Women in Ancient Greece

Behind every great man there is a great woman. The woman being the mother and wife of the household, the caretaker and glue that held things together while the man was the â€Å"breadwinner†, this was an ideal that held true throughout history only until recent years. In Ancient Greece, women held an obligation to their house and husband, they were property in a sense, but at the same time they almost held an important position of power, only it was hidden behind the veil of the home life. While they were reliant upon their husbands, it can be viewed that it was the females that helped their husbands and sons obtain the positions that they held, for good or bad. The female role of power in Greece varied from slave to queen, the woman’s role was the important but often subservient glue that was meant to keep the family together. Greek culture did not have to write down what was expected of women of the ancient time, because the men in society spent the entirety of a female’s life leaving their impressions of how they were meant to behave. Analyzing the work of various philosophers and writers, women were viewed as tools of the household, as the glue that held the household. However women were not considered anything outside of that, and were expected to remain in the household and tend to the children. The wives and mothers were at the center of the household, even when the husband was home. The husband would have seniority in the household, but when he was gone, the women were in charge of everything, including the slaves and the children. While the men were gone, the women were meant to follow a stern set of rules in order to avoid being seen with the suspicion and gossiped about by her neighbors. The women of Ancient Greece sought to please their husbands and everything described to be a â€Å"good wife†. If they feel that another woman has been unfaithful, even if she simply let her husband’s friend into their house when he isn’t home, the other women will talk and attempt to ruin the reputation of the woman.

Children’s Pastimes Today and Yesterday

This article will show the differences in Children’s Pastimes Today and Yesterday We will attempt to show you the difference in raising children today from yesterday. This article will show how children are watched over more now as opposed to days gone by due to pedophiles and other issues. Children are not as free now as they once were. Children’s Pastimes Today and Yesterday Children today play video games, watch television or, if older, listen to music. Parents are afraid to let children out of their view due to pedophiles being so prevalent in today’s society. Children of yesterday would play outside with their friends, ride bikes, play marbles, or just socialize with their friends. Parents weren’t as concerned with what the children were doing as they were not likely to be in any jeopardy. Parents thought when a child was 12-13 they could watch their siblings while today’s parents choose to hire a babysitter to watch over their children when out. Even when parents go away for a trip they manage to check on the children daily since most cannot cook or take care of themselves.. When I raised my children, my son was able to cook, sew, wash dishes, laundry, and maintain a house, as well as his personal chores. His sister could dust, dishes, cook, laundry,, and more whereas today’s children are not able to function as they parents do not place responsibility on them as was done in prior years. I can remember some of the stories my father used to tell†¦one being delivering newspapers for spending money or to take a date out, etc. Children of yesteryear had a respect for their elder something today’s children do not possess or show. Today’s children want Children’s Pastimes Today and Yesterday everything handed to them and not to work for it as children did in the past.. In fact, today’s children demand things and children of yesterday managed to think about it and usually made arrangements to pay their parents back if they did not have enough to cover the item in question. I am certain that more could be said but anyone that raised children in the past as opposed to now knows the rigors of the differences in raising children.

Noland. Dance Reaserch

The Human Situation on Stage: Merce Cunningham, Theodor Adorno, and the Category of Expression Carrie Noland Dance Research Journal, Volume 42, Number 1, Summer 2010, pp. 46-60 (Article) Published by University of Illinois Press DOI: 10. 1353/drj. 0. 0063 For additional information about this article http://muse. jhu. edu/journals/drj/summary/v042/42. 1. noland. html Access Provided by University of Manchester at 07/08/10 10:18PM GMT Photo 1. Merce Cunningham in his Sixteen Dances for Soloist and Company of Three (1952).Photographer: Gerda Peterich. 46 Dance Research Journal 42 / 1 summer 2010 The Human Situation on Stage: Merce Cunningham, Theodor Adorno, and the Category of Expression Carrie Noland here is expression in Cunningham’s choreography? Are the moving bodies on stage expressive? If so, what are they expressing and how does such expression occur? Several of the finest theorists of dance—among them, Susan Leigh Foster, Mark Franko, and Dee Reynolds—have already approached the question of expressivity in the work of Merce Cunningham.Acknowledging the formalism and astringency of his choreography, they nonetheless insist that expression does indeed take place. Foster locates expression in the â€Å"affective significance† as opposed to the â€Å"emotional experience† of movement (1986, 38); Franko finds it in an â€Å"energy source . . . more fundamental than emotion, while just as differentiated† (1995, 80); and Reynolds identifies expression in the dancing subject’s sensorimotor â€Å"faculties† as they are deployed â€Å"fully in the present† (2007, 169). Cunningham himself has defined expression in dance as an intrinsic and inevitable quality of movement, indicating that his search to capture, isolate, and frame this quality is central to his choreographic process. 2 As a critical theorist (rather than a dance historian), I am interested in expression as a more general, or cross-media, c ategory and therefore find the efforts by Cunningham and his critics to define expression differently, to free it from its subservience to the psyche, refreshing, unconventional, and suggestive.I have become increasingly convinced that Cunningham’s practical and theoretical interventions can illuminate more traditional literary and philosophical discourses on the aesthetics of expression and that they have particular resonance when juxtaposed with the approach to expression developed by Theodor Adorno in his Aesthetic Theory of 1970.Similar to Cunningham, Adorno complicates the category of â€Å"expression† by shifting its location from Carrie Noland is the author of Poetry at Stake: Lyric Aesthetics and the Challenge of Technology (Princeton University Press, 1999) and Agency and Embodiment: Performing Gestures/Producing Culture (Harvard University Press, 2009). Her taste for interdisciplinary work has resulted in two collaborative ventures: Diasporic Avant-Gardes: Ex perimental Poetics and Cultural Displacement (Palgrave, 2009), co-edited with Language poet Barrett Watten, and Migrations of Gesture (Minnesota University Press, 2008), co-edited with Sally Ann Ness.She teaches French and comparative literature at the University of California, Irvine, and is an affiliate faculty member in the Department of Anthropology, a fellow of the Critical Theory Institute, and director of Humanities-Arts, an interdisciplinary undergraduate major combining the practice and analysis of art. Dance Research Journal 42 / 1 summer 2010 47 W subjectivity, understood primarily as a psychic phenomenon, to embodiment, understood as a function of locomotion and sensual existence (in Franko’s words, â€Å"something more fundamental than emotion, while just as differentiated† [1995, 80]).Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory, at once rough around the edges and sparkling with insights, is arguably the most important book on aesthetics since Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Judgment (1790) and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Lectures on Aesthetics (1835), the two works that serve as Adorno’s point of departure. The German-born musician and philosopher advances along the lines established by Kant and Hegel, but he consistently raises questions about art’s function in society. Adorno belonged to a group of early to mid-twentieth-century philosophers who submitted the classical Enlightenment tradition to Marxist critique.Along with Walter Benjamin, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse, Georg Lukacs, and Bertolt Brecht, Adorno entertained suspicions with regard to the notion of subjective expression; he wondered if the artistic languages identified as â€Å"expressive† hadn’t become conventionalized to the point where it was necessary to break them down, subject them to permutation, distortion, or â€Å"dissonance† by means of practices he associated with the category of â€Å"construction† (Adorno 19 70/1997, 40–44 and 156).Traditionally, â€Å"expression,† he argued, presupposed a self-identical subject to be expressed; but if the subject were in fact a reification of something far more volatile, responsive, and delicate, if the subject were, as he put it, something closer to the â€Å"shudder† of â€Å"consciousness,† then the nature of â€Å"expression† in artworks would have to be rethought (331).It is not my intention in this essay to conduct a full analysis of Adorno’s theory of expression, nor do I intend to â€Å"apply† Adorno to Cunningham, thereby implying that one is more theoretically sophisticated than the other. Instead, I want to initiate a dynamic engagement between the two in an attempt to discern and highlight what I believe to be an incipient theory of expression that is embedded in Cunningham’s practice and that secretly informs Adorno’s account of modernist aesthetics as well.The theory of expres sion I am referring to is one that is not fully articulated in Adorno’s aesthetics. However, implicit in his debate with the Kantian tradition is an incipient theory of art’s engagement with the sensorium; focusing on art’s attention to and dialogue with the sensory and motor body produces an aesthetics arguably in conflict with the traditional aesthetics of disinterested beauty or the cerebral sublime.This new theory of the aesthetic as implicated in human embodiment can be drawn out most effectively if we read Adorno in conjunction with watching (and learning more about) Cunningham’s dance. Although my concerns are primarily theoretical in nature, I am intrigued by the opportunity to explore how a choreographic and dance practice can go where aesthetic theory has never gone before. Neither the technical, discipline-specific language that Adorno employs, nor the schematic idiom Cunningham prefers, can, in isolation, be made to divulge a persuasive altern ative account of expression.However, when the two are juxtaposed and intertwined, and when practice itself is analyzed as theoretically pertinent, then a new definition of â€Å"expression† begins to emerge. The question that immediately arises when one juxtaposes Cunningham with Adorno is â€Å"Why doesn’t Adorno ever mention dance? † Although, as has been well documented, dancers and choreographers were fellow travelers of the authors and artists Adorno treats, 48 Dance Research Journal 42 / 1 summer 2010 e never discusses a single choreographer during the entire course of Aesthetic Theory. Dance is simply not part of Adorno’s history, his chronological treatment of modern works; nor is dance included in his theory, his speculations on how artworks relate to what they are not (nature, material conditions, the human subject). Dance only makes a few cameo appearances as the putative origin of all art, a mimetic form related to magic and ritual practices ( 1970/1997, 5, 329). For Adorno, as for Walter Benjamin, dance coincides with the emergence of art in the caves; it is the earliest practice whereby humans mime nature and, by miming, interpret, displace, and stylize nature, even as they attempt to become one with it (Benjamin 1986). In their treatments, dance remains stuck in that cave, never entirely modern, because it is more intimately connected to practices related to the organic body and the sensorium. It may be that what is intrinsic to dance, its address to the body, surreptitiously characterizes all the other art forms that putatively emerged out of it. This is a path of inquiry I am currently pursuing. ) For now, it is sufficient to note that dance cum dance—that is, as a tradition of corporeal practice that evolves over time, that has its own schools, and that inspires its own critical discourses—never figures as a subject of study in Aesthetic Theory. The historical trajectory Adorno establishes for art in g eneral—its increasing autonomy and formalism as a result of industrialization and secular â€Å"disenchantment†Ã¢â‚¬â€is neither applied to nor tested in any rigorous way against a concrete example of modernist (or any other kind of ) dance.Thus it could be said that, in the strict sense, Adorno ignores dance. At the very least, he finds no place for it in modernism. While other scholars have not been as blind to dance’s contributions as Adorno, they do have difficulty assimilating it into a standard chronology of twentieth-century art. In Ecstasy and the Demon, Susan Manning sums up the critical consensus: Dance stands in an a-synchronous relation to all other twentieth-century forms of expression.It does not evolve at the rhythm it should, or else the story is more messy than one would like (Manning 1993). For example, we cannot say with any certitude that Graham is to romantic ballet as Beckett is to Baudelaire, or as Schoenberg is to Beethoven, or as Malevi ch is to David. Whereas art, writing, and music all seem to pass through the same moments at roughly the same time—late Romanticism; early modernism; late modernism or postmodernism—choreography appears to lag behind, or follow a different route.A typical rendering is provided by Jill Johnstone, who argues that â€Å"not until Cunningham appeared [in the 1950s] did modern dance catch up with the evolution of visual art traced by Clement Greenberg† (qtd. in Manning 1993, 24). In other words, during the era of cubism, when a constructivist aesthetic was clearly gaining ground in painting, writing, and musical composition, Isadora Duncan was still performing supposedly natural gestures and emoting supposedly lyric passions on the international stage.My goal here is not to figure out whether Cunningham is modern or postmodern, or why twentieth-century choreography evolved the way it did. What I want to think about is whether that a-synchronicity, the messier story o f dance (and its absence from Kantinspired aesthetics), tells us something about the inadequacy of the Greenberg-Adorno model. How might Cunningham’s work shed some light on Aesthetic Theory—its lacunae but also its possibilities? How might Aesthetic Theory—despite its inadequacies—be made to say something of value about dance?Dance Research Journal 42 / 1 summer 2010 49 To approach these areas of questioning intelligently, we must first recall that Adorno treats modernism not simply as a matter