Reflection

Blogging Image from Google.com

What is my reflection?

Blogging has been a good experience to me. Through out the course, I have been learning about how texts and images related to one another and bring meaning at the same time. Not only that, I have learn about Kress and van Leeuwen’s theory about multimodal texts, meaning of composition and semiotics. Well, for Schriver’s theory, I have learnt how the words and picture interplay and work along. Moreover, create a good document design is not easy and need a lot of hard work, experience and theory to apply into the document. Besides that, Penman and Wheildon’s reading are all about typography and readers’ habits. Media publishing is the most interesting part among all the topics. There is difference between previous and current media publishing and I have learnt how to differentiate it. In Jakob Nielsen’s study, I have learnt that how to make a good design, how people read on the website or print documents and more. With all these theories, I am able to understand better about issues in publication and design and hopefully I will be able to use and apply in the future purposes.

Print Newspaper Versus Online Newspaper.

Print newspaper or online newspaper? Which is better?

The Star Newspaper from Google.com

Back then, newspaper is just a print document but now it is able to view on the internet. There are some readers prefer read the newspaper on a print document rather than reading it on the screen but some of them disagree. Why? Based on Kress and van Leeuwen (2006, p.204), print newspaper is non linear which readers read accordingly. If readers tend to skip the page to Sports Section, it is a form of cheating. Some readers search for what they want by looking the headings. According to Schriver (1997, p.376), in the print newspaper, there is the practice of making the readers “jump” to another page by “continued on page 10” that actually make some people rather stop flipping to another page because it is troublesome for them. There are flippers that flip the page backward and forward as they go (Penman 1998, p.10). The editor of newpaper has put all these important things such as structure of the texts, position of one story in relation to another, provided clues and amount of space allocated to one story or another to reach out the expert readers (Schriver 1997, p.376). Somehow, the expert newspaper readers find it hard to read the newspaper because they do not know what the design of newspaper will be create by editors even though clues are provided but hard to navigate (Schriver 1997, p,376).

The Star Online Newspaper from The Star Online.com

For online newspaper, The Star Online, some readers prefer reading on the internet. According to Nielsen (1997), reading from the computer screen is more tiring than reading on the print newspaper and it is slower to read on the screen. Hyperlinks on the website are very useful and easier for the readers to find similar information (Walsh 2006, p.30). The links are made for jumping for web readers (Schriver 1997, p.378). Readers tend to read halfway when they see hyperlinks because they think that the hyperlinks will lead them to more information. With the hyperlinks, web users will be easier to search information and hyperlinks will guide them through. Those readers that are skillful will be able to find information easily and much more beneficial and select their information orderly (Schriver 1997, p.379). Not all the readers are skillful enough to search information of what they want (Schriver 1997, p.379). There are different colours for visited and unvisited links on most of the websites and this will make the web users know which links that they have click (Nielsen 2004).

Opinion on both documents
I think that most of the readers prefer reading on print newspaper rather than reading on the screen. Even though The Star Online provide search box, hyperlinks, navigation tools and menu buttons but not everyone able to read on the screen because it is tiring to read when the article is long. Document designers might able to stop the readers to flip and fan the pages as they go by create the big and attractive headings on the print newspaper.

Reference Lists:
Kress, G & van Leeuwen, T. 2006, Reading images, “Chapter 6: The meaning of composition, Routledge, New York, pp. 175-214.

Nielsen, J. 1997, “Why web users scan instead of read”, Useit, viewed on 8 June 2008 at <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/whyscanning.html>

Nielsen, J. 2004, “Change of the color of visited links”, Useit, viewed on 8 June 2008 <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20040503.html>

Penman, R. 1998, Communication News, “Document structures and readers’ habit”, Vol. 11, No.2, pp.1 & 10-11.

Shriver, K.A. 1997, Dynamics in document design: creating texts for readers, “Chapter 6: The interplay of words and pictures”, Wiley Computer Publication, New York, pp.364-441.

Walsh, M. 2006, Australian Journal of language and literacy, “The ‘textual shift’: examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts”, Vol.29, No.1, pp.24-37.

