How Is Technology Affecting People Psychologically? Essay

In 1922, a doctor’s kit was the most desired toy in the United States. Almost all toys on the website â€Å"Hot Holiday Toys for 2012† were either electronic or electronic related. These toys range from Furbuddy, an electronic pet that talks, to Nintendo and Wii’ games and gaming systems. What impact is technology having on people? Today, with thousands of video games offered; nearly 1 billion users on Facebook; and the average person checking their phone close to 75 times per day, one can only wonder how this affects people psychologically. This can be seen in how the internet offers amazing information and opportunities that have changed the way people communicate. Internet World Stats website cites that the internet users have grown over 566% since 2000. Ease of access to information and communication is, of course, a big reason to use the internet, but is there more to it? Is the ability to control completely the information one reads and the people one interacts with a part of this draw to the internet? The person who holds the mouse is in control when he or she surfs the web. He or she chooses which sites to go to and which people to interact with. In many ways the user feels safe. If something negative online occurs, one can simply exit the site. On Facebook, if someone posts something the user doesn’t like, the user can block the sender or â€Å"unfriend† the offending person. Unfortunately, this negative online interaction is all too frequent. Cyber bullying is the act of bullying using electronic technology. It has become so serious that laws have been passed to outlaw it; going as far as jail time. Cyber bullying occurs with one out of six children. It can be devastating because it can happen 24 hours per day and every day of the week. The worst part about Cyber bullying is that it can even happen when the victim is alone. Cyberbullying Research Center states, â€Å"There have been many high profile and tragic incidents in the media in recent years which have linked adolescent suicides to experiences with cyber bullying.† The technology used in this type of bullying ranges from cell phones, social media sites, to chat rooms. It has become such a problem that many schools have created programs to discuss the harmful effects it causes. Cyber bullying is an example of the disinhibition effect. Psychologists have created this term meaning when people online loosen up, feel more uninhibited, and express themselves more than they ever would in a face to face conversation. It can be threatening and hurtful as in cyber bullying; or it can be what psychologist call benign disinhibition. This is when a person reveals secret emotions, fears and wishes. The user may share too much about themselves, but overall it is not harmful. This sharing of experiences has been seen as a very positive experience when regarding veterans. Many times soldiers come back from war and have feelings about their experiences that they feel civilians do not understand. Sites and chat rooms have been created to fill this need. As John Suler author of The Psychology of Cyberspace states they don’t have to worry about how others look or sound when they â€Å"say† something. Seeing a frown, a shaking head, a sigh, a bored expression, and many other signs of disapproval or indifference can stop what people are willing to express. Not being able to see expressions of a person’s feelings, leads to one expressing themselves more openly. This has created support for not just veterans, but others who reach out to people â€Å"like them† so they can connect and feel understood. Another group who seek to connect with each other are gamers. Video games have exploded in popularity since 1947. Now over 72 percent of the Americans play video games. Video games have been proven to increase decision-making skills which come in handy in a fast-paced world. They have also been proven to improve men and women’s ability to picture 3D objects states U.S Department of Defense researchers. However, as much they may be helping gamers with thinking skills; violent video games are certainly not helping with violent behavior. A study was done with two groups of college students; group one played a violent video game and group two played a nonviolent video game. The researchers measured how the students felt and how they behaved. Social Psychologist Brad Bushman at Ohio State University showed the groups two violent pictures: one of a man shoving a gun down another man’s throat; another of a man holding a knife to a woman’s throat. â€Å"What we found is for people who were exposed to a lot of violent video games; their brains did not respond to the violent images,† Bushman said. â€Å"They were numb, if you will.† People who play violent video games become numb to the violence they see. Knowing this, one may find it disturbing to know that the top three most sold video games in the US, are all listed by Parenting website in â€Å"The 10 most violent video games to avoid.† list. Does playing violent video games increase violence or just make the user numb to it? That is still to be determined. The positive effects of technology are as endless as imagination. The amazing ability to instantly have knowledge at your fingertips any time of the day or night is one benefit it is hard to imagine being without. Being able to connect with a friend continents away is a wonderful gift that keeps people in touch with each other. But like most things; technology has a negative side like cyber bullying; and the violence in video games open to children a keystroke away. Technology has no doubt changed the world, but the question becomes does the positive outweigh the negative and if so, what should be done about the negative aspects?

Disregard of Moral Values Lead to Unethical Deeds Essay

This greed for money has crossed the limits of all ethical standards, regard and consideration for fellow men, or sympathy and compassion. All these things seem to have gone with the wind and are among the major casualties of the post-independence period. This development can be considered quite a new one, probably an accompaniment of the modern technological development which is . taking place rapidly in this country, as the malaise has especially afflicted the young and the middle aged people. The increasing attraction towards the modern glamorous lifestyles, big cars and bungalows, gorgeous dresses and jewellery has such effect on people that they would not hesitate to resort tovalues all means, unfair to acquire wealth and all luxuries of life. This mad obsession for reaching the top is the dream of everybody, and as such the moral and ethical values do not seem to have any place. Morality is often defined as the doctrine of actions right or wrong it is synonymous with ethics. Moralists are selfless and preach justice in every sphere of life. If people tend to observe morals, they will constitute a healthy and sound society. Morality knows nothing of the geographical boundaries or distinctions of race or color in modern age, the traditional values which are in themselves moral and symbols of rectitude, have been radically transformed. Most of the principles are in a flux and human convictions based a rich human experience are in the melting pot. Obsessions with circumstances and the peculiar conditions prevailing in a region have proved so overpowering that everything else is thrown overboard. Excessive wealth does not necessarily promote culture and intelligence. In fact, the ostentatious and luxurious living that wealth promotes, causes a notable deterioration in character and conception of values. Rarely do highly intelligent people, famous writers or artiest belong to rich families. Since wealth itself has the habit of diminishing fast, most of those who possess it go to any extent, even to the adoption of unethical practices and dishonesty to acquire more wealth. This leads to further decay and deterioration of character. India’s Poet Laureate, Rabindra Nath Tagore warned. â€Å"Greed of wealth and power can never have a limit; a compromise on self-control can never attain the final spirit of reconciliation.

Crusades: First Crusade and New Paragraph

The Crusades were a series of religiously sanctioned military campaigns waged by much of Western Christian Europe, particularly the Franks of France and the Holy Roman Empire. The specific crusades to restore Christian control of the Holy Land were fought over a period of nearly 200 years, between 1095 and 1291. There are several reasons for the Crusades, but the importance and relevance of some are debated by scholars even to this day. (NEW PARAGRAPH) In the Middle Ages, Christians considered Palestine the Holy Land because it was where Jesus had lived and taught.The Arabs had conquered Palestine in the 600s. Most Arabs were Muslims, but they usually tolerated other religions. Jews and Christians who paid their taxes and observed other regulations were free to live in Palestine and practice their own religion. The Arab rulers didn’t usually interfere with Christian pilgrims visiting Palestine, and European traders could generally do business there. During the 1000s the Seljuk Turks, people from central Asia who had adopted the Muslim faith, conquered Palestine and attacked Asia Minor, which was part of the Byzantine Empire. NEW PARAGRAPH) When the Turks threatened the capital city of Constantinople, the Byzantine emperor appealed to the pope in Rome.Because Christian pilgrims going to Palestine came home with reports of persecution from the Turks, the Byzantine emperor’s appeal for help found a reception in Europe. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Pope Urban I wanted to regain the Holy Land from the Muslims. He called a great meeting of church leaders and French nobles at Clermont France in 1095. At the meeting he encouraged the powerful feudal nobles to stop fighting with each other, and to join in one big war against the â€Å"unbelievers. Urban’s request made his listeners very enthusiastic and they joined in one big cry, â€Å"God wills it! † (NEW PARAGRAPH) From Clermont people traveled through France preaching the cause. The people who joined the expeditions sewed a cloth cross on their clothes. They were called crusaders, from the Latin word cruciata, which means, â€Å"marked with a cross. † People joined the Crusades, the expeditions to regain the Holy Land, for many different reasons. Most knights joined the crusades for the land and plunder in the rich Middle East. Merchants saw a chance to make money.The pope promised both heavenly and earthly rewards. Those who died on a Crusade were said to go strait to heaven. (NEW PARAGRAPH) The pope also guaranteed church protection of the crusader’s property and family during his absence. Debtors who joined a Crusade had their debts canceled. Criminals were relieved of punishment. The Crusades appealed to both a love of adventure and the promise of reward- the desire to escape debts or punishment. French and Norman nobles led the First Crusade that lasted from 1096 to 1099. In three organized armies, they marched across Europe to Constantinople. NEW PARAGRAPH) The crusaders received a hostile reception in Constantinople. The Byzantine emperor had asked for some assistance, but now, seeing three armies approaching the city, he feared they might capture and plunder the capitol. After much discussion the Byzantines allowed the crusaders to pass through Constantinople to begin their long, hot march across Asia Minor toward Palestine. In their wool and leather garments and their heavy armor, the crusaders suffered severely from the heat. Because they had few pack animals, a shortage of food and water plagued them.Additional problems erupted when the leaders quarreled over fiefs in the lands they captured. Despite these difficulties, however, the crusaders forged on to capture the city of Antioch. Then they marched toward Jerusalem. If the Turks had not also been quarreling and disunited, the expedition would have failed. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Conditions improved as the crusaders marched down the seacoast toward Palestine. Fleets of ships from the It alian cities of Genoa and Pisa brought reinforcements and supplies. The crusaders captured Jerusalem after a short battle and slaughtered the Muslim inhabitants.One leader wrote to the pope that his horse’s legs had been bloodstained to the knees from riding among the bodies of the dead Muslims. In the Middle East the crusaders set up four small states: the County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch, the County of Tripole, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem. They introduced European feudalism and subdivided the land into fiefs controlled by vassals and lords. For almost a century, the Europeans occupied these lands. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Brisk European trade, with goods carried mostly in Italian ships, sprang up.Christians and Muslims lived in close proximity and grew to respect each other. Many Christians adopted Eastern customs and came to prefer Eastern food and clothing. The Second Crusade began in 1147, after the Turks had recaptured the important city of Edessa and threatened th e Kingdom of Jerusalem. In this Crusade, King Louis VII of France and the Holy Roman Emperor, Conrad III led their armies across Europe to the Holy Land. They were fighting separately, and didn’t join forces until they got to Damascus, which was held by the Turks.Luis and Conrad couldn’t capture the city and returned to Europe disgracefully in two years. In 1187 the Muslim leader Saladin recaptured Jerusalem. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Two years later the Third Crusade, the â€Å"Crusade of the Three Kings,† began and lasted until 1192. King Richard of England, King Philip Augustus of France, and Emperor Frederick Barboarossa of the Holy Roman Empire each started out at the head of a great army to regain the Holy Land. The Europeans failed once again, and an estimated 300,000 Christians and Muslims died.There were many more Crusades until 1291, when the Muslims captured the last Christian stronghold, in Acre. Fore 200 years a constant flow of Europeans streamed into the Ho ly Land. Over that period, however, the religious zeal of the crusaders had steadily dwindled. (NEW PARAGRAPH) From a military standpoint, all the Crusades except the first failed. The Muslims eventually recaptured Jerusalem and the rest of Palestine. However, Europeans learned many things of military importance, such as the crossbow, carrier pigeons and messengers, new siege tactics, and gunpowder.In Europe the Crusades increased the power of kings and decreased the power of feudal lords. Kings imposed new taxes and led armies drawn from their entire countries. The church also got more political power because of its leadership role in initiating the crusades. After the Crusades the status of women changed. When their husbands were gone they managed feudal estates. Europeans were influenced by the ideas exchanged among the crusaders form different countries and between the crusaders and the other people they met.

