Sociediapop

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Like it or not, JM310 is how a class should be

by Bhuwit Panjarattanakorn

Waking up so early in the Monday morning is not always that bad. My true experience comes from the Journalism class I take on the first semester of junior year.

Since high school years that I've never woke up this early to class. 9 o'clock sharp, the time that all students who attend the JM310 Editorial and Article Writing class have to settle down and be ready.

I kept reminding myself on Sunday night that there is no "morning chill" for tomorrow. Jump off the bed and straight to shower becomes my Monday routine. Kanatach and I always have our breakfasts at 8:30 in the SC canteen while our eyes keep looking at the time worrying to be late.

Kanatach Ajchariyasucha, a third-year student, who also takes the class with me, he's like my timekeeper. The only reason he goes to class on time is that he doesn't want to hear that most iconic and most predictable sentence from the professor "I will deduct your marks."

After the first point deduction that I got from very first class because of the broken clock in the room was not an impressive start for me with Mr.Bruce. I remember my phone said it was 8:58 but the one inside the classroom said 9:05. With no surprise, Mr.Bruce holds to the one in the room.

Mr.Bruce has been quite well-known for BJM students. With all the rumors from the seniors that I heard about how strict he is and how much works are needed to be done. I heard his name for the first when I was in the second year.

One of my closest senior, Thanchanok Charoenkhatitham once complained "You think you had tons of works to do? Guess what? I have to do an article for like 4,000 words,"

At that moment, I thought to myself that she was sure exaggerated. The 4000-word article sounds pretty crazy for me as a 500-word essay at that time was more than enough to do.

A year later, now I know that she did not lie about the number of workloads. The class seems not to be as bad as I heard but one thing that bothers most of the people is the rule. With six pages of 22 strict rules handed to us at the beginning of the first day, Mr.Bruce impressed me in a strange way.

"At least he shows the real efforts he put on teaching us by spending times writing those rules," one of my classmates told me kiddingly.

Rules are strict. Some make sense; some are quite controversial. After a couple of weeks, some rules were changed, some were gone.

Mr.Bruce is quite reasonable as you get to know him more. He always listens to reasons, but it is the students who are afraid to talk to him frankly about certain issues.

I remember one class I forgot my homework at my place. I went up straight to Mr.Bruce and ask to leave and grab my work.

"Is is far?" he asked me nicely.

"I'll be back within 10 minutes," I told him with confidence.

On that day he let me go back to my dorm without that iconic phrase "I will deduct your marks." That's when all the negativities were gone, and things started to become easier.

The class has its own pattern, predictable but well-organized. Students would expect a quiz or presentations from friends at the beginning, or the class depends on the previous week. Followed by Mr.Bruce teaching new topics by explaining tips and techniques or showing us videos. Just before the class ends, he would assign all the homework reminding us what we have to do and leave us an hour or less for the group meeting.

I don't see this kind of thing much in Thai education system where the professor is well-prepared and keeps things in order. This class gives me the same feeling as when I was an exchange student in the United States.

Every time I feel that there's too much work to do, I keep reminding myself of how good at writing I've become because of this class. I even take a step back and look at the course syllabus and the name itself.

"To train students to come up with a story idea, do research, conduct interviews, and express their views clearly and effectively in their journalistic work."  - from JM 310 course objective

To become better in the journalistic field, besides all the techniques that were taught in class ones need to practice.

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.” - Stephen King

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Social Media x Relationships

The first iPhone was created on 2007, and other smartphones became very widespread after 2012. Ten years ago Facebook was not as important as now. I remember my mom told me about reading letters from a guy who liked her back when House telephone was more popular than now. Old fashion relationship was not as simple as nowadays. In the United States, 50 percents of marriage fail. Today it's hard to find stable relationships, even friends. Most of us surely have been in a fight because of the social networks. Not a real fight, maybe arguing over a misunderstanding topic over Facebook or Line. It's even for couples that have to fight because the growth of technology. People might think that social networks help us to be connected to others but who knows if it is making us connected or distracting us from real connections. We can't deny that technology and media change how couples communicate through years and also cause some problems in relationships.

Communication has gone wrong Since when that we put the digital communication as a priority. We automatically put real life conversation down as secondary without knowing. As we are aware that most contents have shifted from old platforms to new devices especially smartphones creating the action that we call multi-tasking. When I was young, all I know was parents complaining about me watching TV and eating at the same time. But now many parents are complaining about their kids playing phone on the dinner table. It's very normal when we see guys/girls complain about how their partner is spending too much time on the phone which is not really that big deal, but it actually is. Spending too much time on phones is the most common issue for relationships. We put too much attention on social media. The more the phone keeps beeping, the less intimacy. Let's think about how much time we spend talking to a person on a phone comparing to the time we made a face-to-face conversation with that person, which one we spend more?

