“Liquid Life” – Mark Deuze

Liquid Life, Convergence Culture, and Media Work Mark Deuze Bloomington Indiana – USA (Ph) 1-812-3231699 Email: [email  protected] edu URL: http://deuze. blogspot. com Dated: March 19, 2006 Working Paper Word count (excluding references): 7. 917 Author: Mark Deuze (Indiana University) Keywords: Social Theory, Liquid Modernity, Media Work Biographical information: Mark Deuze (1969) is associate professor at Indiana University’s Department of Telecommunications in Bloomington, the United States, and Professor of Journalism and New Media at Leiden University, The Netherlands.He received his PhD in the social sciences from the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Publications of his work include five books, as well as articles in peer-reviewed journals such as New Media & Society, The Information Society, and First Monday, and he publishes an irregular weblog on new media and society at http://deuze. blogspot. com. Liquid Life, Convergence Culture, and Media Work Abs tract Life today has become analogous with work – and it increasingly displays all the contemporary characteristics of work in what has been described as the ‘new capitalism’: permanent flux, constant change, and structural indeterminacy.Zygmunt Bauman thus argues how we are all living a ‘liquid’ life, which is â€Å"a precarious life, lived under conditions of constant uncertainty. † In liquid life, the modern categories of production (work) and consumption (life) have converged, which trend is particularly visible in our almost constant and concurrent immersion in media. According to Henry Jenkins, these are the conditions of an emerging convergence culture.In this paper these trends will be explored in detail, coupling insights from contemporary social theory, new media studies and popular culture to show how our modern conceptions of media, culture and society have modernized, and how the emerging media ecosystem can be illuminated by sett ing it against the ways in which those at the forefront of these cultural and technological changes negotiate their professional identity: the mediaworkers. 1 Liquid Life, Convergence Culture, and Media Work In today’s society, argues Zygmunt Bauman, â€Å"work is the normal state of all humans; not working is abnormal† (2005a: 5).Life has become analogous to work. Instead of developing a lifestyle, our everyday efforts and energy go into choosing a work-style: ‘a way of working and a way of being at work’, as one British professional coaching agency describes it. As work becomes a way of life, life increasingly displays all the characteristics of contemporary work, where we have to come to terms with the challenges and opportunities of contingent employment, precarious labour, and a structural sense of real or perceived job insecurity.Ulrich Beck (2000) points at the fundamentally ambivalent prospects of contemporary ‘work-styles’ at all leve ls of society as marked by uncertainty, paradox and risk. The conditions of work at the beginning of the 21st century are in a constant state of flux, brought about by all kinds of job destruction practices in the context of what Richard Sennett (1998) calls ‘workforce flexibility’.This culture of contemporary capitalism manifests itself most directly in the notable change of one’s career from a series of more or less predictable achievements within the context of a lifelong contract to a constant reshuffling of career bits and pieces in the ‘portfolio worklife’, as heralded by Charles Hand as early as 1989 (pp. 183ff). In the portfolio lifestyle, careers are a sequence of stepping stones through life, where workers as individuals and organizations as collectives do not commit to each other for much more than the short-term goal, the project at hand, the talent needed now.The modern categories of life and work at the beginning of ther 21st century ar e thus spilling over, into each other, making each of these key aspects of our human condition contingent on the characteristics of the other. Bauman shows how this increasing fluidity of the everyday, coupled with a prevalent sense of permanent flux, has created the conditions of contemporary ‘liquid’ life as â€Å"a precarious life, lived under conditions of constant uncertainty† (2005b, p. 2).In this paper I will set the sketched developments and discussions on the centrality of work and the convergence of work and life in liquid modernity against a context of the pervasive and ubiquitous nature of media in our everyday lives. I will show how our almost constant and concurrent immersion in media can be seen as both a reflection as well as an amplification of the hybridization of life in culture of new capitalism. This perspective opens up different ways of looking at seemingly contradictory thus deeply unsettling trends in 2 today’s lived experiences at home, at work, and at play.At the heart of this argument stands a selective reading of contemporary social theories on the changing nature of work by Richard Sennett, Zygmunt Bauman, and Ulrich Beck, coupled with the approaches to new media by Lev Manovich and Pierre Levy, and popular culture by Henry Jenkins. By conceptually linking between the centrality of work in today’s risk society, with the omnipresence of new media and the pervasiveness of the genres, discourses and uses of popular culture, we may open up exciting ways of looking at both historical and contemporary phenomena on the intersection between media, culture and society.New Capitalism The constant uncertainty of everyday liquid life today, as sketched by Zygmunt Bauman, is accelerated and amplified at work following the prevailing management mantras of new capitalism, where stability and solidity as one-time hallmarks of a healthy company now have become signs of weakness (Sennett, 2005: 41). The relationshi ps of capital and labour, argues Manuel Castells, are increasingly individualized and organized around the network enterprise form of production, which integrates the work process globally through telecommunications, transportation and client-customer networks.Such worldwide integration introduces a fundamental aspect of unpredictability to the nature of work, as the success or failure of the local production process becomes almost completely contingent on the fluctuations in the global network – and vice versa, as â€Å"any individual capital is submitted to the movements of the global automaton† (Castells, 2000: 18).Here, adaptive behavior, permanent change, casualization of labor, and continual innovation are all expressed in the executive credo of ‘workforce flexibility’ which according to Bauman has turned from something to be avoided into a virtue to be learned and practised daily (2002: 24). This flexibility for many is synonymous with living in fea r of real or perceived job insecurity. Sennett signals how even affluent and highly educated young professionals fear â€Å"they are on the edge of losing control over their lives.This fear is built into their work histories† (Sennett, 1998: 19). Society today, argues Sennett, uses the feverish development of flexible organisations against the ‘evils’ of routine. Unlike Handy, he sees little promise in this re-interpretation of uncertainty as the corporate strategy of choice: â€Å"Revulsion against bureaucratic routine and pursuit of flexibility has produced new structures of power and control, rather than created the conditions which set us free† (ibid. 47). This 3 flexibility stretches out into both work time and non-work time, which distinction has blurred for many, if not most, people. Adapting to changing management practices, new technologies, and cultivating creativity and talent cannot be necessarily tied to a nine-to-five working weekday, especia lly considering the general lack of corporate investment in employee training.With the slow demise of lifelong full-time employment, continuous searching for jobs, preparing for potential future jobs, as well as managing multiple careers more or less simultaneously have become core elements of everyday lifestyle for many. This inevitably must lead to a more inclusive understanding of work as taking place in differing socio-economic settings and as interconnected with many other, often non-work, relationships (Parry et al, 2005).Work comes in many different shapes and sizes – paid and non-paid, voluntary and employed, professional and amateuristic – and we seem to be engulfed in it all of the time. Working increasingly includes (re-) schooling and training, unlearning ‘old’ skills while adapting to changing technologies and management demands, moving from project to project, and navigating one’s career through an at times bewildering sea of loose aff iliations, temporary arrangements, and informal networks.This perception and experience of working has come to define life and modern society. Additionally our understanding of contemporary work-styles by definition includes structural uncertainty and risk, thus framing every aspect of our lives within that particular context. Precarity The key to understanding this ‘brave new world’ of work is its precariousness, characterized by endemic uncertainty and permanent change (Beck, 2000: 22-3). The nature of work is changing rapidly in our runaway world – some even foresee an end of work in the nearby future (Rifkin, 2004).However real or perceived the insecurities experiences in our everyday work-styles are, its precarite bleeds into every understanding we have of ourselves and who we are. As colorfully described on the Britain-based website Precarity. Info: â€Å"WHAT IS PRECARITY? Precarity stretches beyond work. It includes housing, debt, general instability, th e inability to make plans. We can talk about the subjugation of life under capital, not just the subjugation of labour under capital. Precarity is an instrument of control; it is enforced by those with power 4 upon the powerless.We can't choose how we want to live. It engenders competition in social life. It forces us into a Darwinian â€Å"struggle for existence† on a social level. Precarity is the basic condition of individuals in capitalist society. It divides us, and limits opportunities to get together. People are disempowered and social relations break down. †1 If work and life are increasingly indiscernable in the play of the everyday, the key institutions linking their practices to modernity – work (or: occupations) and the family must also be seen as undergoing a fundamental shift.With the increasing precariousness of labor and the exponential entry of women into the workforce both ‘work’ and ‘family’ have not only changed; thes e core institutions of modern life have thus become integrated. Catherine Hakim (2003) signals a shift in preferences towards adaptive or work centered (instead of home centered) lifestyles that cannot be attributed to societies as a whole, but to particular groups within liquid modern societies – especially those who want to keep up with the demands of contemporary consumer culture.The family has become what Anthony Giddens (2003: 58-9) calls a ‘shell’ or, in the words of Beck, ‘zombie’ institution: people and policymakers alike still refer to the family as the primary unit in today’s society, even though in its traditional connotation of the nuclear family – two married parents and children at home – it has all but died. Instead, our families perhaps must be seen as transitory units similar to what Georges Benko describes as ‘non-places’ like shopping malls or airports.In such spaces existing for temporary convenie nce and the more or less anonymous exchange of goods, services and information, no one is really expected to stick around very long. The family as a traditionally celebrated safe haven from the uncertain world outside, seems hto have turned itself against the values of domestication and ‘settling in’ – it has become the place and space for structural coupling and uncoupling (Bauman, 2003).With a divorce rate of roughly 50% in most capitalist economies, a growing recognition of the normalcy of gay and lesbian lifestyles, the exponential increase among city dwellers of predominantly childless peoples like recent immigrants, aging babyboomers, and empty nesters, and with singles forming 40% or more of the total population of countries in North America and Western Europe it must be clear that the meaning of ‘family’ as an institution, like work, has fundamentally changed.In his assessment of the personal consequences of the changing nature of work in our past-paced capitalist economy, Richard Sennett (1998: 21) laments how no one becomes a 5 long-term witness to another person’s life anymore. Indeed, most of us, rich and poor, are constantly on the move – either as economically and politically desperate migratory sanspapiers or as highly-skilled cultural entrepreneurs in an globally networked marketplace, where knowledge and information have become the primary form of capital (Drucker, 1993).We are not just on the move from parttime job to flexible contract, nor just from one city to the next country; in the particular urban settings of flexible capitalism we also move from from ‘pink-slip party’ to yet another social networking event, from rented apartment to leased living space, from fling to affair, and from single-size servings to disposable everything.Our only shared condition increasingly seems to be the lived experience of being â€Å"permanently impermanent† in the context of constant chang e, which in turn disables us to bear witness to anything other but our own plights, to be solely solved deploying our individual skills and personal resources (Bauman, 2002: 18; Bauman, 2000: 72; Bauman, 2005b: 33). In the beginning of the 21st century we are seemingly becoming blind to each other, which social fragmentation is exacerbated by the undeniable primacy yet deeply unsettling nature of work in everyday life.Jonathan Gershuny (2000), after comparing time-use datasets from twenty different countries (including Australia, Finland, The Netherlands and the United States), summarizes the characteristics of modern industrial societies in terms of a continuos growth in the numbers of skilled workers as a proportion of all employment, and a growth of time allocated to the production and consumption of sophisticated products and services.Even though we tend to spend more time consuming products and services of the information age, and technologies increasingly augment and automate human labour, this does not mean we are spending less time working, as Jeremy Rifkin (2004) has argued. Quite the opposite: new forms of work organization in fact entail intensified demands on the work-time of both