Nuclear Terrorism Cons & Risks - United States Essay

Nuclear Terrorism Cons & Risks - United States - Essay Example In the eve of Nuclear Security Summit in April 2010, President Barrack Obama pronounced the prospect of nuclear terrorism as the biggest threat to US security in long term, medium term and short term (Michael, 2012). Equally, in the final report of 2011, the Commission reported the threat from terrorists armed with a weapon of mass destruction as the greatest danger faced by America. The Union of Concerned Scientists considers the development of nuclear items as the biggest long-term threat facing the US and International security nowadays. Fenopetov, et.al (2011) noted that the efforts by various countries of the post-soviet space and those extra-regional actors to form an inclusive, cooperative security structure that can deal with new postmodern threats have very little success. Nuclear pose both direct and indirect threats to US security. Direct threats to US security start from the proliferation, nuclear terrorism, unauthorized or inadvertent use and risk of accidents (Below, 2009). The US has several licensed nuclear power reactors that generate a certain percentage of the total energy consumed in the US. The location of several nuclear reactors is near large population centers. Many experts consider US nuclear reactors to be of high-value aim for a terrorist resolute to perpetrate large-scale death and destruction in the United States. A report commissioned by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) showed security vulnerability associated with the energy system. The report noted that the close location to population centers makes those centers prime candidates for strategic nuclear targeting or conventional bombing. Currently, nuclear proliferation is another pressing threat. Mostly those countries that have differences with the US and its allies are likely to acquire nuclear weapons. In pursuit of their ambitions, countries such as Iran and North Korea have violated the non-proliferation duties and defied the

Audience use of media texts is inextricably linked to the formation of Essay

Audience use of media texts is inextricably linked to the formation of social identities and the forging of cultural distinctions. Discuss - Essay Example It seems that question is no longer whether it does rather how much and in what manner. In current times we have seen how television has morphed from simply a provider of entertainment and a means of recreation, into a god-creator of a proxy-community – where people are drawn to the images and to the text and use them to form social identities and forge cultural distinctions. The notion of a â€Å"fan culture† is a complex one. There are a whole plethora of reasons why an individual finds himself â€Å"hooked† to a particular television show. When these individuals come together, a whole community is created, a whole subculture is forged, and the fans cease to be peripheral observers and become active agents and manipulators of the text itself. From â€Å"borrowed material†, or the material churned out by television producers, scriptwriters and directors, fans craft a patchwork quilt all their own – fusing their own individual experiences and perceptions and coming up with an entirely new animal resembling in parts, and far removed from, in other parts, the original text. This is the theory posited by Jenkins in the book â€Å"Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture† (1992) where he navigates through the media fan community and demonstrate how the cultural practices within it serve to rework the text and create its own social institutions, with its own hegemonies and rules. In order to explore how media defines social identity and on what level, this paper shall take as an example the success of the 1990 hit television show Twin Peaks. It illustrates that the effect of media on social identity can be both normative and prescriptive. First, the portrayal of young adults in Twin Peaks can be prescriptive in terms of lifestyle and behavior. Second, the developments in television genre occur simultaneously with developments in sub-culture. And that the