False Interpretation If you see the face of the speaker, you tend to get the way the feel. However, we cannot see each other faces on the screen unless you video calling, but we can't do that all the time. To save time in this fast and furious world, we text. The problem is that when we text whether on the phone or the computer we cannot see face expressions. When we cannot see face expressions, we assume. I think that we all get this like when we type lol or haha, or 5555 we don't really laugh. Sometimes we put those laughs just to make the sentence softer. Some people fight because the person thinks another person gets mad but he/she wasn't. Some problems would not have occurred if it was real life conversation. Accept a friend request from opposite-sex doesn't mean that he/she is cheating.

Intervention Dating nowadays is so easy compare to the past, but cheating is also easy to be done. By the word cheating, I'm not saying only about having an affair with another person. Cheating on solving problems, many couples avoid having a serious talk about their relationships but instead they look for answers where else. For example, there's plenty of pages about love and stuff posting some solutions or how the relationship should be. First, we have to admit that all relationships are not the same. Since individuals are different, every single relationship has its uniqueness. You cannot judge other relationships from your own experience. That information on Facebook pages or Pantip might be bias, but people tend to believe it anyway because it's written on the screen. As we know that the media shape our thoughts so don't be a passive audience by believing everything on the internet.

False Need Media plays an important role on this issue. Many couples including celebrities love to post their romantic moments on social media like Facebook or Instagram. It creates some false social values like a girl has to find a rich boyfriend or a guy have to take his girl to a luxury restaurant on Valentine. It becomes stereotypes of modern relationships, but that requires money, right? So does this mean that without money you can't create a good relationship? I don't think so. For those people who become the victims of that will face disappointment if they don't get what they expect.

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Critics v Fans: Dawn of Justice

This week, we can't deny that  people have been arguing over one of the most highly anticipated movie "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" which released last week. 

Of course, Batman and Superman are the most famous superheroes of all time. Even though we had seen many of their movies came out through generations like Tim Burton's Batman, Christopher Reeve's portrayal of Superman even the masterpiece Dark Knight Trilogy, this is the first time we see Batman and Superman together on the silver screen. With the reputation of those DC superheroes and the power of the new  media made "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" talk of the town.

Back in 2012, the internet went crazy when Christopher Nolan claimed he won't be directing the fourth Batman film or simply "The Dark Knight Rises" will be his last. Warner Bros started to build up the DC universe competing Marvel starting with "Man of Steel" on 2013. Then the internet went crazier after Ben Affleck (He actually did a great job though) has been cast as the new Batman replacing Christian Bale. The fans including myself were so hyped before this movie came out. The dream of DC vs Marvel rivalry was about to be true. So there has always been a link between this movie and the internet for years.

After the movie came out last Thursday(Thailand release date), many of only reviewers posted their feedbacks. Started with famous movies review website Rotten Tomatoes which rated this movie only 29% and 44 out of 100 from Metacritic. Follow up with the reviews from the audiences which are also mostly negatives. People were worried that these critics would let the film to be another flop like the remake of" Fantastic Four." However, the movie still got fine feedbacks 7.5 on the IMDB from over a hundred thousand fans. With an estimated $250 million of the budget including the advertising which potentially raise up to $400, "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" needs reach a high box office not to be a movie flop.

It happened once with the movie "Fantastic Four" which released last year. The movie got $168 million gross worldwide while the budget was around $120 million. I remembered the fans went so hard on this film with all the critics about plots and the ending The movie got only 4.3 on the IMDB and only 9% for Rotten Tomatoes. Later on Josh Trank(director) came out saying that he had problems with Fox that his movie was cut to meet the studio's philosophy.

As a superheroes fan, I was personally afraid that this stuff is going to happen again with "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice." Anyway, bad critics have pros and cons. There's a bunch of people who actually don't want to watch the movie anymore since people said it is a bad movie. At the same time, it helps to promote the film itself as people are talking about it makes many people want to prove if the critics were wrong or not. So far the film makes a worldwide debut of $424.1 million which is the highest global opening for any superhero movie. It is higher than the prediction which was around $300-$340 million. So I guess those critics brought much more attention to the film.

Anyway, this proves that the media has powers to influence people's minds. The bad thing is I can still see those people who just follow the trend and did not use their critical thinking skills. Like I always said that it's kinda like stupid stereotype stuff. Many people including some Marvel fanboys just came in and talking trash about the film without the comics or movies knowledge. I feel bad for the filmmakers including Warner and Zack Snyder because you know nowadays the words on the internet can really hurt their career. The movie was made for entertainments but some people criticize it like the director kill their families or something. It was too harsh because the movie wasn't that bad at all in my opinion. There're many movies that are worse but got fewer critics. Maybe because people came into the theater with crazy high expectations of two of the biggest superheroes fights.

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Pop cultures matter?

