Reflections

In the course of Issues of Publication and Design (IPD), I truly had learned a lot of semiotics aspects of document designing, thus providing me more understandings on how to captivate my audiences and create a shared meaning with them. 

One of the most significant elements I learned from document designing is the principles behind it. Diana Reep (2006) shows us that we should focus on page balance (the "visual weight" of a page), proportion (size and placement of elements), sequences and consistency in order to serve the document's purpose well. 

Besides, as a blogger, I learned the importance of being an ethical blogger and how vital it is for a blogger to be accurate in sharing information, as well as to be sensible to certain ethnic groups and different cultures to preserve the image of being accountable and responsible in the world of information. (Cyberjournalist.net, 2003). 

Hence, IPD is a true subject that bloggers should learn in order to sharpen their media literacy skills. 

References:

Cyberjournalist.net, 2003, "A Blogger's Code of Ethics", viewed June 15, 2010, <http://www.cyberjournalist.net/news/000215.php> 

•Reep, D 2006, ‘Chp 4: Principles of Document Design,’ in Technical Writing, 6th ed., Pearson Edu, Inc., New York, p.173-190. 

The Blogging World And Freedom of Speech

Source: Greenberg-arts.com

2 years ago, ABC News (2008) had interviewed journalist and author of "The Blogging Revolution", Antony Loewenstein, who discussed the blogging trend in Cuba, China, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iran. Seeing a similarity, Loewenstein describes that these nations' governments have filter the Internet services in their area's and limit their information width. Hence, with censorship, many blogs and websites are blocked from views and this also affect the people's right to express their ideas, silencing freedom of speech in the countries. At the same time, some people were having very limited access to the Internet, as only the privileged ones from the middle class were able to enjoy it. Cuba has suffered as the "least developed" country in the Internet world as Loewenstein had studied. 

It is obvious that most of all countries in the world constitute the rights for freedom of speech to the people. As blogs become popular in the Internet world, they offer the opportunity for people to voice out in almost any event or incident they face, as well as to have the ability to comment with other fellow bloggers (VanFossen, 2007). With this feature in the Internet, blogs help widens the public sphere in the society as diversities of ideas on their region keep on increasing. Here, we can see that blogs are the symbols of freedom of speech in the Internet. 


However, while governments are trying to prevent the spread of crimes activity on the Internet, the option of Internet filtering may affect the public sphere of the society, as well as preventing the voices of dissemination from being spread apart. Excessive practice of censorship, will cause negative public opinion from the global society, specially from the Western nations. VanFossen (2007) gave an example of a Chinese blogger who defended his property from the Chinese government had his blog being shut down after having a huge numbers of views. This further gave the Chinese government more bad impressions against the rights of freedom of speech in the eyes of the world. 


In conclusion, a government should not excessively filter the Internet as it violates the people's rights of education and freedom of speech. As stated in Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN, 2010), the people are born free in equal of dignity and rights. However, law enforcement still should be applied in order to track unscrupulous cyber crimes and seditious remarks in the Internet. 


References: 


ABC, 2008, "The Blogging Revolution", viewed June 15, 2010, <http://www.greenberg-art.com/.toons/.Toons,%20Media/qqxsgInternet%20censorship.gif>


UN, 2010, "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights", viewed June 15, 2010, <http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml>


VanFossen, L 2007, "Blogging Freedom of Speech: Can You Really Say Whatever You Want?", viewed June 15, 2010, <http://www.blogherald.com/2007/03/27/blogging-freedom-of-speech-can-you-really-say-whatever-you-want/> 

The Power of Photography

In 2007, ABC News (2007) reported on a European war photo gallery in Dubrovnik, Croatia. It was built to commemorate the invasion here by the Serbians in the 1990s. Here, curator, Wade Goddard commented the importance of the war gallery and its photographs.

He even quoted:

The photographer was there, he was the one that was one the ground; he was the one on the frontline, he was the one that felt, smelt and touched the story. It's him that I trust. Whereas in the media, we have editors, publishers, who are sitting at their desks with their own political or ideological views of telling the story.

Parallel with his comments, the viewers of the photos are feel included and impacted in the scene. Hence, it is clear that a picture is worth a thousand words, perhaps millions. 

Source: Stolenchildhood.net

Source: foxnews.com 

Source: Scrapetv.com 

This article, therefore, shows the importance of photography in document designing. First of all, photography provides multimodality and salience to its viewers, as creates the hierarchy of importance among elements (Kress and van Luuren, 1998). Being a high element of salience, photographs are able to channel and captivate the feel and within the atmosphere on the moments of catastrophe, creating fear and sadness among viewers, as described by Wade Goddard. 


