A youth subculture Essay

A youth subculture is a youth-based subculture with distinct styles, behaviors, and interests. Youth subcultures offer participants an identity outside of that ascribed by social institutions such as family, work, home and school. Youth subcultures that show a systematic hostility to the dominant culture are sometimes described as countercultures The punk subculture, which centres on punk rock music, includes a diverse array of ideologies, fashions and forms of expression, including visual art, dance, literature and film. The subculture is largely characterized by anti-establishment views and the promotion of individual freedom. The punk subculture emerged in the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States in the mid-1970s A rave (from the verb: to rave) is a large party or festival featuring performances by disc jockeys (colloquially called DJs) and occasionally live performers playing electronic music, particularly electronic dance music (EDM). Music played at raves include house, trance, techno, drum and bass, hardcore and other forms of electronic dance music with the accompaniment of laser light shows, projected images, visual effects and smoke machines. The rave scene is know mostly worldwide for its use of club drugs, such as MDMA, LSD, and psychedelic mushrooms. Rave culture originated mostly from acid house music parties in the mid-to-late 1980s in the Chicago area in the United States.[1] After Chicago house artists began experiencing overseas success, it quickly spread to the United Kingdom, Central Europe, Australia and the rest of the United States.[2][3] The goth subculture is a contemporary subculture found in many countries. It began in England during the early 1980s in the gothic rock scene, an offshoot of the post-punk genre. The goth subculture has survived much longer than others of the same era, and has continued to diversify. Its imagery and cultural proclivities indicate influences from the 19th century Gothic literature along with horror films.[1][2][ In sociology, anthropology and cultural studies, a subculture is a set of  people with a distinct sets of behavior and beliefs that differentiate them from a larger culture of which they are a part. The subculture may be distinctive because of the age of its members, or by their race, ethnicity, class and/or gender, and the qualities that determine a subculture as distinct may be aesthetic, religious, occupational, political, sexual or a combination of these factors. It may be difficult to identify subcultures because their style (particularly clothing and music) may often be adopted by mass culture for commercial purposes, as businesses will often seek to capitalise on the subversive allure of the subculture in search of cool, which remains valuable in selling any product. This process of cultural appropriation may often result in the death or evolution of the subculture, as its members adopt new styles which are alien to the mainstream. A common example is the punk subculture of the United Kingdom, whose distinctive (and initially shocking) style of clothing was swiftly adopted by mass-market fashion companies once the subculture became a media interest. In this sense, many subcultures can be seen to be constantly evolving, as their members attempt to remain one step ahead of the dominant culture. In turn, this process provides a constant stream of styles which may be commercially adopted. Many people would consider that the most visible examples of subcultures are youth groups which identify themselves through distinctive styles of dress, activity and music. However, there is a certain difficulty in supplying examples, in that the process by which subcultural style is incorporated by the dominant culture provokes a state of constant evolution in many subcultures. Musical subcultures are particularly vulnerable to this process, and so what may be considered a subculture at one stage in its history (jazz, punk, hip-hop, rave culture) may represent mainstream taste within a short period of time. However, many subcultures also reject or modify the importance of style, stressing membership through the adoption of an ideology which may be much more resistant to commercial exploitation. Indeed, the resistance to commercial exploitation may often represent a key part of this ideology. Perhaps the best example would be the punk subculture, which has progressed through several cycles of revival and commercial appropriation in its history. Members of the punk subculture can often be identified by their distinctive clothing, hair, jewellery and tattoos. In contrast to its commercialised variant, many punks consider that the subculture also possesses a distinctive punk ideology which rejects commercialism and conformity. A similar philosophy may be found in underground hip hop culture, which has also faced mass-market commercialisation and dilution of its ideals.

