Thursday, 7 June 2012

Time flies.

Can't believe its almost coming to an end. Now, I'd like to share my experience and lesson I've learned this whole semester. Throughout the long and tough weeks, I have gained practical knowledge on design and publishing issues through all the discussions and research that carried out on this blog. According to Penman (1998) In writing a blog, a writer has to prepare and think about their target audience, purpose, and context  in order for the document functionality match with the readers. 

Furthermore, as a writer and blogger, there are few matters that need to be taken into considerations before you decided to publish the post. 

Source: Creative Advertisement
Firstly, writers must be well informed and do a well research regarding on the chosen issues in order to ensure the writing context does not violate any rules and regulations. Secondly, writers must think of the purpose and the context before preparing the documents. It is very crucial and necessary for designers to be sensitive and careful in publishing design documents. Lastly, as explained by Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006), design documents is consist of multi-modality. He also added that images depict a meaningful message to the viewers. Hence, either the writers or designers need to incorporate various elements, like images, audiovisual, videos in their content. This statement also has been supported by Reep (2006) that mentions  

"The appearance of document design will influence the function of document ; therefore images should be include in it."

No doubt, I have learned so much in these past eleven weeks. I hope I can make this lesson useful for the next future of my life. Million thanks to Miss Jenny for her assistance and all kind classmates for being so helpful. Not to mention, I wish this blog is useful for those who are seek for publishing and design information. Thank you. 


Reference: 

Kress, G & Van Leeuwen, T 2006, Reading Images Chapter 1: The Semiotic Landscape: Language and Visual Communication. 


Penman, R 1998, 'Document Structure and readers habits', Communication News, Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 10 - 11. 


Reep, DC 2006, Technical Writing Chapter 6: Document Design, pp. 133 - 172. 

When the reaction to viral videos met its victory

How often do you come across the Youtube videos and saying, 

"Thanks for this amazing information and news that I thought I would never ever know and now its my time to spread the word"


Yes, that's what I thought when I first watch KONY 2012 video by Invisible Children.

The launching of new documentary from Invisible Children : Kony 2012
Source: Google.

Humanity greatest desire is to connect to each other. In the world that we are right now, we already can see, hear, and surprisingly belong to each other. In this globalization world, we share what we love which mostly realize us that everyone has something in common. According to Nation (2012), social media is used as an instrument or communication, like a newspaper/radio in order to attract the public attention. Social networking has become one of the most active and main elements for people, in order to access and connect to each other. The existent of social networking has brought a good impact to the 30 minutes duration video titled KONY 2012.

Culture and Policy Makers involve in this campaign
Source: Youtube.com
The video titled KONY 2012 has touched million thousand of people eyes and hearts. This phenomenal video is basically launched by Invisible Children for a new initiative in their crusade against Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). The purpose of this video is to bring Kony to justice and to bring awareness of the abduction of the children and using them as child soldiers. According to The Guardian (2012), until today, they already have almost 3.6m global pledges of support. When this controversial topic hits the public, it is very important to see how it actually being processed by the next generation, which is the young generations. According to the video by invisiblechildreninc (2012), children as the young generations can impact the world like never before through social media, and their voices deserve to be heard. Hence, This video has been spread all over the social media, like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Vimeo. Ojalvo (2012) stated that after this video went viral, more than 70 millions people around the world viewing KONY 2012 video in a week times. 

Fact and Figures after the video being launched
Source: Ojalvo.
Beside that, this video also contains of the compilation of images in order for the better comprehension to the viewer. Schiver (1997) stated that images/text itself can portray its meaning.  Youtube is proven to be a resourceful tool in providing latest news and updates, particularly during crisis. The videos titled KONY 2012 is an example that signifies how people have to dependable on social media. Because without the existence of social media, the public would having a hard time in finding out the current news that is happening around them. 

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References:

InvisbleChildreninc, 2012, viewed June 7 2012, <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc>.

Nations, D 2012, What is Social Media?, viewed June 7 2012, <http://webtrends.about.com/od/web20/a/social-media.htm>.

Ojalvo, HE 2012, Do Social Media Campaign like Kony 2012 Stunt or Stimulate Real Change?, viewed June 7 2012, <http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/do-social-media-campaigns-like-kony-2012-stunt-or-stimulate-real-change/>. 

