A subliminal message is a secret message embedded in another medium, designed to pass below the normal limits of the human minds perception. These messages are unrecognizable by the conscious mind, but in certain situations can affect the subconscious mind and can negatively or positively influence subsequent thoughts, behaviors, and beliefs. This is why subliminal messages in a way is a form of communication but in a discrete way, which somehow can affect our minds subconsciously.Subliminal message is a message usually hidden in audio or picture. It is not detectable easily but these messages basically influences our sub conscious mind. Most of these subliminal pictures has hidden sexual elements in it in order to implement it to those who views them. Some researches says that the effect of subliminal messages is rather insignificant and ineffective while others believe that they might cause some harm or confusion.Subliminal messages are commonly used in pictures. Subliminal messages hidden in pictures are part normally used as part of advertising campaigns with sellers believing that subliminal messages hidden in pictures with increase their product sell.

When a person is shown a subliminal message behind a picture, most people won’t notice it but somehow it affects our subconscious mind in a way where we wont realize it. Some also believes that subliminal messages in pictures can also have a positive effect. Most subliminal messages were often used in advertisements . For example, Wilson Bryan Key ( professor at the University of Western Ontario) found that in the Johnny Walker Scotch ads the ice cubes had images of screaming faces, skulls, and other horrific images. Other products in which subliminal messages have been used are beer products like Labatt's, tobacco products, alcohol products, food products, pharmaceutical products and sports equipment and even in drinks such as coke.

Do subliminal messages in pictures and advertisements exist? There has been no proof as yet that subliminal messages in pictures influences ones action compared to others. Many individuals have found that beneficial subliminal messages hidden in videos and movies have helped them to quit smoking, lose weight and conquer other bad habits. Hopefully, more scientific studies will be done and we can have a conclusive answer. Thus, subliminal messages in pictures do affect the mind unconsciously and it will influence our minds,beliefs and thoughts.

posted by: ahmad bashar

The need to Communicate.

Communication in the Oxford Dictionary is defined as the activity or process of expressing ideas and feelings or of giving people information. It is important that humans need to communicate with one another as "no man is an island".

Right from Day One, a mother will try all means to communicate with her new-born baby and you can see the mother beaming with joy if the infant can just respond with one simple syllable word - MA.

People who are deaf and dumb still communicate with one another by using the sign language which is non-verbal.

A person with good communication skills tend to be more popular than someone who's quiet, passive and introvert. Hence, if you can communicate well you tend to be more expressive. Here Interpersonal Communication come into the picture, in order to have a relationship with any person, you need interaction. As we do so, we learn and reveal about others and self. This is made possible only with a two-way communication between the speaker and listener and vice versa.

A relationship suffer from "communication break-down" if there's only participation from one party who's willing to communicate and the other party who choose to remain silent.

We can conclude that communication is vital and essential in our everyday life. Thank you :)

By Julien Lim Zhen-Wei

Message Overload

Message overload, according to what our lecturer Mr. Murali said was too much of information given by the speaker in one time and causes the receiver couldn’t fully receive the messages the speaker trying to sent. This happens a lot in our life, am I right? After having that lecture I kept thinking about the “message overload”. Actually how we can really know is that a message overload or just the receiver is not concentrate enough.

There is an example which I would like to state out which happens in my daily life. It would be in the classroom. Everyday, as a student, I have to attend several classes, listening lecturers talking and talking. Sometimes I do feel that keep on receiving information from the lecturer really burdens. Although lecturer will keep asking do the students understand, but students have to keep listening and on the other hand keep writing down the important details. It is actually no time for me to interpret all the information that received at that moment. For me it consider as a message overload. But of course I will admit that there are sometimes I will lack of concentration and start day dreaming.

There were once when I was in secondary school. I can still remember that that day I was asked to tell my class some important messages by my teacher, asking them to do some stuff on the other day. Because of I was in a rush, I spoke quite quick but with a lot of information and also all the words are hardly to be listen, which was told by my friends on the next day. I would consider that as a message overload also.

Thus, I think it is important to learn how to communicate , giving the messages in a correct way, in order to prevent the message overload to happen again.

this is an example of the person who can send a lot of message in a short period but not in the way of message overload.>>>>>

composed by Leong Shong Hon

The Tales of Secrets and Cigarettes.

My dad once asked me if I have 'cigarettes' and I understood as do I have any secrets. My obvious answer was yes i do keep secrets. Bam!!! Till date, I'll never forget that slap which was planted on my rosy cheeks. Ambiguity or ambiguous message ; words with different meanings. Ever said ' I miss you' to a friend and got the message wrongly interpreted or sent an emoticon which was understood wrongly. I'm sure many of you have experienced this. There are three main ambiguity known :

1. Referential Ambiguity = When it is unclear what a referring expression is referring to. For example, Alice hit Jess and she bled. Who bled? Alice or Jess! This is referential ambiguity.
2. Syntactic Abiguity = When the grammatical structure of the sentence has different meanings. For example : We shall be discussing violence on school. This could be interpreted as discussing the topic violence at a school or discussing violence that happens at school.

