Second essay 2

Writing 1122

Naitong Li

Feb 27, 2012                                         

Multiple News Times

During recent ten years, people create out many amazing things. Among them, a series of production of one company is outstanding.   Since 2002, after a big change and breakthrough, the productions of this company become popular around the world. Their simple but beautiful designs make people fall in love with them easily. Different from other similar products, they use Monotone colors and an almost unchanged design to track many people’s eyes successfully. Fashion people look them like a label of avant-grade. They are a sign of success in some countries. In some degree, they represent wealth and social status, and aesthetic force.    As the hottest products in the world, they have fans in every country. People are keen on speculating of its next generation products, and waiting for them.  Guessing the new functions of the products becomes a game around the world.  So every time a new kind of products appears on the market, it will appeal many people to wait before the door so that they can buy them at the first time. They sales very well even they are more expensive than other similar products. They use just a few years to occupy the most part of the market in this area, and become a legend in the commercial world.  Now, it is very easy to guess what the products are, yes, they are the products of “i” series: Ipod, Itouch, Iphone Ipad and Imac.

Because they are so popular in the world, there is lots of news of them every day. Almost every piece of the related news will become the headlines on that day. The New York Times even has the special topics for both the Apple incorporated company and their former CEO, Jobs Steve.  Many people write on their blogs to analysis it from different angles. If we follow this news for a period of time, we will find out a strange phenomenon. We will discover that even we know there is only one company called Apple in the world, but after we read the newspaper, watch TV, read magazines, and search for the Internet to follow its news, we may confused by the contents and think there may be a lot of Apple companies in the world. Each one has different characters. 

Recently, a report on New York Times attracted much attention; it was called “In China, Human Costs Are Built into an Ipad.” The main purpose of this report is to show the horrible work condition and low salary for the Chinese labors who work in the Apple’s suppliers, Foxconn. It writes the work situation in China, and the relationship between Apple Company and its suppliers. Many people read the terrible work conditions and Apple’s ineffective protection policy in these factories from this article. A lot of people start to blame Apple for that they have no human rights, and very mercenary. It becomes a new challenge for the Apple’s model of industrial.  But when we look back, we can think of that, in our mind, Apple often represents the world’s most advanced model of industrial. It is one of the most commercial cases in the world, and many people admire Steven Job’s individual talent. So it seems like there are two Apples companies in the world, one represents cold-blooded, ruthless, mercenary, and irresponsible to the whole society; the other one represents smart, creative, and passion. Which one is the real Apple? Who we should believe? And what’s make them such different?

At the beginning, we may feel confused by these questions, and can’t answer them. Actually, if we pay attention to the people we get this really different information from, the questions will be very easy to answer. In addition, there are many people really worship the Apple company or adore Steven Jobs. Most of them choose the positive angle to write Apple. So there are many reports and blogs on the internet sending the information for us: Apple is the best Company recently; people should learn from it.  Meanwhile, just as a traditional Chinese idiom describes: big trees attract winds, which means people prefer to find faults on a successful or famous people than on a common person. This kind news often can attract more attention than the traditional glorification. As a result, there also many people who are more willing to report the bad side of this company than simple praise it. These two different angles to record Apple have coexisted for a long time in the media. For example, we all know Apple’s success on commercial part not only owing to the beautiful design, but also because of the perfect supporting software. According to a report on the Eweek on the internet, “Apple App Store Passes 25 Billion Downloads” which sending out the message that: Apple Apps are very popular and successful and their managers are very proud of it. Much similar news can be found on the internet like this, such as a report on the internet “Apple's market value reaches $500 billion mark” shows the Apple company value is the greatest in the world which directly demonstrates its success. From these reports, we get an impression of apple that it is a leading company in the world and many people love it. This impression will let the readers become interested it and want to try the Apps, after all, who want to reject such perfect products in the world?  On the other hand, also describe Apple Apps, many people use other words to determine it, such as addictive and wasting time and money. For example, sina, one of the biggest Chinese web in the world, publish a piece of fresh news that after the winter holiday, many children go to hospital to exam their eyes, because their vision decreases by playing ipad too long. Before that, I have also read a report on the New York Times writes that a child in America plays the games on iphone which costs their parents nearly ten thousand dollars. And their parents even don’t know that because their credit card binds with the Apple account. These news writes Apple like a drug, which can make you happy, but also let you addict into it and unable to extricate yourself from it. It becomes a dangerous good under their pens. After reading these reports, most people start to think serious that should they buy an Apple product? We can clearly see now, the fact is same that Apple Apps are very successful, many people love them, buy them and addict to them. But just become the reports choose different angle and with different motion to write it, it can give readers total different feelings and cause a total different result.

