Reflection

As a tumblr blogger, I do not really post textual elements in my blog. At the very most, i would blog 5 sentences. This is mostly because I never really liked my blog to be packed and crammed with words. Also, I prefer pictures and images to text. Thus, this assignment blog actually forced me to see the other side of the world where blogging with words isn't that bad.

This course has thought me the art of arranging my elements in the blog to make it seem presentable.Thus, even with a long post of only words, my blog would not look too crammed up. Not only it helped me design my blog better, but it taught me to arrange elements in magazines and design. Furthermore, this course has definitely expanded my knowledge on current issues of the world. It helped me gain more knowledge and awareness about the status of the digital world today.

In completing this course, I can assure you that I have become a better document designer who is aware of current issues and would take the audience's sensitive issues to consideration.

Lastly, I would want to give a shot out to Ms Jenny Heng.

A big thank you for you have been very patient with me!

Also, thank you for guiding me well throughout the course !

This course has definitely made me a better document designer and a better person.

Source: Tumblr.com

*****

"Harry Potter" Author Wins Copyright Claim

The full Harry Potter series set

Source: Flickr

The RDR reference books

Source: Amazon.com

Reported by the Associated Press 2008, J.K Rowling won her case after suing a fan, Steven Vander ark who violated her copyright with plans to publish a Potter encyclopedia. Judge Robert Patterson said in a ruling on Monday, Steven Vander Arks's "Harry Potter Lexicon" would cause damage to Rowling as an author. Rowling also sued Michigan-based RDR Books last year to stop publication of the book claiming copyright infringement. The Defendant's lawyer, Anthony Falzone said that the lexicon was a reference guide to the intricate world of Harry Potter. Ark then insisted that RDR Books had included an agreement in his contract that the publisher would pay any damages upon against him.

With the transition to the digital age, information has become easily accessible. According to Plagiarism.com (2009), many people think of plagiarism as copying another's work, or borrowing someone else's original ideas. However, terms such as "copying" and "borrowing" can disguise the seriousness of the offence. In other words, plagiarism is and act of fraud. The is now a great access to a wide range scholarly work, but the risk of plagiarism has increased with it. Since, this digital age allows information to be accessible by almost anyone, children have become quite an issue of plagiarism. This is because there is a common misconception among children where everything on the Internet is free to copy and use (Parents Center, 2008). Thus, parents should constantly remind children about the importance of the writing process without plagiarism. Also,they must educate them about plagiarism. children As stated by which then leads them to plagiarism. Pascale (2009), sometimes student are just following the example given .

References

Associated Press, 2008, "Harry Potter" Author Wins Copyright Claim, viewed 14 November 2009,http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/08/entertainment/printable4426302.html

Pascale, C 2009, Plagiarism in the School System, viewed 14 November 2009, http://educationalissues.suite101.com/article.cfm/plagiarism_in_the_school_system#ixzz0XHuE3DU

Parents Centre, 2008, Plagiarism, viewed 11 November 2009, http://www.parentscentre.gov.uk/usingcomputersandtheinternet/plagiarism/

Plagiarism.org, 2009, What is plagiarism?, viewed 11 November 2009, http://www.plagiarism.org/index.html

Obama & iPhone

Source: Wired.com

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/06/overheating-iphones/

At the dawn of the 21st century, new media, technologies and gadgets are taking the world with storm. In 2008, politician, Barrack Obama who has now become the first African-American President of the United States of America, was reported using and iPhone to attract voters, and eventually won the campaign. In the article by Shiels, "Obama uses iPhone to win support", it is stated that President Barrack Obama used the iPhone to connect with his voters. The use of the mobile technology to get people involved directly is a way for the grass roots to really make an impact. Volunteers developes developed a free application, "Call Friends" that would generate thousands of additional personal contacts that would then be turned into votes. Even though, the application made wered marked, privacy of the users were strictly protected as no private information left the phone.

