Wal-Mart has become a staple company in many communities. It is a place where individuals can find most of their needs, and many of their wants. The appeal of Wal-Mart can be found in its slogan, “Always Low Prices.” It is the appeal of low prices during a time of economic recession that entices consumers. What many consumers do not recognize are the means by which Wal-Mart ensures these low prices. The media coverage of Wal-Mart during the recent months has not been favorable towards the company, and with lawsuits pending regarding issues such as low wages, anti-union practices, and sexual discrimination, Wal-Mart provides an avenue for examining media and alternative media depictions of the issues. This analysis will determine the extent to which media sources provide information on Wal-Mart and the allegations, and how this corporation is working to reduce class inequality. The focus will more broadly develop an argument which claims that superclass interests are the driving force behind our media, and therefore our exposure to critique of the system is limited. There are three articles that will be referenced during this analysis. The first article is taken from the mainstream media publication USA Today. “Wal-Mart takes hits on worker treatment: Lawsuits, unions slam megaretailer”(Armour, 2003) argues that Wal-Mart is coming under attack from critics who argue workers are underpaid, women are discriminate against, and illegal tactics are being deployed to kill unionization efforts. Armour (2003) states, “company officials say they don’t know why the attacks are coming now, and they also say the allegations are unfounded.” The next statement made during the article states that Wal-Mart employees agree with the statement. The author continues reporting on the issues at stake, but focuses mostly on how unions may be less relevant in today’s world. The article makes mention of both sides of the argument, but the rhetoric and terminology used leans towards the portrayal of Wal-Mart as a victim of biased attacks to further union interests in the market. Perucci and Wysong (1999) would argue that this article is a perfect example of selective reporting, “unstated but routine news reporting policies and practices that produce a preponderance of flattering news media coverage of superclass-favored issues” (1999:160). It ... ... middle of paper ... ...tive media portrayals of an issue. Ultimately this assignment was beneficial to my perspective on class issues. It exposed me to multitudes of informational sources ranging from mainstream to alternative. It was also interesting to see the ways in which issues are portrayed differently, and as I mentioned other the lack of blaming the system is extremely interesting. The various sources opened my eyes to the reality of media impact and control over our lives and opinions. It is difficult to see beyond the obvious appeal of corporations such as Wal-Mart, but this should be apparent to me after all these years of sociology. I think this assignment really helped me to think outside the box, and really analyze who has control; it isn’t me or you. That’s for sure. Works Cited Armour, Stephanie. 2003. “Wal-Mart Takes Hits on Worker Treatment.” USA Today. Hellerman, Caleb. 2004. “The Wal-Martization of Everywhere” & “Low Road/High Road.” Retrieved March 6, 2004 from: www.inequality.org. Olsson, Karen. 2003. “Up Against Wal-Mart.” Mother Jones. 28:2. Perrucci, Robert and Earl Wysong. 1999. The New Class Society. Lantham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
To this day, when I walk into Wal-Mart and come face to face with a manager I once worked under they give me dirty looks. People report that managers will trash talk you to another job that applied for if that job contacts Wal-Mart about you. Wal-Mart has unrealistic workloads for some overnight stockers, their managers aren’t the best in the world, and their policies are harsh. This is why I constantly call Wal-Mart a communist regime; not because it shares the ideals but because it is just bad for everyone in general. Hopefully one day a high positioned power will restore the order and peace that once was Wal-Mart according to the history they teach you in training and that their policies and workloads may become more realistic and doable.
