Reflection.

As a document designer on Blogspot.com the writing that I have to feature are overall academic. In designing the document, the features that goes within the blog has to be cohesive to the content as well as the context of the blog postings. The writings in the posts delve on issues that reflect issues that is cohesive to publication and design. It is important when designing a document we have to have a frame of reference and the frame of reference that we obtain comes from the knowledge of texts and graphics that are parallel in content (Schriver, 1997). In writing this blog I had to consider the appropriate wordings that I am using so that the kind of people who are interested in the topics are able to comprehend it as well as accept it as how I intended it to be viewed . This is also because the element and arrangement of wordings forms a narrative that is dynamic (Oakley, 2005). Hence, the words that I have used are also formal and I had to consider what type of words to include so that it would not appear offensive to anyone. In respect to the contributors of the information that I have collected I have to make sure that the posts have the correct citation within the text as well as mention the references that I have used. Ethical writing is important as it would be against the ethics of writing to plagiarize someone else’s work ( National Union of Journalists Malaysia, n.d)

Reference:

Code of Ethics, National Union of Journalist Star, viewed 3 June 2011, < http://nujstar.org/?page_id=26>

Oakley, Todd 2005, ‘Implied narratives in medical practice,’ in Language & Literature, vol. 14, no. 3, p.295-310.

Schriver, K.A. 1997, ‘Chapter 6 Interplay of words and pictures’ in Dynamics in document design. Wiley Computer Pub, New York, pp 361-441.

Section 2: New media qualities; multimodality; new forms of journalism

In an article entitled ‘How Social Media, Internet Changed Experience of Japan Disaster ‘ the author talks about how the many elements of the internet has changed the way information and news are delievered. In regards of the devastating natural disaster that had recently happened the writer mentions that the accesibility of news regarding the tsunami and earth quake are easy to obtain with the technology he has . He also mentions that there are an array of videos to look at in order to observe and it was also possible to get updated news regarding the happening with the help of online social networks. With the helps of the interactivity within Twitter and Facebook , he gets more personal detail on the Japan disaster however he also mentions that the brief information given from Twitter we not that substantial as it lacked resourceful details. But at the same time he was still able to refer to some datas and reports regarding the disaster. Google Earth had enabled him to view the before and after situation of an area that had undergone a nuclear meltdown. Other than that, he is also able to get a hold of how the situation is in Japan in a more personal level and the details that is being exposed through online media gives a much bigger scope on what is happening. With the technology that he is able to uphold, it gives him a much better and stronger feeling of connection with Japan eventhough he is far away.

In my opinion, technology has indeed helped us review news in a lot of different angle with ease. The information obtained is within our fingertips and it is also useful too seek accuracy and different views with the different portals of information available like facebook and twitter. The possibility to gain a variety of news and information in many different forms is due to new media’s multimodality. Multimodality revolves around audios, videos and also graphics within texts ( Walsh, 2006) .Hence, technology has in fact influenced the nature of journalism in aspects such as augumented communication among other readers, personalized journalism and also a range of different perspective (Chung, 2007). Moreover, the new media has also given news reporters the ability to expand their information georaphically ( Chung, 2007) . The internet has made it possible to view news in a more acessible , faster and more comprehensive way for the public ( Reese et al., 2007).

Reference:

1. Chung, DS 2007, ‘Profits and Perils : Online News Producers' Perceptions of Interactivity and Uses of Interactive Features’ Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, vol. 13, no. 43, pp. 44-61
2. Reese, SD, Rutigliano,L, Hyun , K & Jeong, J 2007, ‘Mapping the blogosphere : Professional and citizen-based media in the global news arena’ Journalism, vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 235-261.
3. 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

Section 2: New media ecosystem; new media qualities & freedom of speech & public sphere.

In the article entitled ‘Social media, cellphone video fuel Arab protests’ it talks about the revolutionary move that has been done by the people of Egypt. They had used the tools of technology to capture the happening of the country in the times of crisis and have distributed it online through websites and also social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook. It is also through social networking sites the protest against the government had happened. Wael Ghonim who one of the anti government protester said that the social media had been an important part in ousting Hosni Mubarak’s dictatorship.

This revolutionary move was enabled because of the interactivity that is going on within the realms of the Internet and people were able to connect with each other and revolutionize the nation. However, it is said that it is the people that have made the changes within the country and the technology and the internet was a form of tool that had helped them to start the uprising.