Immigration consequences of criminal activity Research Paper

Immigration consequences of criminal activity - Research Paper Example Annually, the INS accounts for thousands of criminal investigations. Between the period of 1997 and 2005 approximately 1.5 million people were deported by INS.1 Most are illegal aliens, half of them convicted of drug dealing and drug trafficking. In addition, it was also determined that at least 6 of the 19 September 11 hijackers were in the United States illegally, their visas having previously expired.2 Ultimately, these statistics suggest that illegal immigration has profound effects on the criminal justice system of the United States. History of Immigration and Crime in the United States As a "nation of immigrants," the United States of America and its people have witnessed the issue of immigration transform over time, from general concerns about cheap labor pushing "real Americans" out of jobs to a substantially broader policy concern with much more far-reaching economic and potentially criminal concerns. Although the events of September 11, 2001, have thrust immigration to the fore, official concern about immigration dates back to the mid-19th century. At the close of America's revolutionary period, the nation began to expand westward rapidly. The United States beckoned many settlers with its vast amount of land, temperate climate, and abundance of natural resources. The country had no restrictions on the number and type of people admitted for permanent residence. Agri ­cultural production and farm employment dominated the labor market, and most jobs required little, if any, specialized skills. Evidence suggests that newcomers entered the United States at a status equal to that of the older residents and maintained that status as time passed.3 However, in the late 19th century, United States immigration policy changed as the nation, recovering from its Civil War, began to fear the surge of foreigners pouring in. Several immigration laws passed between 1882 and 1887, including the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, banned certain nationalities from maintaini ng residence in the United States, reflecting some of the early concerns about conflicts over cheap labor. According to proponents of the law, White wage earners could not compete with Chinese, who were willing to live in squalor.4 The act prohibited immigration of persons considered to be "idiots, lunatics, convicts and persons likely to become a public charge"5. Although this statement does not report any specific criminal statistical information, it does suggest the beginning of Americans' concern about the issues of immigration and crime.6 American political policy quickly shifted during the advent of the American industrialization process. It was at this time that increased immigration became of critical importance to the assembly of an urban labor force.7 Newly introduced mechanization procedures required mainly unskilled workers to fill the nation's rapidly expanding urban labor markets. The jobs created during this era typically required little in the way of skill, education , literacy, numeracy, or even fluency in English. The immigrant laborers filling these positions generally lacked these attributes. In fact, a 42-volume U.S. government study issued in 1911 reported that the "new immigrants" (referring to those of the industrial revolution) were less educated, less skilled, and generally less desirable than the "old

Alice in Wonderland is a book that appeals to children and adults Essay

Alice in Wonderland is a book that appeals to children and adults alike - Essay Example The first element that will appeal to children is the fact that the main character in the book is a child. Children appreciate being told stories in which a girl or boy of their age-group are the protagonist. Also, while few children today will completely understand the situation of a Victorian school-girl, they will appreciate and perhaps even empathize with feeling bored when there is nothing else to do. Every child would love for the games they play within their imagination to magically come to life as they do when she hears a rabbit say "oh dear, oh dear, I shall be late" and then its action in taking "a watch out of its waistcoat pocket" (Carroll, 1992). There is an immediacy and vivid nature to the Carroll's descriptions of both animals and events within the story that appeals to children. While what occurs in the story can seem quite complicated at times, especially compared to many more modern children's stories, they are also recounted in a concrete and memorable manner. The various animals that appear in the pool of tears, the Cheshire Cat, the animals at the tea-party and the various creatures in the game of cards are all described in a way that will appeal to children. ... Thus the shrinking and enlarging that she undergoes, together with her various other adventures, introduce the children to the constant changes that occur in the book In many ways the children may be attracted to the story because it reflects their own experiences while dreaming and day-dreaming. The manner in which the story develops with the insane croquet game and the rather violent Queen who wants to execute all and sundry for the smallest of supposed transgressions appeals to children because they appreciate stories that may disturb them if not outright frighten them. Children do not appreciate being talked down to, or being presented with a sugar-coated view of the world that is not realistic. Carroll does neither. He presents a strange and exotic fantasy-world in which Alice can play croquet (or at least try to) with a flamingo and a hedgehog. This is a "fun" idea which nevertheless presents a rather bizarre view of the world. One of the most remarkable features of this world is the manner in which there is apparently no sense of morality within the book. The Queen states "off with his head" at the slightest provocation, even to the Cheshire Cat who is, of course, only a head when he appears at the croquet game. Carroll does not fall into the tendency of many children's books to moralize, he rather presents an amoral world in which things occur at random. The Cheshire Cat appears and disappears for no apparent reason, and refuses to play into the supposed social order of this world. So when the King says "it may kiss my hand, if it likes", the Cheshire Cat replies "I'd rather not" (Carroll, 1992). This exchange might be seen as a microcosm of

Organisational Behaviour Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4000 words

Organisational Behaviour - Assignment Example Hofstede explains that culture is a group of individuals with a collective mind programming. Schein (1992) explains the need for individuals to adapt to change without the need to impact the culture. It is crucial to understand the term culture before entering into the organisational culture. Cultures are deep-seated and pervasive. Schein (1992) explains that change is not possible without affecting the culture. Similarly, organisation culture is a concept used to explain the ‘similar collective mind programming’ of the individuals in the organisation. In most cases, when individuals work together in a wok environment, with the set down regulations and framework on the job, the approach to work becomes a common aspect for all employees, hence making them a group of people with similar mind programming. Based on Hofstede’s definition, this clearly makes an organisational culture. For around two and a half decades, the concept of organisational culture has been grow ing and being accepted to a great extent. Considering an open systems perspective, it is clear that the culture of an organisation is important element and environmental condition which affects the systems and the subsystems. The organisational culture is also a very valuable tool for analysis of a company and is very effective in getting a clear understanding of the company. To be able to understand the concept of culture better, it is essential to understand the definition. The next sub section details the definition of culture for organisations. Culture has been described in many different manners and various different ideas have been put forth to explain the concept. Anderson explains nations to be an ‘imagined community’ and Wallerstein explains that he is â€Å"skeptical that we can operationalise the concept of culture ... in any way that enables us to use it for statements that are more than trivial† (Wallerstein, 1990, p. 34). Another renowned author Hof stede has explained that there are four (later turned to five) main dimensions of culture (Hofstede, 1880, 1984, 1991). In 1998, he claimed that the true shift in paradigm was proved by the acceptance of the concept of unique, specific and powerful national cultures. Considering his theory, this model can be evaluated in a number of manners. The theory portrays to a great extent the national cultures that have emerged in the recent years and his theory has been more focused on the rich origin of the culture. This has been argued to be misleading as it is to a great extent considered to be immeasurable. The findings have been argued to be based mainly on the predictive value and the reviewing of smaller scale replications is also essential. Hofstede has provided a very different approach to the concept of culture. He classified culture based on dimensions. These are a) Power / Distance, b) Individualism, c) Masculinity, d) Uncertainty/Avoidance Index, and e) Long Term Orientation. Th ere have been a number of arguments regarding the accuracy of the theory. As explained by Brendan McSweeney, â€Å"Hofstede's apparently sophisticated analysis of extensive data necessarily relies on a number of profoundly flawed assumptions to measure the 'software of the mind' as did Morton's measurement of the hardware, as it were, of the mind† (Mc Sweeney, 2002, p. 116). Mc Sweeney moves on to also explain, â€Å"Hofstede's claims are excessive and unbalanced; excessive because they claim far more in terms of identifiable characteristics and consequences

Housing prices Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Housing prices - Essay Example There could be seen different changes in the prices of homes throughout the country and condos were hit lowest comparing to single -family homes. The article gives here an insight about the housing market condition during the year of 2010.The article is very precise and gives a very brief idea about the housing market. The article takes the readers straight away into the market scenario and doest not give much introduction about the topic. It would be very efficient to commence the article with description bit more about the subject in order to attract the readers and create an impact in the minds of the reader. Every article needs an introduction as it is the point where the readers get involved in the reading and continue to remain with the article. The readers must be given more information about the reason for fall in the prices of house. Little more details about the market scenario and the buyer’s behavior could have added some depth to the article. The good part of the writing was that the author has given more statistical details which are very beneficial on economic basis. But if the readers are common men they would look in for more simple explanation about the subject. Another shortcoming of the writing is that there is no conclusion to the article .It ends nowhere and this gives a very poor outlook to the article. The first thing to be done to the article if it is to be given a make over is to write a good introduction. Introduction can be about the housing market and the situation it was in during the previous years. The writing should be a proper one with an introduction a small body and conclusion, only then the article can be regarded complete. The purpose of the article is to give information to the reader about the topic and only a whole article can fulfill this purpose. The body of the article needs to be about the housing sector sales activity and also about the buyers spending behavior. The home income level of the people can also be

Conventions of Western Art Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Conventions of Western Art - Essay Example All these changes in the world economy and politics, as well as in local societies did not leave artists indifferent and have certainly had a major impact on their artistic thought, making them reconsider the purpose of art itself. Artists could not resume themselves for portraits and still life. On the contrary, they started to experiment with color and material. These circumstances have to lead to the creation of original artworks, expression in art changing as fast as the social and political changes occurred. In this paper, I will talk about three artists and their main, representative artworks that best convey the principle of originality and how their artistic thought has challenged old western conceptions about what art is supposed to be. Dadaism was a cultural movement in visual arts that appeared as a response to the cruel and inhumane nature of the First World War and came to challenge rigid intellectual principles as well as all former art conventions. Not only did the sty le deny any existing connection between rationality and artistic expression, it also rejected the artistic standards at the time. One of the most important representatives of Dadaism was Marcel Duchamp, who first built his reputation as an advisor on modern art in New York, but he also leads his activity in Paris. He exhibited in 1913, for the first time, a set of ready-made sculptures, which were basically objects found on the street or elsewhere, abandoned by their previous owners, which Duchamp decided to modify, to change their appearance.

