مرسى دبي

 

      على مرسى " مدينة دبي" الزاخر بكل معالم الطبيعة، وبين شطآن تتسابق فيما بينها لتزيد ذهبية رمال هي الذهب الخالص بحد ذاته،  تردد رنين صوت ليس كأي صوت. صيحات تكبير وتهليل تعلن أذانا لصلاة مغرب، ورحيل قرص شمس قد أشرق زوايا مدينة لايدرى أئذا كان نور الشمس هو من ينيرها أم هي النور الساطع الذي تستمد منه الشمس بريقها تماما كما يستمد القمر نوره من الشمس. على ذلك الشاطئ وبينما كنت أتجول لأمتع ناظري بذلك المكان الخلاب الذي جعل جميع حواسي تستشعره فبت أشتم رائحة البحر، وأتذوق عبق أريج الزهر الممتدة في كل جانب، وأغمض عيني لأفتحهما على مشهد جديد برفقة تغريد طيور جديد تدركه أذني وبين هذا وذاك أتلمس لا بيدي فقط بل بجميع أطرافي روعة الحاضر و أصالة الماضي في كل بقعة تحط بها قدماي، أدركت صوتا هو بين زقزقة العصافير وهدير بحرا قد هاجت أمواجه إنه صوت مؤذن في أحد المساجد القريبة يدعي الناس إلى صلاة المغرب ب " حي على الصلاة... حي على الفلاح" حينها توقفت جميع حواسي وأخذت أتأمل هذا النداء وكأنني للمرة الأولى أسمعه فأخذت أتذوق، أسمع، أرى، أتلمس و أشتم عظمة الله عزوجل بين طيات ذلك المكان الذي هو وأن صح التعبير جنة الخالق على أرضه.  كم هي مدينة شامخة بكل مايحمله الشموخ من معنى فبالرغم من حضارتها وتطورها الذي قد وصل إلى عنان السماء مع ناطحات سحابها، وبالرغم من تعدد الديانات إلا أن كلمة الله و"حي على الصلاة" قد بقيت هي الأولى. أذانا يستشعر به الزائر مهما كان عرقه، جنسيته أو لونه عظمة الخالق عز وجل الذي أعطى لهذه المدينة من الجمال ما أعطى...     

حلم جميل

حلم جميل يجعلنا نصالح أنفسنا مع واقع كان مصرا أن يخاصمنا لسنين، فيضع الأمل في بداية كل مسير. هنا نحضن أنفسنا ونعانق أرواحنا ثم نطير في سماء هذا الكون الكبير، ونحلق مع أسراب  طيور بلا جناحين. ننسى أنفسنا لنصبح كطفل صغير لا يحاسب عند التقصير. حينها نعلم أن أحلامنا هي من جعلتنا نهوى الأساطير، ، جعلت من صحرائنا القاحلة ينبوع يتدفق دون حدود ليفيض بمائه العذب ويروي كل أسير أسر حتى عن جرعة ماء تروي عطش عقود من الزمان.

أنشدي يا بلابل، وتمايلي يا أشجار الحدائق والبساتين ، وتساقطي يا قطرات المطر في فصل الصيف ،أزهري يا ورود الربيع في موسم الخريف، لتعلني عن ربيع آت يمحي بصفائه وبأزهاره الفواحة  آلالام وأتراح لكل واحد منا ويرسم بسمة وأمنيات حلم جميل آت لا محالة.:)

The Long Tail Theory

           It is an economic theory that was first coined by Chris Anderson. In this theory, Anderson argues that there are commercial values in niche audiences that are carried within the targeted audiences’ channels such as Fatafeat, MTV and Aljazeera sports TV. Anderson tries to explain how huge inventory businesses can survive in the market and satisfy their audiences even though they sell items in small quantities. In reality, this theory is not applied exclusively on the media sphere hence it is also used in other fields such as business, marketing, economic and social networks.

One example that applies the long tail theory and shows the significant commercial value in niche audience is Fatafeat channel. It is actually one of the main culinary channels in the Arab World. Although it is mainly focusing on the cooking and serving best dishes and delicious recipes from distinct Arabic kitchens, it has million but billion audiences around the world that are interested in the passion of food. Additionally, this channel has a website which is www.fatafeat.com that provides the audience with any recipe that they missed at any time.     

