Because i can’t sing, instead enjoy this beautiful song about Gothenburg by arising swedish star singer Maia Hirasawa (her songs already have been used for Telekom Austria commercials) …

My last blog entry ends with the best view of Gothenburg: the skyscraper named „Lipstick“ and opera house in the evening sun.

Notice: … I’ll be back…someday!

The pursuit of true media coverage:
Homeless people are misrepresented in the United States

A literature research by Pia has affirmed that in US television news homeless people are shown in wrong patterns and promote stereotypes. Homeless people are often portrayed as losers, welfare dependants, mentally ill persons or even criminals. There is also an overrepresentation of males, while women and families are hardly ever mentioned. Although women comprise almost half of the homeless population and there is a growing number of traditional families that end up on the streets.

The main trends in media coverage of poor and homeless people have been to frame homeless people in two different ways: On the one hand the topic of homelessness is represented in a thematic way by showing statistics or new governmental definitions of poverty lines. These stories leave the poor and homeless people as nameless human beings. On the other hand there is a more personal way. The stories tell of an individual person and his day-to-day struggle for survival.
A good example for this second way of storytelling is the Hollywood blockbuster “The Pursuit of Happyness” produced in 2006. Will Smith plays the homeless guy Chris Gardner which story based on real facts. Some film-reviewer argues that the movie takes an honest, intense look at the kind of many homeless Americans must contend with. Other says that it “leaves out many realities” and only focuses on the possibilities available to the ones who are hard working. Though there should be considered some difference in the perception of fictional content like the Chris Gardner movie and non-fictional news stories. But in conclusion the film as the news delivers the message that the homelessness is peoples own responsibility.
However, which way the media uses it almost completely leaves out “larger structural factors” as Pia called it. The media are powerful. People form their opinions on what they see in television news – even when the information may contain inaccuracies and distortions. Already fifteen years ago Noam Chomsky discussed in his booked “Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda” that economic private power which increasingly dominates the US media landscape is a large contributing factor in providing the public with certain images of society. But socioeconomic problems are left out of the mainstream media frame. Since these power structures are never called into question, Pia concludes, the public will view “homelessness as an individual problem, not one caused by larger social structures, forces and injustice”. It should be the media’s role to uncover the truths about social problems and provide the audience how they can be prevented and solved.

„Nur 48 Stunden … mit Alex
23. März 2009 von goeteblog

Ich zitiere mein Freund Stefan: „Hey Fans!“ … Sie alle gewartet haben für diese folgende fantastische erstaunliche Geschichte über einen Mann, der Deutsch aus Deutschland flohen und sich in Schweden für das letzte Wochenende. Natürlich erste, was Alex und ich besuchte war McDonalds auf Nordstan. Es scheint, er hat Angst vor dem Versuch typisch schwedische Lebensmittel oder er glaubt tatsächlich, dass ChickenMcNuggets sind eine schwedische Erfindung.
Aber wir hatten große Pläne für Freitag Abend: Ein Aufenthalt im „In-Club“ von allen westlichen Schweden: Gothenburgs P1 Diskothek namens „Park Lane (schalten Sie Ihre Lautsprecher, wenn Sie auf der Website)“. Alex hat seine schwarze „Bond“ Anzug wie gewohnt, aber schämen zu tragen es in einer Ryanair-Flugzeug. So versuchte er, seine Eisen-T-Shirt und Hose in die Studenten Haus Waschraum. Es sah so lustig, aber er hat eine schöne Arbeit!
Später in der Nacht trafen wir Tatjana und begann die eveing in bar. Gegen unsere expactations wir in den Club ohne Probleme. Es ist recht teuer und nicht so, dass nicht, wie wir dachten. Eigentlich war es eine Art Freaky Friday und viel jünger „Polo-Shirts“ waren alle über den Ort. Die Beleuchtung und die Atmosphäre war nicht sehr spektakulär, aber recht gute Musik. Ich hoffe, dass ich bekommen ein paar Bilder von Alex (mit seinen großen champanger Flasche) bald.“

On saturday morning we got up at typical student time: 11 am! and decided to take a boat trip on the Göta river. Unfortunately a drunken homeless guy seemed to“buy“ Alex black Nike jackets for free and was getting heavily on our nerves. So we left the harbour before the boat arrived cause this fuckin’ bastard and his friends didn’t piss off and no police men was nearby.

For lunch Alex promised some friends and me to prepare his tasty and well-known „shrimp pan“ ut we could not find ingredients that were good enough. Thank god at least the salmon filets (in pilots language its called LAX) met his high-level requirements and i must confess: The meal was very delicious and even the invited multcultural gourmet group (italian, french and luxemburgish) stated the quality and praised the extradordinary flavour. For this part also some pictures of Alex as „chef de cuisine“ will follow. But one thing is for sure: He’s booked as full service member as „chef de cuisine“ and „chef de remorquer“ for our flight camp in summer.

After i have washed all the dishes and Alex sleeping we had a spectacular view of Krefeld: It is possible due to our fantastic webcam which was cleaned by Stefan at exactly this moment.

Fourtyfive minutes later we could hardly breath due to we were laughing all the time but left my apartement to go laser shooting. This seems to be one of Alexs favourite entertainment programme for a saturday evening. I have already been at this place and told you about the all day flatrate for only 15 Euros! A paradise for people’s amok training. This time we had a unbelievable stupid blond bitch in our team who did not understand the highly complex rule „red team“ against „green“ and shot everyone. Finally Alex made 4th place out of 15 players and i got 6th. It was so fun but don’t ask about my „muscle tomcat“ today.

After this we were so tired and went to bed early…

After Alex had left on sunday i tried to get some money from my bank account but could not get some: Unbelievable! Alex not only ate all my stuff out of my fridge but also consumed all my money so that the next days i have to eat „Resteessen“ (no, it’s not a swedish speciality)! I hope my money transfer will arrive on Wednesday… but i will survive somehow: tomorrow is my last day at university from 9 to 16 and then i will have exactly one week left in Gothenburg.

Notice: I don’t trust you!

Notice: It’s an really old advertisement but still good!