Assignment 5, Biology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Assignment 5, Biology - Essay Example Control centre, contains genetic material (DNA & RNA) responsible for the formation of various cellular proteins responsible to carryout diverse functions for metabolism and survival of the cell. Plays imperative role in cell division. Porous nuclear membrane aids in transport of various components In animals it is the membrane separating internal cellular composition from the external environment, an osmotic membrane maintains osmotic gradient, protein molecules present in the membrane aids in transport of various substance. 3. You have compared the eukaryotic cell structure of animal and plant cells. Which of the other Kingdoms have eukaryotic cells? Using Internet sources and your text, find out how eukaryotic cells in these kingdoms differ from the plant and animal cells. Kingdom Fungi and Kingdom Protista also contain eukaryotic cells. Fungi are like plants as they are fixed and produce spores but they differ from plants in their mode of nutrition. Plants are multicellular prepare their food and are autotrophs, while fungi is also single or multicellular but is sparotroph. Kingdom protista contain unicellular organisms which are microscopic and possess well defined nucleus. They use pseudopodium or cilia or flagella for locomotion instead of appendages as in animal

Role of modern technology Essay Example for Free

Role of modern technology Essay Modern technology plays an important role in our daily lives, it is the means of communication and entertainment. Computers, televisions and smartphones has influenced our lives in different ways, nowadays everyone carries a smartphone with access to the Internet. Imagine going a whole day without your cell phone. Would you be able to function right? The advancement of many new sciences has made our lives easier and more convenient. As our technology improves, so does our quality of life. For instance new health machines have significantly increased the average life span for humans as well as household pets. There are apps and machines that people can use at home: small devices that you can plug into your computer and it will give you an overview of your body; heart rate, blood pressure, Now people can just stay at home and not visit the doctor. Today, technology influences our every move. We have Facebook, twitter, E-mail, whatsapp, line and many other social apps that enable us to stay connected with our distanced friends and families in affordable costs. It has cut down costs of travelling, online shopping is now high on rage there is huge variety of products; it saves time, and products tend to be less expensive online. Moreover this is good for the people having no time to shop for themselves. Also now people use computers for the advancement of their knowledge, books are no longer the main way to improve the understanding of a specific matter. Even though it is said that modern machines causes a lot of pollution that is abusing the environment, mechanics have invented machines that has benefited the environment in various ways, for instance the technologies like oil skimmers help make environment cleanup more effectively, also the hybrid technology, it is fuel efficient and creates fewer carbon dioxide emissions than many petrol powered cars. The hybrid technology is renowned for reliability and durability, which can result in low maintenance costs. In conclusion I think rapid advancement of technology has made a great impact on peoples life-styles, the way people communicate now has significantly  changed, the modern health machines have saved many lives and the environmental issues have been considered and so now machines are being invented which helps reduce the co2 emissions. Looking at the positive side, overall it has made society even better and there is no limit to the development of the technology.