Miss Bimbo the offensive internet materials?

Miss Bimbo Online Game from Google.com

What is Miss Bimbo? Virtual fashion game? Is it appropriate or not?
Online games are getting more. The problem is whether the online games are ethical or unethical? Will it effects the children? According to Kress and van Leeuwen (1997, p.64), texts and images will bring meaning to the documents. In this case, Miss Bimbo online game has interpreted wrongly to the society. It is unethical online game. Why? The Miss Bimbo promotes extreme diets and surgery to the young children. Breast implants, diet pills, face lifts, fashionable nightclub outfits and lingerie can be earn by the children in “Bimbo Dollars” by competing with other children. Not only that, their bimbo will join the beauty contest in order to win by enlarging the breasts and find billionaire boyfriend to bankroll the bimbo (Telegraph 2008). This will lead the children being anorexia and bulimia and eating disorder because they want to be perfect just like Miss Bimbo as their role model (Bird 2008).

Miss Bimbo has its own ethos that has own character which is pretty, fashionable and sexy which actually will reflect the social attitudes (Cronn-Mills 2000, pg 132). The ethos is fashionable. The icon can be most powerful way to spread the ideas of Miss Bimbo. The icon is a pretty lady and fashionable and sexy. The pretty lady has chosen to be the icon and she is the symbol of being pretty, fashionable and coolest bimbo.

Effects on the children and society? How?
According to Schriver (1997, p.440), elder people like parents cannot accept the Miss Bimbo game because it is their belief or ideology and basically will mislead the children. Parents' belief and ideology is part of the context of culture which they cannot accept their children to play Miss Bimbo online game. According to Schriver (1997, p.375), designing the images and texts are important and make sure it will fulfill the audiences and they are able to understand and read. The image of Miss Bimbo shows that Miss Bimbo wearing tight and sexy outfits. This is not the way to inform the children how to be pretty and famous. They should show the appropriate clothing and behaviour of Miss Bimbo. This will affect the behaviour and growth of children. The document designers of Miss Bimbo should change the image and attitude of Miss Bimbo in order to send good messages and lessons to the young children by not eating diet pills, breasts enlargement and face lifting.

My opinion
In my opinion, images and texts should be interpreted in a proper and positive way in order to avoid misleading the young children. The icon of Miss Bimbo should be more representative and not sexy but can be fashionable at the same time. Miss Bimbo game should be target on the elder people or they should change the game lifestyle and method to the appropriate lifestyle. It depends on the society's belief and ideology of context of culture. It is unacceptable for them to accept on Miss Bimbo online game that contains of offensive features to the children especially the girls. Moreover, Miss Bimbo online game should concern the audience, knowledge and beliefs and should apply something meaningful and appropriate to their audiences (Schriver 1997, p.373). The message of Miss Bimbo should be revised depending on the culture and beliefs (Schriver 1997, p,373).

Reference Lists:
Bird, S. 2008, “Miss Bimbo website promotes extreme diets and surgery to 9-years-olds”, The Times, viewed on 8 June 2008 at <http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article3613881.ece?token=null&offset=0>

Cronn-Mills, K. 2000, Technical writing and communication, “A visible ideology: a document series in a women’s clothing company”, Vol. 30(2), South Central Technical College, North Manako, pp.125-141.

Kress, G & van Leeuwen, T. 1997, Page to screen: taking literacy into the electronic era, “Chapter 3: Visual and verbal modes of representation in electronically mediated communication: the potentials new forms of text”, Allen & Unwin, New South Wales, pp.53-79.

Shriver, K.A. 1997, Dynamics in document design: creating texts for readers, “Chapter 6: The interplay of words and pictures”, Wiley Computer Publication, New York, pp.364-441.

Telegraph.co.uk 2008, “Parents concerned about Miss Bimbo game”, viewed on 8 June 2008 at <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1582762/Parents-concerned-about-Miss-Bimbo-game.html>

YouTube. It's about ethical or unethical media publishing.

What is YouTube? YouTube is a website that can upload, view and share videos among people.