permanent and temporary employees (Smith, 1997). The trend towards flexible work started in the 1970s, and has accelerated in the late 1990s, coinciding with the rush of an increasingly information-based global economy to the World Wide Web.It is particularly in this sphere of information- and knowledge-based work where the culture of flexible capitalism has taken root as the dominant mode of labour organization – and where researchers have found both employers and employees in fact preferring a condition of so-called ‘boundaryless’ contingent employment (Marler et al, 2002). A boundaryless career reflects a career path that 6 goes beyond the boundaries of single employment settings, and involves a sequence of jobs between different companies and diffe rent segments of the labor market. As job security and promotional opportunities within larger organizations decline, individuals may view multiple employer experiences in a positive light because it supports skill development, increases marketability, shifts career control to the employee, and perhaps results in better matching career and family life-cycle demands. As such, boundarylessness represents a different conception of job security† (ibid. , 430).Whereas for most workers in traditional temporary and contingent settings their employment situation is far from ideal, many in the higher skilled knowledge-based areas of the labor market seem to prefer such precarious working conditions, associating this with greater individual autonomy, the acquisition of a wide variety of skills and experiences, and a reduced dependence on a single employer (Kalleberg, 2000). The portfolio work-style of the self-employed information or ‘cultural’ entrepreneur can thus be char acterized by living in a state of constant anxiety, while at the ame time seemingly enjoying a sense of control over one’s own career. Bauman warns against overtly optimistic readings of the relative freedom these prime beneficiaries of inevitably unequitable globalization claim to enjoy, as â€Å"it is in a horrid and lamentable insecurity that their targeted or collateral victims suspect the major obstacle lies to becoming free† (2005b: 38). Freedom and security, often seen as mutually exclusive, thus become ambigious in the context of how different people from different walks of life deal with, and give meaning to, the consequences of not having either.It is perhaps the perfect paradox of contemporary liquid life: all the trends in today’s work-life quite clearly suggest a rapid destabilization of social bonds corresponding with increasingly disempowering effects of a frickle and uncertain global high-tech information economy, yet those workers caught in the epicenter of this bewildering shift express a sense of mastery over their lives, interpreting their professional identity in this context in terms of indvidual-level control and empowering agency (du Gay, 1996; Storey et al, 2005).Conditions of real or perceived job insecurity thus do not necessarily mean the workers involved are suffering in silence – nor that the anxiety that comes with a boundaryless, largely contingent, and portfolio worklife necessarily must be seen as a blessing in disguise. The convergence of the time and effort we invest in both production (‘work’) and consumption (‘life’) as signaled by Gershuny does suggest that our most common solution to the increasingly anxious and sometimes exciting developments in society is an endless individual and professional mixing of the cultures of working and living, thus indefinitely 7 lurring the boundaries between them. Crucial to this understanding is the realization that not only are we sp ending more and more time producing – information, knowledge, products, ‘things’ – we are also increasingly engaging in acts of consumption. The rate of consumption in society has greatly accelerated over the last few decades. The values, ideals and practices of consumerism tend to be framed in an extremely negative light – focusing for example on the increasing infantilization, mainstreaming and materialism of contemporary consumer cultures.However, consumerism can also be embraced in terms of its transformative potential regarding elitist, top-down, and otherwise non-responsive social institutions such as the political system (cf. the emergence of the ‘citizen-consumer’), the economy (cf. the ‘conquest of cool’ and the marketing of resistance), and the media (Keum et al 2004; Thomas, 1997; Jenkins, 2006). Indeed, the consumptive trend has been particularly visible in the sphere of knowledge and information-related leisure services provided by the cultural industries.We spend more and more time and money on entertainment experiences – which vary from acquiring consumer electronics to attending multimedia shows, from collecting technological toys to participating in social media online, and from navigating between ‘high’ cultural (cf. theater, museums, opera) to ‘low’ cultural (cf. reality TV, videogames, tabloids) forms of expression.Indeed, our collective quest towards increasingly compelling and diversified leisure like media-centric experiences has turned us into cultural omnivores: attending a play one day, renting a couple of Hollywood blockbuster movies the next; reading the latest installment in the Harry Potter (or the Russian Tanya Grotter) book series this week, spending the following weekend building a Website containing links to all the relevant information about global meteorological and ecological trends online.It certainly seems people have a lot of spa re time on their hands if we add up all these activities. However, Gershuny found evidence of what he calls the ‘end of leisure’: â€Å"each year we have to work harder in our free time to consume all those things that we have been working harder to produce in our work time† (2000: 51). Status in society today thus comes with a price: time outside of work (whether at home, on the road or in the office) has become a scarce commodity, even though we seem to spend more of it all the time. Media in Everyday Life The paradox of more time spent simultaneously at production and consumption can be resolved if one takes into active consideration how both spheres of activity have converged in our increased reliance on media in all aspects of life, in turn facilitated by rapid advancements in information and communication technologies. Next to engaging in all kinds of leisure activities to compensate for strains or other drawbacks on occupational work, work and leisure can increasingly be seen as xtensions of each other – especially for professionals in the knowledge and information sectors of the economy (Blekesaune, 2005). One particular effect this spillover effect has had on our everyday lived reality is the ongoing retreat of people into what can be called ‘personal information spaces’ at home and at work (which for a significant number of people occupy the same space), within which we only talk to and with ourselves.These spaces can be seen as particular physical environments such as turning parts of the house or apartment into a ‘home theater’ and ‘home office’ filled with all kinds of consumer electronics used to consume and produce media content (such as a desktop computer with internet access and a printer, one or more game consoles, a television set, digital video recorder, DVD-player, and anywhere between two to seven loudspeakers).Other examples of such personal information spaces include the ensemble of mobile media technologies we carry around us everywhere we go – devices that seem to socially isolate us while at the same time connecting us to the rest of the wired world (using a cellphone, laptop, Personal Digital Assistant, digital camera, walkman, and other more intricate forms of wearable computing that truly put the ‘personal’ in Personal Computer).Yet these spaces can also be experienced as disembodied – as in our ongoing immersion in persistent online environments varying from virtual workspaces (for example through videoconferencing capabilities and company intranets) to massively multiplayer computer games (World of Warcraft, Everquest, Ultima Online), virtual worlds (Second Life, The Sims Online, Active Worlds), and social networking services (Friendster, Orkut, MySpace). The various ways in which the ever-growing numbers of people both young and old engage with each other through these and other media is sometimes taken as new for ms of community.Manuell Castells for example describes our intensifying interactions online as a new form of ‘hypersociability’, where the social consists of networked individualism â€Å"enhancing the capacity of individuals to rebuild structures of sociability from the bottom up† (2001: 131). 9 Sennett’s act of witnessing (or perceived lack thereof) seems to have moved online, where people move in and out of interactive networked environments, managing their multiple virtual selves (cf. avatars) in persistent gaming, chatting, instant messaging and otherwise connective, digital, and online environments.Market reseach suggests the worldwide number of internet users surpassed one billion in 2005, most of whom access the global computer network from the United States, China, and Japan, with other large user groups in India, Germany, Brazil, Russia, and Spain. 2 Internet user penetration is now in the 65% to 75% range for the leading countries. We use intern et overwhelmingly for interpersonal communication, whether it is in the context of play, love, or work. And yes, these distinct domains of everyday life dissolve in our interactions online. A prominent place for people to look for or advertise new jobs is Monster. om, a Website, which launched in 1994. The site, which has affiliates in 21 countries around the world, currently boasts a million+ resumes and has contracts with close to 150. 000 companies. A growing number of singles – quickly becoming the dominant species in liquid modern societies – seeks and sometimes finds love online. A popular online matchmaking service, Match. com, launched in 1995, currently has more than 15 million members in more than 240 territories on six continents, and operates more than 30 online dating sites in 17 local languages. 3 The free online classifieds community at Craigslist. org operates 90 sites in all 50 U.S. states, and 35 countries, reports three billion pageviews per month â €“ the vast majority of which go to job listings. 4 The most successful businesses on the internet – like eBay, Yahoo, Google, and Amazon – share one fundamental characteristic: the product these companies deliver is connectivity, bringing people together to trade, communicate, interact and exchange knowledge, information, goods, and services. However, not just businesses thrive on interaction and connectivity online. The most often used reference guide on the World Wide Web is Wikipedia, a multilingual free-content encyclopedia, which started in 2001.The encyclopedia is based on the so-called ‘wiki–concept, which means it is written collaboratively by volunteers, allowing most articles to be changed by anyone with access to a web browser and an internet connection. Wikipedia contains close to four million articles appearing in over 200 language editions, and gets about one million visitors a day. 5 Weblogs are another excellent example of how witnessi ng has become an increasingly virtual, yet also deeply personal act. Jill Walker provides the following definition: 10 A weblog, or *blog, is a frequently updated website consisting of dated entries arranged in reverse chronological order so the most recent post appears first. Typically, weblogs are published by individuals and their style is personal and informal. Weblogs first appeared in the mid-1990s, becoming popular as simple and free publishing tools became available towards the turn of the century. Since anybody with a net connection can publish their own weblog, there is great variety in the quality, content, and ambition of weblogs, and a weblog may have anywhere from a handful to tens of thousands of daily readers. 6 At current estimates, the total number of weblogs worldwide comes close to the 30 million mark, with more than 50. 000 postings per hour, and over 70. 000 new weblogs created each day. 7 Indexing research by Susan Herring and colleagues shows how the vast maj ority (70%) of weblogs are highly personal vehicles for self-expression and empowerment, written almost exclusively by individuals (Herring et al, 2005). However, this kind of individualism in weblogs is in fact quite connective, as bloggers include comment and feedback options with their posts, put up their blogs for free syndication (cf.RSS-feeds), reference and link to other blogs when creating posts, and cut and paste all kinds of content – including moving and still images, text, and audiofiles – from all over the Web as well as their own original work onto their weblog. The area online where the convergence of connectivity, content, creativity, and commercialism reaches its pinnacle is in the realm of computer games. Worldwide, more than 5 million active subscribers participate in massively multiplayer online games. 