The Different Scopic Orders Of The Modern Era Film Essay

The Different Scopic Orders Of The Modern Era Film Essay The modern era has allegedly been dominated by the sense of sight, in a way that has seen it set apart from the premodern era and the postmodern era. In his text Scopic Regimes of Modernity Martin Jay draws our attention to scopic order in the modern era, which is an area with many conflicting views that are not often in alignment with each other. Jay argues the point that there may not be one unified scopic regime, a term used by french film theorist Christian Metz, and that there is room for argument with the idea that there are a number of competing regimes associated with the modern era. Jay looks at the mirror of nature, a metaphor in philosophy by Richard Forty, the emphasis of surveillance that was put forward by Michel Foucault, and the society of the spectacle argued by Guy Debord. Jay also goes on to look at the arguably dominant scopic regime known as Cartesian Perspectivalism, what is normally claimed to be the dominant, even totally hegemonic, visual model of the modern era. Also discussed are the major competitors to Cartesian Perspectivalism, which includes mapping, which is, a visual culture very different from what we associate with Renaissance perspective, one which Svetlana Alpers has recently called The Art of Describing. and the third model of vision, which is best identified with the baroque. Wà ¶lfflin later called it, the classical style, the baroque was painterly, recessional, soft-focused, multiple, and open in his study, Renaissance and Baroque. Jacqueline Roses quote used by Jay to back up his opinion that there are many views which come into play when discussing the subject of scopic regimes, our previous history is not the petrified block of a single visual space since, looked at obliquely, it can always be seen to contain its moment of unease. (Rose, 1986, p.232-233.) Jays argument continues with him writing about the idea that this subject is not one of solidity. Bringing in the notion that the topic of, scopic regimes of modern ity, is best discussed on what he describes as, contested terrain, rather then harmoniously integrated complex of visual theories and practices. Modernity has often been considered resolutely ocular-centric, which is the act of basing all experience on the perception of the eyes, with sight being very direct and centered. The invention of printing reinforced the advantage of visual aids such as the telescope, which with its con-vexed lens helped expand the apparent angular size of distant objects. Along with the microscope, which aids the eye to see objects that are too small visually for the naked eye. These inventions helped put more emphasis on sight and vision. It is difficult to deny that the visual sense has been dominant in modern western culture in a wide variety of different ways, with Martin Jay calling visionthe master sense of the modern era. Scopic Regime, a term first coined by French film theorist Christian Metz in his book The Imaginary Signifier a study on cinema and psychoanalysis. It was used to distinguish the differences from the cinema to the theatre. What defines the specifically cinematic scopic regime is not so much the distance kept, the keeping itself (first figure of the lack, common to all voyeurism), as the absence of the object seen. (Metz, 1982, p.61.) The cinema is profoundly different from the theatre as also from more intimate voyeuristic activities with a specifically erotic aim. METZ It is the last recess that is attacked by the cinema signifier, it is in its precise emplacement that it installs a new figure of the lack, the physical absence of the object seen. In the theatre, actors and spectators are present at the same time and in the same location, hence present one to another, as the two protagonists of an authentic perverse couple. But in the cinema, the actor was present when the spectator was not (shooting), and the spectator is present when the actor is no longer. (Projection). A failure to meet of the voyeur and the exhibitionist whose approaches no longer coincide. (they have missed one another) The cinemas voyeurism must do without any very clear mark of consent on the part of the object. There is no equivalent here of the theater actors final bow. And then the latter could see their voyeurs, the game was less unilateral, slightly better distributed. In the darkened hall, the voyeur is really left alone.(P.63) In this text, Metz develops an analysis between film spectatorship and voyeurism. According to him, enhancing the essential property of the voyeuristic gaze that of keeping the desired, seen object at a safe distance from the viewing subject cinema locates its own data in the for- ever inaccessible, in a realm which is incessantly desirable but that can never be possessed, in the scene of absence. Cinema, in other words, shows us the world, and at the same time it takes it away from us. As Metz writes,  «what defines the properly cinematographic scopic regime is not the maintained distance, nor the care exerted in maintaining it, but the sheer absence of the seen object. Cinema is therefore a form of absolute voyeurism: it is founded on an unbridgeable distance, on a total inaccessibility. 3) Emphasize the prevalence of surveillance with Michael Foucault Our society is not one of spectacle, but of surveillanceWe are neither in the amphitheater, nor on the stage, but in the panoptic machine, invested by its effects of power, which we bring to ourselves since we are part of its mechanism. (Foucault, 1979, p.127.) Among French intellectuals in the 1960s and 1970s it was Michel Foucault who most explicitly interrogated the gaze of surveillance and Guy Debord and his situationist international collaborators who explored the vision of the spectacle. Together they provided an array of different arguments looking from different perspectives against the hegemony of the eye. With their work, the ocular-centrism of those who praised the nobility of sight was not so much rejected, as reversed in value. Vision was still the privileged sense, but what that privilege produced in the modern world was damned as almost entirely corrupting. Foucault called it the unimpeded empire of the gaze. (Foucault, 1973, p.39.) and Guy Debord called it society of the