Osteoporosis and Radio Ad Essay

Radio Ad We know many people worry about the risks of getting arthritis and osteoporosis, as well as injuries from falls as you start climb the latter called age. We are doing this radio ad in promoting a healthier Muscular system well in to your retirement age. Although some chronic disease risk factors such as (family history, age or sex) are not able to be modified and so cannot be incorporated into prevention strategies, these factors can help to identify people or groups at high risk of developing a disease, enabling a targeted approach. The modifiable risks factors are common to all chronic disease which includes diet, weight, exercise, alcohol intake and smoking. It is important to understand that adopting healthy lifestyle behaviors will reduce the risk of all chronic diseases, including arthritis and musculoskeletal conditions. A balanced diet will help to achieve a healthy weight and body. When increasing the intake of calcium also absorption of vitamin D will assist in reducing risks of developing arthritis and osteoporosis. Regular exercise aids in the prevention of musculoskeletal conditions, and it helps to alleviate and reduce joint pain and stiffness and build strong muscle around the joints. People who are obese are at higher risk of arthritis or osteoporosis due to the increased load across the weight bearing joints, and increasing the stress on cartilage and ligaments. People who reduce their smoking and drinking will reduce the risks for low bone mass, low bone strength, and low body weight. Having a healthier life style gives you a fun filled days right into your retirement years.

Community, Responsibility, and Guilt

Community, Responsibility, and Guilt The novel Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez tells the story of Santiago Nasar's death. More importantly it tells the story of what values and honor mean to a community and to what extent one can go to maintain that standard. A central theme in the novel is how a society can pressurize its people to act and behave in a certain way. They feel bound by a standard that if not kept, then it will bring shame to their family. In the novel, after her husband returns Angela Vicario to her family on their wedding night, she admits that it is Nasar that had aken her virginity.Her brothers, Pablo and Pedro, viscously murder Nasar to regain their sister's and familys honor. In this society a man or woman without honor is an outcast to the community and to the culture. Almost everyone in the community knew what was going to happen but no one did anything about it. Everyone in the community had excuses to why they did nothing to help. Excus es stating that they didn't believe it would really happen or that they Just didn't know what to do. Each person seemed to Just hope that someone else would do it; someone else would stop hem, and didn't want to take responsibility.The novel reflects how a community can victimize individuals within its society causing detrimental affects to both the general public and the specific individuals involved. The novel looks into the Latin American culture and how its cultural norms and the importance of honor effects the entire community. The principles that obligates the Vicario family and the community conducts the murder of a most likely innocent Santiago Nasar and burdens Pedro and Pablo with the duty to defend the family honor.In this culture, honor of a woman's purity does not only belong to the female individually but the honor belongs to the family as well. To not be pure can bring shame on the family name in the eyes of the entire community. So much so that keeping ones honor is more important than been truthful and keeping Godly values. This double standard makes it okay for a women to deceive their husband into thinking that they're virgins. We see this in the novel, page thirty-eight, where Angela is taught old wives tricks to fake her virginity on her wedding night and told that it is ommon that women have to do this.The community consists of both Latin culture and Arab culture ranging for different social classes. However, as stated in the lecture notes, both cultures connect through religion. Both the Latin and Arab cultures in the novel are Catholic. The Catholic religion is very important to all the members of the community. Cultural beliefs, traditions, and rituals form the Catholic Church influence the roles of the family. The novel presents a break down in religion. A break down in religion causes a break down in family values. This is why almost a ouble standard is seen with the communitys values.In the book, the Bishop never comes ashore to giv e his blessing, acting as if he is to good to stand with the people of the community and seems to Just be going through the motions. Another example is how Father Amador is told about the plan to murder Santiago but he never tries to stop it blaming it on being busy and not knowing what to do. If a leader of the church church do it either? The novel stress the importance of the Catholic Church and practicing church tradition, but at the same time there is stress to put all that aside or the sake of honor.To defend ones honor, it is okay to lie and murder as long as it is Just. It is even okay to make excuses for guilt. â€Å"No one even wondered whether Santiago Nasar had been warned, because it seemed impossible to all that he hadn't† (Marquez, p. 20). Everyone had an excuse for why they didn't get involved. They felt they didn't have to do anything because someone else would do it. Another double standard is how men having premarital sex at the brothel or prostitution house seems to be acceptable in the community but a woman having sexual relations efore marriage is what is wrong.The community is collectively thinking. No one is standing up as an individual. So then when everyone decides to stay silent the effects of their actions intern breaks down the community responsibility to its members causing havoc for many of the characters and the public as a whole. Having honor and commitment to the family and community is major theme of the Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Societal responsibility is different for men and women. â€Å"The boys were brought up to be men. The girls had been reared to get married† (p. 31).The community emphasizes a machismo culture. The women are taught to have suffered, be pure and be compliant to men. Men are taught to show and prove their masculinity and to be dominating. Society fails to care for and victimizes Santiago Nasar. However, I feel that the other characters are somewhat victims as well. Santiago, most likel y innocent, is victimized because he is slaughtered for deflowering Angela Vicario. Pedro and Pablo are victims because they are bound by honor and duty to regain their familys honor by killing the man believed to have taken it. So he ut the knife in his hand and dragged him off almost by force in search of their sister's lost honor. â€Å"There's no way out of this,† he told him. â€Å"It's as if it had already happened† (Marquez p. 61). This quote shows how the Vicario brothers are ruled by their cultural beliefs and feel that they have to do the deadly deed to be respected. Other examples are the hypocritical gender differences, which makes Angela a victim; and Bayardo is a victim due to the cultural expectation of having a pure wife and if she is not then he has to return her and face the embarrassment.This victimization of many of the characters is because they are all bound by the rules of their community's culture leaving them with no other outcome. Santiago is easily victimized because he was never told that he was going to be killed. He was a sitting duck unaware of the hidden predators waiting to slaughter him. This victimization was because no one in the community took responsibility and in the end their society felt that the murder was Just due to family duty and the regaining of ones honor.The structure of the story is told by an anonymous narrator who was there at he time of the scandal and returns years later to recollect information of how the murder of Santiago Nasar came to be. The narrator was apart of the community; in the novel the reader is told that he is a friend of Santiago Nasar and many of the other characters and we are told who his family members are as well. The narrator to is guilty like the rest of the community for not taking charge and helping to stop the murder of Nasar. He never mentions himself taking part in the responsibility to save Santiago or stop the Vicario brothers.He portrays the community as being au sing a double standard between genders. Men are masculine and dominate and women are submissive and taught to please the man. Overall he shows how the community's responsibility for each other falls apart. The reader finds out information on Santiagds death and how it came about through a series of ways: directly, indirectly, through associations, and hearing it talked about. In the novel, time Jumps from past to future throughout the five chapters and we are given different accounts of the events from various people in the community reconstructing the details of Santiagds murder.This adds more emotional effects in understanding the community obligations that lead to the murderous deed, but it also leaves the readers with a lot of questions and assumptions. Chronicle of a Death Foretold tells the story of a commun. This novel underscores how religious beliefs and cultures can nurture a warped sense of honor and values. In the novel the characters believe they are doing the right thi ng, but in actuality they go against the values of their religion that they claim is so important. Honor is above all and put above their very sense of right and wrong.

