Online Shopping vs Traditional Shopping

Besides from turkey, what is the other most memorable thing you had done during this thanksgiving break? That would most probably be the shopping bags you bought from Black Friday. During this thanksgiving, I went down to New York to meet up with my high school friends, and wanted to get some good deals from the Black Friday discounts. However, throughout the weekend, I only bought a t-shirt; but interestingly, I actually bought more clothes online in my hotel room during the Black Friday. Isn’t that weird? This has make me come to realize that how internet has transformed the shopping habits of people nowadays.

In traditional shopping, you simply take a ride in your car to your favorite shopping center or store and you buy what you want or need. You can examine the quality of the product or services from the retailer and decide whether you will purchase the product. You can pay with cash or credit card. In some instances you can even pay with a check. You do get the opportunity to see the product before you purchase it and you can keep an eye on it until you finally own it.

But after the rise of internet, online shopping has become more and more popular among the younger generation. Compare to traditional shopping, online shopping provides something that traditional shopping could never give, instant access to all shops. Unlike traditional shopping, people could open 20 windows of online shopping stores and browse through all their favorite items. What if you can’t find the store that you want? GOOGLE it. People are no longer limited to geographical location of the stores, they can buy products that are located in different parts of the world. Except for the advantage of high variety and time saving, we can easily find promotion on the internet compare to shopping traditionally. All you need to is to type promotion codes on google for your particular store, and most likely you will be able to buy an item cheaper than actually shopping in an actual store. 

Although online shopping does provide many advantages over traditional shopping, there are other risk factors too. One thing that most people concern about online shopping would be the quality of the product. When you are shopping online, you will not be able to touch, smell or feel the product itself. The quality of the product can’t be guaranteed. Security could also be a problem. When you find good deals on the web, sometimes you would question yourself whether this is a legit website, and whether it is trustworthy; as fake online shops can be easily found nowadays.  Thirdly, although u can access to the information of your product instantly, you could access to your product instantly. There could be many different risk factors come with shipping a product from a site.

To conclude, we can find that with the rise of internet, online shopping has become an important medium between customers and products. It has provided a different way to shop. Unlike transportation, such as cars, trains and buses, you can access your store in less than 10 seconds by sitting down on your comfy chair at home. However, online shopping also has some cultural impact on nowadays society. Do you still remember the time when you were really excited to go to Toys “R” Us during the weekend when you were young? With the online shopping getting more convenient, this weekend activity might significantly decrease. Shopping might no longer become a family activity during the weekend. Lazy people no longer need to get out of their house and shop. Women exercise rate might also decrease (consider traditional shopping as an exercise). Online shopping has created a new era of shopping. Can't wait for Cyber Monday!

Time to MOVE YOUR BODY

Reading so many blogs about how music can be a medium of expressing yourself, I start to wonder what is the best way to express yourself through music.  A lot of people might immediately say singing, since it is really natural to sing while you hear music that touches you. However, I think the best way and also the most elegant form of expressing your own self is through dancing.

Although there isn’t a specific point or time when people started dancing, in ancient time, people have already begun dancing for spiritual reasons. Dancing is a form of medium that connects Gods with human and also their joys for God. They felt like by moving their bodies, they are giving out more emotions to God than just praying. However, as time goes by, dancing is no longer only associated with spiritual reasons; in fact, it has become an entertainment or a sport or activity to express one self.

During the last few years, dancing has becoming a really hot subject. When the movie, Step Up and the reality TV Show, America’s Best Dance Crew were launched, dancing has become so popular among the society that dancing was almost everywhere. By just watching a Youtube dancing video, it might already make you want to move your body. At one point, I actually want to take a dancing lesson too.  Dancing has become so popular that it did not only particularly bring up one dancing style, such as hip hop, it also brought up other dancing style like waltz, break dance, modern, and jazz. When another TV show So You Think You Can Dance launched, the heat for dancing has raised up even more rapidly.

The fascinating part for dancing is that you can use your body to express what you want to say even if there is a language barrier. Not like words and language, dancing can express your feelings to different cultural people. People can feel your emotions and power through the movement of your body. Therefore, personally, I think dancing is the best form of medium to express one self. And with the influence of the recent TV shows, mass media has also shaped how people perceive dancing. However, if I have to list one artist that influenced many people through dancing and how they perceive dancing, I would definitely say Michael Jackson. There can’t be Michael Jackson without his dance moves. His emotions, power and message behind his music would never be fully delivered if dancing was not included. This clearly illustrated the point McLuhan described in his article Understanding the Media, where medium is the message, and not the content it delivers.

Step Up 2
America's Best Dance Crew
Evolution of Dance
Michael Jackson

Is watch still a time teller?

