Wednesday, November 16, 2011

A review of IPD





As a business student, this subject makes me understand more media related issues and edify my knowledge as I involved into the document designs and media issues discussions. I started with limited understanding about what publication and design is, until now, I am able to design my documents by interplaying between words and pictures (Shriver, 1997). Thus, I would say creating and maintaining this blog is an amazing experience to me!

To be a blogger, we should always have the positive attitude to blogging as we communicate and spread message with our readers through the blog. We got the responsibility to set up good role model as being honest and fair, no plagiarise and minimize the harm by taking care of the cultural issues or using neutral language which will not offend anyone (cyberjournalist.net. 2003).

Document design represents the physical appearance of a document (Reep, 2006). This indicates that writing, image and the design of the blog are crucial elements to attract the readers as they not only reading the article but also the pictures. Hence, I used both text and images to support each other in order to convey the messages to my readers (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2006). As a result, I wish I am delivering useful information to my readers to gain a certain understanding about the media and publishing issues and designs.

Lastly, special thanks to everyone who views my blog especially Ms Jenny for her guidance in this subject by providing ideas to me.


Wish you guys all the best. Have a nice day! :)







                                                                               




Image source from http://www.superpimper.com


Reference List:

cyberjournalist.net. 2003. A Bloggers' Code of Ethics. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.cyberjournalist.net/news/000215.php. [Accessed 16 November 11].

Kress, G. & can Leeuwen, T. 2006, 'Chapter 5: The meaning of composition', in Reading images: the grammar of visual design, 2nd edn, Routledge, New York, pp. 175-214

Reep, D.C. 2006, ‘Chapter 4: Principles of Document Design,’ in Technical Writing, 6th ed., Pearson Education, Inc., New York, p.173-190

Schriver, K.A (1997), 'Chapter 6: The interplay of words and pictures,' in Dynamics in document design: Creating texts for readers, pp.361-441, Wiley Computer Pub., New York.

New Ipad Ecosystem - bringing the latest newspaper trend

Image source from: http://www.podcastingnews.com/content/2008/09/newspaper-sales-plummet-online-wont-save-them/


According to Lewin (2008), newspaper sales are plummeting in the past few years, the total newspaper advertising revenues reached to its lowest level in a dozen year. Meanwhile, with the decline of print sales, it is expecting the new trend of online newspaper. Thus, a new challenge to newspaper publishers is to reinvent themselves via new media and put the news to where people’s attention has been moving to gain them back.

The iPad seems to be a must have item for different ranges of people today. People will carry an iPad no matter they are working, entertaining, classing or relaxing everywhere! Since this is the latest trend of owning an iPad, the iPad-only newspaper has being launched in the early of this year which embraces the transition from traditional ‘hold and fold’ newspaper to online newspaper (Trotter, 2011). Readers are able to choose the content which attracts them the most by selecting the title in the menu bar. Furthermore, it is subscriber-based which readers only need to pay USD 40 per year to read news on their tablet that is significantly cheaper than printed newspaper.

Evolution of Newspaper

Along with advance invention, it caused the people increase their demands and expectation of acquiring information. People are no longer relying on a single genre, that’s why many journalists started to participate in providing information and news to fulfill people’s needs. In this case, the News of The World applied the multimodality in its website design so that the audience can engage with the organization itself and also communicating with its readers through the messages (Walsh, 2006).

The Age iPad newspaper application,
Video captured by jdtravers from http://www.youtube.com

As the iPad newspaper is being updated several times a day, readers always access to the latest news so they tend to have the habit of glancing only at the headlines frequently to find out about news (Journalism.org, 2011). This habit just to explain with the theory of Shriver (1997), headings plays an important part to readers as they expect it to have a thoughtful representation of the topic. Ipad can go beyond newspaper by embedding video and links for users to stream and further reading to gain in-depth understandings. Hence, the evolution of news reports needs to transform in order to convey information to its audiences by embracing technology to get interconnected.





Reference List:
jdtravers. (2011). The Age iPad newspaper app. [Online Video]. 27 June. Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM-kubf-4ws&feature=related. [Accessed 16 November 2011].

Journalism.org 2011, The tablet revolution: Tablet news users have strong new habits on their devices [ONLINE] Available at:
http://www.journalism.org/analysis_report/news_habits. [Accessed 16 November 11].

Description: http://img1.blogblog.com/img/icon18_wrench_allbkg.pngLewin J.. 2008. Newspaper Sales Plummet & Online Won’t Save Them. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.podcastingnews.com/content/2008/09/newspaper-sales-plummet-online-wont-save-them/. [Accessed 15 November 11]. Description: http://img1.blogblog.com/img/icon18_wrench_allbkg.png

Schriver, K.A (1997), 'Chapter 6: The interplay of words and pictures,' in Dynamics in document design: Creating texts for readers, pp.361-441, Wiley Computer Pub., New York.

Trotter, C. (2011), iPad only newspapers furthers media trend, The Cento [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.thecento.com/news/2011/feb/17/ipad-only-newspaper-furthers-media-trend/ [Accessed 14 November 11].Description: http://img1.blogblog.com/img/icon18_wrench_allbkg.png

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, p.24-37

Description: http://img1.blogblog.com/img/icon18_wrench_allbkg.png

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Are you Plagiarise to Copyrighted materials??

Image source from:


The issues of plagiarism are getting serious recently. The term ‘plagiarism’ defines as someone passing off of another person’s ideas, works and acted as his. It is a form of cheating and works against the academic integrity (Ballard, 2008).

Most students are ethical and hard-working; they think of creative ideas and making a lot of researches to come out with their assignments. However, due to the easy information accessibility on the Internet, some students tend to have the opportunity to take shortcuts from the Internet in doing their coursework which committing as plagiarism. Two common types of plagiarism are direct copy messages without citing the original contributor and reproduce the materials of others by changing the contributors’ names and use it as their own (Handa, 2008).

As plagiarism is out of control, many organizations even universities are working ahead to prevent the issues of plagiarism to get spread. For instance, an Internet based programme ‘Turnitin’ is used to detect and check the percentage of plagiarism. Many first year university students got caught of high percentage in plagiarising on their assignments as they normally used people’s ideas without citing correctly. According to Joshua Landau cited in Ballard (2008), there are three common reasons that caused plagiarism:
1.      Intentional theft— getting peer pressure, competition and convince oneself that ‘everyone is doing the same thing’
2.      Source-memory error—fail to trace the sources of ideas
3.      Ignorance—students may not have the ideas to paraphrase material they got

The video below explains 'What is Plagiarism?',

Video designed by paulrobesonlibrary from www.youtube.com


Furthermore, copyright and fair use is also included in the discussion of plagiarism.
The term ‘Copyright infringement’ means someone unauthorised copy of a work which subject to copyright (Allen, Clem, Elleven, Andrews & Cagle, 2004). For instance, it is considered as fair use to photocopy only one chapter from a book or one article from a journal issue without photocopy the entire work. The best way to avoid plagiarism is to do it your own work and ideas. If you refer someone’s ideas, you must cite clearly and provide reference which author’s work you are using.
Plagiarism is against by law. Think carefully before you do!



 


Reference List:

www.sageperformance.com/drjeffallen/DrA/Related.../copyright.pdf [Accessed 13 November 11]


Handa, S 2008, