Reflection

Decisions, decisions, decisions…

Personally it is very simple to make a blog, but maintaining it is a whole different story. The skills required to maintain a blog are fluent in the language that you use, as words are mostly used to convey a message in blogs.

Then there is always the question of…

To write or not to write, writing a blog requires many decisions to be made. Which is why figuring out our audience, purpose and context is the most crucial step to take. It may sound easy, but it requires a lot of decision making.

Not only that, it is also crucial to remain ethical at all times, mostly to avoid a lawsuit, otherwise it is to acknowledge the work that others have done to obtain the information we have. According to Sims (2003), we must take ownership of what we write and acknowledge the work of others. Therefore we must give our readers correct and accurate information which is where citations and references will help deem the credibility of the information.

More over, a blogger have to be ethical thus having an ethical model such Raythean’s model can help a lot (Sims 2003). Raythean’s model:-

1. Gather all related information
2. Think first then communicate
3. Find out all you can about the people affected by your decisions and those who will read your communication
4. Talk to people whom you trust
5. Aim to establish a reputation

With these steps, it is hard to walk astray from the ethical way in making and maintaining a credible blog.

Reference

Sims, BR 2003, Technical Communication for Readers and Writers, 2nd edn, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston

Walk for Press Freedom

“Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.” Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States, said.

Which is exactly what the citizens of Malaysia is craving for, this can be seen in the recent “Walk for Press Freedom” which took place in Kuala Lumpur. However it would be interesting to see how different media report the same news for instance The Star newspaper and OhmyNews International (OMNI). Other than the fact that international reporters are able to cover the story faster than the local newspaper, the angles used by both parties are total opposites and yet both reported exactly the event which happened.

However the main issue is the press freedom we are facing, as mentioned by Rassloff in the article “Walking for Malaysian Press Freedom” is the draconian laws which restricts the freedom of speech such as the Printing Presses and Publications Act, Sedition Act, Official Secrets Act and the Internal Security Act. These laws are outdated in terms of the needs of the people especially the Printing Presses and Publication Act of 1984 and the Official Secrets Act, as it most often used to prevent certain information from being known to the public.

Yet at the same time, are we prepared to have total freedom for the media? Are we responsible enough to take the blame if something goes wrong? Or does human instinct kicks in and we start blaming others? Like a bird set free for the first time; who knows what we might do.

References

Rassloff M, Keep on Walking for Malaysian Press Freedom, OhmyNews International, viewed on 8 June 2008, <http://english.ohmynews.com/ArticleView/article_view.asp?menu=A11100&no=382741&rel_no=1&back_url>

The Star Online, 2 June 2008, Journalists, bloggers walk to press for more freedom, ‘The Star Online’, viewed on 8 June 2008, <http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/6/2/nation/21425908&sec=nati>

Is there truly violence?

For decades people have fought over many things, some trivial and some for a greater cause. But the promotion to fight and kill by game developers is a whole different story as their only goal is to maximise sale and by provoking our survival instinct and need to be the best, they got gamers in the palm of their hands.

“By the time a child turns 18, he or she would have witness on television 200,000 acts of violence including 40,000 murders.” Huston (1992) said. Buchanan (2002) added that the more children get themselves exposed to violent TV programs or video games; they are likely to act more aggressively to their peers.

Since we are constantly surrounded by violence, wouldn’t it be the norm of our society to see and expect violence? Then how are we able to tell children and teenagers that violence is bad since they would have already been exposed to over 200,000 acts of violence and 40,000 murders.

The solution would be the mentality of the users, are we not able to differentiate between good and bad? Is it better to hit someone till they get you what you want? Or to persuade them to give you what you want? Violent games may have trained us to take quick actions but society has also thought us to take the proper actions. The only question remains is which method would you take?

References

Huston, A.C. et al (1992). Big world, small screen: The role of television in American society. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.

Buchanan, A.M., Gentile, D.A., Nelson, D.A.,Walsh, D.A., Hensel, J. (2002). What goes in must come out: Children's media violene consumption at home and aggressive behaviors at school. www.mediafamily.org/facts/facts_vlent.shtml, Viewed 15th June 2008.

Stalkbook? Stalkster?

The internet has many function and most of them have forms which are appealing (Bear 2007). Most of the time that function is to socialize, where friends and family can keep in touch with one and another. Thus websites like facebook and friendster have been very successful at allowing people to “meet” up. But in an article from Metro < http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=127834&in_page_id=34 > there is also a darker side to these things, where stalkers are using it to harm others. However, legal actions can still be taken as users can be tracked down but proving them to be a stalker is a whole other story.

Website these days only require your email address to identify who you are (Clarke 1998). This raises the issue of privacy as some of us keep private information linked to our emails. For example friendster and facebook requires users to login with their email accounts, hence if an email account is typed into the search engine, the users would most likely be found.