Television and Cinema in Post Modern Society

Television and Cinema in Post Modern Society Television mocking its big brother Cinema? Through parody is television mocking its big brother Cinema or is simply feeding the post-modern society? Artistic achievement has, in most societies, usually seen as one of the highest goals for its citizens with artists held in highest esteem in society. The Classical civilizations of Rome and Ancient Greece are rightly regarded as artistic highlights of world civilizations due to the unprecedented status given to artists of all trades: poets, painters, bards, actors, sculptors and musicians. This respect for excellence in the arts still exists today However modern art is unfortunately too often derided as a thing of paltry significance as compared to the great artists of the past. FPeriods of high accomplishment such as Ancient Greece or the Renaissance are rightly regarded as containing such artists whose skill and mastery of their respective disciplines may rarely be emulated, if ever. However, is that a reason for giving up on modern artistic output? After all, the twentieth century was that of Pollock, Rockwell and Hockney. But lest we forget, in the annals of history, it is doubtful that the past 100 years will be remembered for their contribution to age-old art forms such as painting or sculpture. Instead, it seems likely and indeed fair that the 20th century will be remembered for the creation, popularization and investigation of the audio-visual arts of cinema and television. From the first shots of the train moving out of Carpentras station, cinema has moved the hearts and minds of millions. The 20th century was witness to the greatest technological advancements in human history and artistic output followed suit. After the silent pictures of the 1900s first captures audiences to the first black-and-white talkies, cinematic progress could never be checked. From success to success, people round the world would be enchanted by Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, awed by Harryhausen’s special effects, moved by Gone With The Wind and horrified by Birth Of A Nation. Every decade would bring an advancement in cinematic output, something which would revolutionize the industry once again and bring new generations into cinemas. These constant progressions in cinema would take place at a far faster rate than in other arts due to several important factors. First of all, the Industrial Revolution of the late 19th-century had sent technological development across the world into a tail-spin which impacted cinema very positively by providing studios with a constant stream of new machinery, effects possibilities. The knock-on effect from this was of course that a steady stream of technicians would be trained and employed by the great studios. We will be analyzing the hiring and firing practices of the studio moguls as compared to the lifelong television employees further on in this dissertation. Another great reason for the appeal of cinema would be the characters contained within it. The glamour of Hollywood until the 1940s would make audiences dream across five continents up to the present day. The gritty reality of much of today’s cinematic output had not even been imagined and movies were used to make people dream of a greater life. We will use this opportunity to further analyze the setting-up of the movie studios, the Jewish origins of most of the moguls and the taste of Americana they injected into their projects later on. Furthermore, we will draw up a detailed comparison between the early days of both film and television, analyzing which tactics worked better in the battles for a limited audience. Even horrifying world events such as World War II would provide the film industry with invigoration as Hollywood and the pre-war German film studios would engage in a rivalry, the like of which has rarely been seen in the arts. With the Hollywood ban on exporting American films to the Third Reich, the motivation for German film-makers was extraordinary and names such as Murnau and Lang emerged as major players on the world cinema scene. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of them fled Germany during or after the war to seek new lives in Hollywood. Many failed but some met with varying measures of success, the greatest legacy of this time possibly contained in Fritz Lang’s masterpiece Metropolis, the ominous skyline filled with skyscrapers working as a tribute to Lang’s first impressions of seeing New York harbour from far out at sea. However, even from that darkest period of human history has emerged some of the most shocking and lasting pieces of film. The films shot by the Allied forces of the Nazi concentration camps have proved perhaps the most important factor of documentary cinema. Beyond the artistry, beyond the emotional impact, cinema has provided humankind with an unlimited opportunity to document its own history, both good and bad. An opportunity television executives would notice and pick up on. Even today, the claims made by CNN and BBC such as ‘We are there as the news happens’ stem from the passion for news-stories instilled in people during the World War when small news flashes shown as previews before films in movie theatres were the only pictures civilians at home had of the war outside of newspapers. These propagandistic items were of course good for morale and television would soon enter into the fray, edging cinema out to take a monopoly over showing news programs. We must also consider another important area of research. The ‘parodying’ between television and cinema is a term of some ambiguity. Within this dissertation, we will also try and highlight the inherent differences between the terms of parody and emulation. As per rivalry in any kind of industry, some actions that may seem to be a parody of existing practices are in fact no more than emulation, a mere attempt to capitalize on a rival’s success. The concept of parody on the other hand is a very subtle one. Although television and cinema are by definition filled with some of the most acerbic minds in the world, minds quite ripe to create parody, it is somewhat naà ¯ve to think that these people would be allowed to impact decisions on scheduling and programme production. Only those at the summit of their popularity would be allowed their own shows, let alone given creative control of their shows. A recent example of this happening in Britain would be So Graham Norton. However, even these shows often fail as can be demonstrated as can be seen through the antics of stars such as Liza Minnelli, John McEnroe or Anna Nicole Smith. Thus, we can observe that the concept of pure parody being used by cinema and television for its own sake is somewhat mortifying, given the massive financial risks such an undertaking would incur. However, if parody was created to feed the viewing desires of a post-modern audience, then such an action becomes more realistic. To study this, we shall take an in-depth look at the nature of today’s post-modern audience and their viewing habits. In this dissertation, we will be looking in more depth at the first fledgling footsteps of both these art forms, the characters that helped build them up to their global statuses as well as two important periods in their history. The 50s and 60s where cinema and television were in direct competition through the slow transition period of the 70s and 80s into the modern-day scenario of co-operation. With this journey through time, we will be looking at trends pioneered by each of them and looking at any sharing or borrowing of ideas between the two mediums, we shall observe their long and drawn-out rivalry as well as the numerous examples of co-operation between them. The Glamour Years or the faint ridicule of cinema’s golden age If 90% of leadership is showing up, then we can hardly be surprised at the manner in which the men who would become studio moguls quickly rose to the top of this brand new industry. The founders of Paramount, RKO, MGM, Fox and Warner Bros. were for the vast majority immigrants or children of immigrants who had come to America either to seek their fortune or who had grown up with the image of America as this place of opportunity. In the first two decades of the 20th century, these views were far truer than they are now but to attain what one desired when the bar was so high, a lot of hard work would have to be carried out over many years. Thankfully, hard work was what these men’s families had been built on. Possessing this instinct along with a fine sense for business acumen, which some would sarcastically claim was due to their Jewish nature, Mayer, Goldwyn and the others would take the American cinematic market by storm. Before continuing, let us dispel any lingering images of these men helping each other out on their way to success. They entered a ruthless line of business where they were in direct competition and they tried everything to ruin each other, from slandering each other in the popular press to stealing actors and actresses. However, more united them than the moguls would have cared to admit. Since most of them had risen from humble beginnings, their visions of America were an embodiment of the American Dream that had influenced the migration of countless thousands from their home countries. The MGM studio, for example, would become synonymous with Technicolor musicals such as The Wizard of Oz portraying the world as a happy, bright place where everyone lived contently. The Warners would take a more active interest in social commentary but even their early efforts never went too far in criticizing a society that had offered them so much. Across the studio divide, the concepts of method acting had never even been considered and the goal of cinema was to make their actors and actresses look glamorous while portraying a style of life that would make every American dream in wonder. Why this image can be considered with a slight tint of ridicule is its existence in the middle of such troubled times. In the space of thirty years, America would fight in the two bloodiest conflicts in human history yet still, the studios churned out glossy movies, filled with beautiful dames and jolly banter. But here, once again, we strike a familiar obstacle, one that both film and television have met too many times. Too often in criticism about their history, studios or television networks are blamed for the programmes they carry or films they produce. Unfortunately, whilst they cannot be absolved of all blame, the relationship between social trends and popular entertainment is an obvious one. At a time in its history when America was fighting wars, undergoing a recession as well as Prohibition, the last thing American audiences wanted was to be served up with depressing fare that they could identify with. If another example of this is needed, look at what kind of cinema was popularized in the 50s. After the war, the film noir came of age and rose to ascendancy when American society was doing well and people felt good about themselves. A crucial fact that those who are all too quick to lay blame at the feet of the studios is that films and television programs will only be made if their creators feel they will be well-received by the general public. Television’s first faltering footsteps The intertwining and complex relationship between cinema and television cannot only be analyzed from the perspectives of programme similarity and audience sharing. Those who decided on what programmes should be commissioned, those who researched audiences to determine what kind of target audiences should be tapped, those who decided on what type of scheduling to choose at any given time of day, these television executives, producers and network directors would be the ones that would outline how television would evolve from one year to the next. As has been explained, television channels found themselves confronted with a very difficult challenge. Whereas film studios had been opened in great pomp and ceremony with the budgets of their moguls behind them thus allowing them to find their feet and carve their respective identities without a vast amount of competitive pressure placed upon them. Television did not benefit from such an auspicious start. The challenge that faced channels was to find their own identities and thus capture individual audience shares whilst fighting an uphill struggle to dislodge cinema from its spot atop the entertainment mountain. To take this would kind a special kind of organization. How could television not only catch up to cinema but also surpass it in popularity? Well, television started out with two significant advantages. Firstly, that of money. The far larger amount of broadcasting time inherent to television made it a much more viable target for financial gain than cinema which could only show any adverts to limited audiences. The commercial prospects of television soon became clear and this links us neatly with its second trump card. Throughout the 50s, television’s popularity exploded and families were rushing to buy them. The reason this had not occurred during the 1940s was that regulations concerning this new kind of entertainment were still getting sorted out and freed of problems. At the end of the 40s, television was still a luxury and commissions for TV channels had only really affected the East and West Coasts. However, in the 50s, the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) decided to make the acquisition of such a commission far easier and soon, channels began appearing across the States, often broadcasting to a small area but carrying only limited-interest stories for its local people. Thus, television watching became a far more personal affair. As far as programme content, a specific identity for television developed slowly through the 50s with the launching of successful sitcoms such as I Love Lucy which carried high audience shares across the country. However, we can distinguish here the first example of a parody between two entertainment methods. Shows that were once popular on radio were being copied to television, with I Love Lucy a prime example of this. (Wikipedia, 2005) illustrates the identity-forming process of television by explaining how local television stations helped shape this process. Moving on from   merely showing advertisements for local companies, they began showing small serials and talk shows, some of which became national phenomenons. The local nature of this kind of television would eventually mostly fade away by the 70s but the damage done to cinema was irreparable. Television had entered the hearts and minds of successive American generations and it was here to stay. Here, we can draw a major comparison between cinema and television potentially parodying it. Merely watching a few episodes of these old-school sitcoms, we cannot help but be struck at the similarity of tone to the pre-war Hollywood days. It is necessary to diverge briefly to explain the state of mind of 1950s America. Before the war, the USA had undergone a massive recession caused by the Wall Street Crash and thus, it had fallen to the entertainment industry to help people forget their woes. The film industry had done this, as shown above, but the changes it had caused had not died away. Although World War II had caused the death of many a gallant young man, it had lifted the USA into a very buoyant mindset. With the European powers needing a decade more to recover from the conflict, with Japan’s military and economic potential temporarily annihilated, with China still reeling from its murderous invasion, the Soviet Union remained the only true challenge to America’s supremacy. But the Cold War had not yet begun in earnest and in the late 40s and early 50s, the USA saw itself as the world’s only true superpower. The much denigrated Eisenhower presidency kept the economy stable through a tricky balancing act and for most of America, life was good. The Americana dream adapted to no longer