Secrets of global communication
статья по английскому языку (9 класс)

Contents:

Introduction …………………………………………………….. …………… 3

Means of communication in the 21st century …………………....................... 4

An impact of newspapers, television and the Internet on society's life …….6

My survey ……………………………………………………………………..10

Conclusion …………………………………………………………………….12

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Introduction

What is communication?

In my opinion, communication is the most important thing in humankind’s life. Communicating people express their feelings and experiences, share thoughts, ideas, their personal opinion. The more people talk to each other the more people trust their families or friends and become open - minded.

The linguistic meaning of the word «communication» is given in the Oxford Dictionary: «Communication is imparting or exchanging of information by speaking, writing, or using some other medium». Thus, it might pick out two general ways of communication — oral speaking and written speech.

• The oral way of communication appeared in Primitive society when people wanted to impart information. It gave the birth to the development of the articulate speech.

• The written way of communication appeared later, in Antiquity, when people needed to impart some accumulated knowledge about the world to the following generations.

Nowadays people still use these ways of communication, but their technologies are completely different from the technologies of the past.

So, which technologies do people use today?

They are not only many modern means such as television and the Internet, but also they are the means, which people have been using for ages: books and newspapers. In 2017, people use for communication and exchanging information several means of communication such as newspapers, television and social networks.

The actuality of the chosen theme is in the idea that we live in the time when we have an access to many information resources and unlimited communication. It does not depend on our social position. The main aims of my project are to tell you about the means of communication, positive and negative sides of their influence that are the secrets of global communication. During my research, I am going to show you the results of my survey, which I found out on my own interviewing thirteen classmates of mine.

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Means of communication in the 21st century

As I said, people generally read newspapers, watch TV and use the Internet for sharing their thoughts and ideas. Let's talk about them in detail.

Newspapers.

What is a newspaper?

«A newspaper is a printed publication (usually issued daily or weekly) consisting of folded unstapled sheets and containing news, articles, advertisements, and correspondence». The beginning of a modern newspaper started in Ancient Rome and China.

Why are newspapers popular in the 21st century?

In the century of information technologies, it is extraordinary to see that newspapers are still popular among people. They prefer reading newspapers because of actuality, periodicity, publicity and accessibility.

A television.

What is television?

«Television is a system for converting visual images (with sound) into electrical signals, transmitting them by radio or other means, and displaying them electronically on a screen». Television was invented not by one person and not at once. There were many international scientists working in different countries but they were all united by one idea — working on developing television technologies.

What is on TV?

Many thematic channels fulfill audience's interests and wishes. Various TV programs are on these special channels on schedule. Conditionally we can divide programs into categories.

1. News
2. Educating
3. Entertaining

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The Internet.

What is the Internet?

«The Internet is a global computer network provided by a variety of information and communication facilities, consisting of interconnected networks using standardized communication protocols». Different scientists created the Internet gradually, as well as the television. American scientists started creating it in 1957 after the Soviet satellite launch. However, the official date of the birth of the Internet was the 13th of March in 1989.

How do people communicate to each other and search the information via the Internet?

At first, it is enough to have one of these gadgets for work in World Wide Web:

1. A Computer
2. A Laptop
3. A Smartphone
4. A Tablet

Secondly, there are many social networks, search engines and messengers but the most popular of them are Google, Facebook, Twitter and Skype.

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An impact of newspapers, television and the Internet.

The introduction of technologies changes our lives in some way or another. These changes have influenced on the usual way of society's life positively and negatively. One of the characters of the most famous Oscar Wilde's novels says that any influence is immoral for a person. This thought may be concern to the theme of my project. It can be a truth and a lie at the same time.

Advantages

1. Momentary information spreading.

Information about recent events can be received quickly thanks to modern technologies such as the Internet and television. If something bad happens – an earthquake, for instance, – the population will be notified by all the communication means and the whole world will found out about this accident.

I think everyone has heard about the accident in Oroville Dam which was occurred on February the 11th. If we lived in the 19th century, the similar news would not be known as soon as nowadays or we would not even get to know anything about that.

2. An access to knowledge.

Only rich people had an access to knowledge during the ages because books and education were too expensive for ordinary people. The famous Russian scientist Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov who was not born in a noble family had to fake his documents to enter the Slavic Greek Latin Academy. His deception was discovered later.

Today each person can get necessary knowledge if he wants it. There are many special resources in the Internet and educational channels on TV.

3. Unlimited communication.

In the last century, people who lived in a great distance had to send letters or telegrams by mail. In the 21st century, it has considered outdated but still pleasant and makes feel nostalgia to communicate like that.

Nowadays communication has become easier and more convenient because of the Internet connection. People can talk online using special applications instead of long waiting for a reply. For example, if a lonely old woman who has children and grandchildren lives in the countryside and they all have no opportunity to come over they can use special applications such as Skype or Viber.                                          

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In addition, the Internet opens up more opportunities for finding new friends: a person from one country can meet someone new from another country without leaving home.

Disadvantages

1. Plenty of information.

Let's imagine that all information is a sea, and its waves are events or occasions. Would you agree that an inhabitant of the 21st century could be under its water with powerful waves of extended information? I am doubting. Therefore, this is how people live today. They do not have time to analyze some event, as there another one will follow it. A person loses himself in the storm of information.

Because of this, there appeared a new human state – post-truth. This word is a «Word of 2016» in the opinion of the Oxford Dictionary based on the British National Corpus.

