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Life span Development

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Life span Development

In their definition, Sigelman and Rider (2006) posit that life span development can be considered as “a systematic change and continuities in the individual that occur between conception and death or from ‘womb to tomb’” (p. 2). Studies in life span development therefore tend to focus on personality as well as both the individual’s behavior and his/her behavior in relation to other individuals and phenomena within the society. These are generally narrowed down to personality, cognition, intra and interpersonal relations.

The life span development perspective or approach operates within six major principles and they include the assumptions; that human developmental activities and process is a lifelong and continuous activity, that within development of human, there is gaining and loosing as well, that there is joint and relative influence of both nurture and nature, that in development, there is a shift in resource allocation, and that both culture and history have contextual influence in development (Sigelman and Rider 2006).

The procedural development in the individual’s life course in life span development is categorized into various characteristics and domains of development. These domains include Physical and motor development, social and behavioral development, cognitive and sensory development, development of communication systems and acquisition of self help and environmental adaptive skills (Sigelman and Rider 2006).

The three most consolidated periods in the life span perspective however include the psychosocial, cognitive and biological domain which all interact together to ensure complete development of any individual according to this theory (Magnusson,1997, p. 208-213).

Biological domain explains the changes that take place within the individual as growth and development takes place, the psychosocial domain is concerned with social interactions and emotional personality whereas the domain that is cognitive is composed of reasoning activities, problem solving strategies and perception; generally graded as mental processes (Magnusson,1997, p. 208-213).

There are eight distinctive periods of human development in life span development intertwined within the developmental domains. These include infancy, toddler, and then childhood: further divided into; early (ages 2-5

or 6), middle childhood (ages 6-about 12) and adolescent, and adulthood: divided into early (ages 20-40), middle (ages 40-65) and late adulthood (ages 65 and older) (Myers, 2007). These stages transitionally occur in an individual following an almost relatively defined path except for a few whose cases are specific and special.

According to Boyd and Bee (2006, p. 7), Continuity and discontinuity as well as nature versus nurture are some of the concerns that relate to the development perspective of lifespan. In terms of nurture vs. nature, some people believe that a developed individual is a product of congenital characteristics that are genetic and innate. This is nature. On the other hand, others are driven by the belief that the developed personality is a result of environmental interaction and socialization of the individual by the environment. This is the nurture side of this controversial concern. A person is a product of both the genetic makeup and the environment. The environment shapes the behavior of a person in the sense that they tend to learn and express what they see others doing. According to the learning theorists, personality is as a result of interaction to the environment. They talk about the models from whom a person gets to copy behavior. This is however controlled by whether the behavior is rewarded or if it attracts sanctions.

On the other hand, the genetic makeup inherited from the parents determines the personality that is exhibited by an individual. For instance, a person could be tall since they have inherited that kind of gene from their biological parents.

Whichever way, both nature and nurture contribute extensively to the personal development of an individual.

Considering the side of discontinuity and continuity; degree or amount is considered in the changes that take place within an individual, especially those that are related to the person’s age. These changes can then be categorized as individual or universal or specific to a certain group (Boyd & Bee, 2006, pp, 9-11).

References

David Magnusson. (1997).The lifespan development of individuals: behavioral,

neurobiological, and psychological perspectives. New York: Paperback

Denise Boyd & Helen Bee. (2006). The Developing Child. Allyn & Bacon 11th ed.

Myers, D.G. (2007). Psychology, eighth edition in modules. New York:

Worth.Sigelman, C.K. & Rider, E.A. (2006). Life-span human development.

Belmont, CA:Thomson Wadsworth.

Bauman, Rickey Lee, and Carol Whitfield. An Apology for Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha. (2016).

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Bauman, Rickey Lee, and Carol Whitfield. “An Apology for Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha.” (2016).

The book focus on the writings in Herman’s Hessel novel Sidharta that talks of human suffering. The book gives brief description of what motivated Hesse into writing Christian writings including the fact that they would have to pray and read the bible. The paper looks at the theme of liberation and knowledge in Siddhartha. In the first half of the book, we see Siddhartha being an empty vessel and in the first half of the story he wants to fill himself with knowledge. In doing so he tries to feel himself with knowledge.

This paper will be a good reference point in understanding the various themes presented in the text through the mystic utterances. It will help look into Siddhartha the main character in the novel who is trying to live a life of enlightenment as well as perfection. It will also help in proving foreshadowing in the text. Foreshadowing in the text and mystic utterances help in building of the various themes as well as the characters in the text.

Kumari, Archana. “Literature in the Age of Globalization with Special Reference to Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha.” Language in India 19.2 (2019).

The book looks into Hesse Siddhartha book that focuses on the use of ancient scriptures and sermons that could be attributed to Buddha. The book mentions the journey of Hesse to South East Asia thus developing the basis and understanding of what the book Siddhartha is based and developed. It shows how the main character Siddhartha is developed through the way he seeks a life of enlightenment. This journey resulted in the embracement and understanding of Mo. It explains the origin of Om as a symbol of all things and the utterances can be found in Buddhism as a representation of unity and perfection. It follows the journey of Siddhartha trying to get answers to his questions in life. He however does not achieve his quest by seeking but rather by finding.

This source helps in outlining how Om is uttered in the novel and how the author uses it to foreshadow the ending of their quest. The source will also be a great reference point in looking at the quotes from the book that portray mystic utterances as well as foreshadowing in the text. It points out several foreshadowing in the novel for example when Siddhartha was going to the city and on his there was an appearance of peaceful ferryman, later Siddhartha became a ferryman. The reference will be a key text in looking at utterances portraying foreshadowing.

Mehta, Sonia. “Scientific Relevance of OM for Holistic Well-being.”

The novel Siddhartha at the very begging show the main character as he prepares himself to “pronounce Om”. The utterance of Om in its own by the main character Siddhartha foreshadows how his quest is going to end. In the books, while reciting a common sermon that describes Om to be a symbol of perfection and unity as it is a reminder to breathe and focus. This article helps to describe the relevance of OM in the well-being of an individual, in which it enhances the role of OM in the novel that is the main item the spiritual seeking of Siddhartha helps him achieve his quest of enlightenment. This source helps to show the role of this mystic utterances in the book.

I choose this text because it looks at enlighten experienced by the four characters in the text including Govindudu, Gotama, Vasudeva and Siddhartha. The reference book also expounds on challenges experienced in the quest of enlighten and how these challenges seem to foreshadow the changes that are later experienced in Siddhartha’s life. The text will also help in understanding Siddhartha life include his journey as he left Brahim religion in order to get his own enlightment.

Maples, Thomas C. Siddhartha, a hermeneutic analysis of the individuation process. Diss. Saybrook University, 2011.

The theme in Siddhartha shows how the novel is received and the perceptions the audience has on it in that it mostly drives human nature. It is in a human’s nature to try and seek enlightenment and in the case of the novel, the author takes his time in preparing to pronounce the word Mo. This analysis helps to review the foreshadowing that helps the audience in understanding the later activities or events of the novel. The analysis implicitly suggests the use of foreshadowing in the books helping describe the spiritual quest journey of Siddhartha. The sight of a ferryman who was peaceful in the novel is an example of foreshadows that shows the spiritual progression of Siddhartha in that the sight foreshadows him as a man of total spiritual peace.

This reference will be key in writing of my body paragraph on the various themes that are presented in the text. The various literary elements in the novel helps in portraying how mystic utterances in the text help portray foreshadowing. Foreshadowing helps a reader know what will happen next in the novel. There are various utterances that help the reader know the spiritual journey as well as enlightment that Siddhartha experiences in the text.

Misra, Bhabagrahi. “An Analysis of Indic Tradition in Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha.” Indian Literature 11.2 (1968): 111-123.

Throughout the novel, Om plays a very important role by helping the main character achieve his quest via the uses of rhetoric’s as well as having a relationship with Om. The reaction of Siddhartha throughout the book is shown to be reactive as he never truly seeks Om. He rather seeks answers for his questions to help in his enlightenment. In many ways, he was able to achieve the state of Buddha that he reacts to making his relationship reactive. The source helps in identification of the reactive relationship Siddhartha has to the finding of Om. The analysis shows the methods in which she Siddhartha achieves Om that through a reactive relationship unlike in his advice to Govinda was able to become enlightened.

This text will help in analyzing Siddhartha relationship in the text as either reactive or proactive. This can be seen through the relationship that he has in the text including Kamala, whom he has a dream about his face having wrinkles as well as interest with Gotama. The text points out the journey of Siddhartha including the inner voice that made him become a Samana requiring him to turn from Buddha. This paper will also be a key reference in writing of the introduction on Siddhartha’s enlightenment journey.

Reference

Bauman, Rickey Lee, and Carol Whitfield. “An Apology for Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha.” (2016).

Kumara, Archana. “Literature in the Age of Globalization with Special Reference to Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha.” Language in India 19.2 (2019).

Mehta, Sonia. “Scientific Relevance of OM for Holistic Well-being.”

Maples, Thomas C. Siddhartha, a hermeneutic analysis of the individuation process. Diss. Saybrook University, 2011

Misra, Bhabagrahi. “An Analysis of Indic Tradition in Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha.” Indian Literature 11.2 (1968): 111-123.

Beauty and Societal Perception 2

Literature

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Beauty and Societal Perception

Marge Piercy and Maya Angelou are of perceptions that the outer beauty does not make a woman beautiful but rather the inner beauty. Piercy is of the idea that the beauty of a woman lies in her physical appearance to seem attractive in the eyes of the judgmental society as well as the desire to live up on to the standards of others rather than an individual’s ideals. Piercy is of a perception that ‘Barbie Doll’ and is a mock of the individual’s social appearance and acceptance. Barbie’s poem attacks the women’s desire to look different so that they can fit in well with the people within their surroundings. Throughout her poem, Piercy uses various literary devices such as metaphors and imagery to provide concrete support to her opinion regarding society’s powerful impact on the individual’s perceptions and decisions.