Next, let us focus on the Apple’s industrial model. A famous professor Zhigang Yuan who taught Fudan university in China write a blogs to analyze the advantages of Apple’s industrial model. He writes that Apple Company has the word most developed production model, and it represents the biggest trend of the world economic pattern: economic integration. It choose America as its new technologies research and development place so that they can take advantages of the advanced scientific and technical personnel there, and it is more helpful for them to protect the property rights for the new technologies. Meanwhile, they choose developing countries, such China and India, who has rich human resources and cheap labor to assemble the products in order to keep the cost low and get more net profits.  He writes it so that people can learn from this commercial case so that they can operate their company better. Of course, reading his blog can make you worship this company and admire the way how Apple’s manger to run their company.  Meanwhile, questions on the model of Apple’s industry have never stopped. Most of them aggregate at the bad work condition for the workers who work in their suppliers’ factories in China. They think Apple’s profit is built on other’s blood. Many people report, write blogs, and make videos to show the problem.  The videos made by ABC called “An Exclusive Inside look” and “The truth before Apple ipad behind Foxconn”  made by Chinese media shows the bad work condition in Foxconn; they are display on YouTube.  These videos show how different the fact is from what Steve Job describe the work situation in their suppliers’ factories in an interview (the video of the interview also display on YouTube). They show that it is true that the factories has restaurants and hospitals, but that just because the workers here are living in the factories, these infrastructures can let them waste less time on those things. As for the swimming pools and movie theaters, they are more like decorations, because the workers are too tired to use them after work. What’s worse, the regular rest time is very short, and nearly all people take rest at a same time, so it is even hard to walk outside the factory.  And the lunch time is only one hour, which is very short to eat in a healthy rate. Moreover, the workers usually need to work seven days a week without additional salary, and they employee many minors.  Besides, the opponents use a piece news to show the security situation in Foxconn, that is two years ago, 137 workers at an Apple supplier in eastern China were injured after they were ordered to use a poisonous chemical to clean iPhone screens. Within seven months last year, two explosions at iPad factories, including in Chengdu, killed four people and injured 77.  There are also many blogs and article wrote on the Internet to blame Apple Company, such as “Apple’s Dirty Money” written by Jay Youngdahl and “Rotten apples” written Jack Random.

After looking these videos and look blogs, you may think the Apple Company is really inhumanly, and feel comfortable when you are using Apple products.

            The most interesting thing is that most American media choose one view point between should or not should blame Apple seriously to do the reports. But in China, people’s angles are more multiple.  They blame the government policy for this kind factory. They are considering the whole work condition in China, the average salary, and the work security issues. Many people write to call Chinese company built their own brand and develop new technologies so that China can get of the dilemma forever. Their opinions are shown by the article “Chinese Readers on the ‘iEconomy’” on the New York Times.

            From this example, we can clearly feel that how differences a same fact can be reported by different people from different angles. Because News is service for the people, so different people can see different things from one event and write in totally different points, as a result, they send really different information and feelings to the public. So if you want, you can create two totally different Apple companies at the same time. This situation is very common in our daily life.

            There is a fable in China called blind people touch an elephant. It tells a story that let four people who never see elephant to touch an elephant and describe it, but they can’t see it. Because each one just touches a part of the elephant, after they do that, they get different conclusions. The one who touches the elephant’s ears thinks an elephant looks like a fan, the one who touches the leg think it likes a pillars, the one who touches the body think it likes a wall, and the last one, who touches the tail, think it likes a cord. So no one get the real answer. I think this story can greatly describe the situation of our news bulletin reports. If one chooses one part to describe the whole event, it must be not very accurate and contain his own speculation. It will mislead the readers a lot. But sometimes they must choose one point to report for some reasons. Even people want to report an even in a total impersonality way and show the real facts, it is still very hard, because every have different experience and thoughts.

            So in this multiple news time, as a reader we should pay attention to what we read, and think issues in a dialectical way. Just in this way, we can figure out what the real world is, and treat the world in a right way.