Pheonix TV

I remember that when I was small, I always watched the Phoenix TV. (Because it was available in my old home) I felt it was quite boring at that time, since it was full o f news and information. However, recently I feel quite interested in one of its show called 魯豫有約， it is a talk show. The host will interview many kinds of people including pop stars and professional people. It will give much background information instead of only presenting it in an entertaining way. After I visited the station, I realize that their target audiences are who have high education.

My vision has been widened on that day. It makes me know that producing news report is a complicated process. They have to search and buy some information of the news from other media company. Also, the lady who talks to us helps us know more about the situation in China. For myself, I think that the method of collecting news and the operation of the station is a phenomenon of globalization since the news is transferred with high flexibility but the content of it still mainly focus on Asia. Actually, it seems to be popular in China but not in Hong Kong.

Anyway, it was an interesting experience to look in the studio and was funny to take photo

The Phoenix TV

I am so happy having the chance to visit the Phoenix TV. As a mainland student, I feel more familiar with the Phoenix TV. It has a large impact on many people, since in the mainland, the news and discussions are limited to some extent.

The time for questioning is not so long as I expected,since they are too busy. Although their life are so busy,they are very enthusiasim and friendly, showing us all the Phoenix things.

The Phoenix is designed for Chinese people in mainland and all over the world.So sometimes it is consered by the government. How about the Hong Kong local media?I am still wondering whether news and media corporations in Hong Kong is totally not afraid of the government? And as lots of Hong Kong people do not watch TV,how do local Hong Kong station make profits? Also, I want to know whether people from abroad will keep watching CNN, maybe I should ask Mark .I found the limits that a station have concerning of the audiences may also one feature for itself.

Comparing different media corporations, we may find a globalization phenomenon. Is it really meaningful for all media to be more and more globalized , rather than localized?
Many questions need to be thinking.
The last thing but also important is :Thank you, Lisa ,for preparing this visit and the members of the Phoenix TV who are so friendly and helpful.

On visiting Phoenix TV

Watching fashion programme in Phoenix Chinese TV, not my usual choice, during writing this article. It is impossible to imagine that all these programmes are produced in those tiny studios. When the PR manager said that they earn about 1.2billion last year, that AMAZED me. I had that perceptions that Phoenix has a huge base of audience, but turn out they have like 2 hundred million in China. Later I realize they do not need a huge base of audiences. They just need the right audiences, the audiences who is willing to spent, appear to be intellectuals, so business will place advertisement in the channel.

Apple Daily and Phoenix TV
There is not enough time to ask them questions. It is really funny that the InfoNews Channel I am watching is in traditional Chinese subtitles, instead of the simplified one. When the anchor is summing up the editorials of the day in the morning news programme, the Apple Daily's (pro-democracy paper, paper sell really well just like the NYTimes, but the context is like the Mirror ) editorial is always missing. But when during the visit to our last stop -- the library, I saw a stack of Apple Daily's newspaper stand there. Oh, I thought they ignored the paper entirely, but turn out not to be true. I wanted to ask a silly question , why are the papers here but they are never used in the channel. That give me some insight of where they are setting the station in Hong Kong, at least they can read democratic paper which are forbidden in China.

Political Correctness
Comparing to CCTV news, Phoenix is more appealing to me. CCTV news is so unbelievably formal (the clothes, the PTH, etc), always politically correct. Phoenix is more vivid and seem a little open-minded. Yet, that is just a packing. They would not address Ma Ying Jiu as President of Taiwan, but the Leader of Taiwan. They introduce a lot about Taiwan to Chinese audience in "pro-unification with China" perspectives. What the editor said in the meeting room does disappoint me. They will delete a commentary made by guest because of the "government officials" dislike it. Why would I be surprise? They are communist after all, to conform is communist 101. Freedom of speech is practicing in Hong Kong, but not in China after all.

Patriotic?
Anyway, comparing to TVB or ATV news (the only two free TV channels in Hong Kong, TVB get 90% of the HK audiences.), Phoenix has a more wide and global perspectives. That is the greatness of Phoenix. TVB or ATV seldom cover news in Middle East or Africa (Unless the Prime Minister place a visit there). Phoenix has reporters all over the world, including Tehran. A patriot can be very cosmopolitan person!