The Wal-Mart Corporation is a multi-billion dollar low-cost retail organization, consisting of 6400 stores and 1.8 million sales associates worldwide. Wal-Mart’s influence on the retail world and the enormity of their corporate size is unparalleled. Wal-Mart can easily report sales of $312.4 billion dollars per fiscal quarter and net profits of $3.8 billion dollars. Wal-Mart promises her customers "Always low prices. Always!" and upholds this motto by providing low prices to her customers and high return on investment to her stockholders. One way that Wal-Mart has managed to maintain a competitive edge over other low cost retail giants and provide low prices is by cutting wages and by not offering too many company benefits to their employees. Full-time employee working at Wal-Mart only make $8 an hour, while only 45% of the workers can afford to be covered by health insurance. Wal-Mart also increase part time employees from 20 percent to 40 percent so that they do not have to cover all of their employees for health insurance . Although Wal-Mart may not provide excellent benefits to her employees, it successfully performs as a legitimate business operating in a capitalistic society. Wal-Mart upholds the primary fiduciary duty to satisfy her stockholder and follows free the market libertarianism model, which states that a business should not interfering with the free market. In a free market Wal-Mart has a direct responsibility to her primary stockholders rather than the employees of a company.
She also introducing new urban building standards. This this article she talks about, the idea some people have of tearing it down and rebuilding. She also talks about ideas people have about some parts of towns. In Boston, she talks about the area of North End, and the change that it was over gone. During her second visit to this area, she discovered that it had changed. She talked to other about it, although the statistic were higher than the city, the people still saw it as a slum. They felt that they needed to tear it down in order to build something better. This leads to the conclusion that the urban planners to do understand that the people of the city need. They have ideas that were developed years ago that they are still using. These ideas do not take account what the people want. The author also introducing new ideas of a perfect city to live in and what it would look like. The idea of a garden city was introduced. This city would be built around a park. Although the new ideas sounded great they could not be put into place today. The idea of a Garden City is something that sounds nice, but it is not possible in society today. Today a city should reflect economic status, and in order to achieve this the city should be big, and convey an image of power. A city that has aspects of nature in it would not convey that image. That upkeep of a city of that kind would also be difficult. The do understand the author's point of view. The planners often times do not take into account the desires of the people. The town that I grow up in want to become more urbanized. In order to do this, they are building a large shopping center. This shopping center is located in the canyon rim. This canyon rim has been important the people for many years. We come to the area to walk, what bass jumpers, and enjoy the scenic views. This new shopping center took away this area. Many of the people
Not only does she tell us how much she likes it, she also noted this: “...I have a very good boarding place, have enough to eat...the
Since the Environmental Movement, traditional land art evolved, on one hand, to climate art, and on the other, influenced landform building. “The principles of landform building,” according to architect and theorist Stan Allen, “offer a new lens with which to reexamine phenomena as diverse as the megastructure of the 1960s, the current fascination with green building, artificial ski slopes, or the vast multi-use stadia being constructed today.” These principles include the inhabitation of the landscape, which much of contemporary architecture has incorporated into its design. However unlike land art’s wild terrains, such as the salt lake of Spiral Jetty or the vast desert of Double Negative, contemporary architecture has incorporated principles of land art into densely populated urban typology, of which the following two projects serve as significant examples.
Evolutionists often come with the argument that fossil findings can serve as a proof of the evolutionary process; bones of such creatures as dinosaurs, or the remains of even more ancient beings found by archaeologists are much older than the age of our world according to the Bible. Therefore, claim the evolutionists, creationists are wrong. Creationists, however, came up with a strong counter argument. They say that all fossil findings are already fully formed, and appear to have not changed much over time; in other words, they remained in a so-called stasis condition (Geological Society of America). This means that there are no intermediate links between simpler and more complex life forms, which witnesses in favor of the claim that each species had been created.
