Blogging has become part of my routine cycle since i always keep it updated so that friends and family members can keep on tracks on my life. I always write about the activities that I do, the food i eat, friends i hang out with, my feelings and many more. I have always blog for my own pleasure and I couldn’t care less about my readers feelings. I admit some of my posts are texts heavy, no image, dull, and others. However, after learning about theories and the power of design, I have started to put more interesting pictures, videos to every single posts on my blog.

What have I learn the most in the process of creating this blog?

Personally, I’ve learnt to be more cautious in choosing the correct languages, pictures about the posts that i post on-line. I’ve  become more aware about my surroundings and understandings  about how different people with different cultural backgrounds will have different perspective and interpretations with one another. I have also learn that we need to cite whatever journals, articles that we used.

Lastly, as an ethical blogger, we should be more aware on whatever things we posted on line. We should learn to respect other people’s backgrounds, experiences as different people will have different views and outlooks from each other.

(Source: google.com.my)

Business Week pays tribute to top 25 Asian entrepreneurs and two Malaysians are in the running for the title of Asia’s best. Cheo Ming Shen (left) and Timothy Tiah ( right) of Nuffnang (of which he is one of the founders), Asia’s first blog advertising network, is that Malaysian.

Kenny Sia, a Malaysia blogger, he is influential because he has been on TV, blogs about everyday life, makes substantial amounts of money from his blog whilst not pushing for the hard sell. He blogs about himself and his travels, making each post interesting and most have photos. Each entry gets at least 50+ comments so means he’s established himself with repeat visitors and has a huge amount traffic driven to his site. He promotes Nuffnang adverts on his site, which is a main source of revenue but is also involved in offline promotion, giving talks on how to use Nuffnang and making money from it.

Kenny Sia

( Source: google.com.my)

Kenny Sia’s Cheque by Nuffnang

( Source: google.com.my)

The Advantages

• The blogger is helping people find your ad, you will get better quality clicks, and fewer clicks you will have to pay for that come from people just clicking around for fun. This creates a better visit-to-sales ratio and helps keep your click costs down since most of the newspaper and magazine display ads are expensive and they exposure are limited since they only appeared once.
• The readers are there for a reason and that helps your traffic, but how does the blog itself help you? The write ups are visible for the life of the blog and are easily searchable when someone types your keyword into a search engine around in the world.
• Blogs are global. Nowadays customers spend 85% of their shopping dollars online and even if they are planning on buying offline they search for the products first on the Internet. Customers trust blogger write ups much more than the slick white pages, flashy banners.

Problems

• Consumers do not trust advertising. Dan Ariely has demonstrated that messages attributed to a commercial source have much lower credibility and much lower impact on the perception of product quality than the same message attributed to a rating service. Forrester Research has completed studies that show that advertising and company sponsored blogs are the least-trusted source of information on products and services, while recommendations from friends and online reviews from customers are the highest.
• Misdirection, or sending customers to web locations other than the ones for which they are searching. Misdirection also includes misinformation, such as telling a customer that a hotel is sold out when, indeed it is still available.

Advertising has changed thanks to the internet, and people have had to create innovative ways to market their products and services. One of those innovative ways is blog advertising. Blog advertising is cheaper compare to newpaper and magazine ads that are extremely expensive.

References:

1. Benefits of Advertising Online Media, The Proniit Group Business Blog, viewed on June 15, 2009 at 1.51 p.m. http://www.proniit.com/blog/2009/03/benefits-of-advertising-online-media/.

2. Benefits to Promote your Products using Blog Advertising, Paying Post, viewed on June 15, 2009 at 1.45 p.m. http://www.payingpost.com/Benefits-to-promote-your-products-using-blog-advertising.php.

3. Eric Clemons, Why Advertising is Failing on the Internet, TechCrunch, viewed on June 15, 2009 at 1.54 p.m. http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/22/why-advertising-is-failing-on-the-internet/.