In her bid to justify her perceptions, Piercy uses similes in her poem. For example, in stanza three she describes how the girl’s “good nature wore out/ like a fan belt” (16-17). The girl’s happiness gets buried beneath the self-hatred to which arises from the negative and the painful judgements that result from the mouth of the individuals in the society. With the society being so judgmental on her, the girl is unable to keep the pressure any longer, and this implies that the perception of beauty basing it on the society’s opinion does not have any weight on her anymore. Therefore, the girl decides to do away with making the outside world happy through her outer beauty but maintain her hidden beauty of the soul.

Piercy also uses imagery to justify her claims in the poem regarding the perception of the inner beauty. In the second stanza, Piercy uses imagery describing the girl as an average child and to who possesses lovely essential qualities and as well a good heart. The repetition of the line “a fat nose on thick legs” builds the broader picture of arrogance that is portrayed by the society in describing the girl. Imagery has also been used to portray the girl as a young child, One such good example, “and presented dolls that did pee-pee/ and miniature GE stoves and irons/ and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy.” (Lines 2-3). The use of the above lines depicts the girl as being a young child who is reckless and have the qualities of a child. Besides, Barbie uses imagery to portray the girl’s experiences, and this can be seen in the lines 17 through 25 where Piercy compares the young girl to Barbie Doll. In the end, the girl pays the ultimate price and to which Piercy portray through the use of imagery to unveil this. “Doesn’t she look pretty? everyone said/Consummation at last /To every woman a happy ending.” (23-25). Here Piercy shows that the society finally accepts the girl as she has been made over, despite it not being truly herself.

Euphemism has also been used in the poem, ‘So she cut off her nose and her legs

and offered them up.’ In line 18. The girl cuts off her nose and legs and attempts to give them up, and she does this so that she is able to get rid of the society’s expectations to which she could not meet. Through the use of euphemism, the audience is made aware of the negative perception of the author in relation to the outer beauty among the women. Here she makes it clear that the outer beauty does not matter and as well the society’s perception on an individual can be detrimental and is capable of causing harm to a person.

Piercy has also used irony in her poem criticizing the perception of the society on a person’s outward appearances. In line 25, the author uses line 25, “To every woman a happy ending”. Here the author refers to the girl’s death as a happy ending, but on the contrary, it is not a happy ending as she dies at the end. Piercy uses the element of irony to justify further and intensify his perception and as well to the theme of the poem concerning judgements and expectations from the society. The author states that after death, the girl is able to separate herself from the judgmental society as well as their expectations and this is depicted as being her happy ending. When the judgement stops and the expectations from the society are put to an end, the girl is finally regarded as beautiful, and this implies that the outward appearances do not matter rather one should be focused on the inner beauty.

Maya Angelou can be seen to have the same perceptions to that of Marge Piercy that the outer beauty does not make a woman beautiful and thus the society’s judgments and expectations do not matter or affect at any point in the realization of internal beauty. Maya advocates for confidence and at the same time convey to the audience that the looks of a woman won’t let anyone bring her down if she carries herself in a manner that portrays pride in herself. A woman is genuinely phenomenal if she is willing to overcome the society’s expectations and judgements and be happy within themselves. To justify her perception that the outer beauty does not matter, Maya uses various poetic devices and technique.

Imagery is one of the techniques used by Maya to support her claim. She skillfully uses imagery to create a mental image of a woman who is considered as being self-confident, self-loving and as well, being a proud woman. For example, Maya in the first stanza in line 2 Maya states that “I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size”. From the line, the woman is proud of being whom she is and does not need the appreciation of the other people to be proud of herself. Besides, the author uses other lines in the poem to create an image of the phenomenal woman. Some of these lines include, ‘The curl of my lips, the ride of my breasts, the swing of my waist as well as the stride of my steps’. Through the use of imagery, the author has been able to describe the whole body of the woman from the head to feet as well as her behavioral patterns to which contribute to her being a phenomenal woman.

Maya uses irony as well to justify her claims that the inner beauty is more significant than the outer appearance. Through the use of irony, the author is able to represent her thoughts about beauty and the perceptions of society. The author of the poem is an African-American woman and has past experiences on racial discrimination, oppression and rape in the American soil. According to the American society, the standard of beauty is based on the grounds of the possession of fair skin color, blue eyes as well as sharp features. In contrast, African American women don’t conform to the standards of beauty assumed by the American society and Maya Angelou believes that the inner beauty is, in fact, the real beauty of a woman. A phenomenal woman feels confident in her huge physique and a curvaceous body, and she finds joy in her womanhood. Some of the lines in the poem indicate that she is proud of her body and does not need the society’s judgement to make her proud. Some of the lines include, ‘I’m a woman phenomenally, the strides of my breasts and the flash of my teeth’. These comments by the author make the audience able to realize the irony from the society’s expectation and the qualities of the African American women.

Besides irony and imagery, the author uses refrain in the last four lines of the first three stanzas of the poem. “I am a woman, phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, that’s me.” The same lines are repeated in the last stanza but with an addition of cause’, “Cause, I am a woman, phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, that’s me.” The author repeats these lines to make the emphasis and make a self-assurance mantra that the inner beauty is more worthy than the outer beauty and this aids the audience to associate the repetition with the phenomenal woman. The author also uses a tone of a strong and confident woman who is not bothered by what the society think and talk about her as she finds happiness in her womanhood. The tone can be found in the first three stanzas where she says she is not embarrassed by her physical appearance.

Piercy and Maya have used various techniques of poetry that include symbolism, irony, and imagery and refrain as well from supporting their perceptions that the beauty of a woman is based on the inner beauty and not the outer beauty. Both poets are against the societal expectations and judgement of women claiming that their judgement is not right about the beauty of a woman. A phenomenal woman is proud of her womanhood and does not expect any judgments from the society to make her proud. Based on the evidence provided by the two poets, it’s, therefore, true that the beauty of a woman is based on her inner beauty and not the outer and judgmental appearance of a woman.

Work Cited

Angelou, Maya. Phenomenal woman: Four poems celebrating women. Random House Incorporated, 1994.

Piercy, Marge. Barbie Doll. Red Mountain Tribe, Incorporated, 1971.

A Genre Analysis of the Weblog

Blogging as Social Action: A Genre Analysis of the Weblog

Carolyn R. Miller and Dawn Shepherd, North Carolina State University

“The FBI has been reading my diary,” claimed a high school student in Chapel Hill, North Carolina (Elliston, 2003). In fact, Chapel Hill police in training with an FBI task force had read the student’s weblog. They were investigating a possible security breach in the school’s computer system, and the student’s blog had contained references to “hacking.” The student had told only a few friends about her blog and “didn’t intend for it to reach a wider audience.’It was really personal,'” she said.

A blogger from Utah harshly criticized her Mormon upbringing and her job and co-workers online, assuming that her technophobic parents and her boss would never find out. But they did, and “All hell broke loose,” as she put it. She alienated her parents and lost her job. “It was shocking for everyone,” she said; “I was extremely naïve.” (St. John, 2003).

Another blogger reports on her friends and her boyfriend, saying, “There’s not a lot I won’t put on there” because “I love to be the center of attention.” This 18-year-old also said that her mother was aware of her blog but did not know how to find it, adding that she relied on security by obscurity (St. John, 2003).

In China an intimate blog written by a 25-year-old who also wrote a magazine sex column attracted 10 million daily visitors to the Sina.com server. Her blog initiated a “raging debate” on the internet, and the Chinese censors banned her forthcoming book (Yardley, 2003). Although she defended her right to write about her sex life, the blogger said that she never realized her blog would be read so widely or that it would create such controversy. She quit her job at the magazine and has shut down her blog.

The weblog phenomenon raises a number of rhetorical issues, and for us the incidents summarized above point to one of the more intriguing of these–the peculiar intersection of the public and private that weblogs seem to invite. As David Weinberger has observed, the confessional nature of blogs has redrawn the line between the private and the public dimensions of our lives (2002). Blogs can be both public and intensely personal in possibly contradictory ways. They are addressed to everyone and at the same time to no one. They seem to serve no immediate practical purpose, yet increasing numbers of both writers and readers are devoting increasing amounts of time to them. The blog is a new rhetorical opportunity, made possible by technology that is becoming more available and easier to use, but it was adopted so quickly and widely that it must be serving well established rhetorical needs. Why did blogging catch on so quickly and so widely? What motivates someone to begin–and continue–a blog? What audience(s) do bloggers address? Who actually reads blogs and why? In short, what rhetorical work do blogs perform–and for whom? And how do blogs perform this work? What features and elements make the blog recognizable and functional?

A genre analysis of the blog will begin to answer these questions. When a type of discourse or communicative action acquires a common name within a given context or community, that’s a good sign that it’s functioning as a genre (Miller, 1984). The weblog seems to have acquired this status very quickly, with an increasing amount of attention and commentary in the mainstream press reinforcing its status. As linguist Geoffrey Nunberg observed several years ago, “‘blog’ is clearly a word whose time has come” (2001). But what is it about our time that made this word so useful? Assuming that the blog is a new genre (and many commentators already assume this) how can we understand the kairos that makes this genre possible–and compelling? And how does the blog in turn help construct the kairos? Is there some synergy between this new genre and this particular cultural moment? To answer these questions, we examine blogs available on major hosting sites, blogs that have been the subject of particular attention, and the evaluative criteria used within blogging communities. In our analysis, we characterize the cultural kairos in which blogs arose and developed rhetorical power. We attempt to establish the central tendencies and range of variation of discourse that is identified as blogs and examine their generically recognized substance, form, and rhetorical action. We explore the ancestral genres that offer rhetorical precedents and patterns for blogs. And we speculate about the recurrent rhetorical exigence that has brought together motivations, forms, and audiences to create and sustain the blog as genre.

