As an extra lame gesture on my part for this post, I will put the speech of my presentation here. My speech is not scripted so it is subjected to some minor changes every time I speak. The words I put here are just what I am churning out from my mind at this moment.

Start:
Good morning assessors, there will be two parts of our presentation today. The first will be a video done by my group which describes our project. The second part will be our individual presentations. Can I request that you reserve my personal timing till after our video? ... But before that, let me introduce my group members. I am Kheng Meng, this is Annis, Amos and Adeline. Now, let me start the video.

Video start... Video end ...


Slide 1:

Good morning ladies and gentlemen, today, my group NY073, will be presenting to you on the topic of Entertainment. As you have seen from the video earlier, the title of our project is "Can see violence, do no violence.", which is about the increase in violence in today's media.

Slide 2:

Before I begin with our presentation proper, let me give the outline of our presentation today. I as the first speaker, will explain the change in medium and give you the objectives and rationale of our project. My second speaker Annis, will discuss about the impacts of the change, our target groups and introduce our campaign to you. My third speaker, Amos, will elaborate in detail about our campaign events and give you the benefits of our campaign. Finally, my last speaker Adeline, will be evaluating our campaign and wrapping up our project with the conclusion.

Slide 3:

Now, let me introduce our project to you. According to statistics from the Media Development Authority of Singapore in 2006, television programmes (51.1%) and movies(30.5%) are the two most popular forms of entertainment among the young. This clearly implies that television programmes are the most influential compared to other forms of entertainment.

Slide 4:

Now you may wonder, what is wrong with television programmes? Well, according to an International Poll conducted by Time Magazine in 2005, 70% of the respondents felt that the level of vilence has increased over the years, 58% felt there was an increased use of "curse" words and 50% felt that there were more sexual scenes.

Slide 5:

Now to the description of our project. Our project intends to raise awareness of the impacts of increased violence in television programmes as well as to educate our target groups.

Slide 6:

You may ask, how did this change come about in the first place? This was brought about by a cultural change in American society. Its people especially the young today are having a more liberal mindset compared to a more conservative nature in the past. The American media is also adopting a more capitalist approach in the screening of programmes to increase viewership.

The Singapore media industry obviously has a hand in this in our local market. It is closely intertwined with those of the American market as it imports many programmes from there. The more relaxed attitude by our mainstream media also reflects the influence by American programmes.

The moral values of our young have also changed. It has mirrored those of the American youths where the young there are more liberal compared to the youths of the past.

Slide 7:
Here is when our project comes in. we will be holding a campaign to showcase our findings. The talk show within our campaign aims to educate the public on how this change in medium has affected today's globalised society as well as to promote media literacy in our target groups. Finally, we will be testing their understanding through a crossword puzzle which will be completed by the visitors thoughout the length of our exhibition.

Slide 8:

As you may have guessed, media literacy is a set of skills required to critically assess the programmes one watches. This set of skills is especially important during one's germinating teenage years where he is at his most impressionable stage of life.

However, I would like to emphasise that we are not advocating a complete ban on television programmes. But rather, to educate our target groups about the nature of this change.

Slide 9:

Now to the rationales of our project. We have 3 of them. Firstly, the importance of human resource. Secondly, the new revolution in media. And lastly, the high television programmes imports from the United States.

Slide 10:

Beginning with the first rationale of human resource. Singapore's population is only a minuscule 4.6 million. Furthermore, its our only resource. Thus its of paramount importance that we cannot allow declining moral values such as increased violence, promiscuity and use of curse words to take root among our young to affect society.

Slide 11:

The second rationale-Revolution in media. The advent of technologies such as the Internet, video and file sharing coupled with their easy accessibility has allowed the masses to easily circumvent censorship imposed by the government. Thus, it is urgent for us to educate the public not to misuse such technologies to access programmes they are not encouraged to watch.

Slide 12:

Now to our final rationale. According to the Censorship and Report Committee, 50% of our English programmes come from the US. Thus, there is a good chance of its after-effects occurring in Singapore as well. These effects include, violence towards others and disobedience towards parents.

Now, I will pass the time over the Annis who will discuss about the impacts of this change.

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Just additional info, I finally completed Half-Life 2 episode 1 yesterday. In fact, I played the entire game once more with the commentary track enabled. After hearing all the tracks, I realised that game developers actually put in a lot effort behind the scenes than we can discern . A developer had this to say " The player is being silently manipulated by the game to make certain decisions without even realising it".

HL2:EP1 is really a very short game. Even with the commentary to make me pause at a certain juncture, I just took less than four hours to complete it at the normal difficulty setting.