Global Operations Management at Nestle Case Study

Global Operations Management at Nestle - Case Study Example With its main headquarters in Vevey, Switzerland, the company has hundreds of branches all over the world. It has around 283,000 employees in 86 countries. It has 6,000 brands of a wide range of products such as coffee, chocolate products, infant foods, ice cream, confectionery, pet food, seasonings, bottled water, healthcare nutrition products as well as frozen and refrigerated foods. Nestlà ©Ã¢â‚¬â„¢s objective is to â€Å"consolidate and strengthen its leading position at the cutting edge of innovation in the food area in order to meet the needs and desires of customers† (Vijaya, 2005). Due to the immense size of the company, in terms of market share and market presence, the issue of operations management is very important to the company. Its global success is dependent on how well operations are carried out to ensure that resources are well utilized and customers are pleased with the company’s products (Schwarz, 2002). Since Nestle deals with different suppliers in different locations, supply chain management is perhaps the most important aspect of operations management for the global company. Supply chain management is an important aspect is creating high-quality products in the most cost-effective way for the benefit of both the organization and the customer. Supply chain management is concerned with the oversight of information, materials, and finances used in the production of goods and services, right from the supplier, manufacturer, wholesaler, and retailer to the consumer. The process of supply chain management involves the coordination of and integration of this flow within and among companies. Assuming that the required products are available when needed then the ultimate goal of proper supply chain management is the reduction of inventory (Mentzer, 2001). Supply chain management can be divided into three main types of flows: product flow, information flow, and financial flow.  

Geographical Implications in the Movie A River Runs Through It Review

Geographical Implications in the A River Runs Through It - Movie Review Example This paper illustrates that the movie ‘A River Runs Through It'set features a number of spectacular geographical backgrounds that would amaze even the hard-hearted. One of these spectacular scenes that I just have to begin with is the part where the two brothers are fly-fishing. The producers made the best out of these amazing geographical scenes by using a combination of effective camera positioning to capture the background and adjacent lighting. As included in the original novel written by Norman MacLean back in 1976, the film claims to have been acted on the Blackfoot River in Montana, a geographical feature stretching from the continental divide in Lewis all the way to Clark Fork covering an average of 120 kilometers. Though this is not necessarily included in the movie, the river draws its waters from both springs and snow water further up in western Montana. The setting of the movie particularly the fly fishing scene displays one of the geographical features that are com mon with rivers: erosion. We see that most of the riverbank is covered with smoothened rocks ranging from small rocks to large ones. This can be attributed to the rivers’ erosive nature during transportation be it due to hydraulic action, abrasion or corrosion, corrosion or attrition. The production team in this movie was probably motivated by the fact that other than the information received from the cast, the environment would also be in a position to ‘show off’ and reveal a beautiful nature vested in our country. Moving on to yet another spectacular scene chosen by the production team, we find geographical features like river rapids being applied when the boys get a little naughty with the boat. The dual in their teenage row down this rigorous river in such movements that depict that the riverbed is not regular; this is because of the rapids below. These geographical features are common in riverbeds as the flow moves downstream.

Housing Development (Housing Study) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Housing Development (Housing Study) - Essay Example As a matter of fact, only the rich and the elderly can afford living in some communities in England. Low-income earners, more so the youth, are completely priced out when it comes to buying a house in some communities. Unfortunately, the few interventions that were applied to address the issue of house affordability in some communities in England have always been inefficient. According to one Andrew Clark, the head of policy at the National Farmers Union, a number of areas resist any attempts to ease the housing affordability problems. Due to these resistances, it has become rather difficult to propose and implement policies and reforms that would make housing affordable and sustainable (National Housing Federation, 2012). These resistance problems are particularly rampant in beautiful and scenic areas. Therefore, to outline principles and measures to promote housing, the government has devised a localism agenda in addition to the National Planning Policy Framework. These measures so ught to overcome the hindrances to affordable housing supply in rural areas and offer incentives such as New Homes Bonus and an infrastructure levy. While the New Homes Bonus involves the government matching the local authority’s revenue, the infrastructure levy raises funds from developers to pay for community essentials (Haughton and Allmendinger, 2012). Nonetheless, others worry that localism might just be another conservative tool or agenda instead of serving its intended purpose of creating affordable housing for all. This paper explores localism and its implications on housing and planning in England, asserting that housing problems in England will worsen under localism. Drivers of Localism in England The British coalition government has established several programs targeting different spheres of public life. One such sector targeted by these far-reaching reforms is housing. In fact, the planning of housing in England is undergoing some reformation, with the spatial reg ional housing and planning strategies being replaced by a localism approach, which focuses on community-centered housing planning and development. Although some housing stakeholders are of the opinion that localism will result in more opportunities and more houses than the earlier regional-target approach, others tend to disagree, asserting that localism will not improve the situation (South