Looking back...

Coming to the end of this post, from my experience and first time blogger, writing for a serious blog on issues in Publication and design is quite hard. I had to do lots of research and sit down and think of what issues should be discussed and how to relate with my ideas and other people's ideas. And not mention, the information should be minimize with 200 words only is quite really hard.

However, from this process, I quite learned about the revolution of media and internet and the issues that are faced now.

As a first time blogger, I should be aware of who my target audience is, purpose and context. According to Putnis and Petelin (1996), readers interact with texts and construct their meaning by calling on their framework of prior knowledge and background, experience of objects, situation, events, action - their schemata.

In conclusion, blogging takes a lot of responsibility. So do be aware of certain things before you do start blogging on serious issues.

References:

Putnis, Peter and Petelin, Roslyn 1996, 'Writting to communicate', in Professional communication.

The Power of photographs...

Now we all knows that pictures says a thousand words but do we all agree with this idea and according to Walsh (2006), pictures give more meaning using visual grammar. A function of a picture is to create a meaning and helps the audience or readers give an understanding of what it is trying to say. For example look at the picture below:

http://pasturescott.files.wordpress.com/2007/06/starving-child.jpg

By looking at this picture without any words, readers already get the meaning where a single child dies from starvation. Therefore, everyday we should be thankful with what we have cause there are thousands of people who are suffering from starvation. For readers to be able to interact with pictures and text in order to contruct their meaning is based from our knowledge, background, experience and thier schemata (Putnis, Peter and Petelin, Roslyn, 1996).

Kress and van Leeuwen (2006), perspective is that visual communication is becoming less and less the domain of specialist (referring to task engineers, doctors, artist handle); more and more domains of public communication: 'grammar' of description (images) taught through education needs to be employed.

Do Pictures Lie?

With new digital technology and softwares, original pictures just turn out to be edited so the question is, do pictures lie or not?

http://news.cnet.com/2300-1026_3-6033210-1.html?tag=mncol

http://news.cnet.com/2300-1026_3-6033210-18.html?tag=mncol

According to J.D. Lasica (1988), ' people believe in news photograph. They have more inherent trust in what they see than what they read. Digital manipulation throws all pictures into a questionable light. It's a gradual process of creating doubts in the viewer's mind'. In my opinion, pictures, sometimes do lie although this depends on the situation.

Photographic and video images can reveal great truths, expose wrongdoing and neglect, inspire hope and understanding and connect people around the globe through the language of visual understanding (National Press Photographers Association, 2008).

Photographs should create expressive meaning rather than editing. Isn't original pictures better than edited pictures? Think about it...




References:

ABC Radio National 2007, The Power of Photograph, viewed 11 November 2008, <http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2007/2051819.htm>

CNET news.com 2008, Photos: Pictures that lie, viewed 11 November 2008, <http://news.cnet.com/2300-1026_3-6033210-1.html?tag=mncol>

Online Journalism 1989, Photographs that lie, viewed 11 November 2008, <http://www.jdlasica.com/articles/WJR.html>

Walsh, M 2006, The 'textual shift': Examining the reading process with print and visual and multimodal texts, Australian Journal of Language and Literarcy, vol. 29, no. 1, p.24-37.

National Press Photographers Association 2008, NPPA Code of Ethics, viewed 11 November 2008, <http://www.nppa.org/professional_development/business_practices/ethics.html>

Washingpost.com 2007, Photos worth a thousand lies, viewed 11 November 2008, <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/25/AR2007012500556.html>

Kress, G and van Leeuwen, T 2006, Reading Images. Chapter 1: The semiotic landscape: language and visual communication.

Putnis, Peter and Petelin, Roslyn 1996, 'Writting to communicate', in Professional communication.

Facebook: Good or Bad???

Commonly used site among youngsters, companies and everyone else is the famous Facebook, a social networking website. Millions of people use Facebook everyday to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet (Facebook, 2008). According to CNET news.com, facebook is overflowing with 120 million users from early July till now. Facebook relates to Naughton's theory of 'personalisation and interactivity' as it has become interactive among users.