In my point of view the internet or the new media are definitely a leverage for the people of Egypt when it comes to strengthen their movement in going against the government. The power of the online community gives them a chance to expose what is happening as well as to gain support from numerous people. The internet has indeed become a tool of free speech and more than that it has given people a type of promotion of human rights ( Brophy& Halpin,1999) . It is also being used as a tool to expose information and to communicate ( Brophy & Halpin 1999). Undoubtedly the internet has the ability to spread news quite efficiently and the interactivity that it features gives people the chance to voice out what they need to say and be heard. In changing the public sphere human rights is reliant on the raw and honest truth with an information to be exposed ( Brophy& Halpin, 1999). With the help of social networking sites such as Facebook, people of Egypt were able to involve many people in decision making, group discussion and also project how they feel about the situation( Herrera, 2011) . However, it is also said that the technology involved in the revolution such as mobile phones, twitter and facebook was just a tool in assisting the revolution. It is the people and their efforts that had made the social movement a reality ( Herrera, 2011). Indeed it is evident that new media has shaped political freedom and its contribution is within the fact that new media has the potential to escalate relevance as a way to apprehend public concerns and agendas to continue with the revolution ( Jeong & Mahmood , 2011).

Reference:

1. Brophy, P, Halpin, E 1999, ‘Through the Net to freedom: information, the Internet and human rights’, Journal of Information Science , vol. 25, no. 5, pp. 351-364
2. Herrera, L 2011, Egypt’s Revolution 2.0: The Facebook Factor, Jadaliya, viewed 3 June 2011, <http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/612/egypts-revolution-2.0_the-facebook-factor>
3. Jeong, Y, Mahmood R 2011, ‘Reading the world's mind: Political, socioeconomic and cultural approaches to understanding worldwide Internet search queries’, International Communication Gazette, vol. 73, no. 3, pp. 233-251.

Section 1: Photojournalism and Ethical Publishing.

In regards of the article entitled ‘ Egyptian newspaper under fire over altered photo’ it talks about the Egyptian newspaper Al- Ahram, altering a photo that was taken in the white house with President Hosni Mubarak walking ahead of the other presidents which includes President Barack Obama and along with the leaders of Israel, Palestine and Jordan. The orginal picture that was taken showed a different image where in actuality it was President Obama that was leading the way to the White House. The alteration of this picture have definitely stirred some attention from people as they claim it to be unprofessional.

In journalism photographs are important, as it provides a surface depiction of a certain occurance ( Reep, 2006). In my opinion the alteration of a photo is deemed as a very amateurish act. Moreover, it also goes againts the principals of ethical journalism. It is an act of deceit when an original picture is manipulated because altering a picture it could mean that the source of news wants the picture to represent something that is not true and also misleading to the readers (Lodriguss, 2006). Moreover, accuracy of a photograph is vital when it comes to press, when people get the wrong notion of a situation because of an altered photo , it is considered that altering photographs is wrong and also unethical (National Press Photographer Association ,1991).

The Al-Ahram newspaper have in fact been scrutinized for manipulating the photo and they have indeed lost some credibility. The effectiveness of a picture must come from the fact that it is clear as well as relevant to the situation (Reep, 2006). It is important that the news publication consider the importance of altering a pictture because the public will deem a manipulated picture as inaacurate and ultimately they will loose the trust of the audience ( Lester, 1999) . The quality if truth and the honesty of a picture plays a major role in news. This is because it reflects the objective of the journalistic process, whether it is honest and accurate or not ( Lester, 1999). Ultimately, the representation of a picture should respect the subject that is in it and also the people that revolves around the subject of the picture. According to the code of ethics for visual journalism, editing pictures should preserve a sense of respect and integrity of the content as well as the idea of the picture ( NPPA, n.d) .

Reference:

1. Digital Manipulation Code of Ethics 1991, National Press Photographers Association, viewed 2 June 2011, <http://www.nppa.org/professional_development/business_practices/digitalethics.html>
2. Lodriguss, J 2006, The Ethics of Digital Manipulation, Astropix, viewed 3 June 2011, <http://www.astropix.com/HTML/J_DIGIT/ETHICS.HTM>
3. NPPA Code of Ethics 2011, National Press Photographers Association, viewed 1 June 2011, <http://www.nppa.org/professional_development/business_practices/ethics.html>
4. Reep, Diana C. 2006, ‘Chp 4: Principles of Document Design,’ in Technical Writing, 6th ed., Pearson Edu, Inc., New York, p.173-190.