West Observatory, 2012). Still, some sections of the public wonder what localism is and what its possible impacts on housing and planning are. To understand the implications and effects of localism on housing planning, it is important that the drivers behind it and evidence that supports its effectiveness are understood. In England, localism is an approach not only to housing and planning but also to other projects and programmes by the coalition government. In all programmes targeted by the localism policy, the objective is to promote the involvement of local communities rather than the involve ment of the central government. Specifically, localism seeks the collaboration and participation of local communities in the planning and building of houses. Thus, localism encourages local communities not only to identify their problems and needs but also to prioritize them (South West Observatory, 2012). Due to this local involvement in problem identification, these communities have a hand in defining and designing what the services offered to them should look like. Furthermore, local

A Christmas Carol Essay Example for Free

A Christmas Carol Essay Each day scrooge went back or forward too was on Christmas day or Christmas Eve. I the begging of A Christmas Carol scrooge was a horrible and stingy man things that show and prove this statement is when he said to Bob Cratchits Coal is costly this shows that scrooge is cheap and mean because he is wealthy but he doesnt want to keep himself warm because coal cost money. Coal doesnt coast a lot of money and lasts quite a long time but scrooge still doesnt want to spend money on it. Scrooge shows a lot of different signs of changing like when scrooge says, I fear you more than any spectre I have seen. You can tell he is changing at this point, by him saying this because he never wanted to show his emotions but now hes showing them and he is also saying his feelings aloud. Also before he couldnt show his feelings of sadness because he couldnt cry and you can tell this by in the novel it says his cold eye glisten so this shows he is changing emotionally. He shows other ways of changing such as when he (scrooge) says to the ghost Lead on! The night is waning fast, and it is precious time to me hes saying time is precious. This is because he wants to go back to reality and change his ways and do as much good as possible, that is what the readers will automatically think when they read this. This could also mean in a bad prospective that he knows that hes going to have a bad after life so he wants to go back to reality and live his life to the full and carry on doing bad selfish things but what he doesnt know is what the ghost was about to confront him with. But I think he wants to change because he has been given another chance. From this quote you can also see that he was willing to go with the ghost were as at the begging of the journey he didnt want to go with the ghost so therefore over all this quote shows that he is willing to change and go with the ghost and see whatever is about to confront him. Scrooge also says to show he was changing thank you spirit. I think scrooge is thanking the spirit for forgiving him for all the selfish and horrible things he had done in his life. This shows that he has changed because through the whole novel he has had no manners and has never thanked anyone one or even shown gratitude towards anyone so this shows he as changed. In stave 4 Scrooge says, I hope to live to be another man from what I was this shows that scrooge wants to change. When scrooge says this he sounds desperate to change because he is pleading. I think scrooge is so dedicated to change because his and other lives depend on it. I think scrooge feels like he is leading for his life. You can tell that the moral journey and change is done in stave 5 when scrooge kindly buys Cratchit and his family the biggest turkey in the store and he gives Bob Cratchit a raise. At this point in the novel scrooge seems and acts much happier and the people around him do as well. I think he is no longer a lonely, sad and bitter man by the end and he now knows he can be happy and generous at the same time. A Christmas Carol is full of social setting and cultural context. In chapter 1 Marley says I wear the chain I forged in life I made it link by link and yard by yard. This is a use of religion and marley is saying that every link in the chain is a symbol for every person he has hurt or upset and every thing he has done wrong in his life. In chapter 2 it says cold eye glisten this could mean the way Dickens saw the world. He could of felt cold when he looked at the world because of the way people were treated because they were poor and he didnt find it fare to be treated that way. In chapter 3 the poor woman says rather we all drawn together she was talking about how she would rather drawn with her family then go to the work houses. This is Dickens trying to get the message across to how bad the work houses were and what people would do just to avoid going to one. It is like Dickens mouthpiece it was his message to society. Also in chapter 3 the second spirit says, The names are ignorance and want this is Dickens message to society. He also is saying all the wealthy, selfish and mean people at the time were ignorant and they want every thing. In chapter 4 Mr Dilber says its a judgement on him. She is talking about scrooge. This shows that people were very judgemental at the time that the novel was written and people cared a lot about what people thought of them and said about them. This quote also tries into the key themes religion and morality. In chapter 5 scrooge says god forgive for the time I have wasted this is religious. Dickens is saying that god will forgive the rich for being mean and selfish if they change their ways because in the end scrooge was forgiven so they will be to if they change (in a good way). In A Christmas Carol Scrooge makes a moral journey from changing from a horrible, cheap and selfish person into a kind, generous and loved person. Most signs of change happened in chapter 2 and 4. By showing scrooges journey in a way that showed people how happy and generous you can be at once and by showing what the consequences there are if you are greedy and selfish. These made people read Dickens other books and listen to the message he was trying to get across. Dickens tried to change the way in which society worked by writing this book and others. Because Dickens made rich people sound bad he was hated by them and respected by the poor because he was trying to help and defend them.