of increasing self-reflexivity and formalism but also as a struggle—explicitly—with expression. His chronology of secular art could be encapsulated in the following way (and here comes my speed train version of Aesthetic Theory, which I hope summarizes clearly the vital points of the dialectic): The institutional critique responsible for late impressionist and then cubist rt engenders a suspicion with respect to illusionism; the abandonment of illusi onism then heralds the embrace of expressionism as a kind of anticonventionalism (think of the German art movement of the 1920s, the Neue Sachlichkeit or New Objectivity); the subsequent rejection of psychological narrative and subjective emotion, however, entails a critique of expressionism, which then leads ineluctably to an astringent, objective constructivism (minimalism, permutational procedures, chance operations, and so on). At each moment, expression remains—how could it not? but it is reworked through different forms of critique. For Adorno, the tension between expressionism and constructivism becomes paradigmatic of late modernist art. A close reading of Aesthetic Theory reveals further that for its author, this tension is productive of art itself. The salient points of convergence between Adorno and Cunningham are that they both show a marked preference for construction and they both reject psychological narrative, yet they simultaneously rescue expression as an in evitable component of man-made things.In their respective and utterly idiosyncratic ways of thinking they both manage to re-define expression—and they do so in surprisingly compatible ways (although this may not at first seem to be the case). For Cunningham, no movement performed by the human body can ever be lacking in expressive content, either because the human body always communicates some kind of dynamic or because the audience member maps onto the moving body a personal meaning (see Brown 2007, 53). For Adorno, in contrast, expression in art â€Å"is the antithesis of expressing something† (1970/1997, 112; emphasis added).True expression, he argues, is intransitive; there is no object for the verb â€Å"to express. † As with the verb â€Å"to move,† there is a transitive form: one can â€Å"move furniture† as one can â€Å"express a liquid†Ã¢â‚¬â€say, juice from an orange. But when referring to dance (as opposed to painting), to be an intransitive form of expression means that a body must move and thus express without an external object to be expressed. Put differently, the expressive movement is not trying to illustrate anything (even the music).And here is where Cunningham and Adorno converge: an artistic act can be conceived as antinarrative, apsychological, and yet fully expressive. The dance can move its audience without relying on pathos embedded in plot, or energy framed as categorical emotion. There is no external referent that the body’s movement refers to; it is not expressing more than it is (or, rather, more than it is doing). On this reading, expression is borne by a materiality—the moving body—it can only transcend by losing itself.David Vaughan, Cunningham’s archivist, has defined Cunningham’s project in terms that resonate in this context: â€Å"It goes without saying,† he writes, that Cunningham has not been interested in telling stories or exploring psy chological relationships: the subject matter of his dances is the dance itself. This does 50 Dance Research Journal 42 / 1 summer 2010 not mean that drama is absent, but it is not drama in the sense of narrative— rather, it arises from the intensity of the kinetic and theatrical experience, and the human situation on stage. (1997, 7; emphasis added)By â€Å"intensity of the kinetic and theatrical experience,† Vaughan is probably referring to the audience’s experience; he is alluding to John Martin’s famous theory that we, as spectators, empathize kinesthetically with the dancers (a theory developed by Expressionist dancers of the 1920s, or Ausdruckstanz). (He may also be thinking of Cunningham’s aforementioned claim that members of the audience are free to introduce their own meaning into the performed motions. ) What is more interesting in this passage, however, is the notion of a â€Å"human situation on stage. What, precisely, does Vaughan mean by a â€Å"human situation on stage†? What would a â€Å"human situation† consist of? How could non-narrative dance produce â€Å"drama† and remain expressive? Expressive of what? To illustrate what a â€Å"human situation on stage† might be, how it solicits an intransitive expression, and thus how it illuminates the hidden corners of Adorno’s theory of expression, I want to turn to a particular moment in Cunningham’s development as a choreographer, the period roughly from 1951 to 1956. During these years, Cunningham was just beginning to experiment with the chance procedures he learned from John Cage.The two dances that are most pertinent in this regard are Sixteen Dances for Soloist and Company of Three, a fifty-three-minute work first presented in 1951; Suite by Chance (1952–1953); and Solo Suite in Time and Place of 1953, which later became Suite for Five (performed in 1956). The first one, Sixteen Dances, is historic for several reasons: it demonstrated the influence of Hindu aesthetics, which Cage had been exploring since at least 1946, when he first mentions Ananda Coomaraswamy’s The Transformation of Nature (Nicholls 2007, 36).The piece depicts the nine â€Å"permanent† emotions described in the Natyasastra, the sourcebook of Hindu/Sanskrit classical theater. These emotions were, as Cunningham recast them, Anger, Humor, Sorrow, Heroic Valor, the Odious (or disgust), Wonder, Fear, the Erotic, and Tranquility (or Peace). Moreover, Sixteen Dances (accompanied by a composition Cage wrote bearing the same name) contained what might very well be the first dance sequence based on the use of chance operations. 4 Thus, Sixteen Dances, the very choreography in which chance procedures are introduced for the first time, is explicitly about the emotions and their expression.There is some confusion concerning precisely how—and to what extent—Cunningham applied chance procedures to Sixteen Dances. However, his comments in â€Å"A Collaborative Process between Music and Dance† and his rehearsal notes (in the Cunningham archive at Westbeth) indicate that in at least one segment (the interlude after Fear), he used charts and tossed coins to determine the order of the movement sequences (phrases), the time intervals, and the orientations and spatial arrangements of the dancers.In â€Å"A Collaborative Process† he writes The structure for the piece was to have each of the dances involved with a specific emotion followed by an interlude. Although the order was to alternate light and dark, it didn’t seem to matter whether Sorrow or Fear came first, so I tossed a coin. And also in the interlude after Fear, number 14, I used charts of separate Dance Research Journal 42 / 1 summer 2010 51 movements for material for each of the four dancers, and let chance operations decide the continuity. (qtd. in Vaughan 1997, 58; qtd. in Kostelanetz 1998, 140–41).A gain, in â€Å"Two Questions and Five Dances,† Cunningham specifies: â€Å"the individual sequences, and the length of time, and the directions in space of each were discovered by tossing coins. It was the first such experience for me and felt like ‘chaos has come again’ when I worked in it† (qtd. in Vaughan 1997, 59). It is clear that the first dance Cunningham choreographed entirely through the application of chance procedures was Suite by Chance in 1953. Cunningham’s published accounts of Suite by Chance are much more specific with respect to the use of charts and coin tossing than his accounts concerning Sixteen Dances (Cunningham 1968, n. . ; see also Brown 2007, 39; and Charlip qtd. in Vaughan 1997, 62, 70). Carolyn Brown has indicated that in Sixteen Dances it was the order of the movement phrases that was determined by chance, not the individual movements or positions within the movement phrase. 5 The continuity at stake in Sixteen Dances, t hen, would be the continuity between phrases, not individual movements. And yet, in an unpublished note from the archive, Cunningham indicates that he was already interested—at least conceptually—in separating phrases into individual movements and enumerating their various possibilities.In other words, the logic generating his later procedures—the breaking up of phrases into individual movements that were then charted and ordered into sequences selected by chance—already existed in an embryonic state. Anticipating a practice he would soon refine, Cunningham provides the following list of potential movement material in his rehearsal notes: â€Å"Legs can be low, middle or high in air; legs can be bent or straight; legs can be front, side, or back† (Cunningham 1951). The schematic rendering of movement choices (into what he calls â€Å"gamuts of movement†) foreshadows the kinds of taxonomies he would develop later (Vaughan 1997, 72).Photograph ic representations suggest that at this point in his career, Cunningham was still choosing movement material thematically. That is, the types of movement selected for any given emotion had a culturally conventional relation to that emotion. Describing Sixteen Dances, Cunningham writes: â€Å"the solos were concerned with specific emotional qualities, but they were in image form and not personal—a yelling warrior for the odious, a man in a chair for the humorous, a bird-masked figure for the wondrous† (qtd. in Vaughan 1997, 59).Unfortunately, there is no video or film record of the dance, but from the extant photographs, it is apparent that Cunningham was working with a modernist vocabulary; there is something reminiscent of Martha Graham or Ted Shawn in the dramatic poses, the off-center leaps, and the contracted upper body that we do not see in his work later. In Cunningham’s rehearsal notes (1951) for the piece—and there is no way of knowing if these re flect the completed piece as it was ultimately performed—he jots down the idea of introducing a conventional balletic vocabulary for the final quartet on â€Å"tranquility. â€Å"Finale to proceed from balletic positions, and return to them at all cadences!!! † he exclaims. I believe Cunningham so emphatically chooses balletic positions as starting and termination points, as tranquil â€Å"rests,† because they offer movement material that is less associated 52 Dance Research Journal 42 / 1 summer 2010 Photo 2. Merce Cunningham in his Sixteen Dances for Soloist and Company of Three (1952). Photographer: Gerda Peterich. by convention—at least, by Graham convention—with particular emotional states.As Cunningham writes about the period: â€Å"It was almost impossible to see a movement in modern dance during that period not stiffened by literary or personal connection† (qtd. in Vaughan 1997, 69). If â€Å"tranquility,† the ninth emotion f rom the Natyasastra, signifies the transcendence of emotion, then perhaps a ballet vocabulary would be appropriate, especially against the background of the earlier eight, more conventionally expressive, â€Å"images† used for the solos and the erotic duet. During the years 1951–1956, Cunningham was obviously making discoveries that would become consistent elements of his practice for years to come.In works such as Sixteen Dances and Solo Suite in Space and Time (1953), not only does he introduce chance operations but he also develops an approach to the body as an expressive organ. He chooses movement material that might be considered conventionally expressive as well as movement material based on classroom exercises, but he elects (or engenders through chance operations) a sequence of phrases or poses that is not conventional. In Sixteen Dances newly minted chance operations allow him to experiment with the order of the movement material in a way that endangers the co ntinuity of the dance. But what he learns by endangering that more conventional Dance Research Journal 42 / 1 summer 2010 53 form of continuity is that another form of continuity can emerge. As he underscores in his rehearsal notes for the 1956 Suite for Five (an extension of Solo Suite in Space and Time with added trio, duet, and quintet): â€Å"Dynamics in movement come from the continuity† (Cunningham 1951; emphasis in the original). What would supply this continuity if not the acquired syntax of traditional dance forms, if not the momentum of propulsive movements?Over the course of a year of rehearsals for Sixteen Dances (the time it took to mount the duets, trios, and quartets on Dorothea Brea, Joan Skinner, and Anneliese Widman) Cunningham found his answer. The continuity melding one movement to another would be derived from the dancer herself, that is, from the way she found to string together movements previously not linked by choreographic or classroom practices. In â€Å"Two Questions and Five Dances,† Cunningham describes his pleasure as he watched Joan Skinner take a notoriously difficult sequence of movements and thread them together seamlessly with her own body.Skinner introduced â€Å"coordination, going from one thing to another, that I had not encountered before, physically† (qtd. in Vaughan 1997, 59). His comments introduce what emerges as a constant in his choreography. According to Carolyn Brown, Although the overall rhythmic structure and tempi were Merce’s, he wanted me to find my own phrasing within the sections. . . . Unlike what happens in ballet, there is no other impetus, no additional source of inspiration or energy, no aural stimulus . . . There is only movement, learned and rehearsed in silence.In order for Cunningham dancers to be â€Å"musical,† they must discover, in the movement, out of their own inner resources and innate musicality, what I call, for want of a better word, the â€Å"song. à ¢â‚¬  . . . There is a meaning in every Cunningham dance, but the meaning cannot be translated into words; it must be experienced kinesthetically through the language of movement. (2007, 195–96; emphasis in the original) Dynamics are thus not preconceived by the choreographer but instead emerge from the dancer’s creation of unscripted, â€Å"discovered† transitions leading from one movement, or one movement sequence (phrase), to the next.These transitions providing continuity are forged by the dancer’s own coping mechanism, her way of assimilating each movement into a new sequence, a new logic, that only the body can discover in the process of repeated execution. In Sixteen Dances Skinner provided him with a crucial insight (reinforced by Carolyn Brown soon after), namely, that the expressivity of the body is lost neither when the elements of an expressive movement vocabulary, a set of â€Å"image forms,† are re-mixed or forcibly dis-articulated, nor when the elements re-mixed are themselves as neutral and unburdened by cultural associations as possible.So what is the â€Å"human situation on stage†Ã¢â‚¬â€to return to our earlier question—and in what way can it be considered expressive? I believe that what Cunningham was beginning to uncover in his work during this period, and that he fully realizes in Suite for Five of 1956, is that the human body is doubly expressive: it can be expressive transitively, in an easily legible, culturally codified way, and it can be expressive intransitively, simply by exposing its dynamic, arc-engendering force. This intransitive expressivity belongs to an animate form responding at what Adorno calls the â€Å"proto† subjective level (1970/1997; 112).That is, the continuity-creating, coping body is relying on an order of sensorimotor 54 Dance Research Journal 42 / 1 summer 2010 sensitivity that is itself an expressive system, one that underlies and in fact renders possib le what we identify as the familiar signifying system of conventional expressive â€Å"images† and â€Å"personal† emotions. 