8 In a massively multiplayer computer game players connect to game servers via internet and interact in real time with other users worldwide.A signif icant part of this gaming experience consist of ‘meta-gaming’: in-game communication between gamers, using all kinds of devices such as headsets, chat commands, and in-game player signals. The playing of multiplayer games both reproduces and challenges everyday rules of social interaction, as the game environment can be seen both as an extension of real-world experiences and as strictly virtual space (Wright et al, 2002). Yet, meta-gaming is not just about the game: it includes any type of social interaction such as talking, loving, and trading. Ted Castranova (2005) for example has shown how we buy, sell and exchange goods and ervices in online games to the extent that such synthetic economies of scale have come to resemble those in ‘real’, offline worlds – if only because of their sheer size. All of these activities must be seen in terms of their concurrence, as we simultaneously engage in them through for example the windowing of computer screens: pressing ‘alt-tab’ gets you from your job resume on Monster to a post on a weblog, from browsing the information in a 11 Wikipedia entry for a presentation to contributing a book review to Amazon, from a purchase on eBay to an exchange in World of Warcraft.It is important to note how through these interactive, interconnected and networked devices and environments our work- and lifestyles further converge, not only facilitating but rather accelerating the blurring of modern life’s traditional boundaries. Contemporary changes in the economy, politics, society and technology thus get expressed in our increasing concurrent immersion in all kinds of media, which immersion in turn amplifies the convergence of the different spheres of activity in everyday life, blurring the lines between work and non-work, work and leisure, as well as between production and consumption.New Media, Culture and Society At the heart of most if not all of today’s new media technologi es saturating our work-life environments is their networked character, which interconnectivity has woven itself into the fabric of everyday existence among the majority of the population in European, Australasian, and North-American countries.Although this certainly suggests many people do not have access to such technologies, in the world of knowledge and information work the dominant presence of internet and other networked media cannot be ignored. In whatever shape or form, media bring the world to our doorstep – and we bring our world into media. No one is ‘outside’ anymore, whether by choice or necessity.This also means that the precarity of contemporary life through media extends to each and everyone of us, and cannot be said to be beholden to any particular group, race, class or gender – even though life’s current precariousness means different things for different people in different settings. In this context it is both fascinating and indee d hopeful that what characterizes most of the ways we engage with worldwide-networked technologies is the extent to which we seem to be doing so through participatory cooperation.Whether it is the online collaboratively authored encycopedia Wikipedia credible enough to challenge the Brittanica, the open source software movement potent enough to ruffle the feathers of Microsoft, the citizen journalism of Ohmynews powerful enough to influence presidential elections in South Korea, the search engine based on treating links as user recommendations Google, or the free-for-all online classifieds listings of Craigslist succesful enough to eat away the profits of corporate newspapers in the United States: the bottom line of all of these practices is collaboration, a 12 lourishing ‘collective intelligence’ particular of cyberculture (Levy, 1997). When asked to explain the worldwide success of Craigslist, founder Craig Newmark hints at collaboration as the key value embedded in t he way we use, design and give meaning to networked information and communication technologies: â€Å"my experience has shown me that most people are essentially good and trustworthy, and want to help each other out.I have been reminded that the rule about treating others the way you want to be treated is a good one. †9 Similarly, the founders of Google, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, base much of their company’s success on letting individual employees and users co-develop new and existing applications like Google Scholar or Google Video, which are made available in so-called ‘beta’ versions first to sollicit suggestions. 0 Considering the commonly voiced concerns of an increasingly fragmented society and a general decline in traditional social capital as defined by people’s trust and in politics, institutions such as church and state, and to some extent others, it may be counter-intuitive to claim that a more engaged and participatory culture is emerg ing (Putnam, 2004).Considering the interactive, globally networked and increasingly participatory nature of new media, it is inspiring to consider a different kind of social cohesion – a form of community that is not necessarily based on what Sennett (1992) has perceived as a purified absence of difference, but rather on Castells’ earlier mentioned notion of hypersociability particular of the network society. Interestingly, none of this participatory or otherwise collective nature of contemporary media is new.Ever since the mid-20th century so-called ‘alternative’ media have more or less successfully emerged next to, and sometimes in symbiotic relationships with other forms of community media (Atton, 2001). One could think of pirate radio stations, small-scale print magazines, local newspapers and community television stations in the 1960s and 1970s, community-based Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) and Usenet newsgroups on Internet in the 1980s, and as from th e 1990s a wide range of genres on the Web such as community portal sites, group weblogs, voluntary news services, and so on.The emerging new media ecosystem inspires and is inspired by networks of more or less collaborative end-users, creating what Eric von Hippel (2005) calls ‘user-innovation communities’, where people increasingly create and share their own products and services. Within the particular context of media organizations and cultural industries, much of this community-oriented and at times participatory content production takes place within the walls of commercial media conglomerates.Henry Jenkins’ (2006) work on the popular television and movie industries shows how media corporations at least in part must be seen 13 as co-conspirators in the emergence of a participatory media culture, from Star Wars’ George Lucas encouraging the production and distribution of fan movies to the producers of reality television show Survivor actively participati ng in so-called ‘spoiler’ discussion forums online.This increasingly participatory media enviroment translates itself in the widespread proliferation of networked computers and Internet connections in the home (and increasingly to handheld mobile devices). Recognition of this culture of participatory authorship has come from software developers where they have introduced the concept of ‘open’ design. An advanced form of this type of design is the Open Source Movement, based on the principle of shared and collaborative access to and control over software, and using (or rather: tweaking) it to improve the product for global use.The videogame industry has – since the early 1990s – long acknowledged the necessity of viral marketing and user control in product development by pre-releasing game source code, offering games versions as shareware, and tapping customer communities for input (Bo Jeppesen & Molin, 2003). Participation, not in the least en abled by the real-time connectedness of Internet and however voluntarist, incoherent, and perhaps solely fuelled by private interests can be seen as a principal component of digital culture (Deuze, 2006). Our media nvironment has thus become a key site of how we give meaning to the changing context of how we live, work, and play. Pierre Levy and Jeremy Rifkin are among those who signal an emerging relational or social economy as a direct result from the mechanization, automation, or augmentation of agriculture, industry, and services. Central to this technodeterminist understanding of the global economy would be what Levy calls ‘the production of the social bond’ through the ongoing development of sophisticated systems of networked intelligence.The centrality of using and making media in everyday life reveals our endless fascination with media – with any and all acts of mediation. In this context Jay Bolter and Richard Grusin (1996) signal a double logic of remed iation, embodied in the recombinant trends of media becoming immediate up to the point they disappear, while at the same becoming increasingly hypermediate, pervasive, and ubiquitous in all aspects of everyday life: â€Å"Our culture wants both to multiply its media and to erase all traces of mediation: it wants to erase its media in the very act of multiplying technologies of mediation. It is through our uses of media the complexities of contemporary culture get articulated, as media have come to dominate every aspect of life. What is relevant to our concerns here is the interrelationship between work-time, leisure14 time, and media-time, making the world certainly a much bigger place than it used to be, while at the same time reducing our lifeworld as we retreat dutifully in our personal information spaces and interact with everyone yet ‘seeing’ no one.It is especially through media that for most of us the world has become glocalized, as Roland Robertson (1995) would have it, where global products, peoples and ideas are re-appropriated locally and vice versa. It must be clear that media have become central to our understanding of ourselves and the world in which we live. However, as David Croteau and William Hoynes argue, â€Å"in the twenty-first century, we navigate through a vast mass media environment unprecedented in human history.Yet our intimate familiarity with the media often allows us to take them for granted† (2003: 5). The enormous extent to which this is true can be exemplified by looking at how people from all walks of life talk about and give meaning to their media use. Contemporary media usage studies in wired countries like the United States, The Netherlands or Finland tend to reveal how people spend twice as much time with media than they think they do. In the United States for example, people spend on average twelve hours per day using media.Media have become such an integrated part of our lives that most of the time w e are not even aware we are using media. American researchers describe this kind of almost constant immersion with media technologies and content from multiple sources simultaneously available through shared or shifting attention as ‘concurrent media exposure’, rather than popular industryterms such as ‘media multitasking’ or ‘simultaneous media usage’, emphasizing how important it is to avoid implying that our engagement with media is necessarily deliberate or attentive (Papper et al, 2004).We get up in the morning to the sound of the radio-alarm, switch on the television for breakfast, make our first calls using the hand-free set on our way to work, spend most of the day at our desks in front of a computer screen with fax and phone at hand, surf the Web for the latest news, blogposts and shopping deals during lunch hours, watch our favorite sitcoms and sometimes news shows over dinner, and spend the remainder of the day chatting, emailing and instant messaging online.All of this only consists of the kind of media we choose to use, ignoring advertising and marketing messages, simultaneously reading a magazine or newspaper when zapping or zipping past television channels or commercials, reading billboards along the highway, browsing the headlines of a free daily newspaper while in transit, thoughtlessly scanning through radio stations or songs on our walkman, 15 downloading, upgrading, tweaking, installing and uninstalling software, and so on, and so forth.Liquid Life and Media Work Contemporary life thus involves a complex dance between work, play, media, and life in the context of a rapid-changing ‘glocal’ context, the boundaries between which spaces, places and spheres of activity and perception have blurred. In short, the lifeworld today can perhaps best be seen as an ongoing remix of sorts, in terms a new language of how we understand and represent the visible world, our knowledge, human history, and fel low human beings: the language of new media, meta-media, and information culture (Manovich, 2005).As Lev Manovich states, â€Å"today we are in the middle of a new media revolution – the shift of all culture to computer-mediated forms of production, distribution, and communication† (2001: 19). The key to understanding our increasing opportunity, propensity or even necessity to more or less collaboratively remix our ‘glocal’ lived reality is too see this kind of behavior as a way for us to make sense of the growing complexity and uncertainty of the world around us (and in ourselves).Paraphrasing Bauman it is, in other words, a coping mechanism for dealing with the absurdity of life in today’s liquid modernity. â€Å"’Liquid modern’ is a society in which the conditions under which its members act change faster than it takes the ways of acting to consolidate into habits and routines. Liquidity of life and that of society feed and reinvig orate each other. Liquid life, just like liquid modern society, cannot keep its shape or stay on course for long† (Bauman, 2005b: 1).A liquid modern society is one where uncertainty, flux, change, conflict, and revolution are the permanent conditions of everyday life. Bauman makes a compelling argument how this situation is neither modern or post-modern, but rather explains how the categories of existence established and enabled by early, first, or solid modernity are disintegrating, overlapping, and remixing. It is not as if we cannot draw meaningful distinctions between global and local, between work and non-work, between public and private, between conservative and progressive, or between work and life anymore.It is just that these and other key organizing characteristics and categories of modern life have lost their (presumed or perceived) intrinsic, commonly held or consensual meaning. 