The Fire Service

In 1970, the Chaparral Region of Southern California suffered immense devastation from wildfires that burned for several days, burning more than half a million acres of land, destroying over 700 structures and killing 16 people. During the subsequent debriefing and critiques done by the two primary agencies, Los Angeles County and Los Angeles City Fire Departments, four major obstacles were identified. The two departments agreed that while there was cooperation between the departments, the identified obstacles definitely impeded the efforts put forth to extinguish the fire.

Assignment: As the documentary Miss Representation explains, “The media is now the message and the messenger.” Every day, we take in countless hours of media that influence how we view others and in turn how we view ourselves. It is our responsibility to consume media in an intelligent way AND fight back against negative messages put forth by the media.

One could say the Fire Service possess one unique quality about how it operates daily and that is the culture and the community that lies within every department. Culture is defined as defined by Miriam-Webster “the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations (Definition of Culture, 2017, para. 5).” The many diverse aspects of each department in still’s a variety of cultural differences separating one department from the next. At the heart of all departments, fire service culture is the men and women who work and train hard to serve their communities as prescribed by the Fire Chief. The Fire Chief, however,

A person’s income is not a reflection of his or her value to society First of all, it is the job you have in society that matters, not your income. For an example, if you were an ECE you wouldn’t get paid a high income. you only get paid $48,660 per year, but you still get the hands on experience to help the younger generation to become great members of society. As an Early Childhood Educator you assesses children’s developmental needs and they organize the curriculum to address the child’s needs and interests. Furthermore Kindness matters more than money to contributing to a functioning society. A volunteer Firefighters don't get paid, but they still risk their lives to help our community. An volunteer firefighter has the same act of

The majority of the fire department in the United States are public agencies that their budget money primarily from taxation. In Arizona, fire departments depend on the taxation of the secondary assessed value of property. The health of the economy influences the amount of revenue generated through taxation, where the rise and fall of property values directly correlate to the fluctuation of tax revenue collected for fire department budgets. The Golder Ranch Fire District (GRFD) is a public department that is a state agency because GRFD is a taxation district that provides service to an annexed jurisdiction instead of directly to a city or town. Arizona also has Rural/Metro (R/M), a private fire department owned by Envision Care. As a

Media has grown into the ultimate medium of mass communication, a popular agent used to illustrate the “reflection” of societies throughout the ages. In general, it has overcome multiple issues of representation of different gender, sexuality, class, ethnic and racial groups (chapter 6). Nevertheless, these matters are not completely evolved yet. Media producers substitute the blunt way of displaying their demeaning opinions, into a more subtle version of prejudice defined as: “modern” racism and sexism. Fundamentally, rather than discriminating and showing direct hatred towards who they claim are “genetically inferior”; producers present a positive evaluation and acceptance towards the “minorities” (source #4).

A big topic in the duties of firefighting is why there are more men than women firefighting. Numerous people would think that a woman can’t do the entire cautionary details that it takes to become one. Here is what a woman by the name of Charlotte Whitton has to say about these rumors, “Whatever woman do they must do twice as well as men to be half as good, luckily this is not difficult” (Winters). One explanation to this outbreak is there are many laws protecting women, children, age, minorities, and religious beliefs that many firefighters break everyday that they are on the job. Many women have to endure a workplace that is well suited for male- dominated firehouses unlike that of the 1940’s than of the 21st century. One of the only setbacks for women to worry about when trying to become a firefighter is the physical ability test. Why you might ask, well most women aren’t as strong in the upper body as men usually are, that is not to say that women could weight lift to increase her chances of succeeding. Part of the time that female are at a fire station they get sexually harassed by the male firemen. There have been cases of men hiding video cameras in small place to video tape these ladies and show it to the whole fire house, but in these

