour were successful and which were less effective. Consequently, we realised that many of the melodramatic fantasies such as the silent movie were physically being underplayed resulting in a misrepresentation of our desired style. This resulted in a member of our group to employ a technique that we had used on a physical theatre work shop. Performing our characters physicality on levels from one to ten, ten being the most physically expressive allowed us to evaluate which level of physicality was successful. As a group we decided that the audience reacted best towards the silent movie scene when we employed a physicality level of ten. Due to lack of dialogue, physicality and expression allowed the audience to follow the storyline whilst also creating humour. As a result of working with a limited number of actors it was necessary to multi-role; however, through multi-rolling it is often easy to confuse an audience. We therefore decided to employ the Brechtian technique of changing our signifying costumes on stage. This allowed the audience to understand the style of our piece, and the abstract nature of the fantasy scenes. We also decided to place each change of costume on stage from the opening scene to intrigue the audience and allow them to become more involved in the action. We also had to take into account the wide range of characters we used. For example in one fantasy scene Payam took on the role of a Spanish soap character and during the next fantasy scene his character changed to a medieval knight. As a group we realised that a change of costume would not be sufficient to demonstrate to the audience a change in character, therefore we had to ensure that each actor varied their physicality according the role they were playing. As a group we consciously casted many of the characters as stock characters and stereotypes, allowing us to successfully communicate to the audience a significant change in role. Naturalistically it was difficult to vary each member's character therefore by using melodramatic genres we were able to separate each members character. Originally, we intended to highlight the importance of job satisfaction through juxtaposing the office scenes with the fantasy scenes. We hoped to communicate to the audience the monotonous routine of being unsatisfied in a job. In order to convey this to an audience we decided to use opposing theatrical styles for the fantasy and office scenes. We decided on a naturalistic approach for the office scenes to highlight the dissatisfaction of the characters, similarly we decided to use abstract and melodramatic genres for the fantasy scenes to show the positivity. The accessibility of the humour in our piece relied on the audience's knowledge of the common clichis we drew inspiration from. I feel we did not fully take into account the age range of our audience and miscalculated the universality of the clichis. After discussing with our audience their reactions towards our piece many of the younger members did not understand the humorous aspects on every level. For example in our murder mystery fantasy we took inspiration from the popular detective character Poirot, however many of the younger To open our piece we decided to have each character on stage the composition involved my character facing the audience frozen in a spotlight and a visible shadow of the four other characters in the background, to show individual stories and the universal message that applied to each character. t. How rehearsal and the production process contributed to the final performance. – Vicki Marks During the rehearsal process, we encountered many difficulties with the staging of certain idea's and aspects. Initially we had decided to each perform a separate monologue as our office characters to highlight the objectives of each individual, we felt that it was important to portray to the audience an interesting insight into the characters feelings and wanted each monologue to project different forms. After the initial scripting of the monologues, we brainstormed the different approaches to staging them. Fortunately, each monologue adapted distinctive structures which allowed us to manipulate and create visually appealing scenes. During the staging of Payam's monologue initially aimed to block the physical placement, this required him to be free to travel across the stage, and therefore, a remaining member of the group read his monologue whilst he attempted to block it. Surprisingly, this created an interesting effect of daydreaming; therefore we decided to continue having his monologue projected from off stage. At one stage during our rehearsals we were challenged to find an original and inspiring way to present our idea. We had already decided that we wanted to contrast reality and fantasy. We had devised the fundamentals of ‘office scenes' created to depict our original character Dylan's disconnection with a dystopian society. Because we had created a leading character we struggled to introduce equal roles. Therefore, we decided to create a structured brainstorm addressing our themes and the ideas we hoped to communicate. Through this we discovered a situation where Dylan's disconnection with society linked to a modern day scenario. Dylan's alienation towards an unfamiliar society was transformed into a group of office workers unsatisfied with their situations. Luckily, through former improvised scenes we had created characters which fitted this scenario. Throughout the devising process we were interested in developing an interpretation of parallel universes. We were initially drawn to this idea through different interpretations of phobia's and the way an individual interprets fears. This idea led one member of the group to compare parallel universes to dreams, and fantasies. As a group we decided that we were interested in highlighting the importance of following your dreams, therefore began to research different fantasies and dream scenarios. We began to discuss different genres and settled initially on medieval clichis drawing on the typical female fantasy of being rescued by a knight in shining armour. As a group we decided that our acting techniques should mirror this genre therefore we settled on melodrama. Previously, we had only attempted naturalistic acting techniques, and as a group we were aware of the contrast between naturalism and melodrama. In order to familiarise ourselves with this acting technique we attended a physical theatre workshop, it was apparent to us that in order to effectively portray a melodramatic genre we would have to introduce exaggerated physicality. Initially this felt unnatural to most of the group members due to our back ground in naturalism, therefore, the support we received from the workshops group leader was very helpful. We benefited from the group leader knowledge surrounding physical theatre and he introduced us to a technique which allowed us to exaggerate the physicality during rehearsals. How the influence of ideas of other playwrights and/ or directors, designers and performers have been used. Originally, we hoped to achieve a depressing and desolate