love of facebook, twitter, etc....

Facebook has rather become a big part of my life. It allows me to share my feelings with those i know and "dont". It gives me the platform to showcase and express myself in ways that i could not do in reality. It also gives a few of you out there a glimpse of how fabulous and wonderful and gorgeous we may be. Some of us live and breath these networks. I think its fair to say that these networks do play a big part in our daily communication with people some of whom we have never met before in our lives, but then all of that is bridged by modern communication. Lets face it, a lot of lives have changed with this new evolution in technology. I mean, just imagine, a while back when we didn't have all this, how were we able to connect and communicate with people whom we hardly new and become close friends with them to the extent of a potential serious relationship?

Personally, i think its one of the greatest inventions of all times. It works for me and keeps me in touch with a lot of people I would like to communicate with, and most of all, also contains a number of possibilities of meeting new and potential life partners. We are given the freedom to create the people we want to be, and ultimately a number of us have different characters and personalities in these virtual networks in which case now poses a threat to people who have never really met us in person . Now we may not be aware of the intricate relations we have and what impact these social networks have on us as individuals and the way we socialise, but just think about this, how many times in a day or week you use these networks and how has it affected your life both personally and otherwise socially?

Vicky G

comments allowed..

Whether it is a PC or a Computer...you still connect and socialise!!!

Computers and PC have become so popular and are another way for people to communicate and socialize with people from all over the world without writting letters and making a phone call like the old generation used to. People used to write letters to their Friends and family, as well as sending cards on every special occasions. This way of communication use to take too long for people to get their replies and sometimes letters will go missing or end up not reaching the receiver.But ever since there has been this New Media technology, people can now write to their loved ones and get a reply at the same time through: chatting online or simply sending an email. The email is safer and even though it is not guarantied that a person will get the email all the time but it is much better than a letter sent by post. Even if the person doesn't receive the mail, there is always the message that the sender receive informing them if the mail was received or not. The computers have made it easy for people to find new friends, communicate with the old ones from all over the world, make business deals and so on just by sending each other pictures and see people what other people are up to especially if you haven't seen them in a long time. Also for those who like to take cruises around the world, they can easily access information about that particular place by simply logging in on their website.Many organizations have adopted the use of Internet in order to communicate with their internal and external stakeholders. The internal stakeholders being: the managers, employees and the public practitioners of the organization. This source of communication can be used for various forms for conveying messages to the relevant stakeholders. For an example the organization can use the Internet to advertise their products for the benefit of their customers, as well as to let their target market aware of their services. But they are other factors that could lead to the website to fail or rather not serve the required purpose of the website for the company. This need to be facilitated by a person who has knowledge and skills on how to use the website, because most of the valuable information about the organisation is saved on the computer.The lack of knowledge and how to make use of the facilities provided in the Internet could be one of the reasons that lead to the website to be unsuccessful. And the other reason could also be that some organization turn to abandon their websites and they don’t know how to take advantage of them commercially. Although many organizations still regard a mere web presence as sufficient, there is an increased recognition that a website should achieve specific business objectives for an instance better customer services and relationship. Some theorists argue that some corporate websites are created or designed by specialists who have different views or ideas as how to set the website. Those different ideas might just be different from those of the company. It is also important to assess the specialists’ personal characteristics and attitudes because they may be influenced by the media’s effect in decision making. That can have an effect on the way that they design the website and might share common values on determining content and design of the corporate website."Facebook" this has become the most other popular form of communication for all different types of people. It is way of connecting with different people from all over the world. But most importantly , we get to connect with our high school friends and know more people in and around your area. So it can make you popular. Atleat i think it will!!!But what happens if you do not have a lot of friends???It OK because you can just simply ask people to become your friends. Well chances are they will conform or ignore you. Now that's a bad one. But still does facebook make you popular? I mean to me its simply chatting to my friends or going through their pictures if I'm too far to see them all the time, but claiming to have friends when you don't know them and can only be friends through or only on Facebook doesn't make you popular. I don't know maybe I'm still to learn more about it!!!!!!! All in all, all these mentioned above are a way for people to talk to each other, they may not be seeing each other everyday, but this kind of communication makes it seem like they are together everyday and everytime they want to talk to each other or socialise.