Schiver, KA 1997, The Interplay of Words and Pictures, Dynamic and Document Design, Wiley Computer Pub, New York, pp. 407 - 430. 

The Guardian, 2012, Kony 2012 in numbers, Guardian News and Media, viewed June 7 2012, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/apr/20/kony-2012-facts-numbers>.

'Where Did I Come From' book Got Banned?!!

One of the Pages explaining on the bird and the bees
Source: Burrokers

Peter Mayle
Source: BBC News

Peter Mayle is a British author famous for his series of books detailing life in France. in 1984, he published a book titled 'Where Did I Come From' that describes the reproductive process from intercourse to birth. According to a report by The Star (2012), the Home Ministry has banned the sale of 'Where Did I Come From' book due to the over information about love making. Burrokers (2012), added that this book is deemed too obscene for Malaysia. This book has been sold around 2 million copies and most of the reviewers find it useful, but some find it disturbing and this book is considered threatening the moral values of life. 

The Book that been banned
Source: Burrokers


The Home Ministry told the Malaysia Star Newspaper that the reason why book was banned is because its content infringed censorship laws. He added that if anyone was found in making the copies of the book for distribution will be jailed or fine up to 20.000 ringgit. According to BBC News (2012), In november 2011, another book titled 'Islamic sex' that refers to sex tips to the readers was banned due to the censorship law. 

One of the pages in the book
Source: Burrokers


Based on The Malaysian Insider (2012), telling kids sex is bad is the traditional way of keeping them out of the trouble. In this case, although the book is very useful for people to know about the bird and the bees, but it still improper for the children to read. This book is probably would match if it was published in West country. Like KVL (1998) once stated that every document design must suit with the specific culture before its actually design and published. Media is critical in today's society. Sani (2005) stated that the government in Malaysia has restricted media freedom for the purpose of national security and political stability. This has proven that the censorship laws in Malaysia has controlled the media in every way. 

Source: Burrokers


To conclude, I'm glad that the Home Minister made a right decision by banning this book. There are might be thousand of opinions and reactions you could possibly get but it still the laws who control and make the rules.



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Reference:

BBC News, 2012, Malaysia 'Bans' Peter Mayle Book Where Did I Come From, viewed June 7 2012, <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17112635>.

Burrokers, L 2012, 'Images from the book deemed 'Too Obscene' for Malaysia', viewed June 7 2012, <http://www.loyarburok.com/2012/02/21/book-obscene/>.

Kress, G & Van Leeuwen, T, 1998, 'Front Pages: The Critical Analysis of a Newspaper Layout', in Bell A, Garret P, 'Approaches to Media Discourse', Blackwell, Oxford Publication, pp. 186 - 219. 

Sani, MAM 2005, 'Media Freedom in Malaysia', ProQuest, Journal of Contemporary Asia, vol. 35, no. 3.

The Malaysian Insider, 2012, 'Where did we come From and Where Did We Headed For? - Sim Tong', viewed June 7 2012, <http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/sideviews/article/where-did-we-come-from-and-where-are-we-headed-sim-tong/>.

The Star, 2012, Ministry Bans 'Where Did I Come From' book, viewed June 7 2012, <http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2012/2/22/nation/20120222153939&sec=nation>.

Perfume Advertising Gone Wild & Seductive

Beyonce first fragrance commercial
Heat. 
Video Source: Youtube.com

Sex Appeals in an advertisement
According to Bharwada (2010), there is one element that arouses the immediate interest of both men and women. Sex has the greatest universal acceptance of all strategy in advertising. They always use sex appeal as a promotion strategy to sell the product. the exact role of in advertising is debatable, and all effective advertising must capture the attention of its target market in order to get a message cross. According to WiseGeek (2012), a lot of advertising company using sex appeal to be beneficial in social marketing. Mostly high-end brand or celebrities promote their perfume products by their desires and sexual attraction in order to catch the buyers, like what you can see the video above by prestigious celebrities of all time, Beyonce. 

Ralph Lauren Ads. 
Source: Diana



According to New Zealand Herald (2008), the reason of why the women are often to be a primary focus of sex appeals is because they can fulfill girls and man fantasy and also attract the man to buy. Diana (2010) justified how gender essentialism is very crucial in the world of advertising. She also added that advertising using the term of feminist aesthetics which means the appreciation of beauty, nature and art. She highlight some of the specific things that gender traditionally feminine way, particularly in the contrast of man's advertisement. Like for example, perfume ads by Ralph Lauren that using both gender to attract the man buyers more. 