office scene highlighting the impassionate emotions of the characters. We initially decided that the characters would remain deadpan to express their negative attitudes towards their work environment; however, we wanted to employ a more exciting abstract format to express this further. We therefore turned to ‘Machinal' by Sophie Treadwell which one of our group members had previously studied. The opening scene to Machinal is a powerful expression of a monotonous office scene. Treadwell uses an expressionist form employing repetitive dialogue and action and harsh audio effects to create a tedious and mechanical impression. Inspired by Treadwell's use of repeated dialogue and action we began to improvise scenes using similar techniques. Firstly, we chose words and phrases linked to an office environment and repeated them, overlapping each other and increasing in volume throughout to create an intense atmosphere. Unfortunately, due to the small group, this did not achieve our desired effect. This then lead us towards a more physical representation, as an alternative to repeated dialogue we chose to highlight the routine of the office through repeating typical office actions. The use of stylised actions reminded a member of the group of a performance of ‘absolute beginners' through which the director had expressed the rigidity of the office through women typing in unison creating a routine effect. Considering the size of the group we were not enthusiastic to have each character simultaneously performing one action, we therefore, took inspiration from the over exaggerated nature of each movement. Instead of using a routine we highlighted a sense of artificiality by introducing a metronome to emphasise the mechanical and artificial nature of the scene. Characterization was very important to the success of our performance. Because we had chosen to show many stark and stereotyped characters throughout it was important to exaggerate the physicality of the characters in certain places. Physicality was expressed most poignantly through the silent film fantasy. Because this was such a challenging format to express due to the lack of dialogue it relied fully on each actor's physical representation of the character. Inspiration was originally taken from Charlie Chaplin. Through research we learnt that as a Silent film actor he emphasized his body language and facial expression so that the audience could better understand what his character was feeling and portraying on screen. However, simply watching and attempting to replicate Chaplin's style was not enough. As a group we decided to participate in a ‘Jet' physical theatre company workshop. This not only allowed us to work on our physicality as performers in general but gave us excellent scope to improve our silent film scene. Costumes were not hugely significant in our performance. We did not want to over complicate things and circumstantially our performance consisted of many short scenes and an array of different characters, similar to the conventions of epic theatre employed notably by Bertolt Brecht we decided to do all of the costume changes on stage. These changes only consisted of small variations to costumes such a hats a jackets that symbolised each character Brecht employed the use of techniques that remind the spectator that the play is a representation of reality and not reality itself, which he called the Verfremdungseffekt. Such techniques included changing costumes on stage. Through this Brecht hoped to communicate that the audience's reality was, in fact a construction and, as such, was changeable. Another Brechtian technique used in our performance was the use of song. We decided that this allowed the audience to distance themselves from the action hopefully making the social comments throughout more accessible and setting the abstract theme from the beginning notably the entire performance was strictly episodic and many scenes were in isolation from each other. Each fantasy scene is triggered by an action and a simple freeze frame to link the office reality to the dreams. This use of gestus was also an acting technique developed by Bertolt Brecht which reflects the characters emotional conflict through a brief frozen action. Gestus was employed during the transaction from my characters monologue to her fantasy scene. As a group we discussed our desired effect of the gestus and decided to show an obvious link between the character's emotional conflict and the freeze frame, for the audience's accessibility. We therefore decided to each come up with a simple freeze frame highlighting the principal emotions the character. The initial idea to dress each character in their own variation of full black was inspired by a performance of ‘attempts on her life' at the national. The director Martin Crimp chose to dress each character in their own interpretation of completely black. We adapted this idea to our performance because it allowed each character to show their own individuality whilst still highlighting the monotony and dull nature of the office and their negative emotions towards their situations. We took a large amount of inspiration from the melodramatic acting techniques employed by soup opera's. We particularly focused on the style of acting used in traditional Novella's or Latin American soups. Whilst approaching this style we researched the soup opera ‘Days of our lives. ‘ To help us adopt similar persona's. How the stimulus material was developed through the drama process. To begin the devising process our group was presented with five quotes that took inspiration from different aspects of life, this supplied us with an excellent starting point for developing a challenging piece of theatre, however our initial responses to the stimuli shaped our early work and many aspects were later changed as the piece matured. Firstly each member of the group decided separately which quote inspired them and worked towards abstractly analyse the meaning of these quotes. As a group we were drawn towards the quote â€Å"fear is a dark room where negatives are developed. † We felt that this quote gave us enough scope to produce a brainstorm surrounding the analysis of it. After analysing the quote through a brainstorm we decided to focus on the idea of fear. These fear aspects of the quote lead our group to research and gain an interest surrounding common phobias. As an initial response to phobia we decided to explore phobias that restrain and dominate everyday life. As a group we were interested in the psychological effects of irrational fears, through discussion, we realised one of our member's arachnophobia and decided to research real life stories showing the influences of phobias. We began to gain an understanding of the psychological effects of living with an irrational fear, this allowed us to contemplate the way a person living with a phobia views the world. This inspired us to contemplate feelings and emotions surrounding living in a different mindset to the norm. We therefore decided to create five different freeze frames, abstractly exploring the physicality of emotions.