I personally don't have facebook and may not know the difference between facebook and friendster or other social networking websites. Walsh (2006) states that internet sites combine with animation, graphics, hyperlinks, hot spots and etc allows users to nagivate multiple sites at a click of a mouse. And this can be also related to Naughton's (2006) concept of 'pull medium' - nothing comes to us unless we click it to pull it down to our computer. Facebook might be good but to what extent can facebook be trusted?




PRIVACY


We all that the internet is a powerful thing and publishing a blog or uploading photos to facebook profiles may or may not be seen by others. According to CNET news.com (2006), 'getting someone's user ID is easy; just hover over the name and the user ID is the first group of numbers buried in the coding at the bottom of the page'. Although this are not the only issues faced by users.

Another case is that in January 2008, 'a memorial group on Facebook posted the identity of murdered Toronto teenager Stefanie Rengel, whose family had not yet given the Toronto Police Servive their consent to release her name to the media, as well as the identities of her accused killers. This shows that the Facebook staff attempted to fulfill privacy regulations to delete the posting mentioning her name' (Wikipedia, 2008)

http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/1055.html

However, facebook gives the users option of privacy settings but as to what extent to knowing is there really someone out there who checks our profiles or how can we stop softwares that are uploaded to facebook enabling third parties or online predators knowing everything that is written at our profiles at Facebook. Therefore, we as adults and young adults should know the risk of creating profile sites such as friendster, myspace or facebook might be shown to online predators and be aware and responsible to prevent strangers from knowing who we are. So careful with what you type and show to the public.





References:

Facebook 2008, Facebook, viewed 11 November 2008, <http://www.facebook.com/facebook>

ZDNET Asia 2008, Facebook surges to 120 million users, viewed 11 November 2008, <http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/internet/0,39044908,62047943,00.htm>

Naughton J 2006, guardian.co.uk: The Observer 'The age of permanent net revolution', viewed 11 November 2008, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2006/mar/05/newmedia.broadcasting>

Walsh, M 2006, The 'textual shift': Examining the reading process with print and visual and multimodal texts, Australian Journal of Language and Literarcy, vol. 29, no. 1, p.24-37.

ZDNET Asia 2008, More Security plague for MySpace, possibly Facebook, viewed 11 November 2008, <http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/security/0,39044215,62045013,00.htm>

ZDNET Asia 2008, Facebook admits to increased attacks by spammers, viewed 11 November 2008, <http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/security/0,39044215,62040489,00.htm>

ZDNET Asia 2008, Facebook users need 'greater discretion', viewed 11 November 2008, <http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/security/0,39044215,62036271,00.htm>

Wikipedia 2008, Facebook, viewed 11 November 2008, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook>

CNET news.com 2008, Exclusive: The next Facebook privacy scandal, viewed 11 November 2008, <http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-9854409-2.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=Webware>

Web TV vs. YouTube takes new heights...

Nowadays, we are so dependent with new technology and new forms of media. Most of us would agree that most of our time is spent and glued on to the screen. According to Nielsen's research online shows from the TV to PC, on the average internet user spent 13.7 hours a week online in 2007.

Both Web TV and YouTube are streaming videos that are downloaded from the internet. Although both are competing with one another and aimed at reaching new audiences as well as increasing their revenue by advertising but this are not the only streaming videos application there is. This concept somehow relates to Naughton's (2006) 'personalization and interactivity'.

Web TV

http://www.castawayrv.com/kvh/images/msntv_screen_RVportal_300.jpg

Web TV is launching a new online TV channel called 'AdConion TV' aims to move internet TV shows out of the portal environment and on to the hundreds of niche websites across which sells advertising through the use of expandable video player (The Australian Business, 2008).

