REFLECTION

Publication and design fields are such very dynamic and innovative fields in which the combinations between linguistic and visual components. As argued by Kress and van Leeuwen (2006), each mode of semiotic system has its own potential for meaning-making and specific social valuation in particular social context. Each kind of representational modes cannot be held separately because they support each other and considers as an autonomous communicational resources in culture practice and communicative behaviors.

Furthermore, Schriver (1997) indicated that beside the harmony of semiotic feature, a successful document also needs to mainly base on the ideology, cultural background, audience’s belief and experience so that it is able to communicate with the audience effectually.

 Moreover, the writers have to carefully pay attention to the sources they are going to use as references in order that the issues of plagiarism, defamation and copy right infringement are prevented from occurring.

References list:

1.                   Kress, G & van Leeuwen, T 2006, ‘Chapter 1: The semiotic landscape: language and visual communication’, in Reading images, Taylor and Francis Group, New York.

2.                  Schriver, KA 1997, Dynamics in document design: creating texts for readers, Wiley Computer Pub, New York

MULTIMODALITY: NEW FORMS OF JOURNALISM.

In the era of technological development, the flow of information is shared not only with a fast pace but also by a various methods of presenting: newspapers, radio broadcasts, cable and satellite television, social networks and so on. As a veteran reporter who had witnessed and observed another earthquake of Japan in 1995, Dorian Benkoil (2011) makes a comparison of the ways by which details about the disaster is conveyed in the past and contemporary society in the article titled ‘How Social Media, Internet Changed Experience of Japan Disaster’.

In 1995, when an earthquake devastated Kobe, a port city of Japan, the information was mainly conveyed the major news conferences held by agencies and government officials who were reluctant to say anything meaningful about the frustration of victims, the rising death count... If the media outlets want to raise information from the region, they need to send their own reporters and photographers to the area for long time to get exactly what has happened. However, today when everybody seems to have a camera-equipped cell phone, the process of making news is much easier than ever. As argued by Wilcox and Cameron (2006), information sometimes is not really up-to-the-minute by the nature of printed and broadcasted programs which take time to be prepared and edited. In this situation, the advantages of the Internet would be used completely to meet the two basic human needs: to gain understanding in a time of tragedy and to share that information (Craig 2005). Nowadays, most of the publications have their own webpage with many different categories from news, video, radio online to discussion rooms, blogs in which they can update the details regularly about an episode which attracts sheer amplitude of attention. At the perspective of personal ‘journalist’, people usually use the social media such as Youtube, Facbook, Twitter, and Foursquare as a method of keeping in touch with the others and post noticeable events so that the news is always brought up to date constantly.

It is clear to see that everybody is able to become a journalist with just some basic tools: a camera and the Internet connection. Thanks to the evolution of technology and the modern media techniques which make even the smallest action get worldwide attention, people are getting to a principle of democracy as information is presented on the basis of free exchange for every member of society without any restriction.

References list:

1.       Benkoil, D 2011, How Social Media, Internet Changed Experience of Japan Disaster, last viewed 2nd June 2011, <http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2011/03/how-social-media-internet-changed-experience-of-japan-disaster-074.html>.

2.  Craig, R 2006, Online Journalism: reporting, writing and editing for new media, Thomson, Australia.

3.    Wilcox, D & Cameron, G 2006, Public relations strategies and tactics, 8^th edn, Pearson, Boston.

SOCIAL MEDIA: NEW PLATFORM, NEW DEFINITION

As stated by Schirato (2010), together with the first three estates of a country namely executive, judiciary, and military, the media is considered as an important component of society. The notion of the concept is that the media plays a key role in maintaining the flow of information in the public sphere where people are free to interact with society and to participate in processes of political making decisions which affect their lives significantly. However, there are many scholars and experts argue that the media has not met its role as the Fourth Estate. Particularly, Stanley Cohen (2002) indicates any phenomenon which is put in the limelight of either local or international attentions is a result of a corporation between the exaggeration of the media and the viewpoints of interest groups.

When the mainstream media is seen as not fulfilling its function, another form of new media is obviously necessary for an implementation of public debate. Therefore, the emergence of the Internet and its product, social media, are warmly welcome by everybody all over the world and are recognized as a revolution in archiving a truly freedom of speech. With the advantage of providing a stable platform for people to express their opinions and ideas freely, network communication has become a pivotal community. No matter where they are staying, no matter which color their skin is, as long as they share the same interests and belief, they are able to connect each other tightly by virtue of such a remarkable advantage of the new media. Let’s take a look at the situation of Tunisia and Egypt as a typical illustration of social media’s strength. Wael Ghonim (cited by The Star Publications 2011), the Google executive and cyberactivist who emerged as a leader of the anti-government protests in Egypt, say that network communication played as a curial position in the events... without Facebook, without You Tube, without Twitter, without Google, this would have never happened.

