Gift from Kenya to America

The concept of representation is prevalent in the story since it shows the mental interpretation of the cow. In Kenya the mental interpretation of the cow is literally worlds apart from the mental interpretation of the cow in America.
The fact that the nomadic Maasai of Enoosaen village in South West Kenya would give America a gift so sacred to their culture shows how touched, moved, and respect they have for America.
Representation is also prevalent since one of the definitions of representation explains that pictures hold intangible concepts. Now although the nomadic Maasai of Enoosaen village did not send pictures of cows, nor were pictures of cows received in America, the cows hold an intangible concept. The cows represent an idea; an idea that cows represent "handkerchiefs to wipe away tears.” It only seemed fit that America needed handkerchiefs to wipe away tears, and the cows would serve to console and comfort after an event America experienced.
Here shows even after such a tragic event cultures are brought together through the signs and symbols that show unique representations.

Chapter 1

Chapter one speaks of how the media is evident in our lives, how much power it has, how it relates to two specific communication models, and it defines the media.
One concept that I will bring out for attention is the internet, and the concept that September 11 helped push the internet forward into a power house. September 11 is looked at as a test since at first the internet was bogged down, but it arose and handled the overload, quickly recovering.

Two communication models include the Transmission Model and the Cultural Model.
The Transmission model is tied with and has its roots in relationships between people, interpersonal communication. The flow of communication starts with source, and the source relates the message to the receiver.The Cultural Model is less well known. I believe the cultural model also is interpersonal to a point as it is tied with social interaction. Furthermore, the cultural model wants to make a universal, everyday culture. To a point the shared meaning of culture represents the world for us, but everyone is an individual and has their own reality.

Representation

This video goes into detail on a specific view of what representation means. The definition is as follows: representation is the way in which meaning is given to things depicted. I enjoyed how the term was defined without using the term. It dissected the term representation and broke it down further stating that representation is to depict or present something else; and to re-represent through media.
The following I found especially interesting and was towards the end of the video, "thinking the meaning that is given or that it is giving is very different from or distorted of what it really means. Your work on representation would be a measuring of an event or object."