be a picture of great wealth but of blissful happiness. The family unit of 2.4 children, living in the comfortable and safe suburban districts with a white picket fence around a big house, was a dream that many wished to achieve and television could reflect that. Shows such as I Love Lucy portrayed a heavenly, glossy picture of American society which is ultimately matched nowhere in entertainment except among the idyllic American communities shown in early studio films. The Warners, Mayer and the others had all built up their studios from the ground up thanks to their own hard work. They were living proof of the possibilities America offered and thus showed this in their films. Television in the 50s emulated this entirely. The era was different, the clothing more modern but the ensemble feeling remained the same. This was not merely borne out in television sitcoms but also in adverts. Sitcoms would be interrupted for commercial upon commercial selling the latest washing-machine, vacuum-cleaner or kitchen appliance without which the dutiful housewife could not live. It is oddly ironic that many of today’s stereotypes about the 50s are a product of this kind of television. It needs to be remembered, However, that this often derided type of family life where the children skipped to school, rosy-cheeked and clutching an apple, while the father gave his loving wife a demure kiss on the cheek before heading to the office in his beautiful Chevrolet is not merely a myth. Around the suburbs of New York, San Francisco and the like, many families not only lived this kind of life but their children and grandchildren still do today. However, the way in which television chose to reflect this society in a utopian sense, glossing over any unpleasantness, was a definite rehashing of the technique used by the film studios of Hollywood twenty years previously. The adaptation of the two mediums and their direct battle for audience shares As television successfully found its feet and began a posing direct threat to cinema, studios were forced to change. After all, no other new form of entertainment had entered general society since the arrival of cinema before television and thus, cinema would have to fight to keep its audiences. A couple of things could be seen as certain before these changes would proceed. Firstly, cinema would never rival television for mass popularity and market potential due to the overwhelming availability of television and its presence in an increasing number of households across America. Secondly, one of television’s worrying tendencies was to garner a lot of advertising money from a wide swathe of big American companies. Electrical appliances, cars, clothes, foodstuffs and drinks were all sold on television during commercial breaks, a fact that cinema could not copy. However, studio executives soon found ways round this problem, ways in which although adverts could not be shown during the movie, surreptitious showing of products could have a similar effect. Product placement was born. Admittedly, in a society which with every passing year produces more and wastes more, it seems that studios have become less adept at making product placement seem natural rather than obvious. The 007 series had always been a treasure trove for companies wishing to place their symbols on James Bond’s latest gadget. With the arrival of Pierce Brosnan into the role However, any shred of subtlety vanished to be replaced with highly obvious use of products. For example, Brosnan’s type of car had always been one of the highlights of the film. In Die Another Day, the presence of the painfully named Aston Martin ‘Vanish’ only served as a sales pitch for the Vanquish. Such utterly shameless product placement did reach a crescendo in 2004 where the amount of plugging for Sony and Converse in I, Robot would have made Isaac Asimov turn in his grave. However, such behaviour can shed some light onto the type of post-modern audience that we are evolving in. Those detractors who claim that post-modernism is merely the natural by-product of such a senselessly wasteful society whose mechanisms result in the attempted alienation of anyone showing a shred of individuality. Whether this is true or not is difficult to ascertain but what is lamentable is that the artistic integrity which has existed since Aristotle is being compromised in cinema out of the desire to keep up with television. Thankfully, the presence of adverts in television, even if sometimes the length of advert breaks can be infuriating has meant this has not happened in television’s case. If we evolve in a post-modernist society, then these differing methods of merely pandering to our consumer’s instincts could seem to be a by-product of intense competition between two forms of popular entertainment. Unfortunately, cinema’s rapid changes would lead to renewed controversy over its spectatorship and its impact thereupon as explained by Lynn Spigel. The concept of spectatorship in itself is a fascinating one, not just within the framework of this dissertation, but also within the field of cinema and television research. The bearings that society can have upon an audience’s watching habits are a crucial fact to understanding how individuals, larger target groups or entire demographics will react to any kind of program. (Spigel, 1998) places the birth of the issue of spectatorship in the 70s as film studies began increasing in popularity. This rise in popularity and its link to audience research are vital as we can use them to comprehend not just how an audience would react to a pioneering film or series in either cinema or television but also how it would react to a parody or any kind of wholesale copying of a popular film or series by another medium of entertainment. The issues raised by Spigel are ones, she claims, whose roots lie back in the ideals of Marx and Lacan. From a psycho-analytical perspective, Spigel writes of the complexities of spectatorship research given the psychological aspects behind it. Although Spigel’s thoughts may be questioned in themselves, they do offer conclusive evidence of audience diversity today and how carefully each aspect of this diversity needs to be considered before deciding on scheduling or production. In this, we can see the great precautions television executives must need to take in order to contemplate parodying of any kind of popular film. Modern television, its workings and its impact upon the world Big, brash, loud. Three words which could describe much of the television programmes produced in America in recent years. Long gone is the demure image of the family sitting down to enjoy some good old American-style programming with shows such as Bewitched or I Dream of Jeannie. Let’s face it, if these shows were produced today, they would face some accusations of glorifying witchcraft, yet another practice banned in Leviticus’ long list of gripes against the world. Somehow, the image of ABC being picketed for showing re-runs of Bewitched may at first strike us as absurd but with careful thought, does this seem so unlikely? One of the major problems facing network directors and schedulers is the problems they could face if showing any material seen as even slightly offensive to anybody. We will not engage here in mindless America-bashing but in a country that has long defended the right to free speech, both the film and television industries are being lambasted by religious and family protection groups for promoting violence and pornography. Whilst this could be understood if horror films were shown at hours when children watched TV or if their cartoons professed truly immoral practices but when complaints relate to Elmer Fudd shooting Bugs Bunny, one can wonder if the world has gone crazy. However insane these complaints can appear to be, they are still a startlingly important reality for today’s television. They form one of the biggest pressures on television executives who are caught in a tricky balancing act. They must maintain their audience shares by scheduling popular programming whilst also keeping packs of demented denigrators at bay. Interestingly, regulations concerning the effect of violent or sexual programming have been in place for decades. After all, most channels, even now with the new glut of cable and digital operators, have respected the 9 o’clock watershed before broadcasting any overly offensive material. Have they been secretly breaching rules of moral conduct in recent years? Whilst it is certain that television programmes do have an impact on those who watch them and while children will always care little about rules or regulations that protect them from exposition to negative images, can this be said to be the wholesale fault of the television industry? If the people want games, then games they shall have. This syllogism is one without which television stations cannot operate and although appeals could be made for public decency, violent and pornographic programmes will only be made and shown as long as the public has an interest in them. Thus, society should look to what elements within itself cause television to broadcast this type of programming rather than attack television for it. A recent example that shows just what a level of frenzy has been reached was the 2004 Superbowl. Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson provided the entertainment when Timberlake ripped off part of Jackson’s outfit, exposing her pierced right breast. Whether the stunt was pre-prepared or not has not been made crystal clear but the furore that surrounded the incident was mind-boggling. The family protection and decency groups went insane, denouncing all film and television workers as Hollywood sleaze. The fact that this slip occurred during an event with global broadcasting and with audiences reaching into the hundreds of millions blew it out of all proportion. For some reason, that a breast had been shown on national television before the watershed was seen as being a massive breach of public decency and as potentially warping the fragile little minds of innocent children. This level of problems goes a long way to showing the tonnage of pressure placed upon television channels. However, it is thankfully a trend that has not seemed to take hold outside the USA. The EU, Japan and Canada are subjected to the same kind of programming and although some complaints are voiced, they never garner so much media attention. Thus, we can see that the manners in which television panders to its audiences vary from country to country. We have highlighted television’s modus operandi in the USA but let us consider a cross-section of Japanese audiovisual entertainment. More than 20% of Japan’s cinematic output and a vast swathe of its popular television programs are made up of anime. Anime cartoons usually contain far more involved storyline than their American counterparts, replete with high levels of violence, sexy and skimpily-clad female characters and yet, these are watched by children of all ages. Does Japan thus see a higher violence rate among young children? No, in fact, the proportion of it is far lower in Japan than it is in the USA. However, even Japanese anime does not make it onto American airwaves without massive cuts by the censorship office. A good example of this is constituted by the popular anime series, Dragonball Z. In it, a group of fighters defend Earth from invasion by evil aliens or androids. Throughout its 250+ episodes, the show contains high levels of violence, including dismembering, decapitation and the beating of children. As can be imagined, when the show was broadcast in America on Cartoon Network, all these passages were cut to spare the minds of our children. However, in Japan, Dragonball Z aired in all its unadulterated gore and no-one seemed the worse for wear. This is not to say that so much violence on TV is good. Indeed, it is lamentable that it should exist at all but it is highly unfair to lay the blame for any consequences at the feet of an industry which is doing its best to keep as many people happy as possible. Although, we have taken a standpoint in attacking America for its high sensitivity when it comes to protecting its children, we have recently been confronted with proof that this type of protest does not only occur in the USA. For ten years, Jerry Springer shocked the nation with its own brand of low chatshow humour. Famed topics of debate involved the KKK, incest and bestiality. It had met with both acclaim and criticism at home, some calling it a true social commentary, other cheap laughter at others’ misfortunes. Anyway, the comedic potential of the idea was soon seen and in 2002, it was turned into a musical named Jerry Springer: The Opera, starring David Soul as Jerry Springer, showing in the West End and on Broadway. Controversy courted it throughout but its great success shouted down these demons. However, in January 2005, the BBC decided to show the musical in its entirety. As soon as this decision was made public, Christian right-wing groups attacked the BBC for insulting Christians when it would not dare the same about Muslims or Jews. While this claim did have some merit, the BBC ignored these claims and broadcast the show at 10 o’clock on a Monday night with clear warning beforehand about the potentially offensive content within it. Examples of this type of occurrence could number in their hundreds but they are an ideal way of investigating how modern audiences identify with television programmes and react to them. One of the basic tenets is that post-modernism is that reactions to any situation are processes created by each individual and that thus, clear definitions of knowledge or art encompassing a group or a society are baseless. In this, it can be argued that the very concept of a post-modern audience is flawed. However, whatever theory we choose to engage with, we cannot reject human nature. In the last twenty years, it seems that many among the generation of young people across America who fought in the 60s and 70s against Vietnam, against the Cold War, for Civil Rights and for many other noble causes have become dangerously jaded. America’s quality of life at the end of the 70s and in the 80s reached a high unseen since the 50s. Although the gap between rich and poor was ever-widening, the lifestyles of the middle and upper classes were prodigious. America was still afflicted with problems in Iran, Central America but the Soviet Block was crumbling and the mood among the general population was good. However, in the 80s and 90s occurred a phenomenon that not many people had truly predicted. The baby-boomers who had so been influential in re-shaping America after World War II were themselves beginning to be required to pass the torch to the next generation. Thus, the norms of society that they had created were themselves being challenged by their children. This shift occurred through the appropriation of traditional American areas of life by the younger generation such as television, cinema, the press as well as the fledgling Internet. We will look in further detail at the emergence of teenagers as a separate marketing entity and the impact of the home video on cinema and television as it entered this confused social maze. (Carberry, 2000) picks up on the popular image of television being viewed as a window on the world. This image, although adequate in some respects, also fails to pay attention to one crucial fact about television. If we look out of a window, we are certain that we will see will be real. A television does not offer this capacity. Television programmes are constructed and even factual news bulletins or documentaries can be edited to look the way the news director wants them to. We know enough of methods of communication to realize the propagandistic power of television and therefore we are conscious that we must always take a step back when rationalizing about something we have seen on television. Television, by its very nature, is as big a construct as cinema however