Islamic Art Essay

Islamic art is perhaps the most accessible manifestation of a complex civilization that often seems enigmatic to outsiders. Through its brilliant use of color and its superb balance between design and form, Islamic art creates an immediate visual impact. Its strong aesthetic appeal transcends distances in time and space, as well as differences in language, culture, and creed. Islamic art not only invites a closer look but also beckons the viewer to learn more. â€Å"The term Islamic art may be confusing to some. It not only describes the art created specifically in the service of , but it also characterizes secular art produced in lands under Islamic rule or influence, whatever the artist’s or the patron’s religious affiliation. The term suggests an art unified in style and purpose, and indeed there are certain common features that distinguish the arts of all Islamic lands. â€Å"1 Although this is a highly dynamic art, which is often marked by strong regional characteristics as well as by significant influences from other cultures, it retains an overall coherence that is remarkable given its vast geographic and temporal boundaries. Of paramount concern to the development of this singular art is Islam itself, which fostered the creation of a distinctive visual culture with its own unique artistic language. Calligraphy is the most important and pervasive element in Islamic art. It has always been considered the noblest form of art because of its association with the , the Muslim holy book, which is written in Arabic. This preoccupation with beautiful writing extended to all arts including secular manuscripts; inscriptions on palaces; and those applied to metalwork, pottery, stone, glass, wood, and textiles and to non-Arabic-speaking peoples within the Islamic commonwealth whose languages such as Persian, Turkish, and Urdu were written in the Arabic script. Another characteristic of Islamic art is a preference for covering surfaces with patterns composed of geometric or vegetal elements. Complex geometric designs, as well as intricate patterns of vegetal ornament (such as the arabesque), create the impression of unending repetition, which is believed by some to be an inducement to contemplate the infinite nature of God. This type of nonrepresentational decoration may have been developed to such a high degree in Islamic art because of the absence of figural imagery, at least within a religious context. Contrary to a popular misconception, however, figural imagery is an important aspect of Islamic art. Such images occur primarily in secular and especially courtly arts and appear in a wide variety of media and in most periods and places in which Islam flourished. It is important to note, nevertheless, that representational imagery is almost invariably restricted to a private context. Figurative art is excluded from the decoration of religious monuments. This absence may be attributed to an Islamic antipathy toward anything that might be mistaken for idols or idolatry, which are explicitly forbidden by the Qur’an. In Islamic cultures the so-called decorative arts provide the primary means of artistic expression, in contrast to Western art, in which painting and sculpture are preeminent. Illuminated manuscripts, woven textiles and carpets, inlaid metalwork, blown glass, glazed ceramics, and carved wood and stone all absorbed the creative energies of artists, becoming highly developed art forms. These works include small-scale objects of daily use, such as delicate glass beakers, as well as more monumental architectural decoration, for example, glazed tile panels from building facades. Such objects were meticulously fabricated and carefully embellished, often with rare and costly materials, suggesting that the people for whom they were made sought to surround themselves with beauty. Royal patronage played an important role in the making of Islamic art, as it has in the arts of other cultures. The construction of mosques and other religious buildings. including their decoration and furnishings, was the responsibility of the ruler and the prerogative of high court officials. Such monuments not only provided for the spiritual needs of the community but often served educational and charitable functions as well. Royal patronage of secular art was also a standard feature of Islamic sovereignty, one that enabled the ruler to demonstrate the splendor of his court and, by extension, the superiority of his state. Evidence of courtly patronage is derived from the works of art themselves, but an equally important source of information is the extensive body of historical texts that attest to royal sponsorship of the arts almost throughout the Islamic period. These historical works also indicate that only a fraction of such court-sponsored art has survived; objects made of precious materials are particularly rare. From the fourteenth century onward, especially in eastern Islamic lands, the arts of the book provide the best documentation of courtly patronage. Of course, not all works of Islamic art were sponsored by the court; in fact, the majority of objects and manuscripts in museum collections originated elsewhere. Such works of art including pottery, base metalware, carpets, and textiles have often been viewed as the products of urban, middle-class patronage. These objects nonetheless frequently reflect the same styles and make use of the same forms and techniques employed in courtly art. Whether produced in a courtly or an urban setting or for a religious context, Islamic art is generally the work of anonymous artists. A notable exception is in the sphere of the arts of the book. The names of certain calligraphers are well known, which is not surprising given the primacy of the written word in Islam, as are those of a number of painters, most of whom were attached to a particular court. The identification of these artists has been based on signed or attributed examples of their works and on textual references. Given the great number of extant examples, comparatively few signatures are found on metalwork, pottery, carved wood and stone, and textiles. Those signatures that do occur, combined with rare evidence from contemporary textual sources, suggest that families of artists, often over several generations, specialized in a particular medium or technique. Some of the famous Arts are in the Building and Architecture. They build mosques to worship and praise in. In the mosques they built gates which â€Å"is a monumental, highly decorated structure set into a usually plain facade (front) facing the street. â€Å"2 You can find some of these gates in such building as the The Dome of the Rock and in the most famous tomb of the Taj Mahal. Now only few buildings are still around, but the cities still rank the highest in beauty. The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem signifies and serves as a perfect example of the brilliancy behind Islamic art. The Dome of the Rock contains all the major characteristics throughout the whole architectural building, which includes calligraphy, patterns of visual and geometrical elements, figural imagery, and illuminated manuscripts. † The Dome of the Rock is often called the first work of Islamic architecture, and if it is the building must be the finest first effort in the history of architecture. â€Å"3 The Dome Of The Rock, Jerusalem 692 and later The interior view of The Dome of the rock. Where many believe Abraham offered to sacrifice Isaac The gates of Taj Mahal 2003 The Taj Mahaul was built for the empire and his wife. It is one of the most formal themes that a building can contain. â€Å"Its refined elegance is a conspicuous contrast both to the Hindu architecture of pre-Islamic India, with its thick walls, corbeled arches, and heavy lintels, and to the Indo-Islamic styles, in which Hindu elements are combined with an eclectic assortment of motifs from Persian and Turkish sources. â€Å"4 With all the beautiful structures and elements of Islam, you would never know how strict the region was. In Islamic cultures the so-called decorative arts provide the primary means of artistic expression. They showed their beautiful creativity in all their work such in the buildings, books, and the carvings.

