Reflections

Image courtesy of thelensflare.com

During my postings in this blog it helped me understand a lot of aspects on the internet,new media,design and also blogging. It has also shown me many issues regarding Publication and Design. Hosting my blog on Blogspot,proved fruitful as it is a very easy interface to use and it has many tools that simplifies my work. I included photos and video on my blog to give a interactive fee to my readers and also the availability of the comment button and chatter box enables them to interact with me on my postings. This blog also conforms to the multimodality aspect by converging,audio,video,text and images (Kress Van Leeuwen, 2006). I hope that this blog will serve as a form of reference for others and maximize the materials that i have posted,thank you.

Reference:

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

Twitter-ific

Image courtesy of Twitter

According to Wikipedia Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service, that allows its users to send and read other users' updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length. This is one of the latest forms of blogging that seems to appeal to people who don’t have time to own a conventional blog.

This people some of them very influential such as president elect Barack Obama, and Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd use it to literarily let the public know what they are up to as they are always busy with their work schedule and cant afford to write an essay about their day (Serpo, 2008).

Twitter also allows for replies through SMS (Short Messaging Service) and answer answer the question "What are you doing right now?" by sending 140-character "Tweets" to Twitter.com. The character limitations urge users to condense their ideas, and followers can reply and add their thoughts to friends' updates (Colvin, 2008).

The twitter website also has an inbuilt search engines in order to find classmates and relatives who are already on twitter, and thus creating a networked group of twitters that could exchange status updates.

How to use twitter

References:

Colvin, H. (2008) 'Twitter' texting keeps friends connected. The University Echo Online, [Online]. Available at: http://media.www.utcecho.com/media/storage/paper483/news/2008/11/13/News/twitter.Texting.Keeps.Friends.Connected-3539765.shtml [accessed on 7th November 2008]

Serpo, A. (2008) Kevin Rudd joins Twitter. Cnet.com, [Online]. Avaialble at: http://www.cnet.com.au/mobilephones/phones/0,239025953,339293235,00.htm [accessed on 7th November 2008]

Wikipedia, Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter [Accessed on 7th November 2008]

MalaysiaKini

Malaysiakini is the first ever-online alternative news outlet in Malaysia and the most popular website in Malaysia according to Alexa.com. It is one of the most credible news sources on the Internet and covers political and daily happening in Malaysia. It was created to combat the lack of transparency and accountability of mainstream press.

Malaysiakini logo courtesy of Malaysiakini.com

Malaysiakini has a readership of 1.6 million a month based on the latest Google Analytics statistic (Malaysiakini.com, 2008). It is able to deliver breaking news immediatedly as it is an internet based and allows discussions and allows the public to send in opinions and letters (Chin, 2003).

Another reason why Malaysiakini is popular is due to the fact it reports objectively and is not linked to any political parties or is it affected by the coercive laws that undermine freedom of speech. It also has an unique integration of video, text and graphic which creates multimodality (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2006) and allows creative content such as these to be consumed by the public.

The design of Malaysiakini is also equally attractive as it follows the F-Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content. Which allows the readers to scan through the website in a speedy manner (Nielson, 2006).

the "F" shape pattern,courtesy of useit.com

References:

(2008) About Us. Malaysiakini.com, [Online] Available at: http://weblog.malaysiakini.com/?page_id=2 [accessed on 7th November 2008]

Chin, J.,Ho, K.-C., Kluver, R., & Yang, K. C. C. (2003). Asia.com: Asia encounters the Internet. London, RoutledgeCurzon.

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

Nielson, J. (2006) F-Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content. [Online]. Available at: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html [Accessed on 7th november 2008]

Power of Blogging

Taken from the ABC radio national presented by Anthony Funnel talks about the power of blogging and also debate whether talk back radio is as important as blogging, for more check out http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2007/2081805.htm

The power of blogging is very well documented in recent times and it serves as a perfect way of informing others of what you have to say. Many people use blogs to find relevant information regarding things that they interested in such as political news, citizen journalism, and other topics.

Farrell and Drezner (2008) said that bloggers possess first-mover advantages in formulating opinions. The comparative advantage of blogs in political discourse is their low cost of real-time publication. Immediately following an event of political consequence—a presidential debate, a terrorist attack—bloggers have the ability to post their immediate reactions before other forms of media can respond.

