The Stanford Prison Experiment

Social psychology examines how the personality, attitudes, motivations and actions of individuals are influenced by social groups. Researchers in the field have always been interested in the effects that social and environmental elements have on individuals’ perceptions and behavior.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on The Stanford Prison Experiment specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More One of the most common research studies in social psychology is that conducted by Zimbardo, Haney, and Banks in the summer of 1971. This study is commonly referred to as the â€Å"Stanford Prison Experiment† or the Zimbardo experiment. The Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971 by Zimbardo proved that social context has a bigger impact on individual behavior than individual characteristics. The Stanford Prison Experiment involved a total of twenty-four male subjects who were selected to participate in the study from a sample of s eventy-five male volunteers. The participants were selected based on their psychological stability determined by a series of tests. Twelve of the participants were assigned to the role of prison guards while the remaining twelve were assigned to the role of prison inmates. The mock prison was at the basement of the psychology center of Stanford University. Guarantee was given to the prisoners that even though some of their fundamental human rights would be violated, they would not be physically abused. However, they were not informed of what to expect. The guards on the other hand were informed about administrative processes but no training for their role was offered to them. They were however prohibited from physically abusing the inmates (Brady and Logsdon 705). On the first day of the experiment, the prisoners were apprehended and donned in prison attire while the guards were donned in khaki uniforms and other attire that symbolized power and authority. The reason for this was to accurately simulate a real prison situation. What followed next was disturbing and something that the researchers did not expect. Within a span of one and a half days, the guards had taken full control over the prisoners and were aggressive towards them. In some instances, the guards physically abused the prisoners. In short, the guards undoubtedly enjoyed the exercise of power and often volunteered to extend their shifts. The Stanford Prison Experiment ended prematurely on the sixth day rather than the initial two weeks planned for it. This was much to the disappointment of the guards and elation of the prisoners. The researchers had to bring the experiment to a close because of the negative psychological effects it had on the prisoners. Indeed, several prisoners had to be sent home on the first and second day of the experiment because of severe psychological disturbances (Brady and Logsdon 706).Advertising Looking for essay on psychology? Let's see if we can help you! Get yo ur first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Despite the premature end of the experiment, what took place in those six days of the experiment was enough for the researchers to make a valuable conclusion. The researchers concluded that the degree to which average people quickly conform to roles assigned to them on the basis of differences in power supports the situational hypothesis. This is the hypothesis that social context has a bigger impact on individual behavior than individual characteristics. The participants had taken their roles so seriously that they failed to differentiate between their selves and their roles. The participants who had been assigned to the role of inmates had indeed become inmates while those who had been assigned to the role of guards had indeed become guards and acted so. There was no line between reality and role playing (Brady and Logsdon 706). Works Cited Brady, Neil, and Jeanne Logsdon. â€Å"Zimbardo’s ‘Stanford Prison Experimentâ⠂¬â„¢ and the relevance O.† Journal of Business Ethics 7.9 (1988): 703-710. This essay on The Stanford Prison Experiment was written and submitted by user Natalia Brennan to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

Reflection Essay The Span of Life Essay Example

Reflection Essay The Span of Life Essay Example Reflection Essay The Span of Life Paper Reflection Essay The Span of Life Paper Reading Reflection: â€Å"The Span of Life† Reading Reflection: â€Å"The Span of Life† Although only sixteen words long, this poem jumped off the page and into my head, heart, and soul. As I read â€Å"the old dog bark backwards without getting up† (Clugston, 2010, What literature contributes to our lives, para. 11) for the first time, I thought of the literal meaning of the sentence. It’s just an old dog on the floor barking back at something it is bothered by. Then it hits me after I read â€Å"I can remember when he was a pup† (Clugston, 2010, What literature contributes to our lives, para. 11). This is not just about an old dog on the floor. This situation will eventually happen to every single one of us. I then began to imagine myself as an old woman, looking back on my life and what I had made of it. Am I happy with what I have become? Could I have done it any differently? Did I make all the right choices in my life? At this point I can’t change anything, as I am on the way out of the life I have created for myself. I am now having feelings I can’t place words