7 The â€Å"human situation on stage† can therefore be summed up as a set of kinesthetic, proprioceptive, weight-bearing, and sometimes tactile problems to be solved. In the rehearsal notes for Suite for Five (1952–1958), these problems are enumerated succinctly.Cunningham composed this piece by relying on movement materials whose sequences were determined by the imperfections appearing on a sheet of paper. (Here, he was imitating Cage, who invented the process with Music for Piano, which accompanied the Solo Suite. ) Cunningham tells us that the dancers had to worry about (1) â€Å"where† they are; (2) â€Å"then where to† (where they have to get to); and (3) â€Å"if more than one person [is] involved,† how the movements they make will be affected by the other’s presence on the stage. In short, the spat ial and interpersonal relationships present the problems and constitute the â€Å"human situation on the stage. The dancers are called on not to express a particular emotion, or set of emotions, but instead to develop refined coping mechanisms for creating continuity between disarticulated movements while remaining sensitive to their location in space. They must keep time without musical cues; sense the presence of the other dancers on stage; know blindly, proprioceptively, what these other dancers are doing; and adjust the timing and scope of their movements accordingly, thereby â€Å"expressing† the â€Å"human situation† at hand.All this work is â€Å"expressive†Ã¢â‚¬â€it belongs to the â€Å"category of expression†Ã¢â‚¬â€insofar as it is demanded by a human situation on a stage and insofar as human situations on stages (or otherwise) constitute an embodied response to the present moment, an embodied response to the utterly unique conditions of exis tence at one given point in time. In an interview with Jacqueline Lesschaeve, Cunningham puts it this way: â€Å"You have to begin to know where the other dancer is, without looking. It has to do with timing, the relationship with the timing. If you paid attention to the timing, then, even if you weren’t facing them, you knew they were there.And that created a relationship† (Cunningham 1991, 22). Relationships, engendering inevitably the â€Å"human situation,† are defined as body-to-body relationships, or really moving-body-to-moving-body relationships. As Tobi Tobias has suggested, â€Å"perhaps movement is at the core, the body’s response preceding the psyche’s† (1975, 43). Contemporary neuroscience is in fact beginning to confirm this point of view: relationships are forged kinetically, and thus the human drama begins at a prepsychological, perhaps even presubjective level of interaction with the world.The work of Antonio Damasio (1999) and Marc Jeannerod (2006) in particular emphasizes the degree to which largely (although not entirely) nonconscious operations of the sensorimotor system—including visuomotor functions and kinesthetic, proprioceptive, haptic, and vestibular systems—constitute the very conditions of possibility for the emergence of â€Å"higher level† processes of conscious thought, symbolization (language), and feeling. These scientists dub the former, more somatic (and evolutionarily prior) layer of activity the â€Å"protoself. This protoself is related to homeostasis and the fundamental intelligence that discerns the boundary between the subject’s body and other bodies; it is thus the corporeal substrate of subjectivity understood as an awareness of being a separate self. 8 If we return to Cunningham’s statement, quoted above, we can see that a relationship Dance Research Journal 42 / 1 summer 2010 55 forged simply by occupying the same duration of time produce s a â€Å"human situation† insofar as two bodies are obliged to remain aware of each other’s presence.This awareness is not necessarily colored with affect; that is, the â€Å"human situation on stage† is not necessarily charged with emotion. To that extent, we can say that Cunningham’s choreographic procedure attends to intimacies occurring on the level of the presubjective layer of interaction between human beings; â€Å"presubjective† would not mean pre-individual or pre-individuated but rather singular embodiment in an intersubjective milieu before that embodiment enters a narrative, a conventional, socially defined relation to the other.The relation to the other, as Cunningham points out, is structured by time; in a duet, for instance, the choreographic imperative is that bodies should be doing particular things at particular moments in a predetermined sequence. Yet at the same time, the cohabitation of that temporal and spatial dimension that is the stage creates a situation—a â€Å"human situation†Ã¢â‚¬â€in which two or more bodies must become aware of one another’s movements; they thereby enter into a relation on the â€Å"presubjective,† or prepsychological, level.In Aesthetic Theory Adorno defines precisely this presubjective layer of existence as the origin of expressive behavior: that is, the prepsychologized body, related in his mind to the human â€Å"sensorium,† is itself the source of expressive content. Beyond—or underlying—the explicit, conventionalized content of artworks is another content: the sensorium’s â€Å"objective† consciousness, as he puts it, of the surrounding world that it probes. In their expression, artworks do not imitate the impulses of individuals, nor in any way those of their authors†; instead, he continues, artworks are imitation (mimesis) â€Å"exclusively as the imitation of an objective expression† (1970/199 7, 111–12; emphasis added). This objective expression is best captured by the musical term â€Å"espressivo,† he continues, since it denotes a dynamic that is entirely intransitive, â€Å"remote from psychology,† although generated by a human subject.Significantly for our purposes, he adds that the â€Å"objective expression† of subjectivity is continuous with the layer of existence â€Å"of which the sensorium was perhaps once conscious in the world and which now subsists only in artworks† (112). This â€Å"sensorium†Ã¢â‚¬â€a â€Å"consciousness† not yet self-reflexive yet nonetheless a consciousness—is composed of a set of receptors relating intimately to the external world.The layer of existence captured by the sensorium may be considered the objective aspect of subjectivity, the world-sensitive, outer-directed, knowledge-seeking, coping body that is the foundation on which a psychic subjectivity, a personality, builds. Ult imately, for Adorno, it is the experience of this objective layer of being (the â€Å"consciousness† of the sensorium) that artworks seek to â€Å"express. † â€Å"Artworks,† Adorno writes, â€Å"bear expression not where they communicate the subject, but rather where they reverberate with the protohistory of subjectivity† (112).Another fruitful way to think of the relation between the â€Å"protohistory of subjectivity† and expression can be found in the work of Charles Darwin. As unlikely as it may seem, there is a continuum leading from Darwin’s The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872/1965) through Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception ([1962] where he relies heavily on Darwin for his understanding of the expressive body), to Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory and its notion of a primordial sensorimotor apprehension captured mimetically in art.Adorno’s sensorial â€Å"consciousness† or â€Å"presu bjective† layer of being in the world looks surprisingly like Darwin’s understanding of â€Å"corporeal intensities†Ã¢â‚¬â€muscular 56 Dance Research Journal 42 / 1 summer 2010 contractions, accelerated circulation, and their various manifestations on the faces and bodies of animals and humans. These â€Å"corporeal intensities† are forms of expression—or â€Å"proto† expression, if you like—that serve as the precondition for the development of more culturally legible, codified expressive gestures (such as the wince or the smile).In The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, Darwin’s theory of expressivity links the development of what we call emoting to primary neurological and physiological responses generated by a sensorimotor intelligence. What we identify as rage, he writes, is actually caused by a response generated in animals by the autonomic circulatory system; behavior that comes to be designated as anger (for the observer) begins with an accelerated flow of blood, while behavior identified as joy or vivid pleasure is underwritten, so to speak, by the quickening of the circulation.What we identify as â€Å"suffering† is expressed through the contraction of a wide variety of muscle groups. Over the course of time, muscular contraction in general comes to be associated with angst, although the specific groups of muscles contracted might vary from culture to culture. For instance, one culture might associate suffering with the contraction of the facial muscles, for example, in a grimace. A different culture—or really, a subculture, such as modern dance—might associate suffering with the contraction of muscles in the abdominal cavity, sternum, and pelvis.In both cases, the adaptive behavior, muscular contraction, can be observed as distinct from the social significations it comes to acquire. Animals and humans both exhibit behaviors that are closely associated with emotio ns, but theoretically it should be possible—and this is Darwin’s goal—to dissociate the protosubjective expressiveness of the body (muscle contractions, autonomic responses) from the conventionalized, codified gestures into which this expressivity has been conjugated.Adorno and Cunningham both target—the first to theorize, the second to achieve—this primary order of protosubjective expressiveness contained in, but potentially dissociable from, the conventionalized gestures to which it gives rise. The â€Å"human situation on stage† that is so â€Å"dramatic† or â€Å"expressive† (in Cunningham’s vocabulary) is one in which human bodies have been released from the prefabricated shapes and congealed (â€Å"stiffened†) meanings imposed by a given choreographic vocabulary or gestural regime (qtd. n Vaughan 1997, 69). Cunningham trusts that by preventing the conventional sequencing of movements within a phrase (through the application of chance procedures) he will coax dancers to exhibit dynamics that are at once more â€Å"objective†Ã¢â‚¬â€in the sense that they are generated by coping mechanisms rather than emotional states—and utterly idiosyncratic—radically subjective, we might say, in the sense that they are generated by the singular body of the dancer confronting an utterly unique â€Å"human situation on stage. In â€Å"The Impermanent Art† (1952), Cunningham comes very close to naming Darwin’s â€Å"corporeal intensities† when he evokes an order of muscular dynamics released from association with conventional emotions, such as passion and anger. Here he writes that Dance is not emoting, passion for her, anger against him. I think dance is more primal than that. In its essence, in the nakedness of its energy it is the source from which passion or anger may issue in a particular form, the source of energy out of which may be channeled the energy t hat goes into the various emotionalDance Research Journal 42 / 1 summer 2010 57 behaviors. It is that blatant exhibiting of this energy, i. e. , of energy geared to an intensity high enough to melt steel in some dancers, that gives the great excitement. (qtd. in Vaughan 1997, 86) The â€Å"blatant exhibiting† of an intensified corporeal energy bears a relation to what Darwin calls the exhibition of â€Å"corporeal intensities† by animals that can only be said to be â€Å"angry† or â€Å"ashamed† if we anthropomorphize their movements.Cunningham seems acutely attuned to what Darwin also notes: our tendency to interpret (anthropomorphize) animal behaviors, a tendency he implicitly identifies with the public’s desire to read psychological meaning into the intensified corporealities of the dancers on stage. One could even say that Cunningham attempts to de-anthropomorphize our understanding of human behavior on stage; that is, he wants us to de-reify, to extract from the conventionalized, psychologizing modes of dance spectatorship, the movement behavior â€Å"blatantly† exhibited in his choreography.He asks us to experience even the graceful, plangent duet of Suite by Chance without sentimental overlay, as though it were simply an instance of protosubjective expressivity displayed by two moving bodies implicated in a â€Å"human situation on stage. † Perhaps not incidentally, Cunningham’s most suggestive evocation of this â€Å"protosubjective† layer of expressivity appears in a passage on animals and music—and it is with this passage that I would like to conclude. Cunningham is talking about his reasons for separating music from his horeography, explaining why he avoids giving his dancers musical cues with which to time the duration of their movements or generate their expressive dynamics. At pains to offer a positive rendering of what he is seeking, he notes instead that the polar opposite of what he aspires to in his collaborations with Cage may be â€Å"seen and heard in the music accompanying the movements of wild animals in the Disney films. [This music] robs them of their instinctual rhythms,† he claims, â€Å"and leaves them as caricatures.True, [the movement] is a man-made arrangement, but what isn’t? † (qtd. in Vaughan 1997, 10). Let us imagine for a moment the Disney animator as cave painter, miming—like the â€Å"primitive† dancer of Benjamin’s â€Å"On the Mimetic Faculty†Ã¢â‚¬â€the power of the animal totem. In an act of sympathetic response, troubling the boundary between mime and mimed, the animator studies the animal, acquiring its rhythmic gait, the expressive dynamic of its way of howling or extending a paw.Without knowing exactly what the animal means, how that howl or extension signifies in an animal world, the animator copies, uses whatever conventions and images—whatever man-made arrangementsà ¢â‚¬â€she has to approach the original in its presubjective, prepsychologized movement state. That, for Cunningham, is what can be freed through the disruption of continuity, through the imposition of the strict, unforgiving disciplines of permutation and chance.The protosubjective order of the wild gesture is what we might see if it were unencumbered by narrative, if it could be captured without the omnipresent, strip-mall swelling music of the Disney world in which we all too often bathed. Ultimately, the â€Å"human situation on stage† is, despite years of rehearsals and revivals, a set of â€Å"wild gestures† expressing what it is like to be a sensorium moving on stage. The challenge that remains is to determine both how Cunningham’s choreographic practice divulges the work of the proto-self and how that work informs (and is balanced by 8 Dance Research Journal 42 / 1 summer 2010 the exigencies of ) the construction of artworks, that is, the construction of dances for audiences in specific historical settings with demands of their own. Another challenge arises with respect to Adorno and my allied project of reading dance back into Aesthetic Theory. If, as he claims, artworks—not dances, but paintings, sonatas, and poems—â€Å"reverberate with the protohistory of subjectivity,† then where is this â€Å"reverberation† to be located?Where (or when) in the process of art making does protosubjectivity intervene as an agent, as a constituting force? And if, as Adorno implies, we are no longer sensuously alive (â€Å"the sensorium was perhaps once conscious in the world,† he writes), then how do we recognize the presence of the sensorium’s influence on the composition of artworks? What remains of the sensorium in art, of the sensorium in dance? These questions inform the next phase of my research, the contours of which I have only begun to outline.Notes 1. Jose Gil provides several fine articulations of Cunningham’s project in â€Å"The Dancer’s Body† (2002). I agree with Gil that, in an attempt to â€Å"make grammar the meaning,† or â€Å"make body awareness command consciousness† (121), Cunningham â€Å"disconnects movements from one another, as if each movement belonged to a different body† (122); however, I do not believe that the actual dancer ends up with a â€Å"multiplicity of virtual bodies† (123), a â€Å"body-without-organs† (124).As I document later in this essay, Cunningham’s most successful dancers (in his eyes and my own) have been those who are able to absorb the movement sequences into their own body; the grammar’s inflection, the sequence’s assimilation through the body’s singular dynamics, is what ultimately lends the dance â€Å"meaning† in the way Cunningham intends. 