However, despite the power of photojournalism, unethical media bias may occur as it is able to mislead and misinform the audiences when their men are covering their stories. For example, Zombietime.com (2009) tells how a picture that depicts an offensive Communist-planned anti-war protest into a grassroot activist's peace march by showing a few angles on the coverage. News nowadays still tell the truth, but not the whole truth, according to the author. Hence, an analytical mind is needed when it comes to watch news. 

Source: Realworldphotographs.com

Besides, this is another bias photograph that was captured during the Israel-Palestine conflict. Biased journalism occurs as people begin to lose their trusts on mainstream media that serves a particular ideology. They should have notice that photographs can captivate the essence and beauty of a culture, or to defame it to increase your stereotype towards it (Berardo, 2007). 


At the end of the day, it's all about the ethical use of photography. Journalists should pay more attention of their photos which will speak either a thousand words of fact, or lies to the audiences, while abiding by their own true role as watchdogs of society. 


References: 


ABC News, 2007, "The Power Of The Photograph", viewed June 15, 2010, <http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2007/2051819.html> 


Berardo, L 2007, "The Power of Photography", viewed June 15, 2010, <http://www.culturosity.com/articles/powerofphotography.htm> 

•Kress, G. & van Leeuwen, T. 1998. “Front pages: The critical analysis of newspaper layout”,  Blackwell, Oxford. 

Zombietime.com, 2009, "
Anatomy of a Photograph: An analysis of a single seemingly innocuous photograph, and the pervasive media bias it reveals, viewed June 15, 2010, <http://zombietime.com/sf_rally_september_24_2005/anatomy_of_a_photograph/>

Blogging Etiquette, New Media Ecosystem, Regulations, Ethical Publishing

Shaddiqe (2010), in a newspaper article discusses the issue of blogging and its ethics, where a 28 year old blogger was arrested by the Malaysian authority for defamation as he insulted the late Sultan of Johor in his website. The readers were then warned not to add defaming and insulting blog posts which have baseless allegations, as authorities are able to crack down bloggers' identities in the Internet. 


This case was similar to the issue of Raja Petra Kamaruddin, the author of Malaysia Today who was arrested in April 2008 twice for sedition on posting a defaming article against current Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak and his wife, Rosmah Mansur on the Altantuya murder. (Charles, 2008) He was then later sentenced under the Internal Security Act 1960 (ISA). 

Source: Sabah Forum

The Sedition Act 1948 is amended to oppose those who publish or speak any forms of discourses in a behaviour of sedition when he speaks against the rulers and their people, as well as to bring up anger and hatred among the Malaysian population (Comissioner of Law Revision Malaysia, 2006). He who will be charged under this act shall be arrested even without trial and be sentenced to imprisonment up to 3 years with a RM 5000 fine. Besides, the offender can also be charged under the Defamation Act 1957 and procedures will be done under Sections 499 to 502 of the Penal Code. (Laweddie.com, 2008)

The act of defamation or insult in the cyber world is an unethical act as it tarnishes the image of somebody. In Malaysia, defamation can be seen into 2 types: 

1. Libel - discourses that are permenant, in online and print publications

2. Slander - discourses that are temporary, such as spoken words or display of offensive gestures.

(Laweddie.com, 2008)

In either ways, both forms of defamation shows disrespect to the victim and it can even cause a public opinion against him. In the socio-political arena, such defamations can be transform in a form of sedition as it is capable on impacting the whole nation, hence it will affect national harmony. 

Keep in mind that we have a responsibility in practising our rights of Freedom of Speech, as our voices speaks about who we are in terms of maturity and at the same time, we were governed by the Law. 

References:

Commissioner of Law Revision Malaysia, 2006, "Sedition Act 1948", viewed June 15, 2010, <http://www.agc.gov.my/agc/Akta/Vol.%201/Act%2015.pdf>

Charles, L 2008, "Raja Petra Quizzed By Police Over Altantuya Article", The Star Online, May 3, viewed June 15, 2010, <http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/5/3/nation/21143389&sec=nation>

Laweddie.com, 2008, "Defamation Law In Malaysia", viewed June 15, 2010, <http://www.laweddie.com/wordpress/defamation-law-in-malaysia>

Shaddiqe, J 2010, "Blogger Held Over Insulting Posting", News Straits Times Online, January 26, viewed June 15, 2010, <http://yquake.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/articles/12eiss/Article/index_html>

Social Networking, Privacy, Audience Expectations, Ethical Publishing, Regulations

In the article "Is Internet privacy dead? No, just more complicated: researchers" written by Cecilia Kang (2010) in a Washington Post article, she discussed the issue of privacy in the social networking realms which are already being a "mainstream" in the Internet. Here, she stated that as social networking is becoming popular and active, people are beginning to be worried of their personal information being trespassed. 