16 The way we do and understand things is increasingly transformed through and implicat ed by the way we engage the media in our lives. This in turn makes the media as a business, as in those companies that work to create the content of our media, of central importance to any kind of meaningful analysis of contemporary life.Defining the media as cultural industries, Desmond Hesmondhalgh for example shows their prominence for understanding the human condition and our lived reality â€Å"as those institutions (mainly profitmaking companies, but also state organisations and non-profit organisations) which are most directly involved in the production of social meaning† (2002: 11). If the media in the broadest possible sense are the sites of our struggle over meaning and symbolic exchange in society, it ecomes essential to understand the working lives of the people within the cultural industries – if only to understand which values, ideas, circumstances and social contexts define those primarily engaged in the production of of the resources and materials all o f use use to give meaning to our lives. It is in this context that Bauman discusses the typical charactertics of these professional ‘culture creators’, â€Å"who carry the main burden of the transgressive proclivity of culture and make it their conciously embraced vocation, practising critique and transgression as their own mode of being† (2005b: 54-5).Bauman implictly addresses the missing link between the particularities of the human condition in the beginning of the 21st century, our seemingly constant immersion in media, and the centrality of work as the defining principle of contemporary lived reality. The missing link is the changing nature of media work in today’s digital, global and deeply uncertain age, where media workers must be seen as the directors as well as reflectors of liquid modern life, in which life media have become ubiquitous, pervasive, personalized – as well as interactive, participatory, and networked.Media are both the harb ingers of change as well as the self-proclaimed guardians of social order as in the case of for example parliamentary journalists and tabloid reporters: documenting and thus contributing to the maintenance of the status quo while at the same time signaling the disruptive changes wreaking havoc on it from all sides. Indeed, the popular reality of the media gives rise to what Beck has described as the ongoing modernization of modernity, by emphasizing its core characteristics of risk, uncertainty, and paradox.And it is precisely this risk-taking, adventurous yet deeply self-contradictory nature that has come to define the nature of media work, where â€Å"senses of risk are constitutive and often pivotal to the whole economic and social basis of cultural entrepreneurship – risk being central to choices made not only in business but in the lifeworld more generally† (Banks et al, 2000: 453). Mediaworkers are 17 ot only interesting in terms of their contribution to the way we give meaning to our shared reality; who they are, what they do and how they give meaning to their work can also be seen as an indicator of how an increasingly significant part of the global economy organizes itself. Media industries are indeed one of the prime accelerators of a global economy, both in terms of its glocalization and its increased immersion in networked information and communication technologies.Media professionals – those employed in journalism, marketing communications, advertising, public relations, game design, television and the movie industry – embody in their work-styles all the themes of social change in liquid modern times as expressed in this essay, as Simon Cottle for exampe describes how â€Å"a growing army of media professionals, producers and others work in this expanding sector of the economy, many of them in freelance, temporary, subcontracted and underpaid (and sometimes unpaid) positions [†¦] They are also often at the forefro nt of processes of organisational change including new flexible work regimes, reflexive corporate cultures, and the introduction of digital technologies, multimedia production and multiskilled practices† (2003: 3). Indeed, Scott Lash and John Urry (1994) have signaled earlier how the cultural industries have always been post-Fordist avant la lettre, contributing to the culturalization of economic life through a structurating mix of commercially viable yet generic, and innovative, flexible and highly creative production processes.This unique blend of what Bryan Turner (2003: 138) describes as the dialectical process of linearity and liquidity in contemporary consumer cultures turns the media as an industry into the core culprit responsible for cookiecutter-style McDonaldization, as well as the main agent in affecting social, technological and economical change. Convergence Culture In today’s increasingly digital culture, mediawork can be seen as a stomping ground for the forces of increasingly differentiated production and innovation processes, and the complex interaction and integration between work, life, and play, all of which get expressed in, and are facilitated by, the rapid development of new information and communication technologies.Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri (2000: 291) correspondingly argue how â€Å"the computer and communication revolution of production has transformed laboring practices in such a way that they all tend toward the model of information and communication technologies [†¦] the anthrolopology of cyberspace is really a recognition of the new human condition. † The new human condition, when seen 18 through the lens of those in the forefront of changes in the way work and life are implicated in our increasingly participatory media production and consumption, is convergent. This convergence is not just a technological process, where different types of media forms – audio, video, text – and channe ls – print, radio, television – are integrated into the computer.Following the work of Henry Jenkins (2004), media convergence must also be seen as having a cultural logic of its own, blurring the lines between production and consumption, between making media and using media, and between active or passive spectatorship of mediated culture: â€Å"Convergence is both a top-down corporate-driven process and a bottomup consumer-driven process. Media companies are learning how to accelerate the flow of media content across delivery channels to expand revenue opportunities, broaden markets and reinforce viewer commitments. Consumers are learning how to use these different media technologies to bring the flow of media more fully under their control and to interact with other users.They are fighting for the right to participate more fully in their culture, to control the flow of media in their lives and to talk back to mass market content. Sometimes, these two forces reinforc e each other, creating closer, more rewarding, relations between media producers and consumers† (Jenkins, 2004: 37). Pertinent to our concerns here is the ways in which mediaworkers are implicated by this convergence culture so typical of today’s media. If convergence is a cultural logic that at its core integrates all of us in the process of producing mediated experiences, how do the professionals involved give meaning to their productivity, creative autonomy, and professional identity?One way of looking at this focuses on the political economy of increasingly conglomerated, transnational media corporations, emphasizing their role in rationalizing and routinizing production for the (glocal) masses: â€Å"Conglomerates have invested heavily in developing synergistic relationships between their various media holdings, integrating their production processes into â€Å"convergence† systems that yield content for different outlets, â€Å"crosspromoting† progr ams in different media, and establishing lines of vertical and horizontal integration in production and distribution† (Klinenberg & Benzecry, 2005: 10). A second approach acknowledges the goals and ideals of contemporary ‘corporate management of global enterprises, but draws our attention more specifically to those people directly involved in the process: the mediaworkers. â€Å"Being environmentally conscious, showing a social conscience and being a good corporate citizen are viewed in modern management theory as benefiting the bottom line. But this management-speak hides the growing focus in the media professions—the cultural boundary spanners—on genuine links between modern 19 organizations and the different individuals and groups in society that deal with them† (Balnaves et al, 2004: 193).Discussion Considering the dominant trends towards cultural convergence of production and consumption both in the way people run their everyday work-lives, and in the way media professionals do their work, it becomes increasingly interesting to observe and understand which values, ideas and ideals get embedded in the globally emerging system of userproducer co-creation. Granted, â€Å"the media business is unusually fluid and superficial† (Sennett, 1998: 80). But as I have shown in this essay, so are life, work, and play. And all of those activities are expressed in the way we use, co-create, and give meaning to media in our everyday lives. The suggested superficiality and invisibility of the media perhaps belittles the valuable, hypersociable and deeply participatory nature of our interactions within and between them.Indeed, the continuous glocal ‘remix’ of liquid modernity’s working and living conditions can be connected to the way we understand the media. The nature of work within an increasingly liquid, collaborative and convergent culture gets meaning in the media industry through product differentiation, wo rkforce flexibilization, and cross-media integration. Yet it also gets expressed in the various ways in which people use and make media all over the world – through ‘prosuming’ (Toffler, 1980) or ‘produsing’ (Bruns, 2004) practices, open source-type applications, wiki-based user co-creation, and other examples of convergence culture. I accept the notion that for most of us, life in liquid modernity is fraught with risk, uncertaintly, anxiety and flux.However, I feel that our analyses should take the next step, and acknowledge how people give meaning to this new human condition: through cultural convergence, participation, and new forms of sociability. It is too simple to argue that the media industries, which are so instrumental in all of these contingencies, either reproduce passive spectators or facilitate active, albeit superficial, engagement. The ways we use and give meaning to media, both as professionals and amateurs, show signs of a more comp lex, or in the words of Jenkins, ‘kludgy’ culture emerging, one that is built on the core elements of the global risk society and thrives on Bauman’s liquid life.I call for further investigation of and among those who bear the brunt of this emergence: the mediaworkers. 20 References Chris Atton (2001), Alternative Media. London: Sage. 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Manuel Castells (2000), Materials for an exploratory theory of the network society, British Journal of Sociology 51 (1), pp. 5-24. Manuel Castells (2001), The internet galaxy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ted Castranova (2005). Synthetic worlds.Chicago: University of Chicago Press. David Croteau & William Hoynes (2003), Media/Society. Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press. Mark Deuze (2006), Participation, Remediation, Bricolage: Considering Principal Components of a Digital Culture, The Information Society 22 (2), pp. 63-75. Peter Drucker (1993), Postcapitalist society. New York: Harper Collins. Paul du Gay (1996), Consumption and identity at work. London: Sage. Jonathan Gershuny (2000), Changing times. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Anthony Giddens (2003), Runaway world: how globalization is reshaping our lives. New York: Routledge. 21 Catherine Hakim (2003), Models of the family in modern societies.Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate Publishing. Charles Handy (1989), The age of unreason. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Susan Herring, Lois Ann Scheidt, Elijah Wright and Sabrina Bonus (2005), Weblogs as a bridging genre, Information, Technology & People 18(2), pp. 142-171. Desmond Hesmondhalgh (2002), The cultural industries. London: Sage. Eric von Hippel (2005), Democratizing Innovations. Cambridge: MIT Press. Henry Jenkins (2004). The cultural logic of media convergence. International Journal of Cultural Studies 7(1), pp. 33–43. Henry Jenkins (2006), Convergence culture. where old and new media collide. New York: New York University Press.Arne Kalleberg (2000), Nonstandard employment relations: part-time, temporary and contract work, Annual Review of Sociology 26, pp. 341-365. Heejo Keum, Narayan Devanathan, Sameer Deshpande, Michelle Nelson, and Dhavan Shah (2004), The citizen-consumer: media effects at the intersection of consumer and civic culture, Political Communication 21, pp. 369-391. Scott Lash and John Urry (1994), Economies of Signs and Space. London: Sage. Pierre Levy (1997). Collective intelligence: mankind’s emerging world in cyberspace. Translated by Robert Bononno. Cambridge: Perseus Books. Lev Manovich (2005), Understanding meta-media, CTheory 10/26/2005. URL: http://www. ctheory. net/articles. spx? id=493. Lev Manovich (2001), The language of new media. Cambridge: MIT Press. Janet Marler, Melissa Woodard Barringer, and George Milkovich (2002), Boundaryless and traditional contingent employees: worlds apart, Journal of Organizational Behavior 23, pp. 425-453. Robert Papper, Michael Holmes, Mark Popovich (2004), Middletown Media Studies, The International Digital Media & Digital Arts Association Journal 1 (1), pp. 1-56. Jane Parry, Rebecca Taylor, Lynne Pettinger and Miriam Glucksmann (2005), Confronting the challenges of work today: new horizons and perspectives, The Sociological Review. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Robert Putnam (ed. 2004, Democracies in Flux: The Evolution of Social Capital in Contemporary Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 22 Jeremy Rifkin (2004), The end of work, 2nd edition. New York: Tarcher/Penguin. Roland Robertson (1995), Glocalization: Time-space and Homogeneity- heterogeneity, in: Mike Featherstone, Scott Lash, Roland Robertson (eds. ), Global Modernities, London: Sage. Richard Sennett (1998), The corrosion of character. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Richard Sennett (1992), The uses of disorder: personal identity and city life, New York: W. W. Norton. Richard Sennett (2005), The culture of the new capitalism. New Haven: Yale University Press.Vicki Smith (1997), New forms of work organization, Annual Review of Sociology 23, pp. 315-339. John Storey, Graeme Salaman, and Kerry Platman (2005), Living with enterprise in an enterprise eceonomy: freelance and contract workers in the media, Human Relations 58 (8), pp. 1033-1054. Frank Thomas (1997), The conquest of cool: business culture, counterculture, and the rise of hip consumerism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Talmadge Wright, Paul Briedenbach and Eric Boria (2002), Creative Player actions in fps online video games: playing Counter-Strike, Game Studies 2 (2), URL: http://www. gamestudies. org/0202/wright. 23 Endnotes 1 2 URL: http://ourmayday. revolt. org/precarity. info/info. tm (date accessed: 2-12-6). See URL: http://www. c-i-a. com/pr0106. htm. 3 See URL: http://corp. match. com/index/newscenter_press_glance. asp. 4 See URL: http://www. craigslist. com/about/pr/factsheet. html. 5 See URL: http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Wikipedia. 6 See URL: http://huminf. uib. no/~jill/archives/blog_theorising/final_version_of_weblog_definitio n. html. 7 See URL: http://technorati. com/weblog/2006/02/83. html. 8 See URL: http://www. mmogchart. com. 9 Phone interview with Craig Newmark, 1 December 2005. 10 See for example the company profile at CBS ‘60 Minutes’ at URL: http://www. cbsnews. com/stories/2004/12/30/60minutes/main664063. shtml. 24

