Sunday, 12 June 2011

Reflections

Throughout completing this weblog, there are several of research needs to be done before writing and my ideas or opinions on publishing issues needs to be supported with theoretical readings. Thus, this may enhance our critical analyzing skills in the future. In contrast, the issues of publication that has occurred in Malaysia as people do not have much freedom in expressing their thoughts and ideas, as freedom of speech for the press and publications are controlled by the Government to avoid any offense or misunderstanding from the abroad media and publications.

According to Schriver (1997), the interplay between prose and graphics are important in a document design or webpage to distribute the most effective messages to the audience and the readers. According to the advancement in today’s technology, the organization of workplace may influence the document design practice.

However, Walsh (2006) stressed on multimodal, it may enhance the understanding of the readers and also applying it accordingly to the targeted audience based on their cultural knowledge. That is, everyone has different interpretation skills accordingly to their cultural knowledge and understanding.

Hence, as a blogger I have learnt to write ethically to avoid offense and copyrights issue. On the other hand, I have also learnt to applying layout, texts, pictures and other graphic elements on the page accordingly to the culture knowledge of the targeted audience to enhance the understanding of people and it would not mislead them.

References:
  • Karen A. Schriver 1997, ‘Chapter 6: The Interplay of Words and Pictures,’ Dynamics in Document Design: Creating Texts for Readers, pp. 361 - 441.
  • 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, pg. 24-37.  
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    The Genre Change in Children’s Magazine

    The topic that I am discussing is “Children’s Magazines Cater to True Early Adopters with Mobile Apps.” I will be looking at the angle of genre change in children’s magazine to digital publication with the advantages. In summary, magazines have go beyond the traditional media to digital magazines that are designed for kids is giving a new meaning to the phrase “early adopter” by Sivek (2011). Nowadays, even magazines are available in application for the kids due to most of them do own an iPad these days. There are several applications that are developed for the kids, such as Timbuktu which is an iPad news magazine; Ladybug’s Bookself offers stories with animation and sound, and Kid’sMag which includes a collection of informative and educational games mentioned by Sivek (2011). Below is a link to the whole article for a further understanding.
    http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2011/05/childrens-magazines-cater-to-true-early-adopters-with-mobile-apps137.html

    Figure 1 - Timbuktu Magazines on iPad for the children.
    Source: (http://blog.i2fly.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Timbuktu-magazine.jpg)

    Figure 2 - The opening screen for one of the stories in the Ladybug's Bookshelf on iPhone application.
    Source: (http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2011/05/childrens-magazines-cater-to-true-early-adopters-with-mobile-apps137.html)

    Figure 3 - The Cover page of KidsMag’s fist issue.
    Source: (http://www.portegno-apps.com/downloads/img1.png)

    Figure 4 - One of the stories in KidsMag’s first issue.
    Source: (http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2011/05/childrens-magazines-cater-to-true-early-adopters-with-mobile-apps137.html)

    To my opinion with the new age of publishing, this may help the children in their growing and learning process, even researches has proved this. Besides that, with the new age of publishing this may also improve the children’s interpretation skills between prose and graphics, but more to the interpretation of graphics. As in the traditional media the printing of graphics are more expensive than the text, thus with the digital publication the cost are much more cheaper as digital publishing count on the space that are taken. 

    According to Bernhardt (1986), physical fact of the text with its spatial appearance on the page requires visual concern which means a text can be seen, must be seen in a process which is essentially different from the perception of speech. He also identify this as the visually-informative text and non-visually informative text, whereas visual-informative text may be identified through headings and identifying symbols. In addition, written text is necessary, but visual informative text helps to smoothen the process of understanding the content. So it is important to the children by having these digital publications for them with prose and more graphics which would help them to understand better.

    Whereas Walsh (2006) focuses on the text and the reading process, he believes that reading involved three different levels of interpreting, responding and understanding at affective cognitive levels, and lastly analyzing. He also stressed on the medium ability, by reading the text it may lead the people’s mind to imagine what is the message are trying to transmit. Therefore, the new age of publishing with digital publication do help the children to enhance their interpretation skills between prose and graphics. 

    As a result, the changing from traditional media to digital publishing may improved the children’s understanding by providing more graphics in digital publishing. Yet, it seems that even children nowadays are more to the new media. Besides that, children are our future generation so the application developers are aiming to cater the children with more applications. Thus, this may enhance our new generation’s digital media skills in the future so it is understandable that there are so many applications catering for the children nowadays.

