What a journey it has been since I began writing for this blog!
The process of creatring this weblog had been adventurous and enlightening. I discovered that one could include a chat-box feature in one’s blog for interaction purposes.
Besides that, I learned that one could also include a clock feature for one’s audience. The crucial knowledge that I have gained while writing for this blog is that one should never exercise verbosity when writing for a webpage. Sentences should be short and concise.
When I started this blog, I was a little oblivious to the theories and concepts that encompass publication and design.
Over the months, however, I have learned several important theories concerning publication and design which I would incorporate for my future endeavours.
For example, I now know the importance of including sources when writing something as it would make one’s content credible and reliable.
Lastly, I have learned that one should always be sensitive towards the culture of the intended audience when writing something so as to avoid any offences.
The stand that I have taken as a blogger is to be ethical at all times and abide by the laws that exist in reference to the Internet.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Rowling versus RDR Books
(Source: The Age)
If any book has created an unprecedented craze among readers throughout the globe, both young and old, it would be the Harry Potter series.
The series, about a young boy who discovers that he is from a wizarding world and attends Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, is the fastest selling and most sold books after the Holy Bible.
The series, about a young boy who discovers that he is from a wizarding world and attends Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, is the fastest selling and most sold books after the Holy Bible.
According to BBC News (2007) the seventh book of the series, which is also the last, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, sold ‘11 million copies in its first 24 hours.’ The International Herald Tribune (2007) reported that Deathly Hallows became ‘the fastest-selling book in history …’
The Potter-mania have caused the bloom of countless fan websites where the Potter fans can interact with one another, discuss about the books and the characters and whatever not. One such website is the Harry Potter Lexicon, an online encyclopaedia about the series. JK Rowling, the author of the Potter series, has always been supportive with these websites.
The Potter-mania have caused the bloom of countless fan websites where the Potter fans can interact with one another, discuss about the books and the characters and whatever not. One such website is the Harry Potter Lexicon, an online encyclopaedia about the series. JK Rowling, the author of the Potter series, has always been supportive with these websites.
The Lawsuit
(Source: ABC)
However, The New York Times (Rich 2008) reported that Miss Rowling and Warner Brothers have sued RDR Books when ‘it announced it was planning to publish a print version’ of The Harry Potter Lexicon.
The lawsuit was filed simply because ‘the book merely repackages Ms. Rowling’s work and, unlike the free fan sites is intended to make money for its publisher.’ (Rich 2008).
That is to say, they are suing RDR for the infringement of copyright. Vander Ark, creator of the website, said that ‘he had initially worried that a book might constitute copyright infringement’ (Rich 2008) but after he was given assurance by RDR that infringement would not occur, he decided to go for it.
Copyright
According to Reep (2006, p.41), copyright ‘is the legal protection fro the creators of original works …’ She asserted that infringement of copyright occurs when someone utilise the original works of a creator for their own interest and benefit without ‘getting permission …’ (Reep 2006, p.41).
It is unethical to use the works of a creator and publish it as your own. Copyright infringement is a serious matter that everyone should look into before they even decide to write something.
I am and will always be a hardcore fan of the Harry Potter books. And I have, over the years, visited other famous Potter fan sites such the “The Leaky Cauldron” and found it to be delightful.
However, when someone decides to manipulate the popularity of their website, which should totally be attributed to Miss Rowling, their intentions can only be classified as deplorable. As a fan, I would not only buy a book that could have infringed copyright laws, I would not visit the website.
The New York Times (Rich 2008) reported that Melissa Anelli, the Web master of the Leaky Cauldron, said ‘her board had voted to sever ties with the Harry Potter Lexicon site because of the lawsuit and comments Mr Vander Ark has made about it.’
References
Gibson, O 2006, Potter faces temple of doom, The Age, viewed 11 June 2008, < http://www.theage.com.au/news/books/potter-faces-temple-of-doom-as-j-k-rowling-hints-at-death/2006/06/27/1151174202000.html>.
Harry Potter' tale is fastest-selling book in history 2007, International Herald Tribune, viewed 11 June 2008, <http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/23/business/potter.php>.
Harry Potter finale sales hit 11m 2007, BBC News, viewed 11 June 2008, <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6912529.stm>.
Reep, DC 2006, Technical Writing: Principles, Strategies, and Readings, 6th edn, Pearson Education, USA.
Rich, M 2008, Rowling to Testify in Trial Over Potter Lexicon, The New York Times, viewed 11 June 2008, <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/14/books/14potter.html>.
The War of Encyclopaedias!