new media technologies: History of Social Networks

new media technologies: History of Social Networks

IDENTITY IN CYBERSPACE

When we participate in virtual communities our sense of self is affected ,in cyberspace it seems almost as if we a constantly performing,we are in a performance medium .Identity in cyberspace is fluid ,in cyberspace one can be what they have always wanted to be and one can even find that people will accept them for who they are which is not always the case in real life .Sarte said in being and nothingness i am my body to the extent that "I am my body to the extent that i am ,"The virtual community is different ,it is composed of information rather than matter .A man can create a female identity ,a child that was known as the biggest nerd at child and was never accepted by his peers can get a chance to sort of start all over on cyberspace as somebody else ,be who they have always wanted to be and finally ''fit'' in ,they get the chance to create an identity ,a world where they can pretend to be the coolest person and everybody can be envious of them,but this identity that you have created online is not real ,it only exists in the cyber world. What happens when you go out there in the real world as yourself and you are no longer this person that everybody on Myspace or Phasebook idolizes.

sOME ARTICLE TO SHARE ON THE DANGER OF USING A CELL PHONE. RETRIEVED FROM THE FOXNEWS.COM

A study by an award-winning cancer expert shows that cell phone use could kill more people than smoking, it is reported that according to the U.K.'s Independent newspaper, the study, headed by Dr. Vini Khurana, shows that there is a growing body of evidence that using handsets for 10 years or more can double the risk of brain cancer.
Khurana — one of the world's top neurosurgeons — based his assessment on the fact that three billion people now use the phones worldwide. That is three times higher than people who smoke. Smoking kills some five million globally each year. He warned that people should avoid using handsets whenever possible and called on the phone industry to make them safer. France and Germany have already warned against the use of mobile phones, especially by children, it is reported. The study is said to be the most damning indictment of cell phone use. According to the Independent, cancers take at least 10 years to develop, which has influenced earlier cancer studies showing relative safety when using cell phones.

cellphones

Cell phones, cell phones, cell phones and more cell phone!!! If you haven't got it, then you don't fit. Is this what the world has come to be. Cell phones have created a lot of problems in our country, society, our health, safety, our homes even in church. There is a story that one Priest was feeling tired and he did not want to wake up for church and he just simply sent sms's to all the church members with a script saying that God has spoken to him today and that is what he should do. I mean seriously, it seems like we all losing it. Where have you ever heard of a priest sending sms's to the worshippers because he cannot wake up. Not that he was ill or something. But because of our new advanced technology, that is allowing us not to take responsibilities and avoid our duties because we all want simplicity and convenient.

Another story is that there are people apparently who have named their children by any cell phone model like: Nokia Mkhize, Alcatel Khumalo, Voice mail Ndlovu. Well i don't know how true this is but it still feels like people are loosing their values and adopting this new way of living. Not only does cell phones makes us to become what we are not (Fake living standards), but it is also very expensive. This on its own demands a lot out of people's pocket and it has escalated the rate of crime in our country. If you don't have a cell phone you don't belong in the today popular groups, especially teenagers who are still in school and in the University. They end up stealing cell phones from other students or simply rob people their cell phones so that they could also own a camera phone.

These camera phones have put some other students in trouble at their schools because they don't use them in an appropriate manner.For an example, in one of the schools in KZN, there is a young boy who was taking photos of their teacher during a lesson and started distributing it to all the other students. These picture were of the teacher's butt. Many people love camera phones, and yes they may be of good use, but as far as I'm concerned, i only need a cell phone too receive my calls and to send an sms. Beyond that I don't really see why there should be camera phone. Not only have they corrupted kids everywhere, but they have made people to become unfaithfull and untrustworthy.It is so easy for people to lie about their where abouts if they are using a cell phone. I for one have become the biggest lier of note. If you ask me where I am and i know that you will freak out if I were to tell you that I'm still about to take a shower when you already waiting for me... I'll tell you I'm 5 minutes away.