    References:
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    Angry Birds is the New Hype in Gaming Industry

    The topic that I am looking at is “Angry Birds: 200m downloads are the tip of the mobile gaming iceberg.” It is about the game Angry Birds is the phenomenon in today’s gaming industry and has achieved 200m downloads across all platforms. Besides that, it is also well known in United States, France, Germany, Spain, Netherlands, and Belgium. Stuart Dredge (2011) said within the seven countries listed above, a research shows that there are more than 63 million iOS gamers who download games on their iPhones, iPads, and iPod touch. More people are playing games on iPads rather than on PSP handhelds in this century which has changes the traditional gaming industry by Stuart Dredge (2011). To view the entire article click here.

    Figure 1 - 35m Angry Birds Rio downloads has fuelled Rovio’s success.
    Source: (http://www.youngmanblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/cvvbb.jpg)

    As what I have noticed, lately Angry Birds was the hottest game and it has created a rank in today’s gaming industry. Angry Birds was launched not long ago and formerly it is only available to the iPhones, iPads, and iPod touch users, but for now it is also available to the android and tablets users.

    In contrast, this trend was known as mobile gaming. While, among the mobile game players the mobile phone are now the primary device to them. According to Dean Takahashi (2011) the Chief Executive of PopCap Games Dave Roberts said, “Smartphones have become a real gaming platform and we are starting to see millions of new users.” The reason why mobile gaming has increased in the past few years is because marketers have figured out ways to explore the opportunities that are available to them. Dean Takahashi (2011) also mentioned that Angry Birds is likely hitting 200 million downloads, it is a huge number compared to the numbers for hit console games.

    Apart from that, marketers they identify this trend as mobile viral marketing. Tony Davis (n.d) says viral marketing has substantial value in the mobile market as it takes advantage of the inherent nature of cell phones as a communication vehicle by allowing people to share information and content within friends and colleagues. Mobile viral marketing are to provide mobile content and application to customers, such as gaming and social networking application by Tony David (n.d). A research shows that majority of the subscribers would download an application is usually being recommended by friends or colleagues; this would increase the potential for mobile viral marketing.

    Hence, it seems that Angry Birds application has create a new hype in the gaming industry nowadays. Besides that, marketers now have more opportunities to explore in mobile gaming industry and they may create a new direction of job opportunities in this field. 

    References:
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    Cultural & Situational Context

    For the case with the heading “Book, a Unity Tool” I will be discussing about the freedom of speech to the public and their cultural context behind it. This case is mainly talking about the literature written by the national laureate Abdullah Hussain with the title of ‘Interlok’ were being banned in Malaysia, because the book was found to contained an ugly word which roused strong emotions by certain groups. In addition, the words that founded in the book is considered as a derogatory term by the Indian Community and it could incite racial tensions if it is being used in the local schools stated by Melody Woon (2011). She also says that ‘Interlok’ is a book that is portraying the life of the Malaysian community during that era. Whereas, the literature textbook do contained lots of moral values which are relevant in our daily lives, such as Malaysian do help one another regardless of races, by respecting the elders, being appreciative and thankful to others, and have positive thinking. Below is a link to the whole story for further understanding.
    http://thestar.com.my/education/story.asp?file=/2011/3/13/education/8216396&sec=education

    To my opinion on this issue, I believe that there are freedom of speech and expression, which public has the rights to freely express their experience in their way as long as no one is being hurt by the outcome of it. In fact, the author of this literature Abdullah Hussain is just expressing his experience that he has gone through. Moreover, freedom of speech could also improve the country by gathering the public’s opinion and applied it to the development of the country regardless of education or society.

    According to Dr. Abdul Aziz Bari (n.d) stated that under the Art.10 (1) of the European Convention on Human Rights which was drawn up in 1951 has a quote saying that “Everyone has the right to freedom of expression.  This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive as well as pass on information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.” In addition, the right to freedom of expression are not just merely applied to ‘information’ or ‘ideas’ that are favorably received, but also to those that got offended, shock or disturb the state” by Dr. Abdul Aziz Bari (n.d).

    Whereas, Walsh (2006) said that cultural context will affect someone’s interpretation method from their previous, cultural, general, specific, and linguistic knowledge. In addition, levels of meaning are depending on the types of pictures, texts, language that we use and this is related to the reader’s background knowledge by Walsh (2006).

