Reflection

Process of creating my weblog

As this is an educational weblog site, information posted are linked and cited to credible sources. In the process of creating my weblog,

• I used http://www.blogger.com/, by creating an account domain.

• There was no need designing the web page, since the page has already being designed.

• Since it is an educational weblog, personal information is not needed, and also web designing

• I went straight ahead by posting information on the web page, by using credible sources.

• Plagiarism as a key factor is being considered. According to Schirato & Yell (1996, p123) “plagiarism is the sin of failing to recognize the copyright holder-in effect, ‘stealing’ his or her work”.

• An academic discourse should acknowledge the work of other writers, so Reference list are provided at the end of each posts. And also an inclusion for comments.

Skills I acquired

Although blogging is not for everyone, the skills I acquired is that one should write to communicate well to the readers, according to Schriver (1997, p 493) ‘readers infer much more from the document than the author’s message’.

Theoretical positions I developed

“Because we live in a ‘knowledge economy’ that values information and constantly relies on communication, success in a profession depends on the ability to communicate well’ (Putnis et al, 1996), so the language being used is kept simple for easy reading.

Standpoint I adopted as a Blogger

The purpose I had when blogging was for informational articles that helped me to develop my points on Blogging issues, classifications of blogs, media & publishing issues; and designing for online vs. print to be discussed on by weblog.

I was sensitive to culture, since ‘we make meaning as members of a particular culture, a particular society, a particular social grouping or community’ (Schirato & Yell 1996).

As a blogger I must design well to engage the readers’ thinking and feelings, since readers of a web ‘rarely read web pages word by word, they scan the page, picking out individual words and sentences’ (Nielsen 1997). These designs include

• One idea per paragraph & bulleted list- a reader attentions needs to be caught by the first few words in the paragraph
• Sub-headings are included and are meaningful
• Hypertext links that links readers to other sites and when too much information is loaded on a single page
• The eye-movement of the reader- since ‘they simply leave’ immediately they are done surfing for information ( Nielsen 1997) document designer ‘ need to minimize eye movement’ because the user’s attention span is short, it is harder to read from the screen and users just ‘scan the net’(Duff & Mohler, 1996) .

Reference:

Duff, JM & Mohler, JL 1996, Laura Lemay’s web workshop on graphics and web page

Design, Indianapolis: Macmillan Computer Publishing.

Nielsen, J 1997, How Users Read on the Web

<http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9710a.html> viewed June 13, 2008

Putnis, Peter & Petelin, R 1996, Professional communication: principles and applications, Prentice Hall, Sydney.

Schirato & Yell 1996, Communication & cultural literacy: Anintroduction, Allen & Unwin, St. Leonard’s, Australia, Chapter 3: Communication as social practice, p.43-65.

Walsh, M 2006, “The ‘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. (UNISA electronic library)

Blogging Communities

A Blog is easy to use web-site, where one can quickly post his/her thoughts, interest, opinions, interacts with people. Blogs are very important to our community because it helps a lot of people express their feelings freely and anonymously. Also, people can get “real” unedited news through blogging. So blogging increases the level of awareness and information available to people.

Blogging communities can be created through the following:

• Hyperlinks-
  
• Comments –people can link to your blog through their comments that they post. Jacob Nielsen theory says one should ‘Write to Get More Comments. Turning a visitor into a commenter is a key way of building a relationship with someone’.
  
• One link and address to other address for example facebook Friendster, Hi5 etcetera
  The content needs to be ‘Accessible and Readable’. It should be in an orderly manner, no point hiding any content. ‘A blog is nothing without content; it needs to stand out and shine through’.
  
• People with shared interest are aware of its nature via word of mouth, recommendations and cite searching/ surfing.
  
• Bloggers must learn to update their blog on a regular basis to make people to come back.

Reference:

Nielsen’s, J. 2007, Show Numbers as Numerals When Writing for Online Readers, <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/writing-numbers.html> viewed 09 November 2009

Blogs that are prevalent in Malaysia, Asia, and Europe

• Political blogs: forum to discuss politics and political issues and gossips.
• Personal / Social blogs(Non- Governmental blogs)
• Fashion Blogs
• Corporate blogs- in most cases are private; it can also be for business purposes.
  Travel blogs.

Benefits of Political / Social/ Business blogs to Malaysia Communities

• Political blogs allows a form of freedom of speech on a minuscule level
  
• Social blog- NGO (Non-governmental organization) it is all about social awareness campaign thus providing an up to date social event in Malaysia
  
• Business blog are rare, it is not regularly updated, it carries informative databases, introductory blog to company, basically it is an information tool.