Bloggers also use their blogs to express dissatisfaction towards issues related to the community and its called activist blogging. In china the Internet embarrassed the mainstream media and the government when they exposed a child kidnapping crime that was perpetuated by local police and local officials, and blogging help put an end to this (The Independent, 2007).

References:

(2007) China trembles at the power of the blog. The Independant, [Online]. Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/china-trembles-at-the-power-of-the-blog-460401.html {accessed on 6th November 2008]

FARRELL, H., & DREZNER, D. (2008). The power and politics of blogs. Public Choice. 134, 1-2.

The New blue Media

Taken from the ABC radio national presented by Anthony Funnel talks about the influence of the New Blue Media on the US elections, for more check out http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2008/2395910.htm#transcript

The New Blue Media is a term coined by Ted Hamm (2008) describing the Pro-Democrat alternative media outlets. He says that these media outlet form a political coalition aimed at defeating Republicans in the election.

The Obama iphone app,courtesy of Zdnet.com

The usage of new media as a platform for politics has grown everywhere in the world even in Malaysia. This is due to the coercive regulations, which are implemented that curtail press freedom and independence in writing new stories (Lay Kim, 2001).

This political new media landscape also provides a shielding to politicians who are portrayed in a bad light by the mainstream press, as they remain critical on the coverage of traditional media (Harris, 2006).

The usage of new media by the Malaysian politicians in the recent March general elections proved successful as they managed to wrest five states from the ruling coalition. The usage of SMS (Short Messaging Service), YouTube and blogs to disseminate their views and opinions across managed to persuade many Malaysians and fence sitters to vote for the opposition (Wai, 2008).

References:

HAMM, T. (2008). The new blue media: how Michael Moore, MoveOn.org, Jon Stewart and company are transforming progressive politics. New York, New Press.

Harris, J. (2006). New Media A Weapon in New World Of Politics. Washington Post.com [Online] 6th October. Available at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/05/AR2006100501811.html [Accessed on 6th November 2008]

KIM, W. L. (2002). Media and democracy in Malaysia. Communication Abstracts. 25, 3-140.

Wai, C. (2008). Denial syndrome must end. The Star Online, [Online] 14th March. Available at: http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/3/14/election2008/20637966&sec=election2008 [Accessed on 6th November 2008]

New Media Publishing

The emergence of new media, which is basically a convergence of technology, and the media gave birth to many alternative media mediums such as alternative newspapers, YouTube and also the different types of blogs. As of late the usage of new media has become wider in the case of the recent political presidential elections in the United States.

New Media convergence,Image courtesy of conversationagent.com

President elect Barack Obama mobilized new media through unique ways like the iphone app, facebook and YouTube to disseminate his campaign message to all Americans (Lewin, 2008). The usage of new media in the recent Malaysia general election has grown due to the repressive laws that prohibit freedom of speech and freedom of mainstream press (Wai, 2008).

Image courtesy of Facebook

The advent and usage of new media especially the Internet is due to its ability to incorporate multimodal texts such as video, audio, images and writings providing (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2006) an interactive provided an ideal platform to reach out to the community.

However in Malaysia there seems to be a high emphasis of controlling new media, there have been many instances where bloggers are arrested and threatened with draconian laws, such as Raja Petra Kamarudin who have been arrested under the Internal Security Act which allows for detention without trial (Crispin, 2008).

References:

Crispin, W (2008) Malaysia's Risk-Takers [Online] Avilable at: http://cpj.org/reports/2008/10/malaysia08.php [Accessed on 5th November 2008]

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

Lewin, J.(2008) How Barack Obama Beat John McCain With New Media [online]. Available at: http://www.podcastingnews.com/2008/11/05/how-barack-obama-beat-john-mccain-with-new-media/ [Accessed on 5th November 2008]

Wai, C. (2008). Denial syndrome must end. The Star Online, [Online] 14th March. Available at: http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/3/14/election2008/20637966&sec=election2008 [Accessed on 14th November 2008]

Print vs Online

The differences of designing for print and online, lies in the multimodal text that each medium can incorporate. Kress and Van Leeuwen (2008) said the Internet is able to incorporate multimodal text such as, writings, images, audio and video elements in it while print can only incorporate writings and images. These gives the online medium an edge as it becomes interactive and interesting to the reader.

