Monday, June 15, 2009

Reflection

"Thank You for Reading my Blog"
-Pooi Yee-

I have finally come to the end of my blog posting. Throughout the postings, I have discussed many issues regarding to media and publishing. Frankly, it really changes my perspective on blogging. Who knew that blogging actually involved so much more than just words.

According to Schriver (1997), there are two ways that audiences interpret text, knowledge-driven and text driven. I think this is one of the most important things blogger need to consider, as they will need to think whether the picture and prose are relevant to their target audience.

Besides that, Kress and van Leeuwen(1998) had claims that a good document involves three signifying systems- Information value, salience and framing. In one of my previous posting, I stated that all blogs basically shared the same goal as KVL’s claims. For instance, the information I posted are all cited with reference, pictures and videos were uploaded to attract the reader’s attention. Lastly, there is spacing between one paragraph to another paragraph, so that the words are easier to be read.



References:

  • Kress, G & van Leeuwen, T 1998, ‘Front page : (the critical) analysis of newspaper layout’ , Approaches to Media Discourse, Blackwell, Oxford.
  • Schriver, KA 1997, ‘The Interplay of Words and Pictures’, Dynamics in Document Design: Creating Text for Readers, Wiley Computer Pub, New York.



Posted by at No comments:

iVote for iObama




"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. "


-Barack Obama-


The day iPhone was ‘born’, who knew that the American would put their faith and elected the first
African-American to be the President of United States. He himself probably never have thought that this little communication gadget will help him to win the 2008 Presidential election, and changes the history of American forever.
iPhone became the political recruiting tool for Obama on 2nd of October 2008. The Obama election campaign team launched an application for the Apple Iphone intended to attract more voters and turning its supporters to active campaigners via the feature of iPhone (Information Policy, 2008). The ‘Obama 08 ‘[ iObama ] combines interactive networking tools with the latest updates and information regarding to the Obama election campaign.

iObama


The Audience: When Obama election campaign team first launched and planned Obama’s election campaign, three types of audience were targeted. There were the young voters; the non-white as well as the women in America, and according to National Election Pool (Schiffers, 2008) shows that majority of his targeted audience had voted for him.

The Purpose: As cited by Bear (2006), every thing has its own function whether it is to sell, to inform, to educate, to impress and to entertain.

Obama uses Iphone:
  • To ‘SELL’ and promote himself as the potential leader for the citizen of United State.
  • To ‘INFORM’ and update his supporters on his movement with the iObama features such as ‘call stat’ , ‘local event’ and ‘News’
  • To ‘EDUCATE’ the Americans that it is time for a change.
  • To ‘IMPRESS’ and ‘ENTERTAIN’ the supporters via Iphone features- downloadable wallpaper, video and photo from the campaign.

For all the iObama features, visit < http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/iphone >

The Context: According to Paltridge (2000), context of situation are the combination of field, tenor and mode. Obama uses informal conversation throughout the whole iObama campaign as to strengthen the relationship with his voters. The subject matter (field) here is the 2008 Presidential election campaign, the affiliation between the encoder and the decoder (tenor) for iObama is between Barack Obama and his potential voters. The channel of communication (mode) uses by Obama is inspiring speeches that can motivate the people of U.S.
Thus, the marriage between Obama and Iphone has successfully made him the President of United States and won over majority of the votes.


References:
  1. Bear,JH 2006, Your Guide to Desktop Publishing, online, retrieved 15th June 2009. From < http://desktoppub.about.com/mbiopage.htm >
  2. Information Policy: Obama Becomes Second Politician to Use iPhone 'App' 2008, online, retrieved 15th June 2009, from < http://www.i-policy.org/2008/10/obama-becomes-second-politician-to-use-iphone-app.html >
  3. Paltridge,B 2000, ‘Genre Analysis’, Making Sense of Discourse Analysis, Antipodean Educational Enterprise, Gold Coast
  4. Schiffers,S 2008, Who Voted for Obama, online, retrieved on 15th June 2009, from < http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/us_elections_2008/7709852.stm >

Posted by at No comments:

“Harry Potter, The boy who survived.”




"I think copyright is moral, proper. I think a creator has the right to control the disposition of his or her works - I actually believe that the financial issue is less important than the integrity of the work, the attribution, that kind of stuff. "




-Esther Dyson-


Harry Potter is a series of fictional novel. Every Potter fans know that Harry Potter survived from the attack of the most evil wizard, Voldemort. So, what happen if Harry was involved in a ‘muggle’( reality) world lawsuit? Will he survive?