This trip is definitely an eye-opener. And I think.... they need a new PR manager.. (the current one is great, but Phoenix deserves better.. don't you think?)

Observations in Zhaokang Light Rail station

Last Friday, Jenny and I had observation about how people use mobile phones in Zhaokang Light Rail station. As Jenny mentioned, a women and asecondary female student used their phones to make appointments. They both talked about their future plans that people would not waste any time while waiting the trains.

There was an interesting phenomenon, while I walked towards two ladies talking in the phones, they both walked away. However, I just pretended to watch the line map. I didn’t know that it was whether a kind of privatizing the public space. Their voices were soft and walked around in the station. They expected others not listening to them. Moreover, a teenage girl phoned to a boy asking where was him. She asked him to be faster that she and her friends had already reached the destination. In the conversation, she had passed the phone to different people to talk with the boy. After a few minutes, the boy appeared opposite the station where the girls stood but they still talked in the phone. When girls watched the boy crossing the road, they asked him to walk faster in the phone. It seemed that the phone connect them from different space to the same space.

Apart from using the phone to communicate, one young girls used her phone to play games and her friend was looking at her and discussed with her. Besides, some adults also played the games in the phone while waiting the train. And people were very keen on sending messages that they typed very fast and put their phones in the pockets. Then they soon took the phones and sent the other messages again.

From the above observation, I think that mobile phone is closely related to time that everyone uses their phone to increase the speed of events and save their time.

Cell phone that keep us busy

Sorry that I missed the action research on Friday. I was suffering from diarrhea that day. But I did my research over the past week.

Connection amongst strangers
I was on the minibus from Jordon to Gold Coast. A guy sat in front of me and he kept talking on the mobile phone with her girlfriend. When the mini bus got around Siu Lam, he did not know where he was. So he kept asking where was her girlfriend and told her what he saw(I saw many trees, just over the bridge, i saw the BBQ sign...) And a very friendly middle age women offered help and told him you were in Siu Lam and the next stop would be Gold Coast. The mini bus driver overheard too and asked "where is your girlfriend? How is she look like? Is she going to get on this bus? This bus is not going to Yuen Long!(The destination of the bus was intended to go to Yuen Long)" When the bus got to Gold Coast and her girlfriend got on the bus and the driver told them, I could take you both to the mini bus stop that you could get bus to Yuen Long. The most amazing thing is that the guy did not ask for help, but everyone helped because we can hear clearly what he was talking about. The connection between Hongkongers started and ended in that journey.

The 3G window shopping
I was waiting for my friend in Time square, a huge plasma TV was over my head. I witnessed how the woman use her 3G moblie phone. She was so concetrated on the screen and wear the hand-free earphone, talking loudly over the phone, as if there was nobody but herself. "Wow.. really? That is so pretty! Yes, let's buy this one." Yes, she was doing a real virtual window shopping with her friend. I am amazed. She did not move arround, she just stood there and talk and talk and talk over 15 minutes. I was forced to overheard her whole conversation! As a 3G user myself, I do admit that sometime I talk to people via 3G. But it could not last long, the reception is not that good. Appoxiamtely for 3 -5 minutes just to find out where the person is (people do lie about where they are, very often...). It is impossible to move arround when you are talking and looking via the phone.

Confession...
I am not a peeking tom. But I did take picture of someone who I find funny. A little boy was playing with the pole in the train. He dance by using the pole. I could not resist to use my phone to take picture of him, and he did not know that.

寄件者 Silly stuff

Mobile phone today cannot just be a mobile phone that could only receive and dial a call. It has to be packed with functionssss. Games, Walkman, GPRS system, camera, Internet connection, messaging, visual calling and many more in the future. When Camera married mobile phone, make every little thing become important. You could take picture whatever you want and the memory of that moment being enlarge. That moment might not be that important if you did not film it. But with the picture, you enlarge every little details of that experience. Mobile phone become our necessity, not only because the connection with people, but the additional functions that it contained. You can kill time by surfing the web using your cell, it can give you direction with the GPRS system, you have to check the email every five minutes to see if the client has confirmed the meeting or not.......