Television and Cinema in Post Modern Society Television and Cinema in Post Modern Society Television mocking its big brother Cinema? Through parody is television mocking its big brother Cinema or is simply feeding the post-modern society? Artistic achievement has, in most societies, usually seen as one of the highest goals for its citizens with artists held in highest esteem in society. The Classical civilizations of Rome and Ancient Greece are rightly regarded as artistic highlights of world civilizations due to the unprecedented status given to artists of all trades: poets, painters, bards, actors, sculptors and musicians. This respect for excellence in the arts still exists today However modern art is unfortunately too often derided as a thing of paltry significance as compared to the great artists of the past. FPeriods of high accomplishment such as Ancient Greece or the Renaissance are rightly regarded as containing such artists whose skill and mastery of their respective disciplines may rarely be emulated, if ever. However, is that a reason for giving up on modern artistic output? After all, the twentieth century was that of Pollock, Rockwell and Hockney. But lest we forget, in the annals of history, it is doubtful that the past 100 years will be remembered for their contribution to age-old art forms such as painting or sculpture. Instead, it seems likely and indeed fair that the 20th century will be remembered for the creation, popularization and investigation of the audio-visual arts of cinema and television. From the first shots of the train moving out of Carpentras station, cinema has moved the hearts and minds of millions. The 20th century was witness to the greatest technological advancements in human history and artistic output followed suit. After the silent pictures of the 1900s first captures audiences to the first black-and-white talkies, cinematic progress could never be checked. From success to success, people round the world would be enchanted by Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, awed by Harryhausen’s special effects, moved by Gone With The Wind and horrified by Birth Of A Nation. Every decade would bring an advancement in cinematic output, something which would revolutionize the industry once again and bring new generations into cinemas. These constant progressions in cinema would take place at a far faster rate than in other arts due to several important factors. First of all, the Industrial Revolution of the late 19th-century had sent technological development across the world into a tail-spin which impacted cinema very positively by providing studios with a constant stream of new machinery, effects possibilities. The knock-on effect from this was of course that a steady stream of technicians would be trained and employed by the great studios. We will be analyzing the hiring and firing practices of the studio moguls as compared to the lifelong television employees further on in this dissertation. Another great reason for the appeal of cinema would be the characters contained within it. The glamour of Hollywood until the 1940s would make audiences dream across five continents up to the present day. The gritty reality of much of today’s cinematic output had not even been imagined and movies were used to make people dream of a greater life. We will use this opportunity to further analyze the setting-up of the movie studios, the Jewish origins of most of the moguls and the taste of Americana they injected into their projects later on. Furthermore, we will draw up a detailed comparison between the early days of both film and television, analyzing which tactics worked better in the battles for a limited audience. Even horrifying world events such as World War II would provide the film industry with invigoration as Hollywood and the pre-war German film studios would engage in a rivalry, the like of which has rarely been seen in the arts. With the Hollywood ban on exporting American films to the Third Reich, the motivation for German film-makers was extraordinary and names such as Murnau and Lang emerged as major players on the world cinema scene. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of them fled Germany during or after the war to seek new lives in Hollywood. Many failed but some met with varying measures of success, the greatest legacy of this time possibly contained in Fritz Lang’s masterpiece Metropolis, the ominous skyline filled with skyscrapers working as a tribute to Lang’s first impressions of seeing New York harbour from far out at sea. However, even from that darkest period of human history has emerged some of the most shocking and lasting pieces of film. The films shot by the Allied forces of the Nazi concentration camps have proved perhaps the most important factor of documentary cinema. Beyond the artistry, beyond the emotional impact, cinema has provided humankind with an unlimited opportunity to document its own history, both good and bad. An opportunity television executives would notice and pick up on. Even today, the claims made by CNN and BBC such as ‘We are there as the news happens’ stem from the passion for news-stories instilled in people during the World War when small news flashes shown as previews before films in movie theatres were the only pictures civilians at home had of the war outside of newspapers. These propagandistic items were of course good for morale and television would soon enter into the fray, edging cinema out to take a monopoly over showing news programs. We must also consider another important area of research. The ‘parodying’ between television and cinema is a term of some ambiguity. Within this dissertation, we will also try and highlight the inherent differences between the terms of parody and emulation. As per rivalry in any kind of industry, some actions that may seem to be a parody of existing practices are in fact no more than emulation, a mere attempt to capitalize on a rival’s success. The concept of parody on the other hand is a very subtle one. Although television and cinema are by definition filled with some of the most acerbic minds in the world, minds quite ripe to create parody, it is somewhat naà ¯ve to think that these people would be allowed to impact decisions on scheduling and programme production. Only those at the summit of their popularity would be allowed their own shows, let alone given creative control of their shows. A recent example of this happening in Britain would be So Graham Norton. However, even these shows often fail as can be demonstrated as can be seen through the antics of stars such as Liza Minnelli, John McEnroe or Anna Nicole Smith. Thus, we can observe that the concept of pure parody being used by cinema and television for its own sake is somewhat mortifying, given the massive financial risks such an undertaking would incur. However, if parody was created to feed the viewing desires of a post-modern audience, then such an action becomes more realistic. To study this, we shall take an in-depth look at the nature of today’s post-modern audience and their viewing habits. In this dissertation, we will be looking in more depth at the first fledgling footsteps of both these art forms, the characters that helped build them up to their global statuses as well as two important periods in their history. The 50s and 60s where cinema and television were in direct competition through the slow transition period of the 70s and 80s into the modern-day scenario of co-operation. With this journey through time, we will be looking at trends pioneered by each of them and looking at any sharing or borrowing of ideas between the two mediums, we shall observe their long and drawn-out rivalry as well as the numerous examples of co-operation between them. The Glamour Years or the faint ridicule of cinema’s golden age If 90% of leadership is showing up, then we can hardly be surprised at the manner in which the men who would become studio moguls quickly rose to the top of this brand new industry. The founders of Paramount, RKO, MGM, Fox and Warner Bros. were for the vast majority immigrants or children of immigrants who had come to America either to seek their fortune or who had grown up with the image of America as this place of opportunity. In the first two decades of the 20th century, these views were far truer than they are now but to attain what one desired when the bar was so high, a lot of hard work would have to be carried out over many years. Thankfully, hard work was what these men’s families had been built on. Possessing this instinct along with a fine sense for business acumen, which some would sarcastically claim was due to their Jewish nature, Mayer, Goldwyn and the others would take the American cinematic market by storm. Before continuing, let us dispel any lingering images of these men helping each other out on their way to success. They entered a ruthless line of business where they were in direct competition and they tried everything to ruin each other, from slandering each other in the popular press to stealing actors and actresses. However, more united them than the moguls would have cared to admit. Since most of them had risen from humble beginnings, their visions of America were an embodiment of the American Dream that had influenced the migration of countless thousands from their home countries. The MGM studio, for example, would become synonymous with Technicolor musicals such as The Wizard of Oz portraying the world as a happy, bright place where everyone lived contently. The Warners would take a more active interest in social commentary but even their early efforts never went too far in criticizing a society that had offered them so much. Across the studio divide, the concepts of method acting had never even been considered and the goal of cinema was to make their actors and actresses look glamorous while portraying a style of life that would make every American dream in wonder. Why this image can be considered with a slight tint of ridicule is its existence in the middle of such troubled times. In the space of thirty years, America would fight in the two bloodiest conflicts in human history yet still, the studios churned out glossy movies, filled with beautiful dames and jolly banter. But here, once again, we strike a familiar obstacle, one that both film and television have met too many times. Too often in criticism about their history, studios or television networks are blamed for the programmes they carry or films they produce. Unfortunately, whilst they cannot be absolved of all blame, the relationship between social trends and popular entertainment is an obvious one. At a time in its history when America was fighting wars, undergoing a recession as well as Prohibition, the last thing American audiences wanted was to be served up with depressing fare that they could identify with. If another example of this is needed, look at what kind of cinema was popularized in the 50s. After the war, the film noir came of age and rose to ascendancy when American society was doing well and people felt good about themselves. A crucial fact that those who are all too quick to lay blame at the feet of the studios is that films and television programs will only be made if their creators feel they will be well-received by the general public. Television’s first faltering footsteps The intertwining and complex relationship between cinema and television cannot only be analyzed from the perspectives of programme similarity and audience sharing. Those who decided on what programmes should be commissioned, those who researched audiences to determine what kind of target audiences should be tapped, those who decided on what type of scheduling to choose at any given time of day, these television executives, producers and network directors would be the ones that would outline how television would evolve from one year to the next. As has been explained, television channels found themselves confronted with a very difficult challenge. Whereas film studios had been opened in great pomp and ceremony with the budgets of their moguls behind them thus allowing them to find their feet and carve their respective identities without a vast amount of competitive pressure placed upon them. Television did not benefit from such an auspicious start. The challenge that faced channels was to find their own identities and thus capture individual audience shares whilst fighting an uphill struggle to dislodge cinema from its spot atop the entertainment mountain. To take this would kind a special kind of organization. How could television not only catch up to cinema but also surpass it in popularity? Well, television started out with two significant advantages. Firstly, that of money. The far larger amount of broadcasting time inherent to television made it a much more viable target for financial gain than cinema which could only show any adverts to limited audiences. The commercial prospects of television soon became clear and this links us neatly with its second trump card. Throughout the 50s, television’s popularity exploded and families were rushing to buy them. The reason this had not occurred during the 1940s was that regulations concerning this new kind of entertainment were still getting sorted out and freed of problems. At the end of the 40s, television was still a luxury and commissions for TV channels had only really affected the East and West Coasts. However, in the 50s, the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) decided to make the acquisition of such a commission far easier and soon, channels began appearing across the States, often broadcasting to a small area but carrying only limited-interest stories for its local people. Thus, television watching became a far more personal affair. As far as programme content, a specific identity for television developed slowly through the 50s with the launching of successful sitcoms such as I Love Lucy which carried high audience shares across the country. However, we can distinguish here the first example of a parody between two entertainment methods. Shows that were once popular on radio were being copied to television, with I Love Lucy a prime example of this. (Wikipedia, 2005) illustrates the identity-forming process of television by explaining how local television stations helped shape this process. Moving on from   merely showing advertisements for local companies, they began showing small serials and talk shows, some of which became national phenomenons. The local nature of this kind of television would eventually mostly fade away by the 70s but the damage done to cinema was irreparable. Television had entered the hearts and minds of successive American generations and it was here to stay. Here, we can draw a major comparison between cinema and television potentially parodying it. Merely watching a few episodes of these old-school sitcoms, we cannot help but be struck at the similarity of tone to the pre-war Hollywood days. It is necessary to diverge briefly to explain the state of mind of 1950s America. Before the war, the USA had undergone a massive recession caused by the Wall Street Crash and thus, it had fallen to the entertainment industry to help people forget their woes. The film industry had done this, as shown above, but the changes it had caused had not died away. Although World War II had caused the death of many a gallant young man, it had lifted the USA into a very buoyant mindset. With the European powers needing a decade more to recover from the conflict, with Japan’s military and economic potential temporarily annihilated, with China still reeling from its murderous invasion, the Soviet Union remained the only true challenge to America’s supremacy. But the Cold War had not yet begun in earnest and in the late 40s and early 50s, the USA saw itself as the world’s only true superpower. The much denigrated Eisenhower presidency kept the economy stable through a tricky balancing act and for most of America, life was good. The Americana dream adapted to no longer