Reference:

Blogger Readership, <http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/Screenshot_3_1.png> viewed 15 November 2009

NevilleHobson.com, 2006, Business blogging: Hills to climb in Europe,
<http://www.nevillehobson.com/2006/04/03/business-blogging-hills-to-climb-in-europe/> viewed 11 November 2009

Prnewswire 2006, Blogging Phenomenon Sweeps Asia,
<http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/11-28-2006/0004480819&EDATE=> viewed 09 November 2009

Technorati 2007, <http://www.adpulp.com/archives/2007/04/05/Japan_Loves_Blogs.png> viewed 09 November 2009

Screenshots 2006, Microsoft: ‘64% of Malaysian Bloggers are female’ <http://www.jeffooi.com/2006/12/64_of_malaysian_bloggers_are_f.php> viewed 18 November 2009

Classifaction of blogs

There are too many types of blog to be mentioned because from time to time new forms of media are available to allow people to document information. IBlogs are divided according to:

According to subject matter

• Political
• Fashion 
• History 
• Law 
• Movie 
• Art 

According to device

• Moblog

According to Nowwearetalking.com (2008) A moblog is a blog published to the internet from a phone or other mobile device. Moblogs postings usually include photos, and therefore are usually used in conjunction with camera phones. (e.g Jamie Oliver: Diary)

According to media type

• Vlog : video-based journals posted online (e.g Howard Rheingold’s Vlog)
• Linklog : a collection of URL (hyperlinks) that the maintainer considers interesting enough to collect. (e.g Fashion Blogs)
• Sketchlog : blog which contains with sketch art work. (e.gDaily Sketchlog)
• Tumblelog : is a variation of blogs which contains with photo, quotes, feature links, video. Usually, it is used for sharing author’s creations, discoveries or experiences. (e.gAnarchaia)

According to status of publisher

• Business blogs : Blog BusinessWorld
• Cooperate blogs : The Official Google Blog

References

• Now We are Talking 2008, Glossary, viewed 27 October 2009, <http://www.nowwearetalking.com.au/glossary>

Photo manipulation

No higher resolution available.

(Source: http://www.google.com.my/search?hl=en&q=journalist+who+manipulated+photos&start=10&sa=N)

Photojournalism nowadays could be related to photo-manipulation. The invention of technology and the features which offered some software allow people to manipulate a document. In this case, photograph is the most common issue, regarding to manipulation. Hajj's photographs were presented as part of Reuters' news coverage of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, but Reuters has admitted that at least two were significantly altered.

Paul Martin Lester (1999) in his chapter titled “Picture Manipulation” argues that the impact of the visual image on a viewer comes directly from belief that “camera never lies”. As a machine, the camera faithfully unemotionally records a moment in time. Lester adds that new technological advances that allow easy and undetectable picture manipulation cause the public to be concerned about the truthful content of photography. It can be concluded that camera won’t say lies, but nowadays photograph maybe say untruth.

Editing images in order to change the meaning is seriously prohibited in regard to ethical of photojournalism. Webster University Journal in the article titled “Policy for the Ethical Use of Photographs” stated that there are two guidelines that editor must pay more attention:

Generally allowed
- Brightness/contrast control
- Burning and dogging to control tonal range
- Colour correction
- Cropping and frame to fit the layout
- Be touching of dust and stretches

Never allowed
- Adding moving or removing object within the frame
- Colour change other than to restore what the subject looked like
- Cropping a frame in order to alter its meaning
- Flopping a photography

David Shenk (1997) in his article titled “Every picture can tell a lie”stated that cropping itself has powerful tool, even people seem that crop is a common issue. To support, Weber (1995) come out with ethical of publishing which is really needed to editor in order to produce a craft that telling the truth is extremely important in publication. Weber divides it into two parts:

CLEAR-CUT
- Don’t satisfy data or state as truth something that you know to be false
- Don’t deliberately misrepresent the facts.

LESS-CUT
- Distinguish between facts and opinion
- Always check the facts
- Don’t assume that what an ‘experts’ has said is the truth; experts can make mistakes too, or they might lie.

In conclusion, the photo manipulation is prohibited according to ethical of publishing, because somehow editing images are causing serious impacts such as misinterpretation or misunderstanding among the viewers. Cliff Edom (1980) cited in “Picture manipulation” by Lester stressed that “Both composite pictures were criticised by a minority group for misrepresenting the truth.” So that for editor who wants to express their creativity should pay attention to some ethics in order to produce a craft which can be enjoyed by every people without making any random meaning among the society.

References:

• Lester, PM 1999, Chapter Six: Picture manipulation, Photojournalism Ethics,viewed 10 June 2008 [online].
http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/lester/writings/chapter6.html

• Policy for the Ethical Use of Photographs, Webster University Journal, viewed 10 June 2008, [online].
http://www.webster.edu/~barrettb/journal_ethics.htm

• Shenk, D 1997, Every picture can tell a lie, About.com, viewed 10 June 2008, [online].
http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/1997/10/7815

• Weber, JH 1995, Ethics in scientific and technical communication, WISENET Journal, vol. 38, July 1995, viewed 10 June 2008. [online].
http://www.jeanweber.com/newsite/?page_id=22

Citizen Journalism vs. Professional Journalism

Citizen Journalist vs. Professional journalism

Sophisticated gadget allows citizen to cover a news

(Source:http://api.ning.com/files/LwG*AtNDAjyA2ZYuh3LnDdssVzByInPfGCmvAGewY00_/NokiaN93.jpg)

Richard Sambrook (2005) in his article titled “Citizen Journalism and the BBC” reports that within six hours exactly after London Bombing on 5 July 2005, BBC received more than 1,000 photographs, 20 pieces of amateur video, 4,000 text messages, and 20,000 emails, which were used to report the London Bombing tragedy. Those came from eye witnesses.