Whether Media Actually Leads To Homogenisation Process Media Essay

Whether Media Actually Leads To Homogenisation Process Media Essay Globalisation and media are closely inter-connected. The growth of globalisation has accelerated to a large extent with the growth and development of media technology especially in areas of TV, films, internet, videos, music, news etc. Media acts as an agent of globalisation in generating homogenisation by spreading cultural symbols, ideas and practices across socio cultural settings of the world. The impact of media is instant, it moves quicker than any material goods or people. It has a tremendous impact on both sustaining and weakening or eroding the fabric of social life. The more efficient the media is in communicating, the more effective it is in stabilising or destabilising existing social, political, religious etc scenario. Media actively constructs peoples identity across the dimensions of nations, race, class, gender, ethnicity etc in a number of ways, which often lead to homogenisation process. The media imposes their powerful images, sounds and advertisements on a vast ra nge of peoples of the world who most often succumb to their messages which are mostly designed to increase the profits of capitalist firms. Globalisation involves expanding worldwide flows of material objects and symbols and the proliferation of organisations and institutions within global reach that structure those flows. The process of globalisation is also characterised by relationships that are mediated through symbols of values, preferences and tastes etc through the powerful impact of media. The impact of media globalisation is manifold: it can lead to hybridisation of cultures, assertion of cultural autonomy and identity, cultural conflict, localisation, creolisation and homogenisation. However in my paper the focus is mainly on the homogenising effect of media globalisation on the socio cultural settings of the world and the factors which facilitates the creation of this homogenisation. Hannerz distinguishes between three dimensions of culture, which indicates that cultures are susceptible to global dynamics: Ideas and modes of thoughts: The entire array of concepts, propositions, values and mental operations that people within some social unit carry together. Forms of externalisation: The different ways in which ideas and modes of thought are made public and made accessible to the senses eg, forms of art, food habits etc. Social distribution: The ways in which people`s ideas and modes of thoughts and external forms are spread over a population and its social relationships. Thus, understanding structures of shared knowledge, values, beliefs, experience and meanings in all their complexities remain the core concern of cultural analysis. Media technology plays a major part in transmission of the second and third dimension of Hannerz definition of culture. According to Hannerz, media in particular are machineries of meanings: they enable communication without being in one other`s immediate presence. In contemporary complex cultures, people increasingly make use of the media to externalise and distribute their ideas and thoughts throughout the world. This is how cultures as a system of meanings, symbols and actions get expressed in different form and media plays a major role in their transmission across the rest of the globe. Therefore culture is also about sharedness. The concept of de territorialisation as also referred by Appadurai, explains the inter connectivity of cultures across nations. These cultures are in contact with media in one way or the othe r and constantly influence each other in terms of tastes, styles, value systems, ideas, meanings and practices. According to Ritzer, the theory of socialisation and social interaction teach that human transcend in their social group through a process of acquiring culture and other gestures from parents and other social group members and social facts that happen in the environment in which the person lives. Here the environment in which each individual lives also includes media mediation and translation of social reality and thus culture is transmitted and diffused across cultures through the workings of the media. Media also play a major role in the continual re shaping of cultural identity. Benedict Anderson, points out that nation as imagined communities often started out as media audience. Media articulate the meanings and experiences associated with particular social identities in a globalised context and export them to different distant places. Arjun Appadurai makes clear that people around the world are increasingly living a fictional lives based on media narratives and imagery. People around the world can now connect with like- minded others which binds people together irrespective of language, home background and socio economic circumstances eg:- allegiance to Real Madrid or Manchester United as global football club. Internet connections enable fans scattered across the globe to remain in touch and meet up regularly. Popular culture leads to formation of distinctive organisational forms and practices which are hybrid in nature. They are neither local nor global but a distinctive hybrid culture of transnational where fan clubs of a particular sport like football, cricket etc or iconic figures like Michael Jackson come together and form a unique transnational group where hybrid names, emblems and material products emerge. This trend emerges with the formation of internet communities and networks. They allow intensive contact with other cultures without actual bodily or localized contact and have an impact on the minds and practices of the people. However the intensity of impact depends on the way in