Judy & Meredith
This article tries to tell us that Internet has become a popular and important way to give tourists more information and imagery about the tourism destination. So many countries start to build their official websites and employ their own culture and religion as the characteristics to attract world’s attention. The writer uses Malaysia as an example to introduce how each state (DMO) designs and updates their websites to draw not only religious followers but also casual travelers to visit the country.
Discussion Questions:
1. How should Taiwan and China use Internet as a media to promote their tourism and make their way to international stage?
Responses:
Taiwan: Our country is a relatively small but delicate and beautiful island, so we always employ videos and imagery to touch people on Internet, and put more emphasis on our daily life to give visitors a chance to know and fit into Taiwanese lifestyle as well as culture. We would also introduce the special and different features of each city on websites, such as Taipei and Kaohsiung.
China: China is a big country, having large population, long history and diverse cultures, so they always use films and music to give people the feeling of power, full of civilization, and show off their strength to be a mighty country in the world. Besides, they have particular customs and landscapes in each province as the traits to catch tourists’ attention.
In fact, the way to promote country’s tourism is different from time to time. But the most important thing is that the official and private organizations should cooperate together to make our countries worldwide known.
Discussion Questions:
2. As a tourist, if a tourism destination puts a lot of its religious imagery on its website, will you be attracted?
Responses:
Most of our classmates say when they’re choosing a tourism destination, sometimes they will be attracted by religious feature, but it’s merely “on the bottom of the list”; they’re still more interested in culture or other things, for example, if they’re visiting a modern city like London, they would rather go shopping than visiting religious spots.
Ocean offers that “what religion” is also an important factor to be considered. As his example: He doesn’t like Buddhism, so it’s obvious that he’ll never be attracted by Thailand’s religious feature.
However, Monica has different point of view from others. She says religion is part of a place’s culture; if you want to know a place, you can never separate its religion from its culture. Besides, she thinks that most of the religious imagery is beautiful and distinctive, so she’ll definitely be attracted by it when choosing a tourism destination.
Habitus in Transition?
CMC use and impacts among young women in United Arab Emirates
Jocelyn
This research is about whether computer-mediated communication will challenge or reinforce the culture and habitus of the receiver in UAE. And the result shows that internet will not overwhelm the culture we already have, but reinforce it. Because through internet, you might become more or equally connected with people like you.
Discussion Questions:
1. Is technology and its message challenging or reinforcing the habitus of the receiver? Answer the question based on your own experience of using internet.
Responses:Most classmates answered that internet is a tool for them to access to what they want to know. It is an active process, they will not passively sit there and waiting for information to come to them. They have option. It is them who chose information, so the information will not change their way of living.
Language Choice Online
"Globalization and Identity in Egypt"
Monica
This is a study by three scholars done in 2002 with a group of young professionals from Cairo, Egypt. The purpose was to determine online language choices, examining in which circumstances this group of people uses English and Arabic in their online computer mediated communications. Two aspects were taken into consideration, the Language Context and the Technology Context. 43 people were the subjects of this study, a survey and an interview were used as instruments. The findings talked about an important range of people who uses English in their daily internet communication, for purposes of formal and informal emails, this numbers are specially important because it happened between people who are non-native English speakers, on the other hand for chatting the numbers talks mainly of the use of Arabic.
The reasons for the English dominance are explained as being the following:
1. General dominance of English in the professional milieu.
2. Lack of Arabic software standards.
3. Computer and internet use learned in English environments.
4. Early adopters’ fluency in English.
As a conclusion can be said that, language use online, in Egypt and elsewhere, will be shaped not just by the technical capacities that technology enables, but also by the social systems that technology encompasses.
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