According to article by Yehonathan Tommer (2007) titled “The Journalist of the Future is Here”, he examines that ordinary citizens together with their sophisticated gadgets such as cell phone, a Skype telephone communication, a digital camera and computer e-mail access to broadband and satellite, have delivered the new statement that everyone can be a journalist, even without graduated from any particular education institution. Supported by this digital era which offers unlimited information, allow the citizens to post information through internet connection in a few minutes only. Tommer also points out that citizen journalists will replace the traditional staff reporter with a regular domestic beat or the correspondent.

In my opinion the citizen journalist is another journalism form which has the same importance with traditional reporter or reporter who is hired by news agencies and the newsworthiness of news that is immediacy of news can be depending on the participation of citizen journalist.

Advocates of citizen journalism suggest that media reporters and journalists do not possess exclusive or ultimate knowledge about a topic.

However, citizen journalism has its controversies. Professional journalists argue that only trained journalist can appreciate the ethics of the profession. Ethical publishing demands that reporting an event or breaking news should be done objectively. In order words, a reporter must downplay emotions/personal opinions when reporting or blogging. A journalist or a writer of an article must look at an issue on the face-of-it (ojr, 2005).

References:
Lasica, J.D, 2003, What is Participatory Journalism, Online Journalism Review, [online], viewed 18 November 2009.
http://www.ojr.org/ojr/workplace/1060217106.php

Tommer, Y 2007, The Journalist of the Future is Here, Ohmynews International, viewed 18 November 2009.

http://www.ohmynews.com

Sambrook, R 2005, Citizen Journalism and the BBC, Nieman Reports, [online], viewed 18 November 2009.

http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/05-4NRwinter/Sambrook.pdf

<http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/050712glaser/>, AUSC Annenberg, Online Journalism Review, viewed 18 November 2009

Facebook and privacy issues

Internet Privacy means exclusive right to personal information sent or shared over the internet. Such personal information can only be viewed by you or other internet users with your consent.
Facebook is a social networking website that allows for interaction among individuals and groups. It is a free social network in the sense that no payment is made upon entry. Therefore one would expect facebook database to be huge. The fact is facebook is one of the largest social networking sites 
Facebook also has its own privacy issues to deal with recently. An internet privacy-related post wrote that some Harvard students have begun to organize a protest against the popular networking site, Facebook, over recently introduced news feed feature that allows users to see every detail of their social network, such as who is dating whom, and each item that has been changed in the user’s profile.The news feed feature practically strips a user of his/her privacy as every other user knows about his/her activities on the site. Privacy implies that an individual should have utmost control over who should/should not view his/her activities and social network of friends (NewsTrend.com 2008).
Another privacy issue is Facebook’s new "Beacon" advertising system. Facebook users found their purchases on third party sites were being broadcast to their Facebook friends.This feature of Ad is gross violation of privacy in the sense that every other friend in your network is aware of purchases made on other third-party sites. You might want to keep purchases exclusive to yourself only. However, with the Beacon Ad system, users have only limited options for opting out of the broadcast by clicking on a brief pop-up window at the third-party site (Epic).
References:

• Electronic Privacy Information Center, ‘Facebook privacy’, viewed 18th November 2009
  
• NewsTrend.com 2008, ‘Facebook Apologies for Privacy Issues in News Feed’,, viewed 18th November 2009
  
• TechCrunch 2008, ‘Facebook No Longer the Second Largest Social Network’, viewed 18th November 2009
  

Social networking sites

Face-booking Phenomenon

According to Cashmore (2007) currently there are more than 15 million people in the world who have been registered as active members on Facebook and most of them are teenagers, however the age group widens. The trend of facebook-ing is booming with enthusiasm as society learns about this new communication tools. McDowell (2006) states that social networking is made in order to maintain social relationship, allowing users to establish friendships or romantic relationship, while others may focus on business connection.

(statistic of Facebook users, taken from :http://mashable.com/2007/04/13/facebook-users/)

In my opinion, the features provided by social networking sites are really attractive to audiences. As stated by Walsh (2006) today’s society is experiencing ‘paradigm shift’ that is multimodal, multimodal is the situation when visual, electronic, and digital text collaborate into more than one ‘mode’ in order to produce a message.

The huge number of social networking site members is really reasonable, first because people nowadays compete to build more relationship with more different backgrounds of friends. Second, this is the effect of multimodality which is mentioned earlier by Walsh (2006) people choose multimodality because its provides tools for people getting information easier and it has potential to combine words and images in complex structures with logos, menu bars, hyperlinks, hot spot, video clips, animation, graphics, music, sound effect, voice-over or write-over.

Reference:
Cashmore, P 2007, Facebook’s Active Users In Millions, Mashable Social Networking News, viewed 3 June 2008.
http://mashable.com/2007/04/13/facebook-users/

McDowell, M 2006, Staying Safe on Social Network Sites, US-Cert Cyber Security Tips ST06-003, viewed 3 June 2008.
http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/tips/ST06-003.html

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.