Section 1 :The Principles of Ethical Publishing in the Aspect of Visuals and Situational Context.

The article entitled ‘Berita Harian issues public apology over tsunami cartoon’ contends about the recent issue that has been the talk of Malaysian society. The cartoonist of Berita Harian has illustrated an offensive cartoon in rememberance of the Japan Tsunami. The cartoon had distastefully depict a famous Japanese cartoon character ‘Ultraman’ running cowardly from a tsunami that is approaching it. This depiction of the occurrence did not get well reception from the public as it is offensive (Mei,2011).

In my opinion, the drawings that had been done are indeed offensive and is an embarrassment to our country. What is more surprising is the fact that illustrations that is offensive to other culture could be approved to be distributed by on of the prominent news organization, it shows how ignorant they are. Moreover, it does not correspond to the ethical way of how journalists should apply their work. According to eyeonethics.org Malaysian journalists have a set of rules that they have to abide in journalism and it parallels with its national principles ‘Rukun Negara’ and one of them is that a journalist should believe in the standards of the social morality ( eyeonethics.org, n.d). Moreover, its is also mentioned that a Malaysian journalist must use proper materials in news which includes pictures and when producing a material in news one should not include something that is immoderate and excessive in nature (eyeonethics.org, n.d).



Imagery plays an important role in depicting a situation and it helps people to stimulate their thoughts regarding an issue. Immediacy revolves around images as they immediately captures the attention of people hence evoking a sort of emotion from it (Hansen , 2011). Clearly, the illustrator of the cartoon has provoked Malaysians and also people from other countries. Although free expression is entitled to journalists it should always be handled with responsibility. The news media should show sensitivity in regards of things that may hurt people’s feelings , sometimes the freedom of expression recalls for the acknowledgement of the damage that it could incur to the society’s peace ( The Economist, 2006)

Reference:

1. Canons of Journalism ( Malaysia) , Eye On Ethics, viewed 1 June 2011, http://www.eyeonethics.org/journalist-code-of-ethics-in-asia/canons-of-journalism-malaysia/

2. Hansen, L 2011, ‘Reading the world's mind: Political, socioeconomic and cultural approaches to understanding worldwide Internet search queries’ The International Communication Gazette , vol. 73, no. 3, pp. 233-251.

3. Limits to Free Speech Cartoon Wars 2006, The Economist, viewed 2 June 2011,

   The economist http://www.economist.com/node/5494602?story_id=5494602

New forms of media publishing.

The publishing of media in today has changed as Naughton ( 2006) mentioned that “the combination of digital convergence, personal computing and global networking seems to have ratcheted up the pace of development and is giving rise to radical shifts in the environment.” Indeed, this has altered how conventional media and journalism works , especially with the new media platforms such as facebook, twitter and youtube.

With the new ways to publish media, audiences do not just digest information like how it works for traditional media. Now people are able to choose and contribute their opinion to the information that they read (Harper, 2009). This thought is also supported by Alex Bruns (2007) who claimed that “users are always already necessarily also producers of the shared knowledge base, regardless of whether they are aware of this role”.

In the new media, people are able to pick and choose the information that they pick because of the multimodality that is incorporated in the source of information. For example , on website the combination of modes such as hyperlinks, graphics, audio, text and menu options enables the reader to choose their own pathway of reading the information depending on what they would like to read ( Walsh, 2006)

References:

Harper, R A , The Social Media Revolution: Exploring Journalism and News Media Organizations, viewed 20 April 2011,< http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/202/the-social-media-revolution-exploring-the-impact-on-journalism-and-news-media-organizations>

Naughton, J 2006, Blogging and the emerging media ecosystem, Reuters Institute, viewed 27 April 2011,< http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/fileadmin/documents/discussion/blogging.pdf>

Produsage: A Working Definition 2007, viewed 23 April 2011, <http://produsage.org/>

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.

Types of blogging communities & methods to build blogging communities.