2. See â€Å"The Impermanent Art,† first published in Arts 7, no. 3 (1955) and reproduced in Ko stelanetz (1989) and Vaughan (1997). 3.See especially the appendices to Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory. The work was not finished during Adorno’s lifetime (Adorno died in 1969. ) 4. Sixteen Dances for Soloist and Company of Three was first performed in Milbrook, New York. It contained the following sequence: solo, trio, solo, duet, solo, quartet, solo, quartet, solo, duet, solo, trio, solo, quartet, duet, quartet. See Vaughan (1997, 289). 5. Carolyn Brown, personal communication with the author, June 24, 2009. 6. Cunningham presents what he is getting at as ollows: â€Å"You do not separate the human being from the actions he does, or the actions which surround him, but you can see what it is like to break these actions up in different ways, to allow the passion, and it is passion, to appear for each person in his own way† (qtd. in Vaughan 1997, 10). 7. Mark Johnson (1987) and Daniel Stern (1985/2000) also believe that our ability to be expressive in the more familia r way—to display human emotions such as anger or pity—is predicated on a presubjective capacity to organize experience into â€Å"image schemata† ( Johnson) or â€Å"vitality affects† (Stern).The neuroscientist Antonio R. Damasio has more recently argued that a protoself, or neural substrate of sensory feedback, is the condition of possibility for emotions per se (1999). What is â€Å"expressed† by this protoself is movement, a nonthematized awareness of orientation, a sense of balance. Cunningham’s choreography appears to be calling on its dancers to â€Å"express† precisely these functions; they are what provide the continuity, the dynamic, that is so moving to watch. On the sensorimotor protoself and our access to it, see my Agency and Embodiment (2009). 8. See Damasio (1999) and Jeannerod (2006).Damasio insists that the protoself is entirely nonconscious, but Jeannerod provides persuasive evidence that kinesthetic awareness is oft en available to the conscious self. See also Joseph LeDoux (2002) for a similar account. Dance Research Journal 42 / 1 summer 2010 59 Works Cited Adorno, Theodor W. 1970/1997. Aesthetic Theory, edited by Gretel Adorno and Rolf Tiedemann. Translated and introduced by Robert Hullot-Kentor. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Benjamin, Walter. 1986. â€Å"On the Mimetic Faculty. † Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writing, edited by Peter Demetz, 333–36. New York: Schocken.Brown, Carolyn. 2007. Chance and Circumstance: Twenty Years with Cage and Cunningham. New York: Knopf. Cunningham, Merce. 1951. Rehearsal Notes. Merce Cunningham Archives, Westbeth, New York City, New York. ———. 1952–1958. Rehearsal Notes. Merce Cunningham Archives, Westbeth, New York City, New York. ———. 1968. Changes: Notes on Choreography. Edited by Frances Starr. New York: Something Else Press. ———. 1991. Th e Dancer and the Dance: Merce Cunningham in Conversation with Jacqueline Lesschaeve. New York: Marilyn Boyars. Damasio, Antonio R. 1999. The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness.New York: Harcourt Brace. Darwin, Charles. 1872/1965. The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Foster, Susan Leigh. 1986. Reading Dancing: Bodies and Subjects in Contemporary American Dance. Berkeley: University of California Press. Franko, Mark. 1995. Dancing Modernism/Performing Politics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Gil, Jose. 2002. â€Å"The Dancer’s Body. † In A Shock to Thought: Expression after Deleuze and Guattari, edited by Brian Massumi, 117–27. London: Routledge. Jeannerod, Marc. 2006. Motor Cognition: What Actions Tell the Self. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Johnson, Mark. 1987. The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason. Chicago: University of Chica go Press. Kostelanetz, Richard. 1989. Esthetics Contemporary. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus. ———, ed. 1998. Merce Cunningham: Dancing in Space and Time 1944–1992. New York: Da Capo. LeDoux, Joseph. 2002. The Synaptic Self. New York: Viking. Manning, Susan A. 1993. Ecstasy and the Demon: Feminism and Nationalism in the Dances of Mary Wigman. Berkeley: University of California Press. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. 1962. Phenomenology of Perception. Translated by Colin Smith. New York: Routledge. Nicholls, David. 2007.John Cage. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Noland, Carrie. 2009. Agency and Embodiment: Performing Gestures/Producing Culture. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Reynolds, Dee. 2007. Rhythmic Subjects: Uses of Energy in the Dances of Mary Wigman, Martha Graham, and Merce Cunningham. Hampshire, England: Dance Books. Stern, Daniel. 1985/2000. The Interpersonal World of the Infant. New York: Basic. Tobias, Tobi. 1975. â€Å"Notes for a Piece on Cu nningham. † Dance Magazine 42 (September). Vaughan, David. 1997. Merce Cunningham: Fifty Years. Edited by Melissa Harris. New York: Aperture. 60 Dance Research Journal 42 / 1 summer 2010

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Human Services Research Article Discussion - Essay Example (2) Is it conducted correctly? (3) Does it support the conclusions reached? (4) What, if any, additional statistical analyses could be performed on this data to gain further knowledge? (5) Are the findings misleading or biased? And (6) does the article incorporate graphs or tables that facilitate understanding? â€Å"Social Work Practice in Child Welfare from a Cross-Cultural Perspective: Concepts of Change Process† by Kui Hee Song Presentation of the Material The article was presented in appropriate form and structure consistent with the guidelines set by the APA Publication Manual. It is clearly structured with headings and subheadings and contains eight tabular illustrations that summarize results of the author’s findings. Starting from a concise introduction that provided the theoretical background for the study, the author proceeded with a presentation of research questions, the methodology, major findings, results of the major hypothesis testing and implications f or social work practice. The references conform to APA guidelines and brief information about the author appears right after the references to provide concise but comprehensive data on work experiences, interests, major accomplishments, service contributions and contact information.

Hormones and Nerve Questions Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

Hormones and Nerve Questions - Essay Example But it was proved that epinephrine alone could not cause this transformation to occur. It had to call on the help of a secondary messenger, cyclic AMP, for assistance. Cell membranes consist of lipid chains which makes them hydrophobic or water repelling in nature. Whereas hormones are proteins made of hydrophilic or water loving peptide chains, and they cannot readily pass through the cell membranes. This is where secondary messengers come in. they serve as a messenger between the hormones and the target cell. Secondary messengers are mostly small molecules causing a higher rate of diffusion through the cytoplasm of the cell and a faster rate of information transmission. Secondary messengers also help intensify the strength of a particular signal. Hormones in very small amounts can cause the release of thousands of secondary messengers. This means that the body can save up a lot of energy. It does not need to utilize all its nutritive resources such as proteins in the formation of h ormones, because only tiny quantities of these hormones are needed to get a response from the target cells. Therefore minimum amounts of energy are used by the body to communicate with various cells. Secondary messengers are present in the cytoplasm of cells, thereby controlling the rate of hormones and enzymes utilized by the cells. They could either cause an increase or decrease in the metabolic reactions of the cells. This means that tiny doses of hormones could cause immediate responses as the effects are amplified by the secondary messengers. Secondary messengers are also responsible for signal transduction torrents. Words: 310 NERVE QUESTION Write approximately 800 words on why it is important to understand the structure of nerve cells in order to appreciate their function. Please make sure you cover the generation of an action potential and the transmission of a nerve impulse. It is important to understand the structure of nerve cells, because it is because of their specific structure that they can carry out their important functions. A nerve is a bundle of neurons and a neuron is an individual nerve cell. There are three types of neurons: Sensory neurons Relay neurons Motor neurons These three neurons function together to transmit nerve impulses and each of them have a separate structure which facilitates the entire process. Sensory neuron endings are more concentrated in our sense organs like the retina of the eye, cochlea of the ear, etc. sensory neuron endings receive stimulus from the sense organs and then they pass the nerve impulse immediately to the dendrite which then passes them to the Dendron, which is a single fiber, and then these impulses are brought to the cell body which consists of a nucleus and cytoplasm. Finally these impulses pass through the axon and arrive at the synaptic knob which has several branches. These impulses are somewhat similar to electrical impulses. Sensory neurons are elongated cells consisting of sensory nerve endin gs at one end and synaptic knobs at the other. They are coated with a fatty layer known as the myelin sheath which acts as an electrical insulator so as not to get disturbed with other passing impulses. Gaps in the myelin sheath are known as the nodes of Ranvier, which help speed up the passage of nerve impulses. Relay neurons are smaller cells which act as a link

Bible Defines Human Nature Essay Example for Free

Bible Defines Human Nature Essay According to the book of Genesis, man was created in the image of God. â€Å"God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.† Genesis 1:27   This means that man’s nature is godly. Because our almighty God is a holy God, man is also expected to be blameless before Him. But how come sin became inevitable to human nature? Isn’t it that man by nature is greedy and self centered? Other than that, the New Testament says that all have fallen short to God’s standard. Does it mean that the bible contradict itself?                  Meanwhile, western philosophers believe in the concept to tabula rasa. It’s a thesis that says that human beings are born without an inborn personality. Human personality is just a product of pile of experiences and is influenced by his surroundings. If a man doesn’t grow up in a good environment, it follows that his nature is not that good too. In other words, man was born as innocent creature without any sense of morality. We can say that being innocent is close to being blameless. Does it mean that the idea of tabula rasa supports the famous idea taken from Genesis?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   When we look at the Christian concept of salvation, we can conclude that the Gospel presents a clear explanation regarding this long time debate. Although the bible gives a seemingly contradicting explanation regarding the nature of human beings, still it supports each other when view it from Christian perspective.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   When we were born, we can’t deny the fact that we are innocent. Just like Adam and Eve, we don’t have any knowledge of sin. And as we look back on the book of Genesis, Adam and Eve became aware that they were naked when sin entered their life. Therefore we can conclude that our sinful nature starts when we lose our innocence.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   As we grow old, our values are being by our family, community, church and media. Other than that, our personalities were shaped by our experiences. For those people who experienced rejection, they are more likely to develop pride and insecurities. It is also inevitable for them to hold grudges and bitterness. As we look at the bible, we can see that pride and bitterness are sin. Like pride and bitterness, greed is also a product of life experiences as well as family background and community involvement.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   It means that sin is an inevitable part of life. As we grow old, they more we can acquire sin which is too far from having a godly nature. But the good news is that God made a way so that human can return to their blameless nature. He sent Jesus for us to be like his image again. Because of Jesus’ blood that was shed on the cross, we are forgiven of our sin and purified to become new creations. â€Å"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come.†Ã‚   2 Corinthians 5:17  Ã‚   This idea of Christ’s way of salvation supports the concept of sanctification.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   But sanctification is not a one time experience for Christians. They are experiencing a lifetime of sanctification as they grow in their relationship with Christ. If experiences can cause us to sin, our experiences can also be used by God to mold our characters. Our life is a preparation of our character, a way of sanctification until we meet Christ. It is the reason why the bible always compares Christ and church relationship with that of a groom and a bride. Bibliography The Bible League. The Devotional Study Bible. USA: Zondervan Corporation, 1987.