Rogerian Speech Example

Rogerian Speech Example Rogerian Speech – Coursework Example Rogerian Speech Rogerian Speech The cases of abortion have increased rapidly over the past decade. The rapid rise in the number is due to the high cost of living and unwanted pregnancies. There have been controversies on whether abortion should or should not be done. Personally, I believe that in abortion be practiced. Abortion of an unborn child due to an unwanted pregnancy is unethical. Justification for several arguments for abortion is valid. First, when the chances are that the child being born will have a severe mental or physical disability. Additionally, if a doctor proves that the progress of pregnancy will cause a greater risk to the life of the mother and lastly if continuing the pregnancy will result to negative mental or physical abilities of the mother. Only in this circumstances should abortion be done.In cases where a woman gets pregnant, whether from rape or by a mistake, she should keep the child. The people against this belief are for the idea that an unwanted chil d is as good as a dead child. They argue that the birth may terminate the education of the teenage mother and that a baby born out of rape is an abomination. Having the arguments in mind, I believe that killing of a fetus is similar to killing a baby because life begins at conception. Abortion causes intense psychological stress and pain, therefore, is not a good form of contraception. Abortion is further not justified because self-control can prevent pregnancy. Additionally, many Americans are willing to adopt, hence there is no point in claiming that the child is unwanted. I would win the other side by convincing them that I understand their views on the topic, and yet I still stand by my current opinion against abortion. My belief will, hence, appear stronger. From the speech above, the people for the idea of abortion will understand why the other side (against abortion) is stronger in views, hence will adopt by opinions.I have used arguments in Rogerian style in my studies. I wi ll use the form again because it helps to win over the teacher who has opposing views to mine. It proves to him that I understand why he believes in a concept, and yet I opt for my current opinion.ReferencesRobinson, P. (2015). How to Write a Rogerian Essay. The Classroom | Synonym. Retrieved 16 June 2015, from http://classroom.synonym.com/write-rogerian-essay-4826.htmlLowen, L. (2015). 10 Common Arguments For and Against Abortion. About.com News & Issues. Retrieved 16 June 2015, from http://womensissues.about.com/od/reproductiverights/a/AbortionArgumen.htm

