I shall end with Reflection...

In the process of creating Techblog, I experienced the distinct differences between a serious weblog and a personal blog. While writing for serious weblog, there are several things that cannot be overlooked or to be missed. To gain readers’ trust, it is essential to make sure that all the information provided in the weblog is credible, reliable and rational. Besides, topics of the posts should not be mixed. The topic range that I have chosen for this weblog is mainly about the media and technology issues. Jakob Nielsen (2005) states that, ‘The more focused your content, the more focused your readers.’ Mixed topics will probably cause confusion to the readers and they might just leave the blog. Lastly, we need to make sure that information and sources within the weblog are organised and the links have to be useful so as to make the readers’ reading paths easier. These are also the skills that we need to apply while writing for the blog.

In this weblog, interplay of prose, graphics and hyperlinks are all well designed. Thus, theories of document designing are applied throughout the process of creating this weblog. The placement of the posts is slightly more centralised compare to the other elements that are being placed at the side. The central elements are referred as Centre while the flanked elements are Margins (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 1996). Besides, the application of framing as a purpose to connect and disconnect the elements is obvious within the weblog. Information that falls under different categories like posts, profile, and list of blog archive is clearly segmented. Multimodal texts like written language, moving or still images (Walsh, M 2006) are included and some are framed within the weblog too.

Although blog is a platform that advocates freedom of speech, but still, as a good quality blogger, we need to act ethical while blogging. Filter of contents and topics need to be done cautiously so as to avoid any unnecessary copyright or defamation infringements. Lastly, stealing people’s words is equally offensive as stealing people’s properties. This appears to be the one last thing that has to be engraved on every blogger’s mind. Be ethical, be quality.



References

Kress, G & van Leeuwen, T 1998, ‘Front pages: (the critical) analysis of newspaper layout’, in Bell, A & Garrett, P (eds) 1998, Approaches to media discourse, Blackwell, Oxford, chapter 7, pp. 186-219.

Nielsen, J 2005, Weblog Usability : The Top Ten Design Mistakes, viewed on 2 November 2007,
<http://www.useit.com/alertbox/weblogs.html>

Walsh, M 2006, ‘textual shift’: examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts, Australian journal of language and literacy, vol.29, no.1, pp.24-37.

YouTube equals to freedom?

Recently, a mass communication student Wong Meng Chee (Namawee) who studies in Taiwan had caused a big stir with his Negarakuku rap video clip posted on YouTube. The six-minute long video clip on YouTube was claimed to have insulted and lowered the prestige of national anthem of Malaysia (The Star 2007). If Namawee did not apologise to the government, he would have been taken to the court and face the charges. YouTube is a good tool for anyone to be famous for 15 minutes or a million views, even a prairie whose five-second glare at the camera can make it popular (Ingram, M 2007). YouTube is such a miracle for everyone.



Founded in 2005, YouTube is a site where everyone can upload their videos and share the videos (YouTube 2007). Everyone can watch YouTube and everthing can be on YouTube. Perhaps that is the reason why Malaysian government banned Namawee’s video when they first discovered that it was posted on YouTube. Why is YouTube so popular?

Analysing the site, http://www.youtube.com/, the most eye-catching elements are the colourful images of plethora of clips. As stated by Jon Callow (1999), colours can create certain feelings for viewers as each colour has been associated with particular characteristic. Colours may attract the viewers to click on the certain clip. Moreover, the clips are segmented into different categories using frames. Framing which is a type of ‘visual grammar’ not only making the information set within the site more organised, it can also evoke responses (Walsh,M 2006). It is convenient for viewers to select their favourite clips from different categories.

I will usually type a topic in the ‘Search’ box provided on top of the page and all the clips related to the topic will be listed out instantly. It is very easy, fast, and convenient. I find it interesting, as YouTube is practising freedom of speech and of media. For Namawee’s case, Negarakuku has been posted on Youtube before it was banned. It proves that the media flow in between YouTube is free. For those who advocate free media, YouTube is a good tool.



References

Callow, J 1999, Image matters: visual texts in the classroom, Primary English Teaching Association, Marickville.

Ingram, M 2007, When a million hits won’t do it, viewed on 31 October 2007,
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071027.wyoutube27/BNStory/Technology/home

The Star Online, Student must face the law, Cabinet, however, accepts his apology, viewed on 31 October 2007,
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/8/17/nation/18614032&sec=nation


Walsh, M 2006, ‘textual shift’: examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts, Australian journal of language and literacy, vol.29, no.1, pp.24-37.