The worse scenario about cell phones are those people who first of all are drunk and then use theri cell hpone whiles they are driving, not to mention at a higher speed. This has passed with a whole lot of people's live due to the neglegent that is around our continent. Road accidents are mostly coursed by people who do not follow the right procedure of answering cell phones when driving on the road. A driver is to use the hands free if answering a cell hpone on the road, if it is asfe to do so stop to avoid accidents. If all the drivers could exercise this, then we might just decrease the rate of roads accidents...

our mobiles

let us explore the new face of our mobile phones. Can they really give you status within a social context?

i will let you comment on that before i give you my insite as to what i think!

surfaces surfaces allover the show

Wth the new media and virtual reality everthing is surfaces that must be explored and no surface has any reality or legitimacy than any other .The embodied life that people live on a day to day basis seems to me to have more reality than the games that we play on the internet.A vitual community is a social network with a common interest ,idea ,task .Differnt virtual communities have different levels of interaction and participation amongst their members .This ranges from adding comments or tags to a blog .On the internet people do not know who you really are,because we cannot see eachother on cyberspace.In the disembodied world of cyberspace identity is so ambigious.Many of the basic cues about about personality and social role we are accustomed to in the physical world are absent .In a virtual community a person can be whatever thay want to be .One can have claim to as many electronic persona's as one has time and energy to create .In a virtual community a blue carrot can communicate wtha red mouse ,our identities are transformed ,there is a sense of artificiality ,technological elements become extentions of our bodies .MUD stands for Imaginary world of computer databases where users uses words to build worlds and all the subjects in them ,identity is the first thing one creates in MUD .People whose physical handical make it difficult to form new friends ,find that virtual communities treat them as they have always wanted to be treated as thinkers and as individuals and feeling beings .The internet has become a significant social laboratory for experimenting with the constructions and resonstructions of self that characterize postmodern life.Identities on line are infinite

cinema

Lights , Camera, Action!
Let us go into the new world of cinema, grabbing our roots from the past from where it first begun. I want to explore the world of cinema of attraction, the Classic Hollywood Cinema also know as CHC, the French Cinema Nouvelle, the Spanish wave, ohh, there are just too many to mention! But then the most important one, being, the South African films and how they are being received by us here at home and how the outside world has recieved them!

Lets start by here at home. The South African film industry has been experiencing problems in the past years, stemming from the apartheid era, whereby films that were being produced were regulated by the government so that they don't act as a way of trying to overthrow the government. This really left the film industry in this country very much under developed as directors, particularly african directors were not given an opportunity to voice their opinions and express their views. Films that were directed by black directors only started emerging post apartheid, which was in the mid 1990's. One of the first was Mbongeni Ngema who directed the famous Sarafina also using international actors such Whoopi Goldberg. This film aimed to tell a story about the education system during the apartheid times and how the students tryed to revolutionalise this system into something that would be beneficial for all people.

but then those are just some of the stories that remained untold during that time in apartheid South Africa.
ps: will be edited even more! there is stil more to come. pls leave your comment as to what else can be added on to this!

