Logic Application Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Logic Application - Essay Example Now, this belief goes against the teachings of Bible about stealing. The fact is that a culture is surrounded by a variety of beliefs and human actions that they perform in different situations. Sometimes, those actions earn people benefits even when they are wrong if compared with the God’s words. In such situations, those negative actions become common human behaviors, as well as part of the culture. The impact of following the culture blindly is not good for a society in the long-term. For example, if people adopt the habit of stealing each other’s assets, it will give rise to insecurity and mistrust everywhere in the society. People should understand that stealing is wrong because it makes the environment insecure. As Kurtus (2010) states, â€Å"There have been cases of a mob of angry people catching a purse-snatcher and beating him senseless†. People should understand that what a person earns is his/her personal asset and nobody has the right to steal that asset even if a person has an excess of an

Psychology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Psychology - Essay Example This sort of experiment usually helps in finding out the criticality and success of a new technique or process and the effect on individuals. Such experiments are often conducted in understanding the effect of fertilizers on crop yield. Random selected fields are assigned experimental treatment and the ones left are used as Control groups. (Babbie, 2010 pp. 240-244)   Insecure ambivalent attachment: John Bowlby, who described attachment as a lasting psychological connectedness between human beings, developed the earliest attachment theory. This is shown in case of mothers and infants where infants create a sense of security when mothers are available and responsive to their needs. The insecure ambivalent persons are usually overwhelmed with their emotions and often find themselves unable to think rationally about events. Often their ability to bring things to perspective is drowned by their inability to think. This is due to the fact that basic emotional and physical needs are not being met and hence they often show intense anger, enrage, infuriation, frustration and impatience. Fear of conflict or rejection is high among insecure ambivalent adults. In case of ambivalently attached children, they become very distressed when their parent leaves. These children do not depend on their caregiver when they are in need.   This is seen when a child becomes anxious when its mother leaves, however on reunion, it is pleased that the mother has returned but at the same time also angry and doesn’t trust her to stay. (Goodman, 1997 pp.199-207)   Principle of Closure: The principle of closure implies people seek closure as a form of release from tension. People when threatened seek the closure of safety. People anticipate closure for gaining pleasure. Shopping is accompanied with the anticipated completion of purchase that would give pleasure. The mind works to towards seeing that has not already happened or may not be visible yet. This is seen in Gestaltâ€℠¢s principle of closure, which says that the human mind tends to complete figures although a considerable part of the information is missing. The mind matches it with patterns that are already familiar even if it hasn’t received the complete information. This is also speculative of a survival instinct, which takes the form of a predator that can go ahead with incomplete information. In a person’s thinking, closure comes in two places. The first instant is when an individual understands something and derives meaning out of it. The next instant of closure happens when a decision is taken about some pending issues. Closure helps individuals focus on futures by closing doors of confusions of the past. (Osborn & Osborn, 2004 pp.188-190)   Systematic Desensitization: This technique was developed by Joseph Wolpe for treatment of individuals suffering from anxiety related disorders and phobias. It is centered on the principles of classical conditioning and the understanding that whatever an individual had learned can be unlearned. Researches’ have shown that it is an effective method of reducing panic attacks and anxiety that are often associated with fearful situations. The process starts with imagining oneself in fearful situations and using relaxing strategies to counter it. Once an individual can start doing that, he/she gradually starts desensitizing to factors triggering such panic (Ankrom, 2009). The major focus areas in the process to make an individual

The Impact Of Education

The Impact Of Education Every year the Mauritian Government devotes an increasingly large share of its budget to the development of the education sector. The reason for such an increase in government investment in education lies in the belief that education has a direct impact on the economic growth of the country. In most developing countries, like Mauritius for example, education is regarded as a powerful instrument for reducing poverty and removing social and income inequalities, improving economic growth and standards of living, and helping the country to reinforce its autonomy. Appiah and McMahon (2002), Burneth et al. (1995) and others suggest that education also has some positive indirect effects such as increasing longevity, improving democratization and political stability, and reducing poverty and crimes. Education is considered as an investment in human capital. Human capital can be described as the knowledge, abilities and skills of an individual, acquired through education, training and experience, which help the latter to be more productive and thus improve his potential income earning. Ismael (1998), Becker (1964) and Mincer (1974) have emphasized on the fact that, by investing in human beings, we will gain from some