be a picture of great wealth but of blissful happiness. The family unit of 2.4 children, living in the comfortable and safe suburban districts with a white picket fence around a big house, was a dream that many wished to achieve and television could reflect that. Shows such as I Love Lucy portrayed a heavenly, glossy picture of American society which is ultimately matched nowhere in entertainment except among the idyllic American communities shown in early studio films. The Warners, Mayer and the others had all built up their studios from the ground up thanks to their own hard work. They were living proof of the possibilities America offered and thus showed this in their films. Television in the 50s emulated this entirely. The era was different, the clothing more modern but the ensemble feeling remained the same. This was not merely borne out in television sitcoms but also in adverts. Sitcoms would be interrupted for commercial upon commercial selling the latest washing-machine, vacuum-cleaner or kitchen appliance without which the dutiful housewife could not live. It is oddly ironic that many of today’s stereotypes about the 50s are a product of this kind of television. It needs to be remembered, However, that this often derided type of family life where the children skipped to school, rosy-cheeked and clutching an apple, while the father gave his loving wife a demure kiss on the cheek before heading to the office in his beautiful Chevrolet is not merely a myth. Around the suburbs of New York, San Francisco and the like, many families not only lived this kind of life but their children and grandchildren still do today. However, the way in which television chose to reflect this society in a utopian sense, glossing over any unpleasantness, was a definite rehashing of the technique used by the film studios of Hollywood twenty years previously. The adaptation of the two mediums and their direct battle for audience shares As television successfully found its feet and began a posing direct threat to cinema, studios were forced to change. After all, no other new form of entertainment had entered general society since the arrival of cinema before television and thus, cinema would have to fight to keep its audiences. A couple of things could be seen as certain before these changes would proceed. Firstly, cinema would never rival television for mass popularity and market potential due to the overwhelming availability of television and its presence in an increasing number of households across America. Secondly, one of television’s worrying tendencies was to garner a lot of advertising money from a wide swathe of big American companies. Electrical appliances, cars, clothes, foodstuffs and drinks were all sold on television during commercial breaks, a fact that cinema could not copy. However, studio executives soon found ways round this problem, ways in which although adverts could not be shown during the movie, surreptitious showing of products could have a similar effect. Product placement was born. Admittedly, in a society which with every passing year produces more and wastes more, it seems that studios have become less adept at making product placement seem natural rather than obvious. The 007 series had always been a treasure trove for companies wishing to place their symbols on James Bond’s latest gadget. With the arrival of Pierce Brosnan into the role However, any shred of subtlety vanished to be replaced with highly obvious use of products. For example, Brosnan’s type of car had always been one of the highlights of the film. In Die Another Day, the presence of the painfully named Aston Martin ‘Vanish’ only served as a sales pitch for the Vanquish. Such utterly shameless product placement did reach a crescendo in 2004 where the amount of plugging for Sony and Converse in I, Robot would have made Isaac Asimov turn in his grave. However, such behaviour can shed some light onto the type of post-modern audience that we are evolving in. Those detractors who claim that post-modernism is merely the natural by-product of such a senselessly wasteful society whose mechanisms result in the attempted alienation of anyone showing a shred of individuality. Whether this is true or not is difficult to ascertain but what is lamentable is that the artistic integrity which has existed since Aristotle is being compromised in cinema out of the desire to keep up with television. Thankfully, the presence of adverts in television, even if sometimes the length of advert breaks can be infuriating has meant this has not happened in television’s case. If we evolve in a post-modernist society, then these differing methods of merely pandering to our consumer’s instincts could seem to be a by-product of intense competition between two forms of popular entertainment. Unfortunately, cinema’s rapid changes would lead to renewed controversy over its spectatorship and its impact thereupon as explained by Lynn Spigel. The concept of spectatorship in itself is a fascinating one, not just within the framework of this dissertation, but also within the field of cinema and television research. The bearings that society can have upon an audience’s watching habits are a crucial fact to understanding how individuals, larger target groups or entire demographics will react to any kind of program. (Spigel, 1998) places the birth of the issue of spectatorship in the 70s as film studies began increasing in popularity. This rise in popularity and its link to audience research are vital as we can use them to comprehend not just how an audience would react to a pioneering film or series in either cinema or television but also how it would react to a parody or any kind of wholesale copying of a popular film or series by another medium of entertainment. The issues raised by Spigel are ones, she claims, whose roots lie back in the ideals of Marx and Lacan. From a psycho-analytical perspective, Spigel writes of the complexities of spectatorship research given the psychological aspects behind it. Although Spigel’s thoughts may be questioned in themselves, they do offer conclusive evidence of audience diversity today and how carefully each aspect of this diversity needs to be considered before deciding on scheduling or production. In this, we can see the great precautions television executives must need to take in order to contemplate parodying of any kind of popular film. Modern television, its workings and its impact upon the world Big, brash, loud. Three words which could describe much of the television programmes produced in America in recent years. Long gone is the demure image of the family sitting down to enjoy some good old American-style programming with shows such as Bewitched or I Dream of Jeannie. Let’s face it, if these shows were produced today, they would face some accusations of glorifying witchcraft, yet another practice banned in Leviticus’ long list of gripes against the world. Somehow, the image of ABC being picketed for showing re-runs of Bewitched may at first strike us as absurd but with careful thought, does this seem so unlikely? One of the major problems facing network directors and schedulers is the problems they could face if showing any material seen as even slightly offensive to anybody. We will not engage here in mindless America-bashing but in a country that has long defended the right to free speech, both the film and television industries are being lambasted by religious and family protection groups for promoting violence and pornography. Whilst this could be understood if horror films were shown at hours when children watched TV or if their cartoons professed truly immoral practices but when complaints relate to Elmer Fudd shooting Bugs Bunny, one can wonder if the world has gone crazy. However insane these complaints can appear to be, they are still a startlingly important reality for today’s television. They form one of the biggest pressures on television executives who are caught in a tricky balancing act. They must maintain their audience shares by scheduling popular programming whilst also keeping packs of demented denigrators at bay. Interestingly, regulations concerning the effect of violent or sexual programming have been in place for decades. After all, most channels, even now with the new glut of cable and digital operators, have respected the 9 o’clock watershed before broadcasting any overly offensive material. Have they been secretly breaching rules of moral conduct in recent years? Whilst it is certain that television programmes do have an impact on those who watch them and while children will always care little about rules or regulations that protect them from exposition to negative images, can this be said to be the wholesale fault of the television industry? If the people want games, then games they shall have. This syllogism is one without which television stations cannot operate and although appeals could be made for public decency, violent and pornographic programmes will only be made and shown as long as the public has an interest in them. Thus, society should look to what elements within itself cause television to broadcast this type of programming rather than attack television for it. A recent example that shows just what a level of frenzy has been reached was the 2004 Superbowl. Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson provided the entertainment when Timberlake ripped off part of Jackson’s outfit, exposing her pierced right breast. Whether the stunt was pre-prepared or not has not been made crystal clear but the furore that surrounded the incident was mind-boggling. The family protection and decency groups went insane, denouncing all film and television workers as Hollywood sleaze. The fact that this slip occurred during an event with global broadcasting and with audiences reaching into the hundreds of millions blew it out of all proportion. For some reason, that a breast had been shown on national television before the watershed was seen as being a massive breach of public decency and as potentially warping the fragile little minds of innocent children. This level of problems goes a long way to showing the tonnage of pressure placed upon television channels. However, it is thankfully a trend that has not seemed to take hold outside the USA. The EU, Japan and Canada are subjected to the same kind of programming and although some complaints are voiced, they never garner so much media attention. Thus, we can see that the manners in which television panders to its audiences vary from country to country. We have highlighted television’s modus operandi in the USA but let us consider a cross-section of Japanese audiovisual entertainment. More than 20% of Japan’s cinematic output and a vast swathe of its popular television programs are made up of anime. Anime cartoons usually contain far more involved storyline than their American counterparts, replete with high levels of violence, sexy and skimpily-clad female characters and yet, these are watched by children of all ages. Does Japan thus see a higher violence rate among young children? No, in fact, the proportion of it is far lower in Japan than it is in the USA. However, even Japanese anime does not make it onto American airwaves without massive cuts by the censorship office. A good example of this is constituted by the popular anime series, Dragonball Z. In it, a group of fighters defend Earth from invasion by evil aliens or androids. Throughout its 250+ episodes, the show contains high levels of violence, including dismembering, decapitation and the beating of children. As can be imagined, when the show was broadcast in America on Cartoon Network, all these passages were cut to spare the minds of our children. However, in Japan, Dragonball Z aired in all its unadulterated gore and no-one seemed the worse for wear. This is not to say that so much violence on TV is good. Indeed, it is lamentable that it should exist at all but it is highly unfair to lay the blame for any consequences at the feet of an industry which is doing its best to keep as many people happy as possible. Although, we have taken a standpoint in attacking America for its high sensitivity when it comes to protecting its children, we have recently been confronted with proof that this type of protest does not only occur in the USA. For ten years, Jerry Springer shocked the nation with its own brand of low chatshow humour. Famed topics of debate involved the KKK, incest and bestiality. It had met with both acclaim and criticism at home, some calling it a true social commentary, other cheap laughter at others’ misfortunes. Anyway, the comedic potential of the idea was soon seen and in 2002, it was turned into a musical named Jerry Springer: The Opera, starring David Soul as Jerry Springer, showing in the West End and on Broadway. Controversy courted it throughout but its great success shouted down these demons. However, in January 2005, the BBC decided to show the musical in its entirety. As soon as this decision was made public, Christian right-wing groups attacked the BBC for insulting Christians when it would not dare the same about Muslims or Jews. While this claim did have some merit, the BBC ignored these claims and broadcast the show at 10 o’clock on a Monday night with clear warning beforehand about the potentially offensive content within it. Examples of this type of occurrence could number in their hundreds but they are an ideal way of investigating how modern audiences identify with television programmes and react to them. One of the basic tenets is that post-modernism is that reactions to any situation are processes created by each individual and that thus, clear definitions of knowledge or art encompassing a group or a society are baseless. In this, it can be argued that the very concept of a post-modern audience is flawed. However, whatever theory we choose to engage with, we cannot reject human nature. In the last twenty years, it seems that many among the generation of young people across America who fought in the 60s and 70s against Vietnam, against the Cold War, for Civil Rights and for many other noble causes have become dangerously jaded. America’s quality of life at the end of the 70s and in the 80s reached a high unseen since the 50s. Although the gap between rich and poor was ever-widening, the lifestyles of the middle and upper classes were prodigious. America was still afflicted with problems in Iran, Central America but the Soviet Block was crumbling and the mood among the general population was good. However, in the 80s and 90s occurred a phenomenon that not many people had truly predicted. The baby-boomers who had so been influential in re-shaping America after World War II were themselves beginning to be required to pass the torch to the next generation. Thus, the norms of society that they had created were themselves being challenged by their children. This shift occurred through the appropriation of traditional American areas of life by the younger generation such as television, cinema, the press as well as the fledgling Internet. We will look in further detail at the emergence of teenagers as a separate marketing entity and the impact of the home video on cinema and television as it entered this confused social maze. (Carberry, 2000) picks up on the popular image of television being viewed as a window on the world. This image, although adequate in some respects, also fails to pay attention to one crucial fact about television. If we look out of a window, we are certain that we will see will be real. A television does not offer this capacity. Television programmes are constructed and even factual news bulletins or documentaries can be edited to look the way the news director wants them to. We know enough of methods of communication to realize the propagandistic power of television and therefore we are conscious that we must always take a step back when rationalizing about something we have seen on television. Television, by its very nature, is as big a construct as cinema however