vitual communities

A virtual community, e-community or online community is a group of people that primarily interact via communication media such as letters, telephone, email or Usenet rather than face to face, for social, professional, educational or other purposes. If the mechanism is a computer network, it is called an online community. Virtual and online communities have also become a supplemental form of communication between people who know each other primarily in real life. Many means are used in social software separately or in combination, including text-based chat rooms and forums that use voice, video text or avatars. Significant socio-technical change may have resulted from the proliferation of such Internet-based social networks. furthermore, online or virtual community, can they really be regarded as a communities where people base their lives?
First, lets attempt to describe some of the discourses of a community.
A community is made of of people, who live together geographically, they interact with each other almost on a daily bases, they interact with each other socially, physically and verbally. This is thus a traditional distinction of a community. When Don Ihde describes an online community, he describes it as a community where people don't necessarily have to interact physically in order for them to be called a community. They are called a community because of the social interactions that occur between them all. He further goes to argue that, within the traditional definition of a community whereby there is also physical contact, he says that, "it is possible for one to feel a lot more closer to someone in cyber space whom they don't necessarily have a relationship with them or rubbed shoulders, than to a stranger sitting next to you in on the subway and yet you are there physically"; can one then really not give the online community the benefit of the doubt, and give it real existing space. These communities have transcended globally, and the world has become one global village, through communications using the new media. Cyber relations form part of the new media and new technologies have made it possible for people all over the world to be able to interact with each other using text or email, video calling or even using the multimedia. The global village being all the continents and their coutries comming together to form one whole big global village where they interact with each other using means availed to them by the new media.

We also refer to cyber space as hyper reality. This term has been created by the American population whereby they have used their over active imaginations to create spaces whereby they use their imaginations and they immitate the real thing tho make their own thing. It is also said that they are proud of their 'fakeness' and they say that if you can't have the real thing, then why not fake it? One would then consider that and then come to a conclusion that virtual communities are fake! but can you call someone's original work fake, since it did originate from their intellectual span, and though it is in hyper reality?

virtual communities

A virtual community is a group of people that interact thyough community media such as letters ,telephones etc,rather than interacting face to face usually for educational or social reasons.Virtual and online communities have also become a supplementary form of communication between people who already know each other in real life ,the traditional definition of a community is of a geographically circumscribed entity .(neighbourhood,villages).Some online communities are linked geographically ,and are known as community websites ,a virtual community is a social network with a common interest ,an idea ,a task or a goal that interact in a virtual society across time ,geographical or organizational boundaries and is able to develop personal relationships.Different vitual communities have different levels of interaction and participation amongst their members ,this can range from adding comments or tags to a blog or message board post to competing against other people in online video games.Virtual comminities often divide into cliques or even seperate to form new communities .Douglas Mann says that people love virtual psedo communities for various reasons one of the reasons is that people love technology,secondly computer and software firms like Apple and Microsoft have invested millions in new communites technology so they have to convince people that it has a useful purpose ,thirdly ,ecomm and cellphones allow narcissists to avoid making commitment to given time and spaces .People can even change their identities in a virtual community and be whoever they eant to be ,I personally find the idea of pretending to be a man or a woman when you are not quite stupid.why not just ne yourself?
People can virtually communte and work at home ,fourth ,e-comm saves shy and reclusive people from struggling through the process of overcomming their shyness,through what used to be called ''character building ''.In a virtual community a person can be whatever they want to be ,an individual can lie about their identity ,their sexuality ,their age and even where they come from ,a person can even lie about their ethnicity .A virtual community is a community that is open to the world, and because it is open to everyone ( the world ) it has differnt characterists that one which is closed by a password provided only to qualified individuals .

cellphones

It is amazing how new technology has allowed us to 'go to the cinema' at "home". This advancement in technology now allows us to wacth the latest movies, right in the comfort of our own beds or couches whiles viewing it from your high-tech cellular phone. this new phenomenon, uploaded with technology such as, adobe reader, windows media player which means that you can download any content from the internet and be able to view them using these programes that have been designed for this purpose and others.

The mobile phone (also called a mobile, wireless, cellular phone, cell phone, or hand phone(hp) is a short-range, portable electronic device used for mobile voice or data communication over a network of specialized base stations known as cell sites. In addition to the standard voice function of a telephone, current mobile phones may support many additional servicee, and accessories, such as SMS for text messaging, email, packet switching for access to the Internet, and MMS for sending and receiving photos and video. Most current mobile phones connect to a cellular network of base stations (cell sites), which is in turn interconnected to the public switched telephone network (PSTN) (the exception is satellite phones). Since the mid-2000s, an increasing number of cellphones can connect to the Internet, a portion of which can be navigated using cellphones.