4. Most Infuential Bloggers in Malaysia, Best Blog Asia, viewed on June 15, 2009 at 1.30 p.m. http://www.bestblogs.asia/influential-bloggers-malaysia.php.

vs

(source: google.com.my)

Most of the devoted  Christians in the world will be offended by the picture (left) above published in the Indonesian news weekly, Tempo, on February 6, 2008 after the downfall of President Suharto. The picture was a replica of Leonardo Da Vinci’s The Last Supper which included Jesus Christ and His disciples; and the headline read, ‘After He Departed’.

Is it ethical for journalists to publish offensive images to entertain the readers?

We need to be careful to appreciate the difference between cultural sensitivity and cultural relativism.  Cultural sensitivity is understanding that diverse cultures have different contexts for and perspectives on what are proper and respected.  Cultural relativism says that because a different culture does not agree with a particular ethical standard that we should not apply that standard in that culture. However, there are ways to see the connection between other culture’s value and our own. Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) argue that different people have different interpretations of texts due to different perspectives based on culture and social experience.

The Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics calls on journalists to “avoid stereotyping by race, gender, age, religion, ethnicity, geography, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance or social status.” That respect for cultural sensitivity includes journalists’ obligation to “examine their own cultural values and avoid imposing those values on others”.

Journalists should ask themselves if those offensive images they publish are intentional to bring about negative emotions in their audiences. Entertaining some groups of audiences while offending the rest ( e.g. Christians ) may not be wise way to increase the credibility and popularity of one article.

References:

1. ABC News 2008, ‘Indonesian weekly apologises over Last Supper Suharto cover’, ABC News, viewed on June 14, 2009 at 10.55 p.m. <http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/02/06/2156269.htm>.

2. Bruce Hamm, Business Ethics in Market Place, Leader Value, Viewed on June 14, 2009 at 12.14 a.m. http://www.leader-values.com/Content/detail.asp?ContentDetailID=33.

3. Linda Jue, “NY Post Failed in Its Ethical Obligations by Publishing Cartoons” , viewed on June 13, 2009 at 10.35 p.m. http://www.spjchapters.org/norcal/2009/cartoon.html.

4. Suzzanne Pitner, Good Media, Good Kids: A Four Component Model of Media Ethics Developed by Notre Dame, Suite 101.com, viewed on June 14, 2009 at http://teaching-media-literacy.suite101.com/article.cfm/good_media_good_kids.

The new media is distracting  journalism and audiences starting to shift from reading newspapers (hard copy news) to online news.Today, journalism is fragmenting among a fascinating array of news sources and social networking sites.

Like all crises, the challenges journalism faces are rewriting everything we thought we knew about the news media and causing us to question the very basis on which the industry has survived and prospered  for a hundred-odd years.

Whether all newspapers will survive is no longer a parlour game but a genuine consideration. Newspapers had evolved during early 1950s and has become one of the most important source of media that deliver and update the public with latest news. Back then, newspapers only have printed texts but as years gone by according to Kress & Van.Leeuwen (1998), the written text is no longer structured by linguistic means, through verbal connectors and verbal cohesive devices but visually, through layout, through the spatial arrangement of blocks of text, of pictures and other graphic element of the page. Images, graphics, colours will attract more readers compare to newspaper back then.

Examples of New and Old Newspaper:

(Source: google.com.my)

It was both exciting and disquieting. Exciting because journalists are pushing the uses of technology to produce new and progressive ways of keeping the public informed. Disquieting because the mainstream industry is in such turmoil. High levels of debt, falling revenues and collapsing share prices, have led many into a vicious cost-cutting cycle. More than 12,000 journalists have lost their jobs so far this year, on top of about 2,200 in 2007. This is because the 24 hour television channels and the Internet affects the mainstream industry.  This lead to newspaper around the world to launch the online editions in order to keep up with the circulation of audience.

Will newspaper die one day? In May 2008, a summit of senior media executives, journalists, academics and researchers organised by the Media Alliance listened in horrified fascination as Roy Greenslade, one of Britain’s leading media commentators, predicted the death of newspapers.