The idea of web tv is interesting but has its disadvantages. Among these disadvantages is the screen size of a web tv is smaller that shows very limited information compared to a normal screen in a PC/Laptop (Nielsen, 1997). In my opinion, I have never experienced web tv and to me, I would not get a web tv cause watching videos on PC/ Laptop is way better and there are applications such YouTube that is free and easy access to watch movies, etc.

YouTube

http://www.smwlu49.org/images/logos/youtube_logo.jpg

The files on YouTube can be shared or either downloaded using a software that is mainly for YouTube. I'm a major fan of YouTube. And the good part of YouTube is that you can upload any videos that you want.

According to The Australian Business (2008), YouTube will be offering full-length television shows such as "The Young and the restless", "90210" and many more. In addition to its shorter video offerings and during the run of these videos, they plan to sell commercial slots for advertisements.

Considering YouTube a popular site among us, its been facing issues of copyright infringement. Viacom, an organization, sued YouTube for more than $ 1 billion dollars. The reason is due to its users action of uploading its own videos without any authorization from its companies such as MTV and Nickelodeon. Viacom won the case.

And due to issues that have been faced by YouTube recently, would regulate users from uploading videos that are owned by media companies. So beware readers, do not upload videos that are not owned by you!





References:

The Australian Newspaper 2008, TV to PC: the great migration, viewed 10 November 2008, <http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,23400162-26077,00.html>

Naughton J 2006, guardian.co.uk: The Observer 'The age of permanent net revolution', viewed 10 November 2008, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2006/mar/05/newmedia.broadcasting>

Wikipedia 2008, Web TV, viewed 10 November 2008, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_TV>

The Australian Business 2008, Web TV group takes on net publishers, viewed 10 November 2008, <http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,,24590796-7582,00.html>

Nielsen J 1997, WebTV usability Review, viewed 10 November 2008, <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9702a.html>

The Australian Business 2008, YouTube to offer full tv shows, viewed 10 November 2008, <http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,24484006-36375,00.html>

Wikipedia 2008, YouTube, viewed 10 November 2008, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube>

Mashable 2008, Viacom sues YouTube for $ 1 billion... The end of the Tube?, viewed 10 November 2008, <http://mashable.com/2007/03/13/viacom-youtube/>

Revolution of Print

Books, print newspaper were initially a reliable source during the olden days although with usage of new media increasing, traditional print is disappearing. Nowadays, we are so dependant with the internet for information especially the young ones and I definitely would agree to this. Most of my research of information was done in the internet as it is easy and simple.

According to Dan Pacheco, the media revolution that is really changing the face of media that many of us just assume whether or not we realise it, that the print media is going completely go away. Therefore, Pacheco came up with this project called "printcasting".

http://www.printcasting.com

Printcasting is a tool that lets everyone publish a printable PDF newspaper or magazine using content from participating bloggers and news providers.

http://www.printcasting.com/photo

In my opinion, I think printcasting is interesting and it's a way that connects between the content and the audience. Using Traditional print like newspaper, readers or the audience do not really bother reading the content or either they are connected with the text. This would be like a sample of Print Vs. Online that is already mentioned in previous post.

Although, printcasting would be a good idea for print medium, there might be questioned of blogs being credible source. According to Nielsen (2005), readers for blogs make it often harder to understand the site and trust the author as blogs are too internally focused and ignore key usability issues.

Definitely, everyone right now writes anything they want or express issues that interest them in the net. But we should consider that rather than writing for the satisfaction of ourselves, we should write according the audience needs and satisfaction. It is very important to know your audience, purpose and context in publishing a document. According to Schriver (1997), better technology does not equal better communication. Therefore distributing print materials from blogs through printcasting could have its disadvantage.