forms of benefits in the future. However, Blankneau and Simpson (2004) find no clear evidence on the link between government spending on education and economic growth. Human capital is one of the most important components of sustainable economic development of a country as illustrated by Lucas (1988) and Romer (1990) in their new growth literature. The expanded neoclassical growth model developed by Mankiw, Romer and Weil (MRW) (1992) and the endogenous growth models developed by Lucas (1988), Romer (1990), Barro (1990) and others have only recently stressed on the importance of human capital in growth theories. Even though human capital incorporates health, experience, skills, education and other social factors, in this paper we will concentrate only on the role of education and its effects on the economic development of Mauritius. One problem that arises is when dealing with the measurement of human capital. In fact, there is no agreed definition of which proxy should be used to represent human capital. Generally, the average number of years of schooling has long been seen as a convenient proxy. Some researchers, for example, Mankiw et al. (1992) use secondary enrollment as proxy for education and Barro (1998) uses enrollment in different levels of education, i.e. primary, secondary and tertiary, and also enrollment by gender as proxies. In our study we will be using the average number of years of different schooling levels as proxies for education. Petrakis and Stamatakis (2002) have stressed on the fact that each different level of education has different impact on growth. For example, they find that the effect of primary and secondary education on the economic growth of developing countries is more significant than that of tertiary education, and for developed countries it is the reverse situation that takes place. Since it improves human capital, we could say that education does affect economic growth predominantly, but actually, the impact of education on the economic development is quite ambiguous. There were countless debates over the years by researchers over whether education has a positive, negative or no relationship at all with the economic growth of a country. Barro (1991) finds that education has a positive and significant impact on economic growth. He observes that any rise in enrollment rate, raises GDP too. De Meulmester and Rochet (1995) provide evidence that this relationship may not always be true. Devarajan et al. (1996) find that education has a negative impact on economic growth for some developing countries. They deduce that developing countries are not productive at the margin because these countries do not fairly allocate their public capital expenditure and this explains the opposing relationship between education and economic growth. Some other researchers, such as Hanu shek and Woessmann (2007), find that it is in fact the quality of education that promotes economic development and not the quantity of schooling or schooling attainment. They observe that the skills of the population directly affect the distribution of income and economic growth. The purpose of this paper is to determine the impact of education on the economic growth of Mauritius. 2.1 Effects of Education Education is a never ending process and as said in a famous diction, Education starts from the womb and ends in the tomb. Education benefits the society by helping to increase economic growth, reducing poverty, reducing crimes, increasing employment etc and also helps the individual to earn higher income and therefore improves the latters living standard. The figure below gives a rà ©sumà © of the effects of education at the micro and macro levels. Source: Michaelowa, Katharina. (2000) Returns to Education in Low Income Countries: Evidence for Africa. The above diagram shows the micro and macro effects of education. There are irrefutable evidences that connect education to economic growth and education in form of human capital boosting productivity. Education is in fact productivity-enhancing. It is said that a person without basic literacy and numeracy skills have many difficulties in completing basic tasks of everyday life, which therefore shows the importance of education. Education affects the growth of the economy in various ways. We here discuss the direct effects of education. Education is said to be connected to the notion of empowerment. Individuals with a certain level of higher education not only have good job with interesting wages but also augment productivity of the economy. Some studies have shown that GDP per capita rises by 1 to 3 percentage points following a 1 percentage point increase in school enrollment rates. Therefore, education is said to increase individuals wages along with the augmentation of productivity and finally GDP per capita. Here we discuss indirect effects of education. According to Glewwe (1999), Schultz (1993), Hobcraft (1993), and Thomas, Strauss and Henriques (1991) mothers schooling have indirect positive effects on the economy. It is said that an additional year of mothers schooling will induce the child to be in a better health and encourage them to learn which will eventually increase their chances to be a productive person in the future and affect the economy positively. Furthermore, educated individuals are more likely to be aware about family planning and this will ultimately reduce childbirth. This results in families having more or less 1 to 2 children, that is, a smaller family where more time is dedicated to the childrens education. This attention in return motivates the children to be more motivated at school and have better results. These children are thus encouraged to pursue their education to higher levels. Moreover, educated workers are more likely to adapt to new technology and new working techniques easier than illiterate workers. It is also said that an educated workforce is more