A Simple Thought

"Thank you for spending the time to read my thoughts".

- Dionne Yeo -

Creating this serious weblog as part of my assesment was truly a great learning process for me. I have learnt to understand that blogging is not merely a place where someone pens down his/her thought in a diary-like form but it is also a place where communities are form.

I have learned to be diligent, patient, disciplined and focused as the creation of this blog proved to be tedious at times. Also, I have improved myself in my research process, as much research and background information had to be attained fto build this site.

One of the theoretical positions I developed during the development of this blog is the complex interplay of words and pictures. As a document designer, one must be able to combine the elements of text and image in a smooth blend in order to create a coherent meaningand good flow. This is justified by Schriver (1997) as she noted that document designers are expected to integrate the visual and verbal as well as cross the disciplinary gulch between writing and design.

In my opinion, bloggers should write ethically to avoid defamation. However, he/she must not hold back the truth when discussing any issues. A blogger shold pay attention to certain background and culture to avoid troubles. Internet sites vary in the modes they use, but they have the potential to combine words and images in complex structures (Walsh, 2006).

References:

Schriver, KA 1997, ‘The Interplay of Words and Pictures’, Dynamics in Document Design: Creating Text for Readers', Wiley Computer Pub, New York.

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

The Power of Photographs

"Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever... It remembers little things long after you have forgotten everything... "

- Aaron Siskind -

According to Kress & Van Leeuwen (1998), in the early years, the linguistic (writing) mode has always been the dominant mode for communication to take place. However, there has been a transformation among the literate culture when visual communication emerged.

Personally, I do not agree to the violation and visual alterations for manipulation purposes in order to achieve a particular impact for the audience. However, according to Winslow (2006), the photojournalism and visual ethics have become prevalent among the journalism community.

Tim Leberecht published an article for Cnet News on May 18th 2008 with the title, ‘... just make something look nicer?’. In this article, he mentioned about visual ethics amongst document designers in current times. The article focused on an issue concerning the ethical media presentation - photojournalism ethics. In contrast to popular saying of ‘camera never lies’, Lester (1999) said that the faking of photographs is done either through stage direction or picture manipulation which have long traditions. It is also rumoured that a few of the Pulitzer Prize winning images which are filled with human’s depiction of joy, sorrow and hardships were all done by digital manipulation to achieve an impact.

Children suffering in Somalia

The media had been criticized several times for publishing gruesome images to the public which is unethical. As an example, the shocking photos of Nurin Jazlin, whose body was badly battered, were published on the front page of the mainstream media which aimed to attract the readers’ attention. According to Webber (2000), the principle of utilitarianism, in which consequences of one are considered in relation to another’s consequence, may be used to justify the publication of gruesome accident photos.

Media consumers ranged at different age group, culture, background and so forth. Their perspective of a photo may differ from one another due to their background and upbringing. As suggested by Shriver (1997), a reader’s knowledge and cultural context plays a role in the evaluation of graphics. Therefore, in my opinion, photojournalism should be done ethically with respect, dignity and consideration of all audience.

References:

Leberecht, T 2008, …just make something look nicer?, Cnet News, viewed on 13th June 2009,< http://news.cnet.com/8301-13641_3-9947035-44.html?tag=mncol>.

Lester, P 1999, Photojournalism an ethical approach, Fullerton Education, viewed on 13th June 2009, < http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/lester/writings/chapter6.html>.

Shriver, K 1997, Dynamics in document design: creating texts for readers, Wiley Computer Pub, New York.

Webber, J 2000, The ethics/skills in interface in image manipulation, Australian Journal of Information Systems, vol.7, no.2, pp.90-94.

Winslow, DR 2006, ‘A question of truth: photojournalism and visual ethics’, National Press Photographers Association, viewed 13th June 2009, <http://www.nppa.org/news_and_events/news/2006/08/ethics.html>.

Obama uses iPhone

"My first job is to say thank you to those who voted me. Those who didn't, I am going to get your vote next time".