Wikipedia
The Internet is like having all the books of the world, from ancient times till our era, in the vicinity of our homes. The plethora of knowledge is just limitless.
Millions of websites exists in the information super-highway, offering us, the travellers as it were in this highway, immeasurable choices.
However, not all are factual or accurate. George Bernard Shaw once said “Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.” One such case concerns the renowned Wikipedia, a global online encyclopaedia.
Revolution Misconception
Another case where the crime of inaccuracy or rather vagueness of content occurred was with the entry on the Russian Revolution. Orlando Figes, a history professor at the University of London, said the Russian Revolution was not a ‘“political movement”’ as claimed by Wikipedia but rather ‘“a series of movements and chaotic social disturbances”’ (Hickman & Roberts 2006).
It would not be an exaggeration to say that a false implication had been committed. According to Pearsall (1997, p.68), when one makes a false implication, ‘you are actually telling the truth but in a way that leads readers to the wrong conclusion.’
A junior high-school student who intends to research on the Russian Revolution using Wikipedia would of course be misled into believing that the Revolution was a political movement.
Accuracy, Accuracy, Accuracy
Blicq & Moretto (2004, p.21) said that ‘nothing annoys readers more than to discover that they have been given inaccurate information …’
This is because audiences like myself search the World Wide Web for credible and substantial information and not something that might have been edited just because someone thought that it would be funny.
For example, the misinformation of John Seigenthaler Sr. was actually a prank committed by Brian Chase. According to The New York Times (Seelye 2005), Brian Chase was ‘trying to shock a colleague with a joke …’
Below is an interesting video about how the media perceive Wikipedia.
The Internet is like having all the books of the world, from ancient times till our era, in the vicinity of our homes. The plethora of knowledge is just limitless.
Millions of websites exists in the information super-highway, offering us, the travellers as it were in this highway, immeasurable choices.
However, not all are factual or accurate. George Bernard Shaw once said “Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.” One such case concerns the renowned Wikipedia, a global online encyclopaedia.
(Source: Wikipedia)
Hickman & Roberts (2006), through their investigation on Wikipedia, made several statements that would be worth one’s while to contemplate on. Firstly, they asserted that “questions of accuracy” (Hickman & Roberts 2006) have been persistently lingering around Wikipedia since its conception.
(Source: Youtube)
The Kennedy Error
(Source: Nashville Post)
(Source: CIA)
The inherent problem with this is that anyone and everyone who visits Wikipedia can add, subtract or alter any information which they deem necessary. Hickman & Roberts (2006) said this renders the contents of Wikipedia “inaccurate or offensive” as was the case with John Seigenthaler Sr.
Even the website agrees to this and classified these problems as ‘ “systematic bias, difficulty of fact checking, use of dubious sources, exposure to vandals, privacy concerns, quality concerns, fanatics and special interests, and censorship”’(Hickman & Roberts 2006).
Revolution Misconception
Another case where the crime of inaccuracy or rather vagueness of content occurred was with the entry on the Russian Revolution. Orlando Figes, a history professor at the University of London, said the Russian Revolution was not a ‘“political movement”’ as claimed by Wikipedia but rather ‘“a series of movements and chaotic social disturbances”’ (Hickman & Roberts 2006).
It would not be an exaggeration to say that a false implication had been committed. According to Pearsall (1997, p.68), when one makes a false implication, ‘you are actually telling the truth but in a way that leads readers to the wrong conclusion.’
A junior high-school student who intends to research on the Russian Revolution using Wikipedia would of course be misled into believing that the Revolution was a political movement.
Accuracy, Accuracy, Accuracy
Blicq & Moretto (2004, p.21) said that ‘nothing annoys readers more than to discover that they have been given inaccurate information …’
This is because audiences like myself search the World Wide Web for credible and substantial information and not something that might have been edited just because someone thought that it would be funny.
For example, the misinformation of John Seigenthaler Sr. was actually a prank committed by Brian Chase. According to The New York Times (Seelye 2005), Brian Chase was ‘trying to shock a colleague with a joke …’
Below is an interesting video about how the media perceive Wikipedia.
(Source: Youtube)
Wikipedia vs. Britannica
Notwithstanding, it would be fallible to conclude that Wikipedia is the only online encyclopaedia with errors. According to a research conducted by Nature:
The exercise revealed numerous errors in both encyclopedias, but among 42 entries tested, the difference in accuracy was not great: the average science entry in Wikipedia contained around four inaccuracies; Britannica, around three’ (Cauchi 2005).
Although the margin of errors between Wikipedia and Britannica are close, the reality is still prevalent in that everyone has the ability to edit the contents in Wikipedia or post false entries!
