Hi, need to submit a 750 words paper on the topic Achilles Will Return After These Messages. There are three traditional levels of conflict in fiction: man against the world, man against man, and man against himself. The distinguishing characteristic of soap opera is that it takes place entirely on the second level. A soap opera character may have a job or a role in society, or inner conflict, but the most important thing about them will always be their relationships with other people. A soap character might be introduced via an external event, such as a murder or a corporate merger, but they will be defined entirely by their friends, lovers, enemies, grudges, and so on.

Soap operas subordinate all other concerns to personalities and interpersonal conflict. To take a recent example (SoapCentral.com) from popular daytime soap Guiding Light: “Desperate to redeem himself as a father, Alan convinced Phillip to undergo the bone marrow transplant with Alan as the donor.” The phrasing is key: this isn’t a medical drama or even about saving a life, it’s about Alan trying to redeem himself. In soap opera, the character felt it personally necessary, and no other considerations need enter. Achilles’ behavior through much of the Iliad, that is to say hiding in his tent doing nothing, is often described as that of a sulky adolescent ignoring his responsibilities out of pique. While that reading isn’t far off base, another angle would be to point out that his behavior is that of a soap opera character. Is he tired of the war, or does he have some larger problem? No, he has simply been personally affronted by Agamemnon over the matter of Briseis, and so refuses to fight. “Truly the son of Atreus, wide-ruling Agamemnon has dishonoured me: for he has taken and keeps my prize through his own arrogant act.” (Book 1, line 355) His feelings are of paramount importance, and the war can go hang. Indeed, within the context of a soap opera, the war is irrelevant. The questions of offense and personal honor are where the story lies. Of course, Achilles does return to the war in time, but why he does so is just as telling. He does not rally heroically just as the Trojans are about to overrun the Achaean positions, as would happen in a war story. He does not come to the realization that some things are more important than his hurt feelings, as might happen in the story of a personal journey. Rather, he charges back into battle when the Trojans have the temerity to kill his lover, Patroclus. To put it another way, he left the war because the Achaeans hurt his feelings, and reentered it because the Trojans hurt his feelings even worse. “…neither doth my own heart bid me live on and abide among men, unless Hector first, smitten by my spear, shall lose his life, and pay back the price for that he made spoil of Patroclus, son of Menoetius.” (Book 18, line 90) If this is not soap opera characterization, it is difficult to say what else it might be. The Iliad is often described as one of the founding documents of Western literature. It is certainly one of the earliest stories to have come down to us roughly intact, and its influence on other works is incalculable. To point out that it is, effectively, a soap opera is not to somehow demean the Iliad, but rather to ennoble the concept of a soap opera.

I need help creating a thesis and an outline on New Media Culture. Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide. An abstract is required. Indeed, social interactions and relationships have fulfilled several aims and social psychological aims of people. But in ages past, people have been more familiar with a traditional form of social relations whereby the people we come across in person become the only people we continue to relate to in our own unique social worlds. With technological advancement however, much of this trend has changed as technology has created an avenue for people to establish a social setting without really having to come to meet on a personal basis (Fiske, 1992). Sociality and communities have been digitized and advanced through technology and by the power of the internet through various social network platforms. In this essay, there is a careful scrutiny to new sociality and new communities as substitutes of old sociality and communities. As part of the scrutiny, the role of culture in technologically advanced societies shall be invested to come to conclusions with the merits and demerits associated with new sociality and communities. Role of culture in technologically advanced societies Culture may generally be explained as the way in which a group of people live. This means it is the way of life of people and thus entails key variables that distinguish these people including language, meals, dressing, courtesy, social perception and interactivity. Culture has always been a key part of societies and communities. This is because most often than not, any given society is made up of people with core cultural similarities and the more these people are able to share these cultural similarities, the better it is for them to have their communities established (Wellman, B. et al., 2001). In cases where there are cultural differences, tolerance and acceptability have been identified to be the key to developing an effective community. Indeed, as much as this principle applies in the traditional setting, it has also been found to be useful and influential in this era of technologically advanced societies (Castells, 2001). Using various social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Whatsapp as examples, it can be noted that there is virtually none of these social media network that allows an open form of networking that lacks permissiveness by end users to decide who will be their social members and those who will not. This means that hosts and makers of these social networks understand the need for any two people to get along culturally well before relationships can be established in a technologically advanced society. Culture therefore plays the role of defining the kind of societies that can be established and how effective these societies will be once they are advanced into communities. Culture also determines whether or not people will have their social psychological needs satisfied in technologically advanced societies. Approaches to Social Network Theory Generally, social network theory makes use of two major approaches or schemes namely nodes and ties. As far as nodes are concerned, reference made to individual actors who are found within the network, while ties refer to the nature of relationships that are established between these actors (Granovetter, 1983).