spectacle. (Debord, 1981, p.25.) Gilles Deleuze characterized Foucaults work as a duel investigation of articulable statements and fields of visibilities. Deleuze stated that Foucault continued to be fascinated by what he saw as much as by what he heard or read, and the archaeology he conceived of is an audiovisual archive Foucault never stopped being a voyant at the same time as he marked philosophy with a new style of statement. (Deleuze, 1988, p.50.) Allan Megill, a philosophical writer, has claimed that in his earlier more structuralist moments, Foucault was himself intent on portraying a lucent Apollonian world (Megill, 1983, p.218) within which ocular-centrism was neutrally accepted. The vision that should be incorporated into psychoanalysis Foucault insisted, had to be understood phenomenologically, taking into account the livid spatial experience that emerged from the bodys intertwining with the world. Authentic versions of that experience were undermined, he claimed if vision was reduced to its traditional Cartesian spectral role based on the dualism of subject and object. Foucault was drawn to Belgian Surrealist painter Renà © Magritte, Magrittes work frequently displays a juxtaposition of ordinary objects in an unusual context, giving new meanings to familiar things. The representational use of objects as other than what they seem is typified in his painting, The Treachery of Images, which depicts a pipe that looks as though it is a model for a tobacco store advert. Magritte painted below the pipe ceci nest pas une pipe translated it means This is not a pipe, Which would appear to be a contradiction, but in reality it is a true statement. The painting is no t a pipe, just an image of a pipe. When Magritte was once asked about his painting, he replied that of course it was not a pipe, just try and fill it with tobacco. Magritte used the same approach in a painting of an apple, he painted the fruit realistically and then used an internal caption to deny that the item was an apple. In these works Magritte points out that no matter how closely through art we come to depicting an item accurately we never actually catch the item itself. Foucault explored a more visibly explicit version of interaction within Magrittes work, he described Magrittes canvases as the opposite of trompe loeil which is an art technique involving extremely realistic imagery in order to create the optical illusion that the depicted objects appear in three dimensions because of their understanding of the mimetic conventions of realistic painting. Foucault also referred to them as unraveled calligrams as they refused to close the gap between the image and the world. Resemblance serves representation which rules over it; similitude serves repetition, which ranges across it. Resemblance predicates itself upon a model it must return to and reveal; similitude circulates the simulacrum as an indefinite and reversible relation of the similar to the similar. (Levy, 1990, p.44) The Panopticon (all-seeing) functioned as a round-the-clock surveillance machine. Its design ensured that no prisoner could ever see the inspector who conducted surveillance from the privileged central location within the radial configuration. The prisoner could never know when he was being surveilled mental uncertainty that in itself would prove to be a crucial instrument of discipline. French philosopher Michel Foucault described the implications of Panopticism in his 1975 work Discipline Punish: The Birth of the Prison Hence the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power. So to arrange things that the surveillance is permanent in its effects, even if it is discontinuous in its action; that the perfection of power should tend to render its actual exercise unnecessary; that this architectural apparatus should be a machine for creating and sustaining a power relation independent of the person who exercises it; in short, that the inmates should be caught up in a power situation of which they are themselves the bearers. To achieve this, it is at once too much and too little that the prisoner should be constantly observed by an inspector: too little, for what matters is that he knows himself to be observed; too much, because he has no need in fact of being so. In view of this, Bentham laid down the principle that power should be visible and unverifiable. Visible: the inmate will constantly have befo re his eyes the tall outline of the central tower from which he is spied upon. Unverifiable: the inmate must never know whether he is being looked at at any one moment; but he must be sure that he may always be so. In order to make the presence or absence of the inspector unverifiable, so that the prisoners, in their cells, cannot even see a shadow, Bentham envisaged not only venetian blinds on the windows of the central observation hall, but, on the inside, partitions that intersected the hall at right angles and, in order to pass from one quarter to the other, not doors but zig-zag openings; for the slightest noise, a gleam of light, a brightness in a half-opened door would betray the presence of the guardian. The Panopticon is a machine for dissociating the see/being seen dyad: in the peripheric ring, one is totally seen, without ever seeing; in the central tower, one sees everything without ever being seen. Foucault also compares modern society with Jeremy Benthams Panopticon design for prisons (which was unrealized in its original form, but nonetheless influential): in the Panopticon, a single guard can watch over many prisoners while the guard remains unseen. Ancient prisons have been replaced by clear and visible ones, but Foucault cautions that visibility is a trap. It is through this visibility, Foucault writes, that modern society exercises its controlling systems of power and knowledge (terms Foucault believed to be so fundamentally connected that he often combined them in a single hyphenated concept, power-knowledge). Increasing visibility leads to power located on an increasingly individualized level, shown by the possibility for institutions to track individuals throughout their lives. Foucault suggests that a carceral continuum runs through modern society, from the maximum security prison, through secure accommodation, probation, social workers, police, and teachers, to our e veryday working and domestic lives. All