Advertisement and Vice Product

When is the last time you go to order a burger in fast food shop? And recently have you ever went to a convenient store and purchased a pack of cigarette? Nowadays advertisement of fast food, tobacco and alcohol product are catchy in magazines, newspapers, TV commercials or bus stop stations and it seems these products have become part of our daily lives. Fast food, tobacco and alcohol products are advertised as our â€Å"trusted friends† and fast food, tobacco and alcohol companies are targeting not only adults but also teenagers and children to be their potential customers. What are the possible adverse effects brought by these â€Å"vice† or unhealthy products to us and our young generations? It is a known fact that consuming too much fast food, tobacco and alcohol can link to certain health problems such as obesity, diabetes, coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, strokes, elevated cholesterol intake and related cancers. In fact, it is estimated in 2010 there are 222,520 new cases of lung cancers and the number of deaths from lung cancer is 157,300. Cigarette smoking accounts for at least 30%of cancer death and 87% of lung cancer. Excess consumption of alcohol drinking is the key factor for developing certain cancer and this may increase the risk in having lung cancer. Nevertheless, the issue of consuming too much fast food have drawn the attention of the public too as it contributes the tripled rate of overweight among adolescents and the doubled rate among small children since the 1980s. Despite of such threat to the health of the public by excess consumption of such fast food, tobacco and alcohol products, why is the public still spare their money on purchasing such health-risking product? Rpgger Parloff, â€Å" Is Fast the nest tobacco? For Big Food, the supersizing of America is becoming a big headache, Fortune Magazine, 8/3/2000, page 1 paragraph 1 and 3 ) Perhaps the answer to such question is how much faith we have in these products. It seems we always believe that companies like McDonald, Burger, Heineken or Marlboro are trust-worthy and everything they tell us in their advertisement is true and they claim they are doing their best to serve their customers. But the fact is we are already scammed by these advertisements which are aggressively prompted by companies intentionally abetting us to have confidence in their products. What are the advertisement strategies used by these companies? Fast food companies attract children to purchase fast food by launching advertisement with imaginary characters such as Ronald Donald, including toys in their fast food meal and creating kid clubs or building more playgrounds in their chains. The fast food companies know that children are too young to judge what is right and what is wrong and they are not able to comprehend the purpose of the commercials and believe that everything claimed by the commercials are all true. The Fast food companies are using all their effort to make children develop brand loyalty and recognition to their business so as to encourage children to be their potential customers. Fast food Companies also attract young people to buy fast food by offering soft drinks and snacks in schools or building more chains in school areas in order to encourage students to buys fast food for regular meals. Unfortunately, tobacco and alcohol companies are using even more aggressive strategies to attract future customers. These companies include elements like sexual content to make teenager have ideas that smoking or drinking can make them more mature and there is nothing wrong with enjoying a materialistic life. It is shocking that in most of the tobacco and alcohol commercials there are sexy models in clubs or parties, making exotic posture to make the readers arouse all kinds of fantasy. For example, I remember there is one alcohol advertisement by Bacardi which there is a young woman with underwear in panther’s pattern is striping her clothes off while she is holding a glass of wine. What would young people think about this advertisement? To most of the teenagers there are plenty of things that they are restricted to know about when they are very young. Many young people are very eager or curious to explore new stuff like sex or even smoking and drinking. Tobacco and alcohol companies are now even focusing 18-to-25 year old markets by promoting events at bars and sponsoring rock and blues concerts. Every year alcohol companies spend $5. 7billions on commercials concentrated in sports programs to make their products part of the fun in the matches. Such advertisement strategies by fast food, tobacco and alcohol companies may seem not a big deal to us, however it would be not wise for us to ignore the potential impacts by such products as they are already influencing our life little by little. Too much fast food not only has brought harm to young people’s health but also distorted their universal values by misleading them that everything are granted when their parents promise to buy them fast food after they constantly nag or beg their parents. For cigarette and alcohols, even though these products are for adults only, we should not underestimate the potential harm to teenagers. More and more teenagers may become pro-longed smokers and drinkers and eventually some of them may end up giving up their future by abandoning their study or jobs. In worst case scenario there may result in family dispute and violence. It would be very sad that teenagers choose to have a materialistic life in which he or she immerses themselves in joy-seeking activities like drinking, smoking or even taking drugs only without searching for the real meaning of life. Is there anything we or our government can do to stop fast food, tobacco and alcohol companies from manipulating our lives and protect teenagers from become overweigh victims of obesity or bad habits of smoking and drinking? Our government has the obligation to advocate and carry out certain measures to restrict fast food, tobacco and alcohol companies to promote their unhealthy products to the public. First of all, our government should implement laws that ban direct advertisement of fast food, tobacco and alcohol advertisement to people less than 18 years old through magazine, newspaper, TV programs or commercials and internet. Most children enjoy watching TV everyday and they receive tremendous amount of information from TV channels. Some of these information are educative while some of them are rubbish only. However children are not mature to distinguish what is purpose of such commercials. For example, when children see a commercial promoting McDonald’s burger with Ronald Donald dancing around, he or she may not know that McDonald wants them to ask their parents to pay them 5 dollars for a meal. Instead they may think eating McDonald meal is enjoyable and Ronald Donald is their trusted friend. Indeed big companies don’t really care what kind of consequences will happen on our ulnerable children after they spend so much money on making advertisements and deliver them to the public without taking any responsibility; they only care about how well the advertisements work and promote their products. Hence It is very urgent that our government should advocate and implement certain law to stop such immoral way of advertising by restricting broadcasting of fast food, tobacco and alcohol commercials until it is 10:00 pm when all children are in bed or requiring fast food, tobacco and alcohol companies to make advertisements without