“Popular newspapers, the mass newspapers, are dying and will die. They have no future whatsoever. I’m sad to see newspapers go. I worked on them for 40 years.”1 Roy Greenslade, Future of Journalism summit, Sydney, May 2008.

Again, the main consent is all about the content. The most interesting topics will attract the most readers. In short, the best story with the best writer win the race.

I shall give you some questions to ponder about:

• How will newsrooms like?
• How will journalists’ jobs change with technology and business conditions?
• How will journalism itself change?

References:

1. Christoper Warren, The Future of Journalism, viewed on June 15, 2009 at 2.39 a.m. http://www.thefutureofjournalism.org.au/life-in-the-clickstream/53-foreword.

2. Kress, G. & van Leeuwen, T. 1998. “Front pages: The Critical analysis of newspaper layout,” Approaches to Media Discourse, p.186-187.

3. Larry Parlor, Teaching the Future of Journalism, Digital Media Center, viewed on June 15, 2009 at 2.41 a.m. http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/060212pryor/.

According to Article 19 of Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “Everyone has the rights 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 media and regardless of frontiers”.

However this article does not seems to apply to some countries like China, Malaysia and other countries in the world that are keen to restrict the public flow of information, the internet represents the greatest challenges. For example, China has estimated 30,000 officials patrolling its great “firewall” for seditious comment and other undesirable material.The latest country to consider taking up the challenge is Malaysia, which has threatened a crackdown on blogs.

New laws could be introduced to prevent bloggers spreading “disharmony, chaos, seditious material and lies”, domestic newspapers quoted Kong Cho Ha, a technology minister, as saying.

Despite triumph  over the Opposition’s win in the 26th August by-elections, political bloggers in Malaysia face the sobering prospect of the government taking tougher action against blog and website owners. After decades of managing information through legislation regulating mainstream media, the government faces frustration with the availability of online information. Malaysia’s Communications & Multimedia Act 1998 disallows censorship of the Internet, leaving the government only three legal alternatives: on a national level, sedition and the provisions under Internal Security Act 1960 (which allows for detention without trial); and on a private level, defamation law suits (see also Jeff Ooi on defamation).

Recently,Raja Petra Raja Kamarudin (Malaysian blogger), known for his anti-government views, was sentenced to jail for two years due to publishing various claims about the bad stuff done by the government leaders on his site, Malaysia Today which also serves as his blog as well as a news portal.

(source: globalvoicesonline.org)

In the Article 10 of the Federal Constitution of Malaysia states that;

(1) Subject to Clauses (2)
(a) every citizen has the right to freedom of speech and expression;

(2) Parliament may by law impose -
(a) on the rights conferred by paragraph (a) of Clause (1), such restrictions as it deems necessary or expedient in the interest of the security of the Federation or any part thereof, friendly relations with other countries, public order or morality and restrictions designed to protect the privileges of Parliament or of any Legislative Assembly or to provide against contempt of court, defamation, or incitement to any offence;

In the Article 10(1), it state that every citizen guarantees the freedom of speech but that is not impose in Malaysia where Article 10(2) states the Parliament is allow to take action if it is considered danger to the country.

References:

1. Daniel Chandanayagam, Plans for Action Against Malaysian Bloggers, Global Voices Advocacy, viewed on June 14, 2009 at 12.55 a.m. http://advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org/2008/08/27/plans-for-action-against-malaysian-bloggers/.

2. Freedom of Speech: How qualified is it in Malaysia? ( Constitutional Rights), Legally Blawg.com, viewed on June 14,2009 at 10.55 p.m. http://blawg.joshua3.com/?p=5.

3. Peter Walker (Dec 5, 2006), Mission’s Unbloggable, Guardian.co.uk, viewed on June 13,2009 at 8.45 p.m. http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2006/dec/05/malaysiablogb.