are connected by the (witting or unwitting) supervision (surveillance, application of norms of acceptable behaviour) of some humans by others. Or look into the society of the spectacle with Guy Debord The entire life of societies in which modern conditions of production reign announces itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into representation. (Debord, 1977, par.1.) With the term spectacle, Debord defines the system that is a confluence of advanced capitalism, the mass media, and the types of governments who favor those phenomena. The spectacle is the inverted image of society in which relations between commodities have supplanted relations between people in which passive identification with the spectacle supplants genuine activity. The spectacle is not a collection of images, writes Debord rather, it is a social relationship between people that is meditated by images. In his analysis of the spectacular society, Debord notes that quality of life is impoverished, with such lack of authenticity human perceptions are affected, and theres also a degradation of knowledge with the hindering of critical thought. 4) Cartesian Perspectivalism, is normally considered the dominant hegemonic scopic regime of the modern era. It is a way of seeing both then and now, a method of perception that represents space and the subjects and objects in that space according to the rules of Euclidean geometry. Renaissance painters, such as Brunelleschi, and Alberti, who was known as a draftsman rather than a painter, developed a geometric space complimentary to the mathematical space of Descartess philosophy. Perspective in painting projects a plane onto its object of study and creates a one-to-one correspondence between points on the plane and points on the canvas. Brunelleschi, who is traditionally accorded to the honor of being the practical inventor of perspective, he begun by using architectural figures such as buildings, ceilings, and tiled floors which easily match the grid structure of the projective plane.   Later, other objects were fitted and shaped within the geometrical patterning of linear perspect ive. Alberti is acknowledged, almost universally, as being the first theoretical interpreter of perspective. He regarded mathematics as the common ground for art and sciences. I will take first from the mathematicians those things which my subject is concerned. (Alberti DELLA PITTURA) The scopic regime that was interpreted Descartes philosophy is usually identified with Renaissance notions of perspective in the visual arts and the Cartesian ideas of subjective rationality in philosophy. Art historian William Ivins, Jr., in his Art and Geometry of 1946 said that the history of art during the five hundred years that have elapsed since Alberti wrote has been little more than the story of slow diffusion of his ideas through the artists and peoples of Europe. Richard Rorty discussed Descartes ideas in his writing Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, published in 1979. He claimed, in the cartesian model the intellect inspects entities modeled on retinal images In Descartes conception the one that become the basis for modern epistemology it is representations which are in the mind. These two prominent social commentators, have illustrated their view which is considered to be be equivalent to our view of the modern scopic regime. The aforementioned quotes assume that Ca rtesian perspectivalism is the main visual model of modernity, these authors believe it best expresses a natural experience of sight validated by the scientific world view. (maybe say it in a simplified form too.) In his famous essay Perspective as Symbolic Form, Panofsky, a German art historian, highlights the break made through linear perspective by contrasting Renaissance painting with that of Greek and Medieval works.  Ã‚   Prior to the Renaissance, painting concerned itself with individual objects, but the space which they inhabited failed to embrace or dissolve the opposition between bodies.   Space acted as a simple superposition, a still unsystematic overlapping.  Ã‚   With linear perspective comes an abstract spatial system capable of ordering objects: As various as antique theories of space were, none of them succeeded in defining space as a system of simple relationships between height, width and depth.   In that case, in the guise of a coordinate system, the difference between front and back, here and there, body and nonbody would have resolved into the higher and more abstract concept of three-dimensional extensions, or even, as Arnold Geulincx puts it, the concept of a corpus generaliter sumptum (body taken in a general sense). (Panofsky, 1991, p.43-44.) Jay says This new concept of space was geometrically isotropic, rectilinear, abstract, and uniform. The three-dimensional, rationalized space of perspectival vision could be rendered on a two-dimensional surface by following all of the transformational rules spelled out in Albertis De Pittura, and later agreements by Viator and Dà ¼rer. A basic painting device occurred from these findings with the use of symmetrical visual pyramids, or cones, with one of their apexes receding towards the vanishing point in the painting, the other into the eye of the painter. Significantly the eye was singular, and not the normal two eyes of binocular vision. The device was made in the manner that just one eye would be looking through a peep-hole (Kemp Science in art pg 13) at a scene in front of it. Brunelleschi used a peep-hole and mirror system for viewing this perspective demonstration of the Florentine Baptistery. Brunelleschi had drilled a small hole in a panel of wood at a point equivalent to that at which his line of sight had struck the Baptistery along a perpendicular axis. The spectator was required to look through this drilled hole from the back of the panel at a mirror held in such a way, so that it would reflect the image. The eye of the viewer would be fixated and unblinking rather than dynamic. In Norman Brysons terms it followed the logic of the Gaze rather than the Glance, which produced one single point of view. Bryson, who is an art theorist, calls this the Founding Perception of the Cartesian perspectivalist tradition. the gaze of the painter arrests the flux of phenomena, contemplates the visual field from a vantage-point