    Hence, it is right for us to express our experiences or opinions in our way by not hurting others. In contrast, the editors, authors, and the publisher are encourage to filter their information according to the culture of target audience before the information are published in the medium to avoid any misunderstanding or offense to the societal. 

    References:
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    Publishing Issues are related to Cultural Knowledge

    In the editor’s and journalist’s point of view, there are several rules and regulations on publishing. Therefore, editors and journalist have to obey these rules and regulations in order to maintain their job and their safety. If there are editors or journalist that did not act ethically according to the rules and regulations, then it may cause them into trouble, such as being arrested by Internal Security Act (ISA) which is to prevent people who criticize the government and defend human rights, based on Scribd (n.d). Accordingly to Patterson and Wilkins (2008), most journalist carries the concept of right to know, need to know, and want to know with them in order to get the most accurate and up-to-date story. 

    For the cases in section one, I had chosen the first issue which is ‘Berita Harian issues public apology over tsunami cartoon.’ It is saying that Berita Harian publishes the icon of Ultraman running away from an oncoming tsunami in Berita Minggu; it seems that they did not feel sympathy for the Japanese instead they are making fun at the disaster that took place at Japan. Below is a picture showing the popular Japanese icon Ultraman running away from an oncoming tsunami.
    Figure 1 - The popular Japanese icon Ultraman running away from an oncoming tsunami drawn by Mohd Zohri Sukimi or known as Zoy.
    Source: (http://static.sify.com/cms/image/ldopdxcddff.jpg)

    After the drawing was published, it attracted the citizen’s attention but most of them were unhappy about it and were commenting and criticizing on the issue in their Facebook and Twitter accounts. Subsequently, Berita Harian has to issue a public apology on their website, Twitter, and Facebook after receiving several of complains from the other publications mentioned in thestaronline (2011). Here is the link to the article for further understanding.
    http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/3/14/nation/8262608&sec=nation

    Next, I will be discussing on the issue faced by the journalist and the theory that relates to this issue. The angle that I am looking on this case is why the journalist publishes such a drawing that it may be a sensitive issue to the citizen and also it may affect them. To my opinion, it seems that the journalist has portrayed the picture in a way that it could mislead the citizens to the wrong ideas. 

    Based on Walsh (2006), levels of meaning are depending on the types of pictures we use and this is related to the reader’s background knowledge of how language, texts, and pictures works as well as the recognition of discourses and ideologies. Walsh (2006) also says different people may have different understanding that is related to their previous knowledge, cultural knowledge, general knowledge, specific content knowledge, or linguistic knowledge. 

    It is about medium ability, which helps people to understand when they see the pictures. Besides that, it also lead people’s mind to imagine what the pictures are trying to say. As a result, different cultural of people has their own interpreting knowledge; therefore this may easily lead them to the wrong ideas. 

    Hence, it is vital to consider the cultural context first before publishing the document, text, or pictures. Therefore, it may not mislead the citizen to the wrong ideas or create any misunderstanding. 

    References:
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    Thursday, 5 May 2011

    New Forms of Media Publishing


    It is undeniable that media publishing industry in the 21st centuries has evolved from the traditional media to the new media. Therefore, youths these days are lucky to have internet where they can search everything on the web browser. The type of new media these days are such as weblog, mobile blogging, vlogs, micro-blogs, mobisodes and etc. According to Naughton (2006) the combination of digital meeting, personal computing and global networking seems to have catches up the pace of development and is rising in radical shifts in the environment. So, audiences have more variety to choose from these new medium accordingly to their interest.
    Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Blogs are some of the new media publishing which changes the roles of journalism to writing online. The new form of media publishing that I have chosen is Facebook, it is a social networking site that has been growing rapidly since these few years. Every youth in today’s societies get addicted to it and its applications. As a result, everyone nowadays has a Facebook account.
    Facebook has more than 500 million users, and people spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook based on facebook.com (n.d). In fact with Facebook you can get the latest and up-to-date information on time where users post their status on their profile and it will appear on your homepage newsfeed from the latest to the oldest ones. As Facebook has become a hub for most people’s social activity; most of them are using Facebook to scan for new notifications and interesting stories at the top of the news feed, and they can get instant access to the relevant content as stated by Josh Constine (2011). Teenage nowadays mostly get their information from the social network and it has become their primary source of news. Apart from that, even the government, and those prominent people such as the President Obama have a fan page on Facebook. This is for the viewer to keep track on his latest events, photos, videos, and for them to voice out their opinions and thought. Besides that, he also uses this page (shown below) to communicate with his viewers and fans (people who join the page).
    Examples:
    The President Obama’s Fan Page on Facebook.
    Source: (http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/barackobama)

