From Literacy to Electracy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

From Literacy to Electracy - Essay Example This rote memorization is not uncommon in other religions besides Islam itself. Christians also emphasize the importance of hiding words in one's heart with regards to the Bible (both with the Old and the New Testaments, but especially the New Testament). Many cultures are orally-based cultures, which is to say, they have no need for writing. "The Brazilian Indians sporadically studiedbetween 1935 and 1939, as well as the American Indian and Polynesian and African tribes who have figured in other reports, exemplify societies which....did not require the support of a developed orality with a complex vocabulary."1 Julian Jaynes notes, from a scientist's perspective, that "In the last paragraph of The Origin of Species, [Darwin] implies that God created mind and body in the first primitive organisms and then both evolved in parallel together."2 If this is true, then the mind had as much importance as the body, and consequentially, what a human said. "But this sunk the problem in metaphysics, and it was soon realized that there should be some criterion of consciousness. It seemed obvious in the empiricist climate of the time that this was learning. So the question became: when did learning originate in evolution"3 The answer is, learning evolved with the word. This is because, before reading or writing of any stripe, the spoken word came first. This is the basis of all of our literacy and electracy, ultimately-the linguistic representation of some form of information. Ultimately, people became seemingly uber-sophisticated, and a new avenue of expression came into being. III. Literacy Tribes, as well as individuals, are having a difficult time with literacy. As Barton states, "There are common social practices associated with learning."4 Being able to read and write well (in print) is what truly makes humans superior to other animals. What truly distinguishes men from the beasts is the fact that humans can not only verbalize (which is orality), but they can read and write languages due to the advanced development of their brain structures. "'Civilized' peoples have long contrasted themselves with 'primitive' or 'savage' peoples[which] should be replaced by 'without writing.'"5 Interestingly enough, the phenomena has occurred that people are now less able to read books as a result of the fact that everyone is now living in a post-literate society-post-literate meaning that the use of visual images is more favorable than materials that people can actually see to read. "Bruce Freidmanhas described how the Internet has altered his mental habits. 'I now have almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the web or in print,' he wrote earlier this year'I can't read War and Peace anymore,' he admitted. 'I've lost the ability to do that. Even a blog post of more than three or four paragraphs is too much to absorb. I skim it."6 This is the beginning of electracy. IV. Electracy "Part of electracy (which is to the Internet what literacy is to print) is to help citizens think with the image."7 Increasingly, visual images are becoming the new book for individuals as well as schools. In fact, no one has the time to read a book. Truthfully, why would someone read a book when he or she can

Marketing Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Marketing - Research Paper Example Research Question 1. Which opportunities are available to Skype in the Voice-Over-Internet Calls market? Skype is a company that can benefit from this the market research question. First, the company must identify the problem and opportunities affecting its marketing actions. This will enable Skype make appropriate decisions. An opportunity is a factor in the market that ensures that there are improvements in performance, or one that restores the previous state of activities. It is important to note that a problem is anything that affects the capability of a company to achieve their goals and objectives. Identifying the problem may involve assessing the explanation as to why the organization is not making profits as expected. In the market, a problem may be transformed into an opportunity. Further, an opportunity presents to the company a chance to make adjustments over their performance (Mohr, Sengupta & Slater, 2009). The first approach in dealing with the research question is to i dentify the problem or opportunity. However, before a problem is discovered, information must first be generated. For instance, the main problem to Sky is in the nature of competition experienced in the market because there are several other competitors offering similar services and brands. The problem is necessary because in the modern market, consumer attitudes normally influence the marketing behavior of a company. The information concerning consumer attitudes will be beneficial to Skype’s management be aware of the problem or any impending problem that might affect their business in the future. In addition, opportunities may depend on the availability of information of what the consumers expect of the products and services of Skype. This information may be obtained by conducting an online survey, the respondents being a sample of Skype users. Most organizations, including Skype, would be pleased to learn that consumers are displeased by a certain competitor’s new p olicy or quality of their services. This information is necessary since it enables the company to produce products and services that are affordable and are of high quality to customers (Bradley, 2007). Once the problems and opportunities have been identified, the company must do thorough analysis to establish the nature of the problems. After the analysis has been done, the companies can then go ahead and develop possible alternatives to the problem. In most cases, the main symptoms to the problem are identified, however, there may be other problems leading to the symptoms. Problem identification and analysis is important since it enables Skype to get ahead of competition by meeting consumer demands. The company has been able to come up with cost friendly service that enables consumers to make free calls over the internet ((Mohr, Sengupta & Slater, 2009). The next approach in dealing with the research question will be to assess the internal operations of the company for example by f ocusing on its website design. The problem, in this case, may be originating from within the company which makes it possible to survey the internal market consisting of employees. The information generated in the market should be used to asses internal operation, for instance, to determine whether the organization is producing products and serv