Vis-à-vis the revelation done by Nature, Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia said, ‘“It's good that people see that there are a lot of errors everywhere."’ (Terdiman 2005).
As a high-school student, I relied on Wikipedia for almost all of my research. Nevertheless, with this research that I have done, my trust towards the credibility of Wikipedia seems to be waning gradually.
Of course, I will still utilise Wikipedia to gain primordial information about something but I would not entirely rely on them.
The credibility and authority of the information made available by Wikipedia seems to be resting at the edge of a knife! Or at least that is how I reckon it to be.
For additional readings on the inaccuracies surrounding Wikipedia, kindly follow the link provided:
References
Blicq, R & Moretto, L 2004, Technically-Write!, 6th edn, Pearson Prentice Hall, USA.
Cauchi, S 2005, Online encyclopedias put to the test, The Age, viewed 10 June 2008, <http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/online-encyclopedias-put-to-the-test/2005/12/14/1134500913345.html>.
Hickman, M & Roberts, G 2006, Wikipedia under the microscope over accuracy, The Independent, viewed 10 June 2008, <http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/wikipedia-under-the-microscope-over-accuracy-466444.html>.
Pearsall, TE 1997, The Elements of Technical Writing, Allyn & Bacon, USA.
Seelye, KQ 2005, A Little Sleuthing Unmasks Writer of Wikipedia Prank, The New York Times, viewed 11 June 2008, <http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/business/media/11web.html>.
Terdiman, D 2005, Study: Wikipedia as accurate as Britannica, CNET News, viewed 10 June 2008, <http://news.cnet.com/Study-Wikipedia-as-accurate-as-Britannica/2100-1038_3-5997332.html?tag=news.1>.
Defamation Revealed
Freedom with Responsibility
(Source: United Nations)
The freedom of speech or expression is one of the many basic human rights outlined by the United Nations under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Article 19 of the Declaration states that ‘Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers’ (Universal 1998).
Article 19 of the Declaration states that ‘Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers’ (Universal 1998).
The traditional means utilised by people to express their thoughts have been the media. The advent of the Internet, however, has created a novel and perhaps a freer medium for people to express their thoughts.
Some might even go to the extent of saying that the time has at last come for absolute freedom of speech. Nevertheless, freedom of speech or any form of freedom is never absolute. And it is an error to conclude that the Internet is an unregulated platform for one to say whatever they want.
Some might even go to the extent of saying that the time has at last come for absolute freedom of speech. Nevertheless, freedom of speech or any form of freedom is never absolute. And it is an error to conclude that the Internet is an unregulated platform for one to say whatever they want.
What Mr Najib Says
(Source: Bernama)
The Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, was reported by The Star (8 May 2008, p.3) saying that although the Government has no plans to put shackles around bloggers and Internet users, edicts vis-à-vis libel, sedition and defamation still exists. He said ‘“Just because you operate in cyberspace does not mean that you are absolved from having to comply with the nation’s laws,”’ (The Star).
(Source: Wikipedia)
Mr Najib said this in reference to Raja Petra Raja Kamaruddin, editor of Malaysia Today, who was apprehended under the Sedition Act for an article posted on his site that implicated Mr Najib and his wife to the murder of a Mongolian woman.
The Photomontage
Another case where someone posted something defamatory in nature in reference to Mr Najib was when Tian Chua, a member of the Opposition parry, posted a photomontage of Mr Najib, Miss Altantuya Shaariibuu (the Mongolian woman) and Abdul Razak Baginda.
(Source: Tian Chua)
The photomontage, posted over his blog (tianchua.net), depicted the three of them having a dinner at a European restaurant. He posted this with the allegation that Mr Najib knew Miss Shaariibuu prior to her murder.
According to Sims (2003, p.53), ‘language and visuals are powerful tools of communications.’ Therefore, the utilisation of the photomontage and the texts following it by Tian Chua fortifies his allegation, despite being untrue.
A reader, who is not familiar with photomontages or the magic of Photoshop, would actually fall into the trap made by Tian Chua. Sims (2003, p.53) also asserted that a writer should ‘avoid creating false impressions that make readers think that conditions exist when they don’t.’
Communications and Multimedia Act 1998
In fact, Section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 of Malaysia states that:
(1) A person who — … (b) initiates a communication using any applications service … with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass any person at any number or electronic address, commits an offence.’ (Msc.com.my 2004).
It is true contents provided by the Internet, or the alternative media to be precise, are information one would not usually find published by the main stream media. And it is also true that some of them have been proven to be true.
However, it is immoral and unethical to post articles which may defame a person. Moreover, it is unscrupulous to publish something which is untrue or merely conjectural in nature.