on. So, how does this work of literature cause me to go to such a place in my mind so vividly and powerfully? How do I account for the feelings that I am having? This paper will provide my reflections and insights into the poem â€Å"The Span of Life† by Robert Frost by describing why it caught my interest as the reader, and then evaluating the meaning of the poem using the reader-response approach to literary criticism. This work immediately captured my interest because of the powerful image that Frost creates of an old dog on the floor. I am a dog lover and I have always had them around. I know what an old dog looks like laying on the floor; tired, grey, and frail. Frost has â€Å"given us first a sound picture of the dog near the end of his life† (Wood, 2009, para. 4). With this image I am free to determine what that dog means to me as the reader. In addition, after reading the next line I am completely drawn in by the powerful symbolism that is used to represent the actual span of life that we all shall experience (Clugston, 2010). This is where all the emotions kick in. So, what aspects of this poem make me feel the way that I do about it? The following will describe that process. The reader-response approach to literary criticism focuses on making connections and reflecting on them. In ddition to making connections to a work of literature, the feelings that are felt must be accounted for. According to this approach, I must never solely depend on my feelings and opinions; they must be linked to the literary aspects within the work (Clugston, 2010). This approach offers endless interpretive possibilities by the reader and there is no r ight or wrong way to interpret a literary work (Reader response criticism, 1997). Clugston (2010) suggests that I use â€Å"connecting† questions to help develop a critical analysis of the poem. According to these questions, I should first consider what captured my imagination. As described above, it was simply the powerful imagery and symbolism. Next, I should consider if what I felt was an emotion, a curiosity, or an aspiration. With the particular poem I was overtaken first by curiosity of what this poem could mean, and then by emotion, especially when I sat back and thought about what Frost was trying to convey. Imagining the dog barking backwards I see myself looking into the past. He used that image of the old dog to evoke thoughts and emotions about the â€Å"inevitable life cycle that both the dog and the reader face† (Clugston, 2010, What literature contributes to our lives, para. 4). Now, it must be determined if the above mentioned involves a desire to escape the past or present. In this case, I want to escape both. I don’t want to deal with my death moving forward, and I am questioning what I have done in the past. So, what motivation or change did my connection with this piece of literature create in my thinking and my relationshi ps? â€Å"I can remember when he was a pup† had me thinking about my past and the life I have already lived. Then, I immediately begin thinking about my mortality. Have I lived enough and in a way that I would want to be remembered if I die tomorrow? Do the people that I love know that I do? Moving forward, how can I make my life better? This poem brought about so much thought for me. Now, what connections can I make between this work and others that I have read and do those connections reinforce things I know or add new insights? In this case it was more about adding new insights than connections. With those sixteen short words I was brought into a world that I really have never experienced from the written page. Experiencing the emotions from this work has a lot to do with my life at this time. It was easier for me to relate to death and dying more than I ever have. This poem added new insights to my life more than anything else as is evidenced by all of the above analysis. In conclusion, â€Å"The Span of Life† gripped me, held me close, and brought me to a place in my mind I have never experienced from the written page. This paper provided my reflections and insight into the poem by Robert Frost by describing what caught my interest, and then evaluating the meaning of the poem using the reader-response approach to literary criticism. I look forward to using the reader-response approach in future criticisms, as I highly value the thought process that it encourages. References Clugston, R. W. (2010). Journey into literature. San Diego, California: Bridgepoint Education, Inc. Reader response criticism. (1997). In the Bloomsbury Dictionary of English Literature. Retrieved from credoreference. com/entry/blit/reader_response_criticism Wood, K. W. (2009, September 30). Poetry analysis: The span of life, by Robert Frost. [Web log comment]. Retrieved from helium. com/items/1601769-sound-supporting- sense-in-frosts-the-span-of-life

Accenture Social Media Analysis

