Reflections

Blogging is truly a phenomenon. Being a first time blogger and writing for an academic blog is truly difficult. Why I say is this is the first thing first is to know who is my audience. It's very important as a blogger to know who is your audience and purpose of your blog.

According to Schriver (1997), document designers need to step back from the glow of the screen and focus on how your readers interact with documents that is, on how people create meaning from the visual and verbal content. This means that rather than focusing on my design of my blog. I should focus more on the content.

In conclusion, I have learned that blogging is quite hard and understood the issues in publication and design that is faced today.


References list:

Schriver K.A 1997, Chapter 6: Dynamics in document design, viewed 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=>

Google

All of us are know that Google is a popular search engine for us to get various type of information. (University Libraries) Up to millions of users are using the Google to search information. Google can act as "one- stop-shopping." (Richard W. Wiggins)

http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue6_10/wiggins/

Issues of Google

There always a problem with search engine that we facing is information overload. "The information on the Internet is growing so fast that busy professionals find it difficult and time consuming to find relevant publications, they often see the WEB as a time waster. " (Stephen Lockley) That is what the proffesor from the Newcastle University said.

For example, this is always happen in me while doing assignment by using search engine such as Google. After I type a keywords, there will have millions of result come out which is including uneccessarily thing as well.

Furthermore, Google is also always involve in copyright issue and privacy issue. In 20 September 2005, a case was happen againsts Google. A group that represent 8000 U.S authors were sue that Google had published their work without their permmision. (Amazines)

Beside that, Google has placed a cookie on each computer that can allowed others to track their findings in the history. (Wikipedia, 2008) In this case, the privacy issues will arise.

References list:

Amazines, viewed 8 November 2008,
<https://www.amazines.com/Criticism_of_Google_related.html>

Newcastle University, 2001, Researchers tackle search engine 'information overload', viewed 9 November 2008,

<http://www.ncl.ac.uk/press.office/press.release/content.phtml?ref=994673652>

University Libraries, Manuscripts Research Tutorial Glossary, viewed 9 November 2008,
<http://www.lib.unc.edu/instruct/manuscripts/glossary/>

Wikipedia, 2008, Criticism of google, viewed 9 November 2008,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Google>

Richard W. Wiggins, The effects of september 11 on the leading search engine, viewed 9 September 2008,
<http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue6_10/wiggins/>

Advertisement

Advertising is kind of tools that used to persuade the customer to increase the brand loyalty and and reinforce the brand image towards a particular brand or services. (Wikipedia, 2008) "The functional interdependence of word, image and reason has been thought to be a fundamental condition of modern and persuasion." (Todd Oakley, 2005) The advertisers tend to used different type of modes or multimudal text such as image, text or animation in order to having the great impact towards their customers.


Type of Advertisings

~Billboard

~Public Service Announcement

~TV commercials

~Radio Commercials

(Wikipedia, 2008)

Do advertisements lie??

The advertisers are trying to used different cues to let the public aware about their products. Therefore, the advertisements can be deceiving. The modern advertisements nowadays are always lie. (Comsumer Angst, 2007)

http://dryicons.com/free-graphics/preview/discount-sign

We always heard or read about the words of 50% dicount, buy one free one and so on, however when we always found that it is not true. For example, when you saw an advertisement that show a boutique having a 50% discount, but then after you approach the shop, you will found that you can only get the 50% discount in second item. However, there have still a lot of people will buy it because "lies nearly everyone want to hear." (Consumer Angst, 2007)


Therefore, as we can see the increasingly number of advertisements publishing. Besides that, the power of the advertisements are getting strong as well. "Commercials pressure in media grow." (JOURNALISM. co.za, 2007)


References list:

Todd Oakley, 2005, Implied narratives of medical practice in learning-fordoing texts: a simulation semantics approach to rhetorical analysis, Language and Literature, Sage Publications, pp. 296-310