Not only that, the existing laws pertaining to sedition and defamation must be abided by bloggers and Internet users alike.
References
Msc.com.my 2004, Section 233. Improper use of network facilities or network service, etc., viewed 7 June 2008, < http://www.msc.com.my/cyberlaws/act_communications.asp>.
Sims, BR 2003, Technical Communication for Readers and Writers, 2nd edn, Houghton Mifflin Company, USA.
The Star 2008, ‘Bloggers not immune to the law, says Najib’, 8 May, p.3.
UN.org, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, viewed 8 June 2008, < http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html>.
Of Flickr & Facebook
Violation of Privacy
Humans are nothing but sociable creatures and as sociable as we are, we like to share the moments in our lives, the happiness, the sadness, the sorrow, with others. We did this with pictograms and cave drawings eons ago. Now we do it with photographs, using the World Wide Web.
A renowned website for photo-sharing and photo-management is Flickr.com. This website intends to ‘help people make their content available to the people who matter to them … to enable new ways of organizing photos and video …’ (About 2008).
However, the borderless nature of the Internet has provided unlawful or, to be a little exaggerative, illegal avenues for certain parties to use these picture posted by millions of people from around the world for their own benefits.
Source: Virgin Mobile
The Australian (Townend 2007) reported that Virgin Mobile, a cellular phone provider, violated ‘moral rights’ in that the company used photographs posted by people on Flickr.com for their advertising campaign, a national campaign at that, without the legal consent from the owners of the images.
Not only that, Virgin Mobile inserted ‘provocative captions’ (Townend 2007) together with the images! One such case was when a photograph of Alison Chang was used ‘under the slogan Dump Your Pen Friend’ (Townend 2007). She said ‘It is definitely insulting to myself.’ (Townend 2007).
(Source: Flickrgate)
Simon Longstaff, executive director of St James Ethics Centre said Virgin Mobile ‘might have breached “key moral rights.”’ (Townend 2007). The issue that can be identified from this example is that of the infringement of basic human rights, in this case, privacy.
Chapman & Dhillon (cited in Dhillon 2002, p.76) argued ‘… since the Internet has come into common use, the question now comes before us … "Are we still afforded the same rights to privacy as traditionally held?"’.
Obviously, the answer is no, or at least when the case of Virgin Mobile is taken into consideration. It was utterly unwarranted for Virgin Mobile to utilise personal photographs posted on Flickr for their national campaign and placed derogatory captions under them.
Another such incident was reported by BBC News where a legal complaint was filed against Facebook by a Canadian privacy group, “accusing it of violating privacy laws … The complaint … states that Facebook collects sensitive information about its users and shares it without their permission’ (Shiels 2008).
This claim may or may not be true as it is simply an allegation made by the group. However, it does raise some grave questions. Can we truly protect ourselves or our privacy when we use the Internet? Can we be sure that our pictures are not being used for illicit purposes?
Personally, I have not used Flickr to post or share any of my photographs because I think personal pictures should only be shared with your closest of kin and not the entire world.
This has also curbed any future occurrences whereby my images may be exploited under a slogan which might say “The Type of Guy You Should Not Date”.
References
About Flickr 2008, Flickr.com, viewed 8 June 2008, <http://flickr.com/about/
Dhillon, G 2002, Social Responsibility In The Information Age: Issues and controversies, Idea Group Inc (IGI), USA.
Shiels, M 2008, Facebook “violates privacy laws”, BBC News, viewed 4 June 2008, <<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7428833.stm>.
Townend, J 2007, Virgin “in the wrong” on ad rights, The Australian Online, viewed 4 June 2008, <http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,22115934-15306,00.html#>.
Wordpress.com 2007, Flickrgate, viewed 4 June 2008, <http://katiechatfield.wordpress.com/2007/07/25/virgin-mobile-flickr-lawsuit-flickrgate/>.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
The Blogging Phenomenon (II)
Classification of blogs
As with anything that is associated with technology and the Internet, weblogs or blogs, do not take one particular or predetermined form. Actually, blogs, like many other things in the World Wide Web, are multifaceted.
The types of blogs vary and are as distinctive as the people who choose to publish them. According to Technorati.com (2008), there are six major categories of blogs, namely:
(a) blogs pertaining to entertainment;
(b) technology;
(c) business;
(d) politics;
(e) lifestyle
These major categories branch into sub-categories which adds up to 40 or so sub-categories. For example, under the category of lifestyle alone there are 11 sub-categories:
· Architecture
· Art
· Autos
· Fashion
· Food and Wine
· Health and Fitness
· Home and Garden
· Literature
· Parenting
· Pets
· Travel
Notwithstanding the categorisation, blogs are not as easily identifiable as people deem. A plethora of blogs nowadays are a fusion of the various categories.