Kunstler thinks that this move was a cash grab and the city is just “Following the Money” (46). He describes the Mall of Georgia as a form of cheap entertainment that isn’t even entertaining. Kunstler talks about how many of the Malls entertainment nightclubs pulled out leaving only “the usual twenty-screen multiplex cinema (yawn)” (48). Kunstler stigmatizes Atlanta for having very little if not any public transportation in the county. This shows how the city was poorly planned and the only way of transportation is someone’s personal vehicle. This relates back to how Atlanta has a big problem with too many vehicles on the road all the time and it has poor infrastructure with just massive overused
In the case of Dukes vs. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (Dukes), the court found that there was a lack of significant proof that Wal-Mart had a general policy of discrimination (Schipani, 2013). The plaintiffs needed commonality to establish uniformed disparity within the Wal-Mart organization, and statistical evidence was deemed unworthy of proving this commonality (Schipani, 2013). The numbers were astounding; seventy-two percent of the hourly workforce of Wal-Mart are women, yet only 10% are store managers, and a mere 4% of female Wal-Mart employees are district managers (Bernardin & Russell, 2013). The numbers seem to reflect a painfully obvious presence of discrimination, and with Wal-Mart’s market power within its industry, it can be frightening to evaluate the impact their practices have on the American employment culture.
“Wal-Mart is the largest private employer in the nation and the world’s largest retailer. With 1.6 million workers, 1.3 million in the United States and 300,000 offshore” (Miller, 2006). Thousands of Wal-Mart stores across the United States of America are best known for their slogan of save money live better. Wal-Mart retailers are regarded by the American public for the place to go to find everything from fishing gear to groceries at the lowest prices. However, to obtain these low prices, Wal-Mart must cut expenses, which it does across the board, including the pay and benefits to its workers in the United States. Wal-Mart 's low prices have often saved consumers money at the counter when they purchase goods, as
Quickened procedures of urbanization in the twenty-first century, as we have seen, are to a great extent moved in urban areas in creating nations, and the greater part of these new urban natives are living in informal or illicit advancements. Urban design, then again, moves past the investigation of space; it is the act of effectively forming the city in a wanted manner (Németh, 2010). It is evident that urban communities can frequently be overpowering places, and that we require a decided state of mind and clear center so as to explore their complexities. Urban originators enhance the livability of urban communities by making an interpretation of arrangements into physical systems, setting up configuration criteria for advancement ventures,
The city of Paris is famous for its obsession and its long tradition of designing its urban spaces, fact demonstrated from the large number of more than 450 designed public spaces (gardens, squares, parks, promenades etc.) included in its greater area. In the same time, many of the parisian gardens and parks seem to be heritage from its royal past or presents from previous presidents and mayors of the city and often tend to be ‘museumfied’.
Ossowski, S. (1966). Different conceptions of social classes. In R. Bendix, & S. M. Lipset, (2nd
Landscape Urbanism is best equipped to assist Lyndon’s “multiplicity of cultures seeking at once to find their way in the present and to forge their place in the future” because it positions landscape “as the most relevant meduim for the production and representation of contemporary urbanism.” The interdisciplinary model it uses is one which positions landscape as the generator, rather than backdrop, of urban development. The public landscape infrastructure organizes and shapes urban development rather than the other way around. Not to be mistaken as landscape architects. They distance themselves from landscape architecture in two ways:
Although Urban sprawl may seem to be a great opportunity to expand our living quarters and get people out of the city, when you divulge deeper you find that there are many concerning problems that place it as at a high risk of destroying our nation. Just some issues that arise with Urban Sprawl include elevated risk of water and air pollution through increased car dependency, more traffic fatalities, higher taxes, increased run off into rivers and lakes, harmful effect on the human health including diseases, loss of natural habitats, wildlife and open space. Every year, Urban sprawl consumes and demolishes unmeasurable amounts of forests, farmlands, woodlands and wetlands while creating social dysfunction, hidden debts of unfinished infrastructure and environmental
Landscape architecture is a design discourse that evolves over time in responding to past influence that imparts form and gives expression to a place. Edmund Husserl, whose thought profoundly influenced the landscape of 20th century, says ‘each expression not merely says something, but says it of something; it not only has meaning, but refers to certain objects’. The landscape can, therefore, be seen as a nonverbal expression by injecting intangible past into physical material palette through certain design technique. That is, landscape elements are shaped and arranged by the designer, but their presence and design triggers the expression. As a tool for the elements’ application, design strategy can be summarized as a combination of point,