STEREOTYPE

Before enrolled into university, i had heared people use the above word so often but i could not derive any meaning whenever i heared it.most of the time i became confused and channel surfed to avoid being confused the more.

My entrance into the university gave me more insight on the word and what amounts to it.The word in it simplest terms means judging some one or agroup of persons based on something one has heared or on a personal encounter with a few people from a group.An example could be to say that, northeners are voilent just because you may have heared of voilence in the northen region.
In a much more formal setting,stereotypes can be likened to generalizations or assumptions that people make about the charecteristics of all members of agroup based on an image (often wrong)about what people in that group are like.

After i got the meaning of the above word in realized that in Ghana there are a lot of stereotypes against particular cultures, ethnic groups, religion etc. in the wake of all these, stereotypes our leaders are burnt on preaching unitifying messages to gain a united front to the whole world.
I concluded that,unity in this country can only be possible by laying bare the common stereotypes to the public especially the unforunate ones who do not understand the dangers of the above word and the effects of such stereotypes in order for them to understtand and to serve as catalyst for the unification process.

MY POEM

Dreams and Reality
Like a pendilum in my ear,
Reminding me of each step I take.
Oh how I wish I could hear better
Yet the forboding nature of the tone makes me wonder,
Has my illusions taken over my thinking?
If so, i want to dwell in them forever.
For in my fantasies lies my strenghts.
This world,is a place of perseverance,the affairs of this world can never be predicted.
I might as well chip in my fantasies so that, time consumes part of my dreams if not all.

my thoughts

Recently, the craze to eradicate fraud dealings among the youth has become very rampant in the Ghanaian society. I think this has not been achieved so far due to some unscrupulous behaviors in Ghana.Why do u i say that?This is because when i walk along the streets of Accra,all i see is MAKE YOUR RUBBER STAMPS HERE.I tend to ask myself if indeed the Ghana government is really bent on solving the above problem.

I do not see any effort being made to tackle the situation from its root or base stage. if the perpetrators are getting away with their activities, then it must occur to the government that these road side rubber stamp makers are equally contributing to the increasing number of fraud cases in Ghana.i say this because the perpetrators go to these road side stamps.I THINK THE GOVERNMENT HAS TURNED A DEAD EAR TO THIS APPROACH AND IT IS HIGH TIME THEY CHECK IT.

weaknesses and drawbacks in the uses and gratification theory ofthe media and the adenda setting role of the media

Having stated the contents of both the agenda setting theory, and the uses and gratification theory of the media it is time to bring to bear the loopholes inherent them.As already stated,the uses and gratification theory holds that, media consumers make choices of the contents media encodes to satisfy or fulfill their needs.it is in this vein that some scholars like Blumer and Katz have argued saying that,the theory places more emphasis on the consumer whilst negecting the media and thereby subjecting its power into questioning.

Other criticisms leveled against this theory are that the media has the power to influence consumers behaviours and thereby condemning the fact that the theory places all the power to the consumers.for example even though the media is aware of the power of the consumer it still encourages the purchasing decisions of consumers and research has proven this.

Tthe agenda setting theory ofthe media also states that it is the media who bring on board issues they deem important in the society.this is mostly done by the particular attention that the media may give to a particular issue.The media thus achieves this by introducing headlines,frontpages positioning o fthe said issues etc

The weaknesses of this theory is that the consumer here is seen to be passive and hence has no control over media contents.The theory also ignores the fact that the consumers may not attach the same kind of importtance or relevance to the content as it may.For example the issue of politics as is deemed by most people in the country may not neccessarily interest children between the ages of ten and eleven and hence may not attach same imortance to it(politics)

The uses and gratification theory of the media holds that,the assertion that the audience of the media are not passive as we realized in the effect theories of the media,rather, they (audience)use the media according to their needs in order to satisfy or fulfill that need.due to this they end up choosing media contents they know will gratify their needs.

my thoughts

This whole issue of indecent dressing is gaining too much grounds in the country,come to think of it who determines what is decent?who is decent?Nobody has set dressing standards in Ghana.we have to try as much as possible to get rid of our individual moral backgrounds in order to argue intellectually,if not all may come on board with their moral beliefs and since we believe in differnt moral standards whose version will be universally accepted.

Meanwhile, the so called exposing of the body we claim was copied fom the western world originated from africa.Most of us have witnessed how africans used to dress in the olden days.they wore just a piece of cloth to cover from their private part downwards, while their chest were left uncovered.when things were a bit modernised, they tied a small piece of cloth just enough to cover only the breast in the womens case.

However, the whites were the people wearing the heavy clothing we now refer to as decent drssses.over the years of coloniliztion,the white started copying our way of dressing and developed it to fit their lifstyles and now we have re- embraced what our forefathers wore and we claim the adopted dressing code of the whites are the decent ones.

we are in a democratic country and threrfore we have the right to freedom of expression not only in speaking form but in communicationin general.since communication goes beyond speaking it is only natural for one to feel free to express his/her self.afterall our individual peferences allows us to choose from a lot which we are entitled to.UNTILL THERE IS A LAW AGAINST ANY KIND OF DRESS CODE. NOBODY HAS THE RIGTH TO HUMILIATE ANYBODY IN THE NAME OF INDECENT DRESSING IN MY OPINION.