    Few posts that he posted on Japan’s Earthquake & Tsunami followed by a blog link.
    Source: (http://www.facebook.com/arnoldmok#!/barackobama)

    A blog that the President linked to his post on Japan’s Earthquake & Tsunami.
    Source: (http://blog.fema.gov/2011/03/japan-earthquake-tsunami-update-1.html)

    Above are some updates that I have found on the President Obama’s Facebook fan page showing that he has a few posts on the Japan’s Earthquake followed by a blog link. This proved that he is concerned on the issue and showing his support to the Japan’s citizens.
    According to Naughton (2006) mentioned that the new ecosystem will be broader and immeasurably more complex and there will be density of interactions between the content producers, and the pace of development made possible by constant networking.
    According to Kress & van Leeuwen (1998), messages were delivered not only by words but with speech-sound, rhythm, intonation, facial expression, gesture and posture. Therefore, Facebook has all the functions, it enables viewers to watch videos and view pictures.
    But there are different types of audiences hence, it is better to cater them with both traditional media and new media so they have more choices.

    References:

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    Blogging Communities

    What is a blogging community? Owyang (2007) defines blogging community as an online community, it is a group of people with similar goals or interests connect and exchange information using web tools. The aim is to socialize, making friends, and sharing ideas through internet. It is just a community where they have a sense of identity and belonging, and having peers who always follows their blog and agrees to the blogger’s opinions. This community has people from all around the world where they communicate through online.
    NikkiS (n.d) said a blogging community is created by reading other blogs where you might get ideas when you have run out of ideas of what to post, and by leaving comments on others blogs are same as leaving your blog URL (Uniform Resource Locater) with your comments this enables people to find you easily. Next step stated by NikkiS (n.d) which is replying your comments, readers feel happy when they get feedback from the bloggers this shows that their comments have been heard, and by listing your blog in directories this will be effective when readers are searching in Google by just typing the blog’s URL. She also said that writing often is a way to keep your readers at your blog by writing more than one post a day and making your posts entertaining by giving fresh contents with a different view than other bloggers do so that your readers would not get bored. Lastly, NikkiS (n.d) said marketing your blog is a way by having a signature link to your blog on message boards and forums, and also placing a signature link in your email signature as well.
    Blogging community can be divided into three types as mentioned by White (2006).
    Below is a picture showing the three types of blogging community. 
    Figure 1 - Three types of Blogging Communities
    Source: (http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2006/edition-11-editorial/blogs-and-community-%E2%80%93-launching-a-new-paradigm-for-online-community)

    The Single Blog or Blogger Centric Community is owned by one owner or multiples authors writing in a blog. White (2006) stated that the power in this community is in the central blogger’s control which is the blog owners and they controls the topics and comments from the community to which can be seen or unseen from the site.
    Next, is the Central Connecting Topic Community.

    Figure 2 - Topic Centric Community
    Source: (http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2006/edition-11-editorial/blogs-and-community-%E2%80%93-launching-a-new-paradigm-for-online-community)
    This form of community can be found with the link in common interest or topic. It is not secured where powers and identity is distributed across the community. Hyperlinks are applied in the form of blog rolls and it linked to other blogs within blog posts, tagging, aggregated feeds by using RSS, trackbacks and comments mentioned by White (2006). Blog rings are used to link blogs that are discussing on the same topic.
    The third type is Boundaried Communities.


    Figure 3 - Boundaried Communities
    White (2006) a collection of blogs and blog readers hosted on a single site or platform, bloggers can see and easily access other blogs, and readers can also create their own blogs. As a result, this may build a stronger community group where bloggers controls the message rather than on the discussion board. Boundaried communities is held by the ‘owner’ of the platform who can impose rules on the community, but is exercised by bloggers in three ways which is frequency of posting, popularity measured by how many comments a blogger gets, and social networking tools associated with the blog that help visualize relationship mentioned by White (2006).
    A good example of blogging community which is Global Voices. Global Voices were set up to provide report of blogs and citizen media internationally emphasizing voices that are not commonly heard in mainstream media stated by Global Voices (2010). Within this community blog enables citizen to voice up their opinions which they can’t do it in their area. The advantages of building up a blog community are we are able to see different opinions from different angles.

    References:




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