Evidence about the asteroid theory

Evidence about the asteroid theory Introduction The purpose of the case study is to investigate Did a meteorite make the dinosaurs extinct.These theories are not exactly been justified. It is an unsolved mystery nobody knows the reason and what caused the dinosaurs to become extinct. A meteorite is a body of matter that reaches the earths surface because it has not been heated up by friction with the atmosphere. It is made up of iron, stone or a mixture of both. Most meteorites are made as two asteroids are collided with each other or fragments of asteroids and comets. Asteroids are medium sized rocks that orbit the sun; Asteroids can be smaller than one-mile to almost 600 miles. There are many asteroids in our solar system. The asteroid belt was created when the solar system was formed and the asteroid belt is made from a cloud of dust, ice and gas. The Earth orbits the sun. The earth meets objects in space like dust or bits of rock broken off from asteroids. By the end of the Cretaceous period 50% of all living things on Earth and in sea were wiped out. Dinosaurs had been living on the earth about 230 million years ago and they became extinct nearly 65millionyearsago.Theirextinction hasconfused scientistsforyears. It affected plant and animals on land and in wa ter. Somescientistsbelievethatdinosaursdiedinallatonce,inamass extinction. AlargeasteroidorcometcrashedintoEarthandchangedtheclimate. Anincreaseinvolcanicactivitycausedashand dust whichblockedthesun. Diseaseswipedoutentirepopulationsofdinosaurs. AsevereiceagecouldhavechangedtemperaturesandfrozenalotofEarthswater. The amount of earths oxygen could have dropped which caused suffocation to the dinosaurs. Mammals came that ate dinosaur eggs. An exploding start supernova could have killed the dinosaurs. Any of these theories could have been responsible for the extinction of dinosaurs; none of these theories have been proven. The theory which has the most evidence and has been approved by most of the geologists and scientist is the Asteroid theory. Scientific Theories There are two types of extinction theories: Gradual extinction and catastrophic extinction. Gradual extinction would have been like the changes in the earths climate. It could also have been because new animals achieved in the struggle and coped with all the difficulties example mammals, etc. Theory explained that mammals ate dinosaurs eggs. Catastrophic extinction would have caused the death of the dinosaurs suddenly, such as an asteroid hitting the earth, or the eruption of volcanoes causing sudden death. There were many theories to show how the dinosaurs were wiped out.   The theories are not been declared yet. The most accepted theory is the Asteroid Theory. The first people who found this theory were Luis and Walter Alvarez in 1980. This theory explains that an asteroid hit or collided with the Earth nearly 65 million years ago and this collision would have given off so much dust into the environment that the sun rays would not be able to enter or shine and plants and animals would die. The debris in the atmosphere would have obstructed the sun for a long time causing changes in temperature; the temperature would get cooler and caused severe interruption to photosynthesis. Dinosaurs could not adapt to the changes in climate the occurred from this huge collision and therefore they were not able to survive. Because plants energy comes from the sun, they would probably be affected first by the changes in climate. Even though having this much support to the evidence a few geologists did not believe in the Asteroid Theory and asked to show the crater where the meteorite must have fallen but the crater had buried in sediment.The elements were left behind in lots of amounts in the K-T layer where the collision happened. The impact would have also created forest fires and long term environmental changes. The speed of the asteroid would have been 100,000 kilometres per hour approximately. Another theory that shows how the dinosaurs were wiped off is volcanic theory. The consequences of volcanic activity could have caused so much ash and gasses added to the atmosphere which then blocked sunlight and creating difficult conditions for dinosaurs. The level of volcanic activity would also have given off greenhouse gasses which increased the Earths temperature. It has also been suggested that a disease killed off the dinosaurs. A very dangerous disease may have spread among all the dinosaurs causing them to become extinct. A disease might have wiped out all the dinosaurs if they had no cure, but the disease wouldnt kill off all the plants all around the earth. Another theory is that the dinosaurs died during an ice age. During this time periods, temperatures drop, cooler temperatures may have killed all the plants and dinosaurs. Scientists have not found any evidence of an ice age that could have happened during the life of the dinosaurs. A supernova explodes with plenty energy and can keep our sun burning for billions of years. A supernova is a star that gives off large volumes of energy. The chance of a supernova to occur is nearly one in a million. The increased amount of radiation from a supernova could have affected the Earths ozone layer. Effects on Marine Life The amount of oxygen in the seas would have decreased. Many sea creatures would have died because of the collapse of the food chain. There could have been an increase of acid rain. The Asteroid effected species both on sea and land. Deflecting a meteorite To collision can only be avoided if we move the meteorite away or if the meteorite can split into small pieces so that they can burn up in the atmosphere by friction. The often move around very fast which makes it difficult to deflect it. If the meteorite is broken you would expect to get many small rocks intead of a large meteorite, but some of the small rocks may brun up in the atmosphere which is better than having a larger meteorite hitting the earth and causing problems A graph to explain the extinction, climate and the amount of iridium The climate is normal at the start of the Cretaceous period but during the end it eventually decreases and shows the evidence that climate change might have also caused the extinction. Cooler temperatures may have caused problems like the sunlight would not be able to shine. The dust from the asteroid would have blocked the sun. The mass extinction shows the decline of the dinosaurs almost towards the end of the Cretaceous period and by the beginning of the tertiary period all of the dinosaurs had vanished. The KT boundary sediments has high amount of element iridium shown, which is common in extraterrestrial material. Extraterrestrial material is a type of material or object that has fallen out of the Earth or its atmosphere and falls onto the planet. The page will explain the evidence about the two most proved theory. Evidence about the asteroid theory The evidence to explain the asteroid theory is that a crater was then found at around 1990, 150 miles in diameter named the Chicxulub crater which is located on the Yucatan peninsula. The crater was about 120 mile wide or across and 1 mile deep. Seismic monitoring equipment which is designed to hunt for oil discovered the huge crater. The iridium layer is what lead the Alvarez team to blame an asteroid collision for the extinction asteroids and other extraterrestrial bodies are enriched with high amounts of   iridium than the Earths crust The asteroid theory has gained more evidence than any other of the theories Evidence against Asteroid theory The Asteroid theory has proved more evidence than any other theory; there is still a problem with the theory. Paleontologists have to find dinosaurs fossils related to the time period of the impact and some evidence explains that dinosaurs might have already been extinct before this impact. Actually dinosaurs had been declining slowly before the asteroid hit the earth. There have been a lot of mass extinctions in the past history and many large asteroid collisions. Even though there have been many of these collisions they havent caused mass extinctions all around the world. The asteroid theory is still the most powerful theory to provide reasons for the extinction of the dinosaurs. Some scientist believe this impact did not cause the extinction of all the dinosaurs and other creatures, there could have been two or more collisions. Evidence to volcanic activity The dinosaurs could have died because of a volcano. A research explains that a volcano erupted in India. The researcher said: Now we find that another catastrophe, which is Deccan Volcanism, which has not had much attention paid to it, may be the real culprit. Volcanic eruptions on Indias Deccan plateau between 63 and 67 million years ago spewed huge amounts of sulfur dioxide into the air for around 10,000 years