Generally, social media and its advantages are setting a new standard for the practice of the conventional media in order to accomplish the duty of pioneers who accelerate the true space of public sphere.

References list:

1.       Cohen, S 2002, Folk Devils and Moral Panics, Routledge, London.

2.      Schirato, T 2010, Understanding media studies, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne.

3.      The Star Publications 2011, Social media, cellphone video fuel Arab protest, lasted view on 22^nd May 2011, <http://techcentral.my/news/story.aspx?file=/2011/2/28/it_news/20110228100840&sec=IT_News>.

ETHICAL PUBLISHING PRINCIPLES, PLAGIARISM; COPYRIGHT & REGULATIONS

In the article titled ‘Plagiarism: The Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V boom’ found in BBC Magazine (2011), by looking at the action of plagiarizing of the German Defence Minister, Colonel Gaddafi, which results in his resignation, the author(s) indicate(s) that the problem of plagiarism has become more serious than ever in the era of technology.

The article mainly mentions the advantage of the Internet which offers extremely useful searching tools such as Google, Bing, Yahoo… for Internet users to duplicate and to fabricate the other’s works. By changing the pronouns and nouns from singular to plural, or cutting off some parts of the speeches, the users has easily made other people’s researches become their own works. In this case, the experiences of teachers play as key roles in recognizing the cues of plagiarism by noticing sudden variety of voice used by students ‘from good language to bad, from academic tone to journalistic tone’. Besides, some detecting programs, for examples Turnitin and SafeAssign, are utilized to assess the level of similarity between student’s papers and the online databases, web pages, essays… by universities as a solution to cope with the global issue – plagiarism - which tends to increase significantly with access to digitized information in recent years (Park, cited by Sutherland-Smith 2008).

Moreover, as argued as Mark Lucas (BBC, ibid), plagiarism is not only a cancer in academic environment but also in journalism fields. For instance, a paragraph written by blogger Josh Marshall was used virtually word-by-word by the columnist of New York Times, Maureen Dowd without attribution. As an excuse by the journalist, she claimed it was an unintentional mistake as she just wrote about a story which she has heard from a friend. Therefore, journalists have to consider the principles of ethical authorship and publishing carefully whenever they start writing in order to avoid the same errors happening to the Pulitzer Prize winner, Maureen Dowd.

In relation to the principle of publishing, Annilee Game and Micheal West (2002) recommend that the authors should not submit the same or similar works which had been published elsewhere to other outlets. When the works of other people are lifted, either directly from the texts or paraphrasing, together with the ideas which were not conceived by the authors, the sources must be credited properly in the paper. Consequently, the situation of duplicate publications and plagiarism could be prevented from existing.

References list:

1.                   BBC Magazine 2011, Plagiarism: The Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V boom, last viewed 5th May 2011, < http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12613617 >.

2.                  Game, A & West, MA 2002, ‘Principles of Publishing’, The Psychologist, vol. 15, no. 3, pp. 126 – 129.

3.                  Sutherland-Smith, W 2008, Plagiarism the internet and student learning: improving academic integrity, Taylor and Francis, New York.

VISUALS & SITUATIONAL CONTEXT; ETHICAL PUBLISHING PRINCIPLES

In contemporary society, having a strong background of education provides a good platform for people to express their abilities, and share their own viewpoints with others. However, when a documental paper about on a particularly social issue from someone’s perspective, in order to reach its expected audience and gain the acceptance in public, it depends on various factors rather than the author’s owned creativities only.

The situation

In March 2011, the Berita Harian newspaper was troubled by a massive reaction from the public against its publication of the worst disasters of Japan. A series of strong earthquakes swept north-east Japan together with a 10 meter tsunami destroy buildings, vehicles and debris across swaths of farmland (McCurry & Branigan 2011). There are many major damages caused by the natural disasters in Japan, especially an explosion of Fukushima nuclear power plant which releases the risk of radioactive materials to the environment (BBC News 2011).

When all the communities all over the world pray and offer their sympathy for the loss of human and property of Japan, the cartoon which depicts the devastating tsunami and earthquake seems to be so distasteful and insensitive towards the Japanese (Pek Mei 2011). As a solution to soothe the indignation of the audience, the daily newspaper’s editor had to issue an apology over its publication with a sophistry: ‘We had no intention of poking fun at the disaster that has befallen the nation of Japan and its people. In fact, we greatly sympathize with their plight and share the sorrow of the Japanese people’.