Genre analysis has become important in understanding the discourse of the disciplines and the workplace, relatively structured arenas of social interaction in which, as Berkenkotter and Huckin note, “Genres are the intellectual scaffolds on which community-based knowledge is constructed” (1995, p. 24). More recently, genre analysis has been applied to the relatively unstructured rhetorical environment of the internet, where constructing knowledge and getting work done aren’t necessarily the driving exigences (Agre, 1998; Bauman, 1999; Crowston and Williams 2000; Shepherd and Watters 1998; Zucchermaglio & Talamo, 2003). detailed studies have examined as genres the home page (Dillon & Gushrowski, 2000), CMC conversations (Erickson 2000), and the blog (Herring, Scheidt, Bonus, & Wright, 2004) 1. Our analysis will take a next step in this direction, offering an interpretive-rhetorical approach that supplements the quantitative research in these other studies. Our aim in this genre analysis of the blog is to explore the emergent culture of the early 21st century–as revealed by the self-organized communities that support blogging, the recurrent rhetorical exigences that arise there, and the rhetorical roles (or “subject positions”) they support and make possible.

The Kairos of the Blog

Recent work on genres has emphasized their dynamic, evolutionary nature. Cases in point include Bazerman’s history of the experimental article in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society from 1665-1800, Yates and Orlikowski’s discussion of the emergence and evolution of the memo genre in the 19th and 20th centuries, and Berkenkotter and Huckin’s study of how readers’ search for “news value” has been accommodated in the changing structural conventions of scientific articles in the late 20th century (Bazerman, 1988; Berkenkotter & Huckin, 1995; Yates & Orlikowski, 1′). Schryer’s useful formulation, that genres are “stabilized-for-now or stabilized-enough sites of social and ideological action,” emphasizes that “genres come from somewhere and are transforming into something else” (1″, pp. 204, 208). In 1984, Miller emphasized that because they are rooted in social practices “genres change, evolve, and decay” (1984, p. 163), and as early as 1973, Jamieson argued that because “genres are evolving phenomena,” a Darwinian rather than Platonic perspective should be used in studying them (1973).

A Darwinian approach to genre requires an understanding of what makes a rhetorical action “fitting” within its cultural environment. In other words, we must see genre in relation to kairos, or socially perceived space-time. What Bitzer called a “fitting” response will survive to become recurrent and thus generic if the kairos also recurs, or persists (1978, p. 168). Kairos describes both the sense in which discourse is understood as fitting and timely–the way it observes propriety or decorum–and the way in which it can seize on the unique opportunity of a fleeting moment to create new rhetorical possibility (Miller, 2002). Genres certainly incorporate decorum, even helping to create the decorum of situations, but they are also complex enough–and often flexible enough–to offer resources for innovation. Schryer uses the Bakhtinian term chronotope to emphasize that “every genre expresses space/time relations that reflect current social beliefs regarding the placement and action of human individuals in space and time.” They are thus, she concludes “profoundly ideological” (2002, p. 84, 95). But in order to evolve, genres must also allow for the incorporation of novelty, the accommodation of changed constraints, the tweaking of ideology, which eventually leads to the redefinition of decorum, and the imposition of a new ideology.

If the blog is an evolutionary product, arising from a dynamic, adaptive relationship between discourse and kairos, then if we wish to understand the rhetorical qualities of the blog as genre, we should examine the late 1990s, when the blog originated, as a cultural moment. This cultural context will illuminate the evolutionary forces operating on existing genres, the opportunities available for innovation, the available social roles and relationships, and the possibilities for social action. Because the decade of the 1990s, like any decade, is globally complex and defies comprehensive summary, we necessarily focus our attention on a few salient issues that will help answer our questions about the rhetorical work of weblogs.

In a 1997 article, “Hits and Errors in Everyday Life,” published in Forbes Magazine, the baseball analyst and statistician Bill James discussed the emerging trend of compiling and analyzing an ever-increasing number of baseball statistics. Significantly, James hypothesized that the interest in baseball statistics is generalizable, that people would track statistics on their neighbors if they were available, and those neighbors “would be figures as compelling as Ken Griffey Jr. or Randy Johnson” (2001, par. 20). James was right. Just five years before, in 1′, MTV had launched the first season of The Real World, a show in which seven young people moved into a SoHo apartment together. As the first show to take “regular” people, place them in an artificial living situation, and record their every move, The Real World broke the ground for what would eventually be known as reality television.

Also in 1′, MTV held a town hall debate featuring the Democrat and Republican candidates for president. During that debate, a young woman in the audience asked Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton if he wore boxers or briefs. That he answered the question is characteristic of the Clinton presidency and the 1990s. During the 1′ presidential campaign, Clinton contrasted himself to Washington political insiders and distinguished himself as the candidate who felt America’s pain. From the beginning, he removed barriers between himself and the voting public. Both his family and the family of his running mate Al Gore toured the country on a bus, making scheduled and impromptu stops in hopes of meeting average Americans and sparking grass roots campaign efforts. And in the course of this campaign, as he and his wife Hilary Rodham Clinton appeared on 60 Minutes to address rumors of his infidelity, Clinton stated, “I’ve told the American people more than any other candidate for president. The result of that has been everybody going to my state and spending more time trying to play ‘gotcha.'” (In 1’, Clinton Conceded Marital ‘Wrongdoing’, 1′) This theme would run throughout the Clinton years. While serving as arguably the most prominent public figure in the world, Clinton exposed his private life to scrutiny, eventually being forced to expose more than he wished. What started as a shrewd, but possibly naïve, campaign strategy ended in a scandal that irreparably damaged his presidential legacy, after the public exposure of his intimacies with White House intern Monica Lewinsky in 1997. Lewinsky herself would become an international celebrity overnight, eventually becoming a spokesperson for Jenny Craig weight loss centers and the host of a reality television show called Mr. Personality.

The Clinton-Lewinsky scandal can be seen as a representative anecdote for a significant cultural trend in the 1990’s, the weakening boundary between the public and the private and the expansion of celebrity culture to politics and beyond. American culture became obsessed with both making celebrities into regular people (as with Clinton) and making regular people into celebrities (as with Lewinsky), a trend that has been called the “democratization of celebrity” (Stark, 2003). This destabilization of public and private has been linked by Clay Calvert to our continual surrender of information: as people relinquish control over increasing amounts of personal information, they expect increasing access to information in return (2000). In other words, in a society in which surveillance cameras record every trip to an ATM and Amazon.com tracks the buying practices of its users, people seek to augment the quantity and variety of information available to them, creating a conflict between the rights to privacy and to information. One striking example of the mounting demand for access to the traditionally private lives of others was the death of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997. It seemed that every facet of Diana’s life, including her death during a high-speed attempt to retain some privacy, was public. After her death, what should have been intensely private moments in the Royal Family’s grieving process–attending church services the day after her death, visiting spontaneous memorials–became public spectacle, leading one commentator to note that in certain social settings, “there is a kind of ‘privacy’ which seems to draw its meaning only from being publicized” (Frazer, 2000, par. 94).

The documented desire to catch sight of the intensely private moments of others dates to at least the 11th century, when a man named Tom peeped as a naked Lady Godiva rode her horse through town to persuade her husband to retract a repressive tax. Peeping Tom was, depending on the version of the account, blinded or killed for his voyeurism (Calvert, 2000). Although often associated with sexual gratification, voyeurism more generally strikes us as an unseemly interest in others as curiosities, not as moral equals. More recently, however, the coupling of the pervasiveness of television as a means for news gathering with the insatiability of the public’s desire for information has helped to rehabilitate voyeurism: it has become synonymous with information access and the public’s right to know. Seeing is knowing, not just believing.

By the year 2000, 98% of American households owned a television, according to a Nielsen Media Research survey (cited in Woodard, 2000) and by 1999, over a third of all American households had a computer, and over half of those homes had Internet access. Within two years, half of all households had a computer, and Internet access had increased to 80% of those (Newburger, 2001). In Voyeur Nation: Media, Privacy, and Peering in Modern Culture, Calvert characterizes the effects of this media saturation on our relations with information and with each other as “mediated voyeurism.” He defines mediated voyeurism as “the consumption of revealing images of and information about others’ apparently revealed and unguarded lives, often yet not always for purposes of entertainment — , through the means of the mass media and the Internet” (2000, p. 2). Mediated voyeurism traces its origins to the sensationalized tabloid journalism of the late 19th and early 20th century. By faking insanity to be committed to an insane asylum or strapping a camera to an ankle to capture photographs of the execution of a convicted murderer, early tabloid reporters offered their readers glimpses into the lives of others, glimpses that seem more real because they are secret. The conventions of film have been said to make voyeurs of the audience (2000, p.43). Mediated voyeurs are separated temporally and spatially from the object of their interest, connected virtually by a movie screen, a television, or a computer monitor. The potential for possibly dangerous interaction has given way to distanced spectating, to monitoring.

Calvert notes a number of contemporary social forces that promote mediated voyeurism, and three of them are especially meaningful for our purposes. First, there is the pursuit of “truth” in an increasingly media-saturated world; dissatisfaction with the increasing mediation of journalism leads to an interest in information that seem to provide a less mediated and thus more authentic “reality.” . Next, there is the desire for excitement, to see others face a “moment of reckoning” in a talk-show confrontation or a “pulse-pounding” amazing home video; in these moments we may vicariously experience challenges that give meaning to life. Last, there is the need for involvement, the desire to be part of the world around us, even though voyeurism by its very nature can provide only the illusion of involvement. Sella’s experience with Webcams illustrates Calvert’s claims here: “Part of the appeal of logging on to these sites, I began to realize, was that it fulfilled an innate human desire for shared experience. — But the draw was more complex. Given the Net’s vast number of unregulated feeds, there was always the chance that — I’d see something illicit: sex, rage, unfiltered joy — an accidental moment” (2000, p. 102). There’s both a hope for connection, for community, and at the same time a more traditional voyeuristic enjoyment of stealth and the possibility of a glimpse of unguarded authenticity.