4. Victor, Malaysian Bloggers Sentenced to Two years in Jail, Committee to Protect Bloggers, viewed on June 14, 2009 at 1.45 a.m. http://committeetoprotectbloggers.org/2009/04/23/malaysian-blogger-goes-into-hiding/

New Media is a term meant to encompass of digital, computerized, or network information and communication technologies in the later part of the 20th century. Most technologies described as new media are digital, often having characteristics of being manipulative, net workable, dense, compressible and impartial.

Until the 1980s media relied primarily upon print and art analogue broadcast model, such as television and radio. The last twenty five years have seen the rapid transformation into media which are predicted upon the use of digital computers such as internet and computer games.

Andrew L. Shapiro (1999) argues that the “emergence of new, digital technologies signals “a potentially radical shift of who is in control of information, experience and resources” (Shapiro cited in Croteau and Hoynes 2003: 322). W. Russell Neuman (1991) suggests that whilst the “new media” have technical capabilities to pull in one direction, economic and social forces pull back in the opposite direction. According to Neuman, “We are witnessing the evolution of a universal interconnected network of audio, video, and electronic text communications that will blur the distinction between interpersonal and mass communication and between public and private communication” (Neuman cited in Croteau and Hoynes 2003: 322). Neuman argues that New Media:

• Will alter the meaning of geographic distance.
• Allow for a huge increase in the volume of communication.
• Provide the possibility of increasing the speed of communication.
• Provide opportunities for interactive communication.
• Allow forms of communication that were previously separate to overlap and interconnect.

New Forms of Media Publishing:

a) Device/media type of blogs:

• Moblog – mobile blogging, e.g Jimmerish’s Moblog

(source:vannara.files.wordpress.com)

• Vlog – video blogging e.g Ryanne’s Video Blog
• Splog – spam blog e.g Casino Online
• Linklog  – URLs (hyperlinks) blogging e.g. Linklog

b) Youtube

c) Online newspaper e.g. news.com.au

d) Online books e.g safari books online

References:

1. Suad Amiry, News Media Publishing, Radio National, viewed on June 14, 2009 at 2.03 a.m. http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bigidea/stories/s1485827.htm

2. Thompson, John B (1995), The Media and Modernity, Cambridge:Policy Press.

We come across different types of blogs, web pages and others because each everyone of us has different interets, backgrounds, and others. Examples of blogs are : Fashion Food Entertainment Photography

Categories of Blogs

( source: evilgeniusmarketing.com)

1. Producers: These are blogs that create original content (for the most part). The post you see tend to be a little longer although that does not have to be true. Producers are the source of the original material.

2. Reviewers: These blogs take source that originated from elsewhere and put their own spin on the material. Often they will expand the topic or take it off to another direction. The trademark of this blog is that they don’t simply point to the source material; they riff on it somehow.

3. Pointers: These blogs serve to connect readers to content found elsewhere. Sometimes these are aggregators on a single, well defined topic area. Sometimes they can be quite broad. Usually, there is very little or no commentary on the linkages.

Each of these blog is important in its own way. This type of interconnectedness is the lubricant of information diffusion across the semi permeable membrane of the blogosphere.

Blogging Community

Wanting to make your blog community bigger and stronger? Blog Community is the group of people who shares a common awareness and sense of belongings regarding your blog’s contents. They have a same culture that revolves and evolves around your blog.

A community always has the following in some forms:

• Shared items, ideas or symbols.
• Meetings.
• Rules, rewards and punishments.
• Rituals and routines.

Why is Community Important to Blogging?

As Connie Benson will tell you, developing a passionate online following is helpful – and perhaps even critical – to corporate branding. The more people there are that go on the Web and talk positively about you and your company, the better.

And blogs are a healthy part of almost any business’s approach to marketing and branding online.

Also, because everything affects everything else, an improvement in your blog’s content will result in an improvement in its community, and vice versa. The same goes for blog design, search engine optimization (blog SEO), blog traffic and other considerations.

