Reflection

Blogging has become a world wide phenomenon where almost everyone has their own blog, from personal blog to business blogs. Blogging is a powerful tool to convey certain message to the audiences. It can be more powerful than the words from the leaders. Some renown bloggers are so persuasive that they are able to gain followers and audiences' would listen to them.

Throughout the process of blogging, it was very eye opening and fun. I used to be a blogger as well but this kind of blogging is definitely my first time. The process of researching for information made me realized that it is not easy to blog because I have to make sure that the information I found are suitable for blogging and the way I blog must be attractive enough to gain audiences' attention. Using theories and principles made me realized that even layouts have certain rules and theories to follow in order to create an attractive layout.

The blogging phenomenon is so huge that blogging has become so competitive. Everyone will think differently in order to make their blogs appealing and attractive. From a normal personal blog to competitive blogging, this is how influential blogging can be. Hence, blogging is indeed an important part of our life.

With the improvising of technology everyday in our life, we definitely must continue to learn every day about technology in order for globalization. 

Online video rules!

Web video a new form of media news?


This article talks about the prevalence of online videos as they are becoming of the main source of media attraction. According to an online survey done by Douglas Simon, he said that 33% of the media outlets are using online video to cover news and online media has now officially become a video programming network.  Usage of online videos are growing bigger and bigger and show no signs of stopping (O'Neill, 2011).


People nowadays have very short attention span. They cannot sit still in front of the TV or radio to watch news the whole day. Henceforth, online video has become their alternative to catch up with the latest news around the world. 21st century, no longer the century where people still has to get a network cable to go online. It is all about WiFi and everyone gets to go online anytime anywhere. While surfing the net, they can go YouTube or news site to get the latest information and news.


For example, LiveStream is a video site where they put up videos live. The visitors' can go to the site and stream videos freely. It is also a live blogging platform and social networking sites. Media outlets can just post their news online and the people will get to watch the news online. Besides, it can be recorded and rewind. Hence, it gives more options to the society to watch it live or record it and watch the news later (Schonfeld, 2011).

Source: Google

However, changing genres to online video news, do audiences' expectations and preferences met?

Nowadays, web news site are rarely acceptable. Human naturally attracts to visual and audio. People tend to get bored after sitting a while reading news from web. Hence, media outlets start to turn to online video strategies in order to attract more audiences. According to a survey, 70% of web-only media and bloggers are most likely to use video (Most Online Media Outlets Use Video to Cover News, 2008).

Therefore, audiences' expectations and expectations have definitely met because as Internet has become a norm, online video news will definitely be more preferable compared to reading news on newspaper, from the web or just sitting in front of the TV and watch news.

References List:

Most Online Media Outlets Use Video To Cover News 2008, Marketing Vox, viewed 17 November 2011, <http://www.marketingvox.com/most-online-media-outlets-use-video-to-cover-news-041782/>.

O'Neill, M 2011,  85% of Media Websites Now Use Online Video To Cover News, viewed 17 November 2011, <http://socialtimes.com/85-of-media-websites-now-use-online-video-to-cover-news_b60505>.

Schonfeld, E 2011, Livestream Refreshes Video Service: "Viewers Can Rewind While Its Live", Techcrunch, viewed 17 November 2011, <http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/27/livestream-refreshes-video/>.

Y U Plagiarise!

Imagine yourself as an author. What if your work has been plagiarized  by others and taken to post it somewhere else as their own material without having your consent? You would be unhappy right? Gone are the days where people just sit and think of their own ideas. Now, as Internet has become a norm, everyone is able to browse through everyone's works online. It is hardly be able to know who has the real source who plagiarized it.

                                                                                                                               Source: Google

The article talks about the copyrights issues faced by Hoehn for violating the copyrights of posting an article where it has reduced the visitors' and readers' number going to the Review-Journal to read the article. RightHaven is now making copyright infringement claims against Hoehn. Though it is claimed that fair use defense has given the permission to repost copyrighted materials for criticism, commentary, research or teaching purposes, sometimes it can be blatantly stolen and plagiarized. Some authors have decided to report their books being stolen (Pichon, 2011).

In my point of view, there is no wrong for Hoehn to publish the article online for feedbacks and commentaries from other people's point of view. Ethical integrity is indeed an essential element in writing and publication (King, n.d.). When writing, ethical concerns has to be considered. There are many strategies developed to prevent ethical publication violations.

Though, Hoehn might have violated ethical publication, but it is not that the site user is trying to steal the work and claim to be his. All he did was just reposting the article online for a prompt discussion. He did not plagiarized it. Plagiarism means stealing other people's hard work intentionally (What is plagiarism, n.d.). 

Therefore, as a conclusion, RightHavent should not continue suing Hoehn for plagiarism and claims copyrights from him.

References List:

King, C.R. n.d., Ethical issues in writing and publishing, Oncology Nursing Society, viewed 17 November 2011, <http://www.ons.org/Publications/CJON/AuthorInfo/WritingSupp/Ethics/>.

Pichon, F 2011, Copyrighted material: fair and unfair use, viewed 17 November 2011,<http://www.editorsweblog.org/newsrooms_and_journalism/2011/06/copyrighted_material_fair_and_unfair_use.php>.