Accenture Social Media Analysis MKT 436 Ian Cartmill Zach Crawford Edwin Huang Tyler Whitsett Introduction Accenture PLC is one of the leading consulting firms in the country and has developed an extensive social media platform to expand its reach in the business world. Accenture currently has a network of social media across many platforms including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn. Through Facebook and Twitter, Accenture segments its markets by region, type of service, and career options by making a Facebook page or Twitter account exclusively for that market. With Accenture’s YouTube page, a wide variety of videos ranging from video blogs to educational content on company growth. Finally, through LinkedIn, Accenture profiles its different services as well as connects with professionals who would be looking for their services. In addition to the traditional social media sites, Accenture operates many different applications through Facebook, iTunes, Google Play as well as its own online publication, Outlook. After a description, an analysis will be given to measure the performance of Accenture’s social media’s efforts. Finally, recommendations will be given on how Accenture can improve their efforts to reach a wider audience. Social Media Description Accenture’s Facebook and Twitter presence is extremely large which is shown by the numerous pages on these sites. Currently, Accenture has over â€Å"40 different pages on Facebook and 30 different Twitter handles† (A1), each catering to a particular market. About half of these pages are targeted based on the region or country in order to provide information exactly aimed a country’s business environment. Within each of the country’s pages, discussions and interactions occur with customers and users through contests, interviews, philanthropic endeavors in the region done by Accenture, and information the company provides on different industries. Usually the country’s page will display resume opportunity linksin order to keep acquiring new talent for the company. If career opportunities are not listed on this page, an individual career page is listed to provide information on career opportunities at Accenture in that region. On Accenture’s main Facebook and Twitter pages, different examples of management, operations, marketing, and other strategies are presented so all customers can see the level of analysis they will receive from an Accenture team. Also, articles written by Accenture are shown on the pages that range from work events to in depth stories on industry trends constantly are posted weekly. Finally, the last sets of pages on Facebook and Twitter are used to provide customers with an in-depth look into the different services provided by Accenture. For example, the Sustainability Services Facebook page provides links to articles and case studies on sustainability in a business in order to reduce cost and create efficiencies (http://www. facebook. com/accenturesustainabilityservices). They also engage their customers and users through surveys, games and other actions that keep users coming back to their page. In addition to Accenture’s Facebook and Twitter pages, YouTube and LinkedIn provide a unique and different way to reach out to their customers. Through their YouTube account, Accenture is able to provide different types of new information to both current and potential new customers with its â€Å"251 videos† (A1). For example, a Capital Markets video blog is used to describe different topics related to capital markets and the process of managing the risks with them. In another set of videos, a video podcast shows different traits of a high performance business model that can be emulated by other companies. All content that is put up on the YouTube account is used to attract new customers to what Accenture does and provide existing clientele insights as to how Accenture’s strategies can better their companies. This is a more casual look at Accenture’s customer attraction actions. For a more formal approach to gaining new customers and staying connected with current clients, LinkedIn is utilized. With LinkedIn, Accenture can professionally show their â€Å"core competencies as well as present customer recommendations and feedback† (LinkedIn). They also demonstrate their corporate culture through employee reviews and insight. To go along with Facebook and Twitter, they also have a careers page to continue acquiring talent in every medium possible. Beyond the typical social media realms in which most companies are involved in, Accenture has also grown into new areas that differentiate themselves in the social media marketing. This is done through Accenture’s online journal, Outlook, and the development of apps to further their marketing efforts. Outlook provides a unique connection to existing and potential customers by giving articles that can be anything from industry specific trends or news to skill and service actions. This demonstrates the level of expertise Accenture can provide to new customers, and assist in providing additional offerings to their current customers. Finally, after all traditional online forms of social media are exhausted; Accenture also provides many of the same marketing sites in the form of mobile apps for the iTunes and Google Play markets. This gives customers the ability to see all content and information on the go as most business people are. These applications include a mobile version of Outlook and other service specific applications (Google Play). Social Media Analysis Although Accenture has tapped into the most popular social networks, they don’t utilize them to their full potential. Their main strength across the social networking platforms is the ability to reach current and potential customers, employees, future hires, students, and anyone who might be interested in what Accenture has to offer. An example is their applications through iTunes and Google play. On iTunes they â€Å"have 14 mobile apps and on Google Play they have 