How do we measure Blog Community Growth?

(source: vissionaryblogging.com)

There are several key metrics you should consider when attempting to measure the size and vibrance of your blog’s community. Among them:

1. Unique visitors to your blog
2. Total page views at your blog
3. RSS feed or email subscribers to your blog posts
4. Subscribers to any blog-related newsletters or auto responders
5. The number of comments published on your blog posts
6. The number of people publishing comments on your blog
7. The word count of comments published at your blog
8. The number of new incoming links (back links) to your blog
9. The rate of change of all of the above metrics on a regular basis (e.g. monthly)
10. All of the above metrics (including #9) for other blogs in your niche/industry

Building Blog Community

(source: vissionaryblogging.com)

• Network with others in your industry
• Learn about your blog community with MyBlogLogs and related blogs
• Be opinionated and lively with your content
• Have goals and think long term
• Retain your visitors
• Encourage commenting
• Use link bait like titles
• Leverage social media
• Leverage link baiting
• Join ad networks

References:

1. Barry Schwartz (Feb 20, 2007), Building your Blog Community, Search EngineLand, viewed on June 12, 2009 at 12.10 a.m. http://searchengineland.com/building-your-blog-community-10556.

2. Darren Rowse, How to Build Community on your Blog, viewed on June 12, 2009 at 11.50 p.m. http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/04/26/how-to-build-community-on-your-blog/.

3. Easton Ellsworth, How to Improve your Blog Community, Vissionaryblogging, viewed on June 13, 2009 at 10.50 p.m. http://www.visionaryblogging.com/guides/blog-community/.

4. EGM (March 12, 2008), Types of Blogs, ICT – Improving Customer Experience, viewed on June 10, 2009 at 8.45 p.m. http://www.evilgeniusmarketing.com/ice/direct_link.cfm?bid=F1C806E8-A81C-4D15-58A7EB5FA7EFF8C6

Escribitionists” is a term coined in 1999 to denote online journalists. A combination of the word “exhibitionist” and the Spanish word “escribir” which means “to write,” escribitionists pride themselves on baring all online. Online journalists are differentiated from bloggers in that, while both may discuss the inner workings of an individual’s life, blogs may include much more. Online journals reflect only on the personal life of the diarist. These early writings of individuals seeking to connect with others over space and time set the stage for the phenomenon of blogging to begin.

The earliest known blogging probably began in 1994 as the personal journal of a college student named Justin Hall. The term “weblog” was coined in 1997 and the shorter version of the word, blog, was coined in 1999. 1999 had also marked the year of the launch of the first corporate solutions for hosting blogs. Blogger was one of the two leaders in offering blog hosting. Weblog, weblogging, weblogger all become official terms and were listed in the Oxford English Dictionary 2003. Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; other functions as more personal online dairies. A typical blog combine texts, images, links to other blogs, web pages and other media related to the topic.

Why Do We Blog?

There are many types of blogs, differing not only in the type of content, but also in a way that the content is written or delivered. Different blogs ranging from personal, corporate, by genre, by media type, by device and others. However, the basic reason why people blog is because he or she has something to say and wants to be heard. For example, from a stay-at-home mom who wants to record her family life to a corporate executive who desired to build closer relationships with customers, some do it for the love of writing, for money and then there are souls who blog just because everyone around them is blogging.

( source: tsangreqr.com)

Finance blogger Ranjan asked Amit Varma the same question and his answer was “Guilt”.

“ When  I wake up late and log on to my site meter and see that couple of thousand people have come to my blog while I’ve sleeping, it makes me feel guilty that I’ve let them down. So I blog on.”

Benefits of Bloggings

1. Creating blogs are cheap and fast. It is very easy to do and usually it does not require much technical skills. Using blogs even easier than using any other word processing program. Publishing blogs are much more easier than using Ms Word.

2. For small business, blogging can help building community. Business blogs provide our small business with a chance to share our expertise and knowledge with larger audience. An opportunity to connect with a wider audience and build a community is a strong benefits for consultants and knowledge workers.

