Assignment 5-1

In today’s society we hear of tragedy on a daily basis, but news of last week’s catastrophic earthquake in Japan is particularly shocking. For any country to experience and overcome an event like this is mind boggling. While I am sympathetic for the citizens of Japan, I feel that the media may be misusing their outlets to capitalize on other people’s misfortune in some cases. I have been surprised to see that all media outlets are covering this. One of my favorite technology websites, Gizmodo.com, has been running a chronological timeline of the aftermath. I believe in separation of media news. I feel that if I want to find out about technology news, I should go to Gizmodo.com, and if I want to hear about world events, I should go to Cnn.com or Foxnews.com. This may sound callous, but I feel that in today’s culture we have a tendency to take advantage of other people’s suffering. Sometimes websites (not necessarily Gizmodo.com in particular) mention a popular culture topic in order to gain more hits by a search engine (Google.com, Yahoo.com, etc). I have been misled to websites in the past that are linked to on a search engine, but in actuality have no relevance to what I’m looking for. Some websites may have been set up this way in order to lure people to download viruses or spyware.

If Gizmodo.com’s motives are sincere, though, I applaud them for trying to bring attention to the far-reaching implications of this calamity. It might not be apparent at first thought, but natural disasters like this can impact the global economy. For example, major technological companies like Toshiba and Samsung, which supply most of the TV’s in the United States, are at a standstill right now due to extensive damage to their factories. Time will only tell what this will do to the television market. Supply will not be able to meet demand if these plants are out of service for an extensive period of time, resulting in skyrocketing prices for the consumer. Elevated prices could mean less demand, causing less income for Japan to use to rebuild.

Reference:

Gizmodo, the Gadget Guide. (n.d.). Gizmodo, the Gadget Guide. Retrieved March 20, 2011, from http://gizmodo.com/#!5780998/the-definitive-japan-crisis-timeline