YouTube 2007, About YouTube, viewed on 31 October 2007,
http://www.youtube.com/t/about


YouTube 2007, Broadcast Yourself, viewed on 31 October 2007,
http://www.youtube.com/

How do you define blog?

Blog is a popular term nowadays. The origin of blog generated from the first online blogger Justin Hall. His home page of his documentary film morphed into online journal named ‘Web log’. And this is how ‘blog’ comes from (Conniff, M 2005). Pew Internet & American Life Project reports reflect that, there is one out of 20 people in U.S. owned a blog and one in six people are blog readers. (Conniff, M 2005) It is almost a mission impossible to have only one definition for the term ‘blog’ due to its constantly changing characteristics and different point of views from the people.

What makes blog a blog? It seems complicated. As there are many kinds of blog nowadays. Bloggers post photos, videos, audio, and some blogs even connects with other websites through hyperlinks. Within a website, it is said that, hyperlinks enable readers to choose their own reading pathway by clicking on the hyperlinks provided. (Walsh 2006) Is hyperlink a vital element within a blog? There are two extremes of view. According to Walsh (2006), hyperlinks make readers feel engaged and they can opt to get involved in certain topics or to remain in the same website whereas Calcanis thinks that ‘hypertext links to the world outside the blog’ (Calcanis in Conniff 2005). Schriver (1997, p.378) states that ‘links are made for jumping’. Readers might be attracted to go beyond the blog’s territory and never come back again. Hyperlink is a kind of distraction. But in other way, it helps the readers to gain more information so that they can apply it to the articles in the blog. Using too many hyperlinks is risky, but without it, there is no interactivity between the blogger and the readers.

Jeff Jarvis (in Conniff 2005) argues that blog is more about conversation than content. In other words, comments play a big part in a blog. It enables readers to voice out their opinion towards certain issues. ‘People go to blogs to read AND write, not just consume.’ (Arrington, M 2006) Undeniably, comments are painful sometimes, but they keep the writers honest. For example, Yahoo official blogs allow readers to leave their comments there, this direct user feedback mechanism is leading them to improvements and betterment. (Arrington, M 2006) A blog without a single comment is not credible. Furthermore, comments can make a blog more interesting and interactive.

I think blog is a successful transformation of written diary. Sharing thoughts with other people with the comments dropped by the readers makes blog a very interactive tool in communication. Furthermore, the hyperlinks, photos, videos that are being posted on the blog makes readers feel more engaged with the blogger. I believe that blog is a positive and healthy form of new communication tool.



References

Arrington, M 2006, What Is The Definition Of A Blog?, viewed on 30 October 2007,
http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/12/31/what-is-the-definition-of-a-blog/

Coniff, M 2005, Just what is a blog, anyway?, viewed on 30 October 2007,
http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/050929/

Schriver, KA 1997, Dynamics in document design: creating texts for readers, Wiley Computer Pub., New York, p.378.

Walsh, M 2006, ‘textual shift’: examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts, Australian journal of language and literacy, vol.29, no.1, pp.24-37.

Interpretation of emoticon

Nowadays, instant messaging services have become part of our life. The creation of emoticons is commonly used by computer mediated communication users. Emoticons are symbols which are known as proxies to replace our facial expressions. But are they universally recognised? We have to be clear that, internet crosses cultural boundaries. It reaches different countries and people. As stated by John Timmer (2007), different cultures interpret things differently, thus emoticons cannot be recognised universally as they carry cultural baggage.

Popular emoticons used by online community

Timmer (2007) compares the smiley used in Japan and US. In Japan, where emotional subduction is the norm, they emphasise more on the eyes than the mouth of the emoticons ^_^. Whereas for the American, where the clear emotional expression is the norm, they focus more on the mouth while interpreting the emoticons as it is more expressive :). It is also said that, it is impolite for Japanese women to show their teeth while smiling (DeVito 2002). Sometimes joking remarks which mistaken by the receiver as serious statement may cause big problems. (Adler & Rodman 2000, pg. 147) Thus, we may accidentally offend someone who misunderstands the meaning of your emoticon due to the cultural or gender differences. ‘Particular cultures provide particular trainings for readers’ (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 1998, p.201). Readers employ their cultural backgrounds and knowledge in the process of making meaning of the emoticons. So, emoticons are not always helpful, but fearful sometimes, that is when it causes conflicts between cultures. For personal experience, sometimes, while having an online chat with friends, the overloaded emoticons that appear in one sentence will not only strain our eyes but may also cause confusion and perhaps misinterpretion of the real meaning behind the sentence.