Poverty in Canada Essay

Poverty in Canada is a serious issue that needs to be effectively and efficiently addressed. Approximately one in six Canadians lives in poverty despite Canada being among the wealthiest developed countries. The poor live in poor housing conditions, earn minimal wages and overcrowded regions with some being forced into the streets, in cars or old vans. (www. kairoscanada. org). Poverty makes them live in fear, become malnourished, bad health conditions that make their lives a misery. Canada has a record of having the strongest economic growth especially from 1997-2003. What are the causes of poverty in Canada? Poverty rates for the minority groups’ for instance aboriginal people, new immigrants, single parents and one disabled are higher. These people lack secure employment from which they can earn a decent source of income. Without the finances they cannot cater for their basic needs like food, shelter and clothing. Lack of adequate and efficient government support also contributes to the higher rates of poverty. The poor get poorer when relevant authorities fail to provide or open channels through which they can access financial assistance. Poverty in Canada is highly correlated to gender, race and a citizen’s status in the society. (www. ccsd. ca). Those from families that are at a higher rank in terms of social power will be of better economic status compared to those from poor families. Poverty tends to be inherited as wealth and riches are. (www. kairoscanada. org). Education is a vital factor affecting or contributing to poverty. Parental education level affects how their children will be whereby those with tertiary education have the skills or knowledge to acquire decent employment that can enable them lead decent lives. The family size and structure also contributes to poverty. Single parents have higher chances of living in poverty as they have to single-handedly cater for their children. Large families also need more finances to cater for all their needs and small families generally tend to be better off. Cultural barriers and prejudice affects or influences government policies as well as social attitudes and economic structures. Distribution of wealth and not lack of it acts as a major cause of poverty in Canada. Poor pay act as a major determinant of poverty. The government allocates a minimal amount of resources for overall social transfers for instance on income assistance, child benefits, old age security, disability assistance, employment insurance and social assistance. New immigrants get poor wages and work under hostile conditions. Since they do not have permanent residency they are very susceptible to exploitation. They work for long hours, earn sub-standard wages, lack over time pay and are physically or verbally abused. (www. kairoscanada. org). Discrimination against women and people of colour hinders them from employment opportunities. Gender inequalities and domestic responsibilities, lack of appropriate childcare and language barriers hinder effective employment and consequently poverty levels rise. Family characteristics for instance the age of becoming a parent affects or rather influences family income levels and increases the chances of poverty. Research has shown that families of single mothers are generally poorer than families headed by men. In terms of wages paid women tend to earn less than males as they participate a lot in domestic chores and childcare (www. kairoscanada. org). They also tend to be more represented in the service and less paying employment opportunities as compared to men. What are the effects of poverty in Canada? Poverty in Canada has detrimental effects in economic, social as well as psychological aspects of those it involves. It deprives off the poor important things like food, shelter, clothing, education, health and employment. Inability to adequately provide for the poor is a cost to the government especially when cost of housing for example increases. Quality of healthcare provided is undermined as the demand for these services increases. Poverty is linked to poor health and since Canada provides universal health care it has increased expenses providing for more patients. Poverty and income inequalities have a major effect on health where health effects of poverty are felt more among the poor. The costs incurred on other services like education, recreation, transportation, security and pension also face a blow as the demand increases. (www. kairoscanada. org). Poverty affects people’s self esteem, dignity and belonging as it exposes them to hostile indecent living conditions. Those discriminated upon are emotionally affected by the way the society treats them. Poverty has a negative impact on social cohesion as well as economic prosperity. Poverty is also responsible for increased incidences of child labour and child abuse. Poor families can use their children to supplement their incomes. Criminal activities are aggravated by poverty since the poor may use illegitimate means to attain the basic necessities. How is poverty addressed or handled in Canada? Canadians fight or react to poverty in different perspectives. Direct donations and charity are offered to the poor and they include money, time, clothing and food. Economic based strategies are also developed for instance the creation of cooperatives and local businesses that are supported and run by the community in terms of funds or loans. This approach is beneficial to the community at large as what an individual could not have afforded is now affordable. Government protests and advocacy is another response to poverty. Churches and other non governmental organisations lobby to government to address vital issues like on income security where minimum wages can be set, employment insurance, childcare, social programs and fairness of taxation. Anti-poverty groups create or rather raise awareness of poverty and by so doing, keep the government in check. What are the strategies of fighting poverty in Canada? Government policies should be changed so as to increase more income supports for the Canadians. There should be increased security and remuneration in the labour markets whereby minimum wages as well as observance or adherence of human rights to part time and contract workers are considered. (www. socialjustice. org). There should also be increased accessibility to public facilities like housing, childcare as well as recreational programs. The children are a vulnerable population that ought to be adequately attended to. The Canadian government ought to be committed in setting targets of progress. Setting a parliamentary committee would also be appropriate especially in ensuring that there is transparency and effectiveness in the process of poverty eradication. It can establish fair tax systems for instance a low-income tax that can promote education to uplift the poor people’s living conditions. The government ought to assist single parents by increasing their benefits. Child benefits should also be increased so as to improve the living standards of children from poor families. Cultural transformation is also crucial if poverty is to be eliminated in Canada as cultural aspects influence poverty. (www. socialjustice. org). People can be encouraged to value and pursue academic goals so as to increase their chances of getting jobs that can enable them lead decent lives. An effective poverty eradication strategy is one that is made for the people and by the people. It is therefore very important to involve the minority groups like people of colour and women in the design and implementation of poverty eradication strategies. Families can be encouraged to raise small families so that their educational levels can be higher as their family incomes would be higher. Cooperative societies and other forms of community efforts to mobilize finances for the overall development should also be encouraged. They will be very important in ensuring that the status of the poor is uplifted. Education is very important in ensuring that people attain the necessary skills to fit in the job market. (www. conferenceboard. ca) Concerns of the poor should therefore be felt or reflected in the government policies as well as in its decision-making processes. Their human as well as economic rights should be fought for or respected. Reducing the gap between the rich and the poor would be an appropriate measure by the Canadian government. (english. napo-onap. ca). It only works to make the rich richer as the poor languish in poverty. Hiring processes should be fair and just so that the human rights are respected. Discrimination has negative effects, as it would result to under-utilisation of skills, capacities, talents and opportunities all of which are beneficial to the country as a whole.

Organization Culture Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Organization Culture - Case Study Example According to the report findings the CCO is tasked with the responsibility of protecting the culture of the organization as it undergoes growth and development. The growth of a company reduces the number of activities that can be controlled directly by the management. Therefore, it is reasonable to appoint someone who can make sure the organizational culture does not deviate from the foundational values and beliefs that facilitated success and growth of the organization.As the study stresses a Chief Cultural Officer in this organization would be responsible for setting the tone for communication. The organization has a diverse workforce with people from different backgrounds. The COO would be expected to monitor communication and liaise with the Head of Human Resource on how to improve effectiveness.   The COO would also be tasked with the responsibility of defining the goals of the organization and aligning all the departments. This is a very crucial responsibility because the org anization was started to achieve specific goals.   Success and greed can make organization members to deviate from the principles and values of the organization. Ensuring the goals of the organization are remembered is necessary. It is also an opportunity to make new employees understand the importance of being motivated by the mission and vision of the organization. The COO should explain these goals to gain their support.

Critical Evaluation of Project Management Techniques in Information Essay

Critical Evaluation of Project Management Techniques in Information Sector in Nigeria - Essay Example Commerce to E-commerce to M-commerce seems to be logical way for any government or individual to scale up. Since the paper is based on secondary research, various data and reports already available with the respective agencies, newspapers and other publications will be compiled, analyzed and used to draw conclusions. Gabriel Ajayi (NITDA and ICT in Nigeria,2003) has asserted that after NITDA (National Information Technology Development Agency) was set up in 2001, projects like Public Service Network (PSNet), Mobile Internet Unit (MIU) and Human Capacity Development were undertaken by the same. NITDA started the process of integrating IT into the public service through a massive campaign that targeted at the top echelon of the service. Although he was optimistic about the crucial role ICT played in gearing up the economy, he did not seem very hopeful about funding and political will. After the military rule ended in 1999, there were unfounded fears about the use of ICT in any industry and government will to encourage ICT lacked enthusiasm. From 2001, ICT enjoyed the complete backing of the government and has been looked at as a tool to bring about sustainable development and global competitiveness in Nigeria. GSM service was launched in 2001 and teledensity immediately rose from 0.5 to 2 per 100 subscribers. In the paper â€Å"Nigeria’s Need for ICT S.P.259 Technology and Policy in Nigeria†, Tom Goshit expressed his disappointment with the state of utilization of ICT in Nigeria. He felt that poverty and lack of skilled IT personnel were drawbacks in faster implementation and utilization of policies favoring ICT. However, when it came to use of mobile telephony and ICT, he says ‘As of December 2005, there were over 19,000,000 serviced cell phones in Nigeria. The mobile cellular market has grown because landline

A report for Real Coffee LTD Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

A report for Real Coffee LTD - Essay Example This paper aims to present the challenges that Real Coffee Ltd, a family business in Oxfordshire, has to face in order to secure its growth in the long term. Keeping its products at high quality and emphasizing on the quality of customer services have been considered as strategic priorities in Real Coffee Ltd. However, through the years the increase of competition has led to the need for the introduction of certain changes especially in regard to specific parts of the business, such as HR and marketing. These changes could be successfully implemented only if they were appropriately designed and supported by all members of the business. The trends that characterize the coffee shop industry in UK should be taken into consideration when developing such plan. The potential need of a transition period for alternating the existing strategy of the business should not be an obstacle for promoting change in Real Coffee Ltd. since the expected benefits would be significantly higher than the co sts and the risk involved. Part 1 – External Analysis 1.1 Analysis of the macro environment Social The high percentage of population in UK is between 25 and 54 years old (Index Mundi 2013); the specific part of the population represents the 41.2% of the country’s population. ... On the other hand, the rate of ageing of population in Britain is quite high. According to a recent report, during the last two decades the number of people under 65 in Britain has been significantly increased reaching today the 5 million (Independent 2013); existing trends showing the rapid ageing of Britain’s population, a phenomenon that is expected to be continued, at least in the near future (Independent 2013). Economic The economy of UK seems to keep its strength, despite pressures in markets worldwide. Indeed, from July to September of this year an increase of the country’s economic performance by 0.8% was reported, a fact that allows businesses across UK to make plans for growth (BBC News 2013). The above growth was combined with an increase of GDP in UK; this increase was estimated to 0.7%, for the period between April and June 2013 (BBC News 2013). Even if this growth was limited it, still, shows the potential of UK economy to secure its performance even durin g periods of global financial crisis. Indeed, during the third quarter of 2013 a further increase of UK’s GDP was achieved; the increase was estimated at 0.80% and indicates the stable growth of UK economy, a growth that is highly based on the development of the services sector which represents the 75% of the country’s economy (Trading Economics 2013). 1.2 Industry Analysis In order to understand the potentials of Real Coffee Ltd to achieve a stable growth it would be necessary to refer to the performance of coffee shops industry, as this performance is affected by the industry’s competitive forces. The coffee shops industry can be characterized as a key part of UK market; in fact, in 2012 the industry’s performance

Commercial Law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Commercial Law - Essay Example If the organization decides that they want a refund of their money or the leather, then they are a few steps to be followed. First and fore most, since the organization has already been notified that the company is being liquidated, they automatically become a trustee1. This is in relation to the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act. In the United Kingdom, the law that is responsible for dealing with both individuals and firms that face bankruptcy or insolvency is the Insolvency Law of the United Kingdom. There are key statutes that are involved in the bankruptcy and insolvency act. These include the Insolvency act 1986 which was amended by the Enterprise Act 2002, the Companies Act 2006 and the Company Director Disqualification Act 19862. The pari passu is the essential procedure that dictates how the goods will be distributed among the creditors in the UK insolvency law. Unless the statute displays preferred creditors, then a contract might be used that was signed between the organization and the creditor3. Since the Leather Craft knows where their goods lie, and they have been automatically declared as creditors, the contract they signed will assist them in the process. This means that the security interests to the assets of the company are entitled to the creditor. In this case, the approach that the law of UK takes is to give out either specific or fixed asset that the creditor has applied for. Situated at the Companies House, the law requires the interested assets of the company are filed on the companies charges of register. Leather craft must provide a debenture. Debenture simply means that the document which contains either the secured or unsecured debt owed by the company to their creditors4. Although the companies Act of 2006 requires the organization to have its own list of debentures, the Companies House requires all the debentures, which are secured by charge, be registered with them5. The main aim of the registration is to find out which company should be given first priority in the list of creditors. First, the Leather Craft companies must decide whether they can make an agreement with the company, which is voluntary on how to receive their dues. If they want a refund, they can agree with the board of directors for the Cattlerear Ltd if they can receive less in order to assist the company from insolvency6. Consequently, since the required goods are in the warehouse and they have already paid for them, they can agree to possess up the goods that are in the warehouse. In addition to that, if the company goes under new administration, this is according to the Enterprise Act of 2002 in which a trained insolvency practitioner will take up as new administration7. If this happens, since the specific goods that the Leather Craft industry wants are in the warehouse, they can agree with the new Cattlerear ltd administrator to have their goods, which are located in the warehouse. However, if none of these procedures are taken up, then all t he assets of the companies can be sold and the Leather Craft industry can have their refund back if they do not want the leather that the Cattlerear has which is located in their warehouse. This is after the Leather Craft Industry has completed either forms that display that they owe the company the goods and that they want a refund of their money back or their goods in which they are aware they are located in the warehouse. It should be noted that if a qualified insolvency prac