References:

ABC Radio National 2008, Printcasting, viewed 9 November 2008, <http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2008/2300205.htm>

Printcasting 2008, Printcasting, viewed 9 November 2008, <http://www.printcasting.com>

Printcasting 2008, WAN: Printcasting One of 5 "Must do Strategies" for newspaper, viewed 9 November 2008, <http://www.printcasting.com/profiles/blogs/1998218:BlogPost:2196>

Nielsen, J 2005, Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes, viewed 9 November 2008, <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/weblogs.html>

Schriver K.A 1997, Chapter 6: Dynamics in document design, viewed 9 November 2008, <http://blackboard7.taylors.edu.my/courses/1/0807COMM1043TML0017/content/_1340678_1/karen_a_schriver.pdf?bsession=488242&bsession_str=session_id=488242,user_id_pk1=235174,user_id_sos_id_pk2=1,one_time_token=>

New Forms of Media Publishing

The future of new media is doubt questionable. Will new media influence us or we influence the new media? According to Ramona, "the digital age has brought all sorts of new possibilities for ways that any of us can communicate our opinions, experiences, ideas and dreams to people near or far, through blogs, hub, online forum and internet publishing". Everyone can somehow agree that the net is rapidly changing the ways we communicate and issues might somehow be questionable as in terms of credibility, copyright and etc.

Some few 'new trends' do include types of blogs such as MoBlogs, Splogs, Vlogs, etc. These type of blogs served their own purpose based on the audience, purpose and context.

Just to let you know that Vlogs -are blogs that contains videos and Mblogs- is a blog that is maintained by using a mobile device such as PDA or cell phone (whatis.com, 2008). Both blogs is simple and available to everyone although this has become a common thing, today. According to Kress & van Leewuen (2006) states multimodal text is any text whose meanings are realized through more than one semiotic code. Although, this blogs are question for credibility, copyright and ethics.

According to Bill Tarant, YouTube, phenomenally popular video website, did as much damage as any opposition figure could hope to inflict, after netiezens uploaded embarrassing videos of their politicians in action on hot button issues. One good example is a video of MP Badruddin bin Amiruldin causing a commotion in the Malaysian Parliament at YouTube(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkqyhBDU5HM).

Therefore, usage of new media and alternate media does affect the image of politicians such as no privacy and contributes to people's perception on issues or other things.




References:

ABC Radio National 2006, New Media Publishing, viewed 5 November 2008, <http://www.safe.com.org.au/rn-newmedia.htm>

Whatis.com 2008, Vlog, viewed 5 November 2008, <http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci1163516,00.html>

Whatis.com 2008, Moblog, viewed 5 November 2008, <http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci1180174,00.html>

Kress, G & van Leeuwen, T 2006, Reading Images: Grammar of Visual Design, Routledge, London

Reuters Canada 2008, Malaysia Opposition win shows power of cyberspace, viewed 5 November 2008, <http://ca.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idCAKLR6139420080309?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0>

YouTube.com 2006, Parlimen Malaysia, viewed 5 November 2008, <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkqyhBDU5HM>

Print Vs. Online

Designing for print and website are two completely different layouts. In print (newspaper, book, etc), the text is linear and static. Linear text is where you have no choice but to read the whole thing (Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006).

Compared to print, a webpage design (online), readers follow the F-shaped pattern and more interactive. They first read the horizontal movement across the top part of the content following, move down the page a bit and read across in second horizontal and lastly scan the left side in a vertical movement (Nielsen, 2006).

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html

Examples:
Seventeen Magazine Vs. Seventeen official website

http://wehearthayden.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/haydenpanettiere_seventeenapril2008.jpg

Walsh (2006) states pictures are worth a thousand words using visual codes such as colour, framing, angle,line, perspective, etc. in other words 'visual grammar'. Readers must be able to decode the message based on the audience's culture, background and knowledge in order to understand the meaning.

http://www.seventeen.com/

Designing a website is that information can linked with other sites that gives the readers more choices based on our interest. According to Nielsen (1997), people rarely read web pages word by word; they scan the page, picking out individual words and sentences.Online readers interact more with words and pictures in terms of frames, hyperlinks, etc. Although readers for blogs make it often harder to understand the site and trust the author as blogs are too internally focused and ignore key usability issues (Nielsen, 2005).