mentioning sensitive terms such as â€Å"cigarette†,†beer†,†smoking† or†drinking†. As cigarette and alcohol are proven to be harmful to our health, commercials related to such products should even be banned from magazines or newspaper. If companies violate such laws they have to pay a large amount of fines and people in these companies who are responsible for posing such advertisement may need to go behind bars. However, somebody may argue that such policy is just a seemingly feasible method to stop big companies aggressively advertisement; there are always loop hole for fast food, tobacco and alcohol companies to advertise their products. But does it mean we should not do anything? According to Eric Schlosser’s book â€Å"Fast Food Nation†, â€Å"The academy did not recommend a ban on such advertising because it seemed impractical and would infringe upon advertiser’s freedom of speech. Today the health risks faced by the nation’s children far outweigh the needs of its mass marketers. † Long time ago people didn’t expect much from banning of cigarette advertisement from radio and television, but now everybody knows that smoking is fatal to their health. Hopefully by doing that the fast food companies will consider change their recipe into a healthier one and ultimately help children get rid of their unbalanced eating habits. Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation, Harper Perennial, USA, 2005, page 262) Secondly, adding more tax to fast food may be a feasible idea to encourage people to eat less fast food. Also more tax can be added to toys which are included in children meal in fast food shop. Often children are attracted to fast food simply just for the toys but at the end parents are the ones who pay for the meal. If the parents think the fast food is not worthy, they will start buying less fast food. People have the choice to ake decision for themselves and they can judge whether to buy an expensive fast food meal or not when healthy and cheaper food becomes an alternative to them. It would be a wise idea to prohibit fast food companies from offering soft drinks or fried food in schools or opening chains in area where schools are nearby in order help children resist the temptation of tasty burgers and French fries. According to administrators in San Francisco and Seattle, â€Å"it’s our responsibility to make it clear that schools are here to serve children, not commercial interest. And indeed recently, according to a research published in Journal of Law and Economics in November 2008, elimination of tax deductibility of food advertisement cost equals to increas ing the food advertisement cost by 54%. (Science Daily, â€Å"Ban on fast food TV advertisement would reverse childhood obesity trends, study shows, 1/27/11, < http://www. sciencedaily. com/releases/2008/11/081119120149. htm > ) Lastly, our government can consider making it mandatory to require cigarette manufacturer put on warnings on cigarette packing to make sure that all smokers know the consequence of pro-longed smoking to their body. Of course it wouldn’t be effective enough to have words of warning printed on the packing, so in order to make the warning more deterrent, certain kind of photos should be printed on the packing as well. What kind of photos would be suitable? In Hong Kong photos of black lungs or skeleton with a burning cigarette in its mouth are printed on the packing of cigarette to remind smokers that smoking is a self-destructive behavior rather than a relief. According to Lori Ferrsina, advocate for the American Cancer Society of Massachusetts, â€Å"Reducing public smoking is a golden nugget in its impact on youth. You are changing the world you raise kid in, not just telling them it’s bad for them. † We shouldn’t exploit other’s freedom of smoking, but at least we should facilitate an environment in which we can help people stay away from trying their first puff of cigarette. ( Marianne Lavelle, â€Å"An Anti-smoking Ad vs. New Cigarette Marketing Ploy†, page 2, paragraph 10 ) In fact our government can resort to a more simple solution – education, to convince our future generations that taking care of their health is their own business. Education is another effective way to teach our young generations to make choices on what they eat. Education on how to maintain a balanced daily live and conveying the idea of understanding good health and nutrition should be included in lessons in school in order to let students know how much nutrition they can obtain from their daily meal and what would happen if they eat more than they need. Also children should acknowledge that excess smoking or drinking can result in higher risk of having heart diseases or cancers. Perhaps young people are not willing to pay attention to the importance of having balanced diets or staying away from smoking and drinking but at least they should be warned and have a brief idea of what would happen when they are addicted to fast food, cigarette or alcohol too much. It is our responsibility to help children realize they can make a choice on their diet before they are too late to make such choices. However, even our government is willing to do their best to protect us by implementing laws and policies, it is still our own business to take care of our health. What can we do to make sure we and our children can have balanced diets or stay away from bad habits of smoking or drinking? Firstly, it would be a good idea for parents to supervise their children when they are watching TV or browsing the internet. Some parents are not aware of what kind of TV programs or internet website their children are watching. This is definitely not good to children because they need adults to tell them what kind of messages they get from the media Is correct. If parents are willing to spare a little every day to accompany their children to watch TV or browse the internet, they can possibly prevent their children from accepting wrong information from the media by telling them the truth about excess consumption of fast food, cigarette and alcohol. In fact, simply telling children that they are too young to have too much fast food or smoke and drink, without explaining why adults shouldn’t do the same, is not convincing enough to persuade children that having too much fast food or smoking and drinking are unhealthy. So parents need to be role model to their children by having more balanced and health diets like sandwiches or fruits and quitting smoking or drinking. If parents can make lunch box for children to eat in school every day, children can obtain sufficient amount of nutrition and prevent them from being overweighed. To conclude, although it is our own choice to have or not to have fast food, cigarette or alcohol, that doesn’t make a reason for big companies to promote their products aggressively without considering their social responsibility. Now it is not the time to judge who is right or wrong, instead we should figure out what we can do for our future generations. Works Cited: Rpgger Parloff, â€Å" Is Fast the nest tobacco? For Big Food, the supersizing of America is becoming a big headache, Fortune Magazine, 8/3/2000, page 1 paragraph 1 and 3 Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation, Harper Perennial, USA, 2005, page 262) Science Daily, â€Å"Ban on fast food TV advertisement would reverse childhood obesity trends, study shows, 1/27/11, < http://www. sciencedaily. com/releases/2008/11/081119120149. htm > Marianne Lavelle, â€Å"An Anti-smoking Ad vs. New Cigarette Marketing Ploy†, page 2, paragraph 10

Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 15

Management - Essay Example As the Plant Manager and with my style of leadership, I am confident that this can be improved and the issues among the management and the employees can be sorted out in an amicable manner. One of my biggest strengths is the ability to negotiate and to create a working environment where the employees and management can work in accordance with each other. The need for a sensitive, understanding, and a good negotiator will assist in solving the current issue. As the plant manager, my aim is to ensure that the change process within the organization is as smooth as possible and it has a complete win – win situation for both sides, i.e. employees and management. The next weekly managers meeting could bring out the implementation of a knowledge management system within the organization along with managers being made responsible to let the employees know of the current changes and plans of the management. This will allow the employees to be sure that the dealings and changes are all transparent and the employees will have a basic idea of what can be expected. Also, the development of the knowledge management systems will allow the employees to manage and leverage information and knowledge within the organization so as to improve decision-making and gain competitive advantage. In addition, knowledge management activities have tried to capture the tacit knowledge that people carry around with them, what they learn and observe from experience rather than what is explicitly stated in different forms. People have to be recognized as valuable assets and is much more than merely capturing data or manipulating it to obtain information. Managing intellectual capital requires a change in mindset. Use of this along with being transformational leaders will help the company grow to a great extent and will reduce the employee issues. This type of leadership is a case where the one or more people together with the others

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

Article analysis - Essay Example These are the United Kingdom’s power declined in the 19th century following the two major world wars. France power declined and the late 17th century. The adversaries of these two prominent nations exploited the tectonic monetary changes to adopt military and organizational inventions to enhance their rise and merged alliances to monitor domination. Layne predicts that America will experience a similar phenomenon like what befall United Kingdom and France. According to the author, United States will experience multipolarity in the period 2000-2010. Although the subject on unipolarity was handled almost at the end of the given time period, Layne holds that United States power remains supreme. Nevertheless, he disagrees that America is in some way immune to realists’ views, eventually concluding that Washington ought to espouse to a constrained â€Å"off-shore balancing† policy instead of wasting its might trying to control the globe. Review Realist view of interna tional relations sees global politics and interactions as being propelled by individual interests of countries. This view perceives nations struggle for supremacy in order to enhance and preserve their economic and military wellbeing in rivalry with other nations. This view was portrayed by America’s invasion of Iraq in 2003, which critic’s of Layne agree with. America used its military might to uphold the realists’ view. However, questions arise as to whether Iraq’s incursion by United States made sense. In the Washington post, Ignatius (2013) holds that invading Iraq in a bid to topple the then Iraqi’s president Saddam Hussein was one of the biggest policy mistake in the contemporary American history. Such decision by America saw an increase in international actors condemning its act marking the emergence of criticism against America’s misuse of its global power. In addition, United States invaded Afghanistan after the September 11 attack, though the rivalry seems to date back in 1979 during the cold war era. As the era of the cold war came to an end, some scholars and analysts saw the emergence of modern cold war era by the United States. The actions of United States make it appear more like an heir of the cold war. The United States emerged as the global power among the preeminent participants of the cold war. However, the country needed to show and exercise worldwide leadership in order to uphold and preserve its standing as the global leader and superpower. These incursions are criticized as they go against the United Nations charter. The open criticism of United States action is a clear sign that America’s unipolar moment is indeed coming to an end as Layne asserts. In the recent past, actions of United States and other world players perfectly present the fulfillment of Layne’s assertion that great powers are starting to rival America through hard and soft balancing of power. Technological, economi c, and political actions of other world powers just reinforces Layne’s point of view that unipolar moment of the United States is ending soon. For illustration, China is emerging as a United States rival in economic might. During the global recession that hit America hard, China’s economy was expanding. India and China economies have recently been distinguished as the main global powers countering United States. Seib, (2012) in his opinion in the New

