Some of us might be thinking about how to get things done, while someone has been doing one thing for 24 years. And it’s never gonna be done.
I came across Rion Nakaya’s photoblog [one of my favorites] and found the touching series of “the president’s neighbor: marks 24 years of protest.” These pictures depict Mrs. Concepcion Picciotto, a fortitudinous woman who, along with her friend William Thomas, has been demonstrating for the White House Anti-Nuclear Peace Vigil since June 3, 1981. Connie’s makeshift vigil camp is on the sidewalk in Lafayette Park, right across from the White House gate. It’s her home. It’s her battlefield.

Read the rest of the entry…

Do in China as the Chinese Do: An Overview of KFC’s Localization Strategies in China

Abstract

Kentucky Fried Chicken has been one of the most household international brands in urban China since it opened its first Western-style quick service restaurant in Beijing in 1987. As the present largest fried chicken restaurant company in the world, KFC aims China as the most promising market and succeeds in its localization strategies in the huge China market. The most prominent success of KFC in China is not only the outcome of KFC’s persistent tenets “quality, service and cleanliness” but also the achievements of its keen perception of cross-cultural marketing and its understanding of Chinese culture. This essay aims to investigate the process of KFC’s entry into China’s market and analyze its particular localization strategies towards China. A series of KFC commercials in China would be analyzed from the perspective of cultural values. Related issues and debates would be discussed as well.

Read the rest of the entry…

This week’s reading presents a thorough literature review and related empirical researches on the issue of ethics in journalism and public relations. This issue of ethical journalism has been examined and discussed in terms of issues and theories (p. 44, Ferre). One of the core aspects of the issue, as what was discussed in Ferre’s and Merrill’s articles, is whether objectivity is one of the categorical standards for the evaluation of journalism ethics. Put another way, is it objective to make judgments about journalist’s ethics in light of whether their professional practices violate the principle of objectivity.

Merrill’s approach criticizes the convention commonly held by journalists that objectivity in reporting is the sufficient condition to “fulfill the highest and most responsible expectation possible.”(p. 391). However, by indicating a journalist has to achieve objectivity by the “concentration on technique” of being objective, Merrill equates the concept of objectivity to certain methods taken to achieve this goal. This can be regarded as a strategy of reasoning, that is, an application of reduction to absurdity. Nevertheless, in the following part of his article, reporting objectively was described as “truthfully, accurately, fully”. The three aspects are no doubt the significant cores of the objectivity but the fulfillment of them will simply meet the requirement of objectivity? Definitely not. It is a pity to find no accurate or through explanation of objectivity in Merrill’s articles. His neglect to the core definition might partly due to the reason that objectivity is a complicated and situational concept.

From different perspectives, the definition of objectivity is changing. What standards employed to judge the objectivity per se is a cognitive process which relies heavily on the subjects who make the judgments. In the case of single person, his/her past experience, cultural background, ideation, socioeconomic status, cognitive ability, religion and other factors play important roles in shaping his evaluation toward objectivity. Let us push this to a broader sense. In a homogenized society or community, the common properties shared by a group of subjects guarantee their relatively similar and stable perspectives towards certain issues, objectivity included. However, this consistency can exist solely in a certain range of subjects. For example, sincere praises based on facts are usually regarded as frank and objective in western countries while in collective cultural backgrounds, say in East Asia, these might be misunderstood as a subjective flattery to achieve other goals. The general aspect of objectivity like “judgment based on observable phenomena”, “uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices”, “disclosing the truth” usually can be accepted by most occasions. However, the most specific or lower levels of objectivity depends on the situations where certain issues occurs, under what perspective they are perceived and what interest groups they have influences on. Thus, the objective reporting should be seen from a situational perfective, especially those reports on international affairs or different ideologies.

By conducting a survey, Merrill aims to examine the degree to which journalists and journalism educators accepted the objectivity-as-ethics concept. His study demonstrates the commonly understanding towards this issue among journalist professions but his questions were based on the personal understanding of those surveyed. In consideration of the insufficient conceptual definition, the result of the study should be scrutinized carefully as a reference for the future study.