Consumer Angst, 2007, viewed 8 November 2008,
<http://www.arachnoid.com/lutusp/consumerangst.html#big_lie>

JOURNALISM.co.za, 2007, The impact of the advertising on the news media, viewed 8 November 2008,
<http://www.journalism.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=304&Itemid=0>

Wikipedia, 2008, Advertising, 8 November 2008,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising>

Freedom of Speech

In Malaysia, freedom of speech is a protection law pertaining to the media publishing materials that exist in the constitution. (Wikipedia, 2008) Others country like India, they have the law of censorship as well. Every publishers are required to obtain the publishing licence as well. (Indonesia Press, Media, TV, Radio, Newspaper)

Apologized from "TEMPO"

One of the top news weekly has apologized for the magazine cover that publish in "TEMPO", Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper was offended Christians. This issue was happen in Indonesia and this has led several representative of Christian group gather together to complaint over the magazine cover. (ABC News, 2008)

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hekOeN5FnuydFZdws5eHN4m-BkCw

The chief editor of the TEMPO magazine, Mr Hadad said " We had no intention to hurting Chirstian." (ABC News, 2008) "Images is in the realms of realizations and instantiations of ideology for articulation of ideological positions. "(Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2006) This mean that a social context is important for people for the understanding when receive a message. Different of social context can led people eithers acccept or refuse the communcation.

Therefore, for the context in Chriatianity, it can not be accepted however it might be consider as offfended to others. This concept also supported by the Karen A. Schriver, the interpretation is depend on the readers.

References list:

Schriver, K. A, 1997, Chapter 6: The interplay of words and pictures, Dynamics in document design : creating texts for readers, Wiley Computer Pub, New York, pp. 361-441

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

Wikipedia, 2008, Freedom of the press, viewed 7 November 2008,

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_the_press#Regions_closed_to_foreign_reporters>

Indonesia press, media, TV, radio, newspapers, viewed 7 November 2008,

<http://www.pressreference.com/Gu-Ku/Indonesia.html>

ABC News, 2008, Indonesian weekly apologises over last supper Suharto cover, viewed 7 November 2008,

<http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/02/06/2156269.htm>

E-mail and Emoticons

The improvement of communication tools nowadays are allowed the peoples getting closer. E-Mail and the emoticons are the tools among them.

E-Mail

Electronic mail, or E-Mail is a communication tools that allowed people to sending, receiving and saving message over the internet world. (Wikipedia, 2008) It is such a convenient tools that able to let people connected together. Almost everyone are having an E-Mail account.

www.schwimmerlegal.com/.../have_a_nice_day.html

Emoticons

"An emoticons and is a symbol or combination of symbols used to conveys emotional content in written or message form." (Wikipedia, 2008) For example, smiley face. We can see emticons are using everywhere no matter in internet or real society as well. During the interview, Kristin Bylon said that emoticons are popular because everyone love to used them.

www.ucop.edu/irc/announce/tip_attach_email.html

Perception

It is true that E-Mail and Emoticons are very convenient to communicate with others. However, I found sometimes they are annoying too. The used of Email should be formal. (Antony Funnell, 2007) However, we can receive many junk mail everyday. Beside that, the perception has become the issues in E-Mail and emoticons. Peoples always have too much confidence when reading the E-Mail or interpret an emoticons that has led a lot of mistake happen on meaning making. (Antony Funnell, 2007)

"Readers interact from their experiences, situations and actions." (Putnis & Petelin, 1996) Different people will have different kind of cultural background and personal experiences that can be led to different perception and meaning making.