Domestic and Community Violence against Women in USA Essay

Domestic violence in the United States is said to be high whereby, it is reported that over 700,000 Americans are victimized by the domestic violence according to the 2000 National Crime Victimization Survey. (Nocav and Bourbonnais, 2002) Domestic violence in the United States is said to come up as a result a result of poverty, gender inequality and even socio-economic factors. In this case we find that, the physical violence is defined as an intentional use of an individuals physical force with an objective of causing injury, harm or death these injuries are usually caused by either using a weapon, hitting or even kicking another person, while sexual violence is known as the physical force used to involve an individual into sexual acts against his will. Psychological violence or commonly known as the emotional violence that include the humiliation of an individual, controlling what an individual can do, it may also be practiced by withholding the victims information this act is usually applied to make the victim embarrassed, isolated and denied the right to enjoy his personal rights. The other type of abuse is the economic violence where we find that an abuser takes a complete control over the victims’ economic materials and resources. (Lupton, 2002) These differences are both biologically and socially determined where the social, cultural, economic and political forces are said to have brought variation in the position of different group of people in different societies globally. According to various research studies conducted we find that these domestic violence are especially caused by; the psychological factors which involve that personality and the characteristics of the stated offender and this may also carry a form of social hypothesis that normally consider the factors that are created externally in the offender’s surroundings, this may include the family structure, stress or even social classifications. (Draper, 1989) In some communities we find that violence comes up as a result of an individual seeking power or control over other members of the society, here we find that the abuser creates a negative impact on the victims, whereby they end up attributed to low self- esteem. An example for this practice in the United States is where women are said to be disadvantaged where they are being isolated in the distribution of income and consumption within the community. Where the share of the national income shows that there is inequality between women and men throughout the world, here women are said to have a significantly lower share of national income than men. Therefore we find that men regard themselves to be given a higher priority they practice gender discrimination where more women and children are forced by men in their families to do most work to produce food for the families in which men are proved to be taking control over family resources and yet they do not participate in their production. Through gender analysis of roles done by many institutions it is said that men contribute less than three hours in a day of their time to activities that is geared towards food production compared to women who do the bulk of the work here we find that the rights of women are being violated. Conclusion The main roles of the civil rights movement is to fight the domestic violence in the American society, under this we find that, the civil rights activists say that there are many ways of handling the domestic violence in our communities whereby the government plays a role of ensuring that commitments to equal rights and opportunities are upheld and delivered, by setting an enabling environment for all members of the American society at the country level and in the global community through the formulation and implementation of conferences and international conformities. Promote an active culture that emphasizes the right to formation and support the developmental activists to demand information from all sectors including government, other Non-Governmental organisations in order to promote local accountability to the victimized members of the community. The government should create an enabling environment which will influence change in policies, laws and institutions at national and international levels. (Draper, 1989) The other method that can be applied in dealing with domestic violence is the safety plan which is usually a plan that directed to the victim where he asked to act quickly so that he may remove himself from the dangers of the violence. This plan involve a specific plan of how to get out of the place, here the victim is advised to carry himself with the basic needs that will be required to be used when out of the place. Although partnerships are strengthening around a based purpose there is still so much for the governments affected by the fight over power to close the gaps in understanding and increase co-operation between the governments, the states and the civil societies. This recommendation is seen to be adversarial instead of being collaborative leading to little sharing of experience and good practice by the prominent people in the American society. References Lupton, R and Power, A. (2002): Social Exclusion & Neighborhoods. In Understanding Social Exclusion† Hills J, Le Grand J. & Piachaud D. Edn pp. 118- 140: Oxford: Oxford University Press. Burgess, R and Draper P. 1989 the explanation of family violence, the role of biological, Behavioral and cultural selection. Ohlin L. and Tonry M. Edn. Family Violence pp. 59-116 Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

A Startling Fact about Cheapest Custom Writing Service Research Papers Uncovered

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Homer Simpson Explains our Postmodern Identity - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 28 Words: 8435 Downloads: 7 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Statistics Essay Did you like this example? Homer Simpson Explains our Postmodern Identity crisis, Whether we Prize it or not: Media Literacy after The Simpsons Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Homer Simpson Explains our Postmodern Identity" essay for you Create order ABSTRACT This article suggests that The Simpsons is a sophisticated media subject about media that forces educators who teach media literacy into an encounter with postmodern judgment. The sense of postmodern judgment for media education is explored through a focus on two now themes in The Simpsons: the changing judgment of personal identity and the consequences of a relentlessly ironic worldview. Icons of habitual culture can be used to teach about philosophical constructs. From its inception The Simpsons has posed a significant challenge to educators. The program, which ridiculed all forms of influence and turned Bart Simpson into a wildly habitual anti-hero, initially provoked an intense reaction from the education citizens, in some schools influential to the banning of paraphernalia bearing Barts images and habitual denunciations of the series. As the series grew in popularity- and eventually was joined by other cartoon series that were seen to be all the more more educationally offensive, such as Beavis and Butthead and South Park-the furor died down to a now on the other artisan passive hostility toward the program, at least in the