Mediated voyeurism became so prevalent in the late 1990s that several varieties developed, including what Calvert identifies as video vérité and the tell-all/show-all voyeurism of the talk show. With a focus on real-life, sometimes contrived, drama, video vérité centers on live, unrehearsed, and unscripted events played out on camera. “Caught on tape” television has been around since Candid Camera in the 1950’s, but it was not until the 1990s that reality TV became a major programming category. Today, Yahoo! TV’s reality programming page lists nearly sixty series, from reality/talent show hybrids, like American Idol, to game/reality show hybrids in which the contestants compete for everything from cash prizes to true love. Regardless of the show’s category, reality shows consistently win their timeslots. Game or talent shows have long been television staples, making ordinary, private people into public figures for the Warholian fifteen minutes, but the recent “reality” emphasis ups the ante. No longer limited to the scant and mundane details revealed to a host during a contestant interview in the traditional game and talent show, contemporary reality programming exposes every facet of these ordinary, private lives to our public gaze: “The new obsession in TV (and on the Internet) is with capturing the rhythms of ordinary life–or, at least, the kinds of intimate human interactions that have previously eluded the camera’s gaze” (Sella, 2000, p. 52).

This confusion of public and private permeated other media in the late 1990s as well. Cell phone ownership increased rapidly from 5.2 million in 1990 to 55 million in 1997 (Eng, 2002). As people sacrifice privacy for the sake of convenience, one need but visit any public place to overhear the intensely personal conversations of total strangers on cell phones. And in the world of book publishing, the personal memoir, which one reviewer has called “reality literature” (Carvajal, 1997), became a growing trend in the mid-1990s, with 200 titles published in 1995 (Atlas, 1996). Four of fifteen top-selling hardbacks in 1997–Angela’s Ashes, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Into Thin Air, and The Man Who Listens to Horses)–were personal memoirs by private people. A fifth–The Perfect Storm–told the story of regular people facing extraordinary circumstances (Bowker, 1998). All five stories inspired motion pictures. One of the most memorable personal memoirs of that year, Kathryn Harrison’s The Kiss (Random House, 1997), about her sexual relationship with her father, tested the boundaries of personal revelations in public and led to reviews that were much more than mixed. Critics found Harrison’s exposure of deeply personal information, as they did memoirs in general, either refreshing or distasteful–“a newly dominant and more authentic literary form” or “a literature of solipsism by writers obsessed with themselves” (Minzesheimer, 1997). James Atlas saw the memoir trend as part of general “culture of confession,” consistent with talk shows and 12-step programs, trauma and therapy, but also part of an “historic American longing to discover who we are” (1996, p. 26). 2Voyeurism could not have become such a common preoccupation of our times without willing objects. Princess Diana cultivated her relationships with the press, as do most celebrities. Book publishers need a Kathryn Harrison willing to tell her story. Thus, Calvert also discusses the social forces that support mediated voyeurism’s counterpart, mediated exhibitionism. Central to exhibitionism is the social psychology of self-disclosure, which serves four purposes, according to Calvert: self-clarification, social validation, relationship development, and social control, and we can see all of these at work in blogs. The two former purposes function intrinsically, providing heightened understanding of self through communicating with others and confirmation that personal beliefs fit with social norms. The latter two function extrinsically, turning personal information into a commodity and manipulating the opinions of others through calculated revelations. Any one, or all, of these functions, may be a factor in an individual’s willingness to “overshare” (2000, p. 83). In a series of interviews of people who had appeared on television talk shows, Patricia Joyner Priest found multiple motivations for what she calls “television disclosure, the revelation of intimate information broadcast on television.” The majority of the participants surveyed, generally marginalized members of society, offered extrinsic explanations, understanding their appearance on television as an opportunity to instruct and enlighten through the only forum available to them, or simply as a chance to appear on television. Others gave intrinsic reasons, finding therapy or relief in the chance to tell their stories. The culture of self-disclosure continues to spread, creating individuals increasingly comfortable with being put on display: “As TV and the Net enlist more and more people to reveal themselves, the formerly unsavory phenomenon known as exhibitionism is being redefined. It’s being rehabilitated as an adventure. — Perhaps the shifting definition of fame has been leading up to this. — [B]eing placed on exhibition–and coming through it intact–has come to be seen as a perverse achievement” (Sella, 2000, p. 54).

Of course, the medium most indicative of the trends we have been documenting is the Internet. On personal home pages and message boards, in chat rooms and on listservs, and most especially on blogs, people are sharing unprecedented amounts of personal information with total strangers, potentially millions of them. The technology of the internet makes it easier than ever for anyone to be either a voyeur or an exhibitionist–or both. One does not have to seek out a publisher or compete for a slot on a game show. And the inexhaustible stream of enormously diverse and ever-changing information that comes flooding out of the ISP connection can make constant monitoring seem necessary. Both voyeurism and exhibitionism have been morally neutralized and are on their ways to becoming ordinary modes of being, subject positions that are inscribed in our mediated discourse. The cultural moment in which the blog appeared is a kairos that has shifted the boundary between the public and the private and the relationship between mediated and unmediated experience. Sherry Turkle has noted that our immersion in a “culture of simulation” (which includes not only virtual environments but also mediated aspects of contemporary life such as Disneyland, shopping malls, and television) ultimately devalues direct experience, making it seem less compelling and ultimately less real (1997, pp. 235-38). The “reality” movement in the media has seemingly come to replace the reality IRL (In Real Life). As Calvert puts it, “people and things are important or real only if they appear on television” (2000, p. 85). Validation increasingly comes through mediation, that is, from the access and attention and intensification that media provide. The kairos of American popular culture in the late 1990s thus seems a fulfillment of Baudrillard’s 1981 perception that the relations between the real and the simulated have reversed: that rather than representing the real, the simulation constitutes the real (1″).

Defining the blog as genre

Although it is difficult to pinpoint the exact origin of the blog, most seem to agree that the term weblog was coined by weblog writer Jorn Barger in 1997 (Blood, 2000; Jerz, 2003; Safire, 2002; Turnbull, 2002; Wikipedia, 2003). A search of the Lexis-Nexis database shows the first press mention in 1998, and by 2002 over five hundred articles referencing blogs. It appears that blogs originated as a way to share information of interest. These early blogs had three primary features: they were chronologically organized, contained links to sites of interest on the web, and provided commentary on the links. The early bloggers were Web-savvy individuals, generally designers or programmers working in the technology industry. Not only did they have to be able to locate information on the Web before search engines became as accessible as they are today, but they had to be able to code their own HTML pages. In 1999, a number of blog portals were launched, all offering easy-to-use editing tools that require no coding experience. Since then, the number of blog portals and bloggers has increased dramatically: a 2003 survey found that new blogs on eight popular blog hosting sites increased by more than six hundred percent between 2000 and 2001, with over four million blogs by the time of the survey and 10 million projected by the end of 2004 (Henning, 2003). 3In order to identify the basic agreements that have coalesced around the blog, we have tried to honor the ethnomethodology of genres, relying to the greatest extent possible on the perceptions of bloggers themselves. We examined numerous individual blogs, of course, but we also paid attention to how bloggers talk about blogs. We noted the criteria they use to evaluate blogs and the ways that blog portals organize and present blogs. We read multiple accounts of the history of blogging and of the activity and purposes of blogging. Our selections from the profusion of material available have been guided by our initial questions about the intersection of the public and private spheres.

There is strong agreement on the central features that make a blog a blog. Most commentators define blogs on the basis of their reverse chronology, frequent updating, and combination of links with personal commentary.4 We discuss these basic features of the blog as genre below in the semiotic terms used by Miller (1984), identifying their generic semantic content, their syntactic or formal features, and their pragmatic value as social action. Syntactic and formal features interact, of course, but there is quite strong agreement about them. It is when bloggers discuss the purpose of the blog, its function and value as social action involving rhetors and audiences, that the nature of the generic blog becomes problematic.

Semantic content or substance

Almost across the board, bloggers seem to agree that content is the most important feature of a blog (Rodzvilla, 2002; The Weblog Review, 2003). The Weblog Review, a blog reviewing site, evaluates three features on a 5-point scale: design, consistency, and content, with the lion’s share of the rating’s weight, 80-90%, dedicated to the blog’s content. Although it is difficult to generalize about the content of blogs because they are so varied, there have been several attempts to classify blogs according to their content. The Weblog Review classifies blogs by grouping them into fourteen content-focused categories: adult, anime, camgirl, computer, entertainment, humor, movies, music, news/links, personal, photography, Spanish/Portugese, teen, and video games. Similarly, the Wikipedia provides a classification based on content, including personal, political, directory, and format-based types of blogs (Wikipedia, 2003). Another classification is offered by Jill Walker, in her contribution to appear in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory: she notes that blogs can vary in their media content, with most blogs primarily textual but others classified into “subgenres” such as photoblogs, videoblogs, and audioblogs (2003). 5Rebecca Blood’s widely cited blog entry on the history of weblogs offers a classification of blogs into two “styles,” based largely on content: an original filter-style, where the blogger is primarily an editor and annotator of links, and a later, more personal “blog-style” weblog, where bloggers engage in “an outbreak of self-expression” (2000). Other sources confirm this perception of two major types based primarily on a different substantive emphasis: an earlier type that emphasizes information access with links to other sites of interest, and a later type that emphasizes personal, diary-like writing. Herring et al. used these categories and several others to classify the 203 blogs in their random survey, confirming Blood’s claim that the personal type is more common than the filter-type (2004) 6. However, some also point out that “the boundary between the two types of site isn’t that well defined” (Coates, n.d.). And Joe Clark notes that because many leading blogs are by “folks in the Internet biz, their entire lives are online,” meaning that even sets of links “are diaries because life is the Web” (2002).