What is plagiarism n.d., viewed 17 November 2011, <http://www.wadsworth.com/english_d/special_features/plagiarism/definition.html>.

iPad - the wonders of visual texts

What is multimodality?

Multimodal texts are texts that have more than one mode. Those texts may incorporate spoken or written language, still or moving images. Multimodal texts can be produced on paper or electronic screen and also incorporate visual and audio (Walsh, 2006).

Besides, Walsh (2006) also mentioned that in order to create an effective multimodal text, affordance is indeed an important element. Affordance is the ability to 'show' and 'tell' at the same time which means in a multimodal text, it must be able to give an insight to the readers through showing images, visual, sounds and tell the readers about what is going on through texts.

Living in 21st century, do we still have the need to fly to another country to visit somebody or to see a special site? The answer is NO, definitely. We now live in a Global Village where everyone is able to connect with each other from all over the world without having to go to a country by airplane. Computer has become one of the necessity in every household in this world. However, now, not just having computer at home, but as well as tablet computer.

For those who still does not know what a tablet computer is, I guess you are living somewhere else. I am just joking. I'll roughly explain what tablet computer is. A tablet computer is actually a moblie computer, larger than a mobile phone where you can bring it everywhere.Tablet computer is like a computer device where it has been integrated into a flat touch screen device (Wikipedia.org, n.d.).

The most often seen tablet computer now is iPad and Samsung Galaxy Tab.

Source: Google

                                                                                                         

                                                                                                                     Source: Google

Taking iPad as an example, Apple products have become a sensation among the people lately. Almost everyone owns an Apple product from iPhone to MacBook. It contains a lot of different functions and features. Using tablets, we can go online, watch movies, reading e-books, check mails, play games. We live in a world where all of are naturally attracted to visuals and audio.

Kress and van Leeuwen (1998) mentioned about the layout of books can be applied to electronic mediums in order to convey a message more effectively. Hence, in order to attract readers' attention, the layout of iPad has to be colorful whereby images and text are contrast so that readers' will not be confused when looking or reading from iPad.

References List:

Kress, G, van Leeuwen, T 1998, Approaches to media discourse, Ch. 7, pp. 186-219, UNISA library readings.

Walsh, M 2006, The 'textual shift':Examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts, Australian Journal of language and literacy Vol 29- 1, UNISA library readings.

Wikipedia.org n.d., Tablet Computer, viewed 17 November 2011, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tablet_computer>.

Sexism

What is Sexism?


Sex?  It is better known as gender discrimination.


It is actually a form of discrimination based on a person's sex. It can also be said as stereotyping of gender roles.


Sexism is usually used in relation with gender discrimination especially against women, to be exact in the context of patriarchy (Wikipedia.org, 2011), where the society thinks that men have higher status compared to women. 


The picture below is an illustration of how women are treated:

Source: Google

There's a definite line between 'blatant' sexism and 'benevolent' sexism. However, the distinct between these two types of sexism and chivalry are not clear.

There was once a study done by to female psychologists in order to see how often people would recognize daily sexism. A male and a female college students were asked to keep a record of every time they see both the forms of sexism mentioned. They have to observe a guy opening a door for a woman or getting up as she enters or leaves a room.

After observation, the female students started to see what considered as chvalrous sexist, where men were not able to observe the problem (Chatel, 2011).

Even in movies, women were also often being stereotyped being the weak ones and has to suffer all the time. Taking 'Sex and the City' as an example, a study that came out this week finding that the image of the “selfish” woman who only wants to focus on her job and therefore looks at the idea of settling down and having children as an automatic career derailment, is false. As Meghan Casserly of Forbes wrote the stereotype of the “selfish, single, Sex & The City-style women was knocked on its head” by these findings, which is why I chose the quote from above. It turns out women who have successful careers are not actually choosing their careers over children but may not be having children for a number of reasons, one of which is they haven’t found a suitable partner for this task. There are also other factors like job security and money impacting these women. This blows away the assumption that it’s a voluntary thing for women, that they can choose when and how many children they have. 

A female PR Executive also said that people also look at them as selfish. They are in the late 20s and trying to build their own careers.  They could not find the right person, work and life ambitions.Thank goodness for advances in medicine women can have children safely into their late 30′s if not longer (Lepore, 2011).

Hence, women were always the victim of gender stereotyping. Even though we have come into the 21st century but there are still people who think conservatively and thinks that men are always at a higher status compared to women. Some people even think that women's place are only at home, taking care of the family. Women at working place are often being looked down.

Are you a sexist? You know that!




References List:


Chatel, A 2011, Poll: Do You Find Chivalry To Be Sexist?, The Grind Stone, viewed 13 November 2011, <http://thegrindstone.com/relationships/poll-do-you-find-chivalry-to-be-sexist/>.


Lepore, M 2011, The 'Sex and The City' Stereotype: Why Successful Childless Women Have To Fight The Hardest, The Grind Stone, viewed 13 November 2011, <http://thegrindstone.com/strategy/the-sex-and-the-city-stereotype-why-successful-childless-women-have-to-fight-the-hardest-786/>.