Hutcheson, R. (2004) Bush evades Iraq WMD question, defends going to war. January 27th, 2004. The Kansas City Star.

It is somewhat captious to examine a piece of news concerning Weapon of Mass Destruction issue in Iraq after it has been disclosed about one month ago. Nevertheless, it is pretty interesting to observe the reaction Bush took then and make a comparison between his actions and what I have read in this week’s assigned readings.

It is not simple a matter of time that the president of the strongest nation is supposed to give an explanation to the public when the justification of his declaration on Iraq war was greatly challenged. However, what Bush did-a four-day silence on the issue- obviously disappointed the public. In this case, Bush even didn’t manage to make any extra explanation for the delay of his reaction, unlike what Reagan was claimed “had not been told until late on January 7 or early on January 8, the day of the announcement” (Miller, p. 64). It was difficult for the public to know what was happening in White House in the following days, but it is no doubt that the hopes of the public to be informed had been turned down. In this case, I think Bush has violated the one of the ethical standards for governmental communication that “keeping the public uninformed on matters affecting private citizens’ well-being” (Johannesen, p. 32)

“There is no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein was a gathering threat to America and others. That’s what we know. There is no doubt in my mind that the world is a better place without Saddam Hussein.” This statement is ironic and sounds somewhat clumsy to be made by Bush after the truth of WMD had been discovered. It sounds like a big boy who bullied another little one was caught to keep defending “I wanna beat that guy just because it is him!” From the perspective of American value, the existence of Hussein regime is undoubtedly a threat to the nation. Yet the end doesn’t justify the means. In this case, the ideological conflicts between the two nations don’t give reason for one nation to invade the other in purpose of imposing its own ideology to the other, especially when there are still other peaceful solutions such as resorts to the U.N.

Some of Bush’s supporters contend that he was the victim of bad intelligence. Instead of blaming a scapegoat as what his processors had done, Bush said, “First of all, I’ve got great confidence in our intelligence community. These are unbelievably hardworking, dedicated people who are doing a great job for America.” Here Bush employed the tactics of emotion appeals, which suggests to the public that the government is working hard to protect them and make their lives better. The emotion appeal became very effective since the terrorist attack of September 11th, after which the desire for security from the public had been greatly increased and thus the national security has become the governmental theme. Using this strategy can gain the sympathy and understanding from the public so that it can justify the invasion in some sense.

Bush repeatedly raised the specter of a devastating attack in last year’s State of the Union speech.” Year after year, Saddam Hussein has gone to elaborate lengths, spent enormous sums, taken great risks to build and keep weapons of mass destruction,” he said. “It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known.” That it is–Bush’s pretexts before his decision-making of Iraq war.

Hooper, S. (2004). Mobile Phones Face ‘Spam Epidemic’. CNN, February 19, 2004.

A new global survey, conducted by British mobile data technology company Empower Interactive, reveals the second tide of “spam” has now spread to cell phone networks. Quite similar with its twin “junk mail”, cell phone spam aims at vulnerable users and annoys them with unsolicited text, what’s more, “missed call” messages.

Phone spam also brings about a new marketing strategy (or we may say, scam) named “missed call marketing”. According to this week’s UK Guardian newspaper, “computer-generated calls ring just once to leave a ‘missed call’ message on a phone user’s handset. If they then returned the call they were transferred to a premium rate number, offering a cash prize but more regularly leaving victims with a hefty charge on their phone bill.”

The development of science and technology causes some unexpected problems in terms of ethics and legislations. As Johannesen states in the beginning Chapter 10 (p. 181), controversies on the Internet illustrates pressures for legalistic approaches to ethics and for the formation of formal codes of ethics. Nevertheless, it is a pity that I failed to find any revision either for the American Association of Advertising Agencies code of ethics or The Advertising Principles of American Business. It’s noticeable that the two codes were adopted in 1990 and 1984 respectively, when the Internet hasn’t reached its golden time nowadays.