Walker points out the default expectation for content to be nonfiction, although some blogs are explicitly or implicitly fictional to varying degrees (2003). Moreover, the reverse chronological organization of the blog provides a “sense of immediacy,” according to Blood, a feature that reinforces the impression that the content is true, or real (2000). The strength of this expectation is shown by the outraged reaction to the Kaycee Nicole Cancer Hoax. During a two-year period, a number of bloggers became friends with Kaycee Nicole, an attractive young woman who was battling leukemia. When bloggers who had been following her blog learned that she had lost her battle with cancer but were unable to get information about the funeral arrangements, they became skeptical. Eventually they discovered that Kaycee Nicole was actually a middle-aged mother from the Midwest. In fact, she was the woman they had come to know as Kaycee Nicole’s mother. Using a pseudonym, Debbie Swenson published a blog and created a virtual identity–complete with the photograph of a local high school basketball player. The blogging community was outraged by the fictionalization, considering it an offensive deception. As one blogger writes, “Most people believed that Kaycee was real because no one would attempt such a massive ongoing hoax” (Geitgey, 2002). 7Content is important to bloggers because it represents their freedom of selection and presentation. What many bloggers find most compelling about blogs is the ability to combine the immediately real and the genuinely personal, a combination that represents a refreshing contrast with the “bland commercial” point of view of so much internet content (Whatis.com, 2003). Blogs, as Andrew Sullivan emphasizes, are “personal, — imbued with the temper of their writer” (2002). Evan Williams (co-founder of Pyra, the company that created Blogger) lists “personality” as one of the “three characteristics that are the driving factors in weblogs’ popularity as a publishing format” (the other two are formal features, frequency and brevity) (Turnbull, 2002). Blood also emphasizes the importance of “personal thoughts” and self-expression, placing particular value on a tone of irreverence and sar

A good man is hard to find by Flannery O’Connor

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A good man is hard to find” by Flannery O’Connor

“A good man is hard to find” is a gothic short tale published in the year 1953 by Flannery O’Connor. The story comprises of a household of six people who, on their way, while driving to Florida, are wiped out by a convict called the Misfit who had escaped from prison. This essay presents the relevance of the language of O’Connor’s story.

To begin with, the story’s tone combines detachment, humor, seriousness, and irony. Throughout the story, the readers come across humorous situations; for example, in this story by O’Connor, she labels the children’s mom as having “a face that is as innocent and broad as a cabbage that is tied with a green head scarf with two points on the top like the ears of a rabbit” (O’Connor 1). The narrator also uses detachment to approach the characters in the story. Her narrative voice does not help the readers be sympathetic to her story’s characters. She presents the characters with all their oddities and faults so that the readers can honestly judge them. As the story ends, the narrator’s tone begins to be more tragic and serious due to the Misfit that starts to happen to the family. The narrator brings about a situation whereby ordinary people are seen to confront the force of pure evil. This dark tone is recognized when the characters in the story cannot reason with the Misfit, who is evil, and thus are seen to confront mortality of their own.

Additionally, the narrator uses diction to deliver the dialogue in the story. The delivery of Grandmother’s dialogue by O’Connor is simple and deliberate to a point that she wants the readers to focus more on the supporting and the main character’s dialogues instead of the character’s details. The way the narrator writes the sentences in the story is short, simple, and plain because it was deliberately done to make it simple. For instance, in the central part of the story, O’Connor writes the description of the action by the Grandmother “old lady settling herself very comfortably, removing her gloves made of white cotton and putting them up together with her purse on a shelf that is in front of a black window” (O’Connor 2). O’Connor’s writing style is also effective and very consistent because she wants the narrator to convey the story in a descriptive, clean, and evident way that compliments her writing of this story.

Despite the language diction, the tone of the diction conveyed in this story is extraordinary and very different. Throughout this story, the choice of words for the grand Grandmother is uncanny and, at the same time, inflammatory. O’Connor wrote this diction since it was a common way to talk to minorities, especially African Americans, in the early 1930s when racism was widespread. For instance, the Grandmother at a Negro out of a black window and said, “Oh, look at the cute little pickaninny” (O’Connor 3). The term pickaninny is an belligerent word that is used to refer to young black kids. O’Connor uses the word deliberately and carefully since it is slang or jargon by the Grandmother to the young child. O’Connor’s choice of diction and words is unique and colorful due to her origin in South Florida, where jargon words are different compared to most writers in America.

In the story, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, the figurative language is centered on comparisons and mainly on personification and similes. A simile is an open comparison shown by connections similar to, like, and as. O’Connor uses simile while describing the mother to the children referring to her face “as broad and innocent as a cabbage” (O’Connor 1). A simile is also showcased when Bailey doesn’t allow his children to move into the house with a secret board as the Grandmother says, that his jaws are as rigid like a horseshoe (O’Connor 6). O’Connor also defines the Misfit’s vehicle saying that it was “big battered, just like an automobile” (O’Connor 7). On the other hand, personification is where an animal, a thing, or an intellectual term that is made to be human. The narrator uses it in the line “…the dust coated trees looking down on them” (O’Connor 13). This strengthens where no other thing except the family in the story, but trees only existed in that place. The trees, which are lifeless objects, are lively and given a coat to wear in dust form. The trees are said to look down on them, which is impossible.

Works Cited

O’Connor, Flannery. A Good Man is Hard to Find: And Other Stories. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1953.

Bauman, Rickey Lee, and Carol Whitfield. An Apology for Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha. (2017).

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Bauman, Rickey Lee, and Carol Whitfield. “An Apology for Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha.” (2016).

Kumari, Archana. “Literature in the Age of Globalization with Special Reference to Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha.” Language in India 19.2 (2019).

The book looks into Hesse Siddharta book that focuses on the use of ancient scriptures and sermons that could be attributed to Buddha. The book mentions the journey of Hesse to South East Asia thus developing the basis and understanding of what the book Siddhartha is based and developed. It shows how the main character Siddhartha is developed through the way he seeks a life of enlightenment. This journey resulted in the embracement and understanding of Om. It explains the origin of Om as a symbol of all things and the utterances can be found in Buddhism as a representation of unity and perfection. This source helps in outlining how Om is uttered in the novel and how the author uses it to foreshadow the ending of their quest. The source will also be a great reference point in looking at the quotes from the book that portray mystic utterances as well as foreshadowing in the text

Mehta, Sonia. “Scientific Relevance of OM for Holistic Well-being.”

Maples, Thomas C. Siddhartha, a hermeneutic analysis of the individuation process. Diss. Saybrook University, 2011.

The theme in Siddhartha shows how the novel is received and the perceptions the audience has on it in that it mostly drives human nature. It is in a human’s nature to try and seek enlightenment and in the case of the novel, the author takes his time in preparing to pronounce the word Om. This analysis helps to review the foreshadowing that helps the audience in understanding the later activities or events of the novel. The analysis implicitly suggests the use of foreshadowing in the books helping describe the spiritual quest journey of Siddhartha. The sight of a ferryman who was peaceful in the novel is an example of foreshadows that shows the spiritual progression of Siddhartha in that the sight foreshadows him as a man of total spiritual peace.

Misra, Bhabagrahi. “An Analysis of Indic Tradition in Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha.” Indian Literature 11.2 (1968): 111-123.

Reference

Bauman, Rickey Lee, and Carol Whitfield. “An Apology for Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha.” (2016).

Kumari, Archana. “Literature in the Age of Globalization with Special Reference to Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha.” Language in India 19.2 (2019).

Mehta, Sonia. “Scientific Relevance of OM for Holistic Well-being.”

Maples, Thomas C. Siddhartha, a hermeneutic analysis of the individuation process. Diss. Saybrook University, 2011

Misra, Bhabagrahi. “An Analysis of Indic Tradition in Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha.” Indian Literature 11.2 (1968): 111-123.

Beauty and Societal Perception

Literature

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Beauty and Societal Perception

Piercy also uses imagery to justify her claims in the poem regarding the perception of the inner beauty. In the second stanza, Piercy uses imagery describing the girl as an average child and to who possesses lovely essential qualities and as well a good heart. The repetition of the line “a fat nose on thick legs” builds the broader picture of arrogance that is portrayed by the society in describing the girl. Imagery has also been used to portray the girl as a young child, One such good example, “and presented dolls that did pee-pee/ and miniature GE stoves and irons/ and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy.” (Lines 2 and 3). The use of the above lines depicts the girl as being a young child who is reckless and have the qualities of a child. Besides, Barbie uses imagery to portray the girl’s experiences, and this can be seen in the lines 17 to 25 where the author compares Barbie Doll to the young girl. In the end, the girl pays the final price and to which Piercy depicts via use of imagery to unveil this. “Doesn’t she look pretty? everyone said/Consummation at last /To every woman a happy ending.” (23 to 25). Here the author shows that the society finally accepts the girl as she has been made over, despite it not being truly herself.

Euphemism has also been used in the poem, ‘So she cut off her nose and her legs and offered them up.’ In line 18. The girl cuts off her nose and legs and attempts to give them up, and she does this so that she is able to get rid of the society’s expectations to which she could not meet. Through the use of euphemism, the audience is made aware of the negative perception of the author in relation to the outer beauty among the women. Here she makes it clear that the outer beauty does not matter and as well the society’s perception on an individual can be detrimental and is capable of causing harm to a person.

Piercy has also used irony in her poem criticizing the perception of the society on a person’s outward appearances. In line 25, the author uses line 25, “To every woman a happy ending”. Here Piercy refers to the death as a happy ending, but on the contrary, it is not a happy ending as she dies at the end. Piercy uses the element of irony to justify further and intensify his perception and as well to the theme of the poem concerning judgements and expectations from the society. The author states that after death, the girl is able to separate herself from the judgmental society as well as their expectations and this is depicted as being her happy ending. When the judgement stops and the expectations from the society are put to an end, the girl is finally regarded as beautiful, and this implies that the outward appearances do not matter rather one should be focused on the inner beauty.

Maya Angelou can be seen to have the same perceptions to that of Marge Piercy that the outer beauty does not make a woman beautiful and thus the society’s judgments and expectations do not matter or affect at any point in the realization of internal beauty. Maya advocates for confidence and at the same time convey to the audience that the looks of a woman can’t let anybody bring them down if they carry themselves in a manner that portrays pride in themselves. A woman is genuinely phenomenal if she is prepared to overcome the society’s expectations and judgements and instill happiness within themselves. To justify her perception that the outer beauty does not matter, Maya uses various poetic devices and technique.