References List:

Putnis, Peter and Petelin, Roslyn, 1996, Chapter 7: Writing to communicate, Profesional communication: principle and applications, Prentice Hall, Sydney, pp. 223 - 263

Antony Funnell, 2007, Emoticons and email ettiquette, viewed 7 November 2008,
<http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2007/2064342.htm>

Wikipedia, 2008, E-Mail, viewed 7 November 2008,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Mail>

Wikipedia, 2008, Emoticons, viewed 7 November 2008,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emoticons#Graphical_replacement>

New forms of Media Publishing

Media Influences

Nowadays, different type of media such as television, radio and internet has played important roles in our society. People used media as their main sources to gain information. Pur behviour and action are change and influenced by the media without our concious. It has become part of our life. (Florida State University)

YouTube

One of the popular trends of media is YouTube. YouTube is a video sharing website that allowed people tp upload, share and view various type of video clips such as movie, music, video and so on. (Wikipedia, 2008)

www.nova.edu/radiox/about.html

"Multimodal texts are those texts that have more that one 'mode', so that meaning is communicated through a synchonisation of modes." (Walsh, 2006) YouTube has used multimodal text such as video clips to communicate to each others.

Copyright

Copyright is a legal law that set by the governments in order to protect the original works of authorship. (Wikipedia, 2007) "YouTube has been criticized frequently for failing to ensure that its online content adhered yo the law of copyright." (Wikipedia, 2007) Even the rules of copyright has stated before the peoples uploading any video, but there have still many unauthorized video clips beong post.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright

Censorship

"Censorship is the suppression of speech or deletion of comminicative material which may be considered objectionable, harmful or sensitive, as determined by a censor." (Wikipedia, 2008) Several pages of YouTube have been banned by some country such as Thailand, Turkey and so on due to posting of some "offensive material." (Wikipedia, 2008)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship

References list:

Wikipedia, 2008, Censorship, viewed 6 November 2008,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship>

Wikipedia, 2007, Copyright, viewed 6 November 2008,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright>

Florida State University, Media Influences, viewed 6 November 2008,
<http://www.tshc.fsu.edu/par/media/influences.htm>

Wikipedia, 2008, YouTube, viewed 6 November 2008
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube>

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.

Online vs Print

There have some differences of designing for print and online document. The way of readers reading are different. Jakob Nielsen stated that the way of reader reading in a web page is according to “F shape”. He also believed that the readers are will first read in a horizontal movement in the top of the webpage then second horizontal and the last read in a vertical movement.

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

Compare to print such as books or magazines, all text is linear. Linear text is referring that the readers have no choice but to read the whole thing (Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006). All the elements post different places without any changes. The text in the print document can be work as “information genres”. (Walsh, 2006)

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/07_01/hallowsPA_468x681.jpg

http://harrypotter.warnerbros.com/

In the other hand, “The reader can choose different pathway depending on their interest”. This is happen when reader read the webpage. (Walsh, 2006) Readers are not going to read your webpage according word by word. (Jakob Nielsen, 2006) Therefore, the designer for webpage must used different modes to attract the attentions of the readers such as animation, video clips and so on. Beside that, the first two paragraph of web page is important to grab the reader’s attention because most of the readers only read first two paragraphs. (Jakob Nielsen, 2006)

The similarity between the print and the online document is the meaning making. (Walsh, 2006) This means that the meaning they wish to express will be same as there purpose is same as well.

References List:

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

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

Classification of Blogs

~Pamphleteering blogs
~Digest Blog
~Advocacy Blog
~Popular Mechanics blog.
~Exhibition blog
~Gatewatcher Blog
~Diary
~Advertisement
~News blog

( TheMediaReport, 2008)

Nowadays, there have many blogs that combinations of styles exist. Most of the bloggers are covering multiple topics as the graph below. According to the survey conduct by technorati, over 1000 bloggers reveals that both personal and professional topics are equally popular (technorati.com, 2008)

www.technorati.com

“Blogging is all about the sharing mindset and voice being expressed.”(technorati.com, 2008) Therefore, for my opinion, the bloggers are blogging according to their interest. For example, someone is more interested in fashion will automatically always blogging about fashion as well.



Blogging Communities


“The term online community implied a community who interacted online within some bounded set of technologies.” (The Knowledge Tree, 2006).