Autocratic Management Have No Place in Today’s Business World- Discuss Essay

Many people think nowadays that autocratic management is bad and doesn’t motivate employees. They believe this type of management will never work in today’s business world. However, it is not entirely possible for today’s world to have everyone as democratic people, nor is it true that most people are ‘Theory Y’ type. Autocratic management used to be the most effective management technique, as well as the simplest. Employees are told what to do and expected not to question back, like in the army. If the worker fails to accomplish the task then he/she either gets fired or disciplined. Managers always expect his/her decisions and orders to be obeyed without question, and everything will go fine. Managers tend to be in control of nearly everything within a firm, and make all the decisions. They also believe that workers are only motivated by incentives such as money and are lazy, which is based on McGregor’s ‘Theory X’ and Taylor’s theory. The advantages of this type of management are that it is quite efficient, as there are no disputes of any sort between the employees and the management. Secondly, the decisions within a firm could be done very quickly and efficiently as there is practically no such thing as a discussion and opinions. The drawbacks of this style of management, however, are that employees won’t have a sense of self-esteem or self-actualization, which is specified in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. It is not possible to fully motivate an employee if this management is used. Also, communications within the firm will almost be non-existent, which is a problem for social needs. Workers will feel bored or demotivated if they even can’t establish any relationship within the workplace. The business world today can be considered as different to the world in the past. However not everything would change in such a swift pace, therefore it is not possible that all employees are ‘Theory Y’ type workers. The initial statement that claims autocratic management has no place in today’s business world is practically impossible to be true, because there are still people in this world that still supports this type of management. There are still lazy and selfish people in the world that fit perfectly into McGregor’s Theory X. Some people might not like the idea of making their own decisions as they fear it might affect the business in a negative way so they would rather rely on management to do all the decision making. Also, workers who, in the past, had worked in an autocratic environment will tend to act the same as their superiors when they become part of the management. It is similar to child abuse, where the child grows up to be a very aggressive person. Autocratic managers obviously wouldn’t like to work in a democratic firm, as the manager tends to refuse any delegation to his/her subordinates. It is believed that autocratic management is very effective in the short-term but would be devastating in the long-term. This is because there is a high chance of a large number of labour turnovers within the business and the morale of existing workers would rapidly decrease. Eventually the employees would probably go on industrial action or, in worse scenarios, sue the business for unfair treatment. The quality of output from subordinates will also decrease, as they are highly demotivated due to the fact that they are like puppets, doing what they’re told. They don’t feel as if they’re a part of the company. It is successful in the short-term because employees are initially motivated by money, which explains the high output. Also, as stated before, decisions are made very quickly therefore the firm can achieve their objectives in no time. Of course, as time passes employees are no longer interested in money that much as before, so they start to get demotivated. In conclusion, there is a place for autocratic management in today’s business world. It is just not as widely accepted as before because humans believe that they can think for themselves and never needs to be commanded by another being. Nevertheless some might say democratic management tends to do better than autocratic management, but that all depends on the employees themselves.

Question Answer Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Question Answer - Essay Example Department of State, Office of the Historian, 1997; NSC Home). As diplomacy seemed to be failing, there was an increased need to coordinate the US defense bodies which include the Marine Corps, Air force, CIA, Navy, and the United States Army. The National Security Council was created with the President being the chairperson. Members included secretaries of state of state and defense. This council was established to coordinate foreign policy and defense policy and get ready in case of eruption of a war after its inception. As outlined in the 1947 Act, the role of the NSC was to advise the president on the integration of policies that had a direct or indirect relation to national security. This council was also mandated with the function of facilitating interagency cohesion and cooperation. Policies that were proposed in relation to national security had to pass through the council for consideration. The functioning of the council was altered by various occurrences such as the Korean War. The years that followed, though under different presidents did not see much change to the functioning of the National Security Council. The turning point came after the 9/11 attack. The attacks on 9/11 came as a shock to the security docket. They realized they have been missing a lot in terms of infrastructure. Communication was paralyzed and the rescue mission almost failed. However, the US security ought to have been ready after the 1998 attacks on its embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. This led to the reconstruction of the NSC and later in 2009, President Barack Obama merged the White House Staff supporting the HSC and the NSC into the National Security Staff (NSS) though each continued to exist with their previous statutes. The reconstruction of the NSC after the 9/11 attack focused on the war against terrorism which was the new threat to national security. This was intensified with the war in Afghanistan and the control of the terrorists’