classroom. It certainly didnt facilitate the educational communitys disagreement to have Interval magazine reputation the series the best television program of the 20th century, or to have the poet laureate of the United States, Robert Pinsky, praise the series, stating that it penetrates to the existence of television itself (Owen, 2000, p. 65). Nor did it facilitate that various teachers went hab itat, turned the program on, and laughed themselves silly. All the more another abbreviate has been created between the culture of children and the culture of education, a poser that has been perhaps all the more more painful for media educators, various of whom follow Hobbs (1998) target that the texts of everyday career, when constituted as objects of social participation, provide the possibility for combining textual, historical, and ideological examination in ways that relieve students and teachers move beyond the limits of traditional disciplines and controversy areas (p. 21). To be undeniable, there have been efforts by media educators to bring The Simpsons into the classroom. Our debate of the media literacy literature and media literacy sites revealed a number of examples of proposed lessons incorporating the series, from examining The Simpsons as a virgin variant of social satire to comparing The Simpsons family to other television families. On the other hand, in almost eve ry dispute, we sensed that the unique qualities of the series eluded these efforts. The basic tools of media education and literacy as typically agreed upon by numerous media literacy communities-tools which regulate our control to basic precepts such as the meaning that the media are constructed-appear not to be enough to turn The Simpsons from renegade habitual culture into a teachable moment (Aufderheide, 1993; Media Awareness Network, 2000). Perhaps the central poser with The Simpsons is that it seems to drag the media literacy examination onto the unfamiliar and all the more foreboding terrain of postmodernism, where issues of image and replica open to fall apart, a terrain where sporadic media educators are willing or able to follow. Of line, there has been an effort to define, critique, and bring postmodern impression to bear on educational judgment and application, expressly from advocates of critical pedagogy (e.g., Aronowitz Giroux, 1992). All the more this has been a the ory-driven effort that has not reached further far into educational scholarship, and has made almost no headway into the frontlines of educational manipulate. Various teachers Studies in Media Info Literacy Education, Tome 1, Subject 1 (February 2001), 1-12 # University of Toronto Press. DOI: 10.3138/sim.1.1.002 have never heard of the label postmodernism. The same mould is equally, if not more pronounced, in the media education citizens. Our examination of media literacy literature and key media literacy web sites in the United States and Canada revealed an almost comprehensive absence of controversy and examination on postmodernism. There have been, of pathway, notable exceptions (McLaren, Hammer, Scholle, Reilly, 1995; Steinberg Kincheloe, 1997). The outcome of this empty margin is another critical abbreviate, in this dispute not between students and educators, on the other artisan between media educators and media theorists. In examining this section, we are struck by two observations. First, the gap between media education manipulate and media judgment comes precisely at the moment when teachers and media educators are finding them selves overwhelmed by strange contemporary regular cultural texts for which the unfamiliar category of postmodernism may potentially be the most fruitful interpretive handle. Second, the positions of students and media theorists stand in the succeeding relationship. Students are living inside an increasingly postmodern regular cultural participation that media theorists are attempting to label, define, and scan. The puzzle is that students dont necessarily have the vocabulary to generate meaning of their participation, and the vocabulary that theorists have developed seems to cause meaning only in graduate seminars. The Simpsons offers a promising opportunity to strategically residence these issues, highlighting the limits of conventional media literacy tools, illustrating the aesthetic examine of postmodernism, and providing some vocabulary to label that examine. In effect, it serves as an dispute of how the solution of postmodernism can be used to develop a contemporary range of c ritical interpretive skills for constructively engaging this growing trend in habitual culture. Our article presents a mini introduction to postmodernism and a grounded process of the benefits and limits of applying this judgment. Our reason is not to provide an exhaustive or all the more spread out introduction to postmodern judgment. Rather, it is to position The Simpsons as a media subject that can be used as a starting stop for exploring postmodern judgment. Fear of Postmodernism If everyone loves The Simpsons, postmodernism has its correct participation of critics. Writing in U.S. Material and Field Report, Leo (1999) argues that postmodernism has created a language that no one can understand, a language that is used to intellectually bully readers into agreeing with outlandish propositions. The academic area, on the other artisan, has offered more equivocal assessments. Hebdige (1988) argues that we are in the presence of a buzzword, a expression which, while confusing, does appropriate an influential social or cultural transition. Kellner (1995) agrees, observing that . . . the label postmodern is often a placeholder, or semiotic marker, that indicates that there are virgin phenomena that demand mapping and theorizing (p. 46). In the infrequent instances where references to postmodernism do appear in media literacy literature, its ambiguous area is emphasized. For process, Buckingham and Sefton-Green (1997), in their effort to launch charting the challenges posed by multimedia education in an increasingly digitized media area, believe that postmodernism, although glib and sweeping, offers a beneficial pathway to characterize a number of broad social and cultural transformations. Some of the changes that control Buckingham and Sefton-Green embrace the area of consumption, the blurring distinctions between production and consumption, the poaching of texts and symbols, and the rejection of the elitist and sterile oppositions between high and habitual culture (pp. 289-292). Given the slipperiness of the sense, postmodernism on the other hand marks a cr itical modern moment in the scan of media and replica. Building on the business of Buckingham and Sefton-Green (1997), we open by asking what is postmodernism and what can we do with it? With its questioning of truthfulness and its subject of the politics of media representations, postmodernism, once it is understood properly, can be a rich source of pedagogical judgment and manipulate. The Postmodern Dispute: Definitions and Symptoms What true is the label postmodernism trying to receive? There is, first, the sense of opposition to modernism. In essence, modernism states that individuals and nations, guided by rational thinking and Studies in Media Counsel Literacy Education, Tome 1, Subject 1 (February 2001), 1-12 # University of Toronto Press. DOI: 10.3138/sim.1.1.002 2 scientific achievements, are moving toward a more humane, more just, and more economically prosperous ultimate. In other contents, modernism embraces progress, viewing it as a linear and inexorable phenomenon with acceptable outcomes. Accordingly, the publish in postmodernism stands for the meaning that there is no longer any guarantee of progress. In point, there is further petty consensus as to what progress all the more wealth. Postmodernity typically is distinguished by an undermining of force, the denigration of novel by turning it into a style or evocative nostalgia, the questioning of progress, and the head to impression the ultimate as empty. Other postmodern symptoms embrace the meaning of image overload, intertextuality (the seemingly