3. Easy Web publishing solution – Blog software is easy to use. Simply writing out our thoughts, link to resources, and publish to our blog , all at the push of a few buttons. Blog software companies such as WordPress or Blogger.com  offer easy blogging tools to get started.

4. Better Communications – Blogging provides several communication benefits. As indicated by Business Weeks’ Olga Kharif in “Blogging for Business” Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban sees blogging as a time saver instead of providing many interviews blogging gets his message out to many people at once.

References:

1. Darrell Zahorsky, About.com, What are the Benefits of Blogging for Small Business?, viewed on June 11, 2009 at 4.45 p.m.  http://sbinformation.about.com/od/businessblogfaq/f/businessblogs8.htm.

2. Dave Taylor, Why People Blog and How many of us are there?, viewed on May 31, 2009 at 5.30 p.m. http://www.intuitive.com/blog/why_do_people_blog_how_many_bloggers_are_there.html.

3. Digital Inspiration ( Monday, January 29, 2007 ), Why do People Blog? Pleasure, Money and Guilt, viewed on June 13, 2009 at 9.41 p.m. http://labnol.blogspot.com/2007/01/why-do-people-blog-pleasure-money-and.html.

4. Duncan Riley, A Short History of Blogging, viewed on June 12, 2009 at 8.45 p.m. http://www.blogherald.com/2005/03/06/a-short-history-of-blogging/.

5. Victoria Carrington, M.D, Why do People Blog?, viewed on June 13, 2009 at 9.46  p.m. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/library/why_do_people_blog.php.

“Document design is the field concerned with creating texts, that is book, pamphlets, posters and others that integrate words and pictures in ways that help people to achieve their specific goals for using texts at home, school or work”. ( Karen A. Shriver
1997 by John Wiley and Sons ).

Document design is bringing together of prose, graphics and that includes illustrations and images. They are used for instruction, information and persuasion purposes. Besides that, in order to understand a design better, readers must have some required knowledge. “The sequence in which people read a prose text or graphic makes a difference in how quickly they can form a representation of the content and what kind of representation they form”. ( Larkin and Simon 1987).

Good document design should help readers to learn, use technology, make decisions and get their job done. It also should enable readers to use the texts in a way that serves interests and needs. It also will have the ability to convey messages effectively to the audiences, therefore it is a good communication medium.

Based on the readings, images and texts come with one another. They need to implement each other so that readers can understand a document design better. “Images have other effects that are different from words, particularly at effective, aesthetic and imaginitive levels”. ( Walsh 2006 ). Besides that, understandings of one particular cultures backgrounds, social experiences, values and many more are very important in interpreting the contents in document designs. ” We must learn more about how understanding is influenced by knowledge, experience, or values and how the design of prose and graphics can enable or disable as they attempt to construct meaning from documents” ( Schriver 1997).

Based on my observations on both group and individual presentations, i found that audiences were more engaged towards my individual presentation than the group presentations. I think it is because in my own individual slides, i used more interesting images, texts and many more so that the audiences will get what am i trying to imply to them. As for my group presentations. we used less images and most of them are texts, texts and texts. My own individual slides have less texts compared to the group slides. Therefore, audiences show more interests in my individual slides compared to the group slides.

In conclusion, a good document design is a blend of clear images and texts thus providing a better understanding to the audiences.

References

1. John Wiley and Sons, 1997. Fundamental of Document Design. http://www.bastoky.com/docdesignnet.htm. viewed on April 6, 2009.

2. Larkin, J. & Simon, H. (1987). Why diagram is sometimes worth ten thousand words. Cognitive Science 11:65-69. http://www.jimdavies.org/summaries/larkin1987.html.

3. Schriver, K.A, 1997, Chapter 6 in Dynamics in Document Design.

It is important for us to know on how to form a good publication and design so that it will gather the attentions of our target viewer in the future.