outside the mobility of duration, in an eternal moment of disclosed presence; while in the moment of viewing, the viewing subject unites his gaze with the Founding Perception, in a moment of perfect recreation of that first epiphany. With this visual order arose many implications, with the abstract coldness of the perspectival gaze, which meant the painters emotional connection with the objects they depicted in geometricalized space was lost. The gap between spectacle and spectator widened. Cartesian perspectivalism has, in fact, been the target of a widespread philosophical critique, which has denounced its privileging of an ahistorical, disinterested, disembodied subject entirely outside of the world it claims to know only from afar. (Jay Cartesian perspectivalism itself that it suggest it was not quite as uniformly coercive as is sometimes assumed. Although artificial perspective was the dominant model, its competitor was never entirely forgotten. John White, an artist, distinguishes between what he terms artificial perspective, in which the mirror held up to nature is flat, and synthetic perspective, in which that mirror is presumed to be concave, thus producing a curved rather than planar space on the canvas. The Cartesian perspectivalist tradition contained a potential for internal contestation in the possible uncoupling of the painters view of the scene from that of the presumed beholder. Norman Bryson identifies this development with Johannes Vermeer , who represents for him a second state perspectivalism even more discarnated that that of Alberti. The bond with the viewers physique is broken and the viewing subjectis now proposed and assumed as a notional point, a non-empirical Gaze. This observation opens up more consideration, that there is an alternative scopic regime, that may be understood as more than a sub-variant of Cartesian perspectivalism. 5) Mapping, or as Svetlana Alpers called, The Art of Descriping. A visual culture very different from what is associated with the Renaissance perspective. According to Alpers the hegemonic role of Italian painting in art history has occluded an appreciation of a second influential tradition which flourished during the seventeenth-century Dutch art. contrast realist and naturalist fictionthat the Italian Renaissance art, for all its fascination with the techniques of perspective, still held fast to the storytelling function for which they were used. GEORGE LUKACS Summarizing the contrasts between the art of describing and Cartesian perspectivalism, Alpers points out the following oppositions: attention to many small things versus a few large ones; light reflected off objects modeled by light and shadow; the surface of objects, their colours and textures, dealt with rather than their placement in a legible space; an unframed image versus one than is clearly framed; one with no clearly situated viewer compared to one with such a viewer. The distinction follows a hierarchical model of distinguishing between phenomena commonly referred to as primary and secondary: objects and space versus the surfaces, forms versus the textures of the world. (ALPERS) The non-mathematical impulse of this tradition accords well with the indifference to hierarchy, proportion, and analogical resemblances characteristic of Cartesian perspectivalism. Instead it casts its eye on the fragmentary, detailed, and richly articulated surface of a world it is content to describe rather than explain. 6) Baroque Painting The third model of vision, best identified with the baroque. As early as 1888, and Heinrich Wà ¶fflins study, Renaissance and Baroque, art historians have been tempted to find connections between the two styles in both painting and architecture. In opposition to the lucid linear, solid, fixed, planimetric, closed form of the Renaissance, or as Wà ¶lfflin called it, the classical style, the Baroque was painterly, recessional, soft-focused, multiple and open. The Baroque style began as somewhat of a continuation of the Renaissance. Later, however, scholars of the time began to see the drastic differences between the two styles as the Renaissance style gave way to Baroque art. Baroque architecture, sculpture, and painting of a dramatic nature were powerful tools in the hands of religious and secular absolutism, and flourished in the service of the Catholic Church and of Catholic monarchies. The Baroque artists were particularly focused on natural forms, spaces, colors, lights, and the relationship between the observer and the literary or portrait subject in order to produce a strong, if muted, emotional experience. The Council of Trent (1545-63), in which the Roman Catholic Church answered many questions of internal reform raised by both Protestants and by those who had remained inside the Catholic Church, addressed the representational arts by demanding that paintings and sculptures in church contexts should speak to the illiterate rather than to the well-informed. Due to this Baroque art tends to focus on Saints, the Virgin Mary, and other well known Bible stories. Religious painting, history painting, allegories, and portraits were still considered the most noble subjects, but landscapes, still life, and genre scenes rapidly gained notoriety. Nativity by Josefa de Óbidos, 1669, National Museum of Ancient Art, Lisbon Rorty, Richard, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979) Rose, Jacqueline, Sexuality in the Field of Vision (London: Verso, 1986) p.232-233. Metz, Christian, The Imaginary Signifier: Psychoanalysis and the Cinema (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982), p.61. Foucault, Michael, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans, Alan Sheridan (New York, 1979), p.217. Foucault, The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception, trans. A.M. Sheridan (London, 1973), p.39. Debord, Society of the Spectacle. trans. Ken Knabb (Berkeley, 1981), p.25. Deleuze, Gilles, Foucault, trans. and ed. Sean Hand (Minneapolis, 1988), p.50. Megill, Allan, Prophets of Extremity: Nietzche, Heidegger, Foucault and Derrida (Berkeley, 1985), p.218. Levy, Silvano, Foucault on Magritte and Resemblance, The Modern Language Review, 85,1 (January 1990), p.44. Debord, Guy, Society of the Spectacle (Detroit 1977), par.1. Panofsky, Erwin.   Perspective as Symbolic Form. New York: Zone Books, 1991. 41-43.