Having single sex schools in the United States and the benefits of it Essay

Having single sex schools in the United States and the benefits of it - Essay Example The stakeholders involved in the production of more single-sex educational environments include parents of these young children who are responsible for promoting learning and advancing motivation for achievement related to knowledge and personal development. Additionally, teachers and the administrative environment in these schools are stakeholders as they are the driving force behind curriculum development and work consistently to create a more unified classroom environment. The students, obviously, represent another group of stakeholders who would be affected, the primary stakeholder faction, as single sex classrooms would seem to limit diversity related to gender socialization. All of these stakeholders are affected by the decision to segregate genders in the classroom and it would, ultimately, impact the quality of education and learning. Having identified the key stakeholders affected, it is important to recognize the many positive advantages of single sex classrooms. Research o n these types of educational environments indicates that single sex schools have constructive benefits, especially for young girls. Girls in single sex classrooms are more prone to speak freely, have a higher tendency to major in science and mathematics, and are more motivated to attend college or graduate school (Sadker & Zittleman, 9). Thus, there is evidence that socialization is improved and motivation to learn beyond the public school environment is enhanced in this type of environment. Another case study identified that children in single sex classrooms developed a stronger sense of community and exhibited a much stronger respect for the educator (www2.ed.gov, x). This same case study research further reinforced the quality of a single sex educational environment by uncovering that a more optimistic student role modeling occurred when compared to coed schools (www2.ed.gov). The reasoning behind whey these social factors were improved in single sex schools is unclear, however i t may be a byproduct of a closer camaraderie between students or the provision of an educator that is intensely familiar with one specific gender and can therefore provide more than just knowledge, but focus on gender-specific psychological factors as part of their curriculum program. One notable public figure, Hillary Clinton, also supports the existence of single sex environments, being quoted as remarking, â€Å"Certainly, there should not be any obstacle to providing single sex choice within the public school system. We could use more schools such as this† (brighterchoice.org, 1). Clinton is referring to the Young Women’s Leadership Academy in New York City as the reference for her opinion on single sex schools, citing the positive achievements gleaned from a case study single sex school environment. Her rationale for this assessment is unclear, however it reinforces that even top level public figures believe that coed schools should not be the only option availabl e in today’s society since they have been proven to achieve encouraging results in educational provision and life-long learning. Women’s rights groups, however, are the largest opponent of single sex schools as they believe it suppresses women’s rights. One adversary of single sex education cited the Bush administration’s alleged attempt to remove gender equality from schools as a rationale for opposing gender-segregated classrooms. â€Å"

Employee Safety and Rights Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Employee Safety and Rights - Research Paper Example Violence at the workplace can involve or affect employees, customers, clients and even visitors. In the United States alone 2 million workers report being victims of workplace violence each year (Occupational Safety and Health Administration). Although workplace violence can occur anywhere and to anyone, there are those who are at a greater risk than others (Dalton 37). For example, workers who work whose work is to deliver goods, services or passengers, those who work alone, those who work in areas that are high crime and those who work during odd hours are more likely to encounter some form of workplace violence than other workers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has records of 4,547 workplace injuries that occurred in 2010; of these, 506 were reported to be workplace homicides (Occupational Safety and Health Administration). These statistics paint a grave picture of the rate of workplace violence present in the country’s work places. This issue is the cause of major concern not only for employees, but also for employers whose obligation includes taking care of their employees, customers and visitors. How Can Managers Handle Workplace Violence? One of the best protection measures against violence that employers can offer their employees is by establishing anti-workplace violence policies. ... and what workplace violence entail and the repercussions of meting out such violence to other employees or anyone else within the workplace, they should also understand the steps that they should take if and when they experience any form of violence while they are working. Employers should also educate their employees on how to protect themselves when they are subjected to workplace violence. These policies should be regularly reviewed to ensure that they cover all forms of violence that are likely to occur at the work place (Dalton 88). Employers can also secure the workplace as a way of ensuring that their employees are not subjected to any kind of violence when they are on official duty. Securing the workplace involves installing security equipment throughout the place of work (Kerr 203). This equipment may include: extra lighting, video surveillance and alarm systems. Unauthorized access from outsiders can be minimized through the use of electronic keys, identification badges and physical guards. These security measures are especially important and relevant in workplaces where the employees are in continuous contact with non-employees. If the work involves handling of large amounts of cash, employers can install drop safes to minimize the amount of cash at hand at any single moment (Gustin 81). Employers should instruct their employees to use communication equipment whenever they are out on field assignments (Paludi, Nydegger and Paludi 92). The employers should provide hand-held alarm systems or noise devices and cellular phones which would enable them to stay in contact at all times when they are on duty. The employees should also be encouraged to prepare and adhere to a daily work plan. Providing escort services to employees who work in high risk areas is also a

Dissection and graded assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 2

Dissection and graded - Assignment Example One of the control measures that I would take is sterilization of instruments used on the sick people. Despite the fact that operating on infected people is a tedious process, it is well known as the best manner through which a person or professional can control the spread of an infectious disease (Association of Faculties of Medicine in Canada, 2014). Given that the professional does not acquire the disease, means that they do not get to transmit the disease with the patient to other people. Another control measure to take is quarantine. Quarantine is the method used to control the spread of a disease only in its initial stages because at the time it will have only infected few people. A few infections are possible to control and thus the use of this means exponentially (New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services, 2008). While people are under quarantine, it is possible for professions to test them while wearing gasmasks that will allow them to carry out their activities without catching the disease. From the tests, there is the hope of getting the causative agent and control the spread early. After reading the article, the infectious agent that caused the disease is Shigella Sonnei. This facultative anaerobic bacterium lacks the ability to move due to the lack of flagella (Niyogi, 2010). The incubation period of this bacterium is normally around 3 to 4 days. The investigator identifies several causes of the infection and it is clear to state that the main factors that he states are the most common (Bloestein, 1991). However, in the study, there are some areas not mentioned that ought to receive attention. One of the causes is the poor usage of public facilities and failure to maintain clean practices (Department of Health, 2014). Another cause of the bacterium is the high number of people using water bodies poorly and then later on using the same

Employee Relations - Voluntarism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Employee Relations - Voluntarism - Essay Example In the United Kingdom, the basic areas of focus for the state have been on information dispersion and providing financial support and incentives for management action. (University of Bath, 2008) Now in the wake of numerous debates regarding the efficacy of the concept of indirect employee involvement and participation, voluntarism has not been promoted in certain cases in the United Kingdom. On the other hand, we see in some cases that the new trade union models are set to encourage voluntary cooperation. This essay is going to critically evaluate both scenarios with specific case studies. Nonunion employee representation (NER) and its independency from the governing authority typify the employee relations structure in the United Kingdom. (Kaufman et al, 2000:410) With the growth and development of service sectors in the country during the last 25 years or so, traditional industries became less operative, resulting in a steady decline in British union membership from 13 million in the early 1980s to 8 million in the late 1990s. Consequently, the need to introduce human relations and new wings of work organization was felt acutely as employers wanted to include dynamic business initiatives that would benefit both their interests as well as employee welfare. Looking into the context that preceded the provisions made in the 1999 Employee Relations Bill, one can clearly get an idea of the changing scenario in the late 1990s arising from the Trade Union Congress’ recommendation of a broad spectrum of individual and corporate rights at work into lawmaking. The concep t of voluntarism is not essentially circumscribed to state or legal interference in the union and management dealings, but should be expanded to take into consideration the relative freedom of employees and employers to improve the interrelationship. (Sisson, 1999) In relation with the thesis question, one might look into the fact

VLAN in todays enviroment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

VLAN in todays enviroment - Essay Example But when studied further both LANs and VLANs it serves more than interconnection: personal computer networks to backend networks or even storage area networks. And in most cases, the purpose of a LAN is a combination of many (Stallings, 2007). The common LAN configuration is one composed personal computers. This type is almost present in all organizations no matter the size is. The main reason for this may be because of lower cost and simpler topology. For smaller organizations, this type of network is perfect since it serves its purpose of connectivity without compromising budget and ease of use and maintenance. Another purpose of the network is for backend networks. Now this is more complex and is more commonly seen in bigger organizations. Backend networks serves as a connection between mainframes, super computers and mass storage devices. This implies that with a limited space and less equipment, the network is able to provide fast and reliable data transfer. This is essential for VLANs for companies that provide data services. The same applies to Storage area networks. With these functions, it is not surprising that the topology of the network will also grow more complex. If it were a simple LAN, there shouldn't be a problem. But since a VLAN involves more strategic planning, a lot more effort should be made. Although the physical location of the entities connected is not considered in the planning, how they are connected to each other can be pain staking. The interoperability of these entities can also cause errors. It is necessary that they operate on the same protocol. Existing hardware may not operate with newer ones or equipment from different manufacturers may clash. Based on the above disadvantages, it can be said that managing such network is a lot difficult than a simple LAN. Except for the geographical location, the hardware used for VLANs are not that different from a LAN, although there are routers and switches designed specifically for VLANs. Cisco calls these switches Catalyst. There are also route switch modules for this purpose. Some of the switches have built-in support in software and hardware to do inter-VLAN routing. With inter-VLAN routing, no external device, modules, or daughter cards are required (Cisco). Switches are more commonly used because they are simpler compared to that of a router which functions more like a connection to the internet or a WAN (Tyson, 2009). Security is improved by using switches with built in layer 2 protections such as hardware firewalls. This is then supported by it software counterpart. In the case of connecting several VLANs to each other, routers and bridges can be used. Network switches operate at the layer two or the Data Link Layer of the OSI model. The layer two is the one responsible to provide the means to transfer data between network entities. This makes it vulnerable to attacks by hackers and the like. LANs often have confidential and mission-critical data moving across (Tomasi, 2004). This is easily intercepted since it is right next to the physical layer of the network. VLANs have the advantage to making the network more secure since it segments the network into distinct broadcast groups (Long). Since the information is no longer sent to all when broadcasted, the probability of interception is reduced. In context of the protocols used for VLAN, there are several to choose