which information are processes and digested in the receiving cultures. New channels of intensified social connectivity are permitted by contemporary electronic media Eg:- social networking sites like facebook, orkut etc. Live global television covering a single event carried through the satellite news carriers covers varied and diverse locations and geographical areas. This brings together people across great distances and social relations become radically freed from l ocal contexts, and spatial distances become less important, and a greater consciousness of a world outside the local context come into picture. It produces a sense of globalised reality eg:- the recent FIFA World 2010, Cricket World Cup 2011 etc. This live global television is experienced by large numbers of people worldwide and creates an extension of social connections across time and space. Increased oneness of the world is accelerated by such forces. There is international corporate ownership of media enterprises which ensures that there is an increasing consumption of material goods and sharing of cultural icons across large numbers of people. These processes construct a shared experience of time and a collective memory for different groups of people. Thus Mass culture is created which is a product of modern communications. There is a huge amount of debate on whether media leads to homogenisation process and thereby the subsequent creation of Global culture and whether there is such thing as global culture. Is the widening and deepening of international flows of culture through media in a single integrated market leading to the emergence of a global culture? The term global cultural flow according to Arjun Appadurai, is used to indicate the simultaneous fluid movement and changing meaning of ideas as well as their location and passage through specific historical, linguistic and political contexts. Global culture is used to denote the growing uniformity and homogenisation of the world`s cultures which serves as a magnet attracting people to particular ideas regarding economic opportunities and consumption. Consumer culture: Global culture is often held to be a media driven construct dependent upon the profit seeking production of mass mediated signs and symbols. The emergence of global culture is often taken as the direct outcome of the capitalist market institution restructuring to get desires, create needs and thereby open up a new arena for capital accumulation leading to commoditisation, commercialisation and consumerism made possible by media ads and communication industries in their drive to maximise profits. Global consumerism thrives on the promotion of brand names like rolex, addidas, reebok, coca cola, Mc Donalds etc based on what people would like rather than what they are and need. This consumer culture is filled with new community signs which form the popular culture allied to global media translated through the market. There is a growing similarity which transcends frontiers and similar trend of styles of dressing, consumption of sports, music preferences, eating habits etc has emerged. Th e term MC world has been coined to describe the standardisation of an American consumer culture, a combination of fast food, fast music and fast computers that bring people together through a common consumption of commodified cultural production. According to Hermans and Kempen in their article Moving Cultures, referred to Glocalisation in economic usage where they introduced the term micromarketing i`e is the tailoring and advertisements of goods and services globally to increasingly local and diverse cultures. Thus, they talked about the creation of differentiated consumers and the emergence of consumer culture of the same global goods and services. They further problematises the relationship between the local and the global where cultures constantly interpenetrates with each other and become a part of the interconnectedness of the world system. Therefore the distinction between what it global and what is local becomes blurred and the presumed homogeneity of the local or internal and the distinctiveness of the global or external becomes problematic. Thus globalisation also involves the blurring of clear cut distinction between the local and global. What is local becomes global and what is global becomes local and sometimes they may become indistinguishable and homogenised. Media globalisation increasingly involved the creation and incorporation of locality. These processes is largely seen through the TV enterprise like CNN and MTV which seeks global markets and focussed on culturally diverse and differentiated groups. Dominance of west: Many have argued that global culture is more of western culture domination and enforcement of western culture on the rest of the world which is referred to as westernisation. The imposition of American culture in the form of TV, Videos, Pop music, Films and Ads on vulnerable communities unable to protect them from the sheer volume and intensity of exposition to media is widely under attacked. In recent years US has enjoyed a growing surplus for audio visual products (TV, Video, and Cinema) with the EU. Globally, the US accounts for about 75% of all TV programme exports. American Time Warner organisation claims to be the largest media company in the world. During the last decade there is a struggle for the formation of a new Information order from the Third World countries with a determination not to remain passive recipient to the west active centre. Countries like France, Italy, China, Canada, North Korea etc has imposed a check on US media imports for different reasons. Hence questions are being raised regarding prior consent for Transborder home reception, the production