- Barack Obama -

These days, politicians use the alternative media to try to win people's hearts to vote for them. One of the biggest examples is Barack Obama, the 44th and current President of the United States. He is also the first African-American to hold the oval office. According to Louie (2007), Obama managed to win the Presidential seat because he also made passionate speech in hopes of delivering equality between races and political lines.

iObama application

On the 2nd of October 2008, the then Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign launched an iPhone application that turned the vaunted device into a political recruiting tool (Cnet.com). The Obama election campaign team launched an application for the Apple iPhone with the intention of attracting more voters and turning its supporters to active campaigners via the feature of iPhone (Information Policy, 2008). The application, iObama, is a combination of interactive networking tools with the latest updates and information regarding the Obama’s election campaign. iObama also allow supporters to browse images, videos and propaganda from the Obama campaign, and scan their personal phonebooks for friends in states where Obama 'needs more support'.

The iObama campaign is aimed to targeted audience such as the young voters, the non-Whites and the American women. His success was proven by the National Election Poll when majority of his targeted audience (Schiffers, 2008) voted for him using the iPhone application.

As mentioned by Bear (2006), everything has its own function be it to sell, inform, educate, impress and entertain. Obama made use of the iPhone to ‘sell’ his ability of making progress and bringing changes to the United States. He also used the application to inform his supporters of his recent updates and ‘educate’ the Americans that the country needs a change. He ‘impress’ and ‘entertain’ his supporters with the features available in the iObama application which enables them to download stuff from the campaign.

Hence, the ability of Barack Obama to use the iPhone to win votes has definitely been a smart choice which made him the current President of the United States.

References:

Bear,JH 2006, Your Guide to Desktop Publishing, online, viewed on 13th June 2009, <http://desktoppub.about.com/mbiopage.htm>.

Information Policy: Obama Becomes Second Politician to Use iPhone 'App' 2008, online, viewed on 13th June 2009, <http://www.i-policy.org/2008/10/obama-becomes-second-politician-to-use-iphone-app.html>.

Schiffers, S 2008, Who Voted for Obama?, online, viewed on 13th June 2009, <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/us_elections_2008/7709852.stm>.

"Harry Potter" Author Wins Copyright Claim

“The idea of copyright did not exist in ancient times, when authors frequently copied other authors at length in works of non-fiction. This practice was useful, and is the only way many authors' works have survived even in part”.

- Richard Stallman -

The collection of Harry Porter by J.K. Rowling

Ark's 'Harry Porter Lexicon'

World’s most famous author, J.K Rowling (writer of the world renowned Harry Potter books) had filed for a copyright lawsuit against a fan, Steven Vander Ark, for publishing a Harry Potter encyclopaedia. Rowling has successfully won the copyright battle when she proved that Steven Ark’s, ‘Harry Potter Lexicon’ would cause her permanent harm as a famous author.

Rowling claims that Ark’s encyclopaedia was a mere rearrangement of her own material and that his content was so alike and it seems to be plagiarised from her. Rowling says, “I think it's dreadful. I think it's sloppy. I think there's very little research”. She added that Ark’s action of publishing has stolen 17-years of her hard earn effort in publishing her work to people around the world.

Ark vs Rowling

The case of 'Rowling vs Ark' can be linked to theory: the Law of Copyright. There should be no qiestions to why Rowling took the action against Ark. This is because, according to Walker (1997), the Law of Copyright shows that “patents, trademarks, and copyrights are all ways of protecting original creations”. Walker also mentioned that when a work is created, it is patent; hence, the author has full rights to their own invention.

Walker emphasized that in the Law of Copyright, one is only allowed to use not more than 10% of a work of others, be it a poem, paper or any other documentations. In addition, proper accreditation should be given to the original author. However, according to Walker (1997), there can still be legal penalties, including fines, for the use of copyrighted materials without permission, even though appropriate academic credit is given. Even though Ark may have good intention, which is to create an easy-to-read encyclopaedia for the Harry Potter fans, he had actually breached the Law of Copyright. His act was unethical in terms of ethics in communication. “'But it's not illegal' is no excuse for failure to accept personal responsibility for your ethical choices” (Weber 1995).

References:

‘Harry Potter Author Wins Copyright Claim’, CBS News, viewed on 12th June 2009, <http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/08/entertainment/main4426302.shtml>.

Walker, J 1997, ‘Intellectual Property in the Information Age: A Classroom Guide to Copyright’, University of South Florida, viewed on 12th June 2009, <http://personal.georgiasouthern.edu/~jwalker/ip/ipdummie.html#special>.