Ways to stay healthy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Ways to stay healthy - Essay Example This can be done by involving one’s body in exercises. In the current way of living in which many people sit behind computers all day either for work or pleasure, being involved in exercises is important for the body. Depending on objective of a person intending to start doing exercises, the amount of time and form of exercise varies. However, one hour of exercise is acceptable on a daily basis as way of staying fit and healthy. The most popular ways to exercise include jogging, going to the gym, walking and participating in sports which involve whole body movement as opposed to board games and computer games (Dale 16). Exercises help the body maintain its flexibility, improve the immune system, slow aging and helps one stay free from diseases such as heart attacks and diabetes. It is important to watch out what one eats or drinks in order stay healthy. People should eat a balanced diet in order to give the body all the nutrients it needs (Elson 19). It is believed that eating healthy lowers health risks such as heart disease, obesity, diabetes, cancer and hypertension. A healthy balanced diet involves eating primarily vitamins, carbohydrates and proteins. Vitamins are found in vegetables and fruits. Carbohydrates are found in grains and potatoes among others. Whole grains are best for the purpose of fulfilling caloric requirements of the body. Adequate water consumption is important in order to stay healthy. It is recommended that one should drink at least eight glasses of water on a daily basis (Walter 21). A healthy diet provides energy needs of the body and supports human nutrition without the subjection to excessive or toxicity weight gain from consuming excessive amounts. Last but not least, it is important to undertaking regular checks even when one feels that the he or she is okay. This is important for early detection of diseases and thus increases chances of smooth treatment. Cancer, one of the leader killer diseases,

Work Based Learning in the Creative and Cultural Industries Assignment

Work Based Learning in the Creative and Cultural Industries - Assignment Example As the paper declares the concept of the employer caring for the employee through symbolic means is not only cultural significant because of the interactions that take place on several levels. More importantly, there is an association with the cultural expectations that come into the work organization. From the report findings mass culture is developed through commercialization and the expectations that are a part of the culture that is created. From the mass culture, there is a development of specific attitudes and understandings that relate to the overall values of society. The idea of culture is one that is not only based on movements and expressions, but instead is significant of different industries and the commercialization that is included in culture. It is not only the cultural expectations that have developed the responses to the swine flu and the organizational environment that responds to this. The knowledge that is depicted with the swine flu, health issues and expectations from the work place come specifically from the media and the regulations that are a part of this. When the media presents specific information to the public, it is required to first find imperative information that makes a difference in the knowledge that the mass culture is given. The impact that th is has is one that directly affects the mass public and can create controversy as well as alternative expectations that can be held in different arenas of life.

Read, The Master Builder by Ibsen Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Read, The Master Builder by Ibsen - Essay Example Ibsens the Master Builder was written during the late period of Ibsens life and reflects the more symbolic aspects of these works. Even as the Master Builder has been classified within the symbolic spectrum of Ibsens ouevre, his underlining realist prose reveals a number of direct themes. In examining the Master Builder a number of notable questions are necessary to consider within the context of the work. This essay examines the Master Builder, considering whether the story of Halvard Solness can be considered a tragedy, and whether the conclusion of the play is inevitable. In considering whether the story of Halvard Solness is a tragedy its necessary to consider the various aspects of his life that contribute to both sides of this argument. In the first act, Ibsens Master Builder begins through establishing the dynamics of the main characters. Ibsen indicates that while Rangnar and Kaia are scheduled to be married, Halvard is indicated to have a relationship with Kaia such that she is hesitant of her marriage to Rangnar because of her feelings for Solness. In addition to this relationship, Ibsen established one of the prevailing plot elements throughout the play – the need for Solness to approve Rangnars plans before Rangnars father Brovik passes away from his unspecified illness. In these regards, Brovik himself visits Solness to ask him for his aid to which Solness refuses to help. The reason Ibsen explores these narrative elements is to establish much of the complications regarding Solness life, as they point towards Solness living a duplici tous and somewhat morally unstable existence. They also demonstrate that Solness has had a number of elements in his life that have had a positive effect. For instance, Brovik states, â€Å"that did not prevent you from setting to work – and pushing your way up and taking the wind out of my sails – mine, and so many other peoples† to which Solness responds, â€Å"Yes, you see – circumstances favored me†

A Woman’s Place Essay Example for Free

A Woman’s Place Essay â€Å"Don’t read so much, he said, don’t study; get yourself good and tired out with homework, take exercise. He believes that her troubles would clear up if she got married. He believes this in spite of the fact that most of his nerve medicine is prescribed for married women. † The primary theme of Meneseteung by Alice Munro is the role of women in times of Victorian traditions and standards. The narrator, who is never identified, explains tasks and qualities that differentiate a real, marriageable woman from an outcast from society. The main character in this story is Almeda Joynt Roth, a respectable woman who has become famous in her small town for her poetry book. She has earned respect and admiration amongst others in the town for her works, but has also been criticized as a woman’s literary ambitions were thought to be hobby rather than vocation. Roth yearns to marry Jarvis Poulter, an idea that the rest of the town supports. Even Roths doctor, who prescribes nerve medicine to help Roth with her sleeplessness, says she would be much happier if she were married. However, Poulter does not find Roth to be a suitable wife and does not pursue her as such because she does not demonstrate the qualities that defined a marriageable woman of the times. The story, then, is not just about the role of women in the society but also about a lonely woman, an outcast of traditional society, and her search for companionship. Roth suffers from insomnia and goes to the doctor to get medication to help with her sleeplessness. The doctor suggests that Roth busies herself with things that are not considered womanly such as studying and writing. Her writing is considered an asset to the community, but not totally accepted as a woman is expected to marry and have a family. The town paper, the Vidette, which contains articles that would often be considered libelous by modern standards considers her young and fit enough to bear children, physically speaking she is marriageable material. The doctor suggests that she wear herself out by performing housewife tasks such as cleaning and exercising so that she may sleep. He also discourages her from reading and writing, as it is not required of her to do these things to ulfill her position in society. He suggests that marriage would solve most of her problems, though the medication he prescribes her is primarily prescribed to married women. The doctor is prescribing a remedy to her problems by becoming a housewife, while also prescribing medication that is given to housewives to treat the very condition she, as a single woman, had come to ameliorate. In the society portrayed in Meneseteung marriage is considered to be a cure-all for many of women’s problems. Why, asks the narrator, has Roth remained unmarried for so long? The narrator suspects that it is partly down to her desolate disposition. A caliginous personality is not one that is considered attractive and people tend to avoid developing social ties to her. Weighed down by burdens such as the loss of her family Roth is a loner with reading, writing, and the hopeless pursuit of Jarvis Poulter as her only aspirations in life and generally just does as she pleases. She dreams of marrying Poulter, an idea that the whole town supports, but he never showed an interest in her as she did not fit the imagine of a marriageable woman of the times. Despite this the narrator portrays Roth to be less of the â€Å"reckless hedonist† and more like a â€Å"tormented artist,† suffering as a result of her art. It is her particularity that makes her an eminent writer, but also not considered suitable to be taken as a wife. Women in this story are portrayed as weak and in need of men. One night, Roth is awoken by a drunk, abused woman at her fence. She is frightened and rushes to Poulter for help, and this is shown as being the first time in the story that she behaves like a typical woman of her time. She is no longer the poised, confident woman that Poulter has come to know her as and is attracted to her desperate vulnerability. Poulter was not attracted to her when she was poised and confident but once he had seen that she was weak, helpless, and in need of him he felt drawn to her as she finally fit the stereotypical image of a woman. Poulter deals with the drunken woman in a cruelly and insensitively and upon seeing this Roth loses interest in him. Poulter asks her to church and she declines and the two never pursue a relationship. Despite being portrayed as weak and in need of men, women are not powerless in marriage. One of a woman’s primary roles is to â€Å"create their husbands† by â€Å"ascribing preferences† to them. â€Å"This way, bewildered, sidelong-looking men are made over, made into husbands, heads of households. † Roth cannot see herself doing this, which urther separates her from the society in which she lives. After her rejection of Poulter’s interests Roth retreats into the vivid aberration brought upon her by the doctor’s nerve medicine and meets her death after becoming the target of menacing youths’ malevolent tormenting. This quote from the doctor, which I have chosen as the most profoundly meaningful, shows the thinking of the times. Women we re to marry to solve their own problems as well as to solve the problems of their husband. This short story is about a woman who is different from the social norm and her search for companionship and stability in her own life, as well as how breaking the norm had its own consequences. Her obsession with reading and writing, which was said to be more suitable as a hobby than profession, set her aside and earned her respect within her community while at the same time driving a wedge between her and a normal life because she did not spend her life marrying, becoming a wife, becoming a mother, and spending her days cleaning and caring for her family like a typical woman of the time. When Roth became vulnerable she became like every other woman and Poulter finally saw her as a possibility for marriage but his actions revolted Roth. The incident with the drunken woman disgusted her into a solitary existence with just her and her hallucinations brought on by the nerve medication prescribed by the doctor. The doctor suggested that by marrying, Roth would not require this medicine despite it being most commonly prescribed for married women. So, then, Almeda Roth could not live with herself as a normal woman yet not being a typical woman is what eventually led to her demise.