Of MIce and Men: Curley’s Wife Essay

Names have been an important facet of society for as long as Homo sapiens have existed. A name is defined as â€Å"a word or symbol used in logic to designate an entity. † In Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck teaches a lesson about the nature of human existence and shows how grim and isolated people become without hope. Steinbeck neglects to address Curley’s wife’s character by name in order to emphasize her position as a literary element and provide commentary on society in the time period during which he lived. Curley’s wife is never named because Steinbeck wished to emphasize the ubiquitous dislike of her throughout the farm. Whilst reading the novella, it is implied that no one on the farm likes Curley’s wife. However, there isn’t necessarily a flaw in her personality from which this aversion to her stems. The characters avoid interaction with her because they fear retribution from her possessive, short-tempered husband. The men on the farm begin to foster hatred toward her because her constant need for attention puts their livelihoods in danger. The men can’t ever get too familiar with her because they are distanced by the fact that she is Curley’s wife. Steinbeck constantly reminds the readers and the characters in the book of this fact by denying her a proper name. Second in the litany of reasons why Curley’s wife remains unnamed throughout the entire novella is that Steinbeck wishes to superimpose over the entire story the idea that she was a possession of Curley’s and not an independent entity. During the course of the novella, we run across multiple instances in which Curley is angered by even the idea of his wife consorting with other men, even in a platonic manner. As previously stated, Curley would even resort to firing men if he was unpleased with the way the interacted with his wife. The reader is able to draw a parallel between the way Curley treats and acts toward his wife and the way someone would act when dealing with an object of theirs. It is very clear that she is expected (by Curley and the other men, save Lennie) to obey Curley at all times. At the period in time in which the novella is set, women are expected to submit to their husband wordlessly and this is thoroughly explored in Of Mice and Men through Curley and his wife’s relationship. The zeitgeist of 1937(the year in which the book was published) and its subsequent influence on literature written around that time period is another reason Curley’s wife remains nameless. In that time, women were considered inferior to men and weren’t nearly as important in the public eye. One must remember when reading Of Mice and Men that the 19th amendment which gave women the right to vote only became an addendum in 1920. The novella was set during The Great Depression a time during which women did not have the amount of authority in society as they do today. Curley’s wife was used to depict women as troublemakers that disrupt the flow of life for men. Steinbeck failed to assign Curley’s wife a name because it was acceptable at the time for women to be undermined and overlooked. By constantly referring to her as â€Å"Curley’s wife† Steinbeck undermines her character as an independent person because she is forced to always be associated to Curley. With this â€Å"minor oversight† Steinbeck was able to use her character in idiomatic ways to enhance his writing. As indicated previously, Steinbeck writes Curley’s wife as a literary element to enhance the story as opposed to a character in the story. Almost humorously, one of the outcomes of refusing her a proper name (which I suspect was intentional) is that it caused the reader to direct more attention to her than anyone else in the story. Steinbeck is commonly known as an author who utilizes descriptions as a way to portray his characters. Curley is often mentioned as â€Å"the boss’s son. † Slim is introduced as the â€Å"jerkline skinner. † Crooks is solely referred to as â€Å"the stable buck† or simply ‘nigger’ until chapter 4. Despite the fact that all these characters have names, they are relatively miniscule parts of the story when push comes to shove, the nameless wife is the one who causes things to happen and mandates attention from every angle, be it real or fictitious (by which I mean from both readers and characters within the story). The most convincing reason yet as to why Curley’s wife remains unnamed lays in something Steinbeck once said in an interview. Steinbeck described her character as a symbol. He was recorded to have said â€Å"She has no function, except to be a foil – and a danger to Lennie. † She was the antagonist who provided the main characters something to be anxious about; she was the force that put up massive hurdles for the protagonists to overcome. A villain is defined as â€Å"The person or thing responsible for specified trouble, harm, or damage. † Inadvertently, such was the purpose of Curley’s wife. It wasn’t her plan to end Lennie’s life. She simply pursued what she felt she deserved: male attention. Her need to fill this desire for attention became so intense that it ultimately caused tragedy. In conclusion, Curley’s wife not being assigned a name was not just a mere oversight at the hands of John Steinbeck. She was an instrument used to undermine the position of women in society. Steinbeck purposefully left out her name in order to enhance his writing, and address issues during the time period in which he lived. Curley’s wife was used to depict women as the ones who threatened the happiness and well-being of men. Denying Curley’s wife a name was an integral part in the writing of Of Mice and Men. (c) Raquel Bracey, December 2012