Weber, J H 1995,’Ethics in scientific and technical communication’, WISENET Journal 38, viewed on 12th June 2009, <http://www.jeanweber.com/newsite/?page_id=22>.

Emoticons and Email Etiquettes

The Internet is now playing a very important role in most people’s daily lives. According to a review done by the UCLA Centre for Communication Policy (2001), there are about 88% of the total Internet users who uses email. This is also proven by the Pew Internet Project who had done a study and proving that 60% of Internet users use email everyday (Kincaid, 2008). However, the negativity is that users do not know how to write a proper email and simply adding emoticons which leads to confusion or misinterpretation or even to the extent of hurting other’s feelings (Greenstone, n.d.).

Email usage is at 60%

Taken from the Media Report, a transcript on the topic ‘Emoticons and email etiquettes’, the presenter mentioned, besides not knowing the proper way to write an email, many people do not have the ability to interpret a message correctly. According to Funnell (2007), a simple phrase can be interpreted differently and will sound differently. As an example:

Dear Stephen, I've read the report you sent. Great stuff. You're a classic. It's pretty obvious how much effort you put in..

Based on the above phrase, it can be interpreted into two; sarcasm or enthusiasm. Due to the existence of such confusion, Scott Fahlman invented the ‘emotional icon’ (emoticon) which can be formed using punctuation marks such as hyphen, colon or brackets. By adding emoticons, it will be easier for the receiver as he/she will be able to interpret the actual meaning of the message in a shorter time. Some of the examples of emoticons are:

Examples of emoticons

However, sending email which contains lots of emoticons is not recommended as it may look unprofessional. Therefore, it is important to follow email etiquette when composing an email in order to look professional. As mentioned by Barbara Greenstone, an email with emoticon may sound silly and inappropriate. Abbreviation, which is common in the English language, can be used - ‘FYI’ (for your information), ‘BTW’ (by the way). However, usage of complicated abbreviations such as ‘IMHO’ (in my humble opinion) or ‘TNSTAAFL’ (there’s no such thing as free lunch) should be avoided to shun misunderstandings and misinterpretation of the message conveyed.

In conclusion, emoticons had actually helped people to have better understanding of a message. It also made communication simpler as the emoticons can be used to represent the current emotion of the sender. This will definitely reduce miscommunications which will lead to bad effects. Email should be composed professionally by using proper and formal English without including short forms or abbreviations.

References:
Funnell, A 2008, ‘Emoticons and email ettiquette’, The Media Report, viewed 12th June 2009, <http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2007/2064342.htm>.

Greenstone, B n.d., ‘E-Mail Etiquette’, mainelearns.org , viewed 12th June 2009, <http://www.mainelearns.org/ovc/story_files/email_etiquette.pdf>.

Kincaid, J 2008, ‘Search Challenges Email As Most Popular Daily Online Activity’, viewed 12th June 2009, <http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/06/search-challenges-email-as-most-popular-daily-online-activity/>.

McKay, DR n.d., ‘Email Etiquette’, Career Planning, viewed 12th June 2009, <http://careerplanning.about.com/od/communication/a/email_etiquette.htm>.

The War of Media: New or Old?

"A new medium is never an addition to an old one, nor does it leave the old one in peace. It never ceases to oppress the older media until it finds new shapes and positions for them".

- Marshall McLuhan -

The rise of new media has led people to access information easily and efficiently via different types of media publishing tools. Such media publishing tools include moblogs, vlogs, photoblog, and news portals. However, there is another particular new form of media publishing that is widely used among web users is YouTube.

YouTube is at the forefront of a new video revolution on the Net (Woolley 2006). The havoc it has created since its invention in 2005 has been a great phenomenal. This shows a new path in media publishing that has never been seen before. Indeed, a video posted on YouTube can have as much impact as an article written in the daily newspapers. YouTube has always been prevalent in the political scene in the recent years.

According to Mohan (2007), candidates now have their own Facebook pages, writing own blogs, and find everything they do recorded on YouTube. In the Malaysian context, individuals tend to rely on YouTube as an alternative media. This is because of the many restrictions of press freedom that causes the mainstream media to be closely knitted and controlled by the government (Kenyon & Marjoribanks 2007). Hence, certain information that is censored in Malaysia’s mainstream media can be obtained alternatively on YouTube.