Obama's application
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7649753.stm

This is obviously a new innovation of how politicians are able to win votes; and it is enabled by the new wave of mobile technology. Shankland (2008), reports that the application also showed Obama statements to the news media and a guide to Obama's positions on various issues. Both Obama and McCain also turned to the web to raise money, YouTube to air adverts and Facebook to raise their profiles among the social networking set. This shows how important new media is as even politicians turn to it to raise their profile, as Gillmor (2004) states that new media is able to reach the global audience. Therefore, the iPhone had granted a faster and bigger spread of information to the nation.

Source: Tech Crunch
http://eu.techcrunch.com/2009/08/28/
belgian-teenager-latest-victim-of-exploding-iphone-phenomenon/

However, recently, there are safety issues regarding the use of iPhone. According to Wauters (2009), a 15 year old Belgian by the name of Salvatore is the latest victim in the series of the mysterious iPhone explosions. While iPhone may be the new wave of mobile technology, the safety status is still researched due to several explosion cases.Chen (2009) reported that consumers have complained about the batteries overheating which may lead to explosions. The European Commission, has thus asked all 27 EU nations to keep iPhone issues as such informed of any problems under the community’s rapid alert system for dangerous consumer products, known as RAPEX (Wauters,2009)

References

Chen, BX 2009, Battery Issues Likely Cause of iPhone 3GS Overheating, Wired.com, viewed 14 November 2009, http://www.blogger.com/publish-confirmation.g?blogID=5192205619098688129&postID=8396101822856788697&timestamp=1258608641837&javascriptEnabled=true

Gillmor, D 2004, We the media: Grassroots Journalism by the People for the People, O’Reilly Media, United States of America.

Shiels, M 2008, Obama uses iPhone to win support, BBC News, viewed 14 November 2009,

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7649753.stm>

Shankland, S 2008, Obama releases iPhone recruiting, campaign tool, Cnet.com, viewed 14 November 2009, < http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10056519-38.html>.

Wauters, R 2009, Belgian teenager latest victim of exploding iPhone phenomenon, Tech Crunch, viewed 14 November 2009, http://eu.techcrunch.com/2009/08/28/belgian-teenager-latest-victim-of-exploding-iphone-phenomenon/

The Power of Photograph

Eddie Adams's Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan
executing a Viet Cong officer.
Source : Wikipedia

The new transcript was recorded during the opening of The War Photo Limited Gallery. Wade Goddard, the gallery curator explains that the idea was to get a more global perspective of what actually happened during the war. Goddard continue emphasizing that the se photographs were taking by photographers who were there during the war. They were the ones who saw, felt and smelt it with their own senses. Thus, they are the ones who deserves to tell the story.

He criticize the media saying that they have publishers and editors who have their own political view and only published what they wanted the audience to see, and that the other “impartial” part is never shown. The War Photo Limited Gallery aims to remind people that what happened in Dubrovnik more than a decade ago, is now happening elsewhere in the world. The idea is to focus on the conflicts that happened to us during our lifetime an to make people more aware of these conflicts, in hope that the governments will never put up a new war.

As Schirato & Yell (1996) defines narratives, they are used as ways of interpreting and structuring everyday life, and can take on a very powerful function in validating the events in people's lives. Thus, the photographers at war used narratives to tell the story during the war. As Evans (1978) state,the photographer and artist who see for us beyond the range of our vision. However, Evans (1978) added that photographers are other people who decide what will be photographed for the record and how what is photographed will be selected or discarded, or edited to change its emphasis. Just as Goddard mentioned in the article, the media choose what the audience should see. Hence, they select, edits and change the photographs.

September 11 - A Nation Remembers by James Nachtwey

Source : Time.com

Walsh (2006) states that Images have other effects that are different from words, particularly at affective, aesthetic and imaginative levels. This is why this War Photo Limited Gallery is said to be different from the 15 seconds of TV newsreel that we get on your international news channel. The photographs in the gallery exhibits follow a story and get a little bit further into the story and closer to touch the lives of those who are affected by war (ABC News, 2007).

Photographs are a very powerful tool. It informs and excites. A single image can be rich in meaning because it is a trigger image of all the emotions aroused by the subject, If you think of major new events, the likelihood is that you will visualise not a cine-sequence but a single scene from a single still news photograph which has been absorbed in the mind (Evans, 1978).

References

ABC News 2007, The Power of Photograph, viewed on 11th November 2009,

from http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2007/2051819.htm

Evans, H 1978, "Pictures on a Page", The Sunday Times, London

Schirato, T and Yell, S 1996, Communication and cultural literacy: an introduction, St. Leonards, NSW, Ch. 5, pp. 90-117

Walsh, M 2006, The ‘textual stuff’: Examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 24-37.

The Last Supper

The leading magazine in Indonesia, Koran Tempo rose to controversy when they featured the former president, Suharto who had then recently deceased, with his six children mimicking Da Vinci’s Last Supper painting (ABC News 2008).

The Koran Tempo frontpage

Source: Indonesia Matters

This led to complaints and protest by the offended Christians. Several Christian groups as well as inter-religious organisations converge on the Tempo office to complain over the cover. Catholic Students Almni Forum head Hermawi Taslim said The painting has a deep meaning for Catholics as it potrays the holy journey of Jesus and his disciples (Jakarta Post, 2008). Chief editor of Tempo, Toriq Hadad apologised and confessed that there were no intention of hurting the Christians but were only inspired by the composition of the painting, not the concept told in the holy bible. The apology also ran in the next issue.

Da Vinci's Last Supper

Source: Indonesia Matters

As a document designer, Putnis & Petelin (1996) implied that, many issues need to be taken into consideration before writing and submitting a piece of work; This is so that he or she will be careful to not touch sensitive issues of the community. A document designer identifies his audience, purposes , and sets aside sensitive issues that are in the community of his audience before choosing the elements for his documents. Also, as Walsh (2006) states that interaction between reader and text can occur within a number of contexts simultaneously; one of them is the social or cultural context of the individual. Thus, this suggest that every writer and document designer should understand the cultural and social context of his or her audience. This is because their cultural and social context influence in the meaning-making of a document.

Therefore, as a mass comunication student, I personally think that it is vital to fully understand the cultural and social context of my targeted reader. This is to avoid touching on sensitive issues and offending the community. However, not only do we writers and document designers should take these into consideration, but also the community in their daily lives to avoid conflicts. After all, we surely do not want to involve ourselves in a lawsuit as there were charges made against Tempo magazine for blasphemy against Christianity (Indonesia Matters, 2008).

References

ABC News 2008, Indonesian weekly apologises over Last Supper Suharto cover, viewed 14th November 2009, http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/02/06/2156269.htm.

Indonesia Matters, 2008, The Last Supper, viewed 14^th November
2009, http://www.indonesiamatters.com/1617/the-last-supper/

Putnis, Pete & Petelin, Roslyn 1996, “Writing to communicate”, in Professional communication : principles and applications, Prentice Hall, Sydney, pp236-254

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, pp. 24-37.

New Forms of Media Publishing

Source: http://www.research.utoronto.ca/edge/december2008/1.html

With the advancement of technologies, news can be access through a whole new medium – Internet. So how has this new medium changed the role of journalism ? With the Internet, we have entered a communication revolution where citizens themselves are able to practice what we call as citizen journalism (Allan, 2006; cited in Robinson 2009, p. 796). These citizen journalists report news via new media such as blogs, videologs (Youtube), podcast, Twitter and etc. Chartier (2008) reported that a new channel, “Citizen News” was set up in Youtube aimed to produce newsworthy content accessible to a global audience. Technology has thus, become a toolkit which is allowing just about anyone to become a journalist without needing great expectations, and in theory, with global reach.

Source: www.youtube.com

While new media is still growing, it grants citizens a whole new world where there is freedom of speech. However, Youtube which is a video sharing website was recently banned in Pakistan for showing material considered offensive in Islam.