Is copyright very important?
YouTube has been very strict about the copyrights of the videos that users uploaded.
The copyrighted contents are:

• TV shows
  Sport broadcasts, new broadcasts, comedy, cartoons, drama, reality shows and others


• Music videos
  From music video channels: MTV, Channel V and others


• Videos of live concerts:
  Performers/ celebrities or song writers or producers have the rights to control their images or songs being uploaded and published at YouTube even though the users captured the video by them.


• Movies and movie trailers


• Commercials


• Slides shows include images owned by other people
  (YouTube 2008)

Copyrights are important and major issue in media publishing. Web users are not allowed to upload any videos or images that not owned by them. This will consider as pirated issue.

For example, Viacom has sued YouTube for taking down all the pirated clips because the users or YouTube did not have any copyrights and permission to upload videos from Viacom (Lombardi 2008). The video clips are produced by Viacom including MTV Networks, Comedy Central, BET and VH-1. YouTube has been called to remove the video clips such as The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, South Park and The Colbert Report. Saturday Night Live from NBC’s TV has been removed that showed and published on the YouTube right after YouTube become famous (Sandoval 2006). The pirated issue will be focus on in this case. There are about 100,000 video clips produced by Viacom has being uploaded by YouTube without permission from Viacom (Sandoval 2007).

South Park from Google.com

Unethical and ethical media publishing
Those violent videos are not supposed and not allowed to upload to YouTube. For example, there is a fight between school girls in Miri, Sarawak was uploaded to YouTube. This is an unethical issue. There is beneficial video such as Marie Digby. She uploaded her own videos at YouTube and there are a lot of viewers that watch her videos. Later on, she was spotted by the record label company. From then, she has become a famous singer in United States.

Marie Digby's video from Youtube.com

It will be using a short time to wait for the videos to load. Search box is place at the top and bottom of the page in order to make it easy for web users to search particular videos or images. YouTube is up-to-date with links and high quality videos and most of them are accurate.

Search box tools from YouTube.com

My point of view
In my opinion, ethical media publishing should be emphasized by the web users. In this case, web users should not simply post up the videos that contain copyrights unless they have the permission to upload and post up the videos or images. Somehow, this copyrights will effect the audiences.

Reference Lists:
Lombardi, C. 2007, “Viacom to YouTube: Take down pirated clips”, CNet News, viewed on 9 June 2008 at <http://news.cnet.com/Viacom-to-YouTube-Take-down-pirated-clips/2100-1026_3-6155771.html?tag=item>

Sandoval, G. 2006, “YouTube’s no friend to copyright violators”, CNet News, viewed on 9 June 2008 at <http://news.cnet.com/YouTubes-no-friend-to-copyright-violators/2100-1030_3-6128252.html>

Sandoval, G. 2007, “Viacom demands Google, YouTube to pull 100,000 clips”, CNet News, viewed on 9 June 2008 at <http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-6155737-7.html>

YouTube 2008, “Copyright tips”, viewed on 9 June 2008 at <http://www.youtube.com/t/howto_copyright>

Encyclopedias: Wikipedia & Britannica

Wikipedia from Wikipedia.org

Wikipedia. The well known web based encyclopedia
What is Wikipedia? Why people use Wikipedia? Wikipedia is a web based free encyclopedia and it is free and open for the web users. Every user is allowed to post, edit, add, delete, replace and rate on the entries and articles. There are about 13,000 volunteer contributors are expertise in the particular field to edit or add the submitted articles (BBC 2005). The released articles are providing in-depth information to the web users to read and understand better. According to Davidson (2006 p.39), inaccuracy, inconsistency, vandalism, uneven quality and unproven opinions are in the Wikipedia’s open policy. The policy of Wikipedia is perceiving lack of accountability and authority compared with other encyclopedias has been criticised.

Britannica from Google.com

Britannica. What is this?

