Blog 10: Colombia's public Relations

* In this week, I learned about Latin America media. My image of Latin America is just cheerful countries. Of course, the place is near to America, which has a lot of kinds of huge powers, so the influence from US is big.  But, throughout the reading, I was impressed by the power of public relations in Colombia inside. I learned from reading that public relations influence not only inside of country but also outside of it. If the public relation toward the international would be successful, it means also the domestic market would be benefit from that. I think this is really important dimension of public relations. So in this blog, I will continue to talk about the circumstances of Colombia's public relations.

- I did a small research about public relations in Colombia, and I was surprised about huge amounts of materials. As reading saids, for Colombia, the public relations is a key word especially to gain the trust from civilizations or even from the world. Colombia's public relations problem article says, "At a recent show the British library in London showcasing pre-Colombian gold, a Colombian diplomat noted that his countrymen were "very concerned about their image and public relations." Until decades ago, Colombia was mostly associated with guerrillas and drug kingpins such as Pablo Escobar. All of that has changed. " Like it says, public relation in Colombia is necessary for changing Colombia's bad image and also get the trust from Colombians.

-I was wondered that actually what is the problem related with public relations in Colombia. Global Public Relation  says that high levels of poverty and illiteracy affect the types of messages publics may receive and  a lack of trust in organization and apathy toward civil engagement following the failures of previous government administrations. (P 214) Throughout these reading, the biggest problem is a lack of trustworthy from civilizations. I think the trustworthy about product or market itself is necessary for country's growth. If people can fully trust about their own products and even proud of that, these are exported to the world and also these can get authentic from the world too. What the label of "made in Japan" or "made in America" are guaranteed high quality is good ( A little extreme but easy to imagine)  example of that. The people are proud of their own countries' products and they guarantee the quality, and then Japan or America are actually huge economic countries. To get worldwide trustworthy, at first domestic authentic is needed. Thus public relation in Colombia is very big deal.

-Just like David Public Relation, there are a lot of public relation companies to help Colombian products. In reading discussion class, there was a question that if the public relation campaign of Juan Valdez coffee helps Colombia itself or not. In my opinion, I think it helps Colombia. Actually it is difficult to judge it, but at least it helps to gain the domestic trust about Colombian company. The way of campaign is a little too much, but the quality of Colombian brand coffee is trustworthy. The long run of campaign is quite the proof for that.
I think Colombia has a lot of possibility of world market and the public relation would help these development a lot.

Blog9: Germany's powerful media

* In this week, I learned about West European media world. Though I don't need to mention that because everyone knows, the West Europe has huge influence to all over the world. Historically, the countries in West Europe had great powers one by one and colonized around the world. Throughout every class of MMC4302, I really feel about the power of language and actually their languages, such as English, French or Spanish, are spoken in a lot of countries because of colonialism history. I really knew the fact that their power toward outside, but I didn't know the West Europe's inside media influence. The big feature of West Europe itself is of course EU, which is the official connection between countries. EU works for not only Economic but also politic. So , by this week's reading about Germany media, I really understand the influence to media from other countries. For this blog, I will focus on some questions about Germany media by reading.

-First of all, I was really surprised about print media, especially newspaper, is still having a  big power in Germany. After economic crisis in US, Germany also experienced the decline of print media but still the number of readers is as same as online readers, which is really surprised for me because I understand that decline of print media and increasing of electronic media is developed worlds' trend. Inter nation web page says, "Although German newspapers come in an extraordinarily large and diverse number of titles, they are currently going through hard times. Owing to strong competition from TV and online media, German newspapers have been pressing and selling lower and lower numbers for the past couple of decades." Like it says actually Germany newspapers are getting decreasing but it is yet leading Germany media, such as 23 million newspapers are sold everyday and newspapers reach an audience of about 70% of population older than 14 years old. According to Com Score web page, Germany's 12.9 million online newspaper readers spent a combined total of 4.9 million hours reading content on online newspaper sites in April 2009. And with 13 million monthly readers, online newspapers currency attract one-third of the total German internet audience. These facts show that Germany people's behavior toward newspaper and online-news sites. Actually, number of newspaper readers are decreasing and online users are increasing, which is the same trend with other countries. However, the different point in Germany is its trend doesn't illustrate the online news's exchange with newspapers. In Germany, newspapers have taken an important role from long time ago, and I think people are proud of their history of newspapers and more familiar with paper news forms than online version. I guess that the coexistence of print newspapers and online news site prevents newspapers from drastic decline of readers.

