September 2010

Marcia Forbes PhD

Last week I noted that although weekend days (Fridays and Saturdays) showed strong viewership of music videos via local cable TV, overall, Sunday through to Saturday, it is via foreign cable TV that most heavy viewers watched. What are the implications of this heavy viewership of music videos via cable TV? This question is somewhat answered by examination of a number of other factors, including whether heavy viewers were more likely to watch any specific video genre via any particular transmission mode. 

Marcia Forbes PhD

How often have we wondered just what some of the lyrics of these songs are saying? I remember sitting in a board room with a group of media managers trying to interpret the words of one of Missy Elliott’s songs. “If you’re worth it, let me work it” something like that. Those were the only few words of the song I actually knew but the rhythm was so infectious that I sang my own version of lyrics each time I heard the song.

Marcia Forbes PhD

I recently presented some of the findings from my research work to the 157th General Assembly of the Jamaica Baptist Union (JBU). The Baptists are concerned about changing youth trends and what to them appear to be identifiable shifts in the priorities, values and morals of Jamaican youths. In preparing for that session, I was challenged to think about the ways in which these trends are being manifested and ways to deal with some of the related issues. I was specially invited because

Marcia Forbes PhD

Burdened by a sense of duty to make the research findings widely available, a book detailing them is substantially completed. Fine tuning and publication await defense of the thesis (oral examination), since one cannot publish thesis work in a fulsome manner prior to such defense. I continue to await the orals. However, I am driven to add my voice to the raging controversy over Ramping Shop and the decision by the Broadcasting Commission since I am one of the few Jamaicans who have generated primary empirical data regarding the influence of music on our youths.

Marcia Forbes PhD

One Caribbean writer has gone as far as to name Jamaican dancehall music as a possible contributor to the rising incidence of HIV/AIDS stating,

Marcia Forbes PhD

The mid 1990s ‘Lewinsky Scandal’ helped to redefine the meaning of sexual relations. This highly publicized expose was followed in the media by viewers, listeners and readers across the world. Although Monica Lewinsky admitting that she had performed oral sex on U.S. President Clinton, he nevertheless denied sexual relations with her, stating that he did nothing inappropriate. 

Marcia Forbes PhD

Jamaican boaters have a favourite expression, ‘What happens at sea stays at sea’. I believe they honour this adage. Similarly, we often hear, ‘What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas’. Gamblers and others who jet off to Vegas honour this tradition of silence. Like boaters and gamblers, dancehall aficionados once subscribed to the belief that what happens in the dance is supposed to stay in the dance. 

Marcia Forbes PhD

I have never wanted to go to Haiti, until now. As a teenager some of my nursing batchmates went there. Their reports drove fear into my heart and although never faint-hearted, I decided Haiti was not for me. They spoke of the voodoo and the cursed stare. Later I heard stories that Haitians feared Jamaicans. We eat sussumba, something they use in their voodoo rituals, and that apparently gave us power over the spirits, ergo we are feared and respected by Haitians.

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