The term Baroque Essay Example for Free

The term Baroque Essay The word Baroque, like most period or stylistic designations, was invented by later critics rather than practitioners of the arts in the 17th and early 18th centuries. It is a French translation of the Portuguese word Barroco (meaning an irregular pearl, or false jewel—notably, an ancient similar word, Barlocco or Brillocco, is used in Roman dialect for the same meaning—and natural pearls that deviate from the usual, regular forms so they do not have an axis of rotation are known as baroque pearls). Alternatively, it may derive from the now obsolete Italian Baroco (meaning, in logical Scholastica, a syllogism with weak content). A common definition, before the term Barocco was used, called this genre simply the style of The Flying Forms. The term Baroque was initially used with a derogatory meaning, to underline the excesses of its emphasis, of its eccentric redundancy, its noisy abundance of details, as opposed to the clearer and sober rationality of the Renaissance. It was first rehabilitated by the Swiss-born art historian, Heinrich Wà ¶lfflin (1864–1945) in his Renaissance und Barock (1888); Wà ¶lfflin identified the Baroque as movement imported into mass, an art antithetic to Renaissance art. He did not make the distinctions between Mannerism and Baroque that modern writers do, and he ignored the later phase, the academic Baroque that lasted into the 18th century. Writers in French and English did not begin to treat Baroque as a respectable study until Wà ¶lfflins influence had made German scholarship pre-eminent. In modern usage, the term Baroque may still be used, usually pejoratively, to describe works of art, craft, or design that are thought to have excessive ornamentation or complexity of line, or, as a synonym for Byzantine, to describe literature, computer programs  , contracts, or laws that are thought to be excessively complex, indirect, or obscure in language, to the extent of concealing or confusing their meaning. A Baroque fear is deeply felt, but utterly beyond daily reality. Baroque Baroque visual art A defining statement of what Baroque signifies in painting is provided by the series of paintings executed by Peter Paul Rubens for Marie de Medici at the Luxembourg Palace in Paris (now at the Louvre) [1], in which a Catholic painter satisfied a Catholic patron: Baroque-era conceptions of monarchy, iconography, handling of paint, and compositions as well as the depiction of space and movement. There were highly diverse strands of Italian baroque painting, from Caravaggio to Cortona; both approaching emotive dynamism with different styles. Another frequently cited work of Baroque art is Berninis Saint Theresa in Ecstasy for the Cornaro chapel in S. Maria della Vittoria, which brings together architecture, sculpture, and theater into one grand conceit [2]. The later Baroque style gradually gave way to a more decorative Rococo, which, through contrast, further defines Baroque. Baroque Baroque literature and philosophy Baroque actually expressed new values, which often are summarised in the use of metaphor and allegory, widely found in Baroque literature, and in the research for the maraviglia (wonder, astonishment — as in Marinism), the use of artifices. If Mannerism was a first breach with Renaissance, Baroque was an opposed language. The psychological pain of Man a theme disbanded after the Copernican and the Lutheran revolutions in search of solid anchors, a proof of an ultimate human power was to be found in both the art and architecture of the Baroque period. A relevant part of works was made on religious themes, since the Roman Church was the main customer. Virtuosity was researched by artists (and the virtuoso became a common figure in any art) together with realism and care for details (some talk of a typical intricacy). The privilege given to external forms had to compensate and balance the lack of content that has been observed in many Baroque works: Marinos Maraviglia, for example, is practically made of the pure, mere form. Fantasy and imagination should be evoked in the spectator, in the reader, in the listener. All was focused around the individual Man, as a straight relationship between the artist, or directly the art and its user, its client. Art is then less distant from user, more directly approaching him, solving the cultural gap that used to keep art and user reciprocally far, by Maraviglia. But the increased attention to the individual, also created in these schemes some important genres like the Romanzo (novel) and let popular or local forms of art, especially dialectal literature, to be put into evidence. In Italy this movement toward the single individual (that some define a cultural descent, while others indicate it was a possible cause for the classical opposition to Baroque) caused Latin to be definitely replaced by Italian. In English literature, the metaphysical poets represent a closely related movement; their poetry likewise sought unusual metaphors, which they then examined in often extensive detail. Their verse also manifests a taste for paradox, and deliberately inventive and unusual turns of phrase. Baroque Baroque sculpture In Baroque sculpture, groups of figures assumed new importance, and there was a dynamic movement and energy of human forms— they spiralled around an empty central vortex, or reached outwards into the surrounding space. For the first time, Baroque sculpture often had multiple ideal viewing angles. The characteristic Baroque sculpture added extra-sculptural elements, for example, concealed lighting, or water fountains. The architecture, sculpture and fountains of Bernini (1598–1680) give highly-charged characteristics of Baroque style. Bernini was undoubtedly the most important sculptor of the Baroque period. He approached Michelangelo in his omnicompetence: Bernini sculpted, worked as an architect, painted, wrote plays, and staged spectacles. In the late 20th century Bernini was most valued for his sculpture, both for his virtuosity in carving marble and his ability to create figures that combine the physical and the spiritual. He was also a fine sculptor of bust portraits in high demand among the powerful. Baroque Berninis Cornaro chapel: the complete work of art A good example of Berninis work that helps us understand the Baroque is his St. Theresa in Ecstasy (1645–52), created for the Cornaro Chapel of the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome. Bernini designed the entire chapel, a subsidiary space along the side of the church, for the Cornaro family. He had, in essence, a brick box shaped something like a proscenium stage space with which to work. Saint Theresa, the focal point of the chapel, is a monochromatic marble statue (a soft white) surrounded by a polychromatic marble architectural framing concealing a window to light the statue from above. In shallow relief, sculpted figure-groups of the Cornaro family inhabit in opera boxes along the two side walls of the chapel. The setting places the viewer as a spectator in front of the statue with the Cornaro family leaning out of their box seats and craning forward to see the mystical ecstasy of the saint. St. Theresa is highly idealized in detail and in an imaginary setting. St. Theresa of Avila, a popular saint of the Catholic Reformation, wrote narratives of her mystical experiences aimed at the nuns of her Carmelite Order; these writings had become popular reading among lay people interested in pursuing spirituality. She once described the love of God as piercing her heart like a burning arrow. Bernini literalizes this image by placing St. Theresa on a cloud in a reclining pose; what can only be described as a Cupid figure holds a golden arrow (the arrow is made of metal) and smiles down at her. The angelic figure is not preparing to plunge the arrow into her heart— rather, he has withdrawn it. St. Theresas face reflects not the anticipation of ecstasy, but her current fulfillment, which can only be described as orgasmic. The blending of religious and erotic was intensely offensive to both neoclassical restraint and, later, to Victorian prudishness; it is part of the genius of the Baroque. Bernini, who in life and writing was a devout Catholic, is not attempting to satirize the experience of a chaste nun, but to embody in marble a complex truth about religious experience— that it is an experience that takes place in the body. Theresa described her bodily reaction to spiritual enlightenment in a language of ecstasy used by many mystics, and Berninis depiction is earnest. The Cornaro family promotes itself discreetly in this chapel; they are represented visually, but are placed on the sides of the chapel, witnessing the event from balconies. As in an opera house, the Cornaro have a privileged position in respect to the viewer, in their private reserve, closer to the saint; the viewer, however, has a better view from the front. They attach their name to the chapel, but St. Theresa is the focus. It is a private chapel in the sense that no one could say mass on the altar beneath the statue (in 17th century and probably through the 19th) without permission from the family, but the only thing that divides the viewer from the image is the altar rail. The spectacle functions both as a demonstration of mysticism and as a piece of family pride.