Exchange Rate Movements Economic Integration And Globalization Finance Essay - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 6 Words: 1922 Downloads: 3 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Finance Essay Type Research paper Did you like this example? Variability in foreign exchange (FX) rate has been one of the major economic and financial factors affecting cash flows and common stocks value. After the collapse of post-war Bretton Woods fixed exchange rates in the 1970s, the relative prices of currencies began to fluctuate. The rapid expansion in international trade and adoption of floating exchange rate regimes by many countries led to increase exchange rate volatility. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Exchange Rate Movements Economic Integration And Globalization Finance Essay" essay for you Create order As economic integration and globalization have been increasing year by year, exchange rate movements have become very important source of risk for financial firms as well as non-financial firms. In this context, it is very important to mention that virtually all existing empirical studies estimate currency exchange rate exposures on the basis of share prices. However, the assessment of cash flow and stock price exposures which will be studied in this research will represent a rational alternative to the analysis of stock price exposures. In fact, it is the impact of exchange rate risk on corporate cash flows rather than equity prices per se, that is emphasized in the theoretical literature on corporate risk management, either for tax reasons, managerial performance, bankruptcy, investment decisions or compensation purposes. Jacque (1996) points out that change in a companys earnings due to unexpected foreign currency exchange rate changes relatively to their domestic currency i s considered as foreign exchange rate risks. Changes in exchange rates may affect firms profitability and value. Exchange rate changes can also impact on the level of competitiveness of the firms which are exposed to exchange rate risk, or affect the value of their net assets denominated in foreign currencies. Adler and Dumas (1984) show that even firms whose entire operations are domestic may have affects of exchange rates of foreign currencies, if their output and input prices are influenced by currency movements. Moreover, Eiteman et al. (2006) says that in general, firms are exposed to three types of foreign exchange risk: translation exposure, transaction exposure and economic exposure. In practice, economic exposure is computed as the net sensitivity of some aggregate measure of firm value to currency fluctuations. Economic exposure contains of the direct and indirect effects of currency fluctuations by focusing on the net sensitivity. In practice, there is little genera l agreement on the use of appropriate choice of aggregate measure. In this research project it is focused on the impact of economic exposure of Malaysian non-financial firms (from consumer products industry) on their values. Corporate managers will also be interested in the exposures of corporate cash flow measures such as sales, operating cash flow and earnings for reasons of corporate planning and risk management. Problem statement As economic integration and globalization have been increasing year by year, exchange rate movements have become very important source of risk for financial firms as well as non-financial firms. Also, the internationalization of capital markets has resulted in inflow of vast sums of funds between countries and in the cross listing of equities. This has therefore made investors and firms more interested in the volatility of exchange rate and its effect on stock price and stock market volatility. According to Yucel and Kurt (2003), floating exchange rate appreciation reduces the competitiveness of export markets; and has a negative effect on share prices as well as the domestic stock market. On the other hand, for import dominated country, it may have positive effect on the stock market by lowering input costs. Malaysia presents an example of an open economy which engages in international trade with several countries and hence susceptible to foreign exchange rate volatility. However, empirical evidence on the influence of foreign exchange market volatility on stock market is largely inconsistent. These have been in the contest of developed economies. Mishra (2004) found no theoretical consensus on the interaction between stock prices and exchange rate. However, Solnik (2000) argues that there is a negative correlation between stock market and local currency. The openness of a countrys economy is recognized as a cause of volatility of its market. Malaysia presents a classic example of an open economy which engages in international trade transaction. Moreover, with advert of globalization, developing economies are becoming more integrated into developed economies as the results of increasing flow of imports and exports. Malaysia is not an exception. A cursory examination of foreign exchange rate history in Malaysia shows some considerable level of volatility. Therefore, it would be interesting to explore the effect of its foreign exchange volatility o n cash flows as well as stock prices of its non-financial companies. Again, much work on the effect of the exchange rate volatility in the developing country like Malaysia has not been done. Thus, for that reason the study intended look at the effect of foreign exchange exposure on non-financial companies cash flows and stock prices in Malaysia. Research objectives Objective of the current research is to determine whether cash flows and stock prices of companies from consumer products industry are affected by exchange rate exposure. This research project attempts to assess the economic exposures of the firms chosen from the Bursa Malaysia Main market. The issues are important for investors as well as corporate risk management. Literature review It is also noticeable whether the firms cash flows are sensitive to exchange rate movements. Perhaps we should also point out the fact that Grambovas and McLeay (2006) are convinced that empirical analysis confirm that currency fluctuations may affect firm values, especially with consideration to the influence of foreign exchange rate movements on the firms cash flows and their accounting earnings, and on their stock prices. Martin and Mauer suggest that economic exposure, which typically has a longer-term time dimension, encompasses the competitive and indirect effects of exchange rate risk. Many academics such as Hodder (1982), Marston (2001) Pringle (1995), Shapiro (1975) and von Ungern-Sternberg von Weizsacker (1990) argue that unlike transaction exposure, economic exposure can affect even domestic firms. Economic exposure arises from changes in the sales prices and volumes, and the cost of inputs of the firm and its