productive than an uneducated workforce, that is, the return of an educated worker is higher compared to that of an uneducated one. Higher returns have a positive impact on the economic growth. Michaelowa (2000) uses the example of an educated farmer who uses new agricultural techniques to produce goods. Through education, the farmer will acquire the knowledge and skills required to use these new agricultural techniques and therefore he will be more productive compared to other farmers who are still using traditional techniques. The other farmers in the neighborhoods will tend to do the same in order to achieve higher profits, so this causes both the farmer and the neighbors to have higher returns and in turn increases GDP per capita. Mincer (1974) says that there is a relationship between education and individual earnings which in turn produce private returns. The Mincerian equation helps to differentiate between the different levels of education and distinguish their effects on the economy. He also claims that an additional year of schooling will lead to higher private returns. 2.2 Theoretical Framework Ramsey (1928), Solow (1956), Swan (1956), Cass (1965) and Koopmans (1965) among others developed the neoclassical model of economic growth. In his model, Solow (1956) claimed that two important factors determined growth, namely the quantity of labor and the capital stock. The neoclassical model assumes diminishing returns to capital and labour independently, and the input-output ratio is determined by exogenous technological factors. This model does not take into account the effects of factors such as human capital, health etc on the economic development. In fact, Schulz (1961) proved that labor and capital did not explain completely the increase in output and Lucas (1988) pointed out that investment in human capital is one of the main determinants of economic development. Moreover, in order to offset the adverse effects of diminishing returns, thus allowing the economy to grow, the neoclassical model suggests that the country must invest heavily in technology. In theory, this is one of the reasons why low-income countries with low ratios of capital to labor are likely to grow faster than rich countries. But empirical results have shown some inconsistencies with this hypothesis as demonstrated by Summers and Heston (1988). Later, Lucas (1988), Romer (1990), Barro (1991) and others developed the endogenous growth models in order to overcome the shortcomings of the neoclassical growth models. In the endogenous growth model, exogenous technological progress does not affect steady growth. This model introduces human capital as an input in the form of effective labor and implies that the accumulation of human capital directly affects labour productivity. The main difference between effective labour and physical labour lies in the fact that the former is calculated by taking into account labour quality such as educational level, training and skills. Both Lucas (1998) and Romer (1990) have used agents to represent the effects of human capital in their models respectively. According to Romer (1990), human capital is the decisive input that generates new products and technology in the Research Development sector and therefore this implies that countries with high levels of human capital stocks will grow faster due to the more rapid development of new products and technology generated by them. Lucas (1988) incorporates human capital in his model and claims that the accumulation of human capital will enhance productivity of other factors and thus will boost economic growth. He also affirms that never-ending increases in human capital will result in never-ending economic growth. In his model, human capital is a measure of abilities and skills used in production by a worker. However, Grossman and Helpman (1994) state that it is some form of knowledge which can eventually cause never-ending growth, not human capital. Schultz (1999) outlines the importance of human capital through education and health in determining economic growth. He insists that education increases both peoples awareness and their investments on health services, and also healthy people tend to be more efficient and therefore more productive. 2.3 Empirical Evidence Barro (1991) finds that education and economic growth are highly correlated. He uses enrollment rate as a proxy for education and per capita GDP as a proxy for economic growth. Data are collected across more than 100 countries during the years 1960 to 1990 and Barro finds that each additional year of enrollment increases per capita GDP. Bils and Klenow (2000) also come across similar results in their research. They find that variation in schooling explains approximately one third of the variation in economic growth. Although Bils and Klenow (2000) provide evidence of the positive relationship between education and economic development, they also claim that more growth could result in more education and not the opposite, i.e. there is a reverse causation effect. Barro and Sala-i-Martin (1995) use cross-country data made up of 90 countries over the time span 1965-1985. They employ the AK framework, which displays constant return to capital as it assumes that the other elements (labor and technology) that determine GDP grow proportionately with capital. In other words, each increase in capital increases output correspondingly. Their results indicate strong positive relationship on the long-run between average GDP per capita and the level of educational attainment, terms of trade and life expectancy. However, some researchers claim that the type of regressions performed by Barro and Sala-i-Martin (1995) may be subject to reverse causation effect as stated before. For example, a rise in GDP could increase investment in education as the economy develops. Such type of results will have great influence on our research as we want to