What does this word mean? «Post-truth is  relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in forming public opinion that appeals to an emotional and personal belief».

2. Informational manipulation.

Behind the scenes, everyone knows that money rules the world. This rule belongs to the modern newspapers and television. Rich people can buy channels and newspapers; they can make someone take control their power. Why are they doing that? They are doing it because there is a lot of unwanted information which can ruin the reputation of someone else or even a whole country.

F.Scott Fitzgerald who worked in some advertising agencies wrote in his novel «This Side of Paradise» about venality of newspapers and magazines: «Any rich man with conservative views can own a yellow press that perform some intellectual meat and drink for thousands of tired, men too much involved in their business that are ready to swallow anything but predigested food. For two cents, a voter buys his politics, prejudices, and philosophy. A year later there is a new political ring or a change in the paper’s ownership that runs to some consequence: more confusion, more contradiction, a sudden inrush of new ideas, their tempering, their distillation, the reaction against them».

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The venality of Russian newspapers and television channels is also clear. All of them belong to the government or private enterprises, which link with the power. The majority of reportages or articles points out the audience to problems of other countries and makes the government of their country good.

There are also programs on Russian television (for example, «House 2» or «Let’s get married! » which makes the audience zombies. They only want to have material things such as millions of dollars and fans, a luxury life. People make celebrities their idols and try to be like them copying their habits, thoughts, even appearance. On the other hand, there are people who wants «Bread and circuses». These people do not think about their spiritual world and moral values.

In fact, there are many methods of manipulation. S.A. Zelinskij has written fifty ways of impact on people. His work teaches a reader to understand a system of mind control and not become a victim of that.

3. Addiction

For plenty of people television or the Internet has become an inseparably part of their «I - ego». They cannot spend an hour without using TV or a smartphone or a computer. Over 420 million people around the world are addicted to the Internet.

These people forget reality behind this addiction. They are more interested in watching someone else's life than building their own. Addicted people also prefer complaining about their mortal existence than making it better and more interesting.

The Internet is a last shelter from this cruel world for some teenagers. For instance, a teenager can be not interested in his or her contemporaries in real life while he or she has many friends in social networks. These friends do not know him or her real. A teenager feels more confident being someone else but remaining anonymous.

There was a reportage in the program « Honey, we’re killing the kids »           about one Ukrainian boy who was addicted to video gaming. The boy was insane when his mother was trying to help him.

Another example, the film «Nerve» was made in 2016. The characters were completing tasks given by the audience, that were watching all their actions online. The game started innocently but then it became deathly dangerous for Venus and Ian. The creators of the film wanted to show people what teenagers can do for fame, money, and they also wanted to tell teenagers that none of these is worth their lives.

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4. Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying is a form of bullying while using social networks that is widespread among teenagers. It is easier to insult and humiliate someone, spread dirty rumors being not real but staying anonymous. Teenagers become more introvert and unconfident because of these attacks. There are many harmful effects of cyberbullying such as using alcohol and drugs, skipping school and receiving poor grades, having lower self-esteem and more health problems or even it might be a reason of suicide. Teenagers who do cyberbullying do not understand fully that words are not just set of letters. Each word has its own meaning and some of them can hurt someone morally. On the other hand, they do it consciously trying to assert themselves and to look cooler in the eyes of their friends.

In 2012, a 15-year-old Canadian girl committed a suicide because of teenagers' violence in the Internet and in real life. Her name was Amanda Todd and she was a victim of cyberbullying.

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My survey.

1. Which mean of communication do you use every day?

Moreover, all of them choose the Internet.

2. Why is the Internet exactly?

Majority of them answered this question differently. Some of my interviewed classmates prefer using the Internet because of entertainment; others need it to study and get to know something new. However, they all use the Internet for communication.

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 In addition, I show you some of their answers:

«I like the Internet because there I can be a person I want to be, I can hide my age and talk to someone who is older than me. Unfortunately, many people consider that teenagers are silly so there's nothing to talk about but not everyone is similar».

« The Internet is a source of knowledge. There are many sites such as Wikipedia, which helps me study. I also have got lots of friends in social networks ».

« Why is the Internet? I like memes (note – funny picture with inscription) and communication ».

« I love watching films and serials, listening to music and the Internet matches. But now it's harder to do ».

« Oh, I adore taking photos and selfies (note – a photo of yourself made by your own). I have 350 subscribers on my Instagram! Moreover, I follow (note – there subscribed) the accounts of some celebrities and put likes to their photos».

3. What can you do for fame in the Internet?

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Conclusion

We can talk about influence of modern means of communication long hours because many people have many opinions. Someone considers that the Internet and television is corrupted. I think that a person has made this problem on his own. Creating an unideal image of everyone and everything person gives a part of himself. His creation will have virtues, which will be developed, and evidence completed in a wrong way by other people. They do not want to accept their mistakes blaming everything and everyone. Moreover, it is important to remember one true thing: we blame others for all our troubles.

I want to believe that humankind will have bright future. If we carry on using modern technologies of communication in the way that we use today it will not come. We should change many things – our behavior in the Internet, our way of thinking, for example, we must get rid of such problems as addiction and cyberbullying. How to do it? «Sic parvis magna» («The greatness starts with small beginnings») as the saying goes. We can start with developing an immunity to the plenty of information, sorting out the good and the bad, educating children.

We call our species «Homo sapiens» that means from Latin «wise man». So, let's prove this name by our rational actions. People around will follow you.