However, Ashley Jones (2007) stated in one of her issue in EContent website that people keeps uploading video which are not suppose, or rather have no right to do so. Therefore, as an ethical user of the Internet, it is better to think before taking actions. Media publishing has certainly taken a new path. Based on recent feedback and response, no one is betting against it to last for a long while to come.

References:
Jones, A 2007, ‘YouTube’s Legal Issues Grow’, Econtent.com, viewed on 11th June 2009, <http://www.econtentmag.com/Articles/ArticleReader.aspx?ArticleID=39887>.

Kenyon, A & Marjoribanks, T 2007, ‘Transforming Media Markets: The Cases of Malaysia and Singapore’, Australian Journal of Emerging Technologies, vol 5, no. 2, pp. 103-118, viewed on 11th June 2009, <http://www.swinburne.edu.au/hosting/ijets/journal/V5N2/pdf/Article3-KENYON.pdf>.

Mohan, R 2007, YouTube Revolution: How the internet sensation will change the face of political advertising, viewed on 11th June 2009, <http://media.www.osusentinel.com/media/storage/paper1151/news/2007/04/18/Commentary/Youtube.Revolution-2850664.shtml>.

Woolley, S 2006, Video Fixation, Forbes, viewed on 11th June 2009, <http://www.forbes.com/free_forbes/2006/1016/100a.html>.

Blogs and The Blogging Communities

Types of Blogs

"A blog is a personal diary. A daily pulpit. A collaborative space. A political soapbox. A breaking-news outlet. A collection of links. Your own private thoughts. Memos to the world".

- Anonymous -

There are many types of blogs; according to Wikipedia.org, there are about 6 types of blogs, which comprises of personal, corporate, question, media, device, and genre. Each type, offers different type of information, presented differently and also caters to different audiences. Reep (2006) mentioned that graphic (heading, images) used in blogs helps to provide readers with a quick access to information as it distinguishes the type of blog they are viewing. Different types of blogs is how bloggging communities are created. Blogs which contains the same type of style or same interest could link with each other and create a blogging community.

Acoording to Technorati (2008), the main categories of blogs are as below:

• Entertainment
• Technology
• Business
• Lifestyles
• Politics
• Sports

However, under these main categories, there are also sub-categories created to give viewers a specific choice. Wikipedia.org suggested a different way to categorize the blogosphere. There are many types of blogs out there which differ from each and other, not only on the content, but also the way it is deliver to the audiences. As an example, the sub-categories of Lifestyle blogs are:

Personal blog

Fashion blog

Blogging Community

An article was found during the research on ‘Blogs and Community’ by Nancy White, a well known and highly respected e-facilitation and e-community specialist. It is mentioned that there are 3 different blogs community and they are:

The single centric community

The single centric community is a form of blog based community where readers will keep coming back to the site to leave comments and get to know each other, not only the owner but the other readers around.

Topic centric comunity

The topic centric community exist when blogs are linked together by common interest or topic. This community accumulates blogs from others in order to get the attention from a certain party.

Boundaried community

Boundaried community is a collection of blogs that host a single website. This community usually have other functions such as discussion boards, forums, social networking sites, and instant messaging in their website. Bloggers or readers within a defined boundary creates an opportunity for users to gain access to other blogs.

References:
Reep, D C 2006, ‘Chapter 4: Principles of document design’, in Technical Writing, 6th edn., Pearson Edu Inc., New York, p.173-190.

Technorati 2008, ‘Blog directory’, Technorati.com, viewed 11th June 2009, <http://www.technorati.com/blogs/directory/>.

White, N 2006, ‘What blog based communities look like today’, Blogs and Community – launching a new paradigm for online community?, viewed 11th June 2009, <http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2006/edition-11-editorial/blogs-and-community-–-launching-a-new-paradigm-for-online-community>

Wikipedia, ‘Types’, Blog, viewed 11th June 2009, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog>

The Blogging Phenomenon

"Where the Internet is about availability of information, blogging is about making information creation available to anyone".

