In what way and how strongly do the media influence our perception of the world?

The media influence our lives. Film, television but also the newspapers contribute to almost all people of the western civilization and manipulate them in their thinking. If a person is aware of the steering through the media he can accept it or try to reject it. If the manipulation works over the unconsciousness the person runs the risk of owning another’s opinion.

Media have a power to influence the view on life and politics in such a way unlike any other. As a political example you can name the methods of the Nazis. They used the media for their propaganda and reached their goal: to manipulate the thinking of millions of people.
Even though this is an example of the past it is still happening today. Journalists forget to report certain aspects on purpose but stress out others to guide our thinking in their ways. This brings us to judge in the media’s wishful manner. If the news declares someone as guilty, most of the time, we will share this opinion, too.
But not only the news reporting, which works with overweighting of topics or selection of facts, forge our opinion. Even documentaries, books or television series influence our opinion by a skillful selection of topics and through a clever presentation of those. Some of them manage to give us only the facts which are, in their opinion, the right ones. Or they question the facts in light of good or bad depending on what is more useful for them. Returning to the example of the Nazis, they spread out lies and had totally wrong conclusions which sound maybe at first pretty comprehensible but with the right background it turns out to be an empty shell.
And that is how it works. How many hours a day do we watch TV, listen to the radio or read the newspaper? But how many hours do we actually spent on thinking about what we heard or read?

But manipulations are not only found in the politics. It can be found in every part of our lives. The media wants to show us how to dress, to style or to live. And we get the feeling we actually have to be that way so we do not stick out of the crowd. It is an individual choice of how much do we want to get guide by this kind of manipulating. This does not mean that it is easy to decide whether we want to stick to the brighter mass or stand out.

There is no real trueness and no “the one and only manner” in the world. We have to build our own opinions and make our decisions on what we think is the right thing to do.

How to use Twitter

1) Twitter is a social network which was built in March 2006 and started as a company in 2007.
It is a free service where you can send a 140-character message on your page. Now anyone in the world can read your post but only the people who want to "foolow" you get a notification of your new post. You can actually pick who is allowed to follow you and who do you want to follow.

Pro:
- social networking sites allow people to reconnect with friends and family and share a little bit with their lifes with them
- Twitter is a crative expression over a new medium
-you can find people with common interest and can catch up on them

Contra:
-Social networking sites entice people to spend more time online and less time interacting face-to-face.
-Teens growing up with these sites may not be aware that the information they post is public and that photos and text can be retrieved even after deletion.
- Bulling is getting more easy


2. Twitter has become quite famous for its use by politicians as well as celebrities – please pick a famous English speaking political “tweeter” (or “twitterer” as others say) and analyse his or her use of the medium.


One of the most famous politician who uses Twitter is President Barack Obama.
He is using Twitter to inform his followers for example about results of debates in the Senate, to post links to interviews or videos and to thank the nation for its support.

Stephen Fry's tweeter wooble: I know how he feels

David Schneider, reporter at The Guardian wrote an article about the comedian Stephen Fry who decided to stop using the social network Twitter. He also tells why twittering or social networking in general became so important but also a high risk.

Stephen Fry has 938.485 followers on Twitter. And because only one of them had the opinion that Fry's posts were boring he decided to stop using the network. Because compliments are so hard to get, every little humiliation is a lot more weighted. This also increased since it is possible to comment on nearly everything in the world wide web. Schneider is asking the question why artist but also normal people still continue to put their private lifes on those social networks. The answer is that they need their praise.We wait the whole day that someone start commenting on our posts to agree with us or to get admired. The only problem could occure when we do not get our wished approval. Like in Stephen Fry's case.

Padraig Pearse, the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Harp

1. Outline how Henry characterises Pearse and the Irish Volunteers.

Henry has a really strong opinion of the Irish Volunteers which is first shown on page 96, line 5. He only sees the back of a head of one soldier and is pretty sure that he is one of “the Christian Brothers’ Boys”. He characterized them as inexperienced boys who still got their hair combed by their mother (p.96, l.17)

He also describes them as really religious people who are praying before a fight (p. 119, l. 10).

Padraig Pearse is also a volunteer and is declared “President of the provisional Government”. He is not mentioned a lot in this passage but Henry describes him as a “sweating bastard” (p. 99, l. 10). Henry is getting furious about the fact that the volunteers want to protect the Irish property but not the people (p.122, ll.14).

He starts pointing his rifle at Pearse and is ready to shoot him and Pearse is just turning his head to give him his profile which Henry describes as an “elegant death” (p.123, l. 3) which shows that Pearse is maybe not afraid to die or fearless.

2. Explain the significance of Irish harps and rosaries.

The rosaries are very important for the soldiers who are all religious which was common at this time in Ireland. The men are praying each time before a fight to get God’s help.

3. Interpret how Henry comments on the Volunteers, their efforts and their ultimate failure.

Henry thinks that the Volunteers are only a bunch of useless idiots who are only causing trouble. The others try to get the permission to kill the boy who is outside on the street (p.108, l. 29). Henry is calling them “gobshite” the whole time and after Collins does not want to give the women outside some money, Henry is getting mad and starts to curse in his mind that he hates all the Volunteers (p. 110, l. 35). Their efforts are not comparable to his ones which is shown when he feels that he is on the wrong side of the barricade (p.121, l. 16). He wants to fight for the people and wants to protect the nation instead of being more worried about the property which is getting stolen out of the shops.