11 apps compared to Ernst amp; Young’s 6 apps on iTunes and 3 apps on Google Play† (A1). Some apps are duplicates; some are strictly for employees, while others are for the public. The apps range from a National Postal Forum to Financial Services to Lux in Arcana. Since it is available on iPhone and Android platform, they are targeting the most popular smartphone users. Another metric to consider how large their social network presence is their main Facebook page, Accenture has over â€Å"145,000 likes compared to E amp; Y with 15,000 likes† (A1). With these many options and a well-known presence, they are able to increase their brand awareness and position themselves as knowledge experts in that field. Another strength Accenture has with their social platforms is that they are continuously adding content to them. On their Twitter feed, they â€Å"tweet an average of 66 times a week along with additional links in the message compared to E amp; Y’s 20 tweets a week† (A1). On their Facebook , they post â€Å"39 times a week compared to E amp; Y’s 2 times a week† (A1). More tweets and posts, enables them the opportunity to be noticed more by the market. This is shown through how many Facebook users are talking about them. Accenture has over â€Å"2,000 users posting about them compared to E amp; Y’s 390 users talking about them† (A1). A weakness of their social networks is the lack of integration across the different platforms. An example is their YouTube and Twitter page. In their description, it only provides a link to their home page instead of including their Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, iTunes store, and Google Play. (About Accenture). After an analysis of their YouTube channel, we determined that they could include more in their descriptions by including a summary of the video, tags, and follow up information. They need to make it easier for users to dive further into Accenture if necessary. Another weakness of their social networking strategy is that it does not incorporate a form of a push/pull strategy. Their current push strategy is not creating an atmosphere of a two way interaction. On their pages, they do not engage or follow up with the users to keep them coming back. Although they ask questions in their tweets, they are not going out of their way to search for potential topics they could enlighten a user about. From comparing Accenture’s social media networks to Ernst and Young’s networks, they both use the same platforms but Accenture has a larger social media presence with more content. In Twitter, Accenture has over 62,000 followers with over 5500 tweets compared to E amp; Y’s 37,000 followers and 2,600 tweets. On LinkedIn, Accenture has over 600,000 followers with 179,000 employees on it compared to E amp; Y’s 364,000 followers and 114,000 employees on LinkedIn. Accenture has the most presence and content in every category except for the amount of YouTube videos they have. Accenture has 251 compared to E amp; Y’s 485. Managerial Recommendations The heart of a successful e-commerce strategy is the ability to attract and engage a potential customer by offering easy access to a variety of different information channels about your company. Although Accenture offers many different informational channels that explain who they are and what services they can offer to potential clients, these channels are not easily accessible. When doing a simple search of Accenture on Google, you initially see a link to Accenture’s website along with a few key words with vague descriptions. In order for Accenture to attract and gain new clients they need to have access points to all of their different social networks. These social media access points will allow Accenture to promote its marketing message to a larger business demographic who will feel more comfortable operating in one of these social media domains. Accenture also needs to do a better job at educating its customer base by explaining who Accenture is as a company and what kind of services they offer to potential clients. As it stands now customers who go on Accenture’s company website have to navigate through web page after web page to find a simple description on which the company is and what services they offer. Accenture’s homepage is full of key words and links to other parts of the company’s website. I would recommend that the include information on value added services that would differentiate itself for competitors. Accenture should elaborate on its many value added services that it has done in the past on projects that reduced cost, improved performance, innovative features, speed responsiveness and customization. These value added services will not only attract and sustain customers it will also help Accenture’s bottom line by causing customers to pay a higher premium for services rendered. Since most of the services that Accenture offers to its customers are intangible they need to do a better job at trying to make their services feel more tangible, instead of just offering detailed, long worded business plans and short, non-descriptive statements on services provided. Accenture could further demonstrate services that they provided to past customers through cost savings graphs, efficiency improvement charts, and customer testimonials. Also, to reduce customer uncertainty and address any questions a potential customer might have I would recommend that Accenture have a live web assistant messaging