TASK 2 : Visual Communication and Cultural Understanding

What is Visual Communication Design?, Visual Communication Design takes diverse information and designs it for both print and screen based media. From print newspapers, magazines, books, tickets, posters to screen web interfaces, film titles, television graphics and indents right through to environmental applications, exhibitions, signage systems, you will discover how graphic design informs and assists us in almost everything we do. It demands creative thinking and an eye for detail. Small class sizes and a practical teaching approach to ensure that you achieve a high quality education, as well as the training to help you meet the demands of contemporary design practice. The program encourages experimentation, critical inquiry, critical awareness, discourse, collaboration and innovation in project design. 

                                                                       

                                                                 (Stacey Huish, 2004. Communication Skills)

The discipline of communication focuses on how people use messages to generate meanings within and across various contexts, cultures, channels, and media. The discipline promotes the effective and ethical practice of human communication. Communication is a diverse discipline which includes inquiry by social scientists, humanists, and critical and cultural studies scholars. A body of scholarship and theory, about all forms of human communication, is presented and explained in textbooks, electronic publications, and academic journals. In the journals, researchers report the results of studies that are the basis for an ever-expanding understanding of how we all communicate.

                                                                                   

                                                                (Stacey Huish, 2004. Communication Skills)

                    

Touched on the topic what is culture, the culture is about the practices and ways of life a variety of people in our country. This includes clothing, foods, art, festival, costumes and so on. The culture should be preserved because it has its own identity. The culture also represents the identity of a nation. In Malaysia, the cultures, practices will represent the pluralistic nature of our society. Our country has a multi-ethnic culture. Culture or customs have become an identity of the race. One of the advantages of our country is a multi-ethnic society. We have Malays, Chinese, Indians, and other minorities, especially in Sabah and Sarawak. This situation has caused our country has many interesting and unique culture to be shown to the whole world.

                                                                  (Razak, 2009. School teacher Malay)

           

Actually, this is a unique culture should be appreciated because this is the highlight of a cultural community. Without this culture of a community will lose its identity and for a long time. Cultural practices such as wearing traditional clothing, eating with his hands, went to the tomb when the feast and so also creates a sense of pride to the practitioners of folk culture. The individuals involved will feel they have managed to maintain the culture for generations of their ancestors over the years. In addition, the actions of specific individuals appreciate this culture into one of the easiest ways to show respect for the older generation to the younger generation.

                                                                     (Razak, 2009. School teacher Malay)

                                                                                                                       

            Culture also can foster national unity and our people in this country have good values that can make an example for the other country. Our people no matter race, religion and customs practices also celebrate together. Neighbors and friends visit one another. Cakes switch plate. We each receive and give. Greeting "Happy Eid", "Gong Xi Fa CAI" and "Happy Deepavali" out of the soul of sincerity. A sense of belonging will bond, thereby fostering unity. This Malaysian identity that is admired by the outside world and this identity must be preserved. For example, we always show its culture and character of Malaysian society. In HARI RAYA, the people of Muslim will visit one another on occasions show racial intimacy. Another important of preserving culture is a culture with values ​​and respects. Both of these attitudes are almost erased from the country’s teenagers. So, practice this culture will undoubtedly highlight the attitude of respect and self-esteem or pure tin. Teenagers will be individual distinction.

                                                                     (Razak, 2009. School teacher Malay)

In fact, the appreciation of culture to ensure a culture of people that do not expire posterity. Just look at the culture of conducting a feast started to disappear little by little because our society prefers to use a catering service. For the simple reason, we are forgetting the cultural work during a feast that has a positive impact but got tired of it. Efforts to sustain the culture will surely bring back nostalgic wedding ceremony was conducted by the merrier.

                                                                      (Razak, 2009. School teacher Malay)

Furthermore, these cultural practices to ensure that regulation and interdependent members of society practiced. To achieve the unity of all people should maintain its culture because through our culture can unite. Attitude of respect for each other, cause we will not try to hurt other people for trivial matters. On the other hand, appreciations of cultural strengthen our unity. And went the unity is more strength and strong, our cultural will more memorable and never extinct. Then, the new generation will continue the culture that has been shaped by their ancestors. For example, is about traditional food, their children and grandchild can learn how making the food and can continue and continue the secret receipt. For example the traditional food in Malaysia is ‘Kuih Bahulu’. Not everyone can cook this food.

           

In addition, the exhibition of artifacts or cultural historical heritage of various ethnic groups in Malaysia should be encouraged. Now the influence of the mass media cause of our traditional culture increasingly forgotten. Accordingly, the local mass media should publish our culture with more frequent and widespread. For example, traditional cultural exhibitions can be held through Malaysia Fest, State Fair, State Museum, and others. The mass media are also encouraged to corner the culture. Cultural point can also be included in a special television program like "This is Malaysia Day" and "Good Morning Malaysia".