Augmented Reality

First of all, what is augmented reality? It is a type of virtual reality that aims to duplicate the world's environment in a computer. It is basically generating a view for the user that combines the real scene viewed by the user and the virtual scene generated by the computer that augments the scene with some additional information. The main goal beyond this trait of augmented reality is to create a system in which the user cannot tell the difference between the real world and the virtual augmentation of it. Nowadays augmented reality is used in many fields besides advertising such as manufacturing, engineering designs and entertainment. For instance, the big advertising agencies are finding their ways to get their own mobile augmented reality experience and to maximize their profits like Starbucks Cup Magic, Volkswagen Beetle Juiced campaign and National Geographic Flying Monsters 3D campaign.            

Video Games

 Video games are electronic games that allow the user to interact with a video device such as a television, computer or cellphone to generate visual feedback. There are two concepts related to video games which are the platform and the input device. The electronic system that is used to play these games is known as a platform. The input device has another synonym which is a game controller. On the other hand, the input device is used to manipulate video games. Additionally, there are different genres of video games such as casual games, serious games and educational games. Casual games are characterized by their ease of accessibility and comprehending. Serious games, however, have other goals beyond the simple entertainment goal, so they are designed primarily to teach some information and skills. Ultimately, educational games aimed to improve the technological, scientific, engineering and mathematical abilities especially for the students.

Humor, Objective and Citizen Journalism

Humor Journalism is also known as Fake news. One of the famous satirist news casters is Stephen Colbert. In his program The Colbert Report, he tries to follow the traditional news set format but with completely humorous content.

 Another journalistic style is the objective journalism. It is a neutral type of journalism which depends on the facts rather than the opinions, and it takes into the consideration the eyewitnesses of the event. This style of journalism has three main characteristics: separates facts from opinions, presents fair and unbiased news and prevents the journalists to show their emotions.

Finally, the citizen journalism has another common concept which is street journalism. It is not practiced by professional journalists, so it gives the opportunity for anyone to become a journalist and report breaking news that occurs around the world. Actually, it goes hand by hand with the new media technologies like iPhone and other smart phones and other social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn and twitter. Examples of citizen journalism would the Arab Spring and the Occupy Movement.

CNN

CNN channel stands for Cable News Network. It is considered to be the first American channel to provide 24 hour news coverage. It has main three headquarters that contribute in its broadcasting. These headquarters are CNN Center in Atlanta, the Time Warner Center in New York City and other studios in Washington, D.C. and Los Anglos. Sometimes it is called CNN/U.S. to distinguish it from the other counterpart CNN International.

It covered a lot of special events in the US and around the world like the 2008 U.S. election, September 11 attacks and Persian Gulf War in 1991.

CNN has a complementary CNN.com website to provide another option for the audiences who can watch what they have missed by watching it on the website. In April 2009, CNN.com ranked third place among online global news site according to Nielsen Rating which is a measurement system that determines the size of the audiences and defines the composition of TV programming.   

Napster

Napster is a device that focused on two music online services to download music. Its idea was developed by Shawn Fanning.  It is a pioneer in facilitating the peer-to-peer sharing of MP3 media files over the internet. Although there were a lot of devices that had the same purpose of Napster to ease the sharing of media (audio and video) files, individuals found Napster as a special device which dealt exclusively with files that are in the form of MP3. Additionally, it provides a user friendly interface and several other features such as the ability of adding the latest music automatically, the criteria of selecting the songs that suit the user’s mood and the option of creating a custom playlist. All of these previous features distinguished Napster from the other competitors in the Market and contributed to have a high demand from the individuals before the shutting down. However, Napster had shut down after Recoding Industry Association of America (RIAA) and other recording companies sued it for vicarious copyright infringement.         