service on their home page. This service would allow the customers to speak in real time to a customer service representative. These simple tweaks to Accenture’s homepage will reduce some of the unknowns and risk that all customers undoubtedly face when searching for a new company to do business with. In order to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of B2B marketing Accenture should adopt a CRM system like its lead competitor Ernst amp; Young did to manage its client customer base. Ernst amp; Young adopted a CRM software called Aprimo to perform the following functions: targeted direct e-mails, ongoing lead management, inbound interactions via Web form submission, Webcast registration and follow-up, and project management (task assignment and follow-up) for their national and regional marketing teams (Shadick, 2012). Many of the components of the information within Ernst amp; Youngs Aprimo CRM system are shared with customer relationship departments within the firm. For example, opportunities are collected from events, tradeshows, sponsorships, webcast and direct communications, which are then distributed to the appropriate individuals for follow-up (Shadick, 2012). With the adoption of CRM systems like Aprimo, Accenture would have real-time access to client’s interest and inquires allowing them to tailor their response to new and existing client’s needs. Conclusion In Conclusion Accenture is a very dynamic B2B company that utilizes virtually all of the media outlets available to educate and attract new customers. Accenture’s B2B marketing campaign is unique in the fact that it leverages its current ongoing business initiatives with its own customer base through an online Journal called: Outlook. This journal boldly talks about what Accenture is doing now and in the future for its client base. This and many other creative marketing/informational channels that Accenture has created brings assurance and a sense of trust to customers who are uncertain with partaking in a service that really doesn’t produce a tangible outcome and cost thousands, if not millions, of dollars to perform. Works Cited Shadick, David (2011). Ernst amp; Young Better Manages B2B Marketing with Aprimo Marketing, Sun. 17 Nov. 2012. lt;http://www. information-management. com/issues/20030301/6410-1. htmlgt;. Services. Linkedin n. pag. LinkedIn. Web. 17 Nov 2012. lt;http://www. linkedin. com/company/accenture/products? trk=tabs_biz_productgt;. Apps by Accenture. Google play n. pag. Google play. Web. 17 Nov 2012. lt;https://play. google. com/store/apps/developer? id=Accentureamp;hl=engt;. Accenture. About Accenture n. pag. YouTube. Web. 17 Nov 2012. lt;https://www. youtube. com/user/Accenturegt;. Appendix A1 – Social Network Metrics

Brent Hayes Edwards's The Uses of Diaspora Essay

Brent Hayes Edwards's The Uses of Diaspora - Essay Example This research tells that Edwards has referred to W.E.B. Du Bois and Karl Marx to create a perspective for forming his treatise. Edwards summarizes the ways in which the concept of duality of Du Bois and idea of capitalism of Karl Marx can provide a useful model of African-American Studies that harmonizes African-centred cultural issues with the certain political and economic necessities confronting Blacks in different parts of the world. Moreover, similar to Du Bois, Edwards tries to engross the discipline in a critical historical foundation, whether it is political science, cultural, sociological, or literary-focused while taking into account the large-scale impacts of racial-capitalism. Edwards seized the opportunity to show the debated feature of the national focus in African-American Studies. He tried to substantiate that there remains a lot of diversity and disparity among scholars of African-American Studies who use the United States as their main focus. Edwards’s defini tion provides credibility to political and cultural relations between the Diaspora and Africa. For instance, understood on its own terms, the Haitian Revolution shows the different ways the Black people acted in response to their places in the world. The article by Edwards, in relation to this, claims that the failure of migrants to assimilate completely into the nation and culture of Haiti permanently marked how several Black people view themselves with respect to Haitians. The ideas of emigrants of being an ‘African’ were thwarted together with the movement, since in Haiti they not merely faced religious, environmental, and economic problems, but a strange racial atmosphere as well. A number of African Americans started to express, specifically, a multifaceted diasporan awareness which embraces both cultural diversities and racial commonalities between Black peoples in the United States. By the advent of the period of antebellum, African Americans certainly regarded t hemselves as part of an African Diaspora. Basically, the argument of Edwards opens an opportunity for the understanding of the connection between the Diaspora and Africa that is rooted in historical experiences, collective intellectual past, political relations, and cultural ties, without the one dominating the others. Furthermore, Edwards’s argument, which relies on ‘basic interrelationships’ and the notion of the ‘African world’, implies continuously developing interconnections between the Diaspora and Africa that transcend a stagnant customary Africa, or a focus on Africa that is entirely founded on the Black experience.