random q uoting of one subject by another), a heightened meaning of media self-reflexivity calling control to replica as a hall of mirrors, and pastiche, defined as the sense to cause disjointed images and subject fragments. Finally, the postmodern process is marked by commodification overload (the head to turn everything into a product or marketing opportunity), irony overload (the elevation of irony as the dominant rhetorical posture), and the increased questioning of the sense of personal identity brought on by viewing the self as a social construction. In short, the meaning of postmodernism calls control to the ways in which a beneficial deal of everyday regular culture is at once fully informed by, if not driven by, the basic media literacy precept that media construct social naked truth. In act, all the more of regular culture relentlessly draws carefulness to the further arbitrariness of almost every aspect of our social participation, as well as the moral and epistemological foundati ons on which social participation depends. In other contents, the curriculum of regular culture has outstripped the curriculum of the classroom, all the more the media education classroom. The vocabulary of postmodernism allows us to launch to contemplate and term the various ways in which this is taking fix, on the other share it further leaves us at a loss about how to proceed. Recognizing this disagreement, memo and educational theorists have attempted to clarify what is to be gained by drawing on the social and theoretical insights generated by the deconstructive influence of postmodern criticism. At the same interval, they have tried to demonstrate how to tame this influence in the utility of modernist values such as human rights, equality, freedom, and democracy (Aronowitz Giroux, 1991; Best Kellner, 1991; Giroux, 1997; Kellner, 1995; Rorty, 1989; Wolin, 1990). A critical postmodernism encourages us to solicit contemporary questions about all claims to influence (scientific or otherwise), about how contemporary forms of replica and contemporary inflections in the style of replica made practicable through technology and commodification exchange the quality of sense, and about how cultural dominance is produced and maintained through the patterns of contrasts used to define social and linguistic categories (Aronowitz Giroux, 1991; Scholle Denski, 1995). Postmodernism offers contemporary tools for critical interpretation and modern responsibilities for connecting media and cultural interpretation to democracy as a form of native land that enables critical reflection and activism, making us understand the ways in which our seemingly private individual identities are formed, through language and symbols, in relationship to each other and the broader social and political citizens (McKinlay, 1998, p. 481). For The Simpsons audience, an ambivalen ce toward technology and progress is guideline fare. This judgment of the ultimate as empty and without guarantees has further been associated with the core identity of Hour X, whose slogan might glance at We have seen the forthcoming and it sucks. While any aspect of postmodernism discussed above can be found in and explored within The Simpsons, two concepts in particular-irony overload and the questioning of identity-will serve as reference points in our reconsideration of the series. The puzzle of identity is a central complication for all young citizens, on the other artisan it is a puzzle that is not duration satisfactorily addressed, given the growing levels of hopelessness, cynicism, despair, and suicide among teenagers. Of particular control to us is that The Simpsons repeatedly focuses on this further subject: the puzzle of selfhood in an increasingly absurd culture pulverized with images, symbols, values, irony, commercialization, and hucksterism. What lessons does The Sim psons teach? What lessons can be learned as the characters on the demonstrate are thrust into many battles for selfhood within the postmodern terrain? Enjoy all the more postmodern Studies in Media Info Literacy Education, Manual 1, Controversy 1 (February 2001), 1-12 # University of Toronto Press. DOI: 10.3138/sim.1.1.002 3 culture, The Simpsons, is saturated with irony and obsessed with issues of absolute identity, expressly in relation to media culture. Our task is to articulate an interpretive frame of reference to facilitate media educators and viewers open to cause critical meaning of these symptoms. The Challenges of Postmodern Selfhood Gergen (1991) notes that postmodernists abbreviate version into three epochs, each of which corresponds to a particular judgment of personal identity or selfhood. These periods are labeled as the pre-modern (romantic hour), the contemporary era, and the postmodern. From the pre-modern or romantic tradition, we derive our meaning in a stable center of identity. In Gergens contents, powerful forces in the deep interior of ones duration are held to be the source of inspiration, creativity, genius, and moral courage, all the more madness (Gergen, 1992, p. 61). Modernism redefined the self, shifting the emphasis from deep, mysterious processes to human consciousness in the here and these days, always in control with such values as efficiency, stable functioning, and progress. The self in its virgin form-what Gergen calls the postmodern or relational self-is no longer viewed as a separate target, on the other artisan is increasingly understood as a rel ational construction, defined by and spread across the humanity and activity experiences each individual encounters throughout her or his field. In short, as McNamee and Gergen (1999) argue, there are no independent selves; we are each constituted by others (who are themselves similarly constituted). We are always already related by virtue of shared constitutions of the self (p. 15). Linked to this sense is the sense that a conscious understanding of ourselves as beings occurs through language, which is itself a fundamentally relational sense, and that our identity grows and develops in relationship to the endless dialogues that we have with others, with culture, and with ourselves. In this meaning, our interactions with the media become deeply significant. Moreover, this contemporary consciousness of the relational sense of the self comes at correct the moment when the relationships we enter into and which contribute to our definition of self are multiplying at an exponential rate and are duration increasingly spread over a in a superior way and in a superior way span of hour and amplitude. It is one baggage to see the sense of the relational self when we think of, claim, two friends engaged in a mutually sustaining and defining examination. In this setting, the sense of the relational self is promising, perhaps all the more reassuring. On the other hand, extending the meaning of relationship to subsume every symbolic encounter in which we willingly or unwilling participate-from intentional relationships to unintentional and forced relationship with 3,000 commercial messages per day-presents modern challenges. A critical postmodern perspective calls control to this crisis of identity, a crisis in which the media of memo and their commercial foundations are deeply implicated. Of line, thinking of the self as a relational construct not only gives insights into the crisis of the self, on the other share it further offers a means of thinking about how to residen ce that crisis. In this more hopeful and acceptable meaning, the relational self offers a glimpse of those selected aspects of human participation and identity that may be used as a moral foundation in the face of the deconstructive maelstrom of commercial postmodern culture. The relational self suggests a moral compass that is based less on the authentic truths of religion or science than in the manner by which we draw up ourselves and our community through ceaseless and inevitable physical, linguistic, and psychological dependence upon one another. Drawing on the duty of Martin Buber, Mikhail Bakhtin, Jurgen Habermas, Richard Rorty, and Jerome Bruner, McNamee and Gergen (1999) deposit elsewhere a autonomous and thoughtful introduction to what a moral ethic organized on all sides of the relational self would see enjoy. They have called it relational responsibility, defining relationally responsible actions as those that sustain and enhance forms of exchange elsewhere of which influ ential process itself is made practicable. Isolation, they argue, represents the negation of citizens (p. 19). The guideline of relational responsibility is in stark contrast to the deconstructive tendencies of postmodernism. As such, it can serve as a critical bridge linking the interpretive coercion of a critical postmodernism to the modernist values associated with progressive democracy. Studies in Media Counsel Literacy Education, Tome 1, Subject 1 (February 2001), 1-12 # University of Toronto Press. DOI: 10.3138/sim.1.1.002 4 At the same hour, it is autonomous that the deconstructive tendencies of postmodernism (as a fix of virgin conditions) have influential implications for personal identity construction. Giddens (1991), for process, warns of the looming threat of personal meaninglessness. It is this threat that directs us back to a carefulness of one of the central tropes of postmodern discourse: irony. As noted above, relentless irony is a hallmark of both The Simpsons and the postmodern era. As individuals struggle to confront postmodern challenges to identity, there is grounds to solicit whether there is any valuation in the postmodern strategy of irony. Thus, the implications of irony both for identity formation and relational responsibility must be considered. Irony, Identity, and the Disagreement of Responsibility The Simpsons is regularly celebrated for its incisive wit and social satire, for its force to manipulate irony to bell control to the absurdity of everyday social conventions and beliefs. Irony functions as a critical form that helps us to break through surface sense to examine and understand the correct area of things in a contemporary and deeper means. It is a vehicle for enhancing critical consciousness, and it represents a moral coercion of skilled in the function of eradicating conventional pathetic (Rorty, 1989). As Hutcheon (1992, 1994) notes, critical irony is intimately linked to politics. The compel of deconstructing can be a first development to political dispute, and ironys oppositional character can be a major critical compel. The subversive functioning of irony is related to its status as a self-critical and self-reflexive resources that challenges hierarchy, and this influence to undermine and overturn is said to have politically transformative coercion. On the other share this is not where the manipulate of irony ends in The Simpsons, nor does it appropriate the postmodern turn in the meaning of irony. Postmodern irony is ambiguous and its solution is contested. It can be interpreted by adherents as playful, reflexive, and liberating; opponents, on the other hand, contemplate it as frivolous, deviant, and perverse (Hutcheon, 1992, 1994; Kaufman, 1997; Thiele, 1997). In postmodern irony, clarity in moral delineation begins to disappear. For process, in virgin comedy, as in all social behavior, all actions are controversy to satire from some perspective. Besides, by reason of postmodern irony begins with the assumption that language produces all sense, a kind of emancipatory indulgence in irony is evoked-an invitation to reconceptualize language as a form of play. As Gergen (1991) writes, we neednt credit such linguistic activities with profundity, imbue them with deep significance, or fix elsewhere to interchange the nature on their novel. Rather, we might play with the truths of the hour, shake them about, try them on prize funny hats (p. 188). In other contents, postmodern irony invites us to avoid saying it straight, using linear logic, a nd forming smooth, progressive narratives (p. 188). The Simpsons is saturated with this form of postmodern irony. On the other facilitate where does that leave media educators trying to duty with this enormously regular series? On the one artisan, media educators would prize to engage the series fully by practise of it raises various challenges to conventional ideas of mould and selfhood; on the other share, they are unwilling to lead students to examine media literacy as a form of deconstruction that leads only to meaninglessness or play. Some media scholars contemplate postmodern irony as a laborious challenge for teachers committed to linking media literacy with productive citizenship. Purdy, for dispute, laments that between Madonna and the fist-fight between Jesus and Santa Claus that opened the cartoon series South Park, there is less and less left in society whose flouting can elicit shock. Irony, he concludes, invites us to be self-absorbed, on the other facilitate in selves that we cannot believe to be particularly interesting or significant (p. 26). Conway and Seery (1992) are similarly concerned about the implications of postmodern irony for engaged citizenship. Although irony may equip the dispossessed with much-needed critical perspective and all the more underwrite a minimal political agenda, they draw up, it is generally regarded as irremediably parasitic and antisocial (p. 3). Hutcheon (1994) further shares this episode, noting that irony can be both political and apolitical, both conservative and radical, both repressive and democratizing in a pathway that other discursive strategies are not (p. 35). Gergen (1991) frames the challenge of postmodern irony in terms of its challenge to forming a coherent self. If all serious projects are reduced to satire, play, Studies in Media Counsel Literacy Education, Tome 1, Subject 1 (February 2001), 1-12 # University of Toronto Press. DOI: 10.3138/sim.1.1.002 5 or nonsense, all attempts at authenticity o r earnest ends become empty-merely postures to be punctuated by sophisticated self-consciousness (p. 189). If this is the poser that The Simpsons raises in its manipulate of both critical and postmodern irony, to what room is it contributing to a social consciousness with a practicable for social process, as opposed to contributing to a cynical numbness founded on ironic detachment? What solutions does the series offer for resolving this disagreement? Are there any alternative solutions that acknowledge the postmodern challenge to identity? Exploration of Self in Homer to the Max With these concerns in meaning, we see an phase of The Simpsons that originally aired on February 7, 1998. The period focuses with particular vehemence on the quest for identity and asks the closest questions: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚   How is the sense of the self understood in relationship to the blizzard of media images, symbols, and values? à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚   How does irony fit into the exploration and resolution of identity issues? à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚   How do we understand The Simpsons confrontations with the self and identity in terms of what has been called the postmodern process? The demonstrate begins with the principles sight gags on the couch and the Simpson familys lampooning of televisions midseason replacement series. The program that finally captures the familys carefulness is Police Cops, which becomes a present within the present. As the two Miami-Vice enjoy heroes of Police Cops subdue would-be bank thieves, one of the police detective heroes, a millionaire cop surrounded by admiring women, introduces himself as Simpson, Detective Homer Simpson. The Simpson family is shocked and Homer is exclusively overwhelmed, confusing himself with his television image. The plot then unfolds in essentially five kernels that hire up and explore Homers confusion over his own identity (Chatman, 1978). First, Homer identifies completely with the television detective hero: Wow. They captured my personality perfectly! Did you examine the means Daddy caught that bullet? In turn, the all-inclusive citizens of Springfield validates Homers contemporary pseudo-identity, treating him as if he were the television