The difference also lies in the form of dimensionality where print design is 2-dimensional while online design is 1-dimensional and N-dimensional (Nielson, 1999). That means the print design is constricted to the size of the canvas and number of pages. The design of website allows for free movement around the web as opposed to the canvas experience which limits the user by turning just a page (Nielson, 1999).

Kress and Van Leeuwen (1998) also stated that print design is limited to the canvas and the information given has to be in full. The canvas has to also accommodate images, which further limits the space.

Image courtesy of The Star

Another advantage of web design is the ability for designers to implement changes, even though the design has been published, this flexibility provides an immediate self correcting mechanism for web design (Zhu, 2005).

Image courtesy of Malaysiakini.com

References:

Nielsen, J (1999). Print vs. web design [Online]. Available at: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990124.html. {Accessed on 4th November 2008]

Kress, G & van Leeuwen, T (1998). Approaches to media discourse, Blackwell, Oxford

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

Zhu, W.L (2005), Evaluating Web Usability in PROCTOR, R. W., & VU, K.-P. L. Handbook of human factors in Web design. Mahwah, N.J., L. Erlbaum Associates

Lots and lots of Blog Types

Blogging has become one of the best inventions of web 2.0 and bridges people together (O’Reilly, 2005). It has benefitted the community at large through many instances such as participatory journalism where it has enabled two-way communication between journalist and the public regarding news and issues (Gill, 2004). It has also increased citizen journalism, where bloggers report on issues that they witnessed.

There are many types of blogs; according to Wikipedia there is about 6 types of blog, 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.

The Blogosphere map,courtesy of therssweblog.com

This also encourages similar type of blogs to band together to form communities in which the bloggers exchange links, comment each other’s post and place them in their respective blog rolls, which eventually leads to the birth of a blogging community (Esfimova,et al,).

Process of forming a blogging community,courtesy of blogcommunity.org

Blogging communities reflect the type of blogs that falls under it; one example of a blogging community is CNET blog network. This blogging community comprises of CNET’s editors and leading industry experts that focus upon technology's influence on a variety of topics (CNET, 2007). Their aspiration is to create a community that shares ideas and thoughts regarding technology that interest them.

References:

Efimova, L., Hendrick, S. and Anjewierden, A., (2005) Finding 'thelife between buildings': An approach for defining a weblogcommunity. in Internet Research 6.0, Chicago, IL.

Gill, K.E. (2004). How can we Measure the influence of the Blogsphere?. InProceedings of the WWW2004 Conference, New York, May 17-22, 2004.

Wikipedia.org, accessed on November 2nd 2008, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blogs

Cnet (2007). CNET.com Launches the "CNET Blog Network," a Collection of New Blogs Featuring Commentary from Industry Experts [Online]. Available at: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2007_June_19/ai_n27278030 [Accessed on 2nd November 2008]

The Blogging Phenomenon

Image courtesy of Fruggallawstudent.com

Blogging has become popular across the globe. One of the attractions cited with blogging is the idea that something can be distributed globally in an instant and click of the mouse (Pruitt, 2005). According to Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006) the availability of composite visuals, images and text and other graphic as well the other multimodal functions such as sounds and video makes the Internet much more appealing.This makes an ideal bedrock for blogging.

Image courtesy of Technorati

Sifry (2007) indicated that Technorati was tracking about 70 million blogs and each day about 120,000 are created around the world. This growth can also be attributed to the ease of use of blogs to disseminate news, share stories and also the ability to communicate with readers and other bloggers, which creates a virtual community.

In Malaysia,blogs are used by politicians,especially opposition politician 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).

References:

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

Rossi. (2006) Information Overload: Blogs As Content Navigators, Information Filters, Trusted Niche Guides [Online]. Available at: http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2006/02/10/information_overload_blogs_as_content.htm [Accessed on 1st November 2008]

Sifry. (2007) The State of the Live Web [Online]. Available at: http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000493.html [Accessed on 1st November 2008]

Wai, C. (2008). Denial syndrome must end. The Star Online, [Online] 14th March. Available at: http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/3/14/election2008/20637966&sec=election2008 [Accessed on 14th November 2008]

The Rise of My Blog

Image courtesy of activerain.com

This blog serves as a medium to discuss,review and engage issues pertaining publication and design. This blog plays an active role in discussing, blogging and also semiotics. This blog is supposed to give an interactive avenue for visitors to comment on the relevant posts and learn more about the issues in publication and design.