Customers of Information Age are more vulnerable and passive compared with their predecessors due to the growing omnipotence and ubiquity of modern advertising. In old days, people still possessed the rights to ‘receive or not” when confronted with advertisements. Nowadays, their options have been eliminated to “delete or not”. Having read through the codes of ethics adopted by the two organizations, I find that what the codes intent to protect is not actually the rights of customers, though it seems so. If you go deep into the lines to examine the hidden words, it is evident that the real purpose is to set the rule for the game and make it a “fair play” of advertising agencies and, more importantly, the companies who write checks to advertising agencies.

I personally doubt about the advertising effects of those spam, no matter on Internet or cell phone. Will people buy the stuff whose producer bombed their cell phones with junk information? It is quite possible that people even don’t read the junk messages before deleting them. So, what causes those companies take the risk of irritating their potential customers to employ the underhand means to promote their product sales? It could be the cost. Spam might be the cheapest advertising method. The price for a collection of 1 million email addresses is only a few dollars. A large portion of spam is from those small companies. Unlike those reputable big companies who spend billions of dollars on advertising “wisely and ethically”, those small companies have to worry about how to make more people know about their products. But the problem is, the more people they want to reach by cheap spam, the quicker they get kicked out of the game. Who will benefit from this? It is not hard to tell.

Higgins, M. (2004). Delaware Reports Second Avian Flu. The Washington Times. February 10, 2004.

A second case of avian influenza was found at a commercial farm in northern Sussex County, Delaware. It has been clarified that the H7-type strain is not harmful to humans and is not the same as the highly pathogenic bird flu that is crippling the Asian poultry industry. Yet, like many other serious health issues, the epidemic disease has been tracked closely by news media all over the world since it spread from Asia. Based on the frequencies and quantities of the news coverage of avian flu in media, it can be stated that the roles of mass media in public health crisis are significantly intensified, especially after the worldwide spread of SARS that broke out from Guangdong, China in May, 2003.

What responsibilities should mass media take in such health crises is a problem confronted both by communication scholars and media workers. As Jorgen Westerstahl (p. 121) advocates, “a view of objectivity that encompasses factuality, including truthfulness and relevance, and impartiality, including balance/nonpartisanship and neutral presentation” should be practiced in news reporting. In the process of news reporting, what reporters ought to always keep in mind is to completely respect the public rights of knowing what is happening. Put briefly, the lofty idea of journalism is to make public know the truth.
The functions of mass media in public health issues can be conducted in the following aspects. Firstly, mass media should work as instructors to convey health information, common sense about keeping health and latest development in health science both included, to the public. The best treatment of diseases is prevention. In this case, mass media take the responsibility of public education. Secondly, mass media should be the watchtower to keep an eye on potential dangers in public hygiene. They should examine the status of public health from time to time and publish a sign of warning whenever there is any serious threaten towards public health. If any epidemic disease is ensured to be spreading, mass media should inform public of the breakout in the first place. Thirdly, mass media should provide correct directions on public perceptions towards health crises. They should locate the balance point of telling the public truth as much as possible and avoiding unreasonable public panic. The intentional disguise of breakout of SARS in southern China is a lively example of the neglect of ethical responsibilities of mass media under the pressure of governmental control. Fourthly, mass media should comfort public and help people get back to the normal lives after health crises.

Nevertheless, in practical journalism are there always negative factors impeding the conduction of mass media’s public responsibilities. Most of those hindrances root in the conflicts of specific interest groups. The most prominent one is government. In purpose of maintaining the social stabilization, at least the stabilization on the surface, government might impose pressures on mass media to keep the warnings of serious epidemic diseases reaching audience. The other interest group is business. To maximize the economic benefits, powerful corporations, in this case, corporations in health care area might take measures to impede the publication of reports which might infringe their interests.

Hicks, J. P. (2004). Black and Hispanic Acceptance Eludes Mayor, Despite His Efforts. New York Times. February 5, 2004.

Nothing can be more embarrassing than getting a cold shoulder even if you made every effort to please someone. That might be how Mr. Michael R. Bloomberg, the Republican mayor of the city of New York, felt about after knowing that his approval numbers have not risen above 35 percent among blacks or Hispanics in a recent poll.