How does social media impacts on people's relationship and daily life Essay

How does social media impacts on people's relationship and daily life - Essay Example These resources will be narrowed down to ensure that only the most relevant documents and those that are rich in social media information will be analyzed. To improve the relevance of the outcome, the research will insist on usage of the most recent sources of information. Additionally, since discussion blogs do not have a good reputation with regard to provision of reliable information, the research will also determine and make use of the most relevant ones. This will ensure availability of adequate information on the topic. The study will also incorporate the creation of a coding sheet that will comprise several sections as they relate to the available sources of information. Some of the sections will include the main themes as presented by the online videos while others will comprise the relevance of the resource as it relates to the research questions. The content present in these sources will also be recorded in the coding sheet. Coders will be attempting to categorize the available sources so that it would be easier and more reliable to get the most relevant information to answer the research questions. The coders will work as a team to determine relevance of the sources. Through this study, my main expectation is to determine the authenticity of the claim that social media ruins relationships and that it alienates individuals. I want to analyze the main source of this, if it is accurate, since social media was established to improve communication. I also expect to assess the positives of social media since there has to be some useful aspects that social media has brought to the modern world. In addition, I expect the study to shed some light on the portions of the population that are affected by the negative impacts of social media. Lastly, I expect to determine whether social media triggers relationship issues or people ruin their own relationships and blame

Compare and contrast Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Compare and contrast - Essay Example This essay aims to provide the similarities and differences of school library and Internet on the role they play on the life of a student. Both the Internet and the library are great sources of information that provides students with relevant information for their studies. The difference is that the library can store only a limited number of books, information, and materials necessary for research and learning while almost everything you need to know and wanted to find out can be access online. But in terms of reliability and accuracy, the library still tops as the leading source of information. Information over the Internet can easily be altered and edited anonymously and anyone can make a claim or assertion on it, while books and several materials in the library are in print sources that makes editing and alteration too way impossible thus assuring researchers for accurate and reliable information (Fleming). The emergence and widespread use of Internet by students for their educational and research needs has replaced the role school libraries play in the life of a student. Because the Internet works faster and way more convenient than libraries, students depend on this technology for quicker and accessible research. Despite their differences, both are significant tools in providing students access to relevant information and supports the development of their research skills (â€Å"The Role

Presuasive abbreviated outline Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Presuasive abbreviated outline - Research Paper Example The New York State DMV states that a driver with a blood alcohol content of 0.08, just above the legal limit, is four times more likely to cause a traffic accident than when sober. Underage drinkers are at even higher risk, being three times more likely to be involved in a fatal alcohol-related crash. (NYSDMV) Therefore, it is vital that our justice system impose penalties to act as a deterrent to these behaviors, and be strict enough to convince drivers to think twice. However, after an analysis of the current legal situation with regard to DUI/DWI penalties, it becomes clear that the current punishments are too harsh for the crime. Preview Statement: In order to analyze the strictness of DUI and DWI laws, we will first look at the current laws on the books, how violations are determined, and finally the success of those laws. I. Current DUI Law A. Legal intoxication - BAC at or above 0.08 in all states. Is â€Å"pre se† law, a finding of BAC at the requisite level is conside red a violation regardless of circumstance (FindLaw DUI Basics) B. Zero tolerance laws (FindLaw DUI Basics) i. target drivers under 21 ii. range from any (above 0.0) to negligible (0.1-0.2) BAC iii. usually involve higher penalties, such as longer periods of license suspension (NYSDMV) C. Most states have penalties that increase with each offense (FindLaw DUI Basics) D.