The Harry Potter copyright case attracts high level of media interest. The high-profile court case involved the author of Harry Potter, JK Rowling and the publisher of Harry Potter Lexicon (HPL), Steven Vander Ark, a 50 year old librarian. Many people might have heard of HPL as it was originated from the Harry Potter Lexicon Website that has more than 250 million hit a year as well as an encyclopedia of every spells that appear in the novel, it was an absolute Harry Potter fan guide. In 2004, JK Rowling even gave the HPL website one of her ‘fan site awards’ (Telegraph UK, 2008).


However, Ark wanted to transcript the content from the website to prints, publishes it in a form of book, and make money out of it. The transduction from Website to Prints made JK Rowling turned on one of her greatest supporter and put it on court. The lawsuit was arisen from two copyright and legal issues. Firstly, Rowling claimed that there was too many lexicons’ text taken directly from the Harry Potter novel without quotation marks. She also states that the book was “nothing more than a rearrangement of her own material”. Second, Rowling intended to produce a Harry Potter glossary of her own for charity purposes, and the HPL book will definitely undermine that exercise (Fong & Elliot, 2008) because the ‘context of situation’ (Paltridge, 2000, p.121,122) for the two books are just too similar.

In September 2008, the high-profile Harry Potter case was put to an end when the New York Court put a ban on publishing the Harry Potter Lexicon book to protect the author’s right to defend their original work (BBC news, 2008). Steven Vander Ark was found guilty under the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act (1988). Although he tried to oppose with ‘fair-use’ principle, which will allows reproducing some of the original work and achieve one’s purposes (Stanford, 2007), but the portion of direct quote texts used in his Lexicon book were just too much.

Therefore, I think that we should always do research before we want to publish anything. Citations are only to support our ideas; we should never ‘borrow’ other authors’ original work without their permission.

References :
  • BBC News: Rowling Wins Book Copyright Claim 2008, online, retrieved on 14th June 2009, from <¸http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7605142.stm >
  • Fong,K & Elliot,J 2008, Harry Potter Copyright Case: Fair Use or Foul , online, retrieved on 14th June 2009, from < http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article3834611.ece
  • Paltridge,B 2000, ‘Genre Analysis’, Making Sense of Discourse Analysis, Antipodean Educational Enterprise, Gold Coast.
  • Stanford: Copyright &Fair Use 2007, online , retrieved on 14th June 2009, from < http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/9-a.html >
  • TelegraphUK : Facts about the Harry Potter Lexicon Website 2008, online, retrieved on 14th June 2009, from < http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1895676/Facts-about-the-Harry-Potter-Lexicon-website.html >


Posted by at No comments:

A Makeover for Facabook ..





"There's less to Facebook other social networks than meet the eyes"




-Paul Saffo-


Facebook is one of the most popular free-access social networking sites. So, what will happen when creator and founder of Facebook Inc., Mark Zuckerberg announced a new makeover for Facebook?
This is the reaction of some 200+ Millions active users for Facebook makeover:

Approximately 4 millions of active users joined the “I HATE NEW FACEBOOK' groups leaving comments attacking the new facebook design layout.

The new Design Layout:

The new layout allows its member to use tabs to give priority to the fresh pictures, the most recent ‘wall-to-wall’ [messages], or others features in your main profile pictures. The purposes of these tabs are similar to “Graphic Aid” (Reep, 2006), it provides quick access to each application for the members and isolates each ‘feeds’ from one another so that the users will not be confused. Besides that, compartmentalized mini-applications can be accessed with just one ‘click’ and the member will also be allowed to see everyone of their friends’ most recent updates and comments on their homepage.(Australian IT, 2008) . The new Facebook design also allows its users to personalize their profile page by adding and displaying their favorite music, artist, games and other applications. Moreover, there is an added ‘Highlight’ box placed at the right-hand side, the members will be able to view highlights from their friends . (Guardian UK, 2009) With the new design layout, Facebook are more personalized, the interactivity between the users is also increased as they can now response to every updates of their friends.

The New Facebook layout

The changes seem GOOD to me, but other Facebook users were furious about these changes.