Chisamera (2008) reported that a cartoon video of Prophet Mohammed was published on 2006 by a Danish newspaper and it was posted on YouTube in 2008. According to Pakistan authorities, there were immediate protests throughout Pakistan and the burning of the Danish flag were becoming common scenes in Pakistan.

While citizens in countries such as America are granted with more freedom of speech where they can generally write blogs without harsh consequences, not all countries around the world offer this right to its citizen. . Maltoni (2007) states that we are "more and more in a collaborative story-centric approach of publishing". Media publishing will still continue to grow and evolve to suit people's needs, and it will be hard to guess what is to come in the future.

References

Chisamera, D 2008, Pakistan's ISP Block YouTube Access over Anti-Islami Videos, viewed 10 November 2009,http://www.efluxmedia.com/news_Pakistani_ISPs_Block_YouTube_Access_Over_Anti_Islamic_Videos_14434.html

Gillmor, D 2004, We the media: Grassroots Journalism by the People for the People, O’Reilly Media, United States of America.)

Maltoni, V 2007, What is New Media?, Conversation Agent, viewed 10 November 2009,
http://www.conversationagent.com/2007/11/what-is-new-med.html

Robinson, S 2009, ‘If you had been with us: Mainstream press and citizen journalists jockey for authority over the collective memory of Hurricane Katrina’, New Media and Society, Vol 11, no.5, pp. 795-814.

Online Media vs Print Media

Online media has definitely changed how the commercial world works. Even the principle of designs has evolved to ensemble the online media. This is due to the different visual context in both print media and online media. According to Kress & Van Leeuwen (2006), the reading process in print-based text is linear and the textual integration is achieved by linguistic means. In online media however, the reading path follows the alphabet F pattern where readers read horizontally first and then scans vertically while moving horizontally downwards (Kress & Van Leeuwen).

Source : www.nytimes.com

Source: www.nytimes.com

The web page is definitely read in a "F" pattern manner or suggested by Nielson (1999), a "N" pattern because readers' focus tend to move around the page a lot. Nielson (1999) states that designs on print media are more likely to be salient and yet complex and much more packed and impact than a web page. As seen in the New York Times printed newspaper, the photograph creates salience where it is more prominent compared to other elements in the newspaper. Also, the newspaper prove that print design is much more intricate, packed and crammed compared to the webpage version where there are more "white" spaces in between elements. Furthermore, Nielson (1999) argues that the print design usually uses bigger images compared to web pages. This can be seen clearly from the two images compared above.

Therefore, while print media uses salience, bigger pictures, linear-based design and is more packed, online media uses less crammed with more "white" spaces, smaller pictures and the "F" or "N" pattern based design.

References

Kress, G & van Leeuwen, T 2006, “Chapter 6: The meaning of composition”, in Reading images, pp. 175-214.

Nielsen, J 1999, Print vs. web design, 24 January, viewed 10 November 2009

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990124.html

The Blogging Community

source: http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2006/
edition-11-editorial/blogs-and-community-–-
launching-a-new-paradigm-for-online-community

White (2006) argues that the virtual community is shaped by three key factors: common interest, frequent interaction and idenfication. Blogging communities are a form of social groups where people developed a relationship connection with others on the Internet (Rheingold, 1993). Thus, blogging communities can be seen as a virtual form of societies in the world.

White also categorizes the blogging community into Single Blogger Centric Community, the Central Connecting Topic Community and the Boundaried Community. The Single Blogger Centric Community is made up of a single blogging platform with a single blog where readers frequently leave comments to get to know each other, such as Blogger. When blogs are linked to each other based on the common interest found in his or her readers, a Central Connecting Topic Community is built. The Boundaried Community on the other hand, is a collection of blogs and blog readers are invited to host on a single site.

References

Rheingold, H 1993, The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier, HarperParennial, USA.