Therefore it is important that ambiguity is avoided. One possible way is to ensure that your message is received fully and accurately. One fine day , after a late night out imagine telling your dad that you drank. After receiving that smack, do tell him that all you rank was coke. I suppose this is message overload for you guys so till the next time adios , sayonara and goodbye.













Posted by : Milan

Different Languages that Communicate

Although I had a hectic weekdays,I did enjoyed my weekend by watching television. I watched a Tamil movie named "Abiyum Naanum".This movie revolves around a father's love towards his one and only daughter.He would do anything for his daughter in order to make her happy.The father indeed a very over protective father.

Eventually,after the daughter studied and graduated, it is the time for her to get married.She fell in love with a guy when she studied in New Delhi.The guy that she fell in love was a Punjabi. She has decided to marry him and told about this to her father.But,as all father, her father also disagree with this marriage. Although, he did not agree at first, he did agree finally.

The thing that I would like to tell about is how the daughter's family especially the father communicate with the future in law's family which are Punjabis. The father initially hated them, because he thinks that the Punjab people will separate him from his daughter,but he soon realised that they are good person.

The way that the father's daughter communicate with the Punjab people is very hilarious.The father do not understand the punjabi language.So, it is very hard for him to adapt and communicate with them.

Lastly, I would like to say that two different type of languages can indeed unite these two families to communicate well. This movie shows how languages can communicate people.

Composed by Sathia Preeya Murugaiyan

Optimism!

How can Optimism be learned? There are many ways where human being can learn this positive psychology to improve their development in life and growth. Optimism goes against depression. When the feeling of positive -ness is there, we could learn to be more relaxed and not feel as if we are under a lot of pressure. Optimism could also prevent any disease which is connected to depression. It will improve one’s health condition after practicing this value in them. Through this value, we can bring out our own talent which is hidden and the achievement will make us proud one day. Getting enough of motivation is another way to learn optimism. Some encouragements to someone could create optimism among them.

Mothers who are closest to a child could contribute this positive psychology. Mother’s explanatory style gives either optimistic or pessimistic effect. Example, if a mother is not happy about the dress code her daughter is wearing. She could nicely inform her that she looks good but if she wears the other dress she will look great. This way she won’t feel too fat or too thin and her confidence will still be with her.

Another way to learn optimism is from adult criticism. Adult in a sense that parents and teachers behavior towards children. Example, teachers in conversation with the female students: You are not good in math or maybe you do not have confidence at all. Same goes to the male students, you did not get good results because you were not paying attention and so on. All this sounds more like discouragement, it should be more encouragement in their word like, you should practice more to achieve good marks in your math or even when you were not listening you got this marks, if you start paying attention properly than maybe you could get better grades.

Posted by: Milan

Computer-Mediated Communication

Today I would like to write according to the title Computer-Mediated Communication. Computer-Mediated Communication which also known as the (CMC) is one of the way of people use for communication nowadays. They are use with the help of technology gadgets such as hand phones and computers. The examples of the CMC are MSN, facebook, Friendster, Email, 3G and so on. These programs are frequently use by human being to communicate almost everyday. The more advanced the gadgets are, the more frequent people use them to communicate.

Why do people prefer using CMC instead of using the old way for communication which is the face to face communication? There are actually some reasons. The reasons included it is easy to use, it is cheap, it is more convenient, it is more faster, you can speak to anyone at anytime and anywhere you want. I’m one of the examples who is using Computer-Mediated Communication everyday. The very good example would be my hand phone. Everyday I will use my hand phone to text messages to my friends asking them out when have break time, telling my family what time I will finish my class and so on. Other than that, I will also log in to my facebook and also MSN messenger in order to keep in touch with my old friends and also making new friends. For me, as a student with no income, the largest reason will be the cost, using all this CMC will be much cheaper. The second reason will mostly because when there is something which is hard to be tell face to face or its quite embarrassing when telling to others face to face, the CMC will be the best solution for this problem.

But there are also the disadvantages about using CMC .I had faced problems when using CMC too although it is very convenient to use. Example of the disadvantage will be the emotion problem. Just like a few days ago, I accidentally said something not good to my friend while we were texting each other using short messages service. My friend replied me with the word ‘grr…’. At that moment I can’t even know was she really angry or she was just playing with me. This is because I couldn’t look at her face expressions. I couldn’t interpret that was she really angry or just joking with me. This reminds me that when using CMC, we need to use words and sentences very carefully and beware of what we are talking. Because of cant interpreting others emotions and expressions, the meaning of our original information would be misunderstand by the people who we are trying to send out the information to, which we call the ambiguous in the principles of communication.

Lastly, I want to say that we must really beware when using the CMC. It is convenient but also could lead us to some misunderstanding.

Composed by Leong Shong Hon