Privacy issues have been voicing around over the world as information technology is currently developing in a rapid state. Media Awareness Network (2010) has defined privacy as a fundamental value of human rights and a true element of a democratic world. This also means that the act of trespassing someone's privacy means a sign of disrespect. In the Internet world, it's been seen that some social networking sites such as Google Buzz, as told by Kang (2010), having been turning a private Internet application like e-mail into a public network. 


On the other hand, on another example, Matt McKeon had outlined the changes of Facebook's privacy  from year 2005 to April 2010, which will certainly give a shock for its users. Based on the statistics below, the more "private" Facebook in 2005 slowly transforms itself into a public domain as the years pass by. 




The changes of privacy in Facebook (Source: mattmckeon.com)

Despite the concerns, according to a report written by Kirkpatrick (2010), Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg announced in a talk show that the age of privacy is no more relevant, as society is going open in public. Zuckerberg's viewpoint was not subscribed by Kirkpatrick (2010) in another article where he stated that privacy is still relevant and important, as users cannot fully manipulate their personal information fully. For example, the photos of you being tagged can be seen by other friends, and not everyone (that includes your boss!) will be satisfied with the events you are in. Thus, through these leaks, defamation and trespass can be possible through the lack of privacy control by such social networking sites. 


Meanwhile, as people begin not to trust social networks due to such problems, it is important for social networking users to take heed on their settings on personal information by controlling and deciding what and what should not be put into their network accounts. This should be done as a precautionary step as stalkers and cyber-hackers are lingering around the Internet. Hence, prevention is better than cure.


At the end of this topic, I would like to conclude that it's the users' responsibility to manipulate their information and to decide on which personal information should or should not be posted on their Internet profile as they realize that the Internet was not "private" after all. However, social networking corporations still have to abide by their responsibility to combat cyber crimes and trespass as it is a serious offence by the Law. 


References: 


Kang, C 2010, "Is Internet Privacy Dead? No, Just More Complicated: Researchers" viewed June 15, 2010, <http://voices.washingtonpost.com/posttech/2010/03/is_internet_privacy_dead_no_ju.html> 

Kirkpatrick, M 2010, "Facebook's Zuckerberg Says The Age of Privacy Is Over", viewed June 15, 2010, <http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebooks_zuckerberg_says_the_age_of_privacy_is_ov.php>


Kirkpatrick, M 2010, "Why Facebook Is Wrong: Privacy Is Still Important", viewed June 15, 2010, <http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/why_facebook_is_wrong_about_privacy.php>


Media Awareness Network, 2010, "Why Is Information Privacy An Issue?", viewed June 15, 2010, <http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/privacy/why_issue_privacy.cfm> 

Good design for screen genre

Diana Reep, (2006) a well renowned author in technical writing, stated that readers don't read the contents of a document, they also read the semiotic values behind the layout and design of the document. Thus it is vital for us to understand the key elements for a decent visual presentation. 

These 2 slides are the presentation slides of our group presentation on Gunther Kress and Theo Van Leeuven's analysis on newspaper layout. Based on Diana Reep's readings on the principles of document designs (2006), we designed our slides for the following reasons: 

We have ensure our slide designs are under balance, where we take accounts in visual "weight". Here, we present our slides in a very light theme, in order for the readers to digest our information presented easily. A slide too "heavy" with colours makes readers to digested too much information.

Besides, we take account on proportion, where we add the suitable amount of words and pictures in the slides. Here, in the 2 slides presented above, we use 1 picture each with almost the same number of words on the left to compare the layouts of the 2 newspapers. At the same time, we presented consistency in the slides, where we used the same margins and the same fonts in the slides, giving out slides uniformity. 

In conclusion, document designing is essential for readers in order for them to digest the messages effectively. This also helps giving credibility to the readers as it is well prepared and neat. 

Reference: 

Reep, Diana C. 2006, ‘Chp 4: Principles of Document Design,’ in Technical Writing, 6th ed., Pearson Edu, Inc., New York, p.173-190. 