Oscars

Since everything which is marvelous should be awarded and distinguished, successful films are also won Oscars every year as an award for their teams working that cooperate together in order to help in the production of this movie. The Oscar is a gold-plated statue that is given to the film that is usually released with a lot of publicity. Films win this award based on many factors such as the best picture, the best director, the best actor, the best actress, the best supporting actor and the best supporting actress. Examples of many movies that won Oscars would be Titanic in (1997), Tom Jones in (1963), Unforgiven in (1992), The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the king in (2003), The Hurt Locker in (2009) and The King’s Speech in (2010). 

 

Ida Minerva Tarbell

Ida Tarbell is one of the most influential American journalists, and one of the greatest journalists of the twentieth century. After she was graduated in 1880 from Allegheny College, she joined the staff of McClure’s magazine. In her entire life, she was awarded a lot. For example of these numerous awards would be two honorary degrees L.H.D. in 1909 and LL.D in 1919. She started by writing biographies. Then, she began her well known project which is an examination of the Standard Oil Company. She discovered the unfair business practices that were practiced within the company, and she published them in the magazine firstly and then in her book The History of the Standard Oil Company (in 1904). Her hard work contributed to break up the Standard Oil monopoly in 1911. As a result, she was known as the muckraker who cracked the oil trust. She Composed not only The History of the Standard Oil Company (in 1904), but also The Business of Being a Woman (1912), The Ways of Women (1915), All in the Day’s Work (1939) and The Nationality of Business (1936). Ida Tarbell died on January 6, 1944 at the age of eighty six years.   

Turkish Drama

 

In 2007, MBC began broadcasting Turkish series which are translated in Syrian dialect. The most two popular series were: Nour and Sanawat al Dayaa’. It is estimated that 3 to 4 million viewers watched Nour in the first place, and Sanawat al Dayaa’ comes in the second place with 67 million viewers; 39 million of them female. These are definitely many reasons beyond these huge, strange numbers of viewers that amaze anyone who recognizes them. The element of romance was one of the main topics that the Turkish series zeroed on it in order to grab the attention of the audience. For example, Nour usually highlights the emotional and moral conflicts, and carries many cultural values that are missing in our Arab societies and especially at these contemporary times. One of these values is the scenes of the family meals headed by Fekry Bey “Muhanad’s grandfather” as well as the Turkish coffee gatherings where he plays the lute. On the other hand, individuals at these current times are really missing their gatherings within the same family, so we can see each member within the same family lives within his or her world, and he or she is completely isolated from others. Thus, journalist Naji A’mayrah describes these series as “the missing link between Arab and Turkish societies”. In addition, the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism contributed in the popularity of the Turkish drama by allowing these series to be taken in the most beautiful, mysterious places. As a result, it represented Turkey for the viewers as one of the greatest destination of the tourism, and this can be noticed by the increasing rate of tourism from Arab countries to Turkey.

Yellow Journalism

Yellow journalism exaggerates the news in order to attract readers, create sensations and increase its circulation-that is, how many  people they reach or in other words the published and sold copies which leads to maximize its income as well. In all newspapers that rely on yellow journalism, journalists try to be the best by adding some sensational parts such as crimes, sex and corruption without caring if the resources that are used are false or semi-false. According to Frank Luther Mott, yellow journalism has main characteristics some of them are:

1-      Eye-catching headlines that grab the reader’s attention.

2-      Lavish use of pictures and drawings.

3-      Use of fake interviews and stories.

Today, people can see yellow journalism in several dailies for instance The Sun, The Enquirer, The Globe, The Star and The Examiner.

 This is an example of an article that is found in one of the yellow journalism’s newspaper, and refers to the one of the splashy headlines which is the celebrity gossip: 

   

WHOOPS ~ JEN DRUNK DIALS

BRAD BUT GETS LIVID ANGIE!

woozy boozy Jennifer

Aniston drunk -dialed Brad Pitt, and got the shock of her life when

Angelina Jolie answered - a Jen insider told The Enquirer.__The

40-year-old Friends beauty - emboldened by a few glasses of wine

and still carrying a torch for her ex-husband - impulsively decided

to reach out to the Inglourious Basterds star, says the

insider.__According to the insider, Jen was home alone in her

sprawling Beverly Hills mansion in late September when she

dialed Brad after downing a few glasses of white wine.__"When

Jen drinks she tends to get sentimental," said the insider. "She

was feeling a little loose from the alcohol, so she called Brad's

cell, never imagining anyone but him would pick up. __When Jen

heard Angie's voice, she freaked out."__When rch-rival Angie

picked up Brad's cell phone, years of tension between the two

Brad-lovers detonated a long-simmering hatred.