Blogging community means a group of people sharing the same interest. It also means communication that is accessible to people regarding a topic (articlebase.com, 2008)

To create a blogging community one has to create their own social network, use message board to construct and control discussions, feature with an existing online community (Kalli, 2008). In a way this encourages bloggers to find and connect with other bloggers. The process of connecting with other bloggers are now able to connect easily with other blogging community with the help of RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and feedreaders can assist how people read and discover blogs ( White, 2006).

There are three types of blogging community. According to White(2006) the types of blogging communities are the single blog centric community, the central connecting topic community and the Boundaried community. The single blog centric community is a type of blogging community that is focused on only one blog. The blog could be owned by a blogger or an organization. The commenters and the readers are also part of the community but the central identity of the community are primarily the blog owner. The central connecting topic community is a type of blogging community that is formed when other blogs of same interest connect with each other. Boundaried Community is a blogging community that consists of a group blogs and blog readers hosted one particular site of a platform.

References:

A Blogging Community is an Online Possibility to Share Interests 2008, Articlebase, viewed 22 April 2011, <http://www.articlesbase.com/blogging-articles/a-blogging-community-is-an-online-possibility-to-share-interests-309903.html>

Blogs and Community –launching a new paradigm for online community? 2006,The Knowledge Tree, viewed 25 April 2011, <http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2006/edition-11-editorial/blogs-and-community-–-launching-a-new-paradigm-for-online-community>

Kalli, A , Three Ways to Create Around your Blog , Virtual Assist, viewed, 26 April 2011, < http://www.virtualassist.net/blog/three-ways-to-create-a-community-around-your-blog.html/>

Classification of blogs & opinion about the most appropriate classification approach.

In regards of the classification of blogs there are several ways to determine them. According to Simons (2008) she classifies the blogs as to their purpose. For example, pamphleteering blog where an individual expresses their point of view regarding an issue. Digest blog where people collect information from other source and summarize them. Advocacy blog where the blog tends to be voiced out by a interest group in sharing their thoughts in an informational way. The last is Popular Mechanics blog, which is instructional blog featuring information on how to do things. The exhibition blog, where the blogs are usually filled with aesthetics in the form of photography, poetry and it is usually hosted by artistic people. There is the Gatewatcher blog, this blog scrutinizes how the media plays its role and is run by people who are expert in the field itself.The Diary is a type of blog that features about people’s personal lives.The Advertisement is a blog simply promotes and advertise a certain product. The news blog is a blog which delivers news.

Another source however has classified blogs according to their mode or mechanism. For example, bloggingjunction.com mentions four types of blogs, which are Company blogs, personal blogs, general blogs, and Niche blog. Other than that, (Cybersoc.com, 2007) identify blogs in terms of models as well as how audience review the blog such as ‘Closed blogs’, ‘Blogs as conduit information’ and ‘Blogs as participant in ‘The Conversation’. Closed blogs are considered as the kinds of blogs which has a small amount of audience but they are passionate in their interest and the blog will unlikely grow. Blogs as conduit information are blogs that has larger audiences than the Closed Blog and the Blogs as participant in ‘The Conversation’ is the type of blog that has people connecting with each other through conversations and its audience is as big as the number of the people who are active in the conversation.

In my opinion, blogs are now too complex and intricate to classify. Although the classification of blogs may fit the types and labels that it is given but blogs have now evolved and in its content has many elements and aspects which makes it hard to group then in certain kinds.

References:

Talwar, S 2010, 4 Types of Blogs that exist, Blogging Junction, viewed 24 April 2011, <http://www.bloggingjunction.com/4-types-of-blogs/>

3 Types of Blogs : Closed , Conduit , and Participant in the Conversation 2007 , Cybersoc, viewed 23 April 2011,

Taxonomy of Blogs 2008, Media Report, viewed 25 April 2011,<http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2008/2372882.htm#transcript>

Blogs as current phenomenon & benefits of blogging to the community

Blogging is now a huge phenomenon that is taking over the internet world. Almost everyone owns a blog. As of 2010 the current scope of the blogosphere is that the highest percentage of bloggers according to Technorati.com are from the US. The second highest blogging community come from Europe which is 29% and 12% from Asia Pacific , 7 % from Canada and Mexico and the least is from South America which is 3 %. Other than that, the total of identified blogs on the internet are about 160, 561,508 and still in counting (blogpulse.com, 2011). In Malaysia , studies shows that there are as many as 30,000 blogs existing in the country (Smeltzer,2008).