study the impact of education on the economic growth and not the reverse. Akcabelen (2009) uses the ARDL approach to determine the short-run and long-run effects of different levels of education on Turkeys economic development. Secondary enrollment and tertiary enrollment are used as different proxies for education and this enables us to examine the impact of each level of education on the economic growth. Akcabelen concludes that there is positive correlation between all levels of education and the long-run economic development of Turkey. Loening (2002) uses time-series data from 1951 to 2000 and applies the error-correction methodology to analyze the impact of education on the economic growth of Guatemala. He observes that output per worker increases by 0.16 percent following a 1 percent rise in the average years of schooling. So he agrees on the fact that education does have a positive impact on the overall economic development of the country. Afzal et al. (2010) use time series data from 1970-2009 to analyze the relationship between education, physical capital, inflation, poverty and economic growth in Pakistan. According to their findings, education and physical capital have both a positive and considerable effect on economic growth in the short-run as well as in the long-run. They also find that inflation slows down economic growth in the long-run and poverty has no effect at all on the economic development of Pakistan. Other researchers, such as Kakar et al. (2011), have used time series data for the time span 1980-2009 and apply the Error Correction Model (ECM) and come to the conclusion that education influences Pakistans economic development only in the long-run. They also observe that the quality of education is more important than the quantity of education in achieving economic growth, so the government should increase its investment in education with the aim of enhancing the quality of education further. Since Mauritius is part of Africa, it is also good to see the results of researches conducted in other African countries. Fonkeng and Ntembe (2009) use enrollment and GDP as proxies for education and economic development and they notice that education at higher level, i.e. at tertiary level, is positively correlated with economic growth of Cameroon. Musila and Belassi (2004) use government expenditure on education as proxy for education for the years 1965 to 1999. They apply the cointegration and the ECM methods and find that there is positive correlation between average workers expenditure on education and the economic growth of Uganda. Ndiyo (2007) uses time series data from 1970 to 2000 on real education expenditure, real capital formation and GDP, and employs the VAR technique. Based on the results obtained after computations, Ndiyo (2007) demonstrates that education does not have a positive effect on the economic development of Nigeria. He suggests that this result can be explai ned by various factors such as labor market distortions, redundancy, brain drain, industrial disputes and job discontinuities, and government failure etc. Khorasgani (2008) analyses the impact of higher education on Irans economic development for the period 1959 to 2005. The proxies used for human capital are education attainment and research expenditures. Khorasgani (2008) uses the Cobb-Douglas production function together with the ARDL method to determine the short-run and long-run effects of higher education on the economic growth. The study demonstrates that real output increases by 0.314 percent in the long run and 0.198 percent in the short run following a 1 percent increase in higher education attainment. Hence, higher education has a positive and significant impact on the economic development of Iran. .

Urban Legend of Ghostly Dreams :: Urban Legends

Ghostly Dreams of Owners Passed The following ghost story was told to me by a friend when I had a small group of friends over to my house in Massachusetts during spring break. He is a 20-year-old white male. The story was told at night after we had finished watching the show Lost on television, so the atmosphere was a little bit tense. It did not simply come up in context; I prompted all of my friends to tell any ghost stories or urban legends that they knew. I wrote the story down a few hours later after my friends left. This is as close to the story he told as I could remember at that time: My friend’s house is wicked old. Built in the 1700s, there’s a lot of really old stuff there. It may have been involved in the Underground Railroad. It has secret passageways and windows for servants to look in and talk to their masters. They originally lived in Springfield, Mass. and he [his friend’s Dad] knew the two people in the house in Agawam, Massachusetts previously. When he found out it was going on the market he decided to go buy it. Before they managed to complete the sale one of the two ladies died. And the other lady either died or left. At least one of them died in a room in the house. So after that they still decided to take the house. There were a few times when he tried to find things. And one time in particular he was looking for a ladder. He looked everywhere around the house including inside, outside, and in the shed. That night he had a dream and the dead previous owner came to him in the dream and told him to look in the shed aga in. The next day when he looked in the shed, the ladder was sitting right directly in the middle of it just like she had said in his dream. There was no way he could have missed it the day before. This happened on a couple different occasions with other items as well. As he told the story he used small hand motions to emphasize main points of the story and he paused after important points to allow the information to sink in; he did not sound nervous while telling the story, but he did try to convey a spooky atmosphere in an attempt to scare the audience.