Sustaining Democracy in Latin America essays

Sustaining Democracy in Latin America essays In order to determine if democracy is sustainable in Latin America, it is important to understand or at least have an idea of what democracy is. There are several types of democracy and each is different. According to the English dictionary, democracy is " a government by the people; especially: rule of the majority by a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections and the absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions or privileges (Webster's Dictionary). It is a common view among American politicians that maintaining democracy in Latin America could be achieved through holding honest elections, installing civilian governments, and preventing military coups (Millett). Although Latin America participates in some type or form of free elections, that does not necessarily constitute a legitimate democracy that represents the people. The power is not necessarily vested in the people in Latin America but with the elected officials. Latin American democracy and United States democracy are uniquely different and therefore they are not comparable by the same definition of democracy. The difference results from many factors. In large part, Latin America is unique because of its Iberian heritage, history, and tradition (Millett). The conquest of Latin America by Spain and the methods of rule and traditions have largely influenced the development of Latin American democracy. The Spanish mercantile system and the methods and practices it produced have had a direct impact on all the factors that help sustain democracy. The two main factors in Latin American democracy are society and economics. Colonial ideas of fueros, caste systems, and church ideologies during the inquisition, have influenced Latin America socially. Economically Spanish mercantilism has made Latin America dependent on outsi...

How does industrialisation AND ITS consequences make a middle class Essay

How does industrialisation AND ITS consequences make a middle class visible in the first half of the 19th century - Essay Example started in Britain and depending on the speed of knowledge transfer in that age and time, it soon spread throughout the world in some shape or the other. Within a few decades, the socioeconomic system that was based on manual labour was to be replaced by a culture which was dominated by industry and manufactured goods (Hobsbawm, 1999). Hobsbawm (1999) suggests that the revolution started with the changes to the textile industries which were the first to start using machines. The creation of the machines themselves was based on the refinements in how iron was produced that allowed the creation of new tools and equipment. At the same time, other elements required for improved communications, delivery of goods and transport were more or less in place which helped to expand the trade between cities as well as countries. Waterways, improved conditions of roads and the presence of railways all helped in making sure that goods as well as people could move from one location to another without significant investments of time and money. Additionally, Mr. Watt had understood the genie contained in steam power and had unleashed it by 1760. Although earlier designs also existed he is credited with creating the first working steam engine which allowed machines to work much faster, better and at an untiring pace as compared to human effort. Steam power was also added to boats, ships and other means of transport but the effect it had on the workshops and industrial plants was the greatest in terms of how it would change the fabric of society (Wikipedia, 2007). The coming of The Enlightenment provided an established system which accepted the real business related applications of the growing body of scientific knowledge that had been accumulated by Britain. In fact, the development and perfection of the steam engine can be considered only a small part of it since the process of the Industrial Revolution was guided by scientific analysis and the development new political as well

Characteristics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Characteristics - Essay Example A number of nurses and doctors find patients’ culture as an obstacle to treatment. They believe that they, health practitioners, have been trained to know what is best for the patient and tradional beliefs amongst patients should not be encouraged. Science should be the basis on which medicine is supposed to be practiced. Practitioners also argue that the health of the patient should be given top priority, and not their cultural backgrounds or beliefs. (Toni Tripp-Reimer, Lisa Skemp Kelley) Another problem with cultural competency is that it degrades the cultural teachings to a mere technical subject, which the medical practitioners have to learn. Furthermore, the lack of diversity in the hospitals and the medical profession as a whole, leads to a lack of cultural competency care. Nurses or doctors might appear a little indifferent or unknowingly rude to a patient of a different ethnicity. The patients might notice this as a lack of sensitivity on the practitioner’s part and from there on, the communication bridge starts to break down. Also, the systems in the health care service are not up to the mark and do not meet the needs of people of different cultural backgrounds and ethnicities (Joseph R. Betancourt, Alexander R. Green and J. Emilio Carrillo. 2002). Consoling a family in grief and leading them through an adaptive process can be a challenging task for the medical practitioners, especially the nurses. This requires substantial knowledge of different cultural backgrounds, so that there is no breakdown of communication. A lack of respect for someone else’s cultural beliefs comes off as a great hindrance, and does not help the whole consoling process. If a nurse or doctor is familiar with the cultural beliefs or shows respect for people of different ethnicities, he/she can aid a family through the grieving process. But if there is a fine line drawn between two