In Malaysia, most blogger tend to incorporate their personal thoughts and interest in their writing. One of the most popular topic that most Malaysian tend to dwell on is about politics. Malaysian generally have their own thoughts about the ongoing situation of the country’s politic. Technorati.com has also mentioned that the current trend in blogging for most people is to share their thoughts and interests.

The benefits of having the type of blogs that feature personal opinions is that people have a sense of freedom in speaking their mind as well as debate and receive constructive criticism from other people regarding issues or topics that is being discussed on the blog.

References:

BlogPulse.com, Blogpulse Stats 2011, viewed 20 April 2011 , <http://www.blogpulse.com/>

Smeltzer, S. (2008) ‘Blogging in Malaysia: Hope for a new democratic technology?’, Journal of International Communication , viewed 23 April 2011, < http://www.cprsouth.org/wp-content/uploads/drupal/Sandra_Smeltzer.pdf>

Sobel , J 2010, State of the Blogosphere 2010 Introduction, Technorati State of the Blogosphere , viewed 26 April 2011,<http://technorati.com/blogging/article/state-of-the-blogosphere-2010-introduction/>

Document Design.

This second post will discuss about what makes a good document design based on a PowerPoint slide document that has been done on a topic of Semiotic Mode. I will propose a few suggestion to improve the slides.

What is a good PowerPoint Presentation?.

A good PowerPoint presentation needs to have good writing as well as proper design . The construction of language in the document should be direct and specific as it is part of a technical writing ( Rothman, 2005) . When it comes to good design for a PowerPoint document, a suitable layout design is vital. It is important that the design feature of a document is appropriate because it can help the audience to understand the information as well as give them the right depiction of the information as you would like them to think ( Reep,2006) It helps that the powerpoint document has graphic aids,limited amount of slides, easy to read texts as well as a simple background ( Marquez, 2011)

Figure 1

The flaws that can be seen in this slide is that there are too many points in one slide. It is more suitable to have not more than three bullets in each slide so that the text can be easier to read( Russell, 2011) . The third point in the slide is out of place because it has no relations with the definition and it should be under a new heading so it wont confuse the audience. This slide should have key phrases that emphasizes on the most important matter ( Anderson , 1987)

Figure 2

In this slide , we can see that there is lack of visual graphics for a slide that is talking about the ‘Process of classification’. In order to make this slide more appealing to the audience instead of using just text to explain a process of something, a flow chart should be featured in the section where it says ’Series of Mode’. With a flow chart as graphic aid, the audience can have a better depiction of how the modes work in step by step. It is important to feature graphic aid in this document for it provides a better understanding towards non-expert audience when it comes to complicated information ” (Reep,2006)

Figure 3

This slide utilizes wordings that is not coherent unless the presenter explain what each point means in-depth. Although the information given is short and simple , it is not direct and the connection of the terms is hard for audience to fully grasp the meaning. There should be graphic aid such as a proper flow chart or a picture as an example so that the audience will not have a vague perspective of what the presenter is trying to explain. Putnis and Petelin (1996) claims that it is important to have balance between graphics and text .



Reference:


Marquez, Z.L, How to Make A Good Power Point Presentation, http://ezinearticles.com/?How-to-Make-a-Good-PowerPoint-Presentation&id=4313178 , viewed 2 April 2011.

Putnis, P , Petelin, R. 1996, ‘Document Design’, Professional communication: Principles and Applications, Ch. 7, pp. 254.

Reep, D, 2006, ‘Format Elements’, Technical Writing, 6th Edition, Ch. 6, pp. 153-162.

Reep, D, 2006, ‘Purpose of design features’, Technical Writing, 6th Edition, Ch. 6, pp. 134-135.

Rothman, S, 2005 'What Makes a Good Scientific and Technical Writing?’, http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/9447/error?cat=4, viewed 2 April 2011.

Russell, W. 2011, 10 Tips for Creating Successful Business Presentations, http://presentationsoft.about.com/od/powerpointinbusiness/tp/bus_pres_tips.htm , viewed 2 April 2011.
Diana Reep

Purpose.

Hello. This weblog is created for the main purpose of discussing issues involving publishing and the media in the ever-evolving world of today. My posts will most likely have an appeal towards those who are interested and concerned with the realms of media and publishing especially communication students.