Relevant Concept Of Celebrity Endorsements Marketing Essay

Relevant Concept Of Celebrity Endorsements Marketing Essay Introduction In the introduction this research paper will be providing an insight about the research area. It would begin by briefly discussing the background and relevant concept of celebrity endorsements and how it affects the consumer pre-purchasing behavior. 1.1  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Background Advertisement came into existence in early 18th Century. Since then the concept started playing an active role in the development of the society in the early 1930s.Most of the celebrity back then used their status in society to promote product, service or charity. These celebrities performed stage shows; modeling, sports activities and most of them were from movie industry (Kambitsis, Harahousouy, Theodorakis and Chatzibeis, 2002). In the early 19th century, worlds first celebrity endorser Lillie Langtry (British actress) appeared in the advertisement for pear soap. It marked the beginning of the brand representation by endorsers. These endorsers according to the Tellis (1998) can be divided into three major groups experts, lay endorsers and celebrities. Here experts are those people who know about the product and they have limited knowledge about the product which they have assembled during study, training or experiences. Such an instance can be shown in advertisement where dentist for toothpaste advert or nutritionists for healthy food items as both of them are able to provide an expert opinion about the product. Secondly lay endorsers are people who may be real or fictional, which resembles to the target groups and can be quite effective to provide message. Thirdly comes celebrity endorser who can be defined as the people who enjoys public recognition and who uses this on the behalf of a consumer good by appealing with it in an advertisement (McCracken, 1989, p.310). Celebrity endorsements are used for advertisement just because they can create an appeal and can increase its attractiveness for the viewers and consumers. For example Michael Jordan acted in advertisement for Nike; David Beckham for Gillette and newly made football cup advert of coca cola where Roger Millas celebrates wonderful world of football goals. According to Ohanian (1999) both theory and practice proves that the use of super stars in advertisements generates a lot of publicity as well as draws the attention of public. Most of the companies try to utilise the already made image of the celebrities to attract more customer base and increase their loyalty. As in this highly competitive business environment brand loyalty has become the utmost important for success. Companies use celebrities endorsement in the advertisements so that they are able to associate with celebrity and are able to cash there image for a long period of time. It is said that, If the consumers are able to see the link between the celebrity and the product then the endorsements can be highly effective (Hsu and McDonald, 2002). It is believed that attractive endorsers can be highly affective while promoting products and can be used to enhance consumers attractiveness. Attractive people have greater influences on the consumers compared to unattractive people (Till and Busler, 1998). Till (1998) states companies used celebrity endorsers either sporadically or opportunistically at the whim of the client or the agency. Paying back for the investments in the celebrity endorsement usually comes from using the celebrity regularly over time. The reputation strengthens the associative link for those consumers who were already aware of the celebrity endorsement. It also increases the pole of consumers who begins to make themselves aware of the link between the brand and the celebrity. Some marketers change celebrity endorsers very frequently which weakens the benefit expected to be derived from the endorser. Such as Nikes consistent use of Michael Jordon has encouraged customers to think about Nike when thinking about Jordon and vice versa these have shown that Nike and Jordon have become a part of each others association similarly association of the Nike and Tiger woods have made same impact as whenever customers think of golf products they think of the Tiger woods and its endorsed Nike product. McCracken (1989) proposed the hypothesis that endorsers are more effective when there is a fit between the endorser and the endorsed product. Byrne et al (2003, p.289) states celebrity can help the brand to rebuilt and even create a new identity with new dimensions. Celebrity endorsement boosts brands attractiveness among the consumers and saves valuable time in terms of creating the credibility. When consumers see a credible celebrity endorsing a product they think the company has to be good and reputed. The major job for the company is to choose the right kind of the celebrity for the endorsement and its the job of the advertisers within the company to match the companys image or product with the personality of the celebrity and characteristics of the target market to establish effective message and mass expectance. According to the Shimp (2003) two general attributes which are important when determining the effectiveness of the endorsers as well as the communications effectiveness are credibility and attractiveness. The first attribute concerns endorsers quality of being believable or trustworthy and the achievements and skills of the celebrity which could correlate with the brand image. The latter attribute refers to the celebrities ability to appeal, attract and engage large consumer base on the basis of their attractiveness. A good example of these would be golf star Tiger Woods whose scandalous image resulted in his ruining his credibility among the consumers which lead to his sponsors (ATT, Gillette, Tag Heuer and Accenture) dropping his advertisements and Anna Kournikova who although has never won any pro-level tournament but was still used by Swiss watch maker Omega to endorse their products because of her international reputation and appealing looks. Purpose and research questions Many of the previous studies on the celebrity endorsement have been focused on how celebrity endorsements influence consumer behavior. But there has been less consideration on the empirical   research on celebrity endorsement specifically on sport celebrity endorsements and in what manner do they use celebrity and how do they addresses the future returns on the investments in celebrities. The lack of proper research in this area inspires the present dissertation. So the main aim of this research would be to gain deeper understanding of the celebrity endorsement and how it influences the consumers behavior specifically in sports industry. To be able to achieve that following question were formulated: 1. Why does sports industry uses celebrity endorsements for promotional strategy? 2. How does celebrity endorsement affect the consumer behavior in sports industry? 3. How does company select the celebrity? 4. How effective are celebrity endorsement for sports industry? Demarcations This topic falls into the very broad area. Limits of both time and resources have led this research to focus on the very specific questions. Therefore the research paper will concentrate specifically on sports industry and will analyses the prominent companies in the field.   Furthermore there are several viewpoints which could be adapted in the research of the celebrity endorsement. There is consumers view point as they are affected by celebrity endorsement and then there is a companys point of view as they use celebrity endorsement as there promotional strategy. The research is done by keeping in mind that both points of views are highly important in understanding the consumer behavior as well as companys approach in promoting celebrity endorsement. Literature review This section of the research paper would be discussing what has already been done by other authors on the topic and their conclusion about the effect on consumer pre-purchasing decisions. Celebrity image is one of the major concerns for the endorser. Whichever company is endorsing celebrity the major issue they have to see is the compatibility between the celebrities and their brand. Advertising companies look for celebrities who compete and maintain an image (Kambitsis et al, 2002). Mostly companies are looking for the some basic properties such as likeability, expertise, trustworthiness and similarity thats what makes celebrity endorser to become a source of persuasive information and this creates a sense of certainty .Physical attractiveness of the endorser is also considerable and can be highly effective in producing an effective message. Acceptance of a message by a receiver could be influenced by celebrity endorsers as believable sources of information about a product or a firm (Amos et al, 2008). The use of celebrity endorsers to support products is explained by balance theory principles too. According to theory, successful companies establish an emotional rela tion between the observer and the endorser and a relation between endorser and brand too (Mowen, 2000). One of the important issue which arises here is whether there is a link between the consumers purchasing intention and celebrity endorsement. Many researchers have concluded that they have observed that many customers will pay a premium price for the product which have been endorsed by celebrities then product which have not been endorsed by celebrity. But the consumer should be able to see associations between the product and endorser as well as his/her intentions and purpose with the endorsers. The question that arises here is how does consumer associates itself with the celebrity endorser, to make a connection and association. It can be simply identified as most of the   companies choose an endorser who uses the product and where the use of the product is reflected due to endorsers professional expertise (Daneshvary and schwer, 2002). An athlete endorser such as David Beckham endorses football shoe then association can be seen but if he endorses golf products or racing car then customer will not be able to identify association. Therefore companies have to be very careful while associating with brand and product with the endorser so that they are able to utilize endorsers capabilities according to their need. Celebrity endorsement based on attractiveness is common among everyday consumers which, most of the time, effect consumers positively. Michael Jordon is an example of an attractive endorser but his effectiveness is likely greater when endorsing to this athletic ability is more rather than the products which are not relate to athletic performances. Consumers often have the positive effect towards the product and the celebrity despite the fact it is well known that the endorser earned a lot when promoting a product. (Cronley et al., 1999) Its more effective to use celebrity endorsement constantly to increase the strength of the link between the celebrity and the endorsed brand. Its also more effective to use celebrity who is not associated with another product (Till, 1998). When a Celebrity endorses only one or two products it is significantly more trustworthy than a celebrity who endorses even more products (Tripp at al., 1994). Celebrity endorsement can have both positive and negative effect on companys image e.g., many celebrities who switch their endorsement to the rival brands increase the risk of negative impact and confusion among the consumers. Pros and cons of celebrity endorsement Erdrogen (1999) states that academic findings and company reports safely argues that celebrity endorsers are more effective than non celebrity endorsers   when it comes to generate all desirable outcomes (attitudes towards advertisings and endorsed brands, intension to purchase and actual sales). Companies mostly utilize celebrities whose public image and personality match with product and the target audience and who have not endorsed previously. It has been clearly understood by the advertisers that celebrity endorsement has the significant potential to increase the recognition of the product and the brand. The increasing competition and new product increase in the market have made companies and marketers to use attention creating media stars to assist product marketing (Erdogan, 1999). With recent technology such as remote controlled televisions, video controlled systems, internet and satellite television, the power over programmed advertisements have increased and has made advertising more challenging. These threats with increased products, competition and technology development can be eased by the use of the celebrity endorsements as celebrity presence in the advertisement tend to   make impact on consumers reaction toward the advertisement and can help making advertising stand out from the clutter(Erdogan, 1999). Advertisers use celebrity to develop the communication between the consumers and the brand by cutting down excessive noise in the communication process. Some of the most complicated problem with the global marketing is to enter foreign countries due to cultural roadblocks such as time space, language relationships, a powerful risk, masculinity, femininity. And to overcome this problem companies hire local celebrities as they are powerful means to enter the foreign market. It makes it easier for companies to make the local people understand and associate the product with them. But it can also bring too many risks as well mostly because celebrities loss of credibility due to the frequently changes in endorsements or if celebrity drops in popularity. Therefore celebrity endorsement is a creative as well as risky tool for the companies. The whole process of celebrity endorsements needs a proper strategic plan before risking their investment.   Celebrity Endorsers Effect on consumers attitude Marketers and advertisers are particularly interested in consumers attitudes towards advertisements and brands. They always need to be aware of how sensitive consumers are about the adverts and brands. And they should know how do consumers start liking the product and consider it. It very much depends upon the consumers attitude towards certain product or brand or celebrity endorser. An attitude shows whether we like something or not. Attitudes have three basic components: affective, cognitive and behavioral. Affective component is related to our liking or feelings about an object. Cognitive is referred to beliefs about an object and behavioral component regards actions we take about that object (Severin and Tankard, 2001). Attitude towards advertisement is defined as a learned tendency to respond in a consistently desirable or undesirable approach toward advertisement in general (Haghirian, 2004). Determinants of advertisement consist of attitude towards the advertiser, assessment o f the advertising execution itself, the mood evoked by advertising and the extent to which the advertising affect viewers encouragement. A successful advertisement in one country or region is not necessary it will be successful in other parts of the world as what makes advertisement impressive will change noticeably in cross-culturally. Many researchers have concluded that the use of the celebrity endorsement in advertising creates constructive impact on attitudes of the consumer towards products and brands with which they are associated. Agarwal and Malhotra (2005) have defined brand attitude as consumers general evaluative judgment of a brand based on brand beliefs. Such beliefs concern product-related attributes, like practical and experimental benefits. A successful endorser is able to enhance intentions and preferences towards brands directly or indirectly. An endorser who has major source factors of credibility (like expertise, trustworthiness and effectiveness) is able to imp ress purchase intentions of the consumer considerably (Liu et al, 2007). Information from a credible source can impress ideas, attitudes and behaviour through a process called internalization(Belch and Belch, 1993).   Internalization occurs when the receiver is motivated to have an issue. The receiver learns and accepts the idea of the credible spokesperson, since he supposes that information of this person represents an accurate position on the issue. Therefore, if such spokesperson who is known to be an expert endorses a product, consumers will more probably have a desirable idea about that advertisement and brand and they will consider it in their shopping list the next time they go shopping. Researchers have used the identification process of social influence in order to explain the effectiveness of celebrity endorsers (Basil, 1996). This theory suggests that if an individual identifies with another individual, then he is more likely to accept an attitude or behavior of that individual or a group. The internalization process of social influence occurs when an individual accepts influence because the induced behavior is congruent with his value system. An individual accepts the influence, since it provides a solution to a problem (Daneshvary and Schwer, 2000) A successful endorser strategy can enhance the level of consumers recalling towards product information, reinforces consumers recognition to endorsed brands, positively influences consumers attitude to low-involved products and even enhance consumers purchase intention and preference towards brands (Liu et al, 2007) Celebrity endorsement and its involvement sports industry Sports industry is becoming the vital revenue generator in world economy and it is mainly due to increase in the broadcast coverage of important sporting events like Olympics, World Cup football, UEFA Cup, Wimbledon, US Open, Australian Open, French Open, Formula 1 racing, World Athletic meet, NBA and Basketball championship .Due to increase coverage sports persons have started becoming celebrities as more and more people know them and consider them as their idols. Sports celebrities have become major spectacles of todays media culture. Sports celebrities have been looked upon as role models from the todays young generation.   Most of the sports companies (Adidas, Nike, Wilson, Puma, Slazenger, Stiga, Dunlop and Yonex ) which have international recognition wants to have an international sport celebrity which is recognised by the most of their consumers and has enough credibility and attractiveness to appeal to large customer base. Due to which, Celebrity endorsements in the sport i ndustry continues to grow both in number and value. Certain athletes are utilized by brands as endorsers of their products because of the celebrity status gained by these athletes as a result of their success in their chosen sports. Most models of celebrity endorser effectiveness proposed by previous researchers have been based upon two basic models: the Source Credibility Model (Hovland, Janis, Kelley, 1953; Hovland Weiss, 1951) and the Source Attractiveness Model (McGuire, 1968). The Source Credibility Model significances that the effectiveness of the message is largely determined by the expertise and trustworthiness of the celebrity endorser, which offers explanations for why certain athlete endorsers such as highly successful mens tennis professionals Andre Agassi, Rafael Nadal, and Roger Federer could easily represent any brand of tennis equipment. In a different vein, the Source Attractiveness Model significances that similarity, familiarity, and liking of celebrity endorsers primarily determine their effectiveness, which attempts to explain why some athletes such as Manning, Woods, and racecar driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. can endorse brands in many different product categories. A general measure of physica l attractiveness has often been used to assess celebrity endorser effectiveness, assuming what is beautiful is good (Dion, Berscheid, Walster, 1972). However, mixed findings suggest that caution should be exercised in basing endorsement decisions on this model alone, since consumers perceive physical attractiveness differently. The Product Matchup Hypothesis (Forkan, 1980; Kahle Homer, 1985; Kamins, 1989; Kamins, 1990) emphasizes the need for a matchup, also referred to as congruency or fit, between the celebrity and the product. For example, the fit between Woods and Nike Golf is undeniable. However, according to sport marketing consultant Marc Cagins, Woods has failed as an endorser for Buick because of a lack of fit: People always shook their head as to why he did the deal anyway with Buick. If hes going to do a deal with GM, you would have thought Cadillac more than Buick (Thomaselli, 2008, p. 28).Research based on attractiveness matchup and expertise matchup has supported the hypothesis that celebrity/product fit remains critical to endorsement success. Kamins (1990) tested the matchup hypothesis based on attractiveness and found that the physical attractiveness of a source only mattered when an attractive source was paired with an attractiveness-related product, resulting in increased perceived source credibility and attitude toward the advertisement. Current examples would include the female tennis professionals and sisters Serena and Venus Williams Avon cosmetics campaign and the European mens soccer star Thierry Henry/Woods/Federer Gillette campaign. In a study examining the impact of gender and physical attractiveness on responses to motorsports sponsorships (Roy, Stewart, Goss, 2003), attractiveness played a greater role for female drivers than for male drivers, with the more attractive female drivers perceived as possessing greater expertise with products such as shampoo, tanning products, and dietary products. However, Bower and Landreth (2001) found that highly attractive models were not more effective than normally attractive models for problem-solving, attractiveness-related products and attributed these results to the premise that consumers perceive highly attractive models to have never faced an attractiveness-related problem and therefore have little expertise using these products. To illustrate, this premise would suggest that the current campaign utilizing female tennis star Serena Williams for ProActiv acne medication would be unsuccessful. However, a moderately attractive model may be more likely to be perceived to have faced an attractiveness-related problem and overcome it using the advertised product, fully illustrating the premise that the expertise of the source is more important than the attractiveness of the source.   Chapter 3 Methodology Research can be defined as the search for information or as any organized investigation to establish facts. There are two main types of research methods: quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative study uses numerical data to test hypothesis under investigation, which is flexible and objective. Qualitative study uses softer approach to look at perceptions and insights of people based on few samples but in great depth (Silverman, 2006) In quantitative research usually numerical data is collected through surveys.  So that they are able to observe surveys and develop it into the meaningful results. In quantitative research it is important to collect large sample to develop fairly accurate results, small the sample less chances to develop proper results. Qualitative Research Qualitative research helps in developing more meaningful complex researches. It has been characterized into four main approaches: they are observation, record, interpretation and conclusion. In qualitative research data is collected by focus groups or by interviews and then the data is observed thoroughly. Once observed data is collected or recorded in meaningful way so that it is able to be interpreted into understandable form. Then finally conclusion is constructed in a suitable way. Observational study has been criticized to be unreliable and subjective depending on observers understanding of the data. This form of research would be more appropriate at preliminary phase of research (Silverman, 2006). Researcher also uses other approaches to investigates, it is mostly done by reading of various materials on the subject to develop and recognize relevant information. This method of research is less common among qualitative research. Most common method among qualitative research is interviews and focus groups (Silverman, 2006). In interviews, participants respond to questions asked by researcher to investigate their understanding of the subject and allows respondent to elaborate further with his or her ideas and feelings. Focus group method is a more costly approach to carry out than methods mentioned, but often criticized for limited sample size which may not be representative of the population under investigation (Silverman, 2006) Research Method The purpose of this research seeks to investigate the insight and opinions of the consumers over the celebrity endorse and does it really affect the consumer behaviour during the purchasing. To support my research and to understand the consumer behaviour in depth survey will be conducted where common people/consumer from all walks of life and will be collected and interpreted into meaningful results and conclusion.   To understand the subject in the perception of the company interviews will be conducted with the people, who have understanding of the market and know how companies generate profits from the celebrity endorsement and what they make of celebrity endorsements effect on consumers attitude.   Primary Data Collection Primary data is information gather first-hand to contribute to what could be explored further into the research and also to justify. It involves collecting data using basic methods such as interviews, questionnaires, observations and abstractions. But the key point here is that the data collected should be unique and should not resemble with already done researches. The primary data, which is generated by the above methods, may be qualitative in nature (usually in the form of words) or quantitative (usually in the form of numbers or counts of items assessed). In this research both questionnaires and interviews are utilise so that   consumer behaviour could be understood fully from   both prospective consumer as well from companies.in this research questionnaire will have both open and closed ended questions so that prà ©cised options and answers could be obtained and it will be more accurate in interpreting the data. For the interviews, semi-structured pattern with open-ended qu estions will be develop in order to understand   interviewees opinion and belief about a particular matter or situation and not restrict respondents answer to confined questions. Semi-structured questions are used in this research to encourage respondent to elaborate on points they feel appropriate and provide a blueprint for them to understand the progression of the interview (Ruane, 2005). Although qualitative and quantitative data collection can be time consuming, but it is reasoned that this form of research provides more accurate results. Participants for survey are the common people whom answered to a posting on Facebook, tweeter and collage email. Participants for the interview are the managers of the different companies which have international experiences and have some sort of knowledge and understanding of the celebrity endorsements. Researcher carefully examined each participants position and company background to ensure they correspond to requirements of this research. The final participants were chosen upon their qualification and availability. Interviews were conducted personally in their respected office due to their availability in the London U.K .The time assumed for interviews were 20 to 30 minute but Interviews were longer than predicted, as participants were remarkably eager to elaborate their answers with personal experiences; each interview lasted about 30minutes to 60 minutes. 3.5 Limitations An extra care is need in preparing the questions for the interview and questionnaire as if researcher conducts the structure too loosely then it may lead to undesirable information making the result and concision less effective. Therefore structure of interview and questionnaire should be in a way that appropriate information is collected. Even semi-structured interview and questionnaire are criticized for possibility of missing information if researcher follows the structure too closely. Availability of the time restricted the research by creating the boundaries such as limited respondents for surveys as well as restricted participation of interviewers. The research was concluded in a limited time frame.