Macro Economic Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Macro Economic - Essay Example However, later a twin debt blow has been considered as one of the most prominent reasons behind the debt crisis. The twin blow came out of the banking crisis together with the previously mentioned extremely high sovereign debt. The European Central Bank (ECB) launched the single currency (euro) in 1999 along with the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), aiming to gain monetary efficiency. An Economic and Monetary Union offers a series of monetary efficiency gains in forms of accounting ease among the member states that in turn reduces opportunity cost of transforming one currency into another, development among member states would be at par owing to reduction of any possible economic shock (that are often regional in nature), member states under an Economic and Monetary Union following a common currency would also abstain from intra inflow and outflow of speculative capital, furthermore policy formation among member states would be coherent and coordinated in nature that will eventuall y usher better economic growth and development. While fiscal irresponsibility on the part of periphery countries has been considered by many analysts as the root of the ongoing crisis, this paper argues that the impact on capital flows within the euro-zone of financial deregulation and liberalization and of the adoption of the common currency was critical in exacerbating a growing competitiveness gap between core and periphery countries and explaining the evolution of the crisis. Debt crisis unfolds- credit failures The crisis in Europe began when financial markets lost confidence in the creditworthiness of PIIGS countries (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain) and interest rates on government bonds soared to astonishing levels that forced the governments of these countries to seek bailouts from the international community, including the European Community, the IMF and the European Central Bank (ECB), collectively known as Troika. This was the period of the great financial cri sis of 2007-08 which also affected the US economy. All began with the credit markets and spread to the other sectors of the economy owing to large scale defaulters of loans (ch 31). As determinants of growth, one can say that demand is important for supply or production to expand. The ongoing debt crisis began with defaults of mortgage loans the demand for which led to a rapid boom in the housing sector which led to the final illusion when defaulters began to rise (ch 25). It is often been opined that the utopia of a welfare state amidst the current era of globalization that fuels on competitiveness (both are diametrically opposite in nature) and populist policies like raising the wage of the public sector employees in turn cumulatively burdened the governments with high level of debt. This phenomenon is most evident among periphery countries and can only be reckoned as fiscal recklessness. It is evident from the above argument that fiscal disciplines on behalf of the periphery coun tries would restore Euro its previous status without any additional measures and to be precise further fiscal incentive. What lies beneath? – Expectations and mal-adjustment A deeper analysis of the dynamics underlying the current Euro crisis exhibits that financial deregulation and liberalization was a major cause of the crisis in periphery countries in the euro-zone. Driving up expectations owing to a sudden boom can

Wittgensteins Dilemma :: Philosophy Science Language Papers

Wittgenstein's Dilemma Either language can be defined or it can be investigated empirically. If language is defined then this will be mere tautology. If language is investigated empirically then this will lead to a substantial yet contingent truth. The cure for this dilemma for Wittgenstein in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus was to submit the doctrine that the structure of language cannot be said but only shown. This doctrine is vague and misconceived. In this essay, I will show that it is vague and misconceived and, consequently, why it does not cure his dilemma. Wittgenstein stated in the preface of his book that he had solved the problems of philosophy. That these problems had been formulated by the misuse of the logic of our language by philosophers. What philosophers had been saying could simply not be said. Their philosophy was beyond the scope of what could be said and was therefore nonsense. By plotting the limits of language, Wittgenstein expected to be able to deal with the problems of philosophy finally. Outside the limits of what can be said lies nonsense, so any theory of language must occur within these limits. Wittgenstein thought that the nature of language could tell us what can and cannot be done with it. He believed this because he deduced that language had its own limits fixed within its structure. So, in his theory of language, he revealed the structure of language to entail these limits of language which were also necessary truths. However, this meant that they would also be empty tautologies! Wittgenstein believed that language disguises thought and therefore the nature of propositions would reveal the nature of the language that represents it. So, Wittgenstein based his theory of language on the nature of propositions. Within the nature of propositions, Wittgenstein found a satisfactory account of logical necessity. This lead to the fact that the limits of language were logically necessary. In this essay, I shall give an account of Wittgenstein's theory of propositions and show that his elementary propositions are in fact divisible. I will outline his 'picture theory' and show that the consequential 'doctrine of showing' is vague and misconceived. I shall submit my own theory of the tautology as a possible cure for the above dilemma. Numbers appearing after quotes refer to the numbered passages in the Tractatus. To begin, then, some detail of Wittgenstein's theory of propositions is needed in order to see how the important 'atomic' propositions idea came about.