Screen vs Printed Document Design

What is Document Design?

Reep (2006) defines document design as 'physical appearance of the document'. Written text works together with its presentation in order to provide the readers with the appropriate information needed.

Print Media

Source: Google

Print media presents information in a form of news, editorials, stories, biographies and etc. (Kanagu, 2010)

Online media

Source: Google

Differences?

1. Reading Pattern

According to Nielsen (2006), readers use F-shaped pattern to read web content. It reflects the way readers use to read web content. Readers first read in horizontal movement then the second horizontal and finally the vertical movement.

In printed text, reading is linear and strictly coded. Readers read from left to right and from top to bottom, line by line (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006).

As for web content, readers usually do not read the whole content but instead scanning through the text (Nielsen, 1997).

2. Writing Structure

Nielsen stated that reading from computer monitor is 25% slower than reading print document because it strains the eyes (Redshaw, 2003).
Therefore Nielsen suggested that to attract readers' attention, while writing for the web, web organisers should know a few guidelines which are:

• Be succint (short texts)


• Scannability
  


• Hypertext Structure

Printed media usually uses verbal imagery and emphasises on linguistic discourse, vocabulary and grammar. However, electronic media emphasises on visual imagery and sound effects. Online media tackles the senses of visual, tactile, hearing and kinaesthetic (Walsh, 2006).

3. Layout

Print Design is 2-dimensional. It enables the readers to flip the page while Web design is 1-dimensional or N-dimensional so that the readers would have a scrolling experience (Nielsen, 1999).

Screen media documents their content more precisely whereas print media is more liner and sequential. Thus, it is up to the readers to choose to either read from printed media or online media.

Reference:

• Kanagu 2010, Kill or co-exist?: print media vs electronic media, viewed 22 August 2011, <http://kanaguonline.wordpress.com/2010/06/28/print-media-vs-electronic-media/>.
  
  


• Kress G & van Leeuwen, T 1998, 'Front pages: (the critical) analysis of newspaper layout', Approaches to media discourse, eds Bell, A & Garrett, P. Blackwell, Oxford, ch. 7, pp 186-219.
  
  


• Morkes, J & Nielsen, J 1997, Concise, scannable, and objective: how to write for the web, viewed 22 August 2011, <http://www.useit.com/papers/webwriting/writing.html>.
  
  


• Nielsen, J 1997, Writing for the web, viewed 22 August 2011, <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9703b.html>.
  
  


• Nielsen, J 1999, Differences between print design and web design, viewed 22 August 2011, <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990124.html>.
  
  


• Nielsen, J 2006, F-shaped pattern for reading web content, viewed 22 August 2011, <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html>.
  
  


• Reep, DC 2006, 'Document design', Technical writing:, ch. 6, pp. 133-172.
  
  


• Redshaw, K 2003, Web writing vs. print writing, viewed 22 August 2011, <http://www.kerryr.net/webwriting/guide_web-vs-print.htm>.
  
  


• 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.
  
  

New Form of Media Publishing

Source : Google

What comes to your mind when you see 'new media'?

Youtube? Facebook? MySpace? Twitter? Yes, you are actually correct!

Today, instead of reading newspaper, people turn to social networking sites and online newspapers to gain latest news. In this digital age, to find a person who actually sits down and read the newspaper is quite difficult.

Social networking sites has become a norm that even media practitioners engage with social media to gain readership. A report done by Yahoo Labs showed that there are 45 news top sites engage with social media (Harlow, 2010).

According to Walsh (2006), 'affordance' means 'what is made possible by the modes used'.

'Multimodal text' incorporates visual images including layout, size, shape, colour, line. Multimodal text also emphasises on visual imagery and sound effects.

Twitter - It is a multimodal text and with 140 character, we are able to convey a message. We can upload pictures and videos right on the spot for our readers to know our latest happenings which obviously has incorporated the 'affordance' element.

However, many oppose the idea of considering Twitter as a new form of journalism as it is hard to convey message in 140 characters and may twists the original meaning of the story (A new form of journalism?, 2011).

Social media includes images, videos, sound effects to catch the eye of the audiences. With the knowledge the readers have previously, they would have trigger the 'inside the head' process' and start visualising (Walsh, 2006). Twitter as an example again, in 140 characters, the audience would share the story and is up to the readers to visualise.

No wonder why public now turns to online media in order to gain latest news!

Reference:

• 'A new form of journalism?' 2011, viewed 23 August 2011, <http://richpetrie89.wordpress.com/2011/04/14/a-new-form-of-journalism/>.
  
  


• Harlow, S 2010, Facebook vs. Twitter: are people actually reading the articles, or just sharing them via social media?, Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, viewed 23 August 2011, <http://knightcenter.utexas.edu/blog/facebook-vs-twitter-are-people-actually-reading-articles-or-just-sharing-them-social-media>.
  
  


• Harlow, S 2010, Finding a place for Twitter in journalism, Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, viewed 23 August 2011, <http://knightcenter.utexas.edu/blog/finding-place-twitter-journalism>.
  
  


• 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.