SMOKING!

A very good evening to all my fellow readers.  How are you guys doing today? All good I hope. Well, today has been a good day for me due to a number of reasons and one of the main reason is that I managed to visit an orphanage with my tutorial group for English today. Seeing those kids living in the home has made me realize that I  have had a pretty smooth sailing life so far and it also taught me to never take things for granted. I would like to take this time to say thank you to my group, group 2 and Miss Mary, our English lecture for giving us the opportunity to visit the orphanage for our English Project due come this December. I am not here today to talk about my experience about my visit to the orphanage today or how good my day was but I’m here to discuss about the cultivation theory that I have learnt in my Media Appreciation class that was lectured so well by our lecturer, Mr. Hardip. Sir, if you are reading this again, I’m not trying to ask for more marks okay!. HAHA.

Let me tell you a brief history on how the cultivation theory came about as one of the mass communication theories. “ Cultivation theory ( aka cultivation hypothesis, cultivation analysis) was a theory composed originally by G. Gerbner and later expanded upon by Gerber & Gross”. ( Living with television : The violence profile, Journal of Communication, 1976, p.26 and 72.). “ Cultivation theory states that high frequency viewers of television are more susceptible to media messages and belief that they are real and valid”. ( Gavin Davie, 2011).  Based on my own understanding about the Cultivation theory, it simply means how media advertisements would affect it’s viewers and how it might or would make an impact on their lives. Let’s take for example this advertisement which is very common.

                                   

                                               

Yes, the very common smoking advertisement. Let me ask you this question, do you smoke?. Do you like smoking?. Do you ever think of the consequences of smoking? Do you think smoking harms the people around you?. The fact is you do know all the answers to the question above but you do not really take any importance to it or whatsoever. Let me tell you a short story based on my life and how smoking affected me. To tell you the truth, I was once a smoker. I used to smoke on a regular basis at the time and I was also very active in sports where I play football and rugby for my school and my past college, Taylors College last semester. You might think that the reason why I got into the habit of smoking was due to the fact that it may seem “ cool” to have a cigarette in my mouth or just because my friends are smoking that is why I cultivated this habit.

                                               

                                    

 If you are thinking so, you are wrong. I started smoking due to several reasons which I would like to keep it personal if you guys don’t mind. Whenever I play football or rugby which involves a lot of running, I would find myself out of breath most of the time. My stamina would basically deteriorate very fast. Not only that, I was having breathing difficulties after time and I was getting my sinus regularly. I knew that I had to stop but I just did not know how. One of the ways that I have tried doing is by chewing nicotine gum which has helped me in a way. What I realize is that whatever method you use to quit smoking such as chewing nicotine gum or putting that nicotine patch on your arm, at the end of the day it is all you. I have managed to quit smoking not too long ago with support from friends and family and because I wanted to as I found a reason to motivate me to stop.

Now getting back to the topic, recently there have been a lot of advertisements about smoking to encourage the public to stop. This advertisements are done by our Malaysian government to aware the public how bad smoking can be to one’s health. Not only that, researched has showed that when a smoker smokes with people around them who do not smoke, the people around the smoker would be affected and this is called second hand smoking. The second hand smoker inhales whatever harmful chemicals in that single puff of cigarette into their immune system which will eventually damage it if inhaled too much

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Adding to that, our government has also organized campaigns such as the “Tak Nak” campaign to encourage the public as well as to aware the public to stop smoking! This campaign has been going on for years now and I strongly think it has reduced the amount of smokers in the country.

                  

Let’s take for example an advertisement relating to smoking. Back in the days when the media was still allowed to promote cigarette products on the television and radio, it actually influenced smokers to buy their product brand as well as non smokers to cultivate smoking. If cigarette companies like Dunhill or Marlboro would use that same advertisement to discourage smoking, chances are that there would be a small amount of the public that only smokes compared to our generation today where people start picking up the habit of smoking as young as 13 years of age.

To conclude this post, I would to tell my fellow readers to stop smoking now and always think about your health and the people around you that you care about. What if, What if someone had cancer and lost their life due to your actions. So the next time you want to light up a cigarette or take up smoking, THINK AGAIN!