When people talk about watches nowadays, does the function time telling come into your mind first? Or is it the fashion or brand names that the watch reflects come into your mind first? Over the past decades, as the technology advances in personal devices, we no longer need a watch to determine time. When we want to know the time, all we need to do is to pull out our blackberry or iPhone, and look at the screen. It even tells you the date, day of the week, alarm you set, and stuff that you need to do by clicking on the date. Can watches do it? Probably not. It will contain too much information in a small surface area, which might make you feel dizzy. Personally, although I wear a watch every day, instead of just looking at my watch on my wrist, I would rather spend the time to take out my blackberry from my pocket and find the time. So if a watch is no longer a medium that tells you time, why do we still need watches? The answer is watch has changed their role as a medium in the society. It no longer connects people with time; it has become a medium of fashion. 

Nowadays, when you open up a magazine or watch a TV commercial about a watch advertisement, what value is the marketer trying to emphasize? About 2 decades ago it might still be about the additional special functions of the watch, however, it is now more about the value the watch depicts about a certain person. Let’s look at a few advertisements for famous men watches.

As we can see in these ads, it does not advertise anything about the accuracy of the watch, or the function of the watch gives, but advertises what you can be if you own such watch by choosing a successful celebrity, athletes, or businessman. Take the example of the Tag Heuer ad, the slogan “What are you made of?” implies that if you buy this watch, it will pull you up to a higher society, since only successful people owns this watch. In a feeling, watch is a medium of reflecting a person’s value and status, and how it associates with other luxury goods. Watch is no longer a time teller, it is a luxurious accessory in the mind of the watch company, and they have successfully market this value in the past two decades. The social role of watch has also gradually changing. 

Here’s a video of a Rolex TV Commercial

The change of marketing strategy could be due to the stress come from the advance in technologies. When no one values time from a watch anymore, the company will slowly shut down. Therefore, marketing new values for watches is a critical move by the watch companies in order to survive. But one thing that they didn’t realize is that they have also changed the role of watch as a medium.

ps: one interesting fact, you will notice that on watch advertisement, the hour hand and minute is almost always at 10.10. This is because it allow us to see the whole dial (watch surface) of the watch. It also kinda gives a happy smiley face.

A Coffee a day, Keeps a Babson Student awake

Do you still remember who was your best companion or supporter during your morning class or last minute projects at 2 am? Yup, it was your be-loved coffee. Coffee has become human’s best supporter, especially after Starbucks emerged in the market place. Although it might seem strange for a person who never drinks coffee to talk about it, it would be an interesting perspective to see how coffee drinkers think different from what I observe. Today, I would like to talk about how coffee has transformed its social role from a “coffee break” to a “coffee wakes you up for work” with the influence of how the media portray coffee.

The earliest credible evidence of coffee drinking and the knowledge of coffee’s energizing effect appear in the middle of the fifteenth century, in the Sufi monasteries around Mokha in Yemen. It was here in Arabia that coffee beans were first roasted and brewed, in a similar way to how it is now prepared. In 1952, aggressively promoted by the Pan-American Coffee Bureau, the "coffee break" was first promoted. As coffee was exported to other European countries, it became a beverage for social interaction or personal pleasure.

However, when coffee was spread into North America, its social role has gradually been changing. Instead of something that people enjoy, it has become a drug that keeps students and office workers awake during late nights and early morning. Imagine if Dunkin Donuts and trim’s coffee machine no longer sell or produce any coffee beverage, the population of “sleeping zombies” would highly increase. So why did the social role of coffee transformed after it is introduced into America? One of the reasons could be because how coffee is advertised in the States. Let’s take a look of the Starbucks’ commercial.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbi9Se7VTxs&feature=related

As we can see, Starbucks is advertising coffee as an energizing drink that you must have at your late night work or early morning, or else, EVERYTHING will go wrong because you didn’t have enough sleep. Slowly, as this image is instilled into people’s mind, coffee’s social role has transformed.

 

Coffee used to be a medium that brought people together, and have quality time with each other in a café, or a good end of meal beverage with dessert. It was like an art. However, with the influence of the media and advertisings, coffee has become a medium that keeps people awake. May be this is the reason why people are starting to reform and reshape the presentation of coffee by showing an artsy side of coffee in cafés by creating all the elegant shapes with the cream on top.

Chinese Mentality of how WEIRD Food helps your body

I have read a few media blogs about how food can be a medium of a certain culture. I was pretty fascinated by it. I remembered there was once in my English class, the professor and the class were discussing about how people greet each other in different countries. In the States, it is usually like “what’s up”, and “how are you?” However, surprisingly, the Chinese and Korean students in our class pointed out that in their countries, instead of just saying “how are you”, they often also follow up by asking “Have you eaten yet?” The discussion made me realized how Asian people cherish food so much. So I decided to serve around the internet and see what tourists see in Chinese food. Then there is one google result kind of caught my attention. Chinese weirdest food. So I decided to  talk about how Chinese weirdest food shows the mentality of how Chinese people choose their food. Although it is quite extreme, they are really good examples. According to the Chinese medicine, this mentality is called "if one eats an organ of an animal, then it will be good for the corresponding organ in one's body." (以形補形) saying that Chinese people think animal organ is a medium to good health.

