Final Examination :'(

1. The Internet will solve developmental problems and intercultural miscommunication. Discuss?

It is really inaccurate in my opinion to say that the internet will solve developmental problems and intercultural miscommunication. Of Course the internet contributes to narrowing and removing physical barriers and frontiers between different societies and cultures, but we should not neglect the fact that the Digital Divide is an omnipresent reality. According to Larry Irving The term digital divide refers to “the gap between those with regular, effective access to digital and information technology, and those without this access” The term was first used in the 1990 when Irving was Technology consultant for the Clinton administration. Intercultural miscommunication can be solved via internet based solutions between societies and cultures that have the same cultural and knowledge backgrounds such as language, education level, cultural references and even technology access itself. To expect different cultures to get to know each other we need to expect them to first be able to use the same technological tools, to be able to speak the same language, to express ideas and opinions in an understandable way. Therefore even if Internet strongly contributes to solving developmental problems and improving intercultural communication, it hits on skill, access, and web content related issues, mainly linked to digital divide.



2. Imagine that you have been selected to represent your country in an international conference to promote Morocco-image: Finalize a global marketing strategy targeting tourists and investors?

My strategy would focus mainly on the European and Nordic countries. Mainly because what Morocco has to offer much, is it’s exotism compared to the northern countries, and the geographical and weather contrasts. this motto “You don’t just come here, you belong” which was a slogan used once by the Sheraton hotel, and which In my sense is very convenient to the Moroccan image being promoted. Hospitality, warm welcome to the extent that people will feel at home. Our main points of focus will be the prices (cheaper than Turkey, Spain, or other countries which capitalize on their beaches and warm weathers) the proximity to Europe, the diversity of entertainment activities proposed (beaches of Tanger and Agadir, virgin forest nature of Chefchaouen, The Palm trees and colors of Marrakech, and the mysticism of Ouarzazate and the Sahara desert of Arfoud) which makes a plenitude of environments all very appealing to Eastern, Western and Northern European people. I’d Invest mainly on flashy advertisements in the most popular medias (Television adds, a high quality website, metro and bus adds to make sure that at least everyone knows that Tourism in Morocco exists, having Morocco in everyone’s mind. This bombardment of adds may be costly, but the return over investment is guaranteed. Such a good investment is necessary in order to suffocate the competition’s (Egypt, Cyprus, Greece, Turkey, Tunisia) campaigns which are clearly under-budgetized. For Investors, the campaign would be more targeted towards the business opportunities and the fiscal advantages proposed by the government (the single guichet system, the tax-free region of Tangier, the 6 years exoneration from taxes for all the tourism oriented projects worth at least 15 million Dhs, the cheap and qualified labor, and the previous and current successful projects. We would also put in place a hotline to receive the calls of companies which would have any questions not covered in the website.


3. Suppose you are asked to submit a chapter on Video Games for an international or global communication textbook: Outline your chapter and write a statement justifying that gaming is a part and parcel of global communication, basing your argument on examples?


Introduction to gaming
History about gaming
The Gaming Business Industry
Gaming and the internet
Gaming and virtual communities
The hardcore gamer and CyberAthlete
eSports vs. Sports
The future of Gaming

Having personally attended the Electronic Sports World Championship 4 times (2004,2005,2006,2007) I’ve been able to see with my own eyes and feel how simple video-games were able to bring together gamers from more than 58 nationalities and 5 continents. The love for the game and for competition is the only thing that brings them together. Some of them don’t even speak English, yet within the game they understand each other using specific terms related to the game, sometimes the crowds can’t even localize where the teams are in an Atlas, yet they cheer for them as if it was their soccer national team, people are brought together in situations which would be impossible if it wasn’t for the presence of video-games.The Norwegians play the Koreans, chat together during the game and at the end of the game, they would walk to the other team, shake their hand and simply say “GG” which stands for “Good Game” because fair-play and respect is all what the game is about.