Identity Crisis in Don Delillos White Noise Essay -- White Noise Essa

Don Delillo's White Noise is a novel set in twentieth century Middle America. The story follows the life and journey of Jack Gladney, a teacher of Hitler studies and his family through their lives invaded by white noise, the constant murmur of American consumerism. The narrative follows these characters as they struggle to live life distracting themselves from their sense of reality. White Noise explores a host of character's deep underlying fears and uncertainties that keep them from discovering and revealing their true identities. The first character I would like to discuss is the protagonist, Jack Gladney. It seems as if Jack distracts himself from discovering his own identity, without it life is a mystery to him and it makes death even more mysterious. As Jack talks to Murray about death, he states that The deepest regret is death. The only thing to face is death. This is all I think about. There's only one issue here, I want to live. (270) Jack is obsessed with his fear of the unexpected. He explains to Murry that death does not make his life more satisfying, but only filled with anxiety. Jack does not want to know any information predicting his own demise, he is afraid of finding out his own "code", as in the case of his medical report that forecasts his death. There are many indications of Jack's identity crisis throughout the story-- a more prominent one is that of his identity as a teacher of Hitler studies. It seems as if Jack is fascinated with a man so in touch with death, and when teaching he hides behind large dark glasses and... ...sulting in death, Murry considers the idea that one can become an instrument of death, by taking death into one's own hands. Murry may mask his character in a way to deflect death, but he is not afraid to take interest in the mystical concepts such as religion and science, the two sources that can cause and possibly cure death itself. Fear in a person's life can cause him or her to withdraw themself, or hide from certain situations thought to be associated with his or her underlying anxieties. In White Noise, the fear of death is a prominent factor that provokes the identity crisis these characters face. It is not until a person can face, and possibly overcome, these internal fears that one can obtain his or her true identity and understand truly who he or she really is.

Essay --

The World of Cyberspace and its Effects on Social Relationships Many studies have been conducted on the various features of cyberspace, its connection to social media, and how it influences professional, intimate, and cordial relationships. Although many spectators are convinced that society’s frequent use of cyberspace has taken a turn down the wrong path, cyberspace has opened up many opportunities for professional relationships to establish, such as the relationship between Facebook usage and an increase in work values in Taiwan (Lin, Le, Khalil, & Cheng, 2012). However, contradictory results suggest that heavy use of the internet by young children, specifically adolescent girls, may be a factor of negative social well-being (Pea et al., 2012). In order to fully understand how social cyberspace affects everyday relationships, all forms of interactions must be examined. This paper will examine the positive and negative effects of cyberspace connections and whether they should be utilized and in what manner. Primary Issues Cyberspace Cyberspace is a time-dependent set of interconnected information systems and the human users that interact with these systems (Ottis & Lorents, 2010). In recent years the term â€Å"cyberspace† has been used to explain things that pertain to any type of network system and anything to do with the use of computer technology. However, given the frequent use of cyberspace and its different qualities that people use daily, human relationships are affected by the information systems. The everyday use of cyberspace has changed the way in which social identity, social interaction, and relationship formation is formed differently online than in real life (McKenna & Bargh, 2000). Cyberspace has affected the way ... ...various businesses. Social media is now used in order to recruit and hire employees for different companies. For instance, the social media site, LinkedIn, has many social profiles of individuals that are thrown in a candidate pool for different jobs. Many recruiters can find their ideal candidate by searching for key terms that may match individual’s background or show up on their personal profile (Blacksmith & Poeppelman, 2013). Although this process may make it easier for recruiters to scout potential employees, the method has its limitations. Recruiters are basing their decisions off of information provided by the unknown individuals, information that could potential be false. Also, other trivial things, like people not updating their profiles or revealing photographs of themselves that are accurate may influence the recruiter’s decision to hire someone or not.