Medical Marijuana Essay Example for Free

Medical Marijuana Essay Introduction: â€Å"Cannabis isn’t for everybody, but patients are entitled to pick and choose their own medicine.† Michelle Rainey (VanMusic, 2010, Pg. 1) Thesis: The prescription drug companies dispense medicines that are harmful and that is what I am here to change your minds about today. This will explore what Medical Marijuana can be used for, the lies you’ve been told about Marijuana and how corrupt the Pharmaceutical drug companies are. Body: I. Why is Marijuana medicine? 1) What THC does in our bodies (Wikipedia Cannabinoid Receptor, n. d., Pg.1) * Cannabinoid receptors are activated by 3 major groups of: Ligands, Endocannabinoids (found in the mammalian body) and Plant Cannabinoids (found in THC in plants). 2) What can Marijuana treat? (Wikipedia Medical Cannabis, n.d., Pg. 3) * Crones Disease, Glaucoma, Anorexia Nervosa, Huntington’s Disease, Arthritis, Epilepsy, Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, Distoria, A.I.D.S., H.I.V., Menstrual Cramps, Digestive Diseases, Cancer, Alzheimer’s Disease, Appetite Stimulant, Anxiety, P.M.S., Pruritus, Leukemia, Methicillin- Resistant Disease, Tourette Syndrome, Multiple Syntosis, Multiple Sclerosis, Bi- Polar Disorder, Tics, Insomnia, Psoriasis, Fibromyalgia, Migraines, Hepatitis C, Painkiller, Parkinson’s Disease, Depression, Asthma, Nausea. 3) How do you consume it? * Vaporizers * Bongs * Joints * Pipes * Bubblers * Food II. The lies around Marijuana use. 4) The Gateway Theory (Harvey B. -The Union, 2007, Documentary) * Harry Anslinger’s â€Å"Stepping Stone Theory† * â€Å"If you step on this stone Marijuana, then you are bound and determined to go onto the next stone, which would be one of the so called hard drugs.† * For every 104 Marijuana users, 1 uses Cocaine and less than 1 use Heroin. 5) Marijuana Kills Brain Cells (Harvey B. -The Union, 2007, Documentary) * The 1947 Dr. Heath/ Tulane Study * Monkeys were administered 30 Columbian strength Marijuana cigarettes everyday for 1 year. Brain damage was determined by counting the brain cells of the monkeys that were given the Marijuana and ones that has not. 6) Marijuana will kill you (Harvey B. -The Union, 2007, Documentary) * There has never been one recorded death that was directly attributed to Marijuana use. III. How Corrupt is the Pharmaceutical Companies? 7) Marinol (DEAsucks.com, n.d. Pg. 1)(Morrow A., 2009, Pg.1) * THC that has been synthetically reproduced as a prescription drug. * Nauseated or vomiting people cannot swallow pills. * Less dosage control/ Longer to release into system. * Costs $600-$1000 US per month. 8) Pharmaceutical Domination (Goldacre B., 2007, Pg.1)(Mercola, 2010, Pg.1) * In the UK the pharmaceutical trade is the third most profitable activity after finance. * In 2002, 10 US companies on the Fortune 500 list had combined international sales of $217 Billion. * GlaxoSmithKline sued the South African government for trying to supply A.I.D.S. victims with affordable medicines. * Johnson Johnson recently pleaded guilty to illegally promoting it’s epilepsy drug Topamax for psychiatric purposes. Conclusion: Now that you know the truth about how corrupt the pharmaceutical companies are, the lies you’ve been told about Marijuana and how it can be used medically. Next time you have an ache or pain consider smoking a joint before heading out to see the doc. References DEAsucks.com. (n.d.). DEAsucks.com Medical Marijuana Myths vs Facts. DEAsucks.com The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) sucks!. Retrieved March 7, 2012, from http://deasucks.com/essays/marimyths.htm Mercola. (2010, November 18). The Top 6 Drug Companies Thugs of the Medical World. Natural Health Articles Latest and Current Health News and Information by Dr. Mercola. Retrieved March 5, 2012, from http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/11/18/drug-companies-are-ranked-in-the-top-100-corporate-criminals-of-the-1990s.aspx Goldacre, B. (2007, August 4). Evil ways of the drug companies | Science | The Guardian . Latest US news, world news, sport and comment from the Guardian | guardiannews.com | The Guardian . Retrieved March 5, 2012, from http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/aug/04/sciencenews Morrow, A. (2009, April 6). Marinol vs Marijuana Marijuana and Marinol. About Palliative Care Hospice and Palliative Care. Retrieved March 7, 2012, from http://dying.about.com/od/symptommanagement/f/marinol_vs_MJ.htm Harvey, B. (Director). (2007). The Union The Business Behind Getting High [Documentary]. Canada: Eagle Entertainment. VanMusic. (2010, October 21). Pot Activist Dies After A Brave Battle With Cancer. VanMusic. Retrieved March 7, 2012, from http://www.vanmusic.ca/news/michelle-rainey-dies-of-cancer Wikipedia. (n.d.). Medical cannabis Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved March 7, 2012, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_cannabis Wikipedia. (n.d.). Cannabinoid receptor Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved March 7, 2012, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabinoid_receptor

Benefits of Social Network Marketing for the Business

Benefits of Social Network Marketing for the Business Chapter One Introduction For some marketing managers, the twenty-first century may appear a very strange place indeed. Much of that strangeness comes from the ‘electronification of traditional marketing practices. OConnor et al (2004) said that direct and database marketing might be fairly well understood, but what about the concepts such as social network marketing. This is one of the latest tools available to todays marketing managers. The most popular social network marketing tools are Facebook, Twitter, My Space, LinkedIn, etc., but there are some other different social network marketing methods like blogs, e-mail marketing, video promotion on YouTube and many more. In truth, the migration from traditional marketing to internet marketing is part of a process that has taken place over the past decade. But what is Social network marketing and how it is different from ordinary marketing, advantages and disadvantages of social networking, its impact on other businesses has been researched in this disse rtation. Aim To analyse how social network marketing can help in the effective marketing of a business Objectives Analyse the impact of social network marketing on other businesses. Analyse the advantages and the disadvantages of the social network marketing in a business context. Analyse the effectiveness of social network marketing. Chapter two Research Background The Cumin Restaurant The Anand family have a long and successful history of catering, originating from their home in Nairobi, Kenya. They came to the UK in 1975 and have been in the catering business ever since. Their first restaurant in the UK was The Brilliant, followed by Madhus, both in Middlesex. These were followed by Curry Craze in Wembley, Curry Special in Ilford and Curry Fever in Leicester, all of which are still very successful today. The restaurant capacity is 74 cover over two floors 20 on the ground floor and 54 on the first floor. Being in the city centre, they are also an ideal place to hold business meetings or lunches. (The Cumin Restaurant online, 2011) Chino Latino, Park Plaza Their central Nottingham hotel features Chino Latino, the multi award-winning, on-site restaurant.Chino Latino serves fresh, gourmet Pan-Asian cuisine and Latin-inspired cocktails in a relaxed, modern atmosphere. One of the top Nottingham restaurants, Chino Latino offers a fantastic choice of a la carte, set, tasting and bento box menus. The bar offers an array of exciting cocktails, bottled beers and bar platters in a distinctively Latin atmosphere. Chapter three: Literature Review Introduction A literature review is a survey and discussion of the literature in a given area of study. It is a concise overview of what has been studied, argued, and established about a topic, and it is usually organised chronologically or thematically. A literature review is written in essay format. It is not a commented bibliography, because it groups related works together and discusses trends and developments rather than focusing on one item at a time. It is not a summary; rather, it evaluates previous and current research in regard to how relevant and/or useful it is and how it relates to your own research. (University of Toronto Online, 02.12.2009) Ridley (2009) described literature review as the part of the thesis where there is extensive reference to related research and theory; it is where connections are made between the source texts and the research among these sources. It also refers to the process involved in creating the review that appears in the thesis. The changing media environment The mainstream print and broadcast media have faced major challenges in recent years, with many newspaper titles facing closure and television channels facing shortfalls in revenue. An important reason for this has been migration of significant amount of advertising budgets to online channels. Research by Forrester Jennings (2007) has indicated that audiences and attention is shifting to online channels as 52 per cent of Europeans are regularly online at home. Around 36 per cent of European internet users watch less TV, 28 per cent have reduced their newspaper and magazine reading and 17 per cent have decreased listening to the radios since going online. This shift away from conventional media has been further exacerbated by the recession from 2008 which led many advertisers to cut their budgets, resulting in print and broadcast media receiving a diminishing share of the declining total budget (Jennings, 2007). Online advertising has been the beneficiary of recent changes in the allo cation of advertising budgets, but this general shift hides a number of different formats for communicating with target audience, ranging from mass appeal banner ads placed on frequently visited websites, through to personalised e-mail campaigns in which the message can be uniquely tailored to the requirements of individual target buyers. Social media can be characterised as â€Å"online applications, platforms and media which aim to facilitate interactions, collaborations and the sharing of content† (Universal Maccann International, 2008, p.10). the importance of social network media lies in the interaction between consumers and the community, and in the facilitation of asynchronous, immediate, interactive, low-cost communication† (Miller et al, 2009, p. 306). Social network sites allow individuals to construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system; to articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and to â€Å"view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system† (Boyd and Ellison, 2007, p. 211). On larger social network sites a connection, individuals are typically not looking to meet new people but are more interested in managing relationships by maintaining contacts with old friends who are already part of the extended so cial network (Boyd and Ellison, 2007; Hart et al, 2008). To sum up, social network sites can be seen as alternative communication tools which support existing relationships and activities in a fun and colourful way that can enrich the users experience (Ofcom, 2008). Many social network websites have emerged; attracting distinctive groups on users in terms of their demographics, for example the average age of users of Bebo is lower than for Facebook. Many appeal to communities with specific shared interests. In addition to consumers-oriented social network sites, many professional and trade associations have set up networks to exchange information of particular interest to member, for example the social networking site â€Å"LinkedIn† is particularly aimed at professionals. There is now lot of evidence that social network sites have become mainstream and it has been reported that globally, these sites account for one in every 11 minutes spent online. In the UK, this figure is even higher one in every six minutes (Neilson Company, 2009). Over half (54 per cent) of internet users between 16 and 24 have set up their own page or profile on a social networking site (Ofcom, 2008). The take up of online social media has been at the expense of traditional media, and a study by Ofcom of the media habits of UK 15-24 year olds shows that since using such media for the first time, the amount of time spent reading national newspapers declined by 27 per cent; reading local newspaper by 22 per cent; reading magazines by 21 per cent; listening radio by 15 per cent and watching TV by 13 per cent (Ofcom, 2006). Online social media offers opportunities to connect these hard-to-reach audiences drifting away from traditional media. Social Network Marketing Marketers need to be where their customers and potential customers are, and increasingly this is on social networking sites. Most of their marketers have started using social networks to market their businesses and to gain financial freedom. It also markets and then offers the product or service to the relevant audience and provides significant benefits using the dialogues and personal connections and to gain a wider audience for the product, but according to Scott (2007, p.229), ‘marketing on these sites can be tricky because the online community at social networking sites hates open commercial messages. There are abundant amount of active users across sites like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and Hi5; 2.6 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day (Shih 2009). Social networking has become a rapidly growing global phenomenon spreading across the world. According to Chaffey and Smith (2008) well-run communities on the social networks strengthen relationships, trust and loyalty, as well as maintaining brand awareness in the minds of the community members. Communities also allow a unique opportunity to stay close to customers, their concerns, their worries and their desires. Despite these benefits, building an active community can be time consuming and difficult though cheap. Careful moderation and seeding of topics from a subject expert may be required. An alternative approach is to link up to an established community that has greater independence. Either way social networks are the part of the dynamic dialogue and dynamic opportunities that todays marketer enjoy. Social network networking has many advantages which makes it an interesting and a useful marketing tool for any business. This tool is cheap compared to other methods of advertising, when it comes to costing to reach the target audience. Another advantage is that it is easy to record and review any marketing campaign which makes it easier to analyse the changes that need to be made in service or products. But when we look at the negative side of it, social network marketing has got some disadvantages as well. According to Shih (2009), the biggest drawback of social network marketing is that the business could be the main targets for the detractors and their criticism which would make people who are interested in the business turn off by reading the negative comments. Some of the common disadvantages of social networks are security and safety of the business, violation of copyrights, vulnerable to thefts and scams. (Sethi and Adhikari, 2010) In general, the problem with the social networks is they need frequent updating and it is time consuming as well. Branding on Social Networks Social networking sites offer brands many opportunities for engagement. When brand profiles are created, the brands can exist as â€Å"people† on the sites. Friends can interact with the brands, share information, photos, and videos, and participate in two-way communication. The brand as person enhances the ability of a brand to use conversation marketing. Building a brand persona strengthens brand personality, differentiates brands from competitors, and sets the stage for a perceived relationship. Assuming the brands persona is likable and credible, it can facilitate message internalisation (the process by which a consumer adopts a brand belief as his or her own). (Tuten, 2008) Why would a person â€Å"friend† a brand? There are lots of incentives for friending brands, as explained in the Never Ending Friending report. These include incentive-driven motives like getting invitations to upcoming events, receiving information on sales and special offers and relationship-oriented motives such as a desire to support the company because it offers high quality products, to associate with the brand and its image, and to respond to a friends recommendation about the brand. The value proposition is already in place. (Clifton, 2009) Ultimately, branding on social networking sites promotes brand awareness, brand recall, and, if done well, builds on brand loyalty and brand equity. Social networks offers opportunities for brand promotion and engagement for those brands that learn to leverage the unique attributes of network in question. (Clifton, 2009) However, social networking is not without its flaws. Advertising, even when developed and distributed in superlative online venues, still suffers from the limitations facing all forms of advertising. Clutter is a tremendous distraction for people as they are faced with advertising in and on every imaginable media. Online readers are bombarded with sometimes numerous ads on a single page. With the many display ads, profile components, and widgets visible on social network pages, clutter is an issue. There is also limited inventory for advertising space on the sites. (Tuten, 2008) Social networks offer the greatest benefits to brands when the brands play to a networks culture, developing brand personas and engaging friends in dialogue. However, the workhorse of social network advertising is still the display ad. Unfortunately, display ads are not nearly as effective on social networking sites as they are on other types of websites. Clickthrough rates are much lower. (Clifton, 2009) Marketing in Post Modernism world Postmodernism invites a unique perspective of how to manage marketing and how to understand the consumer. Postmodernism says that social experiences are an interplay of myths which produce regimes of truth and that much of what we understand or believe about the individual, self, freedom, structure and so on is arbitrary and short-lived, fleeting rather than essential and fixed. We need to change our views as the customer changes. â€Å"The main conditions of postmodernism marketing are hyper-reality, fragmentation, reversals of production and consumption, decentring of the subject, paradoxical juxtapositions (of opposites) and loss of commitment.