Select and discuss the most important terms, theories and models of a chapter of your own choice, bearing in mind the Moroccan local context (Examples) and write on what have you learnt from this class for your professional life?

Communication and culture would definitely be my favorite chapter. The main theories which are dealt with are first the culture industries, which has been defined as important national economic resources that allow expressions of creativity to be copied and boosted by industrial processes and worldwide distribution. The transmission of culture which was defined by Clifford Geertz in 1973 as “a historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols through which men communicate, perpetuate and develop their knowledge about their attitude towards life” and refers to the many ways of communication mainly which are used to transmit and perpetuate culture. In the case of the Moroccan society, culture was always transmitted verbally from father to son, dating back to some tribal and Berber habits.
The most interesting theory however would be the Global pop culture. Global pop culture is manifested around the world through movies, music, television shows, newspapers, satellite broadcasts, fast food and clothing, among other entertainment and consumer goods. And since it is safe to believe that the USA are leading these fields on a global scale, global pop culture could be redefined as global American pop culture. Although many countries adopted several systems to protect their cultures from global pop by either controlling the amount of foreign cultural works (quotas) giving subsidies and grants to local cultural industries to encourage national products (subsidies), making adaptations to the most successful foreign works (adaptations), merging national cultural industries to make stronger local players to resist foreign works (regional alliances & co-productions). All of these resulting in the growing of a form of hybridized pop culture, mixing up foreign influences and national ideas (the case of the Moroccan Rapp, and hip-hop groups like H-Kayn which was the subject of y research paper). There was also an interesting theory about how to manage cultural conflict in order to avoid miscommunication and violence that would result from that.

What I’ve learnt from this class for my professional life would be that theoretical frame which would help me easily define and surround the practical scripts which I had already recognized through direct contact. The whole cultural hybridization concept, virtual communities were all concepts I was familiar with, but probably not able to explain as well as I could now. I’ve also learned that there are many opportunities out there open for me and people with my profile, which are at a hand reach but simply require some initiative and determination in order to make them real.

Tuorial Quiz 6-July 2007
1. What are the three development paradigms?
The three paradigms are mass media,Telecommunication, and intellectual property rights
2. What is a paradigm?
It is a theme encompassing a set of forms.
3. Identify Walt Rostow’s four stages of his modernization through capitalism
approach?
Pre-take off stage, take-off stage, the road to maturity, and the mass-consumption society.
4. Identify three modernization theorists mentioned in the chapter?
David McClelland, Daniel Lerner and Wilbur Schramm
5. Elaborate on Daniel Lerner’s approach?
Daniel Lerner's approach is that broadcasting and mass media are required for any kind of developement to happen
6. Identify three specialized agencies of the United Nations in relation to telecommunication and communication?
ITU, UNESCO,UPU
7. Speak in some details about the discourse shift in global communication politics?
Nowadays, global communication altough mainly pushed by economic factors, thus making global communication increasingly defined by trade and market standards rather than political considerations
8. There is a debate on global communication politics: identify two main schools and supply their key arguments in the following areas: Access, Knowledge, Global Advertising, Privacy, Intellectual Property Rights, Trade in Culture, Concentration and the Commons?
The neoloberal and the humanitarian schools

9. What does the World Summit on the Information Society mean?
"a replacement for international negotiations playing the role of communication for development."
10. Write on what you want.
I am covering the most prominent eSports tournament of the world as Media Partner to the Organizing committee. It is a great experience as I am meeting experts in this field from all around the world (Norway, USA, IReland, Pulipines, New zealand, Finalnd and France). It is great to see how just the coverage organisms are so diversified and yet sharing the same interest and passion. Almost as if Frontiers never existed, only to delay us from meeting each other and debate on our favorite center of interest. Today I had a very interesting talk with a colleague from GotFrag.com which also used to be a Professional Gamer (or cyberathlete) about his experience in Asia and how he was recognized in the streets of Seoul by fellow gamers who were spectating the event he was participating to. For me this shows that in a very short time, eSports will superseed regular sports, and will forge a place in the Olympic games.