Galvanisation
Blogs now come in a package so to speak where a personal journal, videos, political discussion, links and so on abide in the same plateau. I would usually consider the topic of a blog before actually reading it. The subject matter of a blog, more than anything else, or at least for me, is the most significant.
Nevertheless, it would be a fatal mistake to conclude that the galvanisation of various elements into one single blog is detrimental to its purpose.
In fact, this creates interactivity in a blog and ‘interactivity is highly desirable’ (Li 2006, p. ). Li (2006, p.78) also added that ‘More choices to readers may indicate the power on the readers’ side and earn a higher efficiency score.’
Virtual Connection
It is not uncommon for people with similar interests to form a club. Likewise, an online or virtual community is a group of people with common interests and practices who communicate … in an organised way using the Internet … through a common location or mechanism.’ (Averweg & Leaning 2007).
A blogging community is simply a virtual community created by bloggers from around the world. As there are various book clubs so are there various blogging communities such as MyBlogLog, BeanRocket Blogging Communities and BlogCatalog to name a few.
The two pictures above are that of the Time magazine. Picture (a) is the homepage of the online version of the magazine while Picture (b) is the front page of the magazine.
A reader is first “attacked” for want of a better word by the cover or front page of the magazine. This cover page has to be arresting and magnetic or in other words it has to be highly salient.
According to Kress & van Leeuwen (2006, p.210), salience is a feature or some features of an element that makes it arresting or the ‘degree to which an element draws attention to itself’.
Therefore, the design has to be in such a way that it sort of glares at a reader and draws their attention. The picture has to be big and colourful. Walsh said that responses in an audience are usually achieved by the choices of color, size, angle and so on. She called this ‘visual grammar.’ (Walsh 2006).
However, one cannot do that in web design, that is, one cannot place glaring pictures in a site because it would not be easy on the eye. Besides that, in web design, links to other articles are also included, something which cannot be done in print.
Reference
Kress, G & van Leeuwen, T 2006, Reading Images: Grammar of Visual Design, Routledge, London.
Nielsen, J 2006, F-Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content, Useit.com, viewed 29 April 2008, < http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html>.
Nielsen, J 1997, Be Succinct! (Writing for the Web), Useit.com, viewed 29 April 2008, <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9703b.html>.
Nielsen, J 1997, How Users Read on the Web, Useit.com, viewed 29 April 2008, < http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9710a.html>.
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.
Advancement + Internet = New trends
The advancement and rapidity of technology has given rise to novel forms of media publishing including new types of blogs. The emergence of these new “trends” is the testament to the popularity of blogs. Some of the new forms of blogs include:
(a) Moblogs
(b) Splogs
(c) Vlogs
(d) Microblogs
(e) Miniblogs
The prevalence of Vlogs and Moblogs can be accounted to multimodality which according to Walsh (2006, p.24) is the incorporation of ‘spoken or written language, still or moving images … and may incorporate music and sound’. IntuiLab (2008) reported that ‘users confirmed their preference for multimodal interfaces as against unimodal interfaces’.
Splogs are the new type of blogs, if they can be called blogs. It would be a crime, truth be told, to say that splogs are blogs. ‘A splog (spam blog) is a fake blog created solely to promote affiliated Web sites, with the intent of skewing search results and artificially boosting traffic.’ (Splog 2006).
This brings to light the ethical issues that arise because of the existence of these new forms of media. Creating fake blogs with the intention to spam Internet users is ethically wrong. Besides that, with vlogs, such as Youtube, copyright infringement can and had occurred. People can now post clips from movies and even song clips without any authorisation.
Besides new forms of blogs, there are also other new forms of media publishing. Print newspapers, magazines and even books are now all available online. But even with these media, ethical issues arise.
The Brian Effect
A good example to illustrate this point is the Abu Ghraib prison pictures. Brian Walski, a photojournalist of Los Angeles Times, digitally manipulated several pictures he captured so that they appeared as something different altogether (Bersak 2006).
What happened was that he combined two different pictures digitally and produced a fake picture which was published in many publications.
For the whole story on Brian Walski and the scandal thereafter, click here - < http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/photo/essays/vanRiper/030409.htm>.
For a similar story of digital manipulation of pictures of war, click here - < http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5254838.stm> or here < http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13165165/>.