of communication technology on definition of privacy and also attempt to develop their own regional media. Fears of US media domination lead to Mc Bride Report 1980, which lead UNESCO to call for a restructuring of global media along more egalitarian lines. The WTO and International Tele communications Satellite Organisation (INTELSAT) are among the prestigious international bodies that have attempted to establish guidelines for the regulation of global cultural flow. However for some writers globalization is not westernization. According to them, outwardly analysis may appeared that the world is oriented towards westernisation rather than globalisation especially when one could see the popularity of the western music, movies, and McDonalds etc where more and more countries are seen playing the top chart of the pop list of USA and Hollywood movies and US-made television serials (like Friends and the Simpsons) are becoming widespread processes of cultural transmission. However, a closer examination indicates that the impact of the flow of these cultural goods have different meanings in different societal and cultural contexts with uneven impact on classes and age groups. Some of the products are consumed without any modification; others are modified and indigenized to suit the local contexts. Nevertheless, westernisation can be seen as a part of Globalisation. Media Imperialism: There is a construction of media order through the entrepreneurial devices of a comparatively small number of global players eg Time Warner, Sony, Rupert Murdoch News Corporation and Walt Disney Company. News globalisation was dominated by press wire services in the 19th century, however in the 1970`s and 1980`s electronic media globalisation increased. Aggressive media companies like Rupert Murdoch`s News Corporation yielded a massive conglomerates of other global media industries. Cable News Network (CNN) has struggled to become a 24 hour news provider, watched religiously by global business and political elites of the world. The result was an undeniable increase in the degree to which people`s everyday lives are experienced through the media. Several large media companies like Viacom, Disney, Time Warner etc over the last decade have evolved from being a local industry to large global conglomerates based on new forms of vertical and horizontal integration. These media conglomerati on was made possible by media deregulation in major western economies. These conglomerates not only have access to enormous quantities of investment capital but also the ability to minimise financial risks by managing their media products across different world markets in their areas of influence. For instance, News Corporation began as a print enterprise in Australia, spread into TV in UK in the 1970`s. This is now targeting the huge Chinese and Indian markets with its Star TV system which currently broadcasts in over 20 Asian languages. There is a popular concern about the growing concentration of ownership of global media production and transmission in the hands of a small number of corporations. For example, the past two decades have experience a huge expansion of the pop music industry, MTV has now become 24 hour music channels in America, Europe and Asia. But 70% of all pop music is produced and distributed by a handful of multinational corporations that integrate production, transmission and promotion ensuring that certain iconic faces like Madonna, Michael Jackson etc are everywhere, on TV, video, films, CD`s, magazines, newspapers, advertisements, radio and even designed on T shirts and many other things. The flow of information was dominated by multinational entities based in the most powerful nations leading to what is known as medial imperialism. Global and the local: The widespread claim of homogenisation of world cultures; the global as pro active and the local as reactive to global culture have been found to be unlikely by many scholars. They have argued that the local do not remain a passive recipient of global cultures transmitted to them through the media but the local have its own way of interpreting global influences according to its relativity. One such defender of this view is Robertson, who maintained that diffusion and transfer of ideas and values across socio cultural formations adapt to a particular local culture, which he termed as Glocalization. He talked about ambivalence and ambiguity of human culture in globalised world. Globalisation itself has no meaning unless it is connected in the context of the local. For him, globalisation is able to link locales together both materially and ideationally. Hence the local and global are inter connected and influence each other simultaneously and the media acts as an agent in increasing thi s process of glocalization and globalisation. This results in not only homogenisation but also hybridisation of cultures as the global gets localised according to the suitability and necessity of that particular contexts. To quote Robertson, An international TV enterprise like CNN produces and reproduces a particular pattern of relations between localities, a pattern which depends on a kind of recipe of locality. He further illustrates how certain religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism etc involved a long process of Glocalization after its dissemination throughout the globe. Following form this and relating it to the present context of information technologically advanced world, we see that religions are being widely promoted through the media. Religious channels are available 24/7 on TV, internet etc. These channels reach out to different regions of the world and are either absorbed and assimilated into the existing settings and become glocalised