Who is the Man?

Metrosexual man - picture from www.mahalo.com

A recent survey conducted by Edinburgh Napier News found that women of our modern world are more attracted to men with feminine traits than to those with masculine ones.

The Daily Mail’s online report on August 18th found that British women prefer masculine men to metrosexual men.

This came after psychologists from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland conducted a survey earlier this year to prove that masculine men are healthier genetically.

Dozens of studies have been carried out since then, the most recent just ended today, asking 62 women to choose which type of men they like: metrosexual, the latin-macho type or men with more masculine traits.

The manly, masculine types got 21 votes, machos 12, while the most popular metrosexual types received 29 votes from the ladies.

When asked about why this recent change occured in society Dr Calum Neill, a lecturer in psychology at Edinburgh Napier University, said: “Why do you suppose this is a recent phenomenon?

“I do think there are definite shifts in sexuation, with a much more generalised hystericisation, which have led to the increasing acceptability of the hysterical male… but this in no way suggests a shift in what women want. Weren’t women always drawn to the poetic Don Juan?”

Dr Neill’s comments dismiss the speculation that metrosexual traits were first exposed by the media, starting with actors like Pierce Brosnan and football player David Beckham.

The research, being carried out among 10 nations and five age groups also revealed that none of these factors have influence on preferences as almost all of them voted for metrosexual men.

Converge or Die – Journalism’s New Motto

Professional journalists are afraid to lose their jobs because of the credit crunch and also because of the ever-increasing power of the internet. 

While I think the first is a real problem (as publishers, broadcasters have to cut their budget to survive), I do not consider the latter one a threat to the industry.

Csaba Balogh, a Hungarian journalist and blogger told me in an interview: “It is exactly the internet why newspapers have a future.”

According to him, journalists have nothing else to do, but convert (converge) their knowledge and professional skills and start writing on-line as newspapers are “dying”. This, of course does not necessarily mean that professional journalists are no longer needed – although there is an increasing number of citizen journalists – as they bring their professionalism and investigative initiative to this quick-changing industry. They just have to learn to write in a different style and for a different readership.

These changes might be difficult but they also open up new opportunities: journalists can add links, videos, sound material, etc and even more pictures to their articles which make them interesting and unique.

I agree with this approach and as a journalism student I am happy to see that universities have understood these changes well and adapt to them perfectly.

E.g.: in the summer I got a phone call from my University (Edinburgh Napier) and they did a little phone-interview with me and at the end they told me that the course does not simply concentrate on newspapers, TV and radio any more, but largely on the internet and blogging, offering us a multimedia education; and honestly, what would we do without it these days?

A New Era for Me

Craiglochart Campus, Edinburgh Napier University - picture by sparky2000

As you may or may not know, I started my journalism studies at Edinburgh Napier University this year. We had to write four articles to start our new career with and as I never in my life have done anything similar to this, it was quite an experience.

The first one was an interview made in Princes Street Gardens so I grabbed my notebook and my pen and went for my “person hunt”. We had to find two people, elderly or tourists. I decided that the best would be to find an elderly tourist And so I did.

The first few people I asked said that they were not interested, they did not want to buy anything Even the elderly people were not kind and this was a shock for me. Grandma and grandpa are kind… Or at least they should be…

After walking my legs off, I finally found a gorgeous couple from Germany. The interview was exciting as I had no idea what to ask from them. Imagine: I had to write an article about a person’s life story… And I am not so good in preparing in advance, in fact, I do not believe you can prepare in advance for an interview if you do not know who the interviewee is going to be.

Anyway, I knew what I wanted to know I just did not have enough experience (especially in English), to ask the proper questions. After a while I got the angle of the story and I was unstoppable.

The second piece was an easier one for me: a profile of a journalist. I felt very lucky as I happen to know a Hungarian journalist (we went to the same University and had a class together), so I could do the interview in Hungarian and did not even have to struggle too much with the questions. We have known each other for three years now and I knew a lot of things about him.

Thus, I could prepare my questions in advance as I almost knew his answers as well. This happened to be an hour-long interview which I really enjoyed translating into English. I would love to do this all my life. It was also very comfortable as I did the interview through Skype and I could look into my lecture notes to check whether I was doing the right thing.

Our third article was a Parliament report. This was the hardest as I had to cope with the different accents of MSPs and also with words I have never heard before. I did not know the politicians either, so I tried to guess their names from the vowels I heard I was not sure if I could manage but I could even get some quotes.

Our final task was a feature for the BMI‘s in-flight magazine, the Voyager. We were asked to write something in connection with Edinburgh or Glasgow. As I work in a hotel restaurant this was not really difficult; I meet tourists every single day, I talk to them, I know why they choose certain restaurants and destinations so I decided to write about something regarding restaurants. I called the head-chef of the four star hotel, and we had a chat which I recorded. The result was a 1000-word article about the comfort of hotel restaurants.

In the future I would like to make a few changes: I would like to be more prepared as luck will not always accompany me throughout my academic studies. I will also have to get used to the different accents here and this might improve by listening to the radio or going to council meetings…and if I read more newspaper my vocabulary will improve and I will also get to know how certain articles look like, what makes them interesting and what readers want.