WHY?
A new application is spreading on Facabook that allows its users to vote on the latest Facebook Design, more than 90% of its users do not like the new layout. (TechCrunch, 2009) These users actually feel fuming over the redesign. One of the reasons that triggered the anger of these users was the fact that Facebook keep on changing its layout and design, it was changed twice within a year. Besides that, many Facebook users are irritated by the fact that the new design layout looks way too much like Twitter. Additionally, the new ‘mini-application’ was way too messy and confusing. ( Lardiinios , 2009)

The Voice of Disapproval

  • More than 1 million of comments were left at the Facebook protest page, stating comments such as ‘Please change it back to the way it was’ , and ‘ I like good change.. Not crappy change’
  • Facebook users are threatening to boycott Facebook
  • Facebook members are signing up Twitter as a protest

References
  • Australian IT : Facebook makeover leaves some devotees fuming, online, retrieved on 14th June 2009, from http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,24328928-15318,00.html
  • GuardianUK : What the New Facebook Will Look Like 2009, online, retrieved on 14th June 2009, from < http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2009/mar/06/digital-media-facebook >
  • Lardiinios,F 2009, Facebook Users Don’t Like Change,online, retrieved on 13th June 2009,from < style="color: rgb(51, 102, 255);">ttp://www.readwriteweb.com/archiv/facebooks_users_dont_like_change.php >
  • Reep DC 2006, ‘Document Design’, Technical Writing, Pearson, New York.
  • TechCrunch: Facebook Poll 94% of Users Don’t Like Redesign, online, retrieved on 14th June 2009, from < http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/19/facebook-polls-users-on-redesign-94-hate-it/ >


Posted by at No comments:

Photograph Speaks




"Photography is a small voice, at best, but sometimes one photograph, or groups of them, can lure our sense of awareness"




-W.Eugene Smith-



In the early years, the linguistic mode (writing) has always been the dominant mode for communication. However, there has been a transformation in the literate culture- the emergence of visual communication (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 1998).

Photography is a form of visual communication. A good photographer can capture the movement as well as the tensions evolving within a society and projects it. Without the prose, the audience will need to evaluate and understand the visual meaning for each photograph. Although Schriver (1997) has argued that there is a cultural boundary for the audiences to truly interpret the meaning of an image. However, a good photographer can freeze the history and tell the truth through his camera lens, especially war photographer. They often risk their life to capture the images of armed conflicts and the life behind the war-zone. These war and documentary photographs often raise concern about the freedom of press, because the poverty and suffering issues behind these photographs are usually censored by the local government when they are in any military situation. (American Photography, n.d) Thus, I think that not only did photography can portrait the truth; it can also change a person’s perspective. Truly, a powerful photograph can probably inspire the whole nation.



'Take Action Against War and Hunger'




The problems with photojournalism are that many photographs we saw on newspapers have already been filtered and self-censored by the editors (Media Report, 2007); the audiences do not see the human face of war on newspapers. In the era of sensationalism, ethical problems arise within photojournalists. “If it bleeds, it leads”, this is the rule of photojournalism (Lester, 1999) of today’s’ media world, photojournalist or editors often pick the most gruesome photographs as it often get the immediate impact and reactions from the readers. Due to the new ‘rule’ in photojournalism, photojournalists today habitually capture and publish macabre photographs, as if the readers only want to see blood-spattered around the war zone , but not the uncomfortable details behind the war scenes.


In conclusion, I think that a good photograph is not always about blood, slaughtering, and massacre. It is about portraying the truth through the camera lens. My idea of good photographs can be browse through here : < http://www.warphotoltd.com/ >.


References:
  • American Photography: Photography and War n.d , online, retrieved on 14th June 2009, from http://www.pbs.org/ktca/americanphotography/features/war_essay.html

  • Kress, G & van Leeuwen, T 2006 ‘ The Semiotic Landscape: Language and Visual Communication’ , Reading images : the grammar of visual design, Routledge, New York.

  • Lester, PM 1999 , ‘Victims of Violence’ , Photojournalism an Ethical Approach, online, retrieved on 14th June 2009 , from < http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/lester/writings/chapter4.html >

  • Media Report: The Power of the Photograph 2007, online, retrieved on 14th June 2009, from < http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2007/2051819.htm >

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




Posted by at No comments:

Sunday, June 14, 2009

New Media or Old Media?




"Today we are beginning to notice that the new media are not just mechanical gimmicks for creating worlds of illusion, but new languages with new and unique powers of expression."

-Eric McLuhan-


In today's digitized world, the new media are challenging for convergence in both social and cultural context. The new audience formation of the internet is obviously affecting the role of traditional media, especially in country such as China and Malaysia where strong rules of laws are applied control information flowing as well as freedom of speech( Watts, 2005). For Instance, In Malaysia context, almost every mainstream medium are controlled by the ruling political parties- UMNO, MCA and MIC. Self-censorship is practiced when reporting about certain ‘sensitive’ issue. ( Venkiteswaran, 2009) .

Old Media, New Media?
The role as a watchdog for traditional media has been taken over with the emergence of new forms of media such as blogs, Youtube and online newspaper. This is because the information richness and reach ( Nightingale,2008) are so much more advance and in-depth when compared to the old media.. For instance, a Youtube video was uploaded two years ago that gotten more than 260,000 views and got duplicated plus uploaded to other Youtube account, the video shows politicians arguing and discriminative words were shouted to the Chinese Politician (SangHarimau, 2006). This will never have publish on the Malaysia mainstream media.