2007 financial crisis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

2007 financial crisis - Essay Example The risks kept building up and through the synergistic effect; they interconnected among the institutions, which in the end undermined the stability of the financial institutions. There were seven main causes that worked together to cause the 2007 financial crisis. Such included the securitization of the mortgages bringing forth to the rise in the shadow banking sector, regulatory arbitrage and conflict of interest, leverage and lower interest rates, outsourcing of mortgage broker function, the suits vs geeks’ problem and finally the bankruptcy law changes. The factors mentioned above worked as follows to cause the â€Å"perfect financial storm.† (Mishkin 2004) The securitization of mortgages was the first cause of the crisis given that throughout history it had been a trend that mortgages were issued and serviced by the same bank (Mishkin 2004). The government created Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac although both were eventually spun off as private companies to encourage ho me ownership by creating home loans, which were issued at quiet lower interest rates. These institutions along with other banks converted loans into securities called mortgage backed securities whereby the money paid by the borrower had to pass through the bank to the holder of the security (Mishkin and Eakins 2012). The banks were therefore able to get more funds to issues more loans by selling the loans. The selling of the loans also made them pass the risks associated by the loans to the buyers of the securities whose impacts both tended to reduce the rates of interest on the mortgages (Casti 2012). The two formally created institutions together with AIG and other financial institutions insured those securities against default through credit default swaps, which are just insurances on cars or houses. Securitization of mortgages itself wouldn’t necessarily be unsafe if only low risk mortgages were securitized but the successive administrations went on to encourage Fannie an d Freddie to bundle mortgages so as to expand home ownership. Mortgage backed securities are much profitable when there is no default but with defaults insurance payouts grew and the government had to come in to bail out Fannie and Freddie plus AIG (Lounsbury 2010). Mortgage backed security market is part of the broader trend called the shadow banking where firms run from banks to direct finance due to the better rates they are likely to get (Lounsbury 2010). The participants in this sector take a greater risk as this sector is not regulated like the banking sector. These companies also lack the capital requirement that the banks have compounding the risks further so incase of anything these banks lose a lot. Through regulatory arbitrage, capital requirements reappear (Mishkin and Eakins 2012). This act occurs when financial institutions have a way of undermining the intent of regulation to increase profits like the bizarre risk rankings and the shopping for a regulator. Regulatory arbitrage combined together with the conflict of interest contributed to the growing instability of the financial sector. Poor lending practices caused by the changes within the mortgage market was a cause given that the lending authority was given to the independent contractor who were outsourced and being paid on a fee per loan. They therefore had the incentive for loaning people even without looking at their security, which banks could not do as they securitized the loans (The Guardian 2012). Recent government actions like allowing the investment banks to borrow at lower rates so that they could make profits by purchasing MBSs also contributed to the

The Battle of Nanshan Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The Battle of Nanshan - Research Paper Example The two imperial nations engaged in fierce diplomatic attempts over matters concerning Manchuria and Korea, both aiming to grab hold of those territories to expand their kingdoms. Widespread expectation in the Western hemisphere was that Russia would wipe out the military forces of Japan with her large defense forces (Steinberg et al. 2005), but most Japanese government officials were convinced that their highly trained and specialized armed forces will give them military advantage over Russia. The overconfidence and conceit of Nicholas II, the Russian Tsar, hampered concessions between the two superpowers; Japan attacked, then Russia, immediately after, received a Declaration of War (Steinberg et al. 2005). Nonetheless, after the battle at Tsushima, Russia was forced to surrender. It surrendered Manchuria, Port Arthur, and any efforts to occupy Korea, and had damaged irreparably the repute of several admirals and generals (Steinberg et al. 2005). The unfavorable outcomes for Russia are not possible to overstate, with the defeat of trained and veteran admirals and generals, the complete annihilation of the Pacific and Baltic fleets (Warner 2004), the defeat of the defense forces against a perceived lesser opponent. Although the Battle of Nanshan was a remarkable triumph for the Japanese Empire, it enabled for Japan the contagion of the most deceitful of all maladies: triumph malady. Overly assured in the methods and strategies used and taking for granted most of the lessons to be gained from the attacks, Japan went on being overconfident with its impregnability, assured that the willpower of its armed forces were sufficient to seize what the Empire wanted (Warner 2004). This essay will discuss the battle strategies and tactics of Russia and Japan at the Battle of Nanshan, as well as the political climate at the time, the military leaders, and the final outcome of the battle. II. Russian and Japanese Battle Strategies at the Battle of Nanshan To start with, the general power and strength of the Russian naval forces was more superior to those of Japan, but the flotilla of the latter was in home waters, whereas the Russian fleet was separated between the Pacific and Europe. Evidently, the Russian military manpower surpassed that of Japan, but the former was battling thousands of miles from home and the opponent was fighting within hundred miles from home (Steinberg et al. 2005). The Japanese were highly trained in Western military tactics and strategies, and were painfully disciplined and capably supervised. The Russians were undisciplined, incompetent, and were hindered by ill-equipped officers and obsolete military strategies (Steinberg et al. 2005). The resources of Japan were far more inadequate than those of Russia and the former had to achieve an immediate victory before the entire force and power of Russia emerged. Thus, Japan embraced the enormous risk of initiating armed forces movements at once, before the flotilla of Russian at Po rt Arthur had been obliterated (Warner 2004). The strategy of Russia was to postpone and deter final response until it had mustered its strength. Basically, the Battle of Nanshan was fought between a developing Asian superpower and a European imperialist. After the triumph of the Japanese at the Yalu River, General Yasukata Oku’s Second Army arrived at the Liaotung cape, quite near to Port Arthur (Steinberg et al. 2005). The Second Army was composed of roughly 39,000 combatants. Arrival was finalized by May 1904

Two Reading Journals Essay Example for Free

Two Reading Journals Essay â€Å"A Good Man is Hard to Find† by Flannery O’Connor is a story which utilizes caricatures of people to reveal some aspects of character that all readers can identify with.   While the characters on the literal level seem too unreasonably stereotyped to be real, some of their behaviors and responses are actually very similar to those of all humanity.   For example, the Grandmother begins as the quintessential nagging, hyper-critical, self-absorbed old woman that everyone prefers to ignore. However, her constant spouting of religious maxims and her ability to use her holier-than-thou attitude for guilt purposes is a trait that many readers recognize in their own family members or even themselves, perhaps as the oppressed son, even.    After the initial encounter with the Misfit, these stereotypical demeanors fade away, and the real personality of the characters can come through.    This is similar to the concept that people’s true selves come through in times of great trial or emergency.   The bratty children clam up in fear, and the grandmother begins to treat the Misfit with an almost caring respect, which he doesn’t buy, of course.   Her ultimate attempt to â€Å"save† the Misfit from sin fails, just as her attempt to win loyalty from her son by guilting him into doing her bidding fails.   However, she is forced into thinking about someone else, in this case the Misfit.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   â€Å"Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?† by Joyce Carol Oates tells the story of a tough talking teen girl who is constantly concerned with the appearance she projects to the outside world.   Her tough exterior is extremely believable, as many teens suffer from this underlying lack of confidence. However, her pursuit by the psychotic Arnold Friend forces her t realize that not everyone will fall for the tough and cool exterior. Arnold’s friendly exterior keeps her off guard just long enough for him to draw her in.  Ã‚   He knows that deep inside she is scared and eager to please; this is how he wins her ultimate and fatal compliance.   He had forced her to realize that she was not the tough chick she wanted to be, and she notes that she just felt empty.   The shell was cracked, and there was nothing inside.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Both of these stories contrast the exterior of a person with his or her interior.   In the face of a perilous situation, both the Grandmother and Connie realize they cannot fall back on their usual game.   Both, then allow themselves to be victimized in the absence of any other choices.