detective hero: Hey, Mr. Simpson, sir, can I purchase your autograph? Second, the Police Cops producers interchange their television detective character from glamorous hero to bumbling sidekick, launching a series of gags about Homers correct identity. The virgin characterization is truly a near perfect replication of the absolute Homer Simpson. This outrages Homer: Hey whats going on? That guys not Homer Simpson! Hes fat and stupid! The town continues to respond to Homer as the television character, only these days with ridicule rather than respect. No netheless, Homer gains some insight into the confusion between his authentic and fictional identity. As a assemblage of co-workers gathers in the hallway absent his business waiting for him to do something stupid, Homer retorts, Well, Im sorry to disappoint you gentleman, on the other artisan you seem to have me confused with a character in a fictional present. Factor of the pleasure for viewers derives from the irony of the cartoon character Homer making the state that he is the authentic Homer Simpson, as opposed to the fictional cartoon character within the cartoon. The writers of the period then continue to play with this seemingly endless hall of mirrors between absolute and fictional identity by scripting Homer to behave true in the transaction of the revised fictional detective character. Homer obliges by spilling a fondue pot on the nuclear reactor polity panel. Homers identity crisis eventually leads him to Hollywood, where he confronts the producers of the Police Cops-By the Numbers Productions-and demands that they recast the detective character: Im begging you! Im a human duration! Let me have my dignity back! The lines between Homers authentic identity and his media identity blur all the more besides when his efforts in the production business are used as grist for a contemporary gag in the later Police Cops period. Studies in Media Counsel Literacy Education, Manual 1, Controversy 1 (February 2001), 1-12 # University of Toronto Press. DOI: 10.3138/sim.1.1.002 6 In the third kernel, the plot shifts absent from Homers struggle over his identification with his media replica to his fixation on the sense that a contemporary label will give him a virgin identity. In this kernel, Homer goes to court to sue Police Cops for the improper application of his reputation. When his petition is nowadays rebuffed in the term of corporate proprietary interests, he rashly decides to transform his reputation to Max Coercion. Homers growth is nowadays transformed. His self-image improves, he becomes forceful and dynamic, and his co-workers and boss treat him with respect. Mr. Burns, remembering Homers reputation for the first interval, exclaims, Well, who could forget the reputation of a magnetic individual prize you? Keep up the acceptable profession, Max. While shopping at Costingtons for a contemporary faculty wardrobe, Homer meets a member of Springfields elite with a similarly powerful label, Trent Steele. Trent nowadays takes Homer/Max under his wing, inviting him to garden troop for Springfields young, hip force couples, an period that turns elsewhere to be the jumping off stop for an environmental reason. The critical moment in this kernel-which links the identity crisis of Police Cops with the identity theme in the Max Force parcel of the episode-occurs when Homer reveals to his contemporary best friend Trent Steele the origin of the term Max Compel. When Trent exclaims, Hey, beneficial term!, Homer replies, Yeah, isnt it? I got it off a hairdryer. Homers resolution to his identity crisis with his media self is to redefine himself in terms of the force setting of a mini household appliance. The self is these days equated with a product. At first, the results are stunningly successful. The fourth kernel leads to the denouement. In the third kernel, Homers appropriation of the identity of his hair dryer appears to have resolved his identity crisis in satisfactory transaction. On the other hand, this meaning soon falls apart. At the garden assemblage, Homer and Marge rub shoulders with celebrity environmental activists Woody Harrelson and Ed Begley, Jr., two of the various celebrities lampooned in the phase. The sense extreme these scenes is that Homer, as the buffoon celebrity Max Force, is on the same level as other equally shallow and ridiculous celebrities. Finally, Trent Steele announces that it is interval to board a bus to re ason the wanton destruction of our nations forests. This generate is relentlessly parodied: We have to protect [trees] by generate of trees cant protect themselves, except, of trail, the Mexican Fighting Trees. The partygoers travel to a stand of redwoods about to be bulldozed and are chained to the trees. The police (Chief Wiggum, Eddie, and Lou) confront Homer, attempt to swab his eyes with Hippie- Coercion mace, and stop up chasing him on all sides of his tree. His chain works prize a saw, cutting down the redwood, which in turn topples the comprehensive forest. Homer, freed at persist, throws his chain into the air, killing a bald eagle. Homer, as the phony Max Force, is rejected by the phony celebrity activists. In the fifth and final kernel, which serves as an epilogue to the phase, Marge and Homer are in bed. Marge tells Homer she is glad he changed his reputation back to Homer Simpson and Homer responds, Yes, I learned you gotta be yourself. The Phase Through a Postmodern Le ns The phase is intriguing by generate of of its insistent focus on the search for identity, and the methods by which that identity is constructed within the absurdities of the postmodern landscape. As Gergen (1992) notes, We are exposed to more opinions, values, personalities, and ways of activity than was any previous interval in novel; the number of our relationships soars, the variations are enormous: past relationships extreme (only a ring bell apart) and contemporary faces are only a channel absent (p. 58). There is, in short, an explosion in social connections. What does this explosion have to do with our meaning of selves and what we stand for, and how does it undermine beliefs in a romantic interior or in a rational center of the self ? This is precisely the controversy this period of The Simpsons takes up again and again. What is exclusively engaging in this phase is the focus on Homers identity crisis and its relationship to the media. This is not, of line, a theme unique to The Simpsons. As Caldwell (1995) observes, comedy-variety shows in the late 1940s and early 1950s were repeatedly using the conventions of intertextuality and selfreflexivity about the constructed existence of the media image. All the more Leave it to Beaver aired a media/ Studies in Media Counsel Literacy Education, Tome 1, Subject 1 (February 2001), 1-12 # University of Toronto Press. DOI: 10.3138/sim.1.1.002 7 self phase in the 1950s entitled Beaver on TV. Filmmaker Woody Allen often explores the connection between self and media, perhaps most directly in The P urple Rose of Cairo, where the films female protagonist is shocked to find her own film idol able to development off the screen and assume a flesh-andblood relationship with her. More virgin examples involve the films Duration John Malkovitch and Nurse Betty. On the other hand, episodes of The Simpsons residence this theme with a critical column seldom found in mainstream television. In this meaning, the demonstrate serves as both an illustration and exploration of the mass-mediated self. And it certainly stands as an acknowledgment of the degree to which identity is dispersed across media encounters and the degree to which others respond to and validate these contemporary media created selves. Homers engagement with the television character bearing his reputation isnt a simple one of identification, on the other share a blurring of the boundaries between his absolute self and the image of himself dialogically reflected back to himself by the media. This period takes the basic media literacy proposition that the media construct social detail and radicalizes it to argue that the fundamental identities of audience members