There are many other political blogs, as well as alternative online press that can be accessed by the local audience. The new media are becoming more influencing over the year, I believe that sooner over later the mainstream media will ‘lose’ the readership war as the information from the new media are reaching more people every minute.

New forms of media include:

  1. Mobile Blogging ( Moblog) : Blogger post up directly from their mobile phone.
  2. Video Blogging (Vlogs ) : Embedded video post or video links with text.
  3. Photography Blogging ( photologs) : Photo sharing with caption .
  4. Micro-Blogging ( tumblelogs) : a mixed of media posted on blogs.
  5. Youtube-: Allows video sharing and interactive communication with users around the world.
  6. e- News paper/e- books/ e-magazine: Downloadable files from the internet.
    ( Reichmayr, 2005)

References:

Posted by at No comments:

Blogs and the Blogging Communities


"You know, some of the good part of blog theory was that blogs would be like diaries that the world could read"



-Gregg Easterbrook-


As of year 2008, the blog search engine, Technorati was tracking more than 130 millions blogs . These blogs often deals with subjects regarding to politics, entertainments, arts, fashion, food and others. Wikipedia (2007) classified blogs that focus on :
  • Art ( artlogs)

  • Video(vlogs)

  • Sketches (sketchlog)

  • photography( photoblogs)

  • Mixed media (tumbleblogs)

  • Hyperlink (linklogs)


Blogs can also be categorized into other types which fairly share the same functions as the one stated above. As Simons said in an interview with the ABC net(Media Report, 2008) , blogs can also be classify into other media type such as Exhibition blogs, which share the same function as artlogs. Bloggers usually post their artworks and creative work in these blogs for display purposes.

Besides that, There are also the Pamphleteering Blogs and Diary Blogs which bloggers share their perspective on issues such as politics and bits that evolve around in their personal life. These blogs often includes snapshots, videos, and others which can be called as a tumblelogs as well.

Check out these blogs :
Exhibition blog : < http://artclubcaucasus.blogspot.com/ >
Pamphleteering Blog + Diary Blog : < http://bojack.org/ >


Building a Community:
The cybecommunity is very amusing, when they like what they are reading, it is very likely that they will bookmark it and return to view it every now and then. These communities often share the same interest; they tend to interact with one another (White, 2006). For example, the fashion blogging community often shares their point of view on the latest fashion trend and posts snapshots regarding the hottest Milan fashion designers shows. Usually there are permalinks that links to other fashion websites.
Besides, the members can also leave comment for each post; they can even upload images on the blogs. E.g : the blogging community that built from the “I am Fashion’ blog <http://iamfashion.blogspot.com/ >


Although there are so many blogs type around the Net. However, all of them share almost the same principle. These blogs often involve three signifying systems, all serving to structuring text, bringing a multimodal page and being informative as well as a meaningful whole. It can also be identify as three concepts which is Salience, Framing and Information value. ( Kress & Van Leeuwen, 1998, p.187,188)

References:

Posted by at No comments:

The Blogging Phenomenon

"Well, there are more writers of blogs right now than there are readers, so that's clearly a vanity phenomenon. "
-John Doer-

The blogging phenomenon has become a major issue in the society; the size of the blogosphere continues to increase every second of every day. The size of blogosphere is now four times bigger than the one in year 2006. Both the charts by Technorati clearly show how the blogging community has become a larger over the year.





Year 2006 Versus Year 2008

35.5 Mil. & 133 Mil

There are many blogs that discuss and deal about issues regarding to their personal life, politics, technology and businesses in Europe, Asia and Malaysia (Lenhart & Fox, 2006). As stated in an online survey, Malaysian blogger appears to enjoy sharing thoughts with their friends (Press Microsoft Malaysia, 2009). While based on the two data gathered, I think the most common type of blog in Europe, Asia and Malaysia has to be personal blogs where bloggers write about their personal life. I think that the reason bloggers chose to write to communicate rather than speak is because writing often gives us more opportunity to get our words out right as it is more precise and straightforward; it is agreed by Putnis and Petelin (1996, p.226,227).

Blogs are evolving into the business industry. Many bloggers out there are making money and business out of their blogs by being a brand advocates, posting advertising as well as selling products on their blogs. A study was done by Window Live Spaces (2006), an estimated 50% of the Indian respondent showed strong interest in business blogs, titling them as the most interesting blogs when compared to the others.

The topmost carselling blog in India
References :

Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)