                                                                      (Razak, 2009. School teacher Malay)

           

Let us not allow our culture can only be viewed at the museum. Thus, efforts to cultivate and nurture this culture should not be taken lightly. Let us together continue to keep that grew through the lush, hot deck is cracked, rain timeless. The culture of a community is a treasure currents defended by citizens. Do not we too look towards modernity to consider culture itself is outdated or don’t have the quality to make proud of other people. We must see culture as a tool capable of shaping our modernity towards a better spiritual and material of modernity. Maybe after that we can control cultures consider ourselves to have reached modernity live.

                                                                       (Razak, 2009. School teacher Malay)

REFERENCES

Stacey Huish. 2004, effective-communication-skills.com. [Online] Available at:

http://www.only-effective-communication-skills.com.html [Accessed:  11 March 2014].   

            

           

            

TASK 1: What is Culture

Culture is the characteristics of a particular group of people, defined by everything from language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music and arts. Today, in the our country and as in other countries populated largely by immigrants, the culture is influenced by the many groups of people that now make up the country.  Culture is the spiritual wealth created by man, such as literature, art, education, science and so on.

                                              (Li & Karakowsky (2001). Do We See Eye-to-Eye?)

Culture refers to the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving. Culture is the systems of knowledge shared by a relatively large group of people. Culture is communication, communication is culture.

                                              (Li & Karakowsky (2001). Do We See Eye-to-Eye?)

Culture in its broadest sense is cultivated behaviour; that is the totality of a person's learned, accumulated experience which is socially transmitted, or more briefly, behaviour through social learning. A culture is a way of life of a group of people--the behaviour’s, beliefs, values, and symbols that they accept, generally without thinking about them, and that are passed along by communication and imitation from one generation to the next. Culture is symbolic communication. Some of its symbols include a group's skill, knowledge, attitudes, values, and motives. The meanings of the symbols are learned and deliberately perpetuated in a society through its institutions.

                                             (Li & Karakowsky (2001). Do We See Eye-to-Eye?)

Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behaviour acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of human groups, including their embodiments in artefacts, the essential core of culture consists of traditional ideas and especially their attached values, culture systems may, on the one hand, be considered as products of action, on the other hand, as conditioning influences upon further action.

                                                 (Li & Karakowsky (2001). Do We See Eye-to-Eye?)

Culture is the sum of the total of the learned behaviour of a group of people that are generally considered to be the tradition of that person and are transmitted from generation to generation. Culture is a collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another.

                                                 (Li & Karakowsky (2001). Do We See Eye-to-Eye?)

  

Theory of cultural determinism, the position that the ideas, meanings, beliefs and values people learn as members of society determine human nature. People are what they learn. Optimistic version of cultural determinism places no limits on the abilities of human beings to do or to be whatever they want. Some anthropologists suggest that there is no universal "right way" of being human. "Right Way" is almost always "our way"; that "our way" in one society almost never corresponds to "our way" in any other society. The proper attitude of an informed human being could only be that of tolerance. The optimistic version of this theory postulates that human nature being infinitely malleable, human being can choose the ways of life they prefer. The pessimistic version maintains that people are what they are conditioned to be, this is something over which they have no control. Human beings are passive creatures and do whatever their culture tells them to do. This explanation leads to behaviourism that locates the causes of human behaviour in a realm that is totally beyond human control.

                                                  (Li & Karakowsky (2001). Do We See Eye-to-Eye?)

Cultural relativism, different cultural groups think, feel, and act differently. There is no scientific standard for considering one group as intrinsically superior or inferior to another. Studying differences in culture among groups and societies presupposes a position of cultural relativism. It does not imply normalcy for oneself, not for one's society. It, however, calls for judgment when dealing with groups or societies different from one's own. Information about the nature of cultural differences between societies, their roots, and their consequences should precede judgment and action. Negotiation is more likely to succeed when the parties concerned to understand the reasons for the differences in viewpoints.

            (The Journal of Psychology, 135(5), 501-517.)

Cultural ethnocentrism, ethnocentrism is the belief that one's own culture is superior to that of other cultures. It is a form of reductionism that reduces the "other way" of life to a distorted version of one's own. This is particularly important in case of global dealings when a company or an individual is imbued with the idea that methods, materials, or ideas that worked in the home country will also work abroad. Environmental differences are, therefore, ignored. Ethnocentrism, in relation to global dealings, can be categorized as follows. Important factors in business are overlooked because of the obsession with certain cause-effect relationships in one's own country. It is always a good idea to refer to checklists of human variables in order to be assured that all major factors have been at least considered while working abroad. Even though one may recognize the environmental differences and problems associated with change, but may focus only on achieving objectives related to the home-country. This may result in the loss of effectiveness of a company or an individual in terms of international competitiveness. The objectives set for global operations should also be global.

              (The Journal of Psychology, 135(5), 501-517.)

The differences are recognized, but it is assumed that associated changes are so basic that they can be achieved effortlessly. It is always a good idea to perform a cost-benefit analysis of the changes proposed.  Sometimes a change may upset important values and thereby may face resistance from being implemented. The cost of any changes may exceed the benefits derived from the implementation of such changes.

              (The Journal of Psychology, 135(5), 501-517.)