Cow Testicles 

Yup, cow testicles. As delicious as this may sound, most people will probably give this a pass. Believe it or not, there is actually a choice of rare or well-done. But by frying testicles, it actually removes the unpleasant smell of it. According to my grandpa, he said it should give you a quick boost of energy and improve men’s sexual performance.

Monkey Brains 

The Chinese believe that they can cure themselves from germs and bacteria, and become smarter by eating monkey brains. Pickled ginger, pepper and peanuts are added to the fresh monkey brains for extra flavoring. According to Chinese medicine, eating animal organs will help corresponding organs in the human body. Although I am not sure whether this is illegal or not in China, it is sure that there are people who still hold this belief and actually eat monkey brains. It usually happens in Guangdong province in secrecy. (do not want to search any photo for this)

                                                     Deer Penis 

The third weirdest food is deer penis. The Chinese in Guangzhou eat deer’s penis to aid sexual performance along with other health needs. According to some of my uncles, cooked deer’s penis is rubbery and hard to chew. Deers penis might be seen as weird in some cultures, but for traditional Chinese people, it is a common source of medicine. Deers penis can also be taken in a capsule form.

To conclude, by seeing what people eat in different countries, the food can reflect the culture or mentality of the people. I personally have never tried any of them, and do not even want to see it. Unfortunately, there are people in China who still hold such believe. A more common and less gross example would be pork lungs or chicken feet, which is good for your lungs or feet. I guess eating weird food is one of the stereotypes that Chinese have.    Although it is not generally true, but there are people who eat unordinary food. 

Imagine a world without signs > CHAOS

        Imagine when you are in a restaurant, and suddenly you feel of an emergency to go to the bathroom, you stop at the two bathroom doors and found there isn’t a sign to indicate which door leads to your gender’s bathroom. What will you do now? You can either go ask a waiter for help, or take a 50/50 chance. This example shows us that we heavily depend on sign around us; and without them, it might lead to embarrassment, or even danger. Therefore, signs around us are media that guide us to awareness, construct orders and provide directions.

        If there are no signs around us, imagine all the danger that we might face. Traffic signs are clearly one of the good examples. If traffic lights, and all the speed sign, stop sign, one way sign and caution sign were never invented, the consequence would be a terrible chaos on the road. Everyone would be driving the way they want, which will definitely causes a sky high driving accident rate, not to mention the accident rate that United States is already having. These signs that seem to annoy you while you are driving are actually creating orders to keep us safe and sound. Sign does not only guide you to awareness, it also provides directions so that you can arrive to your destination.

        McLuhan would describe this as a “hot” medium because sign does not require a person to put a lot of effort in order to understand the content that the medium is transferring. When we see a no smoking sign, we immediately understand that this place does not allow smoking, creating awareness for the people who are not familiar with the environment that he or she is in. Although sign seems to be such an unnoticeable object, it has a tremendous impact on our society.

We are Advertisement too!!

      After discussing about what mass media portrait on stereotypes in advertisement during class, I begin to start randomly watching different advertisement on Youtube. Then I started to wonder, is mass media the only way to advertise? Across the decade, marketing managers have been thinking that the best way to advertise their product is by creating awareness. Hence, mass media would be the perfect medium to create such awareness. However, in the past few years, marketing managers has thought of a new medium beside from the mass media; and it is pretty effective on creating this awareness. This new medium is us, regular men and women.

        Imagine when you walking down the street, and saw someone using a special product or having a tattoo on their forehead, don’t you want to know what that is. This is the idea where marketing companies started to use regular men and women on street to advertise their products. For example, you are having a tea in a café, and suddenly a lady with really attractive body walks in (for girls: an attractive half naked six pack male walks in), our first reaction would probably be glancing at her. When you glance to her boobs, and you found a website address link on top of her boobs, www.bostonfitness.com.  Doesn’t this makes you want to check out this fitness gym right now? It doesn’t only create an awareness of the gym, it also implies that if you want to find hot girls, you should go work out and get fit in this gym. We have become a medium between the marketing companies and their target markets.

       This method of advertisement reminds me of the definition of media McLuhan makes in Understanding Media. He states that a medium is “any extension of ourselves.” Now, we ourselves have become an extension of ourselves. We have become a medium for the advertising companies to mediate their communication with their consumers. This advertising technique has affected or altered how we perceive other human beings. In some ways, now we can perceive a human being as a marketing product.