Imagery is one of the techniques used by Maya to support her claim. She skillfully uses imagery to develop a mental picture of a female who is considered as being self-confident, self-loving and as well, being a proud woman. For example, Maya in the first stanza in line 2 Maya states that “I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size”. From the line, the woman is proud of being whom she is and does not need the appreciation of the other people to be proud of herself. Besides, the author uses other lines in the poem to create an image of the phenomenal woman. Some of these lines include, ‘The curl of my lips, the ride of my breasts, the swing of my waist as well as the stride of my steps’. Through the use of imagery, the author has been able to describe the whole body of the woman from the head to feet as well as her behavioral patterns to which contribute to her being a phenomenal woman.

Maya uses irony as well to justify her claims that the inner beauty is more significant than the outer appearance. Through the use of irony, the author is able to represent her thoughts about beauty and the perceptions of society. The author of the poem is an African-American woman and has past experiences on racial discrimination, oppression and rape in the American soil. According to the American society, the standard of beauty is based on the grounds of the possession of fair skin color, blue eyes as well as sharp features. In contrast, African American women don’t conform to the standards of beauty assumed by the American society and Maya is convinced that the inner beauty is, in fact, the true beauty of a woman. A phenomenal woman feels confident in her huge physique and a shapely body, and that she discovers joy in her womanhood. Some of the lines in the poem indicate that she is proud of her body and does not need the society’s judgement to make her proud. Some of the lines include, ‘I’m a woman phenomenally, the strides of my breasts and the flash of my teeth’. These comments by the author make the audience able to realize the irony from the society’s expectation and the qualities of the African American women.

Besides irony and imagery, the author uses refrain in the first three stanzas of the poem found in the last four lines. “I am a woman, phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, that’s me.” A repetition is also found in the last stanza but with an addition of cause’, “Cause, I am a woman, phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, that’s me.” The author repeats these lines to make the emphasis and make a self-assurance mantra that the inner beauty is more worthy than the outer beauty and this aids the audience to associate the repetition with the phenomenal woman. The author also uses a tone of a strong and confident woman who is not bothered by what the society think and talk about her as she finds happiness in her womanhood. The tone can be found in the first three stanzas where she says she is not embarrassed by her physical appearance.

Work Cited

Angelou, Maya. Phenomenal woman: Four poems celebrating women. Random House Incorporated, 1994.

Piercy, Marge. Barbie Doll. Red Mountain Tribe, Incorporated, 1971.

A Glimpse Into the Philosophy of Jude the Obscure

In Thomas Hardy’s novel Jude the Obscure, the reader is offered a brief but lucid insight into Jude’s disposition and personality within the first few pages of the text. In the passage in question, Farmer Troutham has just concluded beating Jude for neglecting, or more appropriately, redefining his duties as a living scarecrow on Troutham’s corn field. As Jude progresses on his journey home to his great-aunt’s house, Hardy describes Jude’s feelings and anxieties concerning the harming of anything living, and, more generally, he reveals Jude’s “philosophy” of life. In doing so, however, Hardy also reveals a number of ideas common to his own philosophy, which become evident in the language and symbolism present in the text. As he escapes Troutham’s grasp and walks along the trackway, Hardy explains that Jude weeps “not from the pain, though that was keen enough; not from the perception of the flaw in the terrestrial scheme, by which what was good for God’s birds was bad for God’s gardener; but with the awful sense that he had wholly disgraced himself before he had been a year in the parish, and hence might be a burden to his great-aunt for life” (p. 15).

Jude feels anxiety over the possibility that, because of his disgrace in failing to accomplish such a simple task, he will not be able to find work to lessen the burden on his great-aunt. Although this was the most prevalent reason for Jude’s tears, the other two possibilities mentioned also play a role in the cause of his weeping. The pain from the beating, an obvious cause, would cause tears to well up in the eyes of any boy Jude’s age. Although Hardy writes that the perception of a flaw in the terrestrial scheme is not the reason for Jude’s tears, it is reasonable to assume that, like the pain, it is at least part of the reason. This assumption is reasonable for two reasons: first, because it coincides with the other characteristics of Jude’s character so closely; and, second, because Hardy would probably not have mentioned it, even as a possibility, if it did not have relevance to Jude’s particular disposition. In the following paragraph, Hardy describes the “roundabout track” which Jude takes home in order to avoid encountering the village.

The pasture behind the high hedge, which Jude chooses as his path home, is littered with “earthworms lying half their length on the surface of the damp ground” (p. 15). Hardy enhances the image of the vast numbers of earthworms in the final line of the paragraph: It was impossible to advance in regular steps without crushing some of them at each tread. (p. 15) In his use of “impossible,” Hardy presents the idea that the pasture was impassable unless a certain number of earthworms were sacrificed. Later, at the end of the passage, Hardy, in portraying Jude’s inability to harm, masterfully alludes to this image by describing Jude as “he carefully picked his way on tiptoe among the earthworms, without killing a single one” (p. 16). This potent use of imagery begins to open the door which leads to understanding Jude’s nature. The door is fully opened in the beginning lines of the final paragraph. In this final paragraph of the selected passage, Hardy presents Jude’s character and disposition most clearly. He begins by exemplifying Jude’s gentle nature: Though Farmer Troutham had just hurt him, he was a boy who could not himself bear to hurt anything. (p. 15) In this statement, Hardy illustrates the lack of vindictiveness or bitterness in Jude. Jude is angrier at himself than he is at Troutham. This precludes any desire for revenge, while strengthening the depiction of Jude’s gentle and innocent nature. The paragraph continues in describing this nature by providing examples of events which would torture Jude’s conscience and soul. The most lucid insight into Jude’s psyche comes with the description of “late pruning, when the sap was up and the tree bled profusely” (p. 15). In the use of one word, “bled,” Hardy offers a view into Jude’s heart and mind, and allows the reader to actually see what Jude perceives: a tree bleeding from where the pruning-shears have made their cut; its precious blood running down its side and onto the ground.

In the lines that follow, however, Hardy describes Jude’s disposition as a “weakness of character” (p. 15) because “he was the sort of man who was born to ache a good deal before the fall of the curtain upon his unnecessary life should signify that all was well with him again” (p. 15). In this judgment of Jude, Hardy expresses some of his personal views concerning humans and their plight. In his poem “Hap,” Hardy expresses his idea that what happens to Man is merely the result of chance, and that punishment and reward are not justly doled by a God. In the poem, after expressing his wish that “some vengeful god” would take credit for the sufferings in life, Hardy responds by declaring that this will not happen and that events are a result of accident and chance: But not so. How arrives joy lies slain, And why unblooms the best hope ever sown? . . . These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain. (l. 9, 10, 13, 14) These ideas are reflected in the passage from Jude the Obscure. Hardy seems to pity Jude’s fate because he feels that Jude will inevitably have to suffer. This idea that Jude’s life will be one of suffering seems to extend into Hardy’s personal view that many lives are riddled with suffering, but often for no just reason. Because of this, he refers to Jude’s existence as “unnecessary,” and only when it is over will all be well with Jude. In this sense, death signifies a long-awaited end to suffering; a suffering which is, for Jude, inevitable as a result of his gentle and meek nature.

Life Long Process

Lifelong Learning Process

Name

Institution

Date

Lifelong Learning Process

Section 1: Introduction

The magnitude of current social and economic change, the demographic pressures stemming from an ageing population, and the rapid transition of a knowledge-based society are all challenges that demand a new perspective to training and education under the realm of lifelong learning. The advent of high-functional systems, rapid technological changes, and information overload has created new challenges and problems for training and education. More advanced knowledge is acquired after the age of formal schooling has passed (10: 43). In a number of institutions, it is attained via educational processes, which do not focus on the traditional schooling.

Learning must be examined throughout the life because prior notions of a divided lifetime education accompanied by work are no longer tenable. Professional activities have become fluid in content and knowledge intensive to the extent that learning has become an integral part of adult work activities. Learning has become a new version of labor, and working tends to be a collaborative effort among peers and colleagues (7:56).

In the modern knowledge society, an educated individual is someone who is willing to embrace learning as a lifelong process. Learning has become part of living and a natural outcome of being alive and in contact with the world. Therefore, learners need not only instructions but also access to the world to have an opportunity to play a reasonable part in it. Therefore, workplace learning and school learning ought to be integrated.

Section two: Concepts of Lifelong Learning

Lifelong learning is an all-purpose learning activity, which is undertaken on a progressive basis with the goal of improving skills, knowledge, and competence. Higher education helps prepare students to be learners by developing specific skills and dispositions described by lifelong learning. Literature on lifelong learning conveys common themes that articulate characteristics that transform training and education into the concept of lifelong learning (1:24).

Section 3: Self-motivated learning

There is a strong emphasis on the need for people to take responsibility for their own learning. Therefore, lifelong learners are defined not by the form of training or education in which they are involved but their personal characteristics leading to that involvement. Experts have emphasized the value of locus of successful academic performance and control (8:82). Personal characteristics of people who are expected to engage in learning either formally or informally in their entire lives tend to acquire:

The necessary attitudes and skills for learning, particularly numeracy and literacy skills,

The confidence to learn and a feeling of engagement with the training and education system.

Motivation and willingness to learn.

Although training and education might have economic benefits for people, it is acknowledged that economic motivators are not primarily adequate to incentivize individuals to participate in training and education. Some motivational obstacles must be identified and addressed so that some individuals could participate in training and education. Although some of these factors are economic and can be tackled with financial aid, most people are deterred from participating in training and education by social and personal factors. While recognizing the factors acting as barriers and motivators to participate in training and education, lifelong learning tends to promote the engagement in learning for its sake and not for the purpose of employment. Therefore, the goal of engaging in learning seems to be more significant than the reason itself. This is viewed as recognition of the range of factors motivating people to engage in formal and informal learning and instrumental goals (4:20).

Section 4: A mechanical engineering concept

Drafting is a technical concept by which mechanical engineers design products and create instructions for manufacturing parts. Traditionally, the technical drawing was a hand-drawn schema illustrating all the necessary dimensions to produce a part, assemble the notes, a set of required materials and pertinent information. However, with the advent of technology, this concept has been modified and a computer model has replaced the hand-drawn schematic. Mechanical engineers creating technical drawings are often referred to as drafters. Historically, drafting has had two-dimensional process, but currently, computer aided programs enable the designers to create in three dimensions.