References:

Kress, G & van Leeuwen, T 2006, Reading Images: Grammar of Visual Design, Routledge, London

Nielsen, J 2006, F-Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content, viewed 5 November 2008, <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html>

Walsh, M 2006, The 'textual shift': Examining the reading process with print and visual and multimodal texts, Australian Journal of Language and Literarcy, vol. 29, no. 1, p.24-37.

Nielsen, J 1997, How Users Read on Web, viewed 5 November 2008, <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9710a.html>

Nielsen, J 2005, Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes, viewed 5 November 2008, <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/weblogs.html>

Classification of blogs

Blogs are classified with different categories that are listed below (technorati.com, 2008):

• Entertainment
• Business
• Lifestyle
• Sports
• Technology
• Politics

Within this categories of blogs, one category of Blog, say Entertainment, are more categorise that is listed below:

Entertainment

• Celebrity and gossip
• Gaming
• Movies and Film
• Music
• Television
• Theater
  

Now, readers read blogs on particular subject that they are interested in. For example, I'm more interested on movies; therefore, I would search for a blog on a topic of movies. Blogs is like a virtual diary. Bloggers write on issues or topics that they are interested in while other bloggers/readers will share comments on that particular topic. Therefore, this shows interactivity within each other.

BLOGGING COMMUNITY

According to Gil (2006), the term 'online community' implied a community who interacted online within some bounded set of technology. Such blogging communities like Global Voices Community, MyBlogLog, Xanga, etc. To further explain blogging community, Xanga for example, is a blogging community where bloggers are connected to other bloggers.

www.xanga.com

Xanga is a community where enables the public to create their free weblog, share vidoes, pictures, meet friends and connect to you who shares the same interest as you.

How to create a blogging community is just simple and easy. It's simply by providing links to other blogs on the side bar of your blog and comment section.




References:

Technorati 2008, Blog Directory, viewed 4 November 2008, <http://technorati.com/blogs/directory>

Xanga 2008, Xanga, viewed 4 November 2008, <http://www.xanga.com/>

Gil 2006, Blogs and Community- launching a new paradigm for online community, viewed 4 November 2008, <http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2006/edition-11-editorial/blogs-and-community-%E2%80%93-launching-a-new-paradigm-for-online-community>

ABC Radio National 2008, A taxanomy of blogs, viewed 4 November 2008, <http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2008/2372882.htm#transcript>

Wikipedia 2008, Blog, viewed 4 November 2008, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog>

Blog: Current Phenomenon and Benefits to the Community

Today, blogs have been increasingly used as other form of media on issues that concerns the community that could influence by spreading information such as opinions on particular issues that relates to us. Blogs are used to express feelings, post issues on hot topics like politics, personal interest, advertisements or just plain entertainment. According to Technorati.com, they are currently tracking 112.8 million blogs.

Blogosphere is a community where bloggers share a same interest or topic, etc., meaning they are interconnected with one another online. For example, a blogger might talk about issues on politics, where the audience or other bloggers might share the same opinion of that particular blogger.

TYPES OF BLOGS

With blogs increasing, there are many types of blogs that are categorize below (Thinkquest, 2006):

• Personal (music, life, politics, fashion, etc)
• Corporate
• Spam
• Podcast and Videocasts
• Photography

BENEFITS

The public have become more dependant in getting information compared in the olden days. Companies benefit from advertising by marketing their product and services while others may benefit for what ever may the reason it may be. The community benefits from blogs somehow maybe good but in other ways it could be bad in terms of abuse of usage.

References:

Technorati 2008, State of blogosphere 2007, viewed 1 November 2008, <http://www.technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere>

Technorati 2008, About Us, viewed 1 November 2008, <http;//technorati.com/about/>

Thinkquest 2006, Types of Blogs, viewed 1 November 2008, <http://library.thinkquest.org/05aug/01130/typesofblogs.html>
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