Development of Beauty Salon Services

Development of Beauty Salon Services What is a beauty salon? A beauty salon is an establishment providing men and women with services to improve their beauty, such as hairdressing, manicuring, facial treatment and massage. They are also known as beauty parlor and beauty shop. You might assume that beauty salon is barber salon are the same, but thats not true. Barber salon mostly deals with hairdressing and cutting, while a beauty salon deals with body and face treatments. The concept of beauty salons started back in the days of ancient civilization, where people mostly of upper class loved to set up fashion trends for thousands of years. Although through the ages, hairstyles, cuts and trends have changed a thousand times but some things like women wearing wigs, coloring hair are not new, and are still practiced. Back then, beauty salons were the places where wigs were being made and ordered. Rich and noble people had their beauty salons in their palaces. Ever since then, the concept of beauty salon is constantly evolving and people have become accustomed to having hair styled to them throughout the years. Though, today beauty salon does not only offer different hair styling, but a number of other services such as perms, massage, waxing, tanning, facial treatments, pedicure, manicure and many more. ANALYZE HOW INNOVATION HAS CHANGED A SERVICE WITHIN THE BEAUTY INDUSTRY: Beauty industry is now a multinational and million dollar business. The services within the beauty industry have widely changed, as now beauty salons are not places where simply you have your hair cut and get your nails done, but also emphasize to refine and polish the inner beauty through physical and spiritual therapy. It is not just the beauty salons and beauty shops that come under the heading of beauty industry but sales of cosmetics, perfumes and products for hair and skin care synthesize it. While beauty shops and salons are mere the service sector of this industry. In addition, some economists include cosmetic surgery and health club in this market. Beauty matters most, to most of the people in this world and so from ages the beauty industry is providing and innovating its services in order to satisfy the needs of its customers. According to the business analyst, the best selling beauty products are that clean and beautify hair. But today beauticians believed that beauty and health are interlinked, and so that is how the idea of spas and health care centers came under this heading. Queen Elizabeth was the main female icon and set the trends in the 16th century. Beauty was limited to the appearance only, where a little of face powder, glowing cheeks and red glossy lips had done it all. People used to bleach their hair using either saffron or onion skins. It used to take immense of hard work and contrary styling techniques to make a person look beautiful and presentable to attend some event. But with the ace of time and development of technology, beauty industry has also been able to advance itself by inventing artistry equipments and researching in the biological and chemical sciences which offer more sophisticated, high-performance skin care products, all in the quest for beauty. Women used to risk their life with many of their homemade cosmetics. They used burnt matches to darken their eyes, berries to stain their lips, and even used young boys urine to get rid of their freckles. They even used lead, mercury and even leeches to give them pale appearance. Thankfully, beauty industry has come a long way from using toxic and hazardous mixtures, and has advanced scientifically for providing a vast range to enhance our looks. Previously, people had limited hair dressing and hair treatment techniques, but more and more are developed in the market. These do not only require temporary techniques but also a permanent makeover of a person. From wigs and temporary hair styling; permanent waving, perms, tinting and coloring gave women a wide range of choices to satisfy their demands. Beauty salons promoted its facilities and equipments. Hair irons were introduced which helped to change the arrangement of the hair with the help of the heat, it is an easy an effective way of styling your hair and does not require the traditional wash, set and dry procedure. Hair lotions and chemicals were also used to straighten hair, but hair iron proved to be an easier and sound method, causing less damage and dryness. Apart from that, hair extensions and hair transplants revived the idea of hair loss problem. The discovery of hair transplantation blew away the fear of getting bald from many people; men and women equally. This technology later promoted to laser hair transplants which is a high-tech way of restoring hair fall. The desire to be beautiful intensifies with time and so the passion of expanding the industry familiarized us with the words such as tummy tuck, cosmetic surgery, liposuction, breast lift, and breast reduction. These surgeries became common to the rich and famous people who wished to change their beauty. At first cosmetic surgery was rare, and was developed in response to the birth disfigurement and deformities caused by wars but now cosmetic surgery is a huge part of beauty industry, and is available with wide variety of procedures. However, for many years, people have always associated bronze tan look with health and beauty. In ancient times people used lead paints and chalk to whiten their skin, which proved to be disastrous and had long term effects. The craze of tan continued and so tanning crà ¨mes, and dyes came in the market. By the seventies, eighties and nineties, the industry was able to build and maintain a proper tan. Tanning beds and booths have shortened tanning session times, and sunless have provided quick and easy alternative to ultraviolet lights. Everyone is now aware of the word spa. Well spa actually means a mineral spring or a locality where springs exist, and that is the core aim and concept of the beauty spas present around the world. It redefines the definition of beauty in the present world. In the past years, the idea that inner beauty lies within has gained its attention and so people are more attracted in seeking the cure for tiredness and disease to attain impeccable beauty. It blends with the ancient traditions of natural healing through herbal baths, massage, meditation, respect for nature and the desire to achieve physical and mental well being, the key to maintaining health and beauty. INCLUDE IN YOUR DISCUSSION THE FACTORS, INCLUDING DEMAND WHICH HAVE CONTRIBUTED TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF THIS SERVICE: Beauty industry has become a billion dollar global industry, encompassing skin and hair care, cosmetic surgery, health clubs and diet pills. Americans are found to spend more on beauty than on education every year. In the modern world, the perception of beauty has changed to many people. It is observed that a womans attractiveness ranks her to be the on the top in a mans list. It wouldnt be wrong if we say that this is the era of the survival of the prettiest. Beauty therapy is in fact perceived as a necessity. People are judged on the basis of their attractiveness and are expected to be better in different fields of their lives. Restore and renew is the policy of beauty industry, where it not only helps to restore and renew the appearance of a person, but builds up equidistant confidence and ravishing personality. Beauty industry has been a rapid development, as it is accounted for improving the living standards of the people. In this fast-paced lifestyle, people have realized the need of spending their money and time on themselves, and to improve their appearance. People like to look and feel their best. Beauty salon, spas and beauty industries have become an antidote of all the frustrations, tensions and controversies. The spa industry is the fourth largest leisure industry in the United States as there are about 3.32 million active spa-goers in the U.S. Anti-aging services are also being in demand. The population of the world is growing, and so people wish to live a longer life, with a healthier and younger look. .Some of the devices that are invented to solve the problem of aging is microdermabrasion machines. This is used by many beauty salons to get rid of facial line and wrinkles. The percentage of anti-aging consumers is increasing, thereby anti-aging products and services rises. Although people now prefer to look younger for a certain period of time, rather than a permanent anti-aging treatment; as they find them to be a safer choice. Difficult reconstructive procedures happen to be more risky and dangerous. Statistics show that in 1900, about 25% of the United States population lived past the age of 60year who availed the service of anti-aging. People also suffered various skin diseases and the problem of obesity. While due to the amplifying demand of anti-aging, anti-aging industry has become a multibillion dollar industry. On the other hand, the development of tanning industry has become imperative. The first tanning bed was introduced by a German company, Heraeus; to help patients with the deficiency of vitamin D. Later, these tanning beds were modified to help athletes with the possible effects and potential benefits of sunlight. His subjects were having a tan as a side-effect, resulted the idea of tan which was a million dollar achievement to the beauty industry. Tanning beds continued to evolve in order to maximize its advantages and minimize its harmful effects. Automated timers, safety goggles and other safety precautions have helped the tanning industry to avail the facility of tanning beds. There are several other ways to get a quick and safer tan. Bronzer is basically a lotion, cream or powder which gives a temporary tan look and easily washes away with the help of water. Tanning accelerators, tanning salons and tanning lamps gives a comparatively better and appeasing tan. The craze of tan look among the youth compelled the tanning industry to innovate safer and productive alternatives. Airbrush spray tanning systems and solutions seemed more promising. Airbrush spray tanning is regarded as healthier and safer alternative to UV tanning as it doesnt damage the skin as the long term exposure to UV rays does. The beauty industry is expanding extensively, generating 5 billion dollars in the year 2007. Worldwide it is considered as most influential industry as it does not only captures a certain number of people, but aggregates the whole economy of the world. The awareness of fashion and the need of following it have lead to the advancement of beauty industry. Media plays a vital role in broadening the minds of people and persuading them to concentrate on themselves as well. Previously, media was the ultimate source of information and entertainment, but now the extend of its utilization have annexed. Having time for oneself for relaxation and enhancement of personality have been prioritized as a basic and essential need of every person. The desire of spiritual and physical therapy does not limit to rich and elite class of a nation, as it was labeled in the ancient ages; but now accessible and affordable to every common person. Film industry, fashion industry and beauty industry go hand in hand. Technology has benefitted the world with many choices. The  film industry  consists of the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking: i.e.  film production companies,  film studios,  cinematography,  film production,  screenwriting,  pre-production,  post production,  film festivals,  distribution; and  actors,  film directors  and other  film personnel. Every one of us wishes to live the lives of celebrities and not only do we talk like them but most of us also dress like them, walk like them, perhaps maybe even eat like them but we have also begun to behave like them. Fake-tan is the fastest growing area of cosmetics, which is largely promoted by celebrities; while others have followed them. Internationally known and popular celebrities such as Peter Andre, Donatella Versace, Jordan and Bechkam; are celebrities who are idealized and admired by millions of their fans. And so, people tend to follow their steps without even considering the side effects of fake tan. Youth have become obsessed with fake tan. Teens say the trend was spawned by their favorite celebs: Britney Spears, J-Lo, Jennifer Aniston, Aguilera and model Gisele Bundchen, all as brown as roasted coffee beans. They have this assumption that all pretty and popular people are tan, and so in order to clinch their dreams, they go fan a tan. A national survey of 10,000 teenagers last year found 89 percent of girls and 78 percent of boys actively pursue a tan. Among 17-year-old girls, 35 percent reported using tanning beds in the past year. SUGGEST HOW THE SERVICE MAY CONTINUE TO IMPROVE IN THE FUTURE: Today in the ace of global recession, the question arises whether this industry is still relevant? Or whether brands are as necessary as they used to be? Well the beauty industry is extremely dynamic and diverse. The market is entering a bizarre period of prosperity, market competition is extremely fierce and cosmetics industry knows how to promote to its next level. Pure cosmetics products have a great room for development as most of the women now understand the side effects of dangerous and life threatening procedures. Over the past ten years, tanning industry is providing its guests with the most advanced technology. Continuously updating and presenting fake-tan equipment and products, this industry have maintained the same level of enthusiasm among its fans. Future guidelines will ensure cleanliness in the industry, labor standards and quality controls. These regulations will ensure that indoor tanners receive only the best in indoor tanning services, as well as the proper education to allow them to make informed decisions on indoor tanning. Peacock tanning systems audits the future of tanning industry as it provides a superior alternative to traditional indoor tanning beds. They are perfect for commercial use and ideal for the home, exhibiting better results in less time and space. Peacock tanning systems cooperates with the medical companies and guarantees high level of safety and healthy tans. They are in fact the future of tanning industry, pushing the technology envelope in the development of the industrys foremost ultraviolet lighting systems, constantly striving to harness the power of the sun more powerfully, more safely, and more efficiently. Some analysts also assume that tanning spas are the future of tanning industry. It features the Mystic tanning sunless system for people who suffer from UV intolerance or sensitive skin. With the help of new Magne tan technology, your body can get a perfect tan in couple of seconds which lasts for days. Aloe Vera helps to deepen DHA into the skin which not only softens and smoothens the skin but also helps to remove wrinkles. Even celebrities such as Paris Hilton, Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Lopez, and Christina Aguilera have been spotted using the Mystic for that fabulous mystic glow! Despite of the harmful effects of fake tan, tanning industry is heating up and is anticipated to have more developments in the future. Rick Maffezzoli, owner of The Tan Co. on York Road in Towson said: The industry now is sort of where gyms and health clubs were about 10 years ago, In many ways, the industry is still in the mom-and-pop stage. According to Washington-based tanning association, there are about 30 million people who avails indoor tanning facilities each year and the industry as a whole creates 5 billion dollars annually. The indoor tanning association, founded in 1999; has been controlling and managing the tanning industry for years. It represents thousands of distributers, faculty owners, manufacturers and members to support this industry. It has protected the industry from any kind of criticism, and has played a major role in protecting and appreciating the inventions to contribute to this industry. The professional indoor tanning industry employs more than 140,000 people while promoting a responsible message about moderate tanning and sunburn prevention. Whether it is the crisis of skin diseases, skin cancer, aging problem, and other long term harms; indoor tanning association has been authoritative to take a stand and come up with its best outcome. And so, if the association continues to support and advance the tanning industry with its utter dedication and commitment, then the industry will accomplish to improve its services and deliver paramount products to its customers.