ENG 101

Bek’s wanted to point out the tabloidization of the media espacially in the news. I tried to do the same kind a research for the last couple of days and saw that ithe quality of the news is actually getting desperate and desperate every single day. We see that the important stuff, like the actual politics of the politicians rather than their lifestyles, isn’t that important. It seems that people, and by people I mean the whole society which are the viewers, dont care about the serious stuff they prefer the “less important” stuff like, whp wore what for the Emre Belezoğlu wedding. And I also spotted that the number of real politics programs are so little compared to morning “women” programs which are mostly about just famous people and their lives. Its the same with sports programs, I mean there are a couple of maybe wannabe or retired sportsman arguing about a single position in a match for hours. But can we balme the media owners?, I guess not, because isn’t that what the people wants fancy lif stories rather than serious subjects. The media companies are just giving the people what they want without questioning the quality.  I think its the time, and I also think its quite late, for the media networks start to get responsible and put some more serious stuff on the TV, because I think that Tv could actually make things better for the society as is it made it worst.

Press freedom is one of the most controversial issuess in the world. The governments are shown as obsticles that journalist should overcome. This idea has nothing wrong with about it, governments do have a influence on the news. Many journalists all around the world can’t publish some really important stories just because they are afraid of being supressed by their government. But the problem is that the influence isn’t just limited by the government, the owners of media outlets also have huge effects on their jourmalists and their stories thus on the people who read their news every morning. Turkey is dealing with these issues for years. We can group the newspapers in Turkey in to two groups. The first one is controlled by a government opposite owner and the other group is controoled by a government favourite owner. There many example for both of these groups. Like “Hürriyet” which is owned by Aydın Doğan, a strong opposite of the government, has been one of the leader opposing newspapers since AKP. And “Vakit” could be an axample for the other group as being always supportive of the government in all issues. These kinds of influences destroys the freedom of press and gives no chance to the ones that doesn’t fit in to any of these groups.

Nations all around the world are getting more interacted day by day. This influences everything: politics, culture, education and media. We can see similiar stuff in the name of media in India and in USA. Same kinds of TV talkshows, series, movies and even advertisements. This is the same for Turkey for sure. As we watch the early Turkish movies we see that there is a noticable difference from the other ones in the world, but as time pass by we see that the subjects, the plots and the characters starts to seem indifferent. Nowadays we can’t even set apart the styles of the 8 o’clock news. The same kind a presentation the same kind a news (mostly prototyped) and the same kind a formats. But don’t we have our own ways?, actually we do. Like even the most respectable newspapers in Turkey have too much meaningless and only profitable advertisements then the ones, in this case, the US. Maybe this is because globalization, but I think we overdosed and the future of our media doesn’t seem so bright, and the problem is no one opposess this sorry fact.

“People” expect to be entertained. A boring and serious news on the TV won’t attract any audience and news people being also “people”  know what their audience wants. A news about a cat singing is much more intersting than a news about the economical difficulties that our country could face in 2009 for example.  These kinds of expectations also effect the  subjects, which are the people that “news” are made of, like, we mostly see the rich and their luxurious lives or the poor an their desperate lives. This causes a tablodization in the news. The way to overcome  this problem is simple and its with “education”. I know its not a unique solution but with education we could change the expectations of the audience and finally get a quality 8 o’clock news.

There are many kinds of addictions, like drug, alcohol and smoking. But TV addiction is something that should be discussed on another  level. TV has only been in our lives for half a century yet us still managed to get addicted to it. TV addiction kills social and family life. We make are schedules depending on TV programs. For example even if we are going to meet are girlfriend the football match on TV sometimes seems better. TV also ended family conversations and rituals. Before TV families spent their time together talking, disgussing, playing games etc. But now we don’t even watch TV together. Everybody has its own favourite program so TV time becomes solo time at the same time. TV addiction is one of the worst addictions eventough it is not that unhealthy as the others. I believe that this could be solved by creating “TV addicts support groups” like the ones about drugs and alcohol. That way we may be able to get over this modern world disease.

Tv has a great role in our daily life without a doubt and reality TV shows are part of this. Reality shows gets high ratings every country in the world, so we can’t say that its only peculiar to the undevelopt countries. But why is it like this? Maybe we only mostly prefer to watch so called “real” people instead of nearly perfect people. But this also raises another question “Are the people on reality Tv programs real or fake, in this case I think its better to call them virtual. Surely they are not proffessional actors but I believe that everybody can act. Maybe the TV show producers   just want to satisy the reality need of the TV viewers with a shot of “virtual” reality people.

Family is the core of the society without any question. We can not think or talk about them  seperatly, they are interrelated. We can think society as a very massive family in which people are related and connected in one way or another. As society being a massive family than we can also think each family as a member of it. Families differ from  each other not by surnames but with the persons that they include. But this doen’t mean that all member are the same the diversity makes the family stronger and united. I know it sounds kind a stupid but the family will bring all the different characteristic together and make it stronger by being able to benefit from one and another. And this diversity will bring the members together and will help them to form a strong and united family. This is mostly the same for the society. The diversity in between families will actually strengthen and bring together the society. Families have a great role in society because they are the main elemnt which will shape it and if you do not have the right element than your society will mostly collapse.

The idea of family can differ from culture to culture. In some the father is responsible for the income and in some the mother is. Or in some the kids are considered equal  and in some they don’t even have the chance to express their selves. The roles in the family is designated by many factors like age, sex and authorithy. I think seperating the duties with thick lines  could turn the core of society, family,into a hierachial system. But I think my family’s structure could be considered as democratic. Ofcourse my parents have the duties to provide income and me and my brother have the dutiy to study hard and respect them. But when it comes to family related desicions me and my brother’s oppinion is always asked(ofcourse if it is an issue “suitible” for us especially for my brother.) For example if we are going to take a family trip or go out for dinner or even purchase a new property we are all asked for our oppinions, eventough my father is mostly the financer. I think being a democratic family could also the development of the children in the family. Because as knowing that the family is the place for the first education than the family’s structure should have an important impact on the child’s character.

Mariage is a sacred bond between two people which symbolizes their love to each other. On the other hand marriage also has a legal side. Couples who get marry have get marry get some specific rights trough the law. However the reason that gay people want to have the right to marry isn’t only these privaliges that we gain after marriage. Getting married showes people that we are in a way just “together”. By getting married we surely let the community know that we are in a mutual relationship and that we have some responsibilities(mostly economical) to each other. The gay community wants the same thing, they don’t only want to be know as “partners” they want the community to take their relationship serious as the other marriages. So I guess gay marriage should be allowed on these bassis because I believe that all humans should have the right to marry. 

Stew, for sure, had also a diffucult childhood because of his neglecting father. But is this an excuse for his relationship with his daughter, well I would say it is hard to take sides on this issue.

Kitty definetly didn’t fit the perfect daughter image. She had too many problems that could be understandable till one point. We all know that teenagers have problems of their own(school, girlfriends, parents etc.) but Kitty being a lesbian seperates her from the rest. Stew was a caring father but after Kitty ”changed” his reactions towards her also changed. He was not that much loving anymore and we also knew that he even tried to throw her out of the house. But we sitll can’t say that he didn’t care even a bit about Kitty, we surely know that he would give a fortune just to make things better between him and Kitty.

So at the end I would say that Stew should not be blamed totally for the wicked relationship that he has with Kitty because Kitty was not an easy daughter to deal with. But I still agree that Stew was sometimes too harsh on her. So as I had said in the beginning it is hard to take sides on this issue.