The Advantage and The Detriments of Using Internet

The honourable headmaster, and staff of my shcool. The honourable the Juries and my English teachers. Ladies and Gentlemen. First of all, I want to say thanks for our almighthy God who has given us health so we can meet in this nice room today. And I don't forget to express my gratitude to the juries who have given me the opportunity to stand here for conveying a speech in front of you all.And then I say thank you very much for all the participants and the udience that give me support to deliver my speech. Ladies and Gentlemen. At this time I will convey a speech in front of you by little the Advantages and the Detriments of using internet. Internet is a program that has been created to connect the communication from one computer to all the computer in the world. Internet usually use by students, businessmen, and etc. Internet have many advantages for us. The advantages is we can find a lot of informations, knowledges, entertainments, nd business informations.Although Internet have a lot of advantages. Internet have many detriments too. The detriments arise because many people who abuse It like playing game too often, waste time, not take knowledge, hackers, dirty advertisements, look at pornography picture and waste money. I think It's enough for today. Thank you for all the Juries and all the audience. Last but not least, I give one statement for â€Å"Browse this world by Internet but don't forget for the consequence of Internet†.

Organizational Conflict Essay

Conflicts within an organization can be difficult on employees. Some conflicts may be petty and some could end up in violence. They are often started because of the difference of opinions between employees (Shetach, A., 2012). Regardless of the situation; employers cannot afford to have conflicts within their organization. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the reason for the conflict within this organization and to come up with ways to help solve the conflicts. Description of the Conflict The conflict at my place of employment is that there are never enough associates scheduled to perform the duties that are needed to be done. The ICS team is the main team that goes through the inventory in the back room on a daily basis. Their job is to bin every item that comes within this store with a labeling system. The problem that is being cause is that there are not enough associates able to keep up with binning the items after the ICS team finishes scanning and counting their freight. What conflict that has occurred from this is that the unloaders are coming in and they have to help them out. In return the un-loaders are falling behind in their work. When the morning shift associates comes in; mainly department managers they have to work out the items that the ICS team has scanned. When you look at the amount of freight that is needing to be work out, it could be from four to fifteen L-carts. L-carts are the large carts that are used to move large freight to the floor or to the customer’s car. Production was falling behind because there was not a good plan set into place on who, what, and how the receiving area of the store would be operated. There was lack of communication that was going on between upper management and lower management. It seemed as though the associates were the ones that were making the decisions instead of the managers. The ICS team and the un-loaders were constantly arguing with each other, claiming that the other one is not doing their job. The department managers were coming in to work stating that the overnight associates were not putting out freight. It looked as if the same freight was left from the day before was not being worked. Level of Conflict There are four levels of conflict within an organization (Baack, D., 2012). What is going on within this organization is called intragroup conflicts. Intragroup conflicts occur when incidents between members of a team do not have the same mind set concerning goals. They disagree with the way the operations are being handled and the leadership (Baack, D., 2012). If conflicts are left unattended within an organization it could affect the overall goal of the company. The teams may not do what they need to do and the decision that they make in doing their job may not be the right decision (Baack, D., 2012). Propose Steps to Resolve the Conflict There are five steps that must be followed in order to help resolve conflicts within this organization. The first thing is to identify the parties that are involved in the conflict. Determining if the entire team is involved or if there is an individual that is causing the conflict need to be investigated first (Baack, D., 2012). By doing this, it will allow for the managers to help determine what is need to be done in order to resolve the conflict. This conflict can be stopped with the proper communication between team members and management. But they need to have weekly meeting in order to go over their goals and their concerns (Shetach, A., 2012). Having meeting will allow the team members to voice their opinions if they feel they may not be doing ample amount of production that is needed in order to be productive. This can be analyzed by management as soon as it is brought up in the meeting. The management team needs to find out what the real issue is within the team and figure o ut how the problem started. While they are investigating this issue they need to also know what position that each team member have concerning this conflict (Baack, D., 2012). This can help management to understand where each team member stands on this conflict so it could help them come up with a better solution in order to stop the problem. Finding an area in which there