New forms of media publishing

The world today isn't the same as yesterday. The communication world is currently entering a new evolution, where broadcasting and mainstream media begin to decline. John Naughton (2006) wrote that the world of communication is now entering a net-centric world where the Internet is becoming a dominant media. One of the new trends that revolutionize this change is blogging and citizen journalism. According to Naughton again (2006), the growth of bloggers, with a few experts help building up the public sphere which is now declining, as they have a platform that alter the role of journalism who were monopolizing as gatekeepers of information.

 For example, the September 11 events were officially known by the mainstream media as a terrorist attack done by the Al-Qaeda network. However, the court of public opinion begins to shift when there is another angle of the story "exposed" by the American alternative media indicating that the 9/11 events are an "inside job". One of the most credible alternative sources was from investigative journalist, Alex Jones (prisonplanet.com), who launched 2 hour video documentaries explaining the truths behind the events. Thus, Alex Jones, as well as many other bloggers and journalists who are also spreading the same message begin to question the role of the mainstream media as gatekeepers of information. At the same time, the public sphere was reinforced as people begin to argue for truth.

Source: Murph Reports

Caption: Pictures of demonstrations on 9/11 truth done by alternative media.

Reference: Naughton, J, 2006, Blogging and The Emerging Media Ecosystem, viewed April 19, 2010, <http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/fileadmin/documents/discussion/blogging.pdf>

Blogging Community

The evolving trend of blogging communities. 


Based on Nancy White's research on blogging communities (2006), she stated that blogging communities had been evolving through the growth of Internet. From the beginning, these communities came in as bulletin boards and discussion boards (forums). As Web 2.0 improves the online world of interaction, people begin to follow each other's blogs, as well as tagging and commenting on each other's blogs. 


Today, bloggers don't only interact in online alone. They also interact offline in outings and events. An example happens in Indonesia when Anthony (2009) tells the story on how blogging community events happen there. There are even formal groups made where members are able to socialize and talk to one another in the events they held. 


How to create one blogging community? 


White (2006) implements a few ways to create a community:


- back channeling - using e-mail or any instant messaging applications for interactions. 


- since the introduction of Web 2.0, mashups and tagging become a common. 


- usage of RSS (Real Simple Syndicate) and Feed


- a search for other blogs with comments from each other. 


- addling links within your topic scope into your site and connect with them. (blog roll) 


Blogging Communities Today


White (2006) suggests 3 types of blogging communities in today's world. 

One Blog Centric Community - 
The earliest blog community where readers return to the "one" blog to interact with the blogger and the community of commentators. And the power centralizes on the blogger, as he decides his blog's direction and sets any forms of restrictions he wish. 


Topic Centric Community - 
These communities focus on their respective topics discussed and bloggers are connected through shared interests. For example, Malaysia Today is set up with a group of prominent bloggers, as well as articles from guest writers. 


Boundaried Community - 
The closest form of blogging community to a traditional discussion board (forum), where numbers of blogs are bounded together under a site. Often these communities offer discussion boards, social networking, and instant messaging applications for the members to interact, as the whole main site is the ecosystem itself, where members are bounded to view each other's blogs easily. 


Nuffnang is a clear example of a boundaried community. It is Asia-Pacific's first blog advertising company that connects hundreds of thousands of bloggers together. They connect members online using Nuffnang Xchange, a widget that enables bloggers to view other fellow members of the group, and through Nuffnang Innit, members can interact with one another and view their latest posts by "pinging" their blogs on the site. 

source: Nuffnang

Nuffnang's main site. 

Source: Nuffnang Innit

Nuffnang Innit's homepage. 

Reference: 


Anthony, 2009, What Is A Blogging Community, viewed April 19, 2010, <http://www.thetraveltart.com/what-is-a-blogging-community/>


White, N, 2006, Blogs and Community: Launching A New Paradigm For Online Community?, viewed April 19, 2010, <http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2006/edition-11-editorial/blogs-and-community-–-launching-a-new-paradigm-for-online-community>

Classification of blogs

There are hundreds of millions of blogs out there and of course, there are differences in contents as they are moderated by different editors and writers around the world, regardless how famous they are. But somehow, there are a few patterns done to classify these blogs.

Margaret Simons, an author and media analyst, classifies blogs into the following categories. Here, she (2008) stated that blogs can be divided into 9 groups: Pamphleteering, Digest, Advocacy, Popular Mechanics, Exhibition, Gatewatcher, Diary, Advertisement and News Blog.