Why L.A. Used as Setting for Most Disaster Movies.

HENOS WOLDE Instructor: STARR GOODE English 1 Essay 3 10/29/2012 Why L. A. used as setting for most disaster movies. Through decades of disaster films, Los Angeles has been targeted by aliens, toppled by temblors, sunken by tsunamis, leveled by lava, and a rogue tornado once took out the Hollywood sign. Even though in real life los angels is not such a disastrous it nonetheless faces constant destruction in movies, on television, and in books; in the collective imagination, the city burns and burns.Los angels is used as a setting for most disastrous movies because the city is home to Hollywood and the movie business, so the artists who write about, direct and execute mass destruction in Los Angeles are often intimately familiar with the territory and find it convenient to destroy los angels in their films. Los Angeles is a popular disaster movie locale because it is home of the entertainment capital of the world Hollywood, its famous landmarks, and its geography. Los Angeles is home to the entertainment capital of the world Hollywood, which explains why L. A. is often used as a setting for most disaster movies.To destroy a big city in movies takes a lot of time and work. It would make it even harder to travel far away to shoot these movies. To make the destruction look realistic, Hollywood movie makers have to work extra hard and film non stop making sure they get every little detail right. It would make it very challenging to film these movies far away from the studio. For these reason Hollywood apparently wants to destroy all of Los Angeles. For example, the city is going down in flames in DEMOLITION MAN, turned into an island in ESCAPE FROM L. A. , and obliterated in THE BIG ONE: THE GREAT LOS ANGELES EARTHQUAKE.Perhaps Hollywood has no particular malice toward Los Angeles but simply destroys it cinematically because â€Å"it’s there,† at hand, nearby, easy to drive to and blow up, burn down, and shake apart while the cameras roll. With these d isaster movies Hollywood has perfected the cinema of conspicuous destruction, certainly a defining aspect of American movie technology. Los Angeles is also a city filled with internationally recognized landmarks. The Hollywood sign, the Capitol Records building, City Hall and the skyscrapers of down town makes the movies convenient for cinematic shorthand.Almost everybody recognizes these landmarks and when they see it being destroyed in movies, it allows the scale of the disaster to strike the audience greatly. By far, L. A. ‘s biggest cinematic target is the famous nine-letter landmark perched in the Hollywood hills. When people see the Hollywood sign being destroyed by natural disaster or alien attack, the idea behind it is to exaggerates the power of the destruction and to shock viewers with a realistic image of these familiar monument’s falling apart. Apart from its landmarks, L. A. s a popular disaster-movie locale because of its geography. Sitting in a seismic zo ne on the western edge of the continent, it is surrounded by beaches, mountains and deserts. In real life, the city is subject to floods, fires, earthquakes and big waves, so seeing freeways collapse or Santa Monica swallowed up by the sea isn't such a stretch. Hollywood takes great advantage of these landmarks to destroy Los Angeles. Some People also love watching Los Angeles get destroyed because they believe It's nice to mess up the great weather and see it being destroyed by natural disasters.But regardless of the on screen devastation, Fire, earthquakes, floods, volcanos, and a few alien invasions have destroyed the City of Los Angeles. Even though 1000's of disastrous movies have been made in the City, these movies have made the City a Famous landmark. Ultimately, heaving destruction on Los Angeles also shows Hollywood's sense of humor and optimism. It's an odd kind of Western optimism where Los Angeles always seems to start over again, like a phoenix rising from its own destr uction.Los angeles also makes it easier for Hollywood actors to destroy it because of its geography and world wide recognized landmarks. L. A. is good at playing itself in film. It's a familiar face and it is always expected to get blown up and somehow miraculously reappear in the next summer blockbuster. Interestingly, there are always a few survivors in these films, along with a message of hope. Even thought Los Angeles is used as a setting of disaster in most of its movies, there's always hope for change and resurrection as well.