The Joy Luck Club Essay -- Papers Amy Tan Essays

The Joy Luck Club 1. From the film The Joy Luck Club, Chinese girls were supposed to act obedient and respectful to their parents and elders. This included the girls having to abide by each and every Chinese tradition that their parents instilled in them. Girls were also expected to be quiet and considerate to their parents and elders. They were only supposed to speak when spoken to at all times. Acting out against anything their parents enforced upon them was completely unacceptable. 2. Much like to their parents and elders, Chinese girls were supposed to be quiet and obedient to their husbands and mothers-in-law. Girls were supposed to respect, and not openly question the decisions that were made in the household. These women were taught to always ask what the husband wants and to ignore their own wants and needs. Chinese wives were there mainly to provide the mother-in-law with grandsons. 3. Chinese victims of rape were treated with complete disrespect and disbelief. As with the one mother in The Joy Luck Club, she was kicked away by her own family for making such a claim. These rape victims were seen as disrespectful to their families and themselves. One social consequence of claiming rape is that their families shun the women and force them to leave their homes. Secondly, the community shuns them as well. As with the woman in the film, she was denied work and abandoned by her neighbors. She was eventually forced to marry her assailant in order to save her child. 4. One of the main psychological consequences of having the system of many wives and concubines is that not only the husband, but also wives have complete power over each other as in a hierarchical system. As in the film, the secon... ... did not afford her these things, Lindo is being very cautious, often critical, of her daughter and the choices that she has. 10. The daughters in this film struggled with traditional sex roles mainly due to the influence of their mothers. In many cases, the mothers tried desperately hard to encourage their daughters to have power over their lives, be successful, and have a strong self-esteem. This over-encouragement to lead a life that they could not, led many of the daughters to feel inferior because they could not live up to their mother's expectations. In some cases, this led to the daughters getting involved in relationships in which they relied on their husbands for power and support. So in essence, it was their mothers' extremely high hopes for their daughters that led them to feeling inferior as women when these hopes could not be fulfilled.

A Sorrowful Woman

Gail Godwin beckons a woman to know herself as a woman and not as mere in a relation to other in her much thought provoking story, â€Å"A Sorrowful Woman†.Michael Meyer said that, † Goodwin selects several key events that e place over a period of year to show us the slow decline of the Woman in her role as wife and mother.†(geocities.com, online).Marriage calls upon woman to obey and serve as a traditional good wife and mother but at the cost of her individuality, which made our protagonist to take life on a very pessimist note. We find woman in a â€Å"Sorrowful Woman† as totally tired of her relationship as a mother, a wife and of her life. Godwin says,   â€Å"The sight of them made her so sad and sick she did not want to ever see them again† (Gail, 35).This story was initially titles â€Å"Sorrowful Mother†, as whose obsession of motherhood was putting question on her individuality. But it is not a story of only mother but the question o f independent identity and individuality of all women. This dilemma brought them onto the verge of depression and ultimately their downfall. Therefore it is not the Sorrowful mother but A Sorrowful Woman.WORKS CITED Godwin, Gail. â€Å"A Sorrowful Woman† in Dream Children. Ballantine Books, 1996. Micheal Meyer, A Plot, Sorrowful Woman, Online, 22th May 2008 Available at http://www.geocities.com/davidjohntoth/102/plot.html  

Critical Movie Review Psychology: Girl, Interrupted Essay

Critical Movie Review â€Å"Girl, Interrupted† This movie revolves around a young woman named Susanna in the 1960s who is experiencing mental issues and ends up in a mental institution. Her journey focuses on her relationship with several of the other patients and nurses. At first she doesn’t believe she is ill, and resists her treatment, instead befriending another patient, Lisa, who takes her on many adventures inside and outside of the hospital. Lisa leads her down the wrong path which ends in the death of a former patient. This event leads Susanna down the right path and she dives into focusing on making herself well. The lead characters include Susanna, a young woman with borderline personality disorder. She doesn’t know what she wants to do or where to go in life. She finds herself admitted into a mental institution after taking a bottle of aspirin and drinking a bottle of vodka. Lisa is a â€Å"lifer† patient in the ward, and she clearly has some major personality, social and mental issues. It was never clearly spoken what her diagnosis was, however, some of the other girls on the ward mention sociopath, and criminally insane. She has no empathy for others around her unless it benefits her. She is manipulative and conniving. She uses the weakness of the minds in her circle to get what she wants. This intrigues Susanna, who befriends Lisa, to Susanna, she personifies freedom. Another character is Valerie, a black woman, and head nurse of Susannas ward. She doesn’t take any lip, and is a very strong mother figure in the story. Valerie is a single mother, and I believe this ad ds to her strength with dealing with the girls in the ward. There are several mental disorders depicted in Girl, Interrupted. Susanna has borderline personality disorder. This was portrayed very well, considering the clinical description of the disorder. She feels that time can go backward and forward, she frequently has flashbacks, is generally pessimistic, tends toward the company of men, whereas she is quite promiscuous. Susanna also made a feeble attempt at suicide by taking aspirin and vodka, which is what landed her in the hospital. Our book states that one thing borderline disorder sufferers do is threats or attempts at injuring themselves for attention. I believe that the talk and attempts at death are more a call for help than a desire to injure oneself. Lisa, well, she is textbook sociopathic. She is classically crazy, and portrayed well. Lisa has no empathy or feelings unless she can be benefited. She latches herself onto Susanna because she sees that Susanna can be manipulated. Lisa shows a lot of violence and false threats to acts of violence. I also believe that Lisa loves the attention, and craves it. She also gets off on pushing peoples buttons, to see how far she can push a person. This was perfectly shown when she and Susanna run away and stay with a former patient, Daisy. Lisa pushes Daisy’s buttons to a point that she hangs herself. This was a turning point in the movie where Susanna realizes that she needs and wants to get better, as well as being able to see Lisa for who she really is. Susanna initially has issues coping with her diagnosis. She believes that her being in the mental hospital is a ploy and a way to hide her by her parents. She doesn’t really understand why she is the way she is, or why she thinks the way she thinks. Befriending Lisa, is her way of rebelling in a small way. She struggles with her diagnosis but after Daisy’s death, she becomes committed to getting better. She uses the resources of the hospital to get everything off her chest, which makes her feel more normal. Wynona Rider and Angelina Jolie did a fantastic job portraying Susanna and Lisa. Ms Rider has always been a fantastic actress and her look is perfect in portraying the malaise of Susanna. You really begin to believe and feel what Susanna feels. One begins to understand the pain and suffering that Susanna is going through. She wants to fit in, maybe too much. Yet she does not want to be like her mother. She wants to be different. She is ambivalent. Ms Jolie, well, she gets the Oscar for being able to show how smart a crazy person can be. Sometimes we think of a person with a mental issue as drooling and head banging. Lisa is very smart. She sees the world like no other person can see it. Lisa believes this is an advantage, that she can see the real truth. Ms Jolie put you right in the middle of that image and almost made one afraid to open their door to a stranger. I love this movie. It has been in my collection for years and I have watched  in many times. This time through though, I was really focused on the girls’ behavior and the symptoms they displayed. I’ve always thought this movie applied to me a lot, helping me to suppress some of the feelings I have sometimes, and revealing that I need to stay on my meds as well. It also helps me know that â€Å"crazy† isn’t always â€Å"crazy† and that there is a way to get well, and stay well.