† (Kotler, 2009, p. 27) Ø Hyper-reality: Exemplified by the virtual words of cyberspace and the pseudo worlds of theme parks, hotels and heritage centres, hyper-reality involves the creation of consumption sites and marketing phenomena that ‘more real then real. Here the distinction between reality and fantasy is momentarily blurred. (Kienscherf, 2004) Ø Fragmentation: Marketing in postmodernity is unfailingly fast, furious, frenetic, frenzied, fleeting and hyperactive. (Kotler, 2009) Ø Reversals of production and consumption: Postmodern consumers are active in the production of meaning, of marketing, of consumption. They do rather than have ‘done to them. (Kotler, 2009) Ø Decentring of the subject: Centeredness is where individuals are defined by their occupation, social class, demographics, postcode, and personalities and so on. Postmodernism suggests that this is not so, and that the harder marketers try to pin down the decentred consuming subject the less successful they will be. Ø Paradoxical juxtapositions (of opposites): We have examples of the mixing and matching of opposites and the combination of contradictory styles in the world famous Irish dance show Riverdance or Lord of Rings. (Kienscherf, 2004) Ø Loss of commitment: Growing disillusionment with the delivery of promises and the willingness to try different experiences has resulted in a loss of commitment. The postmodern consumer takes on multiple, sometimes even contradictory projects, to which he/she is marginally and momentarily committed. This is observed in all walks of life: in relationships, in professions, and consumption. Marketing managers experience this when consumer loyalties to brands change. (Kotler, 2009) Customer Perception and satisfaction Customers perceptions of the quality of a service and their overall satisfaction have some observation indicators. Customers may smile when they talk about the product or service. They may say good things about the product or service. Both actions are manifestations or indicators of an underlying construct we might call customer satisfaction. The term customer satisfaction and perception of quality are labels we use to summarise a set of observable actions related to the product or service. (Hayes, 2008) The largest contributor to customer satisfaction, however, is something an organisation cant fully control; the customers perceptions. Whether theyre based in fantasy, fiction, or some other state of unreality, perceptions have the weight of fact. In the business of pleasing customers, perceptions are fact. Perceptions are also wildly inconsistent. Two different customers can consume the exact same product and have radically different perceptions about its quality. The differences may result from expectations each customer brought to the transaction, or they may simply result from varying powers of perception. Moreover, even one customer with consistent expectations might have varying perceptions about a products quality, depending on his or her mood, or stress level, the time of day, the alignment of the planets whatever. Its tempting to conclude that customer satisfaction is whatever the customer happens to think it is at any point in time. (Hayes, 2008) Customer Psychology and behaviour Apruebo (2005) defined consumer Psychology as the study that deals with the activities directly involved in selecting, obtaining, and using products, services and ideas to satisfy needs and desires, including decision process that precede and follow these actions. It is an applied branch of psychology on consumer behaviour. Consumer behaviour is the study of buying units and the exchange processes involved in acquiring, consuming, and disposing of goods, services, experiences and ideas. First and foremost, emerging definition refers to the concept â€Å"an exchange process,† as a fundamental element of consumer behaviour. A consumer is inevitably at one end of an exchange process in which resources are transferred between two parties. (Solomon, 2009) Consumer behaviour is an interesting field of study. Its nature is dynamic and an interactive process. All of us are consumers because our tendency or impulse can direct us to market our everyday purchase decisions in the marketplace or any shopping place. Summary The review also identifies the impact of social network marketing on businesses along with its advantages and the disadvantages. The literature review gives a greater understanding on the chosen topic set out in the aims and objectives, by the comparative study by different authors, and by highlighting areas of research that have not been fully explored. The information found enabled the researcher to come across different theories and ideas that need to be considered so as to proceed further into the research. The limitation that was faced while doing the literature review were that it was sometimes quite difficult to find the information on certain areas of subject as topic being very contemporary and not many books or journals being published on this topic. The upcoming section will be examining methodology, where the usage of different types of research will be discussed in order to gain appropriate and thorough information. Chapter four: Methodology Introduction to methodology The research methodology defines what the activity of research is, how to proceed, how to measure progress, and what constitutes success. It provides advancement of wealth of human knowledge, tools of the trade to carry out research, tools to look at things in life objectively; develops a critical and scientific attitude, disciplined thinking to observe objectively; skills of research particularly in the ‘age of information. According to Fisher (2007) methodology is the study of a whole academic field. It is a stepping-back from a subject and a consideration of it at a broader and deeper level. The research methodology is a science that studying how research is done scientifically. It is the way to systematically solve the research problem by logically adopting various steps. Also it defines the way in which the data are collected in a research project. Several different methods are commonly used in research project and it would vary according to the nature of the aim and objective, scope of the topic and thesis and the sources of data which are used. (Jankowicz, 2005) Triangulation Triangulation is the use of multiple methods; usually quantitative and qualitative research, in the study of the study of the same research problem. Triangulation is a complex methodology that usually requires a term of qualitative and quantitative researchers to maintain the integrity of both methodologies. The philosophical basis and assumptions for both quantitative and qualitative research must be maintained when these methodologies are combined, if the findings are to be meaningful. (Grove, 2005) Objective one: Analyse the impact of social network marketing on other businesses. Marketing managers from two organisations will be interviewed in order to justify the first objective which helped him to have a thorough knowledge of the impact of social network marketing on the businesses. They are very short personal interviews which will mainly offer realistic data which is much appropriate to obtain a detailed vision into the first objective, with the hopefulness of achieving first-hand knowledge or primary data. The questions which are designed will be same to all the marketing managers. The researcher was encouraged by the words of Fisher (2007) that the idea of an interview is straightforward, the interviewer engages in informal conversation with the respondent about a particular area of interest. The interviewer may steer the conversation a little, by picking up on the cues and themes raised by the respondent, but generally the respondent leads the direction of the interview. More comprehensive information can be obtained during an interview, however the co re strength of an interview cannot always be accurate as some interviewees may feel forced into providing better responses, but actually contributing prejudiced data. Some online articles, books and case studies will also be referred to elaborate the impacts of social networking marketing on the businesses. Objective two: Analyse the advantages and the disadvantages of the social network marketing in a business context. The mix of personal and the email interview will the method which will be relevant for second objective and will justify the same. It will be made sure that the format of the questions is simple, easy to understand, concised and precise so that the respondents are able to understand each one of it. There would be around 8 questionnaires in the interview with the mixture of closed and open questionnaire. The difference between closed and open questionnaire is simple. The closed ones have lots of tick boxes for respondents to fill in, whereas open questionnaires allow a free response so that people answer using their own words. (Long, 2007) The second objective which will analyse the advantages and disadvantages of the social network marketing, mix of secondary resources like books, internet, journals, case studies etc. may be helpful to the research and to get some elaborated information because some people may feel shy sharing the information during face-to-face interview and questionnaires and therefore giving a good backup to the objective. Objective three: Analyse the effectiveness of social network marketing. The third objective is to analyse the effectiveness of social network marketing so in order to obtain exceptional outcomes the researcher thinks that it is reasonable to procedure explanatory research, making a precise blend of interviews, statistical data and facts, books and various other methods. The researcher thinks that the information or data relevant to objective three is very limited and hence using a blend of interview, statistics, books etc. is very simple in the growth of knowledge to gain a better understanding. Fisher (2007) thinks that observation is relatively underused method in research hence it will be sensible thing to use this method as it provides good examples and information to illustrate the objective. Observation can be used as a technique to gather quantitative data, and quantitative data may be combined into a participant observation study as it is most commonly associated with qualitative research derived from an ethnographic tradition of studying different peoples way of life (Long, 2007). The researcher would be observing his workplace (Cumin Restaurant) to justify third objective as Facebook community page was made by the researcher so as to observe the effectiveness of the social network marketing. Summary This report has examined some insight into the theoretical outline that constructs the essentials of the methodology. It demonstrates and explains the choice and use of various research methods that are appropriate to the aims and objective of the research project chosen. It is a sound justification of chosen methods, including evidence of secondary data supporting the choice of methods. Alternative methods have been demonstrated confirming malfunction is not a possibility because of external restrictions and limitations. Some objectives are justified by a single method but there are some objectives which required more than one method to justify it. Chapter five: Findings Introduction to aim and objectives This is the largest and probably the most important part this research. This chapter gives an opportunity to discuss the research findings, based on the methods used that were already been discussed in the methodology. These findings are derived from the analyses of statistical data and interviews used for research collection and the measurement of data. Important points of this chapter are linked back to principle ideas in the Literature Review with the evidence obtained in the research. Aim To analyse how social network marketing can help in the effective marketing of a business. Objectives Following are the objectives of the report: Analyse the impact of social network marketing on other businesses. Analyse the advantages and the disadvantages of the social network marketing in a business context. Analyse the effectiveness of social network marketing. Findings from Personal Interview Mr. Sandeep Anand Owner, Manager, The Cumin Restaurant, Nottingham 1. Do you or your business have a profile on any social network? Which? Sandeep: Yes I had a personal profile on Facebook previously but as I came to know that now businesses can make their community page on it as well, I made my business profile. 2. How often do you update your profile? Sandeep:My web designer generally updates my business page which is usually updated once a week. 3. Did it make any difference to your business? Sandeep: Not really at the moment, because the profile is quite new, not many people know that we are in Facebook but I hope as the time passes we will get some customer through it. In my knowledge I have got three costumers giving reference from Facebook. 4. Did anybody recommend you to have a profile on social network? Sandeep: Yes, my web designer recommended me to have one, which I thought is a good idea. 5. If no, then what made you join? 6. Have you identified any business advantage of using Facebook over traditional media? Sandeep:The biggest advantage of using Facebook is there are good choices which you can make according to your budget and if you are not interested to spend any money just make a profile page and dont publish it. But you have to put extra effort to make it more effective. 7. What are the drawbacks of social networks to the business? Sandeep:I have seen some business which has got negative comments which can be viewed by all viewers which is not good for the business. So I think privacy and security is the biggest drawback. 