China Hitting Headlines Everywhere, Including My Blog

China has been hitting the headlines these recent months for all the right and the wrong reasons. First, there was the highly successful Beijing Olympics that blew the world away with awe and fascination. Then was the highly fatal Melamine that blew the world away from China products.


Only thing you can trust about Made-In-China products:
The fortune cookies never tell lies.

Of the 4 media functions, surveillance prevails in this scenario as the media is responsible for gathering and disseminating information to the public. The media sources can easily influence the audience by warning them of crises or dangers, and by giving them the instrumental information they need in order to get through a day. The media acts as the “watchdogs of a free society”, informing us of how Melamine is prevalent in most milk products produced in China and raises our awareness of what to consume and what to avoid. Thus it is irrefutable that the media intrinsically determines a lot of the decisions that we make on our purchases.

This is not the first time that China faced fierce criticisms from consumers of the safety of their products, be it poisoned food, lead-based toys or toddler strangling prams. However, this has to be the first time when the intensity of the censure is so strong. Now, brace yourselves for what may be the most callous and malicious comment that you are going to hear regarding this incident – the reason for the immense repercussion this time round may be due to the fact that Made-In-China products finally managed to kill Made-In-China babies. The waves of China melamine finally hit the shores of home in the form of an unforgiving tsunami, that’s karma coming back for you. Honestly speaking, if this milk scandal did not hit China harder than it hit other consuming countries, China is most likely to still be defensive of their own products (like how they did for the past few times) and allow more foreign consumers to suffer under their unscrupulous money-laundering means.


Anti-Made-In-China-For-The-Chinese:
Boycotting the most evil products of the world

China’s producing industry has been greatly hit by this milk scandal as people now have a greater trepidation of China made products as compared to before. The media not only disseminated this piece of critical information to the public, it also wrecked China’s credibility to pieces. For China to regain the confidence of the consumers in their edible products, they have got a really long way to go. The media was the initial culprit that painted China in very bad light. Thus, as a start, they need to convince the media to put across positive information of their stringent quality controlling standards and they MUST make sure that they really do more to ensure the safety of their products.

The media may be able to control the flow of information through channels. However the receivers will still practise selective exposure as the tendency to avoid the positive news and to seek out the negative news about China products will be dominant. Whether the world will be able to pull through this “contaminated food” era will depend on how media portrays China products in future and how the audience reacts to it.


"Dear Santa, I've been a good girl this year. Can I have a Barbie doll?"
As for me? This is one reason why I choose to be a naughty girl this year.