can be bargaining is very important in resolving conflicts within an organization (Baack, D., 2012). Management need to stay neutral in making a decision regarding the conflict that is going on between the ICS team, the unloaders, and the department managers. There should be lines in which the managers need to be able to listen to all sides and not show favoritism. Finding the best solution for the organization in what is important. The policies need to be addressed at the time when bargaining process is going on (Montgomery, M., 1995). At the same time, the team members need to be able to work through their conflicts. There need to be a check list that needs to be done on a daily basis in order for each backroom associate to follow. If they are not able to do what they are assigned then they should be able to type in the reason why. For example, I was called to work in the garden center by Assistant Tony. It should have the time, and date on the log so that it can show the reason why a task was not completed. Management should not be able to call an ICS member out of their work area for more than 15 minutes a day. Considering they might be one of four that was assigned to scan in what is coming off of the trucks. Another step that could help resolve the conflict is to schedule people with the department managers that only have one associate. Some department managers do not have more than one associate within th eir area. A department manage usually have five hundred to five thousand prices changes to do on a daily basis. They have to work their bins; bins are the freight that they have to put out on the shelves. If more associates are schedule past 5 pm, it could help the organization to make a better profit; because the shelves will be filled. Not all conflict situations are the same. Some may be resolved if the people that are involved learn the effect that their opinion, attitudes, or behavior have on other team members (Montgomery, M., 1995). Some of the managers need to be more productive by helping the team members to see what they need to improve in or what they have to offer to make the team stronger. Outcomes to the Conflict Resolution By not doing anything and letting the teams argue about what each other are doing it will cause a lack of production within the team. It could affect the entire team as a whole. Agreement is very important in a conflict resolution (Baack, D., 2012). When all of the team members on the ICS, department managers, and the un-loaders believe that their opinions matters that is when agreement is reached. The managers have to let them all know that all of the concerns that were leading up to their conflicts have been met. Everyone will be held accountable for their own job expectation, and no one will be pulled out of their area for more than fifteen minutes a day. The night managers will make sure that they have associates working in areas that have the largest amount of freight in order to keep the department managers from being over whelmed. Stronger relationships may develop between the teams; however, some teams like to work without other teams being involved. Take the ICS team for example; they do not trust anyone to count what is coming in on the truck. If an upper member of management scans what comes in on the truck they do not have much of a choice. If a new employee is in training they have to gain trust within this group before they let them work by themselves. And finally organizational learning can take place among team members. The can learn how to work together by coming up with better ways to find solutions to the problems they may encounter within their team (Baack, D., 2012). They can learn how to deal with each other on a personal level because they may have learned what each team needs. If the meetings continue to be given between these three teams on a weekly basis, this will teach them. In conclusion, there conflicts can make it difficult for team to work together. This paper was to show ways that teams could resolve their conflicts in order to help their organization to run smoothly and put a handle on conflicts. References Baack, D. (2012). Organizational behavior. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc Montgomery, M., (1995). Five steps to resolves conflicts. Supervisory Management, 40(10), 8 Shetach, A., (2012). Conflict Leadership. Navigating Toward Effective and Efficient Team Outcomes. Journal for Quality & Participation, 35(2), 25-30

Government Use of Media to Advance Foreign Policy Agenda

Government Use of Media to Advance Foreign Policy Agenda Abstract The following essay analyzes the relationship between the media and the government. The paper provides evidence that many governments, particularly those that exist in established democracies, openly employ media propaganda to advance their agendas in foreign policy. The different methods of research employed in this essay include content analysis, polls and surveys and the uses and gratifications model.