The disapproval is based, according to some political scientists, much more on economics. They were referring to the mayor’s latest tax policy about raising taxes, particularly the property tax. Yet, middle-class Latinos and African Americans, many of whom are first-time homeowners or work in or own small businesses, viewed it in another way. In Leeanna Joseph’s word, who works as a waitress in Queens, “I think that he just doesn’t understand the regular person?”

This issue explicitly suggests several important aspects within the American value system which has been briefly discussed in Steele and Redding’s article. The most obvious one is the ethical equality, which was usually taken into account in the first place especially when confronting situations regarding rights of minorities. This value of being equal is “before the law,” in my opinion, even after the establishment of law, “the core of our system of justice” (p. 87). In the ideal world, equality is the cornerstone on which the world runs smoothly and people would be entitled to live with equal opportunities they were born with. Equality of opportunity, another value mentioned by Steele and Redding, is the reification of ethical equality in my understanding.

Nevertheless, it is understandable that the image of being ubiquitously and absolutely equal is not always the case in real life. Despite the claim that all men created equal, it is inevitable that everybody was raised in different family backgrounds, educated on different levels and employed by different institutions. Nobody, except few politicians, can deny the fact that minorities still have to make more efforts to achieve the same goals compared with the white. Especially in a country where achievement and success (p. 86) as well as effort and optimism (p.87) are highly commended, it is a more strenuous struggle for minorities to get success in career than their white counterparts.

Being criticized as “someone who doesn?t relate to the average person,” Mr. Bloomberg’s subsequent political activities, including making social issues like low-income housing a central goal of his administration and attending the funeral for a 19-year-old black woman killed in a police shooting, more like a show to transmit the information implicitly to the public that “I do care about you.” Mr. Bloomberg’s dilemma between maximizing his own benefits from his career and serving his people is no exception in most similar careers. The former consideration is unimpeachable in that it is just the incarnation of “achievement and success,” one of the American spirits; the latter one is respectable in that it represents a higher moral and means self-sacrifice sometimes. Regretfully, politicians often failed to find the golden mean and make this a win-win game. As a result, there have to be some victims, but not them.

Koring, P. (2004). ‘We were all Wrong’:Iraq did not Possess Banned Weapons, Former Arms Expert Tells Senators. Globe and Mail. Jan. 29, 2004.

“We were all wrong.” The remark of the former chief U.S. weapons sleuth David Kay about the issue of whether Iraq retained weapons of mass destruction was quoted broadly and placed on front pages by a good deal of news organizations. Kay pointed out that contrary to earlier claims by President Bush and his Cabinet, Saddam Hussein did not possess “large stockpiles” of chemical and biological weapons and was not actively pursuing nuclear weapons. Moreover, he denied the allegation by Democrats towards Bush administration that the White House exaggerated intelligence to go to war. Kay stated that it was a problem caused by failed intelligence.

In the past 24 hours since the initial information was released, the relevant news have been reported or complied by more than 1,200 news agencies all over the world (according to the number on http://news.google.com/). It is not amazing that the news will have an impact on the public perception towards the current Bush administration, especially during the campaign.

I found the news is interesting in that during the earlier time most news organizations still kept attempting to convey one belief to the public that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, which haven?t been spotted yet. The ?fact? was even intensified even though U.S. army has failed to obtain the reliable proofs about the existence of WMD in Iraq at times. Whatever the actions and results U.S. troops took, the first impressions imposed on the audiences by the news stories then was that it was definite that WMD existed in Iraq somewhere. Now the whole situation was turned over.

It is understandable that truth sometimes can be disguised and it takes some time to disclose what the fact is. Yet, we still have to retrospect the roles media took in the process of Iraq War. It is the first time that news reporters can be with the whole process of the war and get the firsthand information from the army. But are the stories the real reflections of the war or simply tools used to persuade the public into believing something? Is the responsibility of media to tell the public truth or tell them something to make them believe it?s the truth? It is a long discussed question since the emergence of news media. Hopefully this news can offer us something new to think over.

Where went wrong?