The lesson

It is a valuable lesson for all of people who work in the publication industries, especially students who intend to pursuit designing documents as their future career. As indicated by Schrito and Yell (...), due to the nature of social semiotic system which has a range of potential meanings, document designers are required to comprehend the social context in which the potential meanings has a fundamental platform to express its actualization in real life situation.

Although the visual elements have their own advantage which is stated ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ (Schriver 1997), the application of such expressive power in a document would rely on a cognitive research about cultural knowledge and personal beliefs and attitudes in order that the document can present precisely what the authors/ writers try to convey, as well as communicate effectually with its audience.

References:

1.              BBC News 2011, Japan earthquake: Explosion at Fukushima nuclear plant, lasted viewed 5th June 2011, <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12720219>.

2.      McCurry, J & Branigan, T 2011, Powerful earthquakes hit Japan, The Guardian, lasted viewed 5th June 2011, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/11/japan-earthquake-miyagi-tsunami-warning>.

3.        Pek Mei, W 2011, Berita Harian issues public apology over tsunami cartoon, The Star, lasted viewed 5th June 2011, <http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/3/14/nation/8262608&sec=nation >.

4.    Schirato, T & Yell, S 2000, ‘Chapter 3: Communication as social practice’, in Communication and cultural literacy: an introduction, Allen & Unwin, Australia (UNISA electronic library).

5.         Schriver, KA 1997, Dynamics in document design: creating texts for readers, Wiley Computer Pub, New York.

NEW FORMS OF MEDIA PUBLISHING

• From conventional journalism.

Broadcast TV is a truly 'push' medium as all the creative energy was assumed to be located at the hands of the producers, they have all rights to decide what content should to be published, create it and then push it down analogue or digital channels; and audiences which are assumed to consist of essentially passive recipients. (Naughton, 2006)

• To new forms of media.

In the digital age, internet has become familiar with all of us when it is covering increasingly from homes to offices. That is the reason why nowdays most of our sources of information are stored in the cyberspace which make them very easy to be accessed. According to Naughton (ibid.), unless you choose to use the information, nothing is able to force you to see what you do not want. In this case, the audiences are in charge of controlling the content, and it is a very important feature of the web – a pull medium. Opposite to the old media which is impacted too much by censorship, people involving in new media is freely to introduce and discuss whatever they are interested in. Furthermore, thanks to some sharing tools such as Photobucket and Youtube, users of these websites can uploaded photos and videos easily.

For example, when the facts which are considered as riskes to the goverment's reputation, they will obviously not be broadcasted or printed out; however, in the forum, in the dicussion board of a website, the problem could be "dissected" as deep as their members want untill they feel satisfied. That leads to the difficulty of keeping secrets for companies in the online world. If their service is sub-standard, then the propotion of being disseminated for the news will be very high on a blog or a posting to a newsgroup or email list. Therefore, in this situation, conventional PR news management techniques are ineffective. (Naughton, ibid.).

In conclusion, the internet and its application in new media publishing could be recognized as a cornerstone of democracy because of their significant influences towards our society.

References list:

1. Gideon Burton, 2009, Old media is a monologue, viewed 25 April 2011, http://www.flickr.com/photos/wakingtiger/3157621862/in/gallery-44291075@N02-72157622724867492/.
2. iQoncept, 2010, New Media vs. Old Media - The Battle is Won, viewed 25 April 2011, http://www.fotolia.com/id/17833675.
3. Naughton, John 2006, 'Blogging and the emerging media ecosystem', http://reuteursinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/about/discussion/blogging.html

BLOGGING COMMUNITIES - METHODS TO BUILD AND STRUCTURE

• Definition of a blogging community

"Blogging community" is a concept used to refer to a group of people connecting together with the purpose of sharing interests within the cyberspace. Anthony (2009) indicates a very basic defination of blogging Community is that it is exactly a Community where people have a sense of identity and belonging, and are welcoming to anyone who's interested in finding out more. The communities could be public or private and visible only to those who joined (White, 2006).

 

• How do you create a blogging community?

"Content is King", did you hear this term? This would apply strongly to websites and blogs. The main reason is because your blog focuses on a topic or on several topics that are of interest to them. There are several ways to do this. First choice, you can create your own content. Another way is to borrow quality content from another source such as EzineArticles.com and Youtube.

Blog readers don't just like to read. They enjoy interacting with blog writers, authors and experts. Therefore, it is a good idea to consider building blogs that encourage reader participation to express their own thoughts and opinions about their favorite topic.