8. Would you recommend anyone to have a business profile on social networks? Why? Sandeep: Yes definitely, because it gives you an edge over other businesses with very little cost and is more effective than the traditional forms of advertising if used effectively. I will highly recommend to the small and medium businesses which are coming into this sector as a fresher with a minimal budget. Findings from Email Interview Ms. Srijana Gurung Restaurant Supervisor (Chino Latino)/Duty Manager, Park Plaza, Nottingham A same set of questions was sent to Ms. Srijana Gurung who is a Restaurant Supervisor and a duty manager in Park Plaza Hotel in Nottingham. Answer 1: Yes I have a personal profile and a profile for my hotels restaurant Chino Latino. My hotel gave me liberty to make a profile page for their restaurant as it is good for their hotels business and for their restaurant as well. Answer 2: I go on to the profile daily just to have a look and to make necessary updates for eg. I introduced a new staff uniform for my restaurants staff, so I have put the pictures of it. Answer 3: Fan following and liking has gained good publicity of our restaurant but we havent measured any difference but I hope it goes well in the future. Answer 4: No, nobody recommended me. Answer 5: It is one of the most upcoming trends of having a profile on the Facebook and in this post recessionary period many businesses have made their pages on Facebook and results are very positive. So I thought of having one for my restaurant. Answer 6: Yes, I am sure there are many advantages of social network marketing over traditional media. They are very cheap, cost efficient, easy to manage and operate and the bst one is they are very contemporary. Answer 7: They take time to show results. There is very less privacy. Anybody can have their profile page on these social networks and even fake profiles can be made and some of these fake profile. Answer 8: Yes absolutely, they are here for us to use and to use efficiently and as they are very cheap they are very affordable but has to be managed properly and updated regularly. But do maintain the businesss privacy level so as to protect from spam and fraud. Statistical Data (Econsultancy, 2010) * Facebookclaimsthat 50% of active users log into the site each day. This would meanat least 175 million users every 24 hours†¦ A considerable increase from the previous 120 million. * Twitternow has75 million user accounts. * LinkedInhas over50 million members worldwide.This means an increase of around 1million members each month since July/August last year. * Facebook currently has in excess of350 million active users on global basis.Six months ago, this was 250 million†¦ meaning around a 40% increase of users in less than half a year. * More than 35 million Facebook users update their status each day. * Wikipediacurrentlyhas in excess of14 million articles, meaning that its 85,000 contributors have written nearly a million new posts in six months. * Photo uploads to Facebook haveincreased by more than 100%.Currently, there are around2.5 billionuploads to the site each month this was around a billion last time I covered this. * There are more than70 translations availableon Facebook. Last time around, this was only 50. * Back in 2009, the average user had 120 friends within Facebook. This is now around 130. * Mobile is even bigger than before for Facebook, withmore than65 million users accessing the site through mobile-based devices.In six months, this is over 100% increase. (Previously Benefits of Social Network Marketing for the Business Benefits of Social Network Marketing for the Business Chapter One Introduction For some marketing managers, the twenty-first century may appear a very strange place indeed. Much of that strangeness comes from the ‘electronification of traditional marketing practices. OConnor et al (2004) said that direct and database marketing might be fairly well understood, but what about the concepts such as social network marketing. This is one of the latest tools available to todays marketing managers. The most popular social network marketing tools are Facebook, Twitter, My Space, LinkedIn, etc., but there are some other different social network marketing methods like blogs, e-mail marketing, video promotion on YouTube and many more. In truth, the migration from traditional marketing to internet marketing is part of a process that has taken place over the past decade. But what is Social network marketing and how it is different from ordinary marketing, advantages and disadvantages of social networking, its impact on other businesses has been researched in this disse rtation. Aim To analyse how social network marketing can help in the effective marketing of a business Objectives Analyse the impact of social network marketing on other businesses. Analyse the advantages and the disadvantages of the social network marketing in a business context. Analyse the effectiveness of social network marketing. Chapter two Research Background The Cumin Restaurant The Anand family have a long and successful history of catering, originating from their home in Nairobi, Kenya. They came to the UK in 1975 and have been in the catering business ever since. Their first restaurant in the UK was The Brilliant, followed by Madhus, both in Middlesex. These were followed by Curry Craze in Wembley, Curry Special in Ilford and Curry Fever in Leicester, all of which are still very successful today. The restaurant capacity is 74 cover over two floors 20 on the ground floor and 54 on the first floor. Being in the city centre, they are also an ideal place to hold business meetings or lunches. (The Cumin Restaurant online, 2011) Chino Latino, Park Plaza Their central Nottingham hotel features Chino Latino, the multi award-winning, on-site restaurant.Chino Latino serves fresh, gourmet Pan-Asian cuisine and Latin-inspired cocktails in a relaxed, modern atmosphere. One of the top Nottingham restaurants, Chino Latino offers a fantastic choice of a la carte, set, tasting and bento box menus. The bar offers an array of exciting cocktails, bottled beers and bar platters in a distinctively Latin atmosphere. Chapter three: Literature Review Introduction A literature review is a survey and discussion of the literature in a given area of study. It is a concise overview of what has been studied, argued, and established about a topic, and it is usually organised chronologically or thematically. A literature review is written in essay format. It is not a commented bibliography, because it groups related works together and discusses trends and developments rather than focusing on one item at a time. It is not a summary; rather, it evaluates previous and current research in regard to how relevant and/or useful it is and how it relates to your own research. (University of Toronto Online, 02.12.2009) Ridley (2009) described literature review as the part of the thesis where there is extensive reference to related research and theory; it is where connections are made between the source texts and the research among these sources. It also refers to the process involved in creating the review that appears in the thesis. The changing media environment The mainstream print and broadcast media have faced major challenges in recent years, with many newspaper titles facing closure and television channels facing shortfalls in revenue. An important reason for this has been migration of significant amount of advertising budgets to online channels. Research by Forrester Jennings (2007) has indicated that audiences and attention is shifting to online channels as 52 per cent of Europeans are regularly online at home. Around 36 per cent of European internet users watch less TV, 28 per cent have reduced their newspaper and magazine reading and 17 per cent have decreased listening to the radios since going online. This shift away from conventional media has been further exacerbated by the recession from 2008 which led many advertisers to cut their budgets, resulting in print and broadcast media receiving a diminishing share of the declining total budget (Jennings, 2007). Online advertising has been the beneficiary of recent changes in the allo cation of advertising budgets, but this general shift hides a number of different formats for communicating with target audience, ranging from mass appeal banner ads placed on frequently visited websites, through to personalised e-mail campaigns in which the message can be uniquely tailored to the requirements of individual target buyers. Social media can be characterised as â€Å"online applications, platforms and media which aim to facilitate interactions, collaborations and the sharing of content† (Universal Maccann International, 2008, p.10). the importance of social network media lies in the interaction between consumers and the community, and in the facilitation of asynchronous, immediate, interactive, low-cost communication† (Miller et al, 2009, p. 306). Social network sites allow individuals to construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system; to articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and to â€Å"view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system† (Boyd and Ellison, 2007, p. 211). On larger social network sites a connection, individuals are typically not looking to meet new people but are more interested in managing relationships by maintaining contacts with old friends who are already part of the extended so cial network (Boyd and Ellison, 2007; Hart et al, 2008). To sum up, social network sites can be seen as alternative communication tools which support existing relationships and activities in a fun and colourful way that can enrich the users experience (Ofcom, 2008). Many social network websites have emerged; attracting distinctive groups on users in terms of their demographics, for example the average age of users of Bebo is lower than for Facebook. Many appeal to communities with specific shared interests. In addition to consumers-oriented social network sites, many professional and trade associations have set up networks to exchange information of particular interest to member, for example the social networking site â€Å"LinkedIn† is particularly aimed at professionals. There is now lot of evidence that social network sites have become mainstream and it has been reported that globally, these sites account for one in every 11 minutes spent online. In the UK, this figure is even higher one in every six minutes (Neilson Company, 2009). Over half (54 per cent) of internet users between 16 and 24 have set up their own page or profile on a social networking site (Ofcom, 2008). The take up of online social media has been at the expense of traditional media, and a study by Ofcom of the media habits of UK 15-24 year olds shows that since using such media for the first time, the amount of time spent reading national newspapers declined by 27 per cent; reading local newspaper by 22 per cent; reading magazines by 21 per cent; listening radio by 15 per cent and watching TV by 13 per cent (Ofcom, 2006). Online social media offers opportunities to connect these hard-to-reach audiences drifting away from traditional media. Social Network Marketing Marketers need to be where their customers and potential customers are, and increasingly this is on social networking sites. Most of their marketers have started using social networks to market their businesses and to gain financial freedom. It also markets and then offers the product or service to the relevant audience and provides significant benefits using the dialogues and personal connections and to gain a wider audience for the product, but according to Scott (2007, p.229), ‘marketing on these sites can be tricky because the online community at social networking sites hates open commercial messages. There are abundant amount of active users across sites like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and Hi5; 2.6 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day (Shih 2009). Social networking has become a rapidly growing global phenomenon spreading across the world. According to Chaffey and Smith (2008) well-run communities on the social networks strengthen relationships, trust and loyalty, as well as maintaining brand awareness in the minds of the community members. Communities also allow a unique opportunity to stay close to customers, their concerns, their worries and their desires. Despite these benefits, building an active community can be time consuming and difficult though cheap. Careful moderation and seeding of topics from a subject expert may be required. An alternative approach is to link up to an established community that has greater independence. Either way social networks are the part of the dynamic dialogue and dynamic opportunities that todays marketer enjoy. Social network networking has many advantages which makes it an interesting and a useful marketing tool for any business. This tool is cheap compared to other methods of advertising, when it comes to costing to reach the target audience. Another advantage is that it is easy to record and review any marketing campaign which makes it easier to analyse the changes that need to be made in service or products. But when we look at the negative side of it, social network marketing has got some disadvantages as well. According to Shih (2009), the biggest drawback of social network marketing is that the business could be the main targets for the detractors and their criticism which would make people who are interested in the business turn off by reading the negative comments. Some of the common disadvantages of social networks are security and safety of the business, violation of copyrights, vulnerable to thefts and scams. (Sethi and Adhikari, 2010) In general, the problem with the social networks is they need frequent updating and it is time consuming as well. Branding on Social Networks Social networking sites offer brands many opportunities for engagement. When brand profiles are created, the brands can exist as â€Å"people† on the sites. Friends can interact with the brands, share information, photos, and videos, and participate in two-way communication. The brand as person enhances the ability of a brand to use conversation marketing. Building a brand persona strengthens brand personality, differentiates brands from competitors, and sets the stage for a perceived relationship. Assuming the brands persona is likable and credible, it can facilitate message internalisation (the process by which a consumer adopts a brand belief as his or her own). (Tuten, 2008) Why would a person â€Å"friend† a brand? There are lots of incentives for friending brands, as explained in the Never Ending Friending report. These include incentive-driven motives like getting invitations to upcoming events, receiving information on sales and special offers and relationship-oriented motives such as a desire to support the company because it offers high quality products, to associate with the brand and its image, and to respond to a friends recommendation about the brand. The value proposition is already in place. (Clifton, 2009) Ultimately, branding on social networking sites promotes brand awareness, brand recall, and, if done well, builds on brand loyalty and brand equity. Social networks offers opportunities for brand promotion and engagement for those brands that learn to leverage the unique attributes of network in question. (Clifton, 2009) However, social networking is not without its flaws. Advertising, even when developed and distributed in superlative online venues, still suffers from the limitations facing all forms of advertising. Clutter is a tremendous distraction for people as they are faced with advertising in and on every imaginable media. Online readers are bombarded with sometimes numerous ads on a single page. With the many display ads, profile components, and widgets visible on social network pages, clutter is an issue. There is also limited inventory for advertising space on the sites. (Tuten, 2008) Social networks offer the greatest benefits to brands when the brands play to a networks culture, developing brand personas and engaging friends in dialogue. However, the workhorse of social network advertising is still the display ad. Unfortunately, display ads are not nearly as effective on social networking sites as they are on other types of websites. Clickthrough rates are much lower. (Clifton, 2009) Marketing in Post Modernism world Postmodernism invites a unique perspective of how to manage marketing and how to understand the consumer. Postmodernism says that social experiences are an interplay of myths which produce regimes of truth and that much of what we understand or believe about the individual, self, freedom, structure and so on is arbitrary and short-lived, fleeting rather than essential and fixed. We need to change our views as the customer changes. â€Å"The main conditions of postmodernism marketing are hyper-reality, fragmentation, reversals of production and consumption, decentring of the subject, paradoxical juxtapositions (of opposites) and loss of commitment.