Britannica encyclopedia is not a web based free encyclopedia and it is only given 7 days free trial and have to subscribe in order to view more articles. Britannica encyclopedia charged fees on the readers in order to prove and show accuracy of their articles. There are 162 factual errors and misleading statements for Wikipedia and 123 factual mistakes for Britannica encyclopedia (Lombardi 2006). According to Terdiman (2005), the average mistakes per article for Wikipedia is 3.86 and for Britannica is 2.92.This proves that if the readers want to gain accurate information, they need to pay some fees for it. Articles from Wikipedia are criticised by science reviewers that are confusing and poorly structured (Davidson 2006, p.39). Based on Walsh’s study (2006, p.31), the hyperlinks, navigation bars and menu buttons are to attract readers and maintain readers’ interest and also assist the readers. The hyperlinks and navigation bars will lead to another pathway. With all these navigation buttons, readers are able to search information easily and faster. The writing directions of both web encyclopedias are the same which is from left to right. The difference is only the service that they are offered. According to Kress and van Leeuwen (2006, p.201), the centre of Wikipedia is the most salience and this shows that centre is important and the first one that readers will spot. The left column on Wikipedia is polarized. There are hyperlinks on the left column in Wikipedia and Britannica and will link to another pathway which is similar with the article. The way of reading the words, images and hyperlinks for both web encyclopedias are similar to one another. In my opinion, both web encyclopedias provide same services but only difference is accuracy and mistakes. The pathway of reading the text of both encyclopedias is the same and they are in the same culture. To trust Wikipedia or Britannica? It depends on the readers’ interest and needs. For me, I will not use both due to unreliability and inconsistency compared to the encyclopedia books.


Reference Lists:
BBC 2005, “Wikipedia survives research test”, viewed on 8 June 2008 at <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4530930.stm>

Davidson, A. 2006, Cyberlaw, “Wikipedia the online encyclopaedia”, Proctor, pp.39-40.

Kress, G. & van Leeuwen, T. 2006, Reading Images, “Chapter 6: The meaning of composition”, Routledge, New York, pp. 175-214.

Lombardi, C. 2006, “Belatedly, Britannica lambastes Wikipedia findings”, CNet News, viewed on 7 June 2008 at <http://news.cnet.com/Belatedly,-Britannica-lambastes-Wikipedia-findings/2100-1025_3-6053754.html?tag=item>

Terdiman, D. 2005, “Study: Wikipedia as accurate as Britannica”, CNet News, viewed on 8 June 2008 at <http://news.cnet.com/Study-Wikipedia-as-accurate-as-Britannica/2100-1038_3-5997332.html?tag=item>

Walsh, M. 2006, Australian Journal of language and literacy, “The ‘textual shift’: examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts”, Vol.29, No.1, pp.24-37.

New forms of media publishing

What are the new forms of media publishing? There are mobile blogging, video bloggings and sketch blogs. Some people might not love reading but they love to watch videos. Youtube is the solution for people that love and want to watch videos. YouTube has been very successful and contributed a lot to the community where people can upload their videos, download the videos and share the videos with one another.

Democrats Debate from YouTube.com

In United States, people upload the video of general elections to show other people and share around with others. The debate of presidential nomination is between Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton and the videos are showing at the YouTube where people can view and know more about the general election of United States. Political issues are the trend in the United States and are shared among people. By posting up the videos into your own blog will increase the web presence and audiences’ responses (Stack 2006). Videos on internet are expanding very fast especially with YouTube which is famous and accessible anytime and anywhere.

Reference Lists:

Stack, C. 2006, “Benefits of using videos online”, EzineArticles.com, Viewed at 7th May 2008 at <http://ezinearticles.com/?Benefits-of-Using-Videos-Online&id=391489>

Online Versus Print

Online Versus Print?
Based on The Guardian, Jakob Nielsen mentioned that users that visit a new website spend an average of 30 seconds on homepage and before they even decide to leave the website, they spend less than two minutes on the whole website (Schofield 2007). In addition, even though they decided to stay on a website, they probably spend 4 minutes on average (Schofield 2007). Jakob Nielsen mentioned that websites should be designed based on his guidelines in the future (Ilner 2004). He even mentioned that Flash is 99% bad because it makes the designs looks awful and affect the web’s original interaction style (Nielsen 2000). Based on Nielsen (2008), there is a website has bad designs. Below is the snapshot of the website:

There are no description of the musicians, title of the songs to play of the day, no other links and independent reviews.
Jazz at Lincoln Center from Useit.com


Example of print document

Content of Seventeen Magazine

Example of webpage

Seventeen's website

Based on Nielsen’s research, he stated that 79% of web users scan the websites rather than read (Nielsen 1997). It is 25% slower to read on a webpage compare to reading a paper because it is tiring for the eyes to read on a webpage. It is actually depending on the readers whether they prefer to read on the webpage or paper. Some readers might prefer to read from the webpage and some prefer to read from the paper.