However, Simons doesn't classify blogs as a whole, as blogs can be vary through subjects, types of publisher and methods of blogging. For example, a photographer's blog can fall into both the Advertisement and Exhibition category if he shows his artworks in his site while promoting his studio at the same time.

Source: Wedshooter.TV.

Caption: Wedshooter.tv is an online guide for wedding photography, and it can be an Advertisement, Digest, Exhibition and Diary at the same time. 

The most commonly used classification methods of blogs are through the topics of a blog and the method that they use to blog. Classifying blogs by subjects are commonly used in various blog networks nowadays, as different people enjoy reading different genres of blogs. Here, within a subject, a publisher/blogger will tend to use his most creative ways to send his or her messages to the audiences. Thus, they will use various styles of blogging, such as vlogging (video blogging), and moblogs. 

Vlog - or video blogging is currently a big trend and it is growing in video streaming sites, particularly in YouTube. Meefeedia.com has done a research for vlog statistics (2010) and found that there are over 11,000 vlogs around the Internet. As video bloggers continue to grow, video sites such as Vimeo, Myspace.TV begin gaining popularity. 

Some bloggers tend to get the best of both worlds. For example, Marlina Orlova of Russia entered stardom by being a celebrity blogger in Youtube and blogosphere at the same time. 

Source: hotforwords.com - Marlina's blog

Source: http://www.youtube.com/hotforwords - Marlina's vlog

In conclusion, the best categorization on blogs are classifying them through their subjects and topics, as they are the most accurate and most related aspect of a blog. 

References: 

Mefeedia, 2010, State of the Vlogosphere 2010, viewed April 18, 2010, <http://blog.mefeedia.com/vlog-2010>

Simons, M, 2008, Towards A Taxonomy of Blogs, viewed April 18, 2010, <http://www.apo.org.au/commentary/towards-taxonomy-blogs-0>

Blogs as current phenomenon and benefits of blogging to the community

a.Blogs as current phenomenon & benefits of blogging to the community

The atmosphere of blogosphere is currently a major trend in the World Wide Web. From Perez Hilton's worldwide sensation to local bloggers like Xiaxue and Kenny Sia, from lifestyle editors like Marlina Ordova, to controversial political bloggers like Raja Petra Kamaruddin, blogs have impact the usage of Internet widely. Currently, Blogpulse (2010), with the help of Nielsen Research, had stated that there are 126,861,574 identified blogs in the Internet and it is still continuing to increase time by time.  


As a whole, the world of blogs has revolutionized the Internet world and thus, created a popular trend among Internet users. Generally, as you can see from the graph below (Blogpulse Live, 2010), the top blogs are diaries, movies and sports. However,due to localization and culture, trends are different according in various countries. 

source: Blogpulse Live


For example, based on the happenings and culture in a particular place, blogging trends will be different in various places. For example, in Malaysia, the online diary trend seems to be popular and it outnumbered the numbers of political blogs when compared to the United States. 


As "diary" blogs become popular in blogosphere, they do serve a significant role in their own community. These are a few main roles: 


1. Making local voices be heard. (Loevenstein, 2008)
- The mainstream media may cover it all, but due to commercial space, they don't. When bloggers entered the Internet, they tend to report about the happenings around them, thus they become a new group of "watchdogs" of society alongside journalists. Indirectly, some of them become citizen journalists. 

Source: Jessicat.com - An example on how a blogger covers an event. 

2. Democracy 
- Blogs are online symbols of freedom of speech, where everybody has the rights to speak. However, in some countries such as China, Loevenstein (2008) stated that their rights are challenged by the local authorities. 


These are the roles of blogs for the community. Blogs also serves the business world as a platform of advertising and publicity, as well as improving customers' relations (for e.g. AirAsia and Malaysia Airlines use blogs to boost ticket sales in the airline competition). 




References:

Blogpulse, 2010, Percentage of Blog by Topic, viewed April 18, 2010, <http://www.blogpulse.com/bplive_full.html>


Loevenstein, A, 2010, Beating The Western Drum, viewed April 18, 2010 <http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/sep/15/blog.politics/print>

Purpose

This blog is established to highlight the aspects in publication and design to all. Here, this page is mainly aimed to my fellow coursemates who are also currently enrolling in the COMM 1043, as well as for design and communication academicians and those in the communication industries. Godwillingly, this site will able to generate constructive and productive ideas to improve the field of document designing, such as advertising.