Tuesday, July 7, 2009
elearning...
should the people involved be videoed? Who is at fault? What should not be done?
With regards to the bus incident and "peeling of prawns on the bus" incident, i agree with kaleb that if they had dared to do it in the public, they should accept the fact that there lies a chance that this would be uploaded. With the ease of recording technology and uploading, it would not be uncommon if people would want to record these videos and upload. What the videos have done is to highlight some of these unacceptable social behaviour, and these videos can help to bring to the rest of the public as to what are some of these acts. Therefore doing such actions in public, they have also given an unwritten consent that they are willing or do not mind doing such actions in the public, and they are opening up themselves for free comment and viewing. Although it might be argued that these actions seem to be in a corner, it does not change the fact that the bus is still a public place and it is susceptible to being observed by others.
I'm inclined to believe that those videod are at greater fault then those not. After all, being a public place, they would be susceptible to being seen by others. In my view, taking a video in this case is just making the incident more public, which means to say that this action is no longer private, and just that more people are viewing the same public action as if they were at the scene. This is not a breach of privacy. Unlike the incident of the teacher which is limited to the school, the other two are in open public places, and therefore it is their onus to keep their actions to themselves, rather than to do it openly and blame others for posting this video online. Rather, those that did the video-ing have a role to play, to a certain extent, in education. In the role of showing and opening up discussion within people to allow people to understand, criticise and offer suggestions. This is the role of the media, to allow others to know about whats happening at the ground to think about the way society is developing.
The point of focus, I believe, shouldn't be on if the video should be uploaded. In this day and age, it is hard to control these actions. Naturally the same could be said for those being video-ed, that if they do not mind being video-ed, they have the liberty to do so in the public, since they are fully aware and might even want to take this chance to show off their sexual prowess or culinary skills. However I believe that these videos could magnify the effect of shaming and awareness, to a point that they realise that the society is not accepting of these things, and that any continued argument would just shame themselves further. Men, in the end, have an ego to protect. What should be done is that there should be open discussion on these topics, to allow other people also to be conscious of these actions, and to understand that the world is watching them where ever they go, and hopefully will serve as a decentive for these actions, unless they are truly unafraid of being videoed and believe that the show of sexual promiscuity will cover up for the destroyed ego.
Hence I believe ultimately, it is onus of people to make sure that actions are kept decent, or at least the indecent ones are kept in the privacy of their homes. If they fail to do so, then its the role of the media to play up these and serve as a way of education to allow them to understand that society does not approve. Of course, thats assuming that society does not approve of these actions. If society does approve of such actions, then it is entirely different story, and these might even be hailed as heroes
Imagine: Woman hailed hero for peeling prawns on bus.
Subheading: Lauded for ability to peel prawns while on the move with one hand and unprecedented speed.
Zong Xian
Howled at 10:45 PM