Yayoi Kusama Biography

Yayoi Kusama  is 82 years old. But when she is wheeled in, on her blue polka-dotted wheelchair, she looks more like a baby, the sort you might see played by an adult in a British pantomime. Her face is large for a Japanese woman and at odds with her smallish frame. Apart from her intense, saucer-shaped eyes and the arc of deep red lipstick across her mouth, there is something masculine about her features. She wears a lurid red wig and a dress covered in engorged polka dots. Coiled around her neck is a long red scarf decorated with worm-like black squiggles.When she is out of the spotlight, without her splashy red wig and garish outfits, she looks like a nice, grey-haired old lady. But in public situations Kusama’s art and Kusama the artist converge. It is as if the patterns she has obsessively replicated since childhood have seeped off the canvas and into the three-dimensional world of flesh and blood. Rarely has an artist so clearly articulated the art of the Sixties as the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama. The significance of her work has to do with the specific time period in which she grew up and her perception of art is determined by an inner energy.Her work also transcends earlier established and traditional border lines between disciplines of art and between art and life itself. Kusama’s career is rooted in her Japanese origin. Born in Matsumoto in 1929 she studied at the Arts and Crafts School in Kyoto. In 1957 she moved to New York, which was at the time the world center of contemporary. This move was based on her early awareness that only in New York could she continue her development as a contemporary artist.During the years she lived in New York it become apparent that compared to the conventional image of the Japanese woman, she was a human dynamo of creative energies and abundant human resources. The results of these first years in the art of Kusama were large paintings, one of them 33 feet long, of white nets which, without center and compositional features, obsessively covered the canvas with such intensity that one had the feeling the nets could continue beyond the borders. â€Å"My nets grew beyond myself and beyond the canvasses I was covering them with.They began to cover the walls, the ceiling, and finally the whole universe. I was standing at the center of the obsession over the passionate accretion and repetition inside me. † (Kusama) These early works with their radical and hypnotic repetitive energies were first exhibited in small, unknown galleries in New York and Washington. It wasn’t long before they made an international impact and were shown in the Monochrome Painting Exhibition in the Museum Schloss Morsbroich in Leverjusen, Germany in 1960.This international exhibition was a comprehensive documentation of a new concept in the arts after World War II and included works by Lucio Ponatana and Piero Manzoni from Italy, Mark Rothko from the USA, Yves Klein from France, and Otto Piene an d Guenter Uekcker from Germany. Yayoi Kusama was the only representative from Japan, and her work was a unique and independent articulation of the new art. The early Sixties in New York were years of experimentation, and one of the prime innovators in context became the Japanese immigrant Kusama.She expanded the thematic core of her work into themes like sex obsession and repetitive imagery which only much later were related to terms such as Pop Art and artists such as Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg and Roy Lichtenstein. Since 1962 Kusama has created soft sculptures, sometimes also referred to as a sewing-machine sculptures, and pieces of phallic furniture which gave expression to her underlying obsessive motif of sex.In connection with one of her early shows in the Gertrude Stein Gallery in New York in 1963 she said â€Å"these new types of sculptural works arose from a deep driving compulsion to realize in visible form the repetitive image inside of me. When this image is given fre edom, it overflows the limits of time and space. People have said that presents an irresistible force†¦that goes by its own momentum once it has started. † It is evident that the artist liked to be part of these new works of sculpture as she often posed in the nude on her own creations of phallic furniture.The Infinity Nets helped Kusama stay absorbed in her life. She wasn’t concerned about Surrealism, Pop Art, Minimal Art, or whatever, just staying in her own head. I interpret the dot motifs as representing a hallucinatory vision. Proliferating dots append themselves to scenes around Kusama, trying to flee from psychic obsession by choosing to paint the very vision of fear, from which a person would ordinarily avert their eyes. The dots make you lose yourself and then that makes you face more of what’s real within your mind.Kusama said â€Å"I paint them in quantity; in doing so, I try to escape†. Mirror Room (Pumpkin) was an installation with a neat conflation of two of her mirror installations from the mid 1960s, the Peep Show and the Infinity Mirror Room, the 1993 Mirror Room (Pumpkin) consisted of a large gallery papered floor to ceiling with a yellow and black polka dot pattern. In the centre of the space stood a mirrored box the size of a small room, with a single window in a manner reminiscent of the 1965 Peep Show.At the opening of the exhibition Kusama appeared in the room dressed in a long sorcerer’s robe and peeked hat, both of which matched her surroundings and caused her to merge with them in a manner that recalled early interactions with her Infinity Nets and Accumulations. Visually a part of the installation, Kusama was also an active agent, offering tiny yellow and black polka dotted pumpkins to anyone who entered the space.These little pumpkins were a direct reference to the 2,000 lire mirror balls that the artist had outrageously hawked from her Narcissus Garden at her first Venice Biennale. In recent y ears, the practice of Yayoi Kusama, now in her eighties, has developed in astounding ways. Already, she has transcended gender and generation, coming to resemble no less than some eternal being liberated from the cycle of reincarnation. But, come to think of it, Kusama has defied categorization for a long time, perhaps even transcending our very notion of art.In the Asian view of the cosmos — in particular, the ancient Indian cosmology of the Vedic period — the fundamental principle of the universe involves that of Brahman, enveloping the entire cosmos, and Atman, the self, with the two connected by an invisible energy; while the unification of Brahman and Atman allows an escape from reincarnation and the endless cycle of life and death. This is an idea widely accepted by Brahmanism, Hinduism and the Jains.In Buddhism, however, though the idea of reincarnation and escape from its cycle by attaining nirvana is accepted, the Buddha stressed the cosmic connectedness of al l things as causal interdependence, or pratityasamutpada. This way of thinking, which views human existence, consciously or unconsciously, as one part of the whole of creation believes in an invisible connectedness or relationship of cause and effect, and could also be described as the spatial concept underlying everything Eastern. Contemplating Yayoi Kusama’s practice in light of this cosmic view, we begin o see how her awareness of existence shares this same vast sense of scale. The hallucinations, both visual and auditory, Kusama experienced from her younger years have been attributed to a nervous disorder known as depersonalization syndrome. Those afflicted are said to perceive and experience the self as if observing from outside, divorced from their own mental processes and corporeal body. This is also explained by Kusama’s comment that, through the acts of painting and performance, ‘I have released this into a chaotic vacuum’;  Ã¢â‚¬Ëœthis' being t he mysterious something that only she can see and hear. I do find the small works on paper from the Fifties and Sixties has this world in a grain of sand, this minute but galactic quality to it. When looking, you have that feeling of, ‘my God what scale am I? ’ You get lost in this extraordinary cosmos and then are taken aback when you consider that they’re only four inches wide. I think these macroscopic realms are really extraordinary. And they’re incredibly beautiful. I was completely stunned when I first saw them. I managed to see her exhibition at the Tate Modern in London.I think it’s extraordinary that somebody so young, so far away and brought up in such a traditional environment was so able to absorb the influence of Miro and Ernst and Klee whose work she probably only saw in reproduction, then taking it all on and going on to produce work of such originality and in such great quantity. What I love is the idea that all the dayglow â€Å"br andiness† of her spots all comes back to this incredible energy from her early twenties. She also staged dozens of Happenings—what you could call â€Å"Body Festivals†Ã¢â‚¬â€in her studio and in public spaces around New York.Some were sites of authority, such as MoMA or Wall Street. Other sites, such as Tompkins Square Park and Washington Square Park, were associated with New York’s psychedelic hippie culture. She played the role of high priestess and painted the nude bodies of models on the stage with polka dots in five colors. When a Happening was staged at Times Square under her direction, a huge crowd flocked to it. Yayoi was never nude, publicly or privately. At the homosexual orgies she directed, she always stayed at a safe place with a manager in the studio to avoid being arrested by police.The studio would have been thrown into utter confusion if she had ever been arrested. The police were primarily after a bribe. When she was arrested while direc ting a Happening in Wall Street and taken into police custody, they demanded that she pay them if I wanted to be set free. Bribes ranged from $400 to $1,000. Since she paid them every time I was arrested, my Happenings ended up as a good out-of-the-way place for them to make money. Painting bodies with the patterns of Kusama’s hallucinations obliterated their individual selves and returned them to the infinite universe. This is magic.Nudity was central to Kusama’s work in those years: in addition to the Happenings, she opened a fashion boutique offering clothes she designed that were â€Å"nude, see-through, and mod. † The shop had private studios and nude models available for body painting or photographing. Kusama also opened the Church of Self-Obliteration in a SoHo loft, appointing herself the â€Å"High Priestess of Polka Dots† so she could officiate at a wedding of two gay men in 1968. She designed a large bridal gown that both men wore. Minimal art, or Minimalism, was one of the major artistic tendencies to emerge from the United States in the 1960s.Though never a unified movement — the majority of the artists associated with it actively rejected the term — it described a significant trend toward interrogating the communicative authority of the artist and the exalted status of the art object by reducing it to its basic components. The term is notoriously slippery, but it has generally come to be associated with the reductive paintings, sculptures and ‘specific objects’ — neither paintings nor sculptures — of Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, Robert Morris, Blinky Palermo, Richard Serra and Frank Stella, occasionally extending to Agnes Martin, Ad Reinhardt, Anne Truitt and others.Unlike many of their abstract expressionist predecessors, the minimalists steadfastly avoided emotionally charged gestures, often to the point of having their works industrially produced. Minimalism did not e merge in isolation, developing in dialogue with Pop art, color field painting and concrete art. Nor was its prominence particularly long-lasting; indeed, part of the tendency’s importance was the influence that its questioning of artistic convention had on subsequent developments like conceptual art and Postmodernism.When Kusama arrived in New York in 1958, the city’s powerful art scene was still in thrall to the legacy of Abstract Expressionism. The net paintings she began producing shortly after her arrival, and first exhibited the following year, were therefore received as a major revelation. Abstract expressionist critic Dore Ashton called her show a ‘striking tour de force’, while Sidney Tillim declared the artist ‘one of the most promising new talents to appear on the New York scene in years’.Though never a ‘pure’ monochrome painter, Kusama was one of the few artists working in the city who proposed that a surface could be r educed to a single, undifferentiated field, unbroken by figuration or abstract compositional devices. As Donald Judd observed on first encountering the works, her net paintings took the expansive color fields of ‘cooler’ abstractionists like Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still and Barnett Newman as a point of departure, but added something entirely new. In his review of the exhibition for  Art News, Judd described the paintings as ‘strong, advanced in concept and realized’.He continued: â€Å"The space is shallow, close to the surface and achieved by innumerable small arcs superimposed on a black ground overlain with a wash of white. The effect is both complex and simple. Essentially it is produced by the intersection of two close, somewhat parallel, vertical planes, at points merging at the surface plane and at others diverging slightly but powerfully. † (Pollock) Unlike Abstract Expressionism, the optical effects of the net paintings’ undulating f ields owed more to the material qualities of the painted surface than to any illusions of pictorial depth.Nor was their composition bound by a relationship to the painting’s frame; they were, as Kusama herself described them, ‘without beginning, end or centre’. The nets propagated according to their own internal logic, a system in which they could go on reproducing themselves across an entire room if it weren’t for the edge of the canvas, which, as a limit, was purely physical, rather than structural. This suggested that painting might be considered as a phenomenal, rather than illusory, practice — a painted surface could be thought of as a single plane of a three-dimensional object, rather than a two-dimensional pictorial ‘window’.Kusama is engaged in a never-ending mission to release the microcosms within herself to the outside, in order to project it on the macrocosms and the infinite space to which our imaginations do not extend. By facing up to this endless mission, Kusama herself is also elevated to the status of eternal being, so to speak — one who, though but a speck of dust in the universe, also has a bird’s-eye view of the entire universe.It is her infinite consciousness that transcends the time, generation, gender, region and culture, as well as the various vocabularies of contemporary art. It is also the reason Yayoi Kusama is so well-received around the world — and the reason why the force driving her is like an eternally bubbling spring. Bibliography Chadwick, Whitney, and Dawn Ades. Mirror Images: Women, Surrealism, and Self-representation. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1998. Kusama, Yayoi, and Lynn Zelevansky. Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama, 1958-1968.Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1998. Kusama, Yayoi. Yayoi Kusama: Recent Works. New York: Robert Miller Gallery, 1996. Kusama, Yayoi, and David Moos. Yayoi Kusama: Early Drawings from the Collection of Richard Castellane. Birmin gham, Ala. : Birmingham Museum of Art, 2000. Kusama, Yayoi, and Bhupendra Karia. Yayoi Kusama: A Retrospective. New York: Center for International Contemporary Arts, 1989. Pollock, Griselda. Psychoanalysis and the Image: Transdisciplinary Perspectives. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub. , 2006.