Blogging communities are important in internet which allowed people interact with each others. Some of the examples of blogging communities are Global Voices/Screenshots and MSN spaces.

MSN spaces are free community communication and easy to use services which offering by MSN that allowed people to creating their own personal spaces and by the way connect to their friends, family and the online world. Beside that, it also allowed people to shared photo, songs and so on. (Microsoft, 2005)

http://home.services.spaces.live.com/

It is easy for people to create a blogging community. For MSN space, you should go through their web site and create a space with just a few clicks, and then personalize it to reflect their moods, interests and preferences. (Microsoft, 2005)




References list:


ABC Radio National 2008, A taxanomy of blogs, viewed 6 November 2008,
<http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2008/2372882.htm#transcript>

Technorati, 2008, State of the blogosphere, viewed 6 November 2008,
<http://www.technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/the-what-and-why-of-blogging/>

The Knowledge Tree, 2006, Blogs and Community - launching a new paradigm for online community, viewed 6 November 2008,
<http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2006/edition-11-editorial/blogs-and-community-–-launching-a-new-paradigm-for-online-community>

Microsoft, 2005, MSN spaces fact sheet, viewed 6 November 2008,
<http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/newsroom/msn/factsheet/MSNSpaces.mspx>

Blog as Current Phenomenon & Benefit to the Community

Blogs are Pervasive

Wikipedia defines the Blogosphere “is the collective community of all blogs. They may be seen as interconnected and socially networked. Discussions "in the Blogosphere" have been used by the media as a gauge of public opinion on various issues”. (Technorati: State of blogosphere, 2008).

“There have been a number of studies aimed at understanding the size of the Blogosphere”. (Technorati: State of blogosphere, 2008). However, it is hard to estimate because blogs are everywhere and become part of our life. Nowadays, blogs have become as global phenomenon.

Technorati tracked blogs in 81 languages in June 2008. Beside that, bloggers have been at it an average of three years and are collectively creating close to one million posts every day. Blogs have representation in top-10 web site lists across all key categories.

Trends of Blogosphere

Malaysian bloggers share the same taste as their Asian counterparts where blogs on technology, travel and music are ranked among the most popular but less popular in Europe. Most of the Europeans spend their majority time for online for personal reason. One of the main reasons is blogging. (Jeff O0i, 2006) (Microsoft Advertising, 2006)

Type of Blogs

~Personal
~Business
~Schools
~Non-profits
~Politics
~Military
~Private
~Sports
~How-to, tips and reviews

(WORDPRESS.COM)

Benefits of blogs

~To improve their income. A blog site allows people to establish trust, credibility, and thought leadership for their business. For example, establish brand awareness that will affect the buying decision of clients. (Blogsite.com, 2005)

~To expend their community, especially those who wish to find a group of people that share their same viewpoints on certain topics. (McLaughlin, 2006) By the way, the bloggers can gain new friends as well.

~Gained new information (Swammer, 2006) for example, politic, job……

References list:

Technorati, 2008, State of the blogosphere, viewed 6 November 2008
<http://www.technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere>

Jeff Ooi, 2006, Study: Blogging for social connections and self-expression, viewed 6 November 2008
<http://asia.cnet.com/blogs/lemaklemang/post.htm?id=61971059>

Microsoft Advertising, Social networking to drive next wave of internet usage, 2006, viewed 6 November 2008
<http://advertising.microsoft.com/europe/NewsAndEvents/PressRelease.aspx?Adv_PressReleaseID=160>

WORDPRESS.COM, Types of blogs, viewed 6 November 2008
<http://wordpress.com/types-of-blogs/>

Teh Phoey Lee Phoebe, 2007, An insight of blogosphere over the internet, School of Management and Information Technology, UCSI, viewed 6 November 2008,<http://www.ucsi.edu.my/jasa/3/papers/AC8.pdf>