With such a rapid change in technology, one can easily access all wireless connections by using their new and improved cellphone. One these days cannot keep up with the changes that cellphones have to offer us today. They are becoming more sophisticated and more expensive. In the early period of the 2000's, the hype abot cellphones was, the smaller it is the better! Today the hype has totally shifted to, it has to have a camera in it and the bigger the screen, the more sophisticated it really is.

Furthermore, cellphones have become a part of our lives. They have become an extended body to us. They have become emmbedded to us. Don Ihde, says "to get used to a hat, a car or a stick is to be transplanted into them, or conversly, to incorporate them into the bulk of our own body".

That is how our cellphones have become like to us. Everywhere you go, you will certainly find someone with their cellphones, either having a conversation or the latest today, Mxiting (www.mxit.co.za) with their friends and families all over the world. The question about these ltest inventions in cellphones is 'how safe they are' in terms of accessibility, who can and who can't access this new technology. With this increasing rate of change in technology in our society, it makes one question this new technology whether it challanges our values and norms as a society. More children (especially teenage girls) these days are being exposed to adult content on the web, and they become victims of sexual abuse by strangers that they really do not know, but all they are to them is a "chatting buddy" on their cellphones. They log on to these websites where anyone can access them including older people who in our society would be regarded as morally bank rupt because of the conversations that they engage in with these young unexpecting teenagers in these virtual communities. Though one may say that these virtual communities are "unreal", therefore they are not as harmful as people would percieve them to be, but what happens then when meetings are arranged in these communities to become something real? Are these children yet not in danger of being taken advantage of by these 'older people'? One would then say that this phenominon is problematic.

One should never look at things on one side though, there are very many positive things that this new technology has brought to us. Connecting with who ever you want to connect with when ever and where ever, and most likely end up ease dropping on someone else's conversation on the phone, because of the frequentness of connection every where you go!

The world of cellphones today has become increasingly fascinating over time, and the new programmes that they has to offer are phenominal.