Yahoo is now sponsoring a student competition for ‘innovation in technology-assisted, person-to-person communication’, known as the Smiley Award (Rifkind 2007). They think that the existence of emoticons can provide betterment in communication. Schirato and Yell (1996) mentions that, ‘All texts, including jokes and riddles, carry elements, or traces, of context with them.’ The elements carry by the texts help to interpret more accurately than emoticons can do. There is not only one set of meaning for a emoticon as people may interpret it differently. Words are better tools to convey humour or emotions (Rifkind 2007), not necessarily emoticons.



References

Adler, RB & Rodman, G 2000, Understanding Human Communication, 7th edn. , Harcourt College Publishers, United States of America, pg. 147.

DeVito, JA 2002, Human Communication, 9th edn, Pearson, Boston, pg. 138.

Kress, G & van Leeuwen, T 1998, ‘Front pages: (the critical) analysis of newspaper layout’, in Bell, A & Garrett, P (eds) 1998, Approaches to media discourse, Blackwell, Oxford, chapter 7, pp. 186-219.

Schirato, T & Yell, S 1996, Communication and cultural literacy: An introduction, Allen and Unwin, St. Leonards NSW, pp. 110.

Timmer, J 2007, Emoticons carry cultural baggage, viewed on 31 October 2007,
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070514-emoticons-carry-cultural-baggage.html

Rifkind, H 2007, Is the emoticon something to be celebrated?, viewed on 31 October 2007, http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article2482425.ece

Impact of instant messaging on language

The birth of technology has changed our daily lives drastically. People seem to be very dependent on the technology. Due to the growing usage of instant messaging services such as Yahoo Messenger and Windows Live Messenger, it is now a pertinent issue for the teachers to figure out how these instant messaging services will affect students’ academic writing skills (O’Connor 2005). With IM, it enables users to interact with the people in their contact list. Moreover, they can get the reply in just a second or two. This is what makes IM a pop culture and a popular communication tool.

Example of the usage of conversational language

Instant messaging (IM) are now very popular among the society, especially the students. Instant messaging appears on the internet scene since November 1996, which is when Mirabilis introduced ICQ, the first instant messaging utility (Tyson & Cooper 2001).The informal language they use while sending instant message is said to be a kind of internet language. There are languages used under the purpose of facilitating or furthering a particular form of activity (Halliday & Hassan 1985, p.7). While chatting online through IM services, the field would be ‘a conversation carries on’, whereas tenor would most probably be both friends, while the mode would be a more conversational language. To let the readers feel engaged, informal or narrative form of affordances of the modes, play their role in interpreting the meanings (Walsh 2006). Thus, the language used here would be more friendly and informal.

As analysed by product-centred researchers, different genres have different textual features to typify them, like for instance, the format of a formal report (Putnis & Petelin 1996, p.231). It consists of measured length and content or even mechanical errors, grammars or language style. It is different from instant message which has no limitation in the format or language style used. Sometimes, short forms maybe used while typing instant messages too. Some students do not even know it is actually ‘y-o-u’ but not ‘u’ (O’Connor 2005). I personally think that the usage of abbreviation should not be practised too often as in some degree it will affect our wirting ability in academic essays. It is also undeniable that, typing instant messages is a kind of writing practice. Some people might be very alert about the differences between instant messaging and academic writing, but some people may get confused of that. So,for those who notice that instant messaging style of writing starts to appear on their academic paper, they need to be careful and try to practice good language even during instant messaging too.

Writing an academic essay and typing a conversation, the situation and the cultural contexts are different. Academic writing is formal while instant messaging is more to informal. Students must be aware of choosing the appropriate language while writing in different genre of documents.



References:

Halliday, MAK & Hasan, R 1985, Language, context and text : aspects of language in a social-semiotic perspective, Deakin University, Waurn Ponds, Vic, p.7.

O’Connor, A 2005, Instant Messaging: Friend or Foe of Student Writing?, viewed on 31 October 2007,
http://www.newhorizons.org/strategies/literacy/oconnor.htm

Putnis, P & Petelin, R 1996, Professional communication: principles and applications, Prentice Hall, Sydney, p. 231.