These tools can be misused by users who intend to do harm upon the person they are “researching” about. Therefore leaving personal information such as our whereabouts and pictures of our homes, the user may obtain information which could harm us.

Personally, it would be wise to keep information which could be turned against you away from the internet. The only reason people post on the internet is to tell everyone else about something they really want to share, hence if you even doubt the information you have, keep it really far away from the internet.

References

Bear J.H 2007, ‘Form and Function in Design and Publishing’, retrieved 25 May 2008, from <>

Facebook ‘stalker’ cleared of harassment, March 26, 2008, Metro UK, retrieved 9 May 2008, from < http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=127834&in_page_id=34 >

Your friendly neighbourhood encyclopaedia

Ever look at a book rack and find a row of similar books but can only wonder the contents it might hold. Or even felt scared seeing a book with so many continuations?

Image sourced from Google Images (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Encyclopaedia_Britannica_15_with_2002.jpg )

You can now rest easy as encyclopaedias are just a set of books which works like a dictionary where it helps us understand things in a more layperson term.

With the introduction of online encyclopaedias, we are now able to access the information we need quicker and almost anywhere we go. One online encyclopaedia which I most often hear would be Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org) because it is easy to understand as the definitions are written by people for people. Hence allowing a more suitable and effective method of informing people.

Although website users usually navigate to multiple sites with non-linear pathways as readers’ pathways can be multi-directional (Walsh 2006). Wikipedia is able to capture the attention of users by allowing users to touch up on errors which may have occurred and still keep the information in laypersons term.

Moreover, with the usage of hyperlinks, users are able to ensure that the information that they are receiving is accurate or interpreted in the correct manner, thus developing credibility.

However, it would be wiser not to directly quote from Wikipedia as the definitions are usually to help ease readers understanding and may no be proper for academic purposes.

Reference

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

New forms of media publishing

Although the internet has been around for decades, it is still considered a new media, as much of its usage is still unexplored and many are still benefiting ever since it was open to the public.

But as mentioned in the previous post the amount of internet users are raising at a tremendous rate that they double their amount in such a rapid rate that blogs alone have reached over 57 million in October 2006. Other means of media such a Vlogs has also boomed in the amount of users.

Not only that, these days people who have been "nobodies" in their lives are able to shine without means of getting on to the television, they now can use Vlogs such as Youtube where they are able to post outrageous things which they have done in hopes of gaining popularity and acceptance by reader and/or viewers.

With a few success by those who have been passionate at posting on their sites, there was always the saying "Who knows you might be the next star one day (on Youtube)?"

Most importantly, new media has allowed users and producers to communicate with each other more directly compared to other medias. This is because the audience are playing an active role in selecting things they like and dislike. With such a list, producers are able to anticipate the move in trends and be one step ahead in providing the users with what they need.

Designing for online vs. print

Print media has been around for decades, but now in this new age, the emergence of the internet has led to a shift in design from print to online. There are many reasons for this shift and some examples are local newspapers which have online newspapers, this is because the internet can be considered "free" as the cost of it isn't high compared to conventional methods. More over, the internet is instantaneous which allows real time news and at the same time cover a large audience.

Print Media



According to Kress and Van Leeuwen (1998), the print media focuses more on text which is their main means of conveying messages other than pictures.

Online Media



On the other hand, online media allows readers to play in an active role as they are required to click on links to find out more information. Thus at the same time allow designers to figure out, what the audience would like to read. With these interaction between readers and designer, both parties would be able to benefit from each other.

Hence a more active audience compared to print media.

Although....

According to Jakob Nielsen (1997), people rarely read Web pages word by word; instead, they scan the page, picking out individual words and sentences. Nielsen (1997) also said "In research on how people read websites we found that 79 per cent of our test users always scanned any new page they came across; only 16 percent read word-by-word."

Therefore, weblogs have to employ scannable text by using:-

• highlighted keywords (hypertext links serve as one form of highlighting; typeface variations and color are others)
• meaningful sub-headings (not "clever" ones)
• bulleted lists
• one idea per paragraph (users will skip over any additional ideas if they are not caught by the first few words in the paragraph)
• the inverted pyramid style, starting with the conclusion
• half the word count (or less) than conventional writing

However, even with all of the above, if a blog is not credible, readers would not take it seriously and assume it as a ranting from someone who has nothing better to do. Thus it is crucial for the information portrayed on the website to be linked and sourced from credible sources. This allows the readers to find that the blog is credible and at the same time making the blog objective.

Thus, both online and print medias have their pros and cons, but the complimentary of both medias creates a greater source of information.

Reference

Kress, G & van Leeuwen, T 1998, ‘Front pages: (the critical) analysis of newspaper layout’, in Approaches to media discourse, eds Bell, A & Garrett, P, Blackwell, Oxford, pg. 186-219.


Nielsen, J, 1997. How Users Read on the Web. Viewed on 30 April 2008 at http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9710a.html