are further socially constructed by media participation. The boundaries of our seemingly absolute identities open to fade. The writers engage in this play with the audience in at least two different ways. First, they coercion us, through our identification with Homer, to acknowledge the ways in which we identify and all the more lose ourselves in the fictional characters we watch. And to generate trustworthy this speck is driven habitat, the writers pull the rug elsewhere from under us. In the forgetful pleasure of our beneficial identification with Homer, who in turn is identifying with the glamorous protagonist, the period switches the roles of the televised Homer Simpson from seductive hero to buffoon. Homer is left the fool, and we extremely must confront our own identification with Homer and The Simpsons present. At the same interval, the present alternately encourages us to identify with Homers search for his absolute self and reminds us that the character we are closest and relating to is a cartoon invention himself. This is the push and pull of postmodern irony, at once pushing us to critical insights about the conventions of mould and at the same hour pulling us back to a safe level of detachment so that the stakes involved in unraveling our existential certainty about who we are do not become overly menacing. The phase further illustrates the crisis of the self from the perspective of content and form, as detailed by Giddens (1991) and Gergen (1991, 1992). With regard to content, the phase shows us the myriad of ways in which Homers meaning of self is pushed and pulled, spread out and contradicted. With regard to form, it never lets Homers character-or our understanding of his character-settle into a stable, coherent self once his identity has been called into question-at least not until the epilogue of the program. The period moves beyond illustration of the relational self to a critique of the challenges facing the relational self in many instances, and it is certainly in these instances where some of the unique, potentially consciousness raising efforts of The Simpsons flare through. The first dispute is when Homer goes to Hollywood to beg the production convention to give him back his dignity by recreating his television character. Despite Homers protestations that he is a human activity, the By the Numbers Production Convention is undeterred from shamelessly exploiting Homers (cartoon) citizens. This scene suggests that the keys t o our selfhood are held, in stuff, by uncaring corporations, willing to exploit us and our identity for their own gain. The second dispute is in the critically sophisticated decision to offer Homer a second chance at achieving a dignified self by literally constructing his meaning of self through total identification with the faculty setting of a hair dryer. In both cases, and exclusively in the hair dryer gag, these are subtle critiques that may or may not be processed by most viewers. Neither is amplified in any significant means semiotically or through the plot. Reading through the fan postings for the period on the Simpsons Archive speck, we found no evidence that these critiques had been taken up. In act, there was petty recognition of any of the identity issues discussed above, other than the humorous confusion over the label Max Force. On the other hand, these scenes infuse the phase with an influential critical credible, expressly from the speck of judgment of media educator s. They allow us to think about the crisis of the self in connection to the meaning of relational identity as well as within the dispute of what critical postmodernism has identified as Studies in Media Info Literacy Education, Tome 1, Subject 1 (February 2001), 1-12 # University of Toronto Press. DOI: 10.3138/sim.1.1.002 8 the ever- intensifying movement to turn everything into a commodity. All the more ones meaning of self is commodified, reducing us to believing that we really are only what we own. In other contents, while The Simpsons can certainly be enjoyed without any participation of postmodernism, viewers knowledgeable about some of the basic tenets of postmodern sense may more fully appreciate the twists and turns of its inventive plot lines. Defusing Critical Themes Nearly a decade ago, Collins (1992) reviewed a short vignette within a Simpsons period that was constructed in all the more the same pathway as the Homer to the Max phase discussed above. Homer and Bart are watching Macys Thanksgiving Hour parade on television and discussing whether the cartoon characters appearing on the balloon-floats deserve such immortality. Just as Homer tells Bart that if you plain building a balloon float for every flash-in-the-pan cartoon character, youll turn the parade into a farce, a Bart Simpson balloon float passes by. Collins wanted to know about the factor of hyperco nscious irony on television viewers: is its persist effect emancipatory, salient to a recognition that televisions representations are social constructions rather than value-neutral reflections of the real existence? Or does this irony generate a disempowering apathy, in which no image is taken at all seriously? (p. 36). Collins subject is all the more with us today, exclusively by rationale of postmodern television shows demonstrate no memo of disappearing. We are attracted to the resources of media literacy moments that such shows practise visible, on the other facilitate we further realize that these programs often deconstruct the validity and importance of those same media literary guideline. It is the postmodern dimension of nowadays media fare prize The Simpsons that requires that we select the sense and uses of irony further seriously, that we carefully attend to the quality of hope that is offered to media audiences after the deconstructive play of postmodern ironies has left us laughing and numbed. If we can no longer trust any genuine realities, if traditional moralities keep revealing their human limits, does this mean that the only credible options are to retreat into nostalgia, go shopping, or go shopping for nostalgia? Linking these concerns to identity issues, Gergen (1991) asks: Once we are aware of the ironies of self-reflection, how are we to regard them? What response can we generate? Is it simply an invitation to play and a surrender of any form of critical examination or something else? As he argues, when ones activity is constantly doubted and its constructed and contingent character is made evident, then daily area as an objectively given self is threatened (p. 137). With these concerns in meaning, we conclude by examining how the critical issues raised in the beginning of the Police Cops phase regarding the self, the media, and consumer culture are resolved. Not surprisingly, the period withdraws from its sophisticated illustrations of the challenges of postmodern culture in habitual and its more specific explorations of dilemmas of the self. It further withdraws from its application of critical postmodern irony to the more soothing romantic judgment of the self-contained and absolute self, as well as to the nostalgic sense that the traditional family is a haven in a heartless area. Lets contemplate at this turn absent from criticism in a bit more naked truth. A central site of this essay has been that the existence of The Simpsons forces media educators to stretch beyond the basic premises of media literacy to confront the postmodern vastness of the series and its postmodern implications for understanding media literacy. To this speck, we focused on two postmodern media representational issues: the relational self and postmodern irony/irony overload. In the conclusion of this phase, it appears that the critical dimension of each of these pedagogical moments is surrendered. First, the sense of the relational self is rejected. When Homer turns to Marge as they lie in bed and says I learned you gotta be yourself, we are comforted with the most obsessively repeated summary of romantic individualism in the vocabulary of habitual culture. The threat of the blurring borders between ones absolute self and ones