Corporate Social Responsibility

I just saw a re-cap of yesterday's broadcasted news on TV and majority was reporting on the Deadly Cyclone that hitted Mynamar Yangon and the Cruelty Earthquake that shook China Sichuan so suddenly and badly that hundreds of thousands of people are dying and the dead number will still be increasing. And it really make my heart ache whenever I saw more people died and children left homeless and become orphan over one night, who they are just like ordinary people like you and me.

Yangon, Myanmar - Deadly Cyclone that caused more than thousand deads

It seems to me that these 2 heartbreaking news is a wake-up call from Mother Earth to urge everyone in this world to stop fighting, stop all the terrorist "shit" (pardon me) & stop talking about individual religion, politic & selfish benefits and just get united as one world and help out those who are desperately in priority need NOW!

Sichuan, China - epicenter for recent huge Earthquake

When my aching heart is just pounding stronger for these needy suffers, then my curiousity creeps onto my mind when the news flashed more and more businesses such as local bakery chain, Breadtalk tried to raise fund for these 2 disasterous areas by coming up with new "Panda" themed bread to sell out to consumers and use the profit earned to donate. Then it suddenly struck to me that maybe...just may some companies tried to show their HUGE Corporate Social Responsiblity (CSR) through this kind of act...and seriously I am very skeptical if these companies are really trying to help here...

Panda - a symbol of China's protected animal

Don't get me wrong, I mean it's good if these companies are really to help but back of my mind, I think otherwise... I felt they maybe trying to use this opportunity to create awareness & even profits for their own brand or products! Although it seems to be a win-win situation for both the companies as well as for the countries that needed helped but in my opinion, if someone or some companies are really out there to just help, then I don't think there's even a need to sell their products in order just to raise or donate fund which basically is through the consumers' money...

Anyway, maybe I am just too skeptical but that's just my own point of view. I mean there's still good organizations out there like the Red Cross or Myanmar Cyclone that is fully concentrated on just collecting public's funding and donation and remit & send over to China and Myanmar. So don;t get me wrong...but do you feel like I feel especially towards companies which just use CSR which may conflict with profit like Breadtalk for instance?

Western Media Impact on China Olympic & its growth

Recently, I've been research on one of my project on China's Reaction Towards Olympic Protest and after been going through news coverage and blogs on this issue, I've found out how social media has impacted the way we view information.

Extracted from http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/newspix/2008/03/17/latest-news-pics-mar-17-22-89520-20354503/

Traditionally, if you are to ask me to follow up on a current issue such as the Olympic Protest, that been debating around, I will probably feel that news articles and reports are the best way to get the "real" info. But after getting info not only from the usual news channel, but blogs and other online social media, I have deferred views.

From http://www.anti-cnn.com/, I found out how "distorted and biased" news coverage can be. It also provide us "truth" to a certain extents that tried to bring out the justice of such irresponsible news coverage by reputable channel such as US cable news network like CNN & BBC.

Extracted from http://www.anti-cnn.com/. For full content and coverage, go to http://www.anti-cnn.com/.

I think part of the root of these problematic news coverage can provide, are boiled down from the misperception of these previously reliable sources (such as CNN) has on the whole issue, which in return, articulate "biased" and even "distortion" views by the way they projected the issue to the public. These, as a result, caused huge resentment especially in the Chinese community as like most citizens, everyone still have a sense of pride about their own countries.

As such, there's 1 clear question that we should take away from the Olympic protest, that is, how reliable are news coverage? Are there people out there still blindly following these news as the "truth to light" or there might be something that we still do not know or have not been told to us?

So, what's your take? For me, it really changes the way I collect "true" info from news coverage...

Asian vs Westerner Perspective

Hey...it's me again! Today, after attending one of my summer term course on Social Media across Asia...it struck to me that more and more Asians have been blogging and this number is increasing gradually...as for the issues that they blog, it's mostly pertaining to personal interests like hobbies, food, etc...

But look at the westerners' blogs..a lot is on debating issues such as politics and current news!
I mean... from this blogging pattern, it seems that Asians care more about things that is personal to them, like sports or food for example while westerners care more about how they can make a different for the communities and the world as a whole...I mean that...there are still Asian people out there that cares and do blog them..but that number is seemingly small as compared to the westerners...

So, I'm thinking, are most Asians only bothered with things that only got to do with them? And I'm seriously agreeable on that... like for example...the global warming issue....it is very obvious that, this is simply a global issue.... I mean it concerns everyone since we are human and everyone lives on this mother earth... and of course, in order to survive and help our future generation to live on, it's everyone's effort to help to work on this environmental hot issue and the simplest thing to do (if everyone feels that it is their responsibility) is to help it deteroriate further by making a small change in your lifestyle...like using electrical fan than air-conditioning or save water by turning off ur tap immediately after use...
But we have seem report and watched news reporting on country that polluting the whole environment due to their heavy industrialized economy and is trying to shift the responsibility away by demanding leading countries to set as an example first...it seems like to me that these countries are looking for this kind of excuse as they are worried that by conforming to lower pollution emission will cause their whole industralized economy to slow down and they will not progress as fast as they should...

But from an environmentalist point of view, I just felt that's not right! I mean ...this is global issue...if the whole globe is to conform to these measures...then I see the pace of progress will slow down globally and the impact will be not the same as thought by these countries..

So, bringing back..me as an Asian individual...I personally will try my bit to help make this world a better place! And to kickstart..I have already help out by switching off my air-conditioning and choose to enjoy the summer breeze together with my electrical fan... So what about you?