Manifestations of cultural, Cultural differences manifest themselves in different ways and differing levels of depth. Symbols represent the most superficial and value the deepest manifestations of culture, with heroes and rituals in between. Symbols are words, gestures, pictures, or objects that carry a particular meaning which is only recognized by those who share a particular culture. New symbols easily develop, old ones disappear. Symbols from one particular group are regularly copied by others. This is why symbols represent the outermost layer of a culture. Heroes are persons, past or present, real or fictitious, who possess characteristics that are highly prized in a culture. They also serve as models for behaviour­­­. Rituals are collective activities, sometimes superfluous in reaching desired objectives, but are considered as socially essential. They are therefore carried out most of the times for their own sake (ways of greetings, paying respect to others, religious and social ceremonies. The core of a culture is formed by values. They are broad tendencies for preferences of a certain state of affairs to others (good-evil, right-wrong, natural-unnatural). Many values remain unconscious to those who hold them. Therefore, they often cannot be discussed, nor they can be directly observed by others. Values can only be inferred from the way people act under different circumstances. Symbols, heroes, and rituals are the tangible or the visual aspects of the practices of a culture. The true cultural meaning of the practices is intangible; this is revealed only when the practices are interpreted by the insiders. Layers of culture, people even within the same culture carry several layers of mental programming within themselves. Different layers of culture exist at the following levels, at the National level, associated with the nation as a whole. The Regional level, associated with ethnic, linguistic, or religious differences that exist within a nation. The gender, level, associated with gender differences, female versus male, the generation level, associated with the differences between grandparents and parents, parents and children. The social class level, associated with educational opportunities and differences in occupation. The corporate level, associated with the particular culture of an organization.  Applicable to those who are employed.
                                             (The Journal of Psychology, 135(5), 501-517.





REFERENCES
The Journal of Psychology, 2010. What is Culture? [Online] Available                                                    at: http://www.tandfonline.com/action/doSearch?                                                  quickLinkJournal=&journalText=&quickLink=true&type=simple&filter=multiple&stemming=yes&searchText=what+is+culture&publication=40001843&searchType=journal. [Accessed 8 March 2014].

TASK 1 'Double Exposure'

In this task we need to snap the picture "double exposure" with our concept, think of idea how to make the picture double exposure, I got some idea from I'm looking around of my life and think the idea with concept and some idea I got from Internet, gallery, and artwork artist photography. Scroll down to look my picture double exposure with my concept idea.

1. Loved the Jungle. 

* Jungle is very important for next generations, if we do not care about the jungle the next generation will be can't to enjoying the jungle.

                               

2. Nerve veins of human head.

* as a human we have the nerve veins, so i snap the picture of tree no leaf and combine with human head.

3. Close the eye
*Sometimes people do not see they false, but every time look at the false of others people, they always right.

this people is blind but do not see they false.

4.Face with Hand

*humans can use a hand covering the face as wrong and embarrassed but 

  can not shut up others to cover up our mistakes

5. life of the people city.

TASK 1 : Research Mantin Town and Info-graphic Hakka village

History of Mantin

            Mantin is one of a small town in the state of Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia under the municipalities Nilai. Mantin was also one of the old town-been colonized by the British at one time due to its famous of tin mine, the town opened by Malay people but a large population of Chinese , this is because of people from Chinese  are interested in living in this town as to adapt , seek to have of tin mine, the Chinese are a people who like to be a labor of tin mines.

The mountain was once known as Setul, Mantin's original name is 'many tins' because it has a lot of of tin mine, the people here have changed 'many tins' to maintain because the population here is difficult to say the word. The word "many tins" is derived from the white / British because they are attracted to the tin mines in the town and remains pronunciation Mantin was until now

Hakka Village History

           Hakka village located in 9 state of mantin 150-years-old is one of the oldest villages in the state. Until now, the hakka village has 213 houses and decreased to 60 to 50 units due to the lack of people who moved to a safe and comfortable place because there life is too poor and the broken homes and nearly collapsed.

  One of their ancestral remains to date is 115 years old temple. Often used by the hakka villagers and the nearby village. The temple is also a place for chinese medicine residing in mantin. The temple was also used as the venue for their wedding and a place to worship their God.

            Hakka village has a unique feature that it has made a tin mining area by their ancestors once upon a time.

             Hakka village has a dark history that extends from the japanese colonial period in malaya. They defend the hakka village of occupied japan and caused many people were killed. After the incident, several groups were formed to defend the hakka village between red group that fought the use of firearms and classified hazardous areas, group of green and yellow to protect the villagers who were there.

              Moreover, in october 2013, villagers claimed the government was trespassing on the grounds of the village residents do not pay taxes and has destroyed some house in Phase 1 and Phase 2 is intended to make a new development in the area.

             Since then, the village was deserted and a dwindling population as shelter demolished an residents feel sad and unhappy with the government because they have been abused and cause the parliment Nilai, Senawang, Sungai Ujong which helps residents arrested on the grounds of preventing the government.

            The villagers were not happy and unsatisfied because the village belongs to the days before independence malay but the government has never made a grant of land and never cared that village and the village were ignored by the government causing many villagers mourn.

Info-graphic of  Hakka village : 

Picture 1 : Info-graphic Hakka Village