Death, Using symbolic Interactionism and Codes Essays -- Sociology

As human beings we react towards things depending on the meaning it gives us as an individual or a society. ‘For interactionsists, what marks human beings off from all other animals is their elaborate semiotics: a symbol-producing capacity which enables them to produce a history, a culture, and very intricate webs of ambiguous communications’ (Turner, B. 200). Death is a sociological issue that affects everybody from different cultures, religions, and areas of the world, each viewing the meaning of death differently. ‘These meanings are handled in and modified through an interpretative process used by the person in dealing with the things him/her encounters’ (Blumer 1969). The meanings and symbols of death are different within each society. Whether it’s words, gestures, rules or roles, social interactionism focuses on the way people act through symbols, and the way we interpret and give meaning to the world through our interactions. A funeral is an im portant symbolic code that represents the feelings and meanings in which particular societies view death. Even as times are changing, people still believe it is important to visit places where mass-deaths have occurred, such as ground zero or the German war memorials. The fascination with death has a big influence over the media; people are captivated with pandemics and the death of the famous. People now experience social deaths as well as biological deaths. Elderly people with dementia, people who are in comas or who are severely disabled an unable to speak or communicate, are biologically living but socially are not. In this essay I will explore how symbolic interactionism influences funerals, considering the sociological issue of death, and analyse differences in the meaning of... ...atients? Kings College London: Macmillan). (Walter, T. (1990) Funerals: And How To Improve Them. Kent: Hodder and Stoughton) (Bernat, J.L. (1998) A Defence of the Whole-Brain Concept of Death. Hastings Centre Report). (Skelton et al 2002) In Kellehear, A. (2009) The Study of Dying: From Autonomy to Transformation. United States of America: Cambridge University Press) (Antonius C.G.M. Robben (2004) Death, Mourning and Burial: A Cross-Cultural Reader. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.) (Douglas, J. (1974) Understanding Everyday Life. Great Britain: Routledge) ( Turner, B. (200) The Blackwell Companion to Social Theory. (2nd Ed.) Malden, Massachusetts USA: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.) (Turner, R. and Edgley, C. (1976) In : Building Image, The Presentation of Self. http://www.sagepub.com/newman4study/resources/turner1.htm. Accessed on: 04/05/12)

Ethnic Marketing in Indonesia Essay

Indonesia’s national slogan  « Bhinneka ika tungat.  » that means unity and diversity, is a strong local motto that celebrates differences, specially the demographic one. This slogan was adopted at independence in 1945. This can indicate in a first approach a strongly united population, a country where people are allowed to practice and conserve their ethnic Identity. But this never was the general case in Indonesia. There is this insidious ordinary racism in the country that takes place in their everyday living. Because this sacred diversity is however limited to ethnic groups with claims to a territory: this includes the Javanese, the Sundanese and the Madurese. There are other local groups that are not as significant. For the other groups that can not have the same claims, it is another story especially when it comes to the Chinese Indonesian. Being migrants with powerful and strategic positions, they are often excluded by the population or they exclude themselves. If this is how the Indonesian society can be perceived, it isn’t the same when it comes to the marketing approach. It can be said that it is not that simple to talk about ethnic marketing in Indonesia when it is related to physical characteristics. If the comparison was made with Singapore, It is much easier to identify that a person belongs to a certain ethnic group when she is shown in an advertisement. It becomes more delicate when the ethnic groups have a lot of similarities. Even if Chinese, Indo or Arab origins Indonesians are not accepted everywhere or not recognized as true Indonesian by a part of the society, they still have their place and are represented for marketing purposes. We can give an example of Western Union: For the first Ad, adressed to the chinese Indonesian poulation, the person is an office working man, we would rather think that he has a good salary and is educated. The emphasis here is about the importance of the speed of the transaction. For the second Ad, more adressed to Indonesians with claims of territory, The main character is a little girl that due to the received money, could go to school. It shows the importance that is taking girls education in those groups. When it comes to the language, companies that operate at a national level generally use Indonesian or English for their advertisement campaigns. The use of a specific language related to a group is more likely to stay in the frame of small companies that operates in very restricted areas.

The Boston Massacre Hero, Crispus Attucks

The first person to die in the Boston Massacre was an African-American sailor named Crispus Attucks. Not much is known about Crispus Attucks prior to his death in 1770, but his actions that day became a source of inspiration for both white and black Americans for years to come. Attucks in Slavery Attucks was born around 1723; his father was an African slave in Boston, and his mother was a Natick Indian. His life up until he was 27 years old is a mystery, but in 1750 Deacon William Brown of Framingham, Mass., placed a notice in the Boston Gazette that his slave, Attucks, had run away. Brown offered a reward of 10 pounds as well as reimbursement for any incurred expenses to anyone who caught Attucks. The Boston Massacre No one captured Attucks, and by 1770 he was working as a sailor on a whaling ship. On March 5, he was having lunch near Boston Common along with other sailors from his ship, waiting for good weather so they could set sail. When he heard a commotion outside, Attucks went to investigate, discovering a crowd of Americans clustered near the British garrison. The crowd had gathered after a barbers apprentice accused a British soldier of not paying for a haircut. The soldier struck the boy in anger, and a number of Bostonians, seeing the incident, gathered and shouted at the soldier. Other British soldiers joined their comrade, and they stood as the crowd grew larger. Attucks joined the crowd. He took leadership of the group, and they followed him to the custom house. There, the American colonists began throwing snowballs at the soldiers guarding the customs house. The accounts of what happened next differed. A witness for the defense testified at the trials of Captain Thomas Preston and eight other British soldiers that Attucks picked up a stick and swung it at the captain and then a second soldier. The defense laid the blame for the actions of the crowd at Attucks feet, painting him as a troublemaker who incited the mob. This may have been an early form of race-baiting as other witnesses refuted this version of events. However much they were provoked, the British soldiers opened fire on the crowd that had gathered, killing Attucks first and then four others. At the trial of Preston and other soldiers, witnesses differed on whether Preston had given the order to fire or whether a lone soldier had discharged his gun, prompting his fellow soldiers to open fire. The Legacy of Attucks Attucks became a hero to the colonials during the American Revolution; they saw him as gallantly standing up to abusive British soldiers. And it is entirely possible that Attucks decided to join the crowd to take a stand against perceived British tyranny. As a sailor in the 1760s, he would have been aware of the British practice of impressing (or forcing) American colonial sailors into the service of the British navy. This practice, among others, exacerbated tensions between v and the British. Attucks also became a hero to African-Americans. In the mid-nineteenth century, African-American Bostonians celebrated Crispus Attucks Day every year on March 5. They created the holiday to remind Americans of Attucks sacrifice after blacks were declared non-citizens in the (1857)Â  Supreme Court decision. In 1888, the city of Boston erected a memorial to Attucks in Boston Common. Attucks was seen as someone who had martyred himself for American independence, even as he himself had been born into the oppressive system of American slavery. Sources Langguth, A. J. Patriots: The Men Who Started the American Revolution. New York: Simon Schuster, 1989.Lanning, Michael Lee. The African-American Soldier: From Crispus Attucks to Colin Powell. Seacus, NJ: Citadel Press, 2004.Thomas, Richard W. Life for Us Is What We Make It: Building Black Community in Detroit, 1915-1945. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1992.