The connection between you and the phone is much more important than the connection between you and people arround you.

Disconnected

So I walked around the library, and the canteen observing people and the way they were using their phones.
I kept noticing their body language, whether they were texting or talking on the phone they immediately disengaged from whatever they were doing, unless they were just walking which they continued to do so. People did stop sometimes, mid walk to pull out their phones and glare at the number.
I also noticed some of my friends and the way they behave when someone calls. The most common was to just glance at the number and say hello, one of my friends cursed when she saw who was calling and threw her phone back in purse. Another told me that she screens every call that comes in because she has a stalker that keeps calling her. Most other people would answer their calls, become steely eyed and fidget with whatever they were holding. They actually seemed to leave this world mentally and were somewhere else for a while, sometimes just walking in a circle, smiling or frowning their attention far far away.
The exception to this was in the library where around the computers at least calls were urgent and shushed. The girl sitting next to me would keep glancing around to see if anyone saw her, and cut her call quickly. Someone else had her phone in her hand and was walking around the shelves poking her head around every now and then to see whos calling.
There were a few people playing with their psps/nintendos at the canteen, and on the mtr over the weekend. They disengaged completely from the world around them. My roomate who plays with his nintendo sometimes doesnt even know if I'm talkign to him, he is so focussed. One of the saddest sights I saw was at a mcdonalds once where this really fat man was sitting across his girlfriend playing on his psp while his girlfriend fed him french fries. He was totally engrossed in the game, and neither of them were talking. I thought that was the saddest sight I had seen, like a commercial for obesity and lack of reality rolled into one. I thought, "if this is the future, what hope do we have?" I really do think portable games are a waste of time, but then I think video games are too. At what point do we realise that we're too disconnected from reality? Portable video games arent a substitute for real life, our lives shouldnt be that bad that we need such an escape from it.
This class has also made me reflect on the use of mp3s, ipods and portable music. I love my music on the go, walking around central or mongkok listening to music is one of my favorite things to do because i am engaged in the world yet i feel like i am apart from it. Whatever sights I see, seem like the music video to whatever song im listening to, it's so much more pleasant. Most people who I saw listening to their music, were quite attentive to the world, visually at least.
This has all left me curious, what kind of future are we going to see? I'm imaging something like the matrix...

Some notes on mobile phones oberservation

Chering, Yvonne and I went on K51 to Tuen Mun Town Centre to see how people use their phones on bus and at the bus stop. It was excited that we pretended to be not knowing each other and sat separately. We tried to be an ordinary passenger instead of a researcher. In front of me was a young couple. The girl kept on sending SMS to her friend. Although she was texting, she leaned against her boyfriend shoulder and rolled his arm. It seemed that she was trying to keep a close distance with her boyfriend even though she was communciating with another time and space. A minute after, the boy's mobile phone rang and he picked up the phone. The girl could not lean his shoulder and roll his arm anymore because the boy was trying to sit straight in order to answer the call. The girl then put her hand on top of the boy's hand which was not holding the phone, to show her intimate care. In this sense, the girl has tried all means to tackle the farness brought by mobile phones and made her boyfriend felt connected in the intimate relationship.

Another interesting obersavtion I made was in the Tuen Mun Town Centre bus stop. The major attribute of mobile phones was reversed. The word "mobile" means you are able to move freely. However, I saw a user could not move freely when he was using mobile phone. It is because he was smoking next to the garbage can. Since the penality of littering is $1500 HKD, people are afraid to be charged.The user had to stop near to the garbage can and had a quick smoking before going on the bus. The social regulations blocked the mobility of mobile phone. The user could not go anywhere he wanted but stoped a particular place before he finished his cigarette.