4. Comment on Henry’s relationship to the Irish Volunteers.

Henry has a bad relationship to the Volunteers. He dislikes them because he does not think that they take their job seriously. They do not have even a whole uniform (p.100, ll.9).He also distrust them because of the O’Rahilly who was not going to turn up first because he thought that they would lose anyways. Henry also hates the fact about their religiosity (p.119, ll.10) for the simple reason that he could not see the sense to believe in god because he could not help them anyways. He looks at them very pejorative (p.100, l.9) and it seems like he could never give them his respect because he is, despite his age, a lot more experienced than them. But still, he is nice to them if he could get an advantage out of it like when he get the good meal of the Volunteer who do not want to eat meat on a Friday (p. 138, l.22).

U2- Sunday Bloody Sunday

Bono, the lead singer, wrote this song to condemning the Irish Republican Army (the IRA), a militant group dedicated to getting British troops out of Northern Ireland.

He changed the lyrics to point out the atrocities of the war without taking sides.

Bono is singing about the senselessness of this still ongoing war.

On the "Bloody Sunday" in 1972. thirteen Catholic demonstrates were killed by English troops which is still a reason for the inexcusability between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland.

Bono chose the lyrics referring to this special event in history but also asking about the sense of this war of religion and determined that there will be no winner in the end. He himself had a small first-hand experience of the North Ireland conflict. His family was met with refusal because of his protestant mother and catholic father.

Lyrics:

I can't believe the news today

oh I can't close my eyes and make it go away

how long how long must we sing this song

how long how long 'cause tonight we can be as one tonight

Broken bottles under children's feet

bodies strewn across the dead end street

but I won't heed the battle call

it puts my back up puts my back up against the wall

Sunday bloody Sunday Sunday bloody Sunday

Sunday bloody Sunday Sunday bloody Sunday

And the battle's just begun
there's many lost but tell me who has won
the trench is dug within our hearts
and mothers children brothers sisters torn apart

Sunday bloody Sunday Sunday bloody Sunday

How long how long must we sing this song how long how long
'cause tonight we can be as one tonight tonight

Sunday bloody Sunday Sunday bloody Sunday

Wipe the tears from your eyes wipe your tears away
oh wipe your tears away oh wipe your tears away

Sunday bloody Sunday Sunday bloody Sunday
Sunday bloody Sunday Sunday bloody Sunday
Sunday bloody Sunday Sunday bloody Sunday

And it's true we are immune when fact is fiction and TV reality
and today the millions cry we eat and drink while tomorrow they die
the real battle just begun to claim the victory Jesus won on

Sunday bloody Sunday Sunday bloody Sunday

Irish vocabularies

1.Protestantism (n) = Protestantismus
2.Catholicism (n) = Katholizismus
3.diaspora (n) =Minderheitenverbreitung
4.plantation (n) = ,,Pflanzung”, hier: Britische Protestanten bekamen irisches Land und wurden so ,,eingepflanzt”
5.economic downturn (n)= Wirtschaftsabschwung
6.to starve (v) = hungern
7.lodge (n) = Loge, Teil einer Vereinigung
8.sedition (n) = Aufruhr, Verhetzung
9.penal law (n) = Strafgesetz
10.dispossesion (n) = Enteignung
11.harvest (n) = Ernte
12.tenant (n) = Pächter
13.to evict (v) = herauswerfen
14. to prompt sth (v) = etwas auslösen
15. to negotiate (v) = verhandeln
16. ceasefire (n) =Waffenstillstand
17. truce (n) = (vorübergehender) Waffenstillstand
18. premature (adj) = vorzeitig
19.to be opposed (v) = gegnerisch sein
20.siege (n) = Belagerung
21.supremacy (n) = Überlegenheit
22.to riot (v) =aufrühren
23.internment (n) =Inhaftierung (oft in Kriegen und ohne Verfahren praktiziert)
24.ancestor (n) =Vorfahre
25.ancestry (n) =Vorfahrenschaft
26.Elizabethan Era (n) = Ära Königin Elizabeths (1558 bis 1603)
27.verbal abuse (n) = Beleidigung
28.humiliation (n) =Demütigung
29.to insult (v) = beleidigen
30. crop (n) = Feldfrucht

Letter to the Landlord Mr. William Carter in 1846

Dear William Carter,

I have to beg you to help us out in our situation.

The blight destroyed everything, our whole crop.

We do not know what to do, not even how to survive any longer. Our children are crying because they are starving but we have not got anything to feed them. The farmers around us are dying one after another. We have no money, the rent for our tiny piece of land is way to high, so we do not even have the chance to buy some food despite that there is not anything in the whole area anyways. In the last years, after the potato was introduced in Ireland, we all started to seed them all over the country. But now, we miscalculated and the nation starts dying because of the blight. We have to start acting against this plague now. We need food out of other countries otherwise it is going to be too late. I heard from many families that they want to emigrate to North America or Britain because of these circumstances. They have nothing worth left living for: no land, no food and no jobs.

In the name of God, please help us.

Yours faithfully,

Ciaran Egan