Oprah's Book Club

“I am going to try to develop a show for books and authors”-Oprah Winfrey. As Oprah Winfrey said, she tried to select a new novel to read, to discuss and sometimes to invite its author, and presented it in a proper way to the mass audience through her talk show. That’s why she started her own “book Oprah’s Book Club” which includes 60 books or novels in 1992. Because of Oprah’s Book Club, many obscure books’ titles have become bestsellers, and many of her picks sold over 1 million copies. These aforementioned changes that were taken place known as “Oprah Effect”. Some of the numerous books that she promoted are: Freedom by Jonathan Franzen, Night by Elie Wiesel and A Million Little Pieces by James Frey. In addition to the recommendation of these books to the viewers, Oprah held interviews with the authors of these recommended books to go over their content, to learn more about the authors and their experiences and to discuss some mysterious issues within these books.

eReaders

eReaders are devices that are used for reading and downloading any electronic media file not only eBooks, but also eNewspapers, eMagazines, eGames and other digital, online files. Nowadays with the increasing number of eBook readers, more detailed features for eReaders emerged. There are different genres of eReaders in the market such as basic eReaders, eReaders with a WiFi feature and eReaders with WiFi and 3G features. First of all, the device that is attached via USD cable to a desktop PC with internet connection to download eBooks, eMagazines, eNewspapers or Audio Books is called basic eReader. On the other hand, eReaders with a WiFi feature are made with “inbuilt WiFi feature” which simplifies the process of accessing the internet in order to download any electronic media file. The last developmental category is the eReader with WiFi & 3G features which works globally to support the frequent traveler. In addition, it does not require limited wireless network in the place where it is used since it has an access to the internet around the world. Examples of eReaders with WiFi & 3G features may include Kindle 3D and Kindle Dx.

'The Medium is the Message'

“Medium is the Message” one of the fundamental theories that was developed by Marshall McLuhan. Although people tend to focus on the obvious, McLuhan tells us to look beyond the obvious and to seek the non-obvious changes that affect our societies in a direct way. McLuhan always considers that the medium is like the fertile soil into which a seed is planted. Thus, audience should focus on the medium that disseminates the message and from which all the changes are emerged. He writes “it is too typical that “the content” of any medium blinds us to the character of the medium itself” When people are focus on the medium, they will notice the changes in their societies and cultures. Furthermore, public will be able to control the detrimental effects before they become obvious to everyone, and before they spread among the successive generations.       

Bollywood vs. Hollywood

            Although Bollywood was born in 1899 in India and Hollywood was emerged 11 years later in U.S., many audiences among the world see that Hollywood is the best because it is connected in many ways to the modern technologies that are employed within its editing, sound, cinematography and other categories. In addition to their history, Bollywood actors should not only know how to act, they also should know how to sing and dance. One example of these multi talented actors would be ShahRukh Khan who is the most famous Bollywood star on the earth. These talents maybe the fundamental reason beyond the huge number of the Bollywoods’ viewers which is estimated about 3.6 billion against 2.6 billion for the Hollywoods’ viewers.

To sum up, no one can judge which is better “Hollywood or Bollywood” since each one has its specific segment of audiences that are biased to it, and see it the best.    

Exponential Growth of the Social Media

Because everything in the world of social media has been developing in a very rapidly pace, and the number of the aggregated audiences who are described as large and diverse media audiences is increasing as well, the exponential growth matrix emerged. Nowadays, it is estimated that 96% of the audience have joined a social network such as Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin. Facebook added over 200 million users in less than one year. Furthermore, several mass media vehicles took many years to be adopted and to reach millions of users; for instance, Radio(38 years), TV(13 years), Internet(4 years) and iPod(3 years).