Section 5: Importance of lifelong learning

The past several years have witnessed an increase in interest to lifelong learning mostly because societal changes are triggered by information technology. Technologies are becoming increasingly complex, while knowledge is being produced and transformed at a rapid rate. Fixing a human heart or a car is considerably less complicated currently than it was generations ago. In some instances, employees tend to offer the training required and want employees to participate in the training.

Nevertheless, the American Society for Mechanical Engineers (ASME) staff cannot count on abandoning an organization that gave them their first job and training. Career enhancement and job mobility are contingent on progressing upgrade of skills for ASME staff. Therefore, individuals in work-involving skills such as ASME employees recognize that their future relies on their continuing expansion of skills even when their organizations are not offering the training for them (6:39).

In capitalist countries, former communist countries, and present communist ones, economics is the driving force of education in all levels and lifelong education. This applies to global competitiveness in business whereby the names of competing firms are shifting. However, besides economics, other factors that form the rationale for lifelong learning include enriching of human life. Humanity requires the ability to enrich and adopt the human culture broadly and deeply. Others may have passed with good grades but have minimal interest in widening their knowledge. A vast majority has taken music appreciation classes but has never attended a symbolic concert even when it is readily accessible. Often, schooling has been seen as a key factor in curtailing instead of stimulating people continuing interest in the sciences and the arts of the culture. This issue has attracted diverse views of politicians and philosophers who argue that the community must desire for each child what the better parent would desire for their children (3:28).

The other rationale for lifelong learning focuses on sustainability in the most profound sense: the ability to sustain life in the world. Until recently, the world was immersed in bloodshed because of wars. Currently, people are peacefully assembled in the same world. The current century cannot lull anyone that the world is ending. Instead, the human race has had to choose between catastrophe and education. The problems of the world are complex. This is because substantial historical lessons can be easily misunderstood, while the cultural and national contexts that encapsulate people can sow the bad seeds of discontent and mistrust among people (9: 36). This justifies the need for continuous learning in a world where ubiquitous information technology has replaced obstacles to global competition. However, it is even more vital for continuous learning to take place so that people could increase their collective level of intelligence and understanding about the issues they face as a human race. This is their best opportunity to get out of the current century alive and successful.

Section 6: Challenges in lifelong learning

There is an assurance that people developing applications and hardware will continue to make progress. The extension of these resources will promote lifelong learning as determined by the ability to overcome various challenges like:

Access – A big number of populations lacks access to Internet resources. This has fallen sharply among people in rural areas, especially impoverished rural zones.

Disposition – The fact that there is greater opportunity for lifelong learning through the Internet should not lead people to presume that the opportunities will be embraced. This demands a major radical change in the instructional programs of schools to affect the student’s continuous learning (2:26).

Capability: For years, people who have thought carefully about education have realized that everyone needs to become his/her own teacher. The disposition of desire to learn must match the capability. Formal learning programs must incorporate explicit focus on the involvement of self-directed learning. The best success indicator is the recognition that students no longer need teachers. The issue of capability is broadened by the use of the Internet. The Internet is a huge resource filled with the best and the worst information that human beings can acquired. It contains errors, truths, the worthless, and the valuable (5:37).

Section 7: Conclusion

Lifelong learning and training are essential problems for the current and future information worlds. Unfortunately, these issues require complex answers and facts to enumerate successes and failures. To recognize the complexity of the problems associated with lifelong learning requires that individuals reinvent, rethink, and pool resources in the future. The viewpoint of lifelong learning is more than continuing education and training because it forces people to reinvent their schools and universities. People ought to understand the co-evolutionary processes between basic human activities and their interdependencies and relationships with the new media (10: 44).

They need progress and an in-depth understanding of innovative systems, new theories, assessment, and practices. People must also create new physical aspects, intellectual spaces, new reward structures, and new organizational forms to make lifelong learning a vital component of human life. This requires organizations, groups, and individuals to partake and experience these new forms. For the risk takers, using their imagination and creativity to explore alternative ways of learning is an inevitable practice.

Section 8: References

Andain, Ian, and Murphy Gerard. Creating lifelong learners: Challenges for education in the 21st century. Cardiff: International Baccalaureate. 2008

Chapman, Judith. School, Community and Lifelong Learning. London: Continuum International Pub. Group. 2008

Evans, Karen. Learning, work, and social responsibility: Challenges for lifelong learning in a global age. Dordrecht: Springer. 2009

Field, John. Lifelong learning and the new educational order. Stoke-on-Trent [u.a.: Trentham. 2006

Field, John. Social capital and lifelong learning. Bristol: Policy Press. 2010

Naimpally, Ashok, and Ramachandran Hema. Lifelong learning for engineers and scientists in the information age. London: Elsevier. 2012

Scales, Peter. Teaching in the lifelong learning sector. Maidenhead: Open University Press. 2013

Sharma, Tara C. Meaning of lifelong learning. New Delhi, India: Sarup & Sons. 2011

Wankel, Charles. University and corporate innovations in lifelong learning. Charlotte, N.C: IAP – Information Age Pub. 2008

Williams, Michael. Citizenship education and lifelong learning: Power and place. Hauppauge, N.Y: Nova Science Publishers. 2013

MARKETING PLAN TEMPLATE

Marketing Plan Template (Replace this line with your title)

Contents

Executive SummaryCompany ProfileMarket Segmentation & TargetingSituation and Company AnalysisEthics and Social ResponsibilityMarketing Information and ResearchCustomer Decision-Making ProfilePositioning and DifferentiationBrandingMarketing Mix (4Ps)Product StrategyPricing StrategyPlace: Distribution StrategyPromotion: Integrated Marketing Communications StrategyBudgetAction PlanRisk FactorsAttributions

Executive Summary

Do this section last. This short summary should provide a holistic overview of your marketing plan. All this information is covered in more detail in the rest of the marketing plan. For the Executive Summary, provide a clear, concise overview of the following points:

Company Description

Briefly describe the organization and offerings (products and/or services) your marketing plan focuses on, and the problem(s) they solve.

Target Segment

Identify and briefly describe your target segment.

Competitive Advantage

Explain your organization’s competitive advantage.

Positioning Statement

Provide the positioning statement your marketing plan will apply.

Marketing Plan Objectives

List the objectives of the marketing plan: What will it accomplish? Be as specific as possible: anticipated increase in sales, profits, market share, etc.

Company Profile

Buffalo Wild Wings

Restaurant Industry

Headquarters: Minneapolis, MN USA

Year founded: 1982

The number of employees: 3,400

Annual revenue (estimated): 2 billion

Major products and/or services: Wings, beer, sauces

Target customers: Sports fans, video gamers, trivia fans

Distribution channel(s): Local Buffalo Wild Wings distributors

Key competitors: Applebees, Olive Garden, Chili’s.

Link to website: https://www.buffalowildwings.com/

Link to Yahoo! Finance information page (for public companies): https://finance.yahoo.com/company/buffalo-wild-wings?h=eyJlIjoiYnVmZmFsby13aWxkLXdpbmdzIiwibiI6IkJ1ZmZhbG8gV2lsZCBXaW5ncyJ9&.tsrc=fin-srch

Market Segmentation & Targeting

For decades, people have stated to love fast foods. Buffalo wild wings thrives at quenching the thirst for a cold soda on a sunny weekend out and also serves tantalizing wings and fries, with fast and excellent service customers get satisfied and happy.

Our core targets include youngsters, singles, and those currently enrolled in college and high school. The family unit is also a target for the business; it shall appeal to families with young children. The business will also target both genders with a little skew towards male teen customers because of they are likely to drop by for bites to fuel them for the rest of the day.

The business targets young Minneapolis citizens as the main market. The premise is situated in a prime location where they meet and hang out after school. Due to vigorous extra curricula activities among Minneapolis young people, they often have their meals in malls where buffalo wild wings is located and they tend to flock the premise after school.

The secondary market segment is the working Minneapolis population. with a number of shopping malls in Minneapolis the number of people who may rely on fast foods is quite high and hence making that population a segment to be targeted by Buffalo Wild Wings. Minneapolis is also a known tourist destination and hence tourists make the third segment of the potential customers who may flock Buffalo Wild wings.

Buffalo Wild wings plans to majorly focus on serving the youngsters and teenagers in Minneapolis. the group has been selected because they are the most frequent customers and hence Buffalo Wild Wings has a goal to be the “Extraordinary fast foods place.” and we trust that right target segment that will steer the brand is the youngsters and teenagers. The teens stick to the pocket friendly dishes and in return, they save the company as the cost on budget is reduced and the profit margins go up.

Situation and Company Analysis

Potatoes are readily available in the United States hence the basic material for the business will be easily obtained. The kids are also given sufficient amount of money by their parents to purchase their food and hence they will certainly opt for fast foods. Lifestyle changes are also influencing consumer purchases, their food and entertainment choices. the changes taking place in the economy include, the professional class has immensely grown meaning individuals have some disposable income that they are willing to use.

Technological advancements in the industry have also been seen and as a result, advertising value addition and even improved customer experience and satisfaction as well improved delivery services are some of the benefits that come with technological advancement. Technology has undeniably made everything easier.

For the business to operate in Minneapolis , it certainly has to get the appropriate documents from the licensing authorities and clearance for the health department because it deals with foods for human consumption. Political environment is stable and hence the company will thrive due to the political stability.

SWOT Analysis

HELPFUL Ideas HARMFUL Concerns

Internal Strengths

Helpful experienced Owner-Operator

Limited competition in Minneapolis

Ability to sale products online and do deliveries

Highly visible website Weaknesses

Products can be quickly offered by competitors

High Operation Cost

Limited Flexibility Pricing

External Opportunities

Continued expansion for online sales

Ability to grow and develop online stores

Acquisition of additional rounds of capital

Advancement in technology and the new innovations that ensure the business operates smoothly

Possible advancement and sale of the business Threats

Changes in regulations that can impact the business

The business products are sold by competitors

Costs continually increase as the company increases

Mission, Objectives & Goals

Our main goal is to be one of the most successful restaurant with the best wings in Minneapolis.