People naturally are very interested to see what others have said in reply to their thoughts and opinions. You need to offer as many ways as possible for them to interact with your articles and your blog to make your blog more 'sticky'.

Encourage reader participation by allowing others to comment on articles you have written, and acknowledging their input by responding to their comments and opinions. Naturally, because of this bond, they would enjoy visiting your blog more compared to other blogs they don't have a connection with.

• Boing Boing – An example.

Boing Boing could be considered as a very successful Boundaried Communities – the term used by White. It offers a chance for members to create their own blogs after registering. Moreover, it has other tools such as discussion boards, social networking features (Facebook and Twitter), wikis and instant messaging built in. This leads to denser and faster possible internal connections, possibly community building.

References list:

1. Administrators, 25 January 2011, How To Create Blogging Community, viewed 25 April 2011, http://www.money-blogging.biz/580/how-to-create-blogging-community/
2. Anthony, 2009, What is a blogging community, The Travel Tart, viewed 25 April 2011, http://www.thetraveltart.com/what-is-a-blogging-community/.
3. Happy Mutants LLC, 2011, Boing Boing, viewed 25 April 2011, http://www.boingboing.net
4. White, N 2006, Blogs and community - launching a new paradigm for online community?, The Knowledge Tree, viewed 25 April 2011, http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2006/edition-11-editorial/blogs-and-community-%E2%80%93-launching-a-new-paradigm-for-online-community.

CLASSIFICATION OF BLOGS

Blogosphere is a huge space which appeals attandances of millions people every day. There are several criteria for us to base on such as blogger's goals, function of blog... in order to classify blogs into some certain catogories.

From blogger's purpose corner, according to Technorati, we can identify four type of bloggers as following:

Hobbyists –the backbone of the blogosphere, they blog just for fun, and do not report any income from their blog

Part-Timers – "blog to supplement their income" or "blog as part of their full time job,"

Corporates – "blog full-time for a company or organization"

Self-Employeds – "blog full time or occasionally for their own company or organization."

The percentages of contributing to blogoshpere of them is demonstrated by the diagram (Technorati 2010).

 

At the view of blogs' functions, there are nine type of blogs which could be recognized ((Australian Broadcasting Corporation 2008).

Pamphleteering blog is where an individual or a group of individuals put out a brief essay arguing a point, or expressing a strong point of view.

Digest Blog is just aggregating stuff. Basically they tend to point or to summarise material from mainstream media and other blogs.

Advocacy Blog tends to be pushing a particular point of view on a particular issue by a vested interest group.

Popular Mechanics blog is a fascinating collection of information on how to do stuff, with mechanics and how things worked.

Exhibition blog are usually maintained by craftspeople, artists, writers to bring their work to a wider audience.

Gatewatcher Blog keeps an eye on the media to evaluate how the media describes the facts and conveys them publicly.

Diary blog is a place for people to put snapshots with their family, bits of news and views about their personal lives up online.

Advertisement blog is a place for commercial companies flogging a product.

News blog breaks news and plays a role as a place where bloggers are beginning to attend media conferences and have representation in society and so on.

However, identifying unique types of blog is difficult because many blogs are combinations of style.

References list:

1. Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 25 September 2008, A taxonomy of blogs, viewed 25th April 2011, http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2008/2372882.htm
2. Jon Sobel, Technorati, 3 November 2010, State of the Blogosphere 2010, viewed 25 April 2011, http://technorati.com/blogging/article/state-of-the-blogosphere-2010-introduction/

BLOGS AS CURRENT PHENOMENON & BENEFITS OF BLOGGING TO THE COMMUNITY

Together with the development of technology, blogs are becoming more familiar with all parts of society from young pupils to senior citizens and from amateurs to professionals. It seems to be a hard mission to calculate exactly how many people having joined the population of blogging because the number of users is increasing significantly day-by-day.

The blogosphere has been heralded as a democratization of the public sphere because it can give a public voice to non-mainstream interest groups (Schirato, 2010, p.129). Additionally, the statement of Mark Penn (2009) which is "If journalists were the Fourth Estate, bloggers are becoming the Fifth Estate" has given a bigger emphasis on the role of blogging.

Starting as a discussion forum for progressive politics and new technologies, blog has now been applied to all aspects of life from family's commitment, friendships to fashion, medical treatment and so on. What started as a mere way of self-expression and a hobby is becoming an income resource and areas for businesses maximize their benefit. All of these things are able to show the usefulness of blogosphere within the new concept of our living space – global village.