Tyson, J & Cooper, A 2001, How Instant Messaging Works, viewed on 31 October 2007,
http://communication.howstuffworks.com/instant-messaging1.htm

Walsh, M 2006, ‘textual shift’: examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts, Australian journal of language and literacy, vol.29, no.1, pp.24-37.

I shall start with Introduction...

-What does TechBlog offer you?

The chosen articles to be discussed in TechBlog are mainly based on the issues how new media affects our life and the society during these days. TechBlog is aimed to reach a younger group of readers because in my opinion, it is vital for them as part of the online community to realise what are the issues that new media has led in and how it creates impacts on us.

-Blogging, Blogging, Blogging

The term ‘blogging’ is not new to us nowadays. Recently, it has become a trend for people to own a blog. What is actually blogging? ‘Blog’ is a word that abbreviated from ‘weblog’ which stands for a website that maintain a progressing chronicle of information (WordPress 2007).

Blog actually morphed from the traditional diary. The difference is that, blogging is a way for us to share our thoughts and ideas with other people while diary is something that is more confidential. Through blogging, we may get comments from the readers too. Nowadays in Malaysia, many people have involved themselves in blogging. Statistics from Sabahan.com (2007) shows that, among the Malaysian Top 50 Bloggers, 28% of them write about personal things and those who write about politics and technology are respectively 16%.

As stated above, in this well developed technology era, people have transferred the words from their diaries to their blog. Bloggers express their feeling and thoughts in their own blogs. Besides, there are business corporations or professionals that join the blog stream to promote their products and to tell the readers more information about their companies too. Furthermore, for those who are far away from their family or friends, they can upload their recent photos or posts about themselves on the blog to show their faraway love ones. Personal blogging is not a bad thing as it can be a communication bridge among people to have better understanding of each other. Nevertheless, there are bloggers who blog on certain issues that they are interested in, for example about politics, entertainment, education and food too.

Jeff Ooi is a well known blogger who blogs about politic issues. This may be due to the restriction of the press in Malaysia, Jeff Ooi is using the blog as a tunnel to voice out his personal opinions and views. On the other hand, there have been many kinds of blogs nowadays, for instance video blogging (vlog) like YouTube and Metacafe where videos are used to convey message or insight within a blog (wiseGEEK 2007), moblog (mobile blog), sketchblog and Splog (spam blog).

- Online versus print

Obviously, online media has taken over the traditional print media. Walsh’s (2006) effort in comparing three set of documents (novel, picture book, internet site) has proved that an internet site which contains texts, animation, music, hyperlinks and video clips are multimodal whereas print media is said to be more monomodal based. Print media is only restricted to texts and images. Kress and Van Leeuwen’s (1996) three signifying systems: information value, salience and framing not only can be applied within print media’s layout but also on the internet site. Online media like blogs enable readers to choose their own reading path by using technological differences like frames, hyperlinks and menu bars (Walsh, 2006). Readers can click on the hyperlink to go into other site for more information about the specific term. This is the reason why online media like blogs are said to be more interactive than the diary which contains only words.

example of blog

example of traditional diary

Online media are now expanding by leaps and bounds. Undeniably, it has made our life easier and convenient. People are now so much depending on it. As a result, print media is no longer dominant. Online media is roaring.




References

Kress, G & van Leeuwen, T 1998, ‘Front pages: (the critical) analysis of newspaper layout’, in Bell, A & Garrett, P (eds) 1998, Approaches to media discourse, Blackwell, Oxford, chapter 7, pp. 186-219.

Sabahan.com 2007, 50 Most Influential Blogs in Malaysia, viewed on 31 Ocotber,
<http://www.sabahan.com/2007/02/06/50-most-influential-blogs-in-malaysia/>

Screenshots, 2007, Jeff 4 Malaysia, viewed on 31 October 2007,
<http://www.jeffooi.com/>

Walsh, M 2006, ‘textual shift’: examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts, Australian journal of language and literacy, vol.29, no.1, pp.24-37.

wiseGEEK 2007, What is vlogging?, viewed on 31 October 2007,
<http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-vlogging.htm>

WordPress 2007, Introduction to blogging, viewed on 31 Ocotber 2007,
< http://codex.wordpress.org/Introduction_to_Blogging>