Bebe New Scent Ads
Source: Be be


Victoria Secret
Source: Victoria Secret


In relation to Diana's statement, it does not mean that all the purpose of advertisement is just to attract the man buyers but it also to attract the women.Like for example, Victoria Secrets using the woman as their sex appeals in order to attract the woman to buy, as they are selling underwear to the women. Another seductive advertisements is by Be be that selling scents to woman. In this ad, the giant bottle was positioned directly as it is emerging from her vagina. This could portray the meaning of vagina as the heart of woman, which possibly can direct to good or bad meaning. 

Women power and right should be enforce in order to stand the term of feminism. Although, advertising with sex appeals is undeniably get a higher reaction. In conclusion, sex appeals on advertising doesn't necessarily bad, but it would be better to be less seductive. 

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Reference:

Bharwada, C 2010, Sex Appeals as a Promotion Strategy, Loyalty&Customers, viewed June 8 2012, <http://loyaltyandcustomers.com/2010/03/sex-appeal-as-a-promotion-strategy/>.


Diana, 2010, Perfume Marketing and Feminine Aesthetics, Pt2: Sex/Erotica and the Male Gaze in Perfume Advertising, Feminine Things, viewed June 7 2012, <http://www.femininethings.org/2010/03/perfume-marketing-and-feminist_30.html>.

New Zealand Herald, 2008, 'Sex sells, OK?_actually no', The New Zealand Herald, viewed June 7 2012, <http://search.proquest.com.ezlibproxy.unisa.edu.au/docview/430225738>.

WiseGeek, 2012, What is the Role of Sex in Advertising?, Conjecture Cooperation, viewed June 7 2012, <http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-role-of-sex-in-advertising.htm>. 

Social Media and Cultural Believes

The Controversial Pages of how The Star published 
some Pork restaurants during the Ramadhan.
Source: Google.com
Based on Malaysia Today (2011), Datuk Seri Hishammudin Tun Hussein, the Home Minister has reprimanded the country most widely read newspaper, The Star over their article titled 'Dining out' supplement which was deemed to be insensitive to the Muslims, especially in Malaysia. It is being said that The Star made a careless mistake regarding the importance of Muslim's fasting month. The Star published some reviews and suggestions for the Muslim to buka puasa in their supplements, where some of non - halal restaurants were named. The Home Ministry considered The Star of being disrespectful to all the Muslims and decided to met The Star Executive Director to demand some explanations. Wong Chun Wai, The Star Executive Director justified that 'Dining Out' segment was not meant to be in the cover page of 'Ramadhan Delight'. Hence, The Star made their public apology in the following day and promised of not repeating the same mistake in the future. 


Fasting to Muslims
Image Source: MyNewsHub.
According to MynewsHub (2011), fasting is one of the greatest means of helping a person to fulfill the commands of Islam and Malaysia is very different from other countries, because it is multi-racial, multi-religion and multi-cultural. Every Muslims believe that fasting is the time for self control, more closer to God and developing the attitude of asceticism towards the world and its desires. Walsh (2006) once stated that the readers have their own understanding based on their own believes and cultures. KVL (2006) also stated that both images and text express the meaning, according to each culture in society. Hence, it is very crucial for the editor and publication company to be aware of the content. This issue has taught us that The Star and all publication company in the world should understand and act responsible before they publish the article, because once its go public, then you cannot avoid the huge reactions that unbearable to handle.

To conclude, regardless of how crucial the role of media is, this issue has explains that we should appreciate people by respecting their culture, as we are living in multi-racial country. 

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Reference:


Kress, G & Van Leeuwen, T 2006, Reading Images Chapter 1: The Semiotic Landscape: Language and Visual Communication. 


Malaysia Today, 2011, The Star Rapped by Home Ministry for Buka Puasa Supplement, viewed June 7 2012, <http://malaysiatoday.com/2011/08/the-star-rapped-by-home-ministry-for-buka-puasa-supplement/>.