Reference
Bersak, DR 2006, Ethics In Photojournalism: Past, Present, and Future, School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, viewed 30 April 2008, <http://web.mit.edu/drb/Public/PhotoThesis/>.
IntuiLab.com, Multimodality, viewed 1 May 2008, < http://www.intuilab.com/presentation/en/301-multimodalite.html>.
Riper, FV 2006, Manipulating Truth, Losing Credibility, Washington Post, viewed 30 April 2008, < http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/photo/essays/vanRiper/030409.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.
Whatis.com 2006, Splog, viewed 29 April 2008, <http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci1137059,00.html>.
As with anything that is associated with technology and the Internet, weblogs or blogs, do not take one particular or predetermined form. Actually, blogs, like many other things in the World Wide Web, are multifaceted.
The types of blogs vary and are as distinctive as the people who choose to publish them. According to Technorati.com (2008), there are six major categories of blogs, namely:
(a) blogs pertaining to entertainment;
(b) technology;
(c) business;
(d) politics;
(e) lifestyle
These major categories branch into sub-categories which adds up to 40 or so sub-categories. For example, under the category of lifestyle alone there are 11 sub-categories:
· Architecture
· Art
· Autos
· Fashion
· Food and Wine
· Health and Fitness
· Home and Garden
· Literature
· Parenting
· Pets
· Travel
Notwithstanding the categorisation, blogs are not as easily identifiable as people deem. A plethora of blogs nowadays are a fusion of the various categories.
Galvanisation
Blogs now come in a package so to speak where a personal journal, videos, political discussion, links and so on abide in the same plateau. I would usually consider the topic of a blog before actually reading it. The subject matter of a blog, more than anything else, or at least for me, is the most significant.
Nevertheless, it would be a fatal mistake to conclude that the galvanisation of various elements into one single blog is detrimental to its purpose.
In fact, this creates interactivity in a blog and ‘interactivity is highly desirable’ (Li 2006, p. ). Li (2006, p.78) also added that ‘More choices to readers may indicate the power on the readers’ side and earn a higher efficiency score.’
Virtual Connection
It is not uncommon for people with similar interests to form a club. Likewise, an online or virtual community is a group of people with common interests and practices who communicate … in an organised way using the Internet … through a common location or mechanism.’ (Averweg & Leaning 2007).
A blogging community is simply a virtual community created by bloggers from around the world. As there are various book clubs so are there various blogging communities such as MyBlogLog, BeanRocket Blogging Communities and BlogCatalog to name a few.
What these blogging communities do is that they connect various blogs and bloggers to other bloggers. For example, MyBlogLog ‘enables readers of Web pages to leave information about themselves, building a social network among fans of such things as … MySpace pages, commercial Web publications, or personal blogs.’ (Hardy 2007).
How I would create a blogging community via my blog is by creating a comment section and by providing links to other credible blogs on the sidebar.
Reference
Averweg, UR & Leaning, M 2007, Are ‘Virtual Communities’ Virtual?, The Southern Africa Institute of Management Services, viewed 29 April 2008, < http://www.mtm-association.org.za/Are%20Virtual%20Communities%20Virtual.pdf>.
Blog directory 2008, Technorati, viewed 27 April 2008, < http://technorati.com/blogs/directory>.
Hardy, Q 2007, Yahoo! Snaps Up Mybloglog.com, Forbes.com, viewed 29 April 2008, < <http://www.forbes.com/markets/commodities/2007/01/09/yahoo-mybloglog-web-tech-media-cx_0109ces-blog.html>.
Li, X (eds) 2006, Internet Newspapers: The Making of a Mainstream Medium, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, USA.
Print Design versus Web Design
Designing for print and designing for a web is as different as water and earth. But the problem is that some designers, especially Web designers, get the two mixed up and end up designing something unattractive and render their site futile.
In print, a reader reads from left to tight or right to left considering their cultural background. That is, ‘reading is linear …’ (Kress & van Leeuwen 2006, p.178).
In web, conversely, a reader does not read linearly as is the traditional way of reading but they read in the F-pattern. A reader usually reads ‘in a horizontal movement … Next, users move down the page a bit and then read across in a second horizontal movement … Finally, users scan the content's left side in a vertical movement.’ (Nielsen 2006).
Therefore, when designing for web, the content should not be flooded with information. Nielsen (1997) said that ‘People rarely read Web pages word by word ….’. He also said that ‘Reading from computer screens is about 25% slower than reading from paper.’ (Nielsen 1997).
Time vs Time
Picture (a) (Time.com/Time 2008)
Picture (b) (Time.com/Time 2008)
The two pictures above are that of the Time magazine. Picture (a) is the homepage of the online version of the magazine while Picture (b) is the front page of the magazine.