or they are rejected complet ely as a threat to their existing values and beliefs system. From here we can induce how the media play an important role in localising the global. Thus, the relation between the local and the global remain complex and negotiable terrain. Basically the politics of the glocal refers to globalisation from below which means that the impact of the global to a certain extent is in the hands of the local. This is because the local is not just a passive recipient of whatever globalisation through media brings at their doorstep influencing their lifestyles, ideas, values etc but the local is something active which constantly accommodates, assimilate and transforms different cultures that are brought to them, interpreting them according to its convenience and adaptability. Another reaction of the local to the global is the rejectionist attitude. There are many local movements who vehemently attempts to reject or resist the globalisation process and the impact of media consumerist culture claiming to protect their cultural identity or the purity of their culture. Some remain hostile to globalisation impact due to its ability to erode the traditional value system and the adverse affect on their socio cultural moral system. Contemporary indigenous movements are becoming increasingly global Eg:- Native people`s Movement increasingly use the media to defend or promote their rejection of globalisation process. In a globalised world, people constantly used the media to mobilise people as a local assertions against globalisation influence. In the present context, promotion of locality through the media has become a common trend. There is an attempt to globally organise the rights and identities of natives or indigenous people`s movement. The emergence of popul ar culture and the growing commodification of the consumer`s experience popularised and sensationalised by media is seen by many as posing a threat to the richness and diversity of cultural practices, resulting in the description of mass consumerism as a monolithic force with one dimensional causal effects on the traditional cultures. There are certain closed group which remain suspicious about the impact of media globalisation and attempts to curb and regulate the free expression of media itself. Such kind of group would be countries like China, Japan, Muslim fundamentalist etc however in the context of contemporary advancement of media technology it becomes difficult to remain intact by the homogenising influence of media. Nevertheless, the idea of uniformity of culture should not undermine the pervasive impact of counter currents that emerges from the local reception of the global. Wilkinson (1995) has developed the thesis that today, Conclusion: However claims of Global culture and its impact on cultures without uninterrupted reception by age, class, gender and geography etc is naive. Thus a deeper probing of the complex relationship between the global and local is necessary because human beings are not without rational analysis or do not have any personal choice but they are thinking individuals with a mind of their own capable of deciding what is best for themselves and hence they do not succumb to the global consumer culture unmindfully but translates the impact of media according to their own reality. Tomlinson made a distinction between culture as lived experience and culture as represented in media. He had argued that the realities in peoples lives are much more powerful than mere representation in global televisions and people do not get manipulated easily by the reception of media. He furthers argues that the cultural critics have overlooked the capacity of the audience to negotiate the possible contradictions in the reception of media. To him the power of the media should not be exaggerated by looking at media as mediating cultural experience rather than the determining force. Ang also refers to interpersonal drama to mean that media products are interpreted differently in different cultural contexts. Avijit Pathak is another who also talks about the politics of culture where cultures constantly negotiate in its interaction and influences. For him, even though there is a dominant global culture emanating, the process of reception becomes contextualised and gain a hermeneutic form, this he calls the art of resistance. For Wilkinson only one global civilisation exists which is a direct descendent of 1500 BC civilisation in the near East when Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilisation collided and fused. This entity spread all over the globe and engulf all others previously independent civilisation like Chinese, Japanese and western into one global civilisation. His idea was of connectedness of the world into one system rather than uniformity. People who interact with each other continuously belong to the same civilisation even if their cultures might be very dissimilar and hostile to each other. Expansion of media communication increases connectivity of cultures, thus a chain of cultural networks are created no matter however they are connected either hostile or differently but they are still interacting with each other and hence influences each other in one way or the other and results in the emergence of certain similar trends. Therefore, what is undeniable is that media globalisation in one form or the other has an impact on the lives and consciousness of almost every one cutting across transnational borders, cultures, ethnicity, gender, class, age etc. Thus, global media is rendering almost everyone with something of a cosmopolitan culture. What was once local has become global and the line between the division of global and local is thinning and becoming blurred day by day.