Objectives

To establish a presence as a successful local fast food outlet and gain a market share in USA’s food industry

To make Buffalo Wild Wings a spot for mall-goers

To expand into a number of outlets by the third year

Goals

Create a unique, innovative, entertaining menu that will differentiate us from the rest of the competition

Control costs at all times

Sell the products that are of the highest quality

Provide 100% satisfaction to our customers and maintaining the level of excellence services among other competitors

Encourage the two most important values in food industry; brand and image, as these two ingredients are a couple of main drivers in marketing communications

Get access to high-traffic shopping malls near the target market

Promote good values of company culture and business philosophy

Ethics and Social Responsibility

Current Status

It is no longer acceptable for businesses to disregard issues around ethics and social responsibility. Conduct research and briefly describe what your organization is currently doing regarding corporate social responsibility and pursuing sustainable business practices.

Recommendations

Based on your understanding of the organization’s goals, what recommendations do you have for how to create a more ethical, socially responsible and/or sustainable business? What practices do you recommend the organization pursue?

Marketing Information and Research

Research Question

The most important question the organization is trying to answer is what the needs and wishes of the target customers are.

Information Needed

The kind of information needed to make useful marketing decisions include; what do the target customers think of Buffalo Wild Wings? The question tries to answer what the organization can do to encourage the customers to consume their products the more and to encourage others to do the same. A question to the already existing customers is also important in a bid to understand their product or service knowledge and how often they consume the product/service and what they think about the products/service. It is also necessary to ask those who prefer other brands that their reasons are, answer their questions in a satisfactory manner, and end up winning them to your side. Asking about the products that sell the most is paramount, as well as understanding the products that grow in decline and those that are receiving the best rates and referrals.

Research Recommendations

The necessary information about the business can be acquired by conducting a research where the study population will be the target customers. Another source of information would be from personal experience and knowledge, when employees really understand the markets, then they are in a position give the relevant information to steer the business forward. Regular data from the existing customers can be another source of information and the person tasked with collecting information should be persuasive and very imaginative.

Customer Decision-Making Profile

Identifying the Customer and Problem

Identifying the customer and the problem is arguably the most powerful marketing strategy and tool, it enables the decision makers to ensure that marketing is effective because the customers are identified and considered and decisions on how their satisfaction will be obtained is made. the best strategy to be utilized is segmentation. a segment is defined as a group of people with similar needs and are also a part of the general market. The division of the market into segments enables the business to reach its important customers effectively and to efficiently provide the products and services.

Factors Influencing Customer Decisions

Customer decisions to purchase a product or service are influenced by a number of factors. One of the factors is geographical; in this case, the location of the customer influences their buying powers. In the urban areas for example, customers tend to consume a lot of fast food because of their busy schedules and the lifestyle in the city. Personal and demographic factors also play a greater role in influencing the purchasing power of customers. Male teen often purchase fast food because they do not give much thought to their bodies like their female counterparts. The family unit also may be a contributing factor; young families may often have take-outs because fast food thrill children and their parents may give in as they try to make them happy.

Reaching the Customer

The enterprise will focus on reaching the customer by using the example of successful business enterprises also it will ensure they do not at all cost tamper on the quality of the products and the services they are offering. Consistence is another important strategy in getting to the customer and the availability of a variety where the customer can choose.

Positioning and Differentiation

Competitive Advantages

Buffalo Wild wings has a competitive advantage over its main competitors it may focus on having a unique product and the best dipping sauces something their competitors might not be doing. it is important to also adopt an enthusiastic culture in the business as well having friendly staff that reflects the company’s culture.

Market Niche and Positioning Strategy

Positioning strategy also enables the decision makers to understand where the customers think about the business and that information will help the organization to improve on the delivery of services and the communication of the improvements to the customers. Market Niche is a strategy that the organization must hack. it is important for the organization to ensure it places its products and offers the service in the right place.

Positioning Statement

The position statement leads in making and planning the marketing activity. The positioning statement will be to increase customer awareness in the locality. every strategy and effort will be geared towards getting the customers to know who Buffalo wild wings are.

Repositioning Considerations

Do you recommend a repositioning that improves on what the organization has been using up to this point? Why or why not?

Branding

Brand Description

The aim is to establish a distinct brand that will certainly stand out from the competitors. The logo is to be eye catching and distinct.

Brand Promise

The fries will be made by 100%fresh potatoes and with the best prices in town.

Brand Voice and Personality

Brand is excellently Delicious.

Brand never compromises on quality.

Brand Positioning and Strategy

There shall be a grand opening in a central place and colorful banners bearing the distinct logo will be displayed. A particular place in the mall will be the tester market and the most delicious wings prepared and letting out the aroma of freshly fried fries inviting people to taste the products.

When marketing information and analysis is appropriately done and the most appropriate information obtained it sets the business way above its competitors and it is safe to say Knowledge is Power against competition.

Marketing Mix (4Ps)

Product Strategy

Online Doctor deals with prescription and over the counter medication from renowned brands across the globe, the products are accompanied by a service and is at the introduction stage of the product life cycle. Allowing customers to interact with medical staff and doctors to interpret the prescription notes will go a long way in fitting the general X and Y market-a demographic that craves convenience.

•What level of quality and consistency does the offering have?

Doctors that can see patients online and recommend simple drugs for simple ailments and follow up reminders to ensure clients follow the dosage present the quality of the services which guarantees consistency.

•How many features does it have and can they be removed or added?

Online medical assessments

Repeat prescriptions

Free delivery

Fast selling brands

Medical devices

All these features of the business are essential and would not be removed, however, over time delivery will be expanded to cover more regions of the country and ultimately introduce services to external markets.

•How well does your product or service deliver what the customer values? How can it improve?

Repeat precisions are excellent after service.

Online prescriptions by physicians if they deemed fit is also a service the consumers consider critical.

Improvement can come in the form of more diversification in medical and medical devices brands and more investment in expensive drugs.

•What improvements would help your offering compete more effectively?

Low prices will go a long way in increasing competitive power.

The ability to deliver further than towns near the warehouses will mean venturing in areas the competition is yet to reach. Revenues from these areas will be useful in employing measures that suppress the competition.

Pricing Strategy

The medical products sold on Online Doctor are market standards that require low pricing sourcing to cover for the deficit created by free delivery. Exemplary customer service offsets any thought of expensive prices in the minds of consumers. Competitors are large established e-pharmacies with high prices because of the trust they have generated over the years and the effect of dealing with things branded premium.

•How sensitive are your customers to changes in price?

Customers are in search of ways to fill their prescriptions without using the tedious way of seeing a doctor. And because they consist of a young general of white color workers there is not much strain about the price.

•What revenue you need to break even and achieve profitability?

$175,000 is the amount required to breakeven.

•What does the price say about your product in terms of value, quality, prestige, etc.?

The product definitely elicits the feeling of prestige and offers tremendous value in terms of location and quality. The medicine and materials are sourced for renowned with generic ones branded as such to ensure the client is aware of the decision they are making.

Place: Distribution Strategy

The products are distributed from two warehouses located in Chicago and Joliet. There are no intermediaries and the companies supply chain is made of the supplier, the company, and the consumer. There are no actual disconnects but having small retailers use our online platform to sell their products is an incredible opportunity that is yet to be utilized. The business looks to venture into bulk buying to sell to retailers at wholesale prices. These retailers can sell on the platform or their stores and also sell their products separate from those offered by Online Doctor on its e-pharmacy platform.

•What are the best distribution channels and methods for you to use, and why?

The main distribution channel although indirect constitutes the manufacturer, online doctor, and customers because the e-pharmacy platform began as a retailer and wishes to maintain the status. Some products will be sold to retailers in wholesale to widen the company’s portfolio and inventory.

•Will you have a retail outlet and if so, where will it be located?

There is no physical location for the retail outlet. As an e-pharmacy, the business is located online. However, there are two warehouses in Chicago and Joliet as well as offices and server centers where all operations will be carried out. Contact with the customer will happen through the internet.

•In what geographic area(s) will your product/service be available?

The services will be available in Wisconsin, Kentucky, Michigan, Iowa, Indiana, Missouri, and Illinois. These are all states that border the state of Illinois where the warehouses are located. Plans are available to expand to other states with time.

Promotion: Integrated Marketing Communications Strategy

Approach

The global market for pharmacies have an annual customer base of 40 million with half that number looking for drugs online and the number is still growing and Online Doctor wishes to grow with them. The penetration strategy that includes selling at the cost price, which will be below the selling price of the competition, goes a long way in advertising the business. An initial opening ceremony will be the beginning of the marketing strategy where people will gather to celebrate the business’s inception. The business will rely more on video ads on social media and video platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. The importance of this is that these sponsored ads are accompanied by a link to the platform where the consumer by one click immediately interacts with the platform. Word of mouth marketing will be enhanced by providing incentives for clients that will bring referrals. Direct marketing will be applied to medical conferences and seminars. Traditional marketing including newspapers, TV, and radio commercials will take a small portion of the marketing strategy but will not be ignored entirely. Flyers and brochures will be put in strategic places such as the shops of partnering retailers. The business will also be listed in the yellow pages since the platform has also gone digital.

Goal

The primary goal of Online Doctor’s marketing the customer base at an annual rate of 5% in the first year and 7.5% in the following years and to create a long-term professional relationship with its clientele. The idea is to get a client and retain them. The campaign will target younger people between the ages of 25 to 40 who are active on the internet and seek services that are convenient like purchases that are delivered to their doorstep. Ads in traditional platforms such as the TV, radio, and newspapers will target older people from the age of 55 who require certain drugs for comorbid diseases as well as medical devices.

Messages

Message: Having trouble handling your dosage, get the prescription and a manager.

Message pillar: Some people are heard saying they would rather get an injection that deals with swallowing pills regularly because they tend to forget.

Proof point: re-prescription is a simple reminder through message alerts.

Call to action: Buy drugs on a platform that reminds you when its time to use them.

Promotional Mix and IMC Tools

Digital Marketing

Advertisements on popular blogs and application developed for mobile phones