competitors as a result of exchange rate changes. Miller Reuer (1998) and Sundaram Black (1992) argued that geographically positioning production, sales, sourcing, and financing operations is effective for reducing economic exposure. The study by SÃ ¶hnke M. Bartram (2007) found that that several firms are significantly exposed to at least one of the foreign exchange rates, and significant exposures are more frequent at longer horizons. He also argues that the impact of exchange rate risk on stock prices and cash flows is similar and determined by a related set of economic factors. Moreover, Dominguez and Tesar (2006) found that exchange rate movements do matter for a significant fraction of firms, though which firms are affected and the direction of exposure depends on the specific exchange rate and varies over time, suggesting that firms dynamically adjust their behavior in response to exchange rate risk. Exposure is correlated with firm size, multinational status, foreign sales, international assets, and competitiveness and tr ade at the industry level. Martin and Mauer (2003) pointed out that cash flow effects are greater for long-term lags than for short-term lags in exchange rate movements. This result may occur because transaction exposure is easier to assess and hedge, whereas economic exposure is more difficult to recognize and hedge. While Bartram (2007) suggests that several firms are significantly exposed to at least one of the foreign exchange rates such as CAD, JPY and EUR, and significant exposures are more frequent at longer horizons. The percentage of firms for which stock price and earnings exposures are significantly different is relatively low, though it increases with time horizon. Overall, he is convinced that the impact of exchange rate risk on stock prices and cash flows is similar and determined by a related set of economic factors. Batram and Karolyi (2006) took a new look at the exposure puzzle by studying the potential impact of the introduction of the Euro on stock returns of 3,220 non-financial firms from 20 countries. Their findings suggest that the introduction of the Euro decreased foreign exchange rate exposure, but these changes are statistically and economically small. According to Tesar and Dominguez (2006), factors such as firm size, multinational status, foreign sales, international assets, and competitiveness and trade at the industry level may influence economic exposure of the companies. These factors may either increase the companies economic exposure or decrease. These factors influence on the companies economic exposure will depend on how significantly these factors are correlated with the companies cash flows and operations, and if there are significant correlation between them, we should also point out whether these significant correlations are positive or negative. Empirical analysis by Grambovas and McLeay (2006) confirms that exchange rate fluctuations will affect firm values, especially with regard to the influence of excha nge rate movements on the cash flows and accounting earnings of companies with international exposure, and on their stock prices. Griffin and Stulz (2001) found weak evidence of statistically significant exchange rate exposures, and the economic significance of the estimated exposures was low. A first main study of the foreign exchange exposure fact done by Jorion (1990) found a significant impact of foreign exchange rate risk on share prices for 5.2 percent of the analyzed 287 U.S. MNCs at the 5 percent level. In their study, Choi and Prasad (1995) found that 14.9 percent of the individual firms in the U.S. and 10 percent of the industry portfolios showed a significant exchange rate exposure at the 10 percent level, corroborating earlier findings. Comparable results were found outside the United States by He and Ng (1998). For instance only some multinational companies in Japan (26.3% and 53.8% for different time periods) showed a significant exchange rate exposure with regar d to a multilateral exchange rate index. Some studies look into the exposure of industry portfolios in several countries, there were found percentage yields of companies with significant exposure of 15% (United States), 4% (Japan) and 6% (United Kingdom) by Prasad and Rajan (1995), or 23% (United States), 21% (Canada) and 25% (Japan) by Bodnar and Gentry (1993) at the 5% level. Study by Bartram and Karolyi (2006) suggests that the FX rate exposure of non-financial firms is systematically linked to firm characteristics such as sales, the percentage of foreign sales in general and in Europe in particular, regional factors like geography, strength of currency and industry characteristics like competition, traded goods. Study examined by Allayannis and Ihrig (2001) speak about stock price exposure to international trade activities of U.S. industries, and Bodnar et al. (2002) mention the significance of pass-through for exposure. Moreover, Starks and Wei (2004) found that the scale of ex change rate exposure is linked to proxies for probabilities of financial distress, product uniqueness and growth opportunities. However, the evidence of corporate foreign exchange rate exposures on a cash flow basis is very thin and inadequate to individual case studies. Garner and Shapiro (1984) investigated the foreign exchange rate exposure of Vulcan Materials Company by regressing changes of its quarterly operating cash flows on changes in the exchange rate of USD against GBP, and showed only small and statistically irrelevant foreign exchange rate exposures. Moreover, Oxelheim and Wihlborg (1995) use quarterly changes of total cash flow, commercial cash flow and sales revenue as dependent variables in the exposure analysis of Volvo Cars. Results by Oxelheim and Wihlborg (1995) indicate that the financial situation of the company reduces exposures with regard to changes in the DEM/SEK exchange rate only to a modest degree. One more study by Bartram (2005) investigated the exp osure of a large nonfinancial company based on proprietary internal as well as external capital markets data. Analysis by Bartram (2005) illustrated that the irrelevance of foreign exchange rate exposures of wide-ranging performance measures such as total cash flow and/or share price can be explained by hedging at the company level.

