The Arab Spring

The Arab Spring is the series of events which happened and are still happening in the Arab world when the people of the various Arab nations started mass protests and open revolts against the autocratic regimes ruling over them. These events started taking place in Tunisia and they spread through Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Bahrain, and currently, it is happening in Syria. The Arab Spring has seen the fall of several autocratic regimes whose toppling has surprised many in the world. There are several ways through which these revolutions came to be and were organized. In this paper, we shall discuss some of the events which led to the Arab Spring and how most of the public protests were organized.

The Arab Spring came into existence as a response to the lack of political freedom in the various countries in which it has occurred. At first, they were peaceful protests some of which became armed struggles whose aim was to topple the autocratic regimes ruling over these countries. According to Ben-Meir (106), the rebellion against such governments was due to the fact that instead of taking into consideration the calls of their people to allow them more political freedom, these autocratic regimes responded with violence against peaceful protesters, a move which may have been spurred by their conception that their authority was being threatened and that there was a need for them to reclaim such authority by using brute force. The use of force against unarmed civilians led to the discrediting of the legitimacy of such governments and calls for the stepping down of these leaders were made from many international organizations and governments. Moreover, in cases such as Libya and Syria, the peaceful protests suddenly became fierce armed rebellions against the government which attacked the unarmed civilians.

Jones (447) states that protesters in the Arab Spring made very good use of modern technology such as social networks in order to organize protests as well as making people outside their countries aware of what was really going on because of the media blackout that had been created by the autocratic regimes. Many of these regimes had banned and continue to ban international journalists from having access to their countries perhaps because they do not wish for their crimes against their own people to be revealed in the international arena. To counter this, many protesters have devised ingenious ways of getting the information out of their countries including hacking through the heavily censored internet to sites which are most suitable for them to relay their messages. The violent crackdown on civilians by their own governments has also led many military personnel to defect from the government ranks and these have joined the protesters to form the core of the armed rebellion against the government. These military defectors have been very instrumental, through their skills and experience, to bring a semblance of discipline into the ranks of the rebels.

In conclusion, the Arab Spring has brought a lot of changes to the Arab world, most of which are positive especially in the political arena. Most of the countries formerly ruled by autocratic regimes have in the recent months had their first legitimate elections in decades and the majority of them have brought Islamist parties to power. Furthermore, those Arab governments which are afraid of what happened to their neighbors happening to them have started to allow more democratic space in their countries because they would otherwise lose their legitimacy. It is hoped that the Islamist parties which are currently coming to power in the wake of the Arab Spring will be more democratic than their predecessors.

Cited Works

Ben-Meir, Alon. "In all Or in Part: A Look at the Unique States in the Arab Spring and their Collective Future." The Whitehead Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations 13.1 (2012): 105-16. ProQuest Research Library; ProQuest Research Library. Web. 17 Aug. 2012.

Jones, Peter. "The Arab Spring." International Journal 67.2 (2012): 447-63. ProQuest Research Library; ProQuest Research Library. Web. 17 Aug. 2012.

The Negative Effects of Drugs

Drugs are very important in the treatment of the various health problems that occur within the human population. Although drugs are important, some tend to have some very serious side effects on the patients who use them. In this paper, we shall discuss two drugs which have a high risk of giving patients some serious side effects.

There is a high risk for Multiple Sclerosis patients who take the drug Ampyra. The majority of these seizures occur within days of starting the dosage especially among those patients who had no prior history of seizures and it is advised that patients who miss a dose should not take extra doses because doing so will increase the seizure risk. Patients should stop taking the drug right away if they develop any problems and should immediately contact their doctors for advice about what to do next. The healthcare professional should order his patients’ blood tests periodically to monitor the kidney functions of their Multiple Sclerosis patients in order to reduce the chances of a seizure due to the use of Ampyra.

Healthcare professionals are supposed to regulate the dosage of the antibacterial drug cefepime in patients with kidney impairment because there have been some cases of a specific type of seizure called non - conclusive status epilepticus associated with the use of cefepime especially among patients with kidney problems who did not receive appropriate dosage adjustments of the drug. To minimize the risk of seizures, healthcare professionals should adjust the dosage of cepefime in patients with creatinine clearance less than or equal to 60mL/min and if seizures associated with cefepime therapy occur, the discontinuation of the drug should be considered. It is advised that patients should get in touch with their doctors if they have any inquiries or apprehensions about cefepime.