Fungal Collection, Culturing and Identification

Fungal Collection, Culturing and Identification Abstract Fungi are Eukaryotic cells that are able to synthesize enzymes when required to break down complex mono and polysaccharides when in contact with it. There is much to understand with this fascinating Kingdom that the Fungi belong to as Biotechnology within these organisms may play a fundamental role within Industrial waste. There is much to study and learn from these organisms and possible outcomes of collecting, culturing and Identifying these complexed organisms as they may possibly resolve and revolutionize the waste industry to prevent damage and ecologically reverse damage to the planet. Chapter 1:  Introduction Overview 1. Fungi Are a large group of eukaryotic organisms that are classified as having its own recognized kingdom. This kingdom has an enormous variety that includes unicellular microorganism and multicellular organisms that are separate from the other kingdoms of life. It is Estimated anywhere between 1.5 to 5 million species exist. These unique organisms contain properties that produce fungal compounds that provides many possible applications within industry. General characteristics of fungi include but not limited to: Cell wall consists of Chitin. Fungi are heterotrophs meaning they are not able to produce their own food, but obtain Its nutrients by the absorption of its surroundings by the secretion of digestive enzymes. In an ecological system, fungi are described as decomposer organisms. It is now known that the DNA of fungi are more related to animals than plants. These organisms are abundant worldwide, A majority of fungi are not clearly visible due to their small size, structure, and perplexed biological processes in soil or on dead matter. 2. Classification / Taxonomy Taxonomy is a scientific method to group biological organisms on the grounds of characteristics and naming the organisms into groups or categories. Formally only 5% of Kingdom Fungi has been formally classified, methods of arrangement have been based on biological taxonomy based upon different characteristics such as type of hypha, spore, and reproduction process. This provides a template of key features to identify and class organisms in the form of a list. All concepts are man-made and to a certain degree are arbitrary. 3. Morphology General: Fungi displays itself in a wide variety of size and shape, from unicellular, microscopic organisms to more advanced multicellular forms that are able to be seen with the naked eye. Fungi cell size ranges from 1 to 30. Fungi that are microscopic are classified as molds, yeasts or both. Molds: Are larger multicellular organisms that contains a network of branching filaments. This is called hyphae. The two known types of hyphae are vegetative and reproductive hyphae. The reproductive hyphae contain spores (fungal spores are different from bacterial spores as bacterial spores are for the fundamental purpose of survival in harsh conditions as opposed to reproductive purposes for fungi). The spores produced from fungi are used for the role of classification and identification of fungi. The hyphae are described to contain a tube-like appearance, the hyphae and other structures combine to form an elaborate network called a mycelium. Yeasts: These single-celled organisms are large (5 to 8) that rarely form filaments. Most yeasts undergo an asexual process referred to as budding. Colonies of yeast are usually described as having a surface considered to be smooth similar to many bacteria. 4. Physiology Is the scientific observation of living systems in organisms, focusing on nutrition, reproduction, and growth. Nutrition for most fungi contain enzymes that are complex with other chemical substances that diffuse from the fungi to break down complex substances that are available, e.g. wood, vegetation, bread etc. into simpler substances that is digested by fungi. The products of digestion are formed outside of the organism and the fungus absorbs the end products. Reproduction for fungi is unique as organisms can reproduce sexually or asexually, or both depending upon various factors e.g. the species, the environmental factors etc. Sexual reproduction undergoes when two spores are compatible to reproduce with one another. Growth for fungi are similar as to the growth of bacteria, favourable conditions involve warmth and moisture. As the temperature lowers, fungal activity also lowers. However, spores are very resistant to cold temperatures for long periods of time. At high temperatures, fungi are easily killed. Figure 1: Typical mycelium structure of a fungus Figure 2: Morphology and General Properties of Fungi. Figure 2 describes the morphology of an individual colony of fungi growing in a Petri dish. Figure 2 can be used to establish and identify organisms in the fungi Kingdom.Each type of fungus will produce different colonies. Specific terminology is established to describe the different types of common colony forming organisms. Size The size of a colony is measured by the diameter. Form This establishes the basic shape of the colony in question e.g. if its circular, filamentous, etc. Elevation This establishes how to describe a colony from observing the colony at an angle. Surface This establishes how to describe the appearance of the colony whether if it is rough, wrinkled, smooth, etc. Opacity- This describes how translucent the colony in question is e.g. transparent (clear), opaque etc. Colour Also referred to as pigmentation of the colony of whether if the colony has a distinguishable colour associated with the organism. Identifying similarities between different fungal organisms allowing the organisms to be catalogued in a unique way for different Phyla to be established and recognizing different organisms to be closely related to one another depicted in figure 3 creating a cluster of analysis. Figure 3 is a cluster analysis. In Figure 3. The 26 sites cluster into four major groups from A to D. These sites have been clustered based on similarities of the fungal community that the organisms belong to. 4. Species To Examine a group of fungi that would have similar traits. The filamentous fungi contain cells that grow as tubular, elongated, and thread-like structures. These structures are called hyphae, which may contain multiple nuclei and extend by growing at their tips. Each tip contains a set of aggregated vesicles cellular structures consisting of proteins, lipids, and other organic molecules associated with fungi chemical compound production. Penicillium is a genus of ascomycetous fungi. This genus is of major importance in the food and drug industry. Some members of this genus produce the antibiotic penicillin, a molecule that is used to kill or inhibit the growth of certain kinds of bacteria inside the body. Other species are used in cheese making. The characteristics to expect typically consists of a highly-branched network of multinucleate, septate, usually colourless hyphae. The mycelia contain many-branched conidiophores, the conidiospores are the main route of dispersal of the fungi, and often are green in colour. Aspergillus Is a genus a genus that is recognized as a mould species found in various climates worldwide. This genus is known as a group of conidial fungi, which in turn cause this group to be in an asexual state. Members of the genus possess the ability to grow where a high osmotic concentration (high sugar, salt, etc. exists. The species are highly aerobic and are widely found where oxygen-rich environments on the surface of substrates. Commonly grown on carbon-rich substrates like monosaccharides (e.g. glucose) and polysaccharides (e.g. amylose). Starchy foods are generally contaminated by this genus. Talaromyces Is a genus of fungi, described as species in the genus form soft, cottony fruit bodies with cell walls with an intricate network of hyphae. The fruit bodies are often described with yellowish characteristics or are surrounded by yellowish granules. Rhizomucor Is a genus of fungi that are described to be thermophilic, with a minimum growth temperature of 20 ° C with a maximum growth temperature of 60 ° C. Trichoderma Is a genus of fungi that is present in all soils, they are most prevalent culturable fungi as they are fast growing at 25 30 ° C, colonies are transparent at first on media such as cornmeal dextrose agar (CMD) or white on richer media such as potato dextrose agar (PDA). Conidia typically form within a week in shades of green or yellow pigment. A yellow pigment maybe secreted into the agar, especially on PDA. Industrial applications involve enzyme production for cellulose, xylanase and chitinase. Fusarium Is a genus of filamentous fungi. Its industrial application is used in human consumption. This genus is produced and marketed under the name Quorn. 5. Culturing Organisms of interest will be cultured in the lab and Identified accordingly on the characteristics they exhibit by Classical Methods that rely on direct observation of fungi, including microscopy as well as direct sampling of fungal fruiting bodies, incubation of substrata in most chambers, culturing of endophytes and particle plating. 6. Laboratory Methods Are used to collect, culture, and identify organisms in the lab with the following processes of Aseptic Technique, Microscopy, and biochemical analysis. 7. Aseptic Technique Is a critical method to successfully observe fungal growth and distinct characteristics with the prevention of microbial contamination. This technique is carried out in a variety of ways. The use of a Bunsen burner when dealing with petri dishes to keep the laboratory environment as clean as possible and to prevent possible contamination, as well as sterilising inoculation loops when inoculating fungal organisms. A disinfectant such as Distil is utilized to ensure that the work surfaces and equipment are free from possible contamination. It is also encouraged to flame any containers where appropriate before and after use. This is to prevent any unwanted organisms being introduced in the lab when observing the interested fungal organisms with the interest to preserve fungal purity. 8. Microscopy Classical Methods of identification of fungal organisms are examined under a microscope to identify specific characteristics within fungi. Specific families of fungi are able to by morphologically identified by colourless hyphae that would be presented on organisms. Others are able to be characterized by dark colonies and pigmented fungal elements seen on microscopic examination of fungal material that was prepared by biopsy. Fungi that has the ablity to infect hair and nails; often displays fluffy or fine texture and are pale coloured with distinct hyphae. Biochemical Tests Are laboratory methods to Identify fungal organisms. These include carbohydrate fermentation, this tests whether a certain yeast ferments different carbohydrates. Carbohydate assimilation studies: this tests whether a yeast can aerobically utize various carbon and nitrogen compounds with oxygen. API 20C system involves freeze-dried sugars are placed into wells on a plstic strip, yeast medium is pipetted into wells, incubated and turbidity determines growth. Uni-yeast tek system Identifies yeasts based on their ablity to ferment certain sugars. Media Selecting the correct media for optimal fungal growth in the lab is essential. Sabourauds Dextrose agar (SDA) is sufficient for culturing fungi as its rich in nutrients to support fungal growth and is a preferred medium. Enzymes Enzymes play a fundamental role in fungal extracellular activity. Enzymes are synthesized inside the cell and are secreted outside the cell. The main function of these enzymes involve the breakdown of complex macromolecules into smaller units to be digested by the cell for growth and assimilation. Organic matter such as cellulose are degraded into simple sugars that enzyme-producing organisms use as a source of carbon, energy, and nutrition. Enzymes are categorized in the following: hydrolases, lyases, oxidoreductases and transferases. These enzymes breakdown complexed compounds in specific ways for the cell to take up nutrients. Fungi are widely diverse giving this kingdom the Application in Industry Microorganisms produce enzymes, with current understandings of cell knowledge and recombinant protein, it is possible to modify the cell to produce enzymes with more efficient proderties e.g. better yield and purity. For saccharification of plant polysaccharides and biofuel production, fungi are valuable sources for enzyme production. Enzymatic degradation of wastes. Waste material is a fundamental factor in Industry. A majority of pharmaceutical, industrial, agricultural and forestation waste costs more to dispose of properly than sometimes the production. This results in several problems leading to environmental, health and safety issues that prevent sustainable development that could be dealt with in alternative ways for the aim to reduce waste. Current technology is investigating if Enzymes are able to play a fundamental role in waste degradation to prevent, reduce, reuse, and recycle pharmaceutical waste that would be considered costly to properly dispose of. Fungi is recognized to be a complexed eukaryotic cell that may hold the answers industry is looking for to improve these matters. References: Bright Hub Education. (2017). Animal, Plant, and Fungi Phylogeny: A Surprising Relationship in Eukaryota Phylogeny. [online] Available at: http://www.brighthubeducation.com/science-homework-help/8061-relationship-between-animal-plant-and-fungi-phylogeny/ [Accessed 3 Jan. 2017]. Arnold, P. (2017). 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