Adolescent Bullying and School Shootings - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 4 Words: 1244 Downloads: 4 Date added: 2019/02/15 Category Society Essay Level High school Tags: Bullying Essay School Bullying Essay School Shooting Essay Did you like this example? Abstract School shootings are not only direct violence, but also a form of symbolic violence; their intention is to send a message to a broad audience. Victims from bullying suffered from what we call chronic stress and a feeling of absolute helplessness and depression. Without intervention they developed a sense that no one is going to help them manage this, and when you are in that position you have few options like redraw completely, commit suicide or try to kill somebody whose been bothering them. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Adolescent Bullying and School Shootings" essay for you Create order The chronic stress became so high and so internalized they possibly absolutely see no way out. Most mass shooters are male teens that are emotionally unstable and want to exact revenge on society for some harm that they have suffered (real or imaginary). Introduction Adolescents who committed school shootings mostly are severely bullied in school and felt very alienated and very angry and they had hit list of the kids who had bullied them. I personally do not think it is an excuse for victim of bullying to commit such act of violence but it makes me wonder more about the motives of these shooters. People who engage in these attacks took serious of actions as in selecting a particular weapon or practicing with weapon. They thought that they are desperate and they accept the idea that violence might be an accept-full way to solve their problem. Nursing in school need to be part of the team to recognize the bullied teen and intervene before there are serious life-threatening consequences. The perpetrators in these school violence incidents targeted other students who have called them names or rejected them; or they have retaliated for the perceived injustices related to discipline or academic assessments done to them. ‘‘bullying’’ is one of the most significant concerns among children today, and ultimately a predictor in school shootings. By my count, they have been 166 shootings in schools in the last three decades these cases are persistently viewed as Aberrations Each new incident provokes Surprise and shock. These mass shootings took place in predominately white, middle-class or upper class Suburbans what small towns. Expects tend to Fix blame on factors external to school, Severe mental illness, access to guns, or media violence, especially video games. While these issues shortly play a role in high incidence of such events, we need to ask you more fundamental question. What occurs in school themselves, the sites, after all of the shootings that causes so many students to become unhappy, anxious, depressed, motivated by rage? Methods Some of the shooters Who survived Who didn’t kill themselves or get killed in the Mayhem express these feelings explicitly. They are proud of themselves after the shootings. Most schools shootings perpetrators are male Most of those who committed the massacres, struggle for Rick no nation and status among their peers. The majority of them languished at the bottom of the social hierarchy. They tended not to be athletic, they we also described in the media are skinny, scrawny, Short, lanky. They were diseased for looking feminine or gay. They didn’t need to be academically oriented. Do you where do you only on successful with girls. Many of them were also significantly less wealthy then the popular teens and their schools. As a result of these perceived failures, They were mercilessly teased and abused. Leaving as they do within such a strict punitive social hierarchy, Boys are told in one way or another to prove their manhood And in some cases, to prove that they exist at all. Mini boys think that the most go to great lengths to differentiate themselves from perceived perceived as gay , Feminine, poor, intellectual, or weak. So they harass, bully, demean, Humiliate, and I generally try to crush this social value of anyone who doesn’t feet him. All in and effort to secure their own social standing by calling in another student gay. A boy demonstrates to others that he is successfully heterosexual, While a boy who beats up another student proves how powerful he is Compared with the injured party. These boys repeatedly choose to prove their masculinity overwhelming violence. Many of them targeted more popular kids who have harassed them In the girls who had rejected them. They believe their violent response, a powerful demonstration of masculine prowess, Would win them the recognition they desperately craved. Whether they were dead or alive, free or behind bars, one after another, the perpetrators spoke about their yearning for notoriety. They could no longer imagine Achieving recognition is there present reality, so they dreamed of receiving it in some form of afterlife obtained through silence and infamy. These youth turned suit any means necessary to get that recognition. Bullying is Detrimental to the mind of the individual being bullied it creates that fear in the minds which paralyzes them. Fear is the most settled and destructive of all human diseases. Fear kills dreams, fear kills hope, fear put people in the hospital. Fear can hold you back from doing something that you know within your yourself that you capable of doing but it will paralyze you and it’s seems like you are put in an hypnotic spell. Fear is false evidence appearing real. That is an illusion we create in our minds, it is a state of mind that can be changed. It makes you thinking this is all we can do, this is all we deserve. Let’s look at how we can begin to take some steps to restructure that fear to begin to expand our vision of ourselves to begin To increase our self-esteem. Self esteem is confidence and satisfaction from in one self. Look at your life right now, what have you done up to this point in time in your life? What ever you have produced is game out of you as the result of the kind of person you have become,Is the result of your choices, is a result of your consciousness. Now you have to ask yourself are you satisfied with what you have produced? Is this what you want? Would you like things to be better than this. Do you believe that you deserve better than this? Are you content this is it and you don’t have to do anything else, That you already resign yourself in. Are you allowing yourself to get off the hook like that? Or do you Believe somewhere in the back of your mind, or in your heart that there other great work for you to do, That there is something else that life has for you and that’s why you here. How do we handle this fear factor cause by bullying? How do we increased our self-esteem? We had to begin to fortify your self. How do we do that? I believe that we have to begin to consciously Monitor inner conversation and talking to yourself , Start building yourself up. Sometimes the only good things you will here about you is the things you say to you. I’m saying Learn to be your own booster, start encouraging yourself, Start saying I can do this. Stop beating yourself up It’s a natural inclination to put ourselves down, We are born negative I think. And a negative consciousness, because we live a negative word, around negative people and bullying factors which makes us think we don’t deserve a better life or it can’t happen for you.