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Government Use of Media to Advance Foreign Policy Agenda specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Introduction While the original intention of the media was to provide an independent, bipartisan check to the power of any individual government, the power base of any established democracy relies on the media to communicate to its followers. This is especially true in the case of foreign policy. Various media outlets interpret international events and their effects on foreign policy acco rding to the political interests they serve. According to McCormick (2009), the media play an important role in foreign policy by virtue of what foreign policy issues they chose to report. Thus media coverage has a direct â€Å"influence on public’s attention to foreign policy,† as well as an enormous impact on what foreign policy issues become newsworthy (p. 546). The essential first step in foreign policy is to decide what information the public has access to, thus the role of the media as information gatekeepers becomes paramount (McCormick 2009; Spanier Hook 2009). Governments in established democracies therefore employ media propaganda to advance their agendas in foreign policy. Content Analysis Content analysis refers to the methodology used to examine the specific content of a given communication tool. For the purposes of this essay, content analysis focuses on the texts used by the government as they relate to the cycle of voting in established democracies suc h as the United States. As Krippendorff (2004) observes, â€Å"in governments in which succession is†¦regulated politically†¦predicting the succession of leadership†¦is a favorite game of political analysts and important to foreign policy decision makers† (p. 175). Content analysis remains a pivotal instrument that researchers use to â€Å"expose propaganda techniques† employed by the media (Krippendorff, 2004, p. 45). Perceived successes in foreign policy may be advertised via the media to engender support during an election drive. An example is the May 2011 coverage of the death of Osama bin Laden, utilized by the Democrats in a partisan manner, as well as by the Republicans, who argued that it was the policies of the George W. Bush administration that allowed Obama to capture the fugitive Al Qaeda leader (Adams 2011).Advertising Looking for essay on communications media? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Surveys (Polls) The proliferation of online media outlets leads to a more informal method of polling for governments to use in addition to the standard polls such as Gallup – monitoring online chat of a political through Twitter and Facebook, as well as reading the prevailing moods conveyed in the media blogosphere. Bucy (2005) argues that the media will facilitate change on both sides however, not simply as a tool for swaying votes; â€Å"since people will communicate their views on government more directly, rulers and representatives will become more sensitive†¦and, perhaps, more responsive†¦to lobbying and public-opinion polls, especially in established democracies† (Bucy, 2005, p. 9). Uses Gratification Model The uses and gratification model refers to a central tenet of media analysis – the effect of any given media depend entirely on who uses them, for what purpose and how often (Bucy 2009). As Bucy (2009) explains, â€Å"how a person is affected by a given communications medium depends on that person’s reasons and goals for using that medium†¦People use the Internet for a variety of reasons and motivations†¦and will thus use it differently and it will have different effects on them accordingly. There is, in short, no simple sound bite for how using the Internet will affect an individual (Bucy, 2009, p. 196). Thus, any government’s use of the media to advance foreign policy propaganda will only have impact insofar as it reaches its intended targets and gratifies them in some way, be it through affirming their current belief system or adhering to existing prejudices and knowledge. The media must be consumed in order to have its desired impact; therefore people who do not engage with any given media outlet’s coverage of a particular foreign policy issue will feel little or no affinity to the message. Similarly, certain media appeal to certain mindsets; media consumers typical ly choose media outlets which conform to their view of the world. Conclusion One thing that can be ascertained from the research, the media remains a central player in any political outcome, particularly in a democracy where voters are free to identify with the media outlets of their choice. The vast network of media also acquires more power in the political climate political system, according to Sparks (2006), because the system itself is â€Å"more unstable. There are fewer people who identify strongly with a single party, more people who call themselves independents, and more people splitting their ticket at the polls. In such a volatile climate, scholars expect that the media might have more impact on the political process† (Sparks, 2006, p. 55).Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Government Use of Media to Advance Foreign Policy Agenda specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Governments can certainly be expected t o continue to deploy propaganda via various channels to sway voters however; voters, like consumers, develop media savvy in the same way that governments do. Media consumers actively engage with the media that affirms their existing worldview, thus the propaganda will likely be more readily sniffed out and either accepted or cast aside. References Adams, R. (2011, May 2). Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck: Thank God for President Obama. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/international. Bucy, E. (2005). Living in the information age: A new media reader(2nd ed.). Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth. Krippendorff, K. (2004). Content analysis: An introduction to its methodology. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. McCormick, J. (2009). American Foreign Policy and Process. Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing. Spanier, J. and Hook, S. (2009). American Foreign Policy since World War II. Washington: CQ Press. Sparks, G. (2006). Media effects research.Belmont: CA: Thomson/Wadsworth P ublishing.Advertising Looking for essay on communications media? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More