A reader is first “attacked” for want of a better word by the cover or front page of the magazine. This cover page has to be arresting and magnetic or in other words it has to be highly salient.
According to Kress & van Leeuwen (2006, p.210), salience is a feature or some features of an element that makes it arresting or the ‘degree to which an element draws attention to itself’.
Therefore, the design has to be in such a way that it sort of glares at a reader and draws their attention. The picture has to be big and colourful. Walsh said that responses in an audience are usually achieved by the choices of color, size, angle and so on. She called this ‘visual grammar.’ (Walsh 2006).
However, one cannot do that in web design, that is, one cannot place glaring pictures in a site because it would not be easy on the eye. Besides that, in web design, links to other articles are also included, something which cannot be done in print.
Reference
Kress, G & van Leeuwen, T 2006, Reading Images: Grammar of Visual Design, Routledge, London.
Nielsen, J 2006, F-Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content, Useit.com, viewed 29 April 2008, < http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html>.
Nielsen, J 1997, Be Succinct! (Writing for the Web), Useit.com, viewed 29 April 2008, <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9703b.html>.
Nielsen, J 1997, How Users Read on the Web, Useit.com, viewed 29 April 2008, < http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9710a.html>.
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.
Advancement + Internet = New trends
The advancement and rapidity of technology has given rise to novel forms of media publishing including new types of blogs. The emergence of these new “trends” is the testament to the popularity of blogs. Some of the new forms of blogs include:
(a) Moblogs
(b) Splogs
(c) Vlogs
(d) Microblogs
(e) Miniblogs
The prevalence of Vlogs and Moblogs can be accounted to multimodality which according to Walsh (2006, p.24) is the incorporation of ‘spoken or written language, still or moving images … and may incorporate music and sound’. IntuiLab (2008) reported that ‘users confirmed their preference for multimodal interfaces as against unimodal interfaces’.
Splogs are the new type of blogs, if they can be called blogs. It would be a crime, truth be told, to say that splogs are blogs. ‘A splog (spam blog) is a fake blog created solely to promote affiliated Web sites, with the intent of skewing search results and artificially boosting traffic.’ (Splog 2006).
Besides new forms of blogs, there are also other new forms of media publishing. Print newspapers, magazines and even books are now all available online. But even with these media, ethical issues arise.
The Brian Effect
A good example to illustrate this point is the Abu Ghraib prison pictures. Brian Walski, a photojournalist of Los Angeles Times, digitally manipulated several pictures he captured so that they appeared as something different altogether (Bersak 2006).
What happened was that he combined two different pictures digitally and produced a fake picture which was published in many publications.
+
=
Digital Manipulation (Riper 2006)
For the whole story on Brian Walski and the scandal thereafter, click here - < http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/photo/essays/vanRiper/030409.htm>.
For a similar story of digital manipulation of pictures of war, click here - < http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5254838.stm> or here < http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13165165/>.
Reference
Bersak, DR 2006, Ethics In Photojournalism: Past, Present, and Future, School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, viewed 30 April 2008, <http://web.mit.edu/drb/Public/PhotoThesis/>.
IntuiLab.com, Multimodality, viewed 1 May 2008, < http://www.intuilab.com/presentation/en/301-multimodalite.html>.
Riper, FV 2006, Manipulating Truth, Losing Credibility, Washington Post, viewed 30 April 2008, < http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/photo/essays/vanRiper/030409.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.
Whatis.com 2006, Splog, viewed 29 April 2008, <http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci1137059,00.html>.
The Blogging Phenomenon (I)
Blogs as current phenomenon
According to Technorati.com (2008), they are presently tracing 112.8 million blogs.
They also said that according to their current data, more than 175, 000 blogs are created every day and ‘over 18 updates a second’ (About 2008). As any form of writing platform, there are certain trends that come into the picture where blogs are concerned. In Malaysia, political blogs are very pervasive. Some of the famous political blogs in Malaysia are:
(a) Screenshots
(b) Rocky’s Bru
(c) Lim Kit Siang
(d) Kickdefella
(e)The Scribe A Kadir Jasin
(f)Susan Loone
(g)RantingbyMM
(h)Anwar Ibrahim
(i)Aisehman.org
According to Microsoft.com (2006), 48 % of bloggers in Malaysia post entries about their perception if the ‘world around them’ and ‘64% of bloggers are women’.
However, 49% said they blog as a means to keep up with friends and family’ (Microsoft 2006). Interestingly, IT News Online (2006) reported that dominant bloggers in India are men, accounting for 76 % of its bloggers.