The impact of Social Media on Romantic Relations

The impact of Social Media on Romantic Relations For all of the positive facets of the increased social connection that Facebook enables, including the help it may provide at the academic level, maintenance of relationships, there may also be some costs for those individuals who are in romantic relationships. My data show a significant association between romantic jealousy and jealousy-related feelings experienced on Facebook. Long time back, flirty gestures of interest remained entirely within an individuals own control, and partners involved in romantic relationships were most often not opened to the daily scrutiny of their exchanges with members of their social circle. With the development of social network sites like Facebook, a fundamental shift has been created in this practice because Facebook has made the lives of people open for all to see. My first hypothesis is that jealousy is differentially experienced by gender. The results I obtained from my study supported this hypothesis. Most of the girls who participated in the study scored higher on both Multidimensional Jealousy Scale and Facebook Jealousy Scale than male participants. Since the Multidimensional Jealousy Scale assessed the participants on three levels of jealousy namely cognitive, emotional and behavioral, I have also analyzed their scores separately on these three levels. Only when these three levels of jealousy is analyzed separately that we can see the difference on how boys and girls experience jealousy. When romantic jealousy was globally analyzed, I found that out of 69 girls, 55 reported that they experience a high level of jealousy, the result of the remaining 14 girls showed that they have a normal level of romantic jealousy whereas for the male participants, out of 50 boys only 13 boys reported that they experience a high level of romantic jealousy . I then divided the romantic jealousy into its three respective components. What I found was that only 5 out of 50 boys scored more than 3 on the cognitive level of romantic jealousy whereas 23 out of 69 girls scored higher than 3 on this level. A score greater than 3 on the Multidimensional jealousy scale means that the participant experiences a high level of jealousy. Someone who experience cognitive jealousy has repeated thoughts of anxiousness, doubts and suspicions about his or her partners potential infidelity and external relationships. It involves someone who is obsessed by mistaken beliefs, worries and suspicions about rivals to a valued romantic relationship. Cognitive jealousy implies the construction of elaborate cognitive scenarios that result in biases toward perceiving relational threats and misunderstanding of the partner’s behavior. My results suggest that women tend to feel cognitive jealousy more than men do. From my point of view, this may be explained using the evolutionary theory of jealousy, which is further detailed by modern sociobiologists. The theorists explained that woman is more jealous of man developing another committed relationship because she is afraid that he will spend his time, energy, protection, and resources in that person, and she will be left with less resources and safety if she has to share the male’s resources with another woman and her children. That is why she always has repeated thoughts of anxiousness doubts and suspicions, because she is afraid of losing the person who is providing for her and who protects her. However, both girls and boys scored high on emotional jealousy. Approximately 45 out of 50 boys scored greater than 3 on the Multidimensional Jealousy Scale and as per the scoring rule if participants scored higher than 3 means that they experience somewhat a problematic level of emotional jealousy. Similarly, the majority of the girls who participated in my study scored very high on emotional jealousy. This can be explained through the attachment style that romantic partners display. Levy, a psychologist at Penn State, studied attachment in relationships and spoke of two types of attachment in relationships namely dismissive and secure. A person with dismissive attachment does not see the value in relationships and Levy described them as hyper-independent. In other words, most of us value our independence, but we also value our relationships. However, those who display dismissive type of attachments value only their independence, to the exclusion of relationships. On the other side, Levy said that those with secure attachments see the value in relationships and are comfortable with the interdependency that comes with them. He added that those with a secure attachment style might be more likely to be bothered by emotional infidelity, while those with dismissive styles would see sexual infidelity as more of problem (Kenneth N. Levy and Kristen M. Kelly, 2010). Based on this attachment theory I would argue that most of my participants, be it boys or girls, displayed a secure attachment style with their respective partners, and they scored high on emotional jealousy because they valued their relationships and they are highly committed to each other. As for the behavioral component of jealousy, girls tend to experience it more than boys do. The goal of someone who expresses behavioral jealousy is to ensure that intimacy does not take place between ones partner and a third party. Examples of behavioral jealousy include being inquisitive, checking up on one’s partner, searching his or her belongings, mobile phones, making uncomplimentary statements about the rival, or trying to come in between the partner and rival when they are engaged in conversation. According to me, those who are in a committed relationship would display behavioral jealousy than those who are in an open relationship. The reason behind why they engaged in such behaviors may be explained again through the evolutionary theory of jealousy. The feeling of insecurity that women have makes them act in these way that is being always inquisitive, checking up on their partner and searching their belongings. They want to make sure that their partners are not being involved with a third party, which would eventually represent a threat to their relationships and their security. Consistent with hypothesis, those who experience romantic jealousy effectively experience Facebook jealousy. The data suggest that both male and female that participated in my study scored high on the Facebook Jealousy Scale. Not only they scored high but also the number of boys that reported to feel romantic jealousy increased when they were assessed on the Facebook level of jealousy. Approximately 32 out of 50 boys said that they experience Facebook related jealousy and about 62 out of 69 girls reported to have undergone that feeling (The increase in jealousy feeling is shown when Figure 4 and Figure 8 is compared). Here, it can be said that Facebook reinforced the level of jealousy in both