Not only in Asia and Malaysia, but all over the world, mobile blogging has become an indispensable trend. When smart-phone and tablet are used widely, they have changed the way bloggers blog by encouraging short and spontaneous posts (agreed by 40% of bloggers) (Technorati 2010). Moreover, the statistic was issued on 3o November 2006 by Microsoft Organization shows that 64% of Malaysian bloggers are female and 74% of them are 25 years old and under. And in 2010, the trend still continues and the influence of women and mom bloggers is becoming increasingly evident, especially in brands' field as female bloggers usually blog to search and review for products.

References list:

1. Technorati, 3 November 2010, State of the Blogosphere 2010, viewed 25 April 2011, http://technorati.com/blogging/article/state-of-the-blogosphere-2010-introduction/
2. Mark Penn, The Wall Street Journal, 21 April 2009, America's Newest Profession: Bloggers for Hire, viewed 25 April 2011, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124026415808636575.html.
3. Microsoft Organization, 2006, Women Rule in Malaysian Blogosphere, viewed 30 April 2011, http://www.microsoft.com/malaysia/press/archive2006/linkpage4337.mspx
4. Schirato Tony, 2010, Understanding media studies, chapter 6, Media and the public sphere, South Melbourne : Oxford University Press.

PURPOSE

In the dynamic field of PUBLICATIONS, there are some features such as visual communication, linguistic section, format of a documents, graphic aids... need to be coordinated in a flexible way in order to publish successful documents by the designers, writers and even students in communication field.

DOCUMENT DESIGN

In the era of technology, there are several forms of a document to communicate with its readers such as printed texts, PowerPoint slides and so on. Therefore, the combination of such diversities and integration of both visual and linguistic feature is crucial for document designers to introduce successful products in the dynamic field of Publications.

As stated by Putnis Peter and Petelin Roslyn (1996), good writing has to be “readable” to the readers with a set of quality such as: interesting, legible, aesthetically attractive... Moreover, it also needs to give opportunities for its readers participating because they will bring their unique experience to the document, argued by Karen Schriver (2997). Therefore, writers have to put themselves at the positions of readers to know who they are, for examples experts or students, what they need, how they access the information... so that various strategies can be planned for each type of readers. Additionally, according to Reep Diana (2006), a flexibility of using a huge range of graphic aids, for instance diagrams, bar charts, pie charts, photographs; and format elements such as written cues, white space, color, typographic devices in the material could be appreciated to help readers understand more effectively.

Specifically, applying to PowerPoint slides, there are many criteria can be used to evaluate whether they are good presentations. First of all, a presentation has to be easy to read with standard typefaces like Times New Roman or Arial in a sufficient size. Second, it should contain only essential information and uses key phrase instead of sentences. Third, the simpler the background, the nicer the slide; so an efficient background used with a contrasting color of the text will give readers a pleasant feeling when they look at the screen. Fourth, a combination of photos, charts and graphs and even embedding digitized videos with text, will add variety and explain about the topic which are presented better. Finally, using transitions and animations will keep audiences interested in the presentation.

Just look at the slide for an example:

It is too wordy. The better way is using the key terms so that these can help presenters focus on what they going to talk and also help audiences stay on track with their presentation. Furthermore, the dark background is not encouraged because it gives audiences an unpleasant feeling when they want to get the information from the screen. In addition, the pictures chosen to produce in a slide are important as well. In the following picture, a presenter did not concern about the content in the flowchart which is “offensive” considered by some audiences.

Generally, a comprehension of what the audiences’ expectations are and how the documents can satisfy them basing on the fundamental theories is chief for writers/designers to produce a quality documents publicly.

Reference list:

1. Karen Schriver, 1997, “chapter 6: The interplay of words and pictures”, in Dynamics in document design: creating texts for readers, Wiley Computer Pub, New York, p.361-441.
2. Putnis, Peter and Petelin, Roslyn, 1996, Professional communication : principles and applications, Prentice Hall.
3. Reep, Diana C. 2006, ‘Chapter 6: Document Design,’ in Technical writing : principles, strategies, and readings, 6th ed., Pearson/ Longman, New York, p.133-172.
4. Wendy Russell, 10 Tips for Creating Successful Business Presentations, About.com, viewed 8 April 2011, http://presentationsoft.about.com/od/powerpointinbusiness/tp/bus_pres_tips.htm
5. Zane L Marquez , 2010, How to Make a Good PowerPoint Presentation, May 18, viewed 8 April 2011, http://ezinearticles.com/?How-to-Make-a-Good-PowerPoint-Presentation&id=4313178.