Microsoft.com 2008, Women Rule in Malaysian Blogosphere, viewed 9 April 2008, <http://www.microsoft.com/malaysia/press/archive2006/linkpage4337.mspx>.
According to Technorati.com (2008), they are presently tracing 112.8 million blogs.
They also said that according to their current data, more than 175, 000 blogs are created every day and ‘over 18 updates a second’ (About 2008). As any form of writing platform, there are certain trends that come into the picture where blogs are concerned. In Malaysia, political blogs are very pervasive. Some of the famous political blogs in Malaysia are:
(a) Screenshots
(b) Rocky’s Bru
(c) Lim Kit Siang
(d) Kickdefella
(e)The Scribe A Kadir Jasin
(f)Susan Loone
(g)RantingbyMM
(h)Anwar Ibrahim
(i)Aisehman.org
According to Microsoft.com (2006), 48 % of bloggers in Malaysia post entries about their perception if the ‘world around them’ and ‘64% of bloggers are women’.
However, 49% said they blog as a means to keep up with friends and family’ (Microsoft 2006). Interestingly, IT News Online (2006) reported that dominant bloggers in India are men, accounting for 76 % of its bloggers.
(jorgetutor.com 2004)
In Europe, however, blogging is not as voracious as in Asia and America. Brook (2006) reported that somewhat 30 % of people in Britain had ‘never heard of blogs’ and surprisingly the readers who would actually visit blogs account for only 10 %. Nevertheless, the blogging phenomenon is picking up its pace in Europe recently.
Mackenzie (2006) reported that ‘blogs are becoming an increasingly important part of political life in … Europe … with more than a quarter of readers of the websites spurred to political or civic action.’
Mackenzie (2006) reported that ‘blogs are becoming an increasingly important part of political life in … Europe … with more than a quarter of readers of the websites spurred to political or civic action.’
(blogstorm.co.uk )
She also said that journal-like blogs are more popular in Europe, ‘accounting for 43 per cent of the top blogs in Italy and 30 per cent in Europe’ (Mackenzie 2006), although blogs on technology, business and politics are dominant.
Blogs have proven to be very beneficial to the public at large. With the emergence of many political blogs, the people of Malaysia are being well educated about their Government and get to hear all sides of the story since the mainstream media in Malaysia does not really write about the Opposition.
Besides that, social blogs allow family members and friends to keep in touch with one another. As for business blogs and technological blogs, Malaysian can keep abreast with current developments and issues in the business and technology arena.
Reference
About Us 2008, Technorati.com, viewed 27 April 2008, <http://technorati.com/about/>.
Brook, S 2006, Blogs struggle to impress in UK, Guardian, viewed 30 April 2008, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2006/jun/20/pressandpublishing.newmedia>.
ITNewsOnline.com 2006, MSN, Windows Live Release 'Blogging India: A Windows Live Report', viewed 1 May 2008, <http://www.itnewsonline.com/showstory.php?storyid=6905&scatid=6&contid=1>.
Mackenzie, K 2006, European bloggers find their voice, Financial Times, viewed 1 May 2008, ,<http://search.ft.com/ftArticle?queryText=European+bloggers+find+their+voice&y=1&aje=true&x=9&id=061010001665&ct=0>.
Blogs have proven to be very beneficial to the public at large. With the emergence of many political blogs, the people of Malaysia are being well educated about their Government and get to hear all sides of the story since the mainstream media in Malaysia does not really write about the Opposition.
Besides that, social blogs allow family members and friends to keep in touch with one another. As for business blogs and technological blogs, Malaysian can keep abreast with current developments and issues in the business and technology arena.
Reference
About Us 2008, Technorati.com, viewed 27 April 2008, <http://technorati.com/about/>.
Brook, S 2006, Blogs struggle to impress in UK, Guardian, viewed 30 April 2008, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2006/jun/20/pressandpublishing.newmedia>.
ITNewsOnline.com 2006, MSN, Windows Live Release 'Blogging India: A Windows Live Report', viewed 1 May 2008, <http://www.itnewsonline.com/showstory.php?storyid=6905&scatid=6&contid=1>.
Mackenzie, K 2006, European bloggers find their voice, Financial Times, viewed 1 May 2008, ,<http://search.ft.com/ftArticle?queryText=European+bloggers+find+their+voice&y=1&aje=true&x=9&id=061010001665&ct=0>.
Microsoft.com 2008, Women Rule in Malaysian Blogosphere, viewed 9 April 2008, <http://www.microsoft.com/malaysia/press/archive2006/linkpage4337.mspx>.
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