Our cellphones ,Ourselves

Cellphones have become a neccessity for many people throughout the world.Today's cellphones are not only capable of placing and receiving phone calls but storing data ,taking pictures and can even be used as walkie talkies ,when cellphones first arrives in the market they were bulky ,expensive ,early cellphones could only be used in certain locations and not others ."As cellphones improved and became simple to use their importance increased "(Rosen,7) .Cellphones are the perfect way to stay connected to others and provide the user with a sense of security ."First generation cellphones were called luggables'' rather than ''portables'' ,they were often compared to bricks ,only the wealthiest people owned them,but all this changed in the 1990's ,when cellphones became cheaper ,smaller and more readily avaliable" (Rosen ,11)."In countries where cell phone use is still limited to the wealthy having a cellphone is a symbol of wealth and prestige ,but to the rest of the world cellphones have become a technology for the masses ". (Rosen,13)
Why do people use cellphones? The most frequently used reason is convenience.Allot of cellphone users report that owning a cellphone makes them feel safer . Individuals use their cellphones to call for assistance when their car breaks down , popular culture endorses this image of cell-phone-as -life -line ."Many parents have reponded to this perceived need for personal security by purchasing cellphones for their children"
.(Rosen,18) what you never used to expect ,but must now endure is a stranger arguing about how much he does indeed owe to his landlord, .I've heard the details of bussiness deals .We are no longer overhearing ,which implies accidently stumbling upon a situation where two people are talking in presumed privacy .Now we are all simply hearing ,the result is a world where social space is overtaken by anonymous ,unavoidable background noise ."In the past cellphone users ,men and woman have been stabbed ,escorted off airlines ,pepper-sprayed in movie theaters ,ejected from concert halls as a result of bad behavior on their cell phones "(Rosen,10). Writting about the impact of cellphone technology in The Mail and guardian in 2002 ,James Meek noted that,with modertate horror ,that cellphones now encourage British people to do what "British people are not allowed to do : invite strangers ,spontaneously ,into our personal worlds ."We let everyone know what our accent is ,what we do for a living ,what we do in our non-working hours" (Rosen,3) .
In the event of an emergency,having a cellphone can allow people to reach you quickly and can possibly save lives ."Modern cellphones are capable of internet access ,sending and receiving photo's and files and some cellphones are equipped with GPS technology ,allowing for use in most locations around the world and allowing the cellphone to be found or the user located in the event of loss or emergency" .(Rosen,4) "Finding a dependable service provider is no longer an issue for cellphone users ,the importance of cellphones goes way beyond the ability to make or receive a call" (Rosen ,18) .Cellphone users can instantly send data to the home or office ,check the important email ,use their cellphones as a calender and store photo's which can be easily transfered to a laptop computer or PC.The avaliable options gives users the choice of purchasing a basic cellphone to use simply for making calls ,or choosing a complex ,technologicaly advanced cellphone that can perform alot of tasks,the increasing importance of cellphones has made almost a neccessity for most people .The importance of cellphones has increased the competition in the wireless service provider industry ,making cellphones very affordable and user friendly ,cellphones have become almost a status symbol in addition to the conveniance and security that comes from owning them ."We live in a cellular generation there is no way of escaping them,they are eveywhere ,at the movies ,restuarants" (Rosen,9) .It seems like everywhere you turn there is giggling ,gasping and gossiping . Cellphones provide us with a new ,but not neccessarily superior means of communication with eachother.They encourage talk, not conversation ,they link us to those we know ,but remove us from strangers who surround us in the public space.No matter where you live or what you do in all likelihood you will eventually find yourself unwillingly listening to someone elses cellphone conversation ."Today more people have cellphones than fixed telephone lines ,there are more than one billion cellphone users in the worldwide,but if this ubiquitous technology is now a normal part of our lives ,our adjustment to it has not been without consequences ,we are rapidly approaching a tipping point with this technology "(Rosen,11). How has it changed our behaviour ?what new rules ought we to impose on it's use? but most importantly how has the wireless telephone encouraged us to connect individually, but disconnect socially ,ceding ,in the process ,much that was civil and civilized about the use of public space ?We are strenthening and increasing our interactions with the people we already know at the expense of those who we do not ."The result according to Kenneth gergen ,is ''the erosion of face- to -face community ,a coherent and centered sense of self ,moral bearings ,depth of relationship ,and the uprooting of meaning fom material context :such as the dangers of absent presence" (Rosen,5) .

Nation wide cellphones still frequently interrupt movie screenings ,theater performances and concerts,wireless technology is booming so quickly and wireless phones have become so popular ,the rules on wireless etiquette is still evolving , one could say that we are in the midst of a period of adjustments ."We still have the memory of the old social rules which remind us to be courteous towards others ,especially in enviroments which are confined ,but it is clear from the way most people on cellphones behave in public spaces that cellphone technology itself has disrupted our ability to insist on the enforcement of social rules".(Rosen,7)

Retrieved from : www.thenewatlantis.com/archives /6/rosen.htm

Cinema ,Connection ,Meand You and Everyone We know

There is such a strong relationship between film and life ,ther is a relationship our everyday experiances and how we make sense of the world and the way we engage with cinema,cinema brongs people together .