As we all know that the social media helps us breaking the wall of cultures. Things seem to be easily exposed. The journey of cultures is not limited by space and time anymore. We don't need to go all the way to America to see what their cultures are. It came to us alongside with music, films, fashion, hairstyles, lifestyles etc. For Thailand, those American Pop Culture came after the Vietnam war. For example Rock n Roll or jeans and t-shirts. It's much easier in nowadays when the education and technology grows. People can choose whatever they want to learn. For example, music and dance classes are opened up widely for all the people to learn all styles that came from different cultures. But there's still many intellectuals dishes on pop cultures. Even more, in the country, that is extreme nationalism. Also for older people or conservative people. It's really hard to distinguish between real cultures or pop cultures.

It's hard to defy the meaning of pop cultures as it becomes parts of our life. Some experts said that we are creating pop cultures every single minute every single day nowadays. Our little post on twitter might become a real issue after it gets retweets. And we know that this thing can spread really quick on the internet if a bunch of people that has the same idea share it. Also, some of the anti-pop cultures said that this thing is not real. We're forced to think like the way we absorb media. And pop culture is something that is hollow. It's lack of intelligence and it's not valuable as much as old cultures. For examples, slangs vs poets or classical music vs rap. Or things just turn through generations. What doesn't really matter now might become the world's most important heritage. Like some movies that when it first came out people were like what? For example, Evil Dead II by Sam Raimi that now it's considered as one of the classic films that brought horror and comedy together.

Pop culture can also be defined as a universal language for us. A documentary filmmaker Alexandre O. Philippe said that most important things in life like politics, religion, social issues, culture beliefs and values divide us while pop culture brings us together. The concept came from the idea that people usually trivialize those pop cultures as unimportant. I agree in some parts of that because most things that go viral or becomes a meme usually funny and quite has nothing to do with living. Philippe brought out one example, Gangnam style. The song is considered more as a funny stuff other than considered it more in a valuable way. But at the same time, if we look at the views of its music video on youtube, there are 2.5 billion views. Most important thing is that the song brought people together all over the world together.

The reason behind the anti-pop idea might be that new culture that came into the country is not induced by those intellectuals anymore as I said that people choose what they want to follow nowadays. It's still kind of ironic that those people once follow by those cultures either. So pop culture can also be a symbol of freedom.

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"Why do we have soldiers?”

TU-CU Traditional Football 71 has just passed last weekend on Saturday with a whole bunch of stuff spreading all over the internet whether it be Facebook or Twitter. The issue was an underlined question that "Why do we have soldiers?"

Thammasat-Chula Traditional Football Match (the name of the host comes first) has been held annually over 80 years. This is a friendly football match between 2 of the most famous universities in Thailand which also includes card stunt, cheerleading, shows, and parades. One of the biggest highlights is a Thammasat's politics-mocking sequence (political parody parade) made by Thammasat students. Seems like this year they were being watched more than every year due to the military government. As they aimed to prevent all kind of national threats. With a lot of arguments from the students that why getting scared of those written papers from the parades if they're doing the right thing. Comparing to the contents that were shown to the public every year, this time, is quite less critical as a promised to the government.

The parody included normal stuff like rubber prices, O-net and some jokes to the prime minister. But there is one sign that stood out. Where they wrote "Why do we have soldiers for? Who's brave enough to ask?" With that ambiguous question plus some vulnerable minds of some adults led to the huge online issue. As we know, the power of internet led the issue escalated really quick through the social networks on the weekend. As usual, there are two types of people; people who really think about it and people who just follow the trend. Plenty of likes and comments are clicked. Sometimes it's quite funny seeing people arguing on the internet and I was trying to be as neutral as I can as a reader.

"Only capable of criticizing military but don't know how to use political parade to criticize those bad politicians who ruined the country."

Let's talk about that one cool sentence. We all know that those words need an interpretation. It's kinda like a subtext more than straight words. One of the most stupid posts that I've seen on Twitter that said "Only capable of criticizing military but don't know how to use political parade to criticize those bad politicians who ruined the country." But do we have politicians now? the military became the government that's why. In terms of militaries or soldiers here, I think they mean the political-military. (the one who involves politics not all of them you know) Also, there're many people who thought that the sign overgeneralized all the militaries, (not only political ones) came out and attacked the students that "Why criticize soldiers? Have you done anything better than protecting citizen like them?" Also, many came out and defend that it's their rights to express their thoughts.

Furthermore, there's a question was raised that "Do we really need those politics-mocking stuff? What are the pros and what  do they get after that?" In my opinion, there groups of people are brave enough to raise a question that we all wanted to know and quite straight to the point which is good. Those students will be voices for citizens if the authority went wrong. We know that in Thailand we live in the society where people are too cute and shy to say stuff. For example, teaching is not going to work if all the students just sitting there nodding their head to all things that are taught by their teacher. We need interactions. So we can trade thoughts and ideas. Sometimes it is not possible for people to speak a hundred percent straight-forward truth so the parody thing can be another way to present the truth. Anyway, truth has often been unacceptable in this society because... you know... we veli in the country call Thailand. (Just Kidding I love this country as I love my mom)