† (Kotler, 2009, p. 27) Ø Hyper-reality: Exemplified by the virtual words of cyberspace and the pseudo worlds of theme parks, hotels and heritage centres, hyper-reality involves the creation of consumption sites and marketing phenomena that ‘more real then real. Here the distinction between reality and fantasy is momentarily blurred. (Kienscherf, 2004) Ø Fragmentation: Marketing in postmodernity is unfailingly fast, furious, frenetic, frenzied, fleeting and hyperactive. (Kotler, 2009) Ø Reversals of production and consumption: Postmodern consumers are active in the production of meaning, of marketing, of consumption. They do rather than have ‘done to them. (Kotler, 2009) Ø Decentring of the subject: Centeredness is where individuals are defined by their occupation, social class, demographics, postcode, and personalities and so on. Postmodernism suggests that this is not so, and that the harder marketers try to pin down the decentred consuming subject the less successful they will be. Ø Paradoxical juxtapositions (of opposites): We have examples of the mixing and matching of opposites and the combination of contradictory styles in the world famous Irish dance show Riverdance or Lord of Rings. (Kienscherf, 2004) Ø Loss of commitment: Growing disillusionment with the delivery of promises and the willingness to try different experiences has resulted in a loss of commitment. The postmodern consumer takes on multiple, sometimes even contradictory projects, to which he/she is marginally and momentarily committed. This is observed in all walks of life: in relationships, in professions, and consumption. Marketing managers experience this when consumer loyalties to brands change. (Kotler, 2009) Customer Perception and satisfaction Customers perceptions of the quality of a service and their overall satisfaction have some observation indicators. Customers may smile when they talk about the product or service. They may say good things about the product or service. Both actions are manifestations or indicators of an underlying construct we might call customer satisfaction. The term customer satisfaction and perception of quality are labels we use to summarise a set of observable actions related to the product or service. (Hayes, 2008) The largest contributor to customer satisfaction, however, is something an organisation cant fully control; the customers perceptions. Whether theyre based in fantasy, fiction, or some other state of unreality, perceptions have the weight of fact. In the business of pleasing customers, perceptions are fact. Perceptions are also wildly inconsistent. Two different customers can consume the exact same product and have radically different perceptions about its quality. The differences may result from expectations each customer brought to the transaction, or they may simply result from varying powers of perception. Moreover, even one customer with consistent expectations might have varying perceptions about a products quality, depending on his or her mood, or stress level, the time of day, the alignment of the planets whatever. Its tempting to conclude that customer satisfaction is whatever the customer happens to think it is at any point in time. (Hayes, 2008) Customer Psychology and behaviour Apruebo (2005) defined consumer Psychology as the study that deals with the activities directly involved in selecting, obtaining, and using products, services and ideas to satisfy needs and desires, including decision process that precede and follow these actions. It is an applied branch of psychology on consumer behaviour. Consumer behaviour is the study of buying units and the exchange processes involved in acquiring, consuming, and disposing of goods, services, experiences and ideas. First and foremost, emerging definition refers to the concept â€Å"an exchange process,† as a fundamental element of consumer behaviour. A consumer is inevitably at one end of an exchange process in which resources are transferred between two parties. (Solomon, 2009) Consumer behaviour is an interesting field of study. Its nature is dynamic and an interactive process. All of us are consumers because our tendency or impulse can direct us to market our everyday purchase decisions in the marketplace or any shopping place. Summary The review also identifies the impact of social network marketing on businesses along with its advantages and the disadvantages. The literature review gives a greater understanding on the chosen topic set out in the aims and objectives, by the comparative study by different authors, and by highlighting areas of research that have not been fully explored. The information found enabled the researcher to come across different theories and ideas that need to be considered so as to proceed further into the research. The limitation that was faced while doing the literature review were that it was sometimes quite difficult to find the information on certain areas of subject as topic being very contemporary and not many books or journals being published on this topic. The upcoming section will be examining methodology, where the usage of different types of research will be discussed in order to gain appropriate and thorough information. Chapter four: Methodology Introduction to methodology The research methodology defines what the activity of research is, how to proceed, how to measure progress, and what constitutes success. It provides advancement of wealth of human knowledge, tools of the trade to carry out research, tools to look at things in life objectively; develops a critical and scientific attitude, disciplined thinking to observe objectively; skills of research particularly in the ‘age of information. According to Fisher (2007) methodology is the study of a whole academic field. It is a stepping-back from a subject and a consideration of it at a broader and deeper level. The research methodology is a science that studying how research is done scientifically. It is the way to systematically solve the research problem by logically adopting various steps. Also it defines the way in which the data are collected in a research project. Several different methods are commonly used in research project and it would vary according to the nature of the aim and objective, scope of the topic and thesis and the sources of data which are used. (Jankowicz, 2005) Triangulation Triangulation is the use of multiple methods; usually quantitative and qualitative research, in the study of the study of the same research problem. Triangulation is a complex methodology that usually requires a term of qualitative and quantitative researchers to maintain the integrity of both methodologies. The philosophical basis and assumptions for both quantitative and qualitative research must be maintained when these methodologies are combined, if the findings are to be meaningful. (Grove, 2005) Objective one: Analyse the impact of social network marketing on other businesses. Marketing managers from two organisations will be interviewed in order to justify the first objective which helped him to have a thorough knowledge of the impact of social network marketing on the businesses. They are very short personal interviews which will mainly offer realistic data which is much appropriate to obtain a detailed vision into the first objective, with the hopefulness of achieving first-hand knowledge or primary data. The questions which are designed will be same to all the marketing managers. The researcher was encouraged by the words of Fisher (2007) that the idea of an interview is straightforward, the interviewer engages in informal conversation with the respondent about a particular area of interest. The interviewer may steer the conversation a little, by picking up on the cues and themes raised by the respondent, but generally the respondent leads the direction of the interview. More comprehensive information can be obtained during an interview, however the co re strength of an interview cannot always be accurate as some interviewees may feel forced into providing better responses, but actually contributing prejudiced data. Some online articles, books and case studies will also be referred to elaborate the impacts of social networking marketing on the businesses. Objective two: Analyse the advantages and the disadvantages of the social network marketing in a business context. The mix of personal and the email interview will the method which will be relevant for second objective and will justify the same. It will be made sure that the format of the questions is simple, easy to understand, concised and precise so that the respondents are able to understand each one of it. There would be around 8 questionnaires in the interview with the mixture of closed and open questionnaire. The difference between closed and open questionnaire is simple. The closed ones have lots of tick boxes for respondents to fill in, whereas open questionnaires allow a free response so that people answer using their own words. (Long, 2007) The second objective which will analyse the advantages and disadvantages of the social network marketing, mix of secondary resources like books, internet, journals, case studies etc. may be helpful to the research and to get some elaborated information because some people may feel shy sharing the information during face-to-face interview and questionnaires and therefore giving a good backup to the objective. Objective three: Analyse the effectiveness of social network marketing. The third objective is to analyse the effectiveness of social network marketing so in order to obtain exceptional outcomes the researcher thinks that it is reasonable to procedure explanatory research, making a precise blend of interviews, statistical data and facts, books and various other methods. The researcher thinks that the information or data relevant to objective three is very limited and hence using a blend of interview, statistics, books etc. is very simple in the growth of knowledge to gain a better understanding. Fisher (2007) thinks that observation is relatively underused method in research hence it will be sensible thing to use this method as it provides good examples and information to illustrate the objective. Observation can be used as a technique to gather quantitative data, and quantitative data may be combined into a participant observation study as it is most commonly associated with qualitative research derived from an ethnographic tradition of studying different peoples way of life (Long, 2007). The researcher would be observing his workplace (Cumin Restaurant) to justify third objective as Facebook community page was made by the researcher so as to observe the effectiveness of the social network marketing. Summary This report has examined some insight into the theoretical outline that constructs the essentials of the methodology. It demonstrates and explains the choice and use of various research methods that are appropriate to the aims and objective of the research project chosen. It is a sound justification of chosen methods, including evidence of secondary data supporting the choice of methods. Alternative methods have been demonstrated confirming malfunction is not a possibility because of external restrictions and limitations. Some objectives are justified by a single method but there are some objectives which required more than one method to justify it. Chapter five: Findings Introduction to aim and objectives This is the largest and probably the most important part this research. This chapter gives an opportunity to discuss the research findings, based on the methods used that were already been discussed in the methodology. These findings are derived from the analyses of statistical data and interviews used for research collection and the measurement of data. Important points of this chapter are linked back to principle ideas in the Literature Review with the evidence obtained in the research. Aim To analyse how social network marketing can help in the effective marketing of a business. Objectives Following are the objectives of the report: Analyse the impact of social network marketing on other businesses. Analyse the advantages and the disadvantages of the social network marketing in a business context. Analyse the effectiveness of social network marketing. Findings from Personal Interview Mr. Sandeep Anand Owner, Manager, The Cumin Restaurant, Nottingham 1. Do you or your business have a profile on any social network? Which? Sandeep: Yes I had a personal profile on Facebook previously but as I came to know that now businesses can make their community page on it as well, I made my business profile. 2. How often do you update your profile? Sandeep:My web designer generally updates my business page which is usually updated once a week. 3. Did it make any difference to your business? Sandeep: Not really at the moment, because the profile is quite new, not many people know that we are in Facebook but I hope as the time passes we will get some customer through it. In my knowledge I have got three costumers giving reference from Facebook. 4. Did anybody recommend you to have a profile on social network? Sandeep: Yes, my web designer recommended me to have one, which I thought is a good idea. 5. If no, then what made you join? 6. Have you identified any business advantage of using Facebook over traditional media? Sandeep:The biggest advantage of using Facebook is there are good choices which you can make according to your budget and if you are not interested to spend any money just make a profile page and dont publish it. But you have to put extra effort to make it more effective. 7. What are the drawbacks of social networks to the business? Sandeep:I have seen some business which has got negative comments which can be viewed by all viewers which is not good for the business. So I think privacy and security is the biggest drawback. 8. Would you recommend anyone to have a business profile on social networks? Why? Sandeep: Yes definitely, because it gives you an edge over other businesses with very little cost and is more effective than the traditional forms of advertising if used effectively. I will highly recommend to the small and medium businesses which are coming into this sector as a fresher with a minimal budget. Findings from Email Interview Ms. Srijana Gurung Restaurant Supervisor (Chino Latino)/Duty Manager, Park Plaza, Nottingham A same set of questions was sent to Ms. Srijana Gurung who is a Restaurant Supervisor and a duty manager in Park Plaza Hotel in Nottingham. Answer 1: Yes I have a personal profile and a profile for my hotels restaurant Chino Latino. My hotel gave me liberty to make a profile page for their restaurant as it is good for their hotels business and for their restaurant as well. Answer 2: I go on to the profile daily just to have a look and to make necessary updates for eg. I introduced a new staff uniform for my restaurants staff, so I have put the pictures of it. Answer 3: Fan following and liking has gained good publicity of our restaurant but we havent measured any difference but I hope it goes well in the future. Answer 4: No, nobody recommended me. Answer 5: It is one of the most upcoming trends of having a profile on the Facebook and in this post recessionary period many businesses have made their pages on Facebook and results are very positive. So I thought of having one for my restaurant. Answer 6: Yes, I am sure there are many advantages of social network marketing over traditional media. They are very cheap, cost efficient, easy to manage and operate and the bst one is they are very contemporary. Answer 7: They take time to show results. There is very less privacy. Anybody can have their profile page on these social networks and even fake profiles can be made and some of these fake profile. Answer 8: Yes absolutely, they are here for us to use and to use efficiently and as they are very cheap they are very affordable but has to be managed properly and updated regularly. But do maintain the businesss privacy level so as to protect from spam and fraud. Statistical Data (Econsultancy, 2010) * Facebookclaimsthat 50% of active users log into the site each day. This would meanat least 175 million users every 24 hours†¦ A considerable increase from the previous 120 million. * Twitternow has75 million user accounts. * LinkedInhas over50 million members worldwide.This means an increase of around 1million members each month since July/August last year. * Facebook currently has in excess of350 million active users on global basis.Six months ago, this was 250 million†¦ meaning around a 40% increase of users in less than half a year. * More than 35 million Facebook users update their status each day. * Wikipediacurrentlyhas in excess of14 million articles, meaning that its 85,000 contributors have written nearly a million new posts in six months. * Photo uploads to Facebook haveincreased by more than 100%.Currently, there are around2.5 billionuploads to the site each month this was around a billion last time I covered this. * There are more than70 translations availableon Facebook. Last time around, this was only 50. * Back in 2009, the average user had 120 friends within Facebook. This is now around 130. * Mobile is even bigger than before for Facebook, withmore than65 million users accessing the site through mobile-based devices.In six months, this is over 100% increase. (Previously