- George Siemens -

Blogging has become a popular trend in everywhere around the world. Why is this so? According to Pruit (2005), blogging is the idea of something that can be distributed globally in an instant and with a click of the mouse. Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006) suggest that the Internet gives a multimodal functions with modes such as written text, images, sounds, and other graphic elements which enable bloggers to voice their opinions on specific topics or become a diary based on their daily experiences.

Source: Technorati 2008

According to Technorati (2008), there is an estimated number of 133 millions registered blogs in the cyberspace with an update every 8 seconds. Why is blogging so popular? About.com (2008) explains that blog is easier to use compared to website and is much convenient.

It is proven as there are about 500 thousand bloggers in Malaysia (Kaufman, 2008). Blogs are used by politicians, especially from the opposition, to share their views on current affairs. In the last general election, blogs played an integral part in dissemination information to sway voters to vote for the opposition (Wai, 2008).

Indeed, blogging has taken over the world by storm and there is no doubt of it with the increasing number of bloggers over time.

References:

Ceder Pruitt, 2005, The Blogging Phenomenon: Who? How? Why?, viewed 11th June 2009, <http://www.digitaldivide.net/articles/view.php?ArticleID=86>.

Kaufman, S 2008, ‘Malaysia’s Alternative Media Become Decisive Political Factor’, America.gov, viewed 11th June 2009, <http://www.america.gov/st/democracy-english/2008/April/20080403175441esnamfuak0.1705591.html>.

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

Technorati 2008, State of the blogosphere – day 1: who are the bloggers?, viewed 11th June 2009, <http://technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/who-are-the-bloggers/>.

Wai, C. (2008). Denial syndrome must end. The Star Online, [Online] 14th March, viewed 11th June 2009, < http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/3/14/election2008/20637966&sec=election2008>

Document Design

Why is it important to have a good document? A good document design is important to send out proper message and getting the audience's attention. It is essential to have good design and writing on a document in order to be considered as a good document.

As suggested by Putnis & Petelin (1996), the requirements of a good document design is to be able to aid the readers to read efficiently and to emphasize the most important content.

As mentioned by Reep (2006), there are four types of format elements that should be considered; written cues, white space, colour and typographic devices. Therefore, there are certain components such as information arrangements, margins, allignments and etc. that should be considered in a good document design.

A comparison of my group and individual presentation slides will be used to demonstrate a good document design.

image A

image B

Nielson (1997) claimed that the standpoints presented by the writer must be explained concisely and supported by relevant examples to form an understandable image in the reader’s mind. With that, it is obvious that my individual presentation slide (image B) is better than the group presentation slides (image A). As an example, I mentioned more important information in my slides and made a clear-cut of what will be discussed in my presentation in order to give my classmates a better understanding. My points were also supported by local examples and points from other readings that I used. In order to make it simple, I used bullets to list my points.

image C

image D

Design is also one of the essential elements of a good document besides writing. As mentioned by Reep (2006), readers tend to notice the features of a document with the most “weight” first. In contrary, it is also suggested that a good document ought to isolate the supportive ideas from the main idea as the audience tends to have divided attention when reading a document. Therefore, in my presentation (image D), I have included two of the most important points on a slide to gain my audience’s attention compared to my group presentation (image C) which only have one point on each slide.

References:

Putnis, P, Petlin, R 1996, Professional communication: principles and applications, Writing to communicate, Prentice hall, Sydney.

Reep, D 2006, Technical writing, 6th edn, Pearson Edu, Inc., New York.

Nielsen, J 1997, Reading on the Web (Alertbox), viewed 20th April 2009, www.useit.com/alertbox/9710a.html.

Kress, G, & van Leeuwen, T 2006. Reading images Chapter 1: The Semiotic landscape : language and visual communication.

Kress, G & van Leeuwen, T 2006. Reading images Chapter 6: The meaning of composition.

Hello and Welcome!

"We must welcome the future, remebering that soon it will be the past; and we must respect the past, remembering that it was once all that was humanly possible".

- George Santayana -

Welcome, readers, to my blog. My blog will assist you to explore deeper into the realm of media, blogging, publications and designs. This blog is mainly targeted for students and people who wish to learn more about the media and especially the subject of Issues in Publications and Design.