-So I really understand how print media has huge impact in Germany and then , as usual, I was curious about how about Germany electronic media? Does it also have a power somehow? I did small research and I felt TV or radio have more entertainment aspects than information providing.  The German Language and the real world indicates some points about electronic media in Germany. It says electronic media makes the distance between countries closer(P 348) and includes many entertainment elements, like "Reality TV", which is human everyday lives etc, is broadcasted in prime time. (P 350) This is actually what I was looking for because I felt why there is no mention about electronic news media in Germany, because it is always compared with print media and online media. The reason why electronic media didn't appear in reading is because of the different role. In Germany, print or online media take a role of information providing and electronic media takes a role of entertainment.
-Throughout all information about Germany, I feel the coexistence of many shapes of media is a big characteristic in Germany. Each form of media has each role and people are using  any kinds of media along with their needs. And also I guess newspapers in Germany would keep their power because nothing can be alternative media with their long history and strong power.

Blog 8: Ukraine frustrated between Russia and West

* Ukraine, where located between Russia and other European countries, is frustrated between Russia and West. Throughout this week's reading, it is accurate that Ukraine has a lot of connections with Russia even after dismantlement of Soviet union. But also unlike post-Russian traditional trend, Ukraine is going ahead toward West world. Therefore, inside of Ukraine, there are still both supporters of Russia and West. I have heard about the problem between Ukraine and Russia sometimes before, so I was wondered that now what's going on inside of Ukraine related with Russia and West countries, and then I researched a little about Newspaper in Ukraine because the reading talked about Ukraine and Russian's TV today a lot and I wanted to focus on other aspect of media.

- I didn't know about Ukraine a lot actually, like I even didn't know where the Ukraine is. But I have heard about conflict between Ukraine and Russia. It is easy to coming up problems between neighbor countries, such as Japan and Korea, because they usually have connection historically and these harness is difficult to remove at all. As we read for reading discussion, soon after dismantlement of Soviet, Ukraine tended to relay on Russian media. It was surprised for me, because they supposed to hope independent from Soviet( past-Russia), but in fact they couldn't independent at all from their leader country, Russia. But it is also said that throughout 2000s, Ukraine started going forward to more global and more West side media format. Then I was curious about what's going on Ukraine and found the word of " Ukraine Crisis ". This site shows the timeline of Ukraine Crisis, and it started in November 2013 and still goes on right now. The main cause of this is conflict between government who were failed to sign trade deal with EU acting, and protesters who are support of Westernize. A lot of victims were born from Ukraine Crisis and it is going to continue from now on. Also Foreign Affairs' article says Ukraine Crisis is the West's fault. It says " United State and its European Allies share most of the responsibility for the crisis. The taproot of the trouble is NATO enlargement, the central elements of larger strategy to move Ukraine out of Russia 's orbit and integrate it into the west. " So NATO and west side of Europe are try to get rid of Ukraine from Russian orbit. I feel this crisis was happened because both of Russia and NATO(West) want to get Ukraine, as if the  reproduction of Cold War.

- So about the Newspaper in Ukraine, I was wondered that which language is used a lot in the newspaper because there are a lot of outside impacts. Wikipedia says newspapers include three kinds of languages, Russian, Ukraine, and English. I think it really describes the frustration of Ukraine. This site shows top 20 newspaper in Ukraine, and many sites of this are using Russian or Ukraine. Some papers are only Russian or Ukraine, so the impact of Russia is still huge. Their history of one parts of Soviet where is Russian speaking country in the past reflects a lot to today's media in Ukraine.

- In my opinion, Ukraine needs more time to decide their standing point. The foreign influence toward Ukraine is too huge to being controlled by Ukraine itself. The relation is really complicated still, so government should have more communication with a lot of civilizations' voice.