Douglas Sirk observes that the cinema ''is blood,is tears,violence,hate death and love ,it is the stuff of our lives and in that sense it will always be of importance another point of interest is the fact that cinema can offer us simulateously ,'grounds for desperation'and also grounds for hope,even when a narrative of a film appears 'hopeless',our experiance can still be joyous and engaing (McDowell, 15). "Balaz saw in the cinema a pictorial language that would unite humanity" .(Mc Dowell) .In the moving pictures he believed he has found a kind of language that would return to us universality that the invention of the printing press and loss of oral culture had helped to destroy, apparently forever."The cinema would return to us vitality ,emotions and intensity because it would again allow us to engage with the expressiveness of human beings" (Mc Dowell,11) .We identify ,respond and emphatise and even relate with the faces of human beings -with expressions of laughter and tears ,cinema is a form of participation ."Mortimer notes that in the cinema we ''live in a state of double consciousness,participating and sceptical'',we participate in it's drama,we experiance it as genuine , in a sense we feel that it is real even though we know at the back of our heads that it is not" .(Mc Dowell,12)'The never ending story"', As it is in heaven,Mermiads, so many of these writtings suggest that the nature of cinema is mythic,magical and archaic.I believe that more than any other medium ,film is an art of connection ,and this connection happens in a number of ways ,there is a connection between the audience and the artwork,which is the aim of most artworks .The incredible feeling of relating intensely to a song ,a book,is one of the main things that keeps us watchng or listening -searching for the next experiance that speaks to us in an indescribable way .A film is not made by one person ,such as a poem ,a guitar or other artworks but cinema audiece want so desperately to believe in the myth of the one creator of a film .If one feels a special relationship with a film ,the cinema lets you feel connected to a director ,a writer , the misenscene and the cinematographor all at once ."There is also a connection between you and all the other people who have been affected in a similar way by the work of art, just knowing that the film has touched or spoken to a number of viewers perhaps not in an identical way or for identical reasons ,but none the less as personally ,and by the very fact that there are a number of us who have thought and felt similarly while experiancing the piece ,the reactions stop being merely personal ,becomming instead -not exactly universal ,but something bigger and more inclusive" (McDowell,13) .Film is a mass medium no other medium touches so many people ."Millions of people around the world will see the same film -the same images ,sounds ,movements ,words,feelings ;they will be moved to react ,think ,communicate with and about the same object" .(Mc Dowell,14)
The sadness,happiness ,the stories ,tales of goodness-overcoming-badness-defeating -goodness,the vibrant and alive characters ,the stupidity and intelligence ,the shared glances ,the striving ,the failing ,the pain and the beauty we know that it will all be experianced by countless others just as it is being ecperianced by us .(McDowell, 2) "To buy a ticket for a film is thus to become part of a community;it connects us to everyone else who sees the same film and connects them to us."MC Dowell,4)
"There is the scale of the potentially world -wide audience ,and than there is the scale of the physical act of watching a film in a cinema :a large room filled with ten thousands of people laughing ,pondering the same images ,movements and sounds"(McDowell,7) .Film is not like other art forms which are all largely solitary or smaller social experiances eg: poetry,or viewing a painting or television ,a cinema screening brings together disparate people in a simultaneous moment and requires that we stay side by side with these strangers from beginnining till the end (McDowell,11 ).You will probably never see them again ,but you will nevertheless have shared something with all these people . "Cinema almost idolises the humans it portrays ,making them literally larger- than -life ,and literally timeless"(McDowell 16) ."Cinema shows us people moving and speaking exactlyt as they do in real life ,however layered on top of this realistic world is all the ''unrealistic'' cinematic apparatus :closeup,zooms ,slow motion ,the manipulation of sound and lighting ,musical accompaniment -all designed ,not to make us believe that we are looking at an image of reality ,but simply to make us more fully experiance and feel the worlds and lives shown to us on screen "(McDowell,18) .
Cinema communicates immediately ,viscerally and is geared towards making us emote .Dowell thinks that think that cinema is structured around human connection because it is the very essence of what a story is.'Boy meets girl,boy losses girl,boy gets girl '-that most basic structuring concept of fiction -is itself a story of connection made ,connection lost,connection found (McDowell,19) .Regardless of how indirect the connection the connection between us and others who watch the film is it is still there and it is real .If you have ever just got talking to a friend about a film that you have both seen,you will hardly be able to deny the joy people show when discovering others who are just as fascinated about cinema ,and art as they are . It is at this point that art stops being art for it's own selfish reasons and becomes part of human relations and community .An art form like cinema is the perfect instrument with which to connect the millions of people in this world who can never physically meet ,but long to be bonded emotionally ,spiritually to one another .

retrieved from: http://www.alternatakes.co.uk/by: James McDowell