White, N 2006, ‘What blog based communities look like today’, Blogs and Community – launching a
new paradigm for online community?, viewed 10th November 2009, <http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2006/edition-11-editorial/blogs-and-community-%E2%80%93-launching-a-new-paradigm-for-online-community>

Classification of Blogs

Blogs are evolving to another form of human communication as they are a product of convenience rather than design (Williams and Jacobs,2004). With so many blogs being set up, how do we classify them? According to Technorati.com (2008), blogs are classified into different categories as such:

• Entertainment
• Business
• Lifestyle
• Sports
• Technology
• Politics

Within these categories, lies sub-categories which are divided according to their genre. For example entertainment can be divided into movies, theatre, celebrity gossips and music. Lifestyle blogs can vary from personal blogs, DIY blogs to health blogs. Sports on the other hand can be sub categorised into football, handball, golf and dance.

http://spanishfootballsports.blogspot.com">

http://seattledances.blogspot.com">

There are many ways to categorise blogs. Wikipedia classifies blogs through their mode of blogging. For example, device and media type. With all the various kind of classifications, what is more important is how readers read these blogs, how the classify them. Readers tend to read and search for blogs which are in line with their interests. Someone who is into dancing is more likely to read and search for blogs about fitness and dancing rather than politics. According to Reep (2006), the graphics in blogs aid readers’ to navigate blogs that interest them.

References

Williams, JB, Jacobs, J 2004, Exploring the use of blogs as learning spaces in the highereducation sector, Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, viewed 12 June 2009,http://eprints.qut.edu.au/13066/1/13066.pdf

Technorati 2008, ‘Blog directory’, Technorati.com, viewed 10th November 2009, <http://www.technorati.com/blogs/directory/>.

Wikipedia, ‘Types’, Blog, viewed 10th November 2009, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog>

Blogs as current phenomenon & benefits to the community

Every now and then revolutionary new concepts emerge, seemingly out of nowhere to really shake up the establishment (Yeoh, 2003). Napster made MP3s a household word while Amazon.com made buying books online an alternative to going to the bookstore. Weblogs, or blogs which are categorised as web-based concepts have recently been the trending evolution.

According to a study done by Universal McCann (Technorati 2008), there are about 184 million bloggers and 346 million people who read blogs in the world. To date, the most popular individual bloggers can draw tens of thousands of visitors daily. Blogs, as Gillmor (2004) puts it are a democratic form of journalism. Why is blogging so popular? Pruit (2005) suggests that blogging allows information to reach a global audience within a few clicks. In India, blogging is relatively new. with whereby people distribute information globally with just a few clicks of the mouse.

According to Mital (2008), most Indian blogs fall into the category of online diaries where people mostly write about their personal lives, emphasizing on dating their sex lives. This is because the blogging phenomenon is still new to them. However, sooner or later when the blogging phenomenon matures in India, blogs will break into the mainstream and become a credible, alternate medium for political and social commentary, just like in the West. Mital (2008) also added that it is the first time where the Indian society experience a more open-minded environment where Internet became a tool to discuss “taboo” issues.

Hence, in a repressive and rigid country, Gillmor, (2004) argues that Internet have certainly opened a new pathway where people are able to express issues which are prohibited in the old media. For example, culture, relationships, politics and sex, (Gillmor, 2004). Blogging is thus the new revolutionary concept which will shake up and change how the commercial world works. What started off as a hobby by technology geeks has now become a mainstream pursuit practiced by amateur writers around the world.

REFERENCES

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

Gillmor, D 2004, We the media: Grassroots Journalism by the People for the People, O’Reilly Media, United States of America.

Mital, VK 2008, The Brave New World of Blogs, viewed 11^th November 2009, http://www.merinews.com/article/the-brave-new-world-of-blogs/135550.shtml

Technorati 2008, State of blogosphere 2008, viewed 11th November 2009,http://technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere

Yeoh, O 2003, Transition: Making Sense of the Digital Age, Vinlin Press Sdn Bhd, Malaysia.