MyNewsHub, 2011, Malaysian Muslims to Begin Fasting Monday, viewed June 7 2012, <http://mynewshub.my/2011/07/31/malaysian-muslims-will-observe-the-fasting-month-beginning-tomorrow/>.

Walsh, M 2006, The Textual Shift: Examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal text, Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol. 29, no.1, pp. 24 - 37. 



Thursday, 5 April 2012

Screen and Post document design





Reading text from a screen has changed. Time by time, the way the reader read has changed. Although screen is easy to understand and customizable but they likely to take the information rather than taking the mandatory points. Print document design has more advantage as there are no distractions needed and provided. 


Nielson and Morkes (1997), writing styles that are subjective are the main points in the presentations. On their studies, they found out that there is no inherent conflict between the 4 principles.


Walsh (2006) stated that Social networking as the compilation of words and images in order to gain knowledge and attract them. KVL (2006) stated that whenever it came to print design, people usually read from the left to right.




At the first pictures consist more pictures and colors that brings the reader the excitement to read and get the meaning at first. Whereas the next picture isn’t look as much as attractive like the previous one. According to Nielson (1997), there 3 types :

Dimensionality 
2 Dimensional page text. 

Navigation
Easier way to do and beneficial to read and it is also selective. 

Interactivity, multimedia and overlays
Print design consists of high impact graphics. 
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References:


Kress, G, & Van Leeuwen, T. 2006, Reading Images Chapter 1 : The semiotic landscape: Language and visual communication, viewed 5 April 2012, <Reading_Images__The_Grammar_of_Visual_Design__2nd_Edition_2006.pdf>


Nielson, J & Morkes, J 1997, 'Concise, Scannable, and Objective: How to Write for the Web', viewed 5 April 2012, <http://www.useit.com/papers/webwriting/writing.html>.

Walsh, M 2006, ‘The Texual Shift: Examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts’, Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol. 29, no.1, pp. 24-37.



Wednesday, 4 April 2012

New ways of publishing media





According to Wikipedia (2010), New media is a broad term that emerged in the later part of the 20-century to renew the traditional media. As we know, nowadays new media has become one related thing in our daily life.


Nowadays, people know what youtube are. According to Naughton (2006), He Indicates that technologies has brought new ways to people to socialize no matter where they live. Another support come from Lavrusik (2009), that agree on media device has changed and added more that  people can check the recent news through mobile devices in fast and easy way. 
Youtube has altered the roles of traditional media purposes. Youtube is a portal that people can share their video to everyone see online. Viewer just have to sign up an account for free and upload any videos that they want and leaving comments. Few days ago I have to research about War in Iraq for one of my project. I got so much information that I needed throughout the video. So, the concept of Youtube is really helpful for getting information.

The power of Youtube is huge and powerful. The audience who give comments gave so much impacts and role because their comment could affect the one who involved in the video. Old form of media publishing is still important, yet people can't avoid the trend of new form media publishing. The great things is that new media has bring so much impact and benefit to the community.

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References:

Lavrusik, V 2009, '10 News Media Content Trends to watch in 2010, viewed on 5 April 2012, <http://mashable.com/2009/12/24/news-media-content-trends/>.

Naughton, J 2006, 'Blogging and The Emerging Media Ecosystem, viewed on 5 April 2012, <http://reuteursinstitute.politics.ox.au.uk/about/discussion/blogging.html>.

New Media 2010, Wikipedia, viewed 29th September 2010, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_media>

Friday, 23 March 2012

Blogging communities.


Blog community are people who have same interest on same topic. Ways to create a community is by creating hyperlinks, chat, tag links and comment post. This way able to help the author to be more interactive and help increasing the viewers. 


In addition, blog community is where people have similar interest and sense of belonging, ideas, and passions. Blog community help people to connect with each other, because they tend to make friends in virtual world. 

There are many ways of how to build blogging community 

1. find friends through blog.
2. comment on their post.
3. Go to many author as you possible to get many feedbacks.
1. 


According to White (2006), there are 3 types of blogging communities:


One blog Centric Community

~> Known as a single blog and it is owned by one owner or organization. Help to make the readers to be a part of one community tho they aren't able to do the topic. 


2. Central Connecting Topic Community

~> Both power and identity are in this community. The members are into each other, or lets say they support each other. They share same ideas and focusing on certain topics that is current on news. 