Can we consider Video Gaming a new chapter in global communication?

Having myself witnessed what is now considered as the greatest moment in eSports' history (the Counter Strike Grand Final of the Electronic Sports World Championship Opposing the Danish team NoA and the Polish sensation Pentagram) I truly believe that Gaming can indeed be considered as a new chapter in global communication. Online gaming has brought closer people from the entire world around one passion "Competitive video-gaming"
The popularity of video-games in not something a sound mind would try to challenge, the gaming community worldwide has reached more than 250 Million users while it's a hobby which is only as old as boradband internet (8-9 years of existence)
The overall income from video-games sales in 2005 even exceeded that the Cinema Industry, before the Lords of The rings went on theatre.
Further more Gaming is a whole culture, with it's own terms and rules, it has gathered virtual communities from all over the world and has allowed people to meet and share their passions for their favorite games.
It is believed that within the next 15 years, eSports will be as notorious as regular sports, mainly due to the fact that no youngster in countries where video games are available will not have played at least once a video-game.
The gaming population went from the 8-15 years old, to 5-75 years old, with games being more and more open and less attached to the idea of childish.

Online advertising ‘growing fast’

With the incredibly increasing number of people getting access to the internet in Morocco, and the huge technological leap that is undergone now in Dubai and the emirates in general, Online advertising is acquiring great notoriety. The main advantages of this form of advertising is the cost of operations (some businesses are spamming hundred of millions of email addresses with advertisements of all kind, even if only 5-10% of these people will read these spams, that's already millions who have just been exposed to an advertisement which costed the avertising company nothing)
We are already noticing a number of online advertisements in Morocco, mostly of clubbing events, hotels and Riads promotions, Job offers, and many others. And as slowly people will start spending much more time in front of their computers instead of their TV, some sites even propose TV-grade video advertisements further diminushing the difference between Internet and the Television.

INTERNATIONAL MEDIA: The Global News War

The media arms race shows how strong global communication and mass media are.
With the ability to select bit and pieces only from any kind of information, Media can play with the facts and produce a interpretation which could literraly change the whole meaning of a contest, the best example being the speech of De Villepin which was cut and edited so that the speech would appear like a fluke in front of the UN while it was a severe blow to the US diplomacy. The overall idea which should be retained from this article is that we can clearly say that whoever controls the global mass media nowadays may not entirely rule the world, but definitely rules the general population's opinion and that is something which should really makes us question wheter we're reeally analyzing what is given to us, or are we just processing it blindly and giving these media more credit than what they deserve.

chapter11, outline: Global communication and propaganda

I- Introduction
II- Origins of propaganda
III- seeking a definition
IV- Propaganda and public relations
V- Public diplomacy
VI- Research on persuasion
VII- Wartime propaganda
VIII- Strategies of a propaganda campaign
1- Name calling
2- Glittering generality
3- Image transfer
4- Testimonial
5- Plain Folks
6- Card Staking
7- Bandwagon Approach
IX- Modern use of propaganda
X- Terrorism as propaganda
XI- Addressing terrorism
XII- Conclusions

The politics of Global Communication

*The three substantive domains

* The beginnings

**Telecommunication

**Intellectual property rights

**Mass media

**The new multilateral institutions

**Specialized Agencies

**The Nongovernmental Organizations

**Shifts in global communication Politics

**The WTO

*Current practices

**The domain of telecommunication

**The WTO telecommunication treaty

**Changing the account rate settlement system

**The domain of intellectual property rights

**The domain of mass media

*Lessons from a key project in the domain of global mass media politics

*Global communication politics today

**Access
**Knowledge
**Global Advertising
**Privacy
**Intellectual property rights
**Trade in culture
**Concentration
**The commons
**Civil Advocacy
**The world summit on the information society