male and female. There was a fairly strong significant association between romantic jealousy and Facebook jealousy ( r = 0.727, p My results suggest that Facebook may expose a person to potentially jealousy-provoking information about his or her partner, which creates a feedback loop whereby heightened jealousy leads to increased surveillance of a partner’s Facebook page. Persistent surveillance results in further exposure to jealousy-provoking information. The correlation between Facebook jealousy and if participants monitor their partners activities on Facebook is very high (r = 0.805, p Finally, I did a regression analysis to obtain the percentages of how much Facebook jealousy is predicted by romantic jealousy. The result I obtained are as follows, 42.8% Facebook jealousy is predicted by romantic jealousy for male and 46% Facebook jealousy is predicted for female by romantic jealousy. Since romantic jealousy is divided into three components, I also performed regressions for the three levels to know which components of romantic jealousy predict more Facebook jealousy. 18.6% Facebook jealousy is caused by cognitive level of jealousy in male, which is not very high, and 32.4% is caused for female by the same variable. 22.7% emotional jealousy predicts Facebook jealousy for male and 35.8% emotional jealousy causes the feeling of jealousy on Facebook in female. As for the behavioral component of romantic jealousy, 33.2% is accounted for Facebook jealousy in boys and only 16.9% is explained for Facebook jealousy in girls. In all, it is suggested that the behavioral compo nent in romantic jealousy is a better predictor of Facebook jealousy for boys and emotional component is a better predictor of Facebook related jealousy for female. This finding shows that when it comes to jealousy men and women are not always on the same page. Many studies in the past have shown that men are more likely to see red over a partners sexual infidelity (for example study done by Donald Symons in 1979), while women are more upset by emotional cheating. Evolutionary psychologists theorize that the difference is rooted in the sexes’ historical roles. Men want to guarantee that their partners are carrying their children, while women need to feel secure that they and their children would be cared for by a committed partner. Emotional jealousy refers to how someone feels when his or her partner is flirting with someone else, kissing or hugging someone of the opposite sex or how that person feels when he or she learns that somebody else is dating his or her partner. That is why women usually feel anxious and insecure because if their partner becomes interested in someone else, they will have to share their partners resources with th at other person. Limitations However, future research must directly examine the effects of various triggers on the experience of jealousy for example genetics. In addition, it would be interesting to learn whether these same relationships hold true in samples of adults since my sample age range is between 18 to 26 years only. Unlike most young individuals’ relationships, adult relationships are more likely to have developed before Facebook became popular, and one could argue that partners in that age group may be less well equipped to deal with the challenges that Facebook poses to relationships. In addition, my sample size is n= 119, which is very small to be able to generalize my findings in the Mauritian context. Conclusion This study provides evidence of a relationship between Facebook use and the experience of jealousy in that context, more precisely it looked at the association between romantic jealousy experienced by individuals who are in a romantic relationship and Facebook related jealousy based on gender and if Facebook use reinforce level of jealousy. A review of the literature reveals that the social network site, Facebook, is a direct cause of jealousy and negatively impacts romantic relationships (Muise et al 2009). It is responsible in stirring suspicion between romantic partners. However, there is a need for more research which control for other correlates and determinants of jealousy to be done in the future.

The Vile Bodies Essay example -- Literary Analysis, Evelyn Waugh

The postwar England of the twenties and thirties was the setting of Evelyn Waugh’s first satirical novels, among which was the Vile Bodies. Waugh, an author mostly known for his highly satirical fiction, published his novel Vile Bodies in 1930 right in the middle of the time-period between the Great Wars. Because of the historical evens that occupied England at that time, much of British Literature of the late 1920’s and early 1930’s was concerned with the Modernist movement, which was occupied with the idea of individualism of the young generation. Through the use of prominent and yet highly satirical characters, Waugh strives to criticize his Modernist generation for its unsuccessful movement into Modernism, both on the individual and political/institutional level. He does so by defining his type-characters as ignorant, self-centered and hypocritical in their disastrous movement toward individualism. Through the use of satire, the issues presented by Waugh in Vile Bodies become greatly influenced by the time period in which the novel was written. Great Britain, in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s, was placed on the time line between the Great Wars. Thus, the novel’s placement in the history shifts its focus not only toward the emergence of the World War II but also on the depressed postwar economy of Britain at the time. Some of the most prominent ideas evolving during this period of time were embracive of the idea of change in areas such as religion, science, art, social rules, literature and economic and political conditions—changes that most often led to a feeling of â€Å"loss of community† (Wellman, 327). Because of the nature and the ongoing changes during this period the idea of modernism also played a major role in Britis... ...the importance placed on individualism. For, although he †blinkingly accepts whatever outrageous turn of fortune [he] may encounter† (Twayne, 43) he is still the only character that displays a feeling on emptiness and disillusionment about the constant search of amusement that is seen in all the other characters. Adam questions the generation’s way of living â€Å"do you ever feel that things simply can’t go on much longer† and states that he would â€Å"give anything in the world for something different† (Waugh, 273). Furthermore, he even goes as far as criticizing the never-ending parties and games as â€Å"succession and repetition of massed humanity†¦ those vile bodies†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Waugh, 171). Although Adam seems to have glimpses of understanding the destruction that this generation is causing, nonetheless, he feels stuck in the vicious cycle that is created by this lifestyle.