3
  Boundaries Community

~>  Compilation of blogs as they easily access to each other. 


It usually works as some group or single discussion board.

For example, I fall into the blog called 'Irvina's blog', which is actually the bloggers who have the same interest with Irvina's post. 

This kind of blog that I'm following is entering the methods of Central connecting topic community. 

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References:


1. Blogging, The Phenomenon: Text Based 2006, Thinkquest, viewed on 23 March 2012 < http://library.thinkquest.org/05aug/01130/typesofblogs_textbased.html>

2. White, N 2006, Blogs and Community-Launching a new paradigm for online community? , viewed 23 March 2012, < http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2006/edition-11-editorial/blogs-and-community-–-launching-a-new-paradigm-for-online-community >

Classification of blog and its opinion.


According to Sun, blog is an online diaries that managed by software that provide a single publishing. Based on classification theory, Margareth (2008) came up with 9 divided blogs, such as:

Pamphleteering Blogs
When people arguing about one statement and responding the facts through the media.

Digest Blogs
known as a guide that readers would love to find out.

Advocacy Blogs
cover and provided by a certain group from political side.
Popular Mechanic Blogs
offering some training, advices and help in order to giving an advantage to readers about some specific information.

Exhibition Blog
when the author using the art and any unique creation in order to attract the readers to come to their blog.

Gatewatcher Blogs

some talented people of public events watching your blog and become the gatekeeper of media.

Diary Blogs
 pour the feeling and excitement into their blog.

Advertisement Blogs

is a blog where it designed to promote.

News Blogs. 

 inform an audience with the current news that happen in society.

Media types:

vlog - is short video blog and contains video clips. Example: youtube
linklog - the time when you can link to other blog by just clicking. Example: Lisanova.
photolog - contain of photos and able to share publicly. photobucket

As a reader, I tend to look at the audience which are the column of the followers of the authors blog in order to make sure whether the blog is interesting or boring. I also focusing on the style of the blog. I personally prefer a white and simple background with unique header for the readers to crave more. 

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References. 


1. Sun, A, Suryanto, MA & Liu, Y 2007, Blog Classification Using tags: An Empirical Study, pp. 307 - 316, viewed 23 March 2011, <http://www.cais.ntu.edu.sg/~axsun/paper/sun_icad107.pdf>

Sunday, 18 March 2012

Blog as current issues.




Most people choose blog as a medium exchange of conventional journalism. Naughton, J states that combination between digital convergence and networking has reached to higher new level. On the other hand, the articles by the Technorati Media with the titled 'State of the Blogosphere 2011 also states that there are more and more people using blog as an addition of social media, personal satisfaction and mostly all blogger discussing variety of objective topics. 

According to the Technorati Media, blogging has been the biggest development and a trend in the year of 2011 and blogging is so beneficial when it is used in proper usage. In addition, Sobel (2010) states that blogsphere had found the transition of blog where the author could bond with mass media to share their experience.

Blogging is the current issues that happening in the world, there are variety types of it such as diary/personal, cooperative blogs, spam, splogs, vlog, video casts. For your information, the most favorite that people usually used is diary blogs which we personally or publicly post the experience.




Everything in life has its own goal and so does blog too. The purpose of people creating a blog is to express their voices, critics, opinions and views towards other thing. For common bloggers, they will be able to make a blog as the form of their diary book to write their story, thoughts, feels, and sharing some useful experiences. Blog is also become of one the weapons to business as in proof to promote, reportage and persuade people. In conclusion, blog has its own purpose in many different aspects. 





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REFERENCES: 

1. Blogging - The Phenomenon, Types of blogs, viewed 18 march 2012, <http://library.thinkquest.org/05aug/01130/typesofblogs_othermedia.html>.

2. Naughton, J, Blogging and the emerging media ecosystem, United kingdom, viewed 18 March 2012, <http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/fileadmin/documents/discussion/blogging.pdf>.

3. Sobel, J 2010, state of blogosphere 2010 Introduciton, viewed 18 March 2012, <http://technorati.com/blogging/article/state-of-the-blogosphere-2010-introduction/>

4. Technorati, 2011, State of the blogosphere 2011, Australia, viewed 18 March 2012, <http://technorati.com/social-media/article/state-of-the-blogosphere-2011-part1/>.