367 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

367 - Essay Example 3. The context of this material is†¦ Identify the political, economic, social, historical, etc., background surrounding this material. This may include information on the existing knowledge on the subject and gaps in our existing knowledge. The context of this material is urban Australian real estate industry. While major industries would require programs that can recruit the right employees, in urban Australia, getting the individual to work is an issue. The main points in this material are that Australia shows that the safety of employees within the industry is based on the use of technology to provide details regarding construction measurements and planning. Mismatch between program-based decisions and human-based manual work is reported to result in higher number of injuries and deaths within the industry. Focus on the incidences in Makkah City’s construction industry shows that the national’s policy and preparedness for disasters does not support the companies involved with construction (Australian Industry Group, 34). The key concepts in this material are construction workers’ health and safety at their places of work and are grounded on the Herzberg’s two-factor theory on motivation and hygiene. Based on the information regarding other nations’ safety standards and the stabilities of various industries, Australia builds on policies that aim at reducing the worker fatalities by at least 20 percent and the rate of claims made within a week or several weeks by 30 percent (Australian Industry Group, 33). 6. The most important information in this material is†¦ Identify the key information the author used to support his arguments/analysis. Identify the facts, data, evidence, experiences, etc., the author uses to reach their findings. The most important information in this material is that the Australian

The problems with traditional ethnographic filmmaking as exemplified Essay

The problems with traditional ethnographic filmmaking as exemplified by Nanook of the North - Essay Example The film Nanook of the North is a pioneering effort by film-maker Robert Flaherty. Released in 1922 and filmed in the immediately preceding years, the film was a tentative experimentation in two genres – ethnography and documentary. At a time when the written word was the primary mode of information dissemination, Nanook of the North attempted to achieve what an ethnographic book on the Eskimo would have done. When motion picture as we know it today was taking its early steps as a medium of popular culture, Flaherty, who called it a non-fiction film, can be credited to have made the first documentary. Looking back at the ninety years since the release of Nanook of the North, one can see vast improvisations in film-making technique and technology. The addition of synchronized sound would be another cornerstone in the history of films. (Ellis & McLane, 2005) As can be expected in this early example/experimentation with narrative film, there are a few obvious problem areas. While nominally adapted to the documentary form, the viewer cannot avoid feeling the enactment of a pre-conceived script. It is as if the film-maker, instead of making himself the invisible observer of unfolding events, seems to have instructed Nanook and his clan to perform specific acts. This is typical of not only early documentaries but also the vast body of ethnographic publishing of the previous century. For example, other post-First World War forays in this genre such as Dziga Vertov's The Man with the Movie Camera, Walter Ruttmann's Berlin: Symphony of a City (1927) and John Grierson's Drifters (1929) all share this common flaw. This is also true of Flaherty's subsequent film Moana (1926). Flaherty portrays Eskimo and Samoan cultures in a revisionist mode by creating imagined characters, bringing back to life lost cultural practices (such as hunting for Walruses using harpoons) and setting the film in an ancient period (conveyed to the audience through use of oil lamps when elect ricity is easily available). All this goes to show that these early ethnographies were â€Å"done less in the name of art than to salvage elements of the past by portraying them in the filmic equivalent of 'the ethnographic present'. As a result, Flaherty's alterations and temporal licenses met considerable disapproval in scholarly circles. He only inflamed passions further by stating, 'Sometimes you have to lie. One often has to distort a thing to catch its true spirit'." (Askew, 2006, p.29) There is also a directorial slant that seeks to iterate well-established stereotypes of the natives. This is not only applicable to Nanook and the Native American stock he comes from, but also to all indigenous people under European imperialist purview. For example, similar stereotyping of the natives is evident in British-authored ethnographies in Indian subcontinent, German experience in African colonies, Belgians in the Congo and the French occupation of Indo-China. What is also evident in early film ethnographies are the fixedness in perspective – these films were made by white men for other white men, with a patronizing attitude toward nativities/communities being explored. Further, the primitives were shown to display Western family ideals: â€Å"Like a museum display in which sculpted models of family groups perform "traditional activities," Nanook's family adopts a variety of poses for the camera. These scenes of the picturesque always represent a particular view of family or community, usually with the father as hunter and the mother as nurturer, paralleling Western views of the nuclear family. In the following trading post sequence, Nanook is shown to be ignorant of Western technology....This conceit of the indigenous person who does not understand Western technology allows for voyeuristic pleasure and reassures the viewer of the contrast between the Primitive and the