Reference Lists:

Ilner, S. 2004, “Can usability theory by Jakob Nielsen be applied to online entertainment design or do better alternatives exist?” , Viewed on 7th May 2008 at <http://www.refracted.co.uk/StephThesis.pdf>

Nielsen, J. 1997, “Why web users scan instead of read”, Alertbox, Useit.com, Viewed on 7th May 2008 at <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/whyscanning.html>

Nielsen, J. 2000, “Flash: 99% Bad”, Alertbox, Useit.com, Viewed on 6th May 2008 at <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20001029.html>

Nielsen, J. 2008, “Four bad designs”, Alertbox, Useit.com, Viewed on 6th May 2008 at <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/bad-design.html>

Schofield, J. 2007, “The web design guru that web designers love to hate”, The Guardian, Viewed at 7th May 2008 at <http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/aug/09/guardianweeklytechnologysection.interviews>

Classification of blogs & blogging community

Types of blogs
How many types of blogs out there? I have to say there are many types but I will keep it short and clear here. There are entertainment, fashion, foods, politics and many more.

Examples of types of blogs are below:

Entertainment Blogs:

• The Superficial


• Pink is the new blog
  

Foods Blogs:

• Masak-masak


• Taste with Jason
  

Fashion Blogs:

• SheBop


• Shopaholics Unite
  

Poliltics blogs:

• Jeff Ooi


• Hannah Yeoh

Bloggers use what type of devices?
What types of devices that bloggers use? Mobile blogging as known as Moblogs? Yes. Most of them use moblogs to post their entries up-to-date. According to Business Wire (2007), they have identified 3 celebrities using moblogs and they are YouTube star William Sheld, MySpace icon Christian Dolce and Florida-based band Madelyn. With moblogs, it will be convenient for the bloggers to update everywhere and anytime.

Moblogs from kennysia.com

Kenny Sia, our local Malaysian blogger also use Moblogs to update his blogs and he mentioned that it is very convenient and can be use anytime and anywhere (Sia 2008).

Blogs have combination of styles?
How do you identify the unique style of a blog? Well, it depends on individual. For me, the first thing I will look at images of the blogs. For example, The Bitter Stick Girl, she use images to express her on going obstacles and joyful moments in her life. Pictures illustrate a thousand words.

Image from StickGal.blogspot.com

Blogging Community
What do you understand by blogging community? Friendster and Facebook are blogging community. People use blogging community to interact and share interests among them.

How do you create a blogging community? Linkings are important and one of the important tools to interact and share same interest with one another. According to Wired Pen (2007), hyperlinks give benefits which are build networking, audiences are shared, and clearly and more information (cited in Ackland & Gibson 2006). Chatbox is one of the interactive tools in between bloggers and readers. Include pic*fashion syrupy.

Through comments, people tend to know more and get feedbacks based on their comments. For example, Paul Tan, car bloggers, he replied to the comments that his readers made. According to Hung (2007), he mentioned that create news on other bloggers’ blogs to get back to your own blog.

Comments from Paultan.org

One blogging community trend
Nowadays, celebrities even start to become bloggers so they can share their ideas, interests and personal life with their fans. MySpace is popular for music, blogs, profiles and many more. In MySpace, people can create group, bulletins, news, classifieds and others where the community can get specified information or interests. For example, Paris Hilton writes about her career and personal life by using MySpace.