mediated self is contained. The threat of ones confusion over who I am and what I own is contained. Moreover, it is contained literally wi thin the confines of the marriage bed, a symbol of the modernist utopia of intimacy between two self-sufficient individuals in a committed Studies in Media Info Literacy Education, Tome 1, Controversy 1 (February 2001), 1-12 # University of Toronto Press. DOI: 10.3138/sim.1.1.002 9 relationship. In this modernist judgment, to be in a relationship or not to be in a relationship is a choice. A relationship is not viewed as the inescapable foundation of a self with its closest responsibilities, obligations, and joys. The sense of the relational self, which could serve as the rationale for a nonmarket ethic for both personal and social relationships, is lost. Although Homers final I learned you gotta be yourself could further be recite ironically, it stands as the final narrative handhold for the viewer to resolve the phase. Second, the separation of regular and private-particularly in the realm of identity and relationship-is scrupulously maintained. Again, this follows the modernis t judgment. Homers activism against the corporate worlds exploitative engineering of personal identity is an isolated, individual quest that humorously reveals the futility of challenge. When Homer does join a troop in line to naked truth in relationship with others to achieve a social target, his joining is both against his will and dependent on his phoniness. The members of the aggregation are further viciously satirized for their insincerity, their self-servingness, and their kookiness. As all the more as The Simpsons celebrates and all the more tenderly appreciates quirkiness of character, quirkiness is presented as uncool as soon as it flowers into organized resistance against corporate mainstreaming. What memo, then, becomes foregrounded? The doctrine of the relational self-formerly used as the mode by which corporate media culture and consumer culture are criticized-is itself critiqued. The further sense of the relational self is seen as a threat, in the same system that corporate manipulation and celebrity phoniness are threats. In naked truth, the period suggests that the sense to the issues of corporate and consumer manipulations of identity lies in just duration ourselves, all the more though ourselves are spread across the myriad of social and mediated interactions that we participation voluntarily and involuntarily every interv al. The sense that the relational self, understood in a beneficial flash, could serve both to deepen the critique of commercial mediation of identity and to articulate an alternative ethic of responsibility is not on the screen. This retreat into the romantic, individualized self is heightened by the excesses of postmodern irony, which move the ironic trope from critique to detachment to nostalgia for authentic or imagined traditions. As Homer makes his system from his encounter with the corporate soullessness of By the Numbers Productions to his encounter with the mindless environmental activism of the celebrity phonies, he learns that all social or political process is equally futile and absurd. This lesson fits with Homers answer to his absolute self and his marital bed, on the other ease it denies viewers any hope-other than cultural regression and increasing privatization of experience-for dealing with the postmodern existence. Taylor (1991), in her glance at of television fam ilies of the 1960s and 1970s, found that the central task of these shows was to advice hold together a conservative impression of the nuclear family against whatever challenges and contradictions novel had to offer. In this meaning, it is ironic that The Simpsons serves a much the same stop, offering the family as sanctuary against a existence absent mad. The Simpsons, on the other hand, innovates by recognizing that the challenges posed to virgin culture are less about external political threats or all the more domestic strife than about the threat to solution itself and to a influential field. In this system, it opens all the more critical habitat and thoughtfully charts modern lifes postmodern absurdities before shutting down the target and examination over these further issues. Conclusion We began with the controversy: If The Simpsons is the reimburse, whats the subject? We argued that The Simpsons is not the stop of postmodern culture, on the other artisan only another process of a tidal wave of media that are hyper self-conscious about solution and mould. For in a superior pathway or worse, the series pushes us to an encounter with postmodern judgment. This encounter provides a vocabulary to recognize the descriptive symptoms of postmodernism and to appreciate the deeper social and historical conditions salient to the postmodern dispute. It further allows us to distinguish between, on the one artisan, a postmodernism of despair which focuses on meaninglessness and, on the other artisan, a critical postmodernism which Studies in Media Counsel Literacy Education, Manual 1, Subject 1 (February 2001), 1-12 # University of Toronto Press. DOI: 10.3138/sim.1.1.002 10 recognizes our compel and responsibility to draw up a course of action of values based on the interdependence of indication and personal identity. This is not to claim we feel that we have the answers to these questions; rather, we demand to levy forward the meaning that these are the questions an d issues that media literacy educators should be teaching toward. Drawing on postmodern impression, we examined two key now themes in The Simpsons: the changing impression of personal identity in the postmodern era, as well as the fruits and futility of a relentlessly ironic worldview. Our reason was to provide some guidelines that media literacy educators could utilize to engage the increasingly pervasive phenomenon of self-conscious media texts that grapple with the blurring dossier between the absolute area and the detail of the media area. Rethinking the sense of identity and recognizing the critical and destructive potency of irony are crucial to understanding the compel of a commercial culture that concurrently creates, celebrates, and bemoans the explosion of meaninglessness. Programs such as The Simpsons give media literacy educators the opportunity to embark upon that journey. COLUMBIA ONLINE CITATION: HUMANTIES STYLE Bybee, Carl and Overbeck, Ashley. Homer Simpson Explains our Postmodern Identity Crisis, Whether we Enjoy It or Not: Media Literacy after The Simpsons. Studies in Media Info Literacy Education 1.1 (2001). https://www.utpjournals.com/simile (subsume access hour here). COLUMBIA ONLINE CITATION: SCIENTIFIC STYLE Bybee, C. Overbeck, A. (2001). Homer Simpson explains our postmodern identity crisis, whether we enjoy it or not: Media literacy after The Simpsons. Studies in Media Info Literacy Education, 1(1). https://www.utpjournals.com/simile (subsume access hour here). BIOGRAPHICAL Memo Carl Bybee is Associate Professor of Indication Studies in the Institute of Journalism and Indication at the University of Oregon-Eugene. Ashley Overbeck is a doctoral student in the same department. Their these days probation focuses on the connection between irony, apathy, and citizenship in childrens media. AUTHOR CONTACT Info Carl Bybee and Ashley Overbeck Institute of Journalism and Memo University of Oregon Eugene, Oregon, U.S.A. 541-346-4175 [emailprotected]/* */ [emailprotected]/* */ References Aronowitz, S., Giroux, H.A. (1991). Postmodern education: Politics, culture and social criticism. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Aufderheide, P. (1993). National leadership conference on media literacy. Washington, DC: Aspen Academy. Best, S., Kellner, D. (1991). Postmodern judgment: Critical interrogations. Contemporary York: Guilford Press. Buckingham, D., Sefton-Green, J. (1997). Multimedia education: Media literacy in the hour of digital culture. In Kubey, R. Media literacy in the counsel hour: These days perspectives (pp. 285-306). Modern Brunswick, NJ: Development. 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