Cited Works

Food and Drug Administration. “FDA Drug Safety Communication: Cefepime and risk of seizure in patients not receiving dosage adjustments for kidney impairment.” Web 29 July, 2012 <www.fda.gov/Drugs/DrugSafety/ucm30966.htm>

Food and Drug Administration. “FDA Drug Safety Communication: Seizure risk for multiple sclerosis patients who take Ampyra (dalfampridine).” Web 29 July, 2012 <www.fda.gov/Drugs/DrugsSafety/ucm312846.htm>

Effects of Television

Watching television is a major human activity in which billions of people all over the world participate and it has become such an essential part of our lives that many of us can hardly do without it. However, what we do not normally consider are the effects of television on us; whether they are beneficial or detrimental to us. In this paper, we shall be focusing on discussing these effects in relation to the work of two authors, Wilbur Schramm’s “The effects of television on children and adolescents” and Frey Bruno’s “Does Watching TV Make Us Happy?”

Wilbur Schramm received a Master of Arts in American Civilization at Harvard University and a Ph.D. in English at the University of Iowa. Schramm was a journalist, writer and academic and most of his publications dealt with mass communication and he is indeed sometimes called the father of communication studies. Frey Bruno on the other hand, received a Master in Economics at the University of Basle and a Ph.D. in Economics. Bruno worked as a Professor of Economics at the University of Constance and later at the University of Zurich. From the year 2010, Bruno has been Distinguished Professor of Behavioral Science at the Warwick Business School and most of his publications deal with the study of behavior.

Schramm (17) is of the opinion that television is more beneficial than it is harmful especially on children. He further states that the effects of television on people would be very hard to study because we are unable or unwilling to experiment on humans as we do on other things. Bruno (3) on the other hand believes that many people are subject to a self control problem because although television is entertaining and relaxing, the future costs of watching television such as not having enough sleep, and the underinvestment in social contacts, education, or career are not considered.

Schramm’s research can be considered to be biased towards television because it is not balanced and it is mostly based on the previous researches conducted to explain why people go to watch films. The majority of his research tends to focus on the benefits of television to children and its positive effects towards their development especially in their interaction within society and in the development of their vocabulary. Schramm states that television offers security and reassurance through the familiar format of many of its programmes but Bruno’s research on the other hand is fairly biased against television. The tone of his research, as opposed to Schramm’s, is generally negative and it focuses more on the negative effects of television than on the positive ones. He even goes as far as to declare that it is quite plausible that unhappy people watch more television than happy people.

Schramm’s article was published by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) which is an agency of the United Nations founded in 1946 whose purpose is to promote global co – operation through education, the sciences, and culture. The UNESCO publishes material that deal with the various issues concerning education, science and culture. Frey Bruno’s article was published by the Center for Research in Economics, Management, and the Arts which he and other colleagues founded to promote scientific research in economics, management and the arts based on the rational choice of approach and from insights from neighboring social sciences.

Schramm’s article was published in 1965 at a time when the age of television was just at its infancy. This was a time when not much had been learned about its effects because most of the people who lived then were not so focused on television they ignored other activities. There were many other sources of entertainment such as the various outdoor activities. Bruno’s work, which came forty years later in 2005, was written at the peak of the television age when many aspects of our lives revolve around the television. Everything from news to television programmes to advertising can now be seen on television and this has led many to spend most of their time watching television.

Parke (307) agrees with Schramm when he states that television programmes have been shown to have positive effects on children’s cognitive and language development. He however disagrees with Schramm’s opinion (and agrees with Bruno’s) that television depicts what is familiar and that it gives us a secure feeling. Parke states that television’s representation of life and society are often inaccurate and as a result, people who view it extensively tend to overestimate the degree of danger and crime in the world and underestimate the trustworthiness and helpfulness of other people. Hamilton (322) further elaborates on this by stating that the most common theme when discussing television today is violence. Television violence is very harmful especially on impressionable children who as they grow up try to emulate the violence they saw on television.

The tone in Schramm’s article depicts his very positive view of television and it also shows a part of the general view of the sixties as being very optimistic about television. The writing style in this article is fairly broad addressing the various issues which were a concern at the time of the article’s writing. Bruno’s style is more contemporary and it gets directly to the point. He addresses the issues even more broadly than Schramm because he has forty years more worth of data to work with than Schramm did.

In the writing of Schramm, we notice that he mostly used periodicals as sources for his articles. He uses a diverse range of periodicals from those dealing with psychology, sociology, and mass communication. Bruno on the other hand mostly uses sources dealing with issues related to his field of study, that is, economics. He however also touches on the very same subjects that Schramm did especially in psychology and sociology but all of these in relation to economics.

Cited Works

Bruno, Frey. “Does Watching Television Make Us Happy?” 2005.

Hamilton, James T. Television Violence and Public Policy. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 2000.

Parke, Ross D & Clarke-Stewart, Alison. Social Development. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons, 2010.

Schramm, Wilbur. “Effects of Television on Children and Adolescents.” 1965.