Observations over the weekend

Thanks very much Yvonne and Jenny for their very prompt sharing! You can even post your photos in this space!
Maybe a further reflection would be whether some people would use the phone differently than others, at certain times of the day, eg. working people would definitely tend to use the phone for work purpose during working hours. So what conclusions can you draw from those people you saw at that certain time in the day at these places?
Also the way young people use the phones, are they only using mobile phones and not other mobile technology like interactive games?
Some personal reflection: do you think this exericise made you see more of the scenes you have been so used to by now? This is also a way to help us reflect how WE have been going through time and space, blurring public and private and coping with the differing identities at the same time.
You can certainly extend this observation over the weekend, and continue to notice how people might use it differently, in other spaces like restaurants, or even domestic spaces like the home!

lisa

My reflections of mobile phone research
My team aimed at finding how people using cell phone at the bus and the bus stops. We chose to take No.51 to start our research. As there are two floors in the bus ,we first sat separately on the first floor. I found three people using their mobile phone,two of which were sitting together. They are friends.After they talked with each other ,they began using their own mobile phones.
The rest was a girl who was keeping her phone for a long time. There were also people who checked their cell phones perhaps for either the time or the messages. On the second floor,there was an old man using cell phone.
At the bus stops,using mobile phone is a common phenomenon. I think it is a thing that did not needed to be done,but calling to people just let us feel convenience and relax.
At Tuen Mun,I also called my friend to ask whether she would like to come. That is convenient and easy to do.

observation in Zhao Kang Light Rail

Jennifer and I were in Zhaokang Light Rail station, observing people with cellphones for about half an hour. At first we were trying to find out the proportion that people with cellphones and ipods out of total people waiting the train, but later we found it just unrealistic to figure out the number because people seemed flowing all the time. but we indeed wrote down anyone using cellphone or ipod we had seen. 

people in the station using cellphone mostly talk to someone and speak very fast. We sat beside a woman who were talking a little bit loud to her phone so that we can eavesdrop. she just were unaware of my existence even when i sometimes stared at her.yes, maybe we were in different time and space even though our actual distance was less than 20cm. Jennifer told me that she was making some appointment with the one over the phone. after several eavesdroping Jennifer said they were similar to the woman, all making future plans even in the so called 'waste time' in stead of asking 'useless information' like 'what are you doing'. 

because it was the time when students went back home from school, we saw many groups of four or five teens who got together using only one cellphone. what interests me is that the mobile phone considered to construct a space that separates from the public is once again becoming a tool to construct a space for a certain community. teens are not so independent as adults and they have a much higher desire for recognition of identity in a community, also, at the same time resisting the public which is certainly controled by adults.

taken the concept of mental time and space into consideration, i just found it quite interesting to see a indian-like man stop talking to the phone and begin to run right after he saw the bus he needed to take. It is just like there has to be some emergency in the reality that can only draw back this person from where his mind locates. 

we also saw some people with their ipod earphone even on a phone call, two elementary school students with their cellphones hanging in front of their chest, three men read traditional media-books and magazines- for killing time and etc. i'd better stop here maybe Jennifer can say a bit more!

Mobile communications, mobile identities: action research

Hi all,



Hope you have all had very interesting experience on the action research!we can compare detailed notes in next week's class, but for here we can put down main observations, especially how that helps us reflect on the impact/ implications of mobile communication technologies on our every life, with specific reference to:

i) connectivity

ii) interpersonal relationship

iii) the blurring of time and space; public and private

iv) identit(ies) and community building

v) tactics (to resist control, delay/ distruct communication)

you can also reflect on your own usage of mobile technologies!



Lisa

How the image of "Gentle" Korean man is constructed?

After two lessons on Korean and Japanese drama, I couldn't help thinking how the positive, gentle, sensitive male figure is being constructed in TV drama.

I always know that in reality Japanese or Korean male is very bossy and really look down at women. But the Korean TV drama is constructing an very opposite of male figure. And most amazingly, many women fell in love with the "illusion". I call that an illusion is because of that figure is so different from the reality male image. How could those women have consent with it? The women here is women all over the world. If the Korean man in reality is so bossy, how could they thinking and constructing a gentle and have a sense to care women figure? What is the connection between the illusion and reality?

Referring to the reading distributed last week, some Japanese women are trying to marry a "Gentle" korean man because of those dramas. I could not believe that Japanese women could be that naive. What does this tell us? Why those "illusion" is becoming a real Korean male figure? What is the "magic" behind it?