By breaking down the quadrants it gives a clear vision on how and why the approaches are needed in correspondence to the different situations. Quadrant One is associated with the situations in relation to the cultural environment surrounding the organisation in which may not be appropriate any longer. For change like this,  it needs to be made on a wide scale, either for the complete organisation, or the majority of it, the Emergent approach; such as (Kanter Et Al’s 1992 Long March) which focuses on both the collaborative and political ideas of change that are more appropriate then current states. The Essex Fire And Rescue Review (2015) support the idea of change in culture that may not be appropriate any longer in that environment. An independent review of claims of intimidation at a fire service has found evidence of “dangerous and pervasive bullying”. The cultural review was commissioned by Essex Fire Authority last year after bullying was reported and two serving fire-fighters took their own lives (Guardian 2015). This idea is supported by the (Independent Cultural Review Of County Essex Fire and Rescue Service 2015) who claim If culture is to change then senior leadership is absolutely critical, in terms of both modelling behaviour and giving permissions to subordinate staff to innovate and appropriately challenge poor performance – including that of management. Taking an emergent approach to change management really highlights the ways in which nature is

Throughout the history of Emergency Services men have dominated the profession and held the rank of officer. Many have nicknamed it the good old boys club. Traditionally women have had difficulty not only gaining access to the profession but also climbing the ladder. The International Association of Women in Fire and Emergency Services published a report titled “A National Report Card on Women in Firefighting” in 2008. This report was based off of a census that was conducted in the 2000 which revealed that women made up only 3.7% of first-level firefighters and just 2.9% were first-level supervisors. The study went on to show that three and a half times the percentage hold positions that are not frontline such as fire inspector or fire investigator

Post-traumatic stress disorder and firefighter suicides are increasing at a very steady rate. Fire departments need to have a plan to reduce these rates, before these rates increase even more. PTSD and suicides are categorized under firefighter mental/ behavioral health, many firefighters are going untreated, even if it is by their own choice. The fire service needs to be more proactive instead of reactive to the signs and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and suicidal thoughts/ committing suicide. Departments can be proactive by developing a plan and/ or program for their employees before these specific negative behaviors occur. Fire departments need to understand the importance of providing education to all personnel

Gender and the Media by Rosalind Gill addresses gender stereotypes that are brought onto women and men through the media resulting in objectification and subjectification. Gill discusses how the representation of gender is altered as a result of the media in Western societies. Gender and the Media is aimed to address the rapid transmission of media and how those changes affect the construction of feminine and masculine gender roles in society. Gill uses her interest in the contradictions of gender construction by society, to analyze gender and the media. Using feminism as a backbone for her research, Gill and many commentators support the idea that feminist ideas are common and may even affect the media. Gender and the Media addresses multiple forms of media: postfeminism in advertising, gender in the news and journalism, and gender in magazines. Gild aims to address the construction of gender representations, elements for gender analysis, and feminist culture with Gender and the Media.

The world has become a much smaller place thanks in part to the creation of the internet. Now, we are able to communicate and interact with larger and more diverse groups of people than we were able to in the past. We are no longer confined to the physical space which we occupy, but we are free to become members of a global community. Thus, we are exposed to various people, cultures, identities, and conceptions of the human that we were ignorant to previously. At the same time, the internet also drastically revolutionized our relationship with the media. As discussed by Henry Jenkins in his book Covergence Culture: Where New and Old Media Collide, the relationship can no longer be accurately described as one between “media producers” and “media

Self-Image Reflected in Media Perspective is one of the many things in the world that constantly fluctuates whether it be in great or limited amounts. Living in the age of technology, my perspective shifts even more because I am exposed to various ideas and cultures, as well as other perspectives. After eighteen years of experiencing this age, the way I perceive the world is identical in some ways and very different in others. Growing up, many of the hot topics in today’s media were not dwelled upon in my household.

Media influence is the force by which ideas are injected into people’s lives shaping the very culture of society. This influence is masqueraded through hidden media message, resulting in a change in its audience which can be positive or negative, abrupt or gradual, short term or long term. Although mass media’s influential effect can reach a wide ranged audience as an agent of socialization the responsibility to contain what it releases has not been of importance. “The media’s socially significant obligations are formally ignored.” (A.S. Zapesotskii, 2011, p 9). Media messages can be exerted through many different outlets such as TV shows, music, movies, commercials, news, magazines, games which are all gravitated to entertain audiences ultimately offering personal gratification that can sometimes blur the lines between reality and

Mass media is the methods of communication, including television, radio, magazines, films, internet and newspapers, that have become some of society’s most important agents of socialization. In this paper I will talk about media and its effects on society today, things such as stereotypes the media portrays, the way media illustrates women and what that does to body images of women. I will also be talking about medias effects on teenagers, and sexualization in the media.