Reference Lists:

BusinessWire.com 2007, “3 Guppies’ Moblog Popularity Increases”, Viewed on 7th May 2008 at
<http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20071112005316&newsLang=en>

Hung, T. 2007, “How to market your blog in 2007”, ProBlogger, Viewed on 8th May 2008 at <http://www.problogger.net/archives/2007/01/11/how-to-market-your-blog-in-2007/>

Sia, K. 2008, “Kennysia.com Goes Mobile”, Viewed on 7th May 2008 at <http://www.kennysia.com/archives/2008/04/kennysiacom_goe.php>

WiredPen.com 2007 “Strategies for analyzing online networks”, Viewed on 7th May 2008 at <http://wiredpen.com/2007/05/23/strategies-for-analyzing-online-networks/>

The current phenomenon of blogs

Size of blogosphere

What is the current size of blogosphere? Well, there are 3 millions blogs are created and tracked down by Technorati and every 5.8 seconds the new blogs are created and there will be up to 1 million bloggers updating their blogs (McGann, 2004).

Blogs & Mainstream Media from Blogpulse.com

Based on the above, the graph shows the average bloggers update their blogs at least 0.75 out of 1.25 of percent of all blog posts. The blogs are the most famous compare to other main streams such as radio and television. People prefer to blog compare to others.

Trends in Europe, Asia & Malaysia

Different countries have their own trends in blogging. In Malaysia, bloggers talk about personal and political issues. In Japan, bloggers tend to talk about social life.According to Technorati (2008), Japan Trend Shop (Killian-Nakamura) collaborates with Cscout Japan Co. Ltd. and created a social blog to blog about gadgets, fashion and lifestyle in Tokyo.

Japan's blogs (Current Trend) from Killian-Nakamura.com

Types of blogs are prevalant in Europe, Asia & Malaysia

According to Sabahan (2007), out of Malaysian Top 50 Bloggers, 28% of bloggers blog about their personal issues, 16% of bloggers write about political issues, 16% of bloggers write about technology and the rest of it are travel, food, entertainment and others. The famous blogger in Malaysia that write about personal is Kenny Sia from Kennysia.com and linked 4,828 from 2,406 blogs. Moreover, Jeff Ooi writes about political issues in Jeffooi.com and he was linked 2,824 from 836 blogs.

Benefits of blogs to my community

According to Microsoft Malaysia (2006), people are able to connect with one another through blogs.

“With today’s generation growing up in a connected world, blogs and social media have become key channels of communication for them”.
Grant Watts, General Manager, Southeast Asia of Online Services Group, Microsoft

Just like Watts mentioned above, blogs has become the key channels of communication to the people and this lead a better relationship among the bloggers and readers.

There are different trends in different countries give different benefits. Currently Malaysia blogs are more focus on personal blogs compare to politics. According to Microsoft Malaysia (2006), they mentioned that currently there are more women bloggers. They showed more feelings and expressions compared to the men. Not only that, they actually communicate better than men bloggers. This shows that women bloggers in Malaysia has increased more every year.


Reference Lists:

McGann, R. 2004, “The Blogosphere by the Numbers”, Clickz.com, Viewed on 7th May 2008 at <http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3438891>

Microsoft Malaysia 2006, “Women Rule in Malaysian Blogosphere” Viewed on 7th May 2008 at <http://www.microsoft.com/malaysia/press/archive2006/linkpage4337.mspx>

Sabahan.com 2007, “50 Most Influential Blogs in Malaysia” Viewed on 8th May 2008 at <http://www.sabahan.com/2007/02/06/50-most-influential-blogs-in-malaysia/>

Technorati.com 2008, “Trends in Japan” Viewed on 8th May 2008 at <http://www.technorati.cn/blogs/kilian-nakamura.com/blog-english>

What is the purpose of my blog?

Why is my blog created? What is the purpose of my blog?
The purpose of my blog is to discuss the issues in publication and document designs. I have to understand the theories of publication and document designs and able to apply it into my serious weblog. Besides that, images, videos and words are considered documents and provide meaning to people. Furthermore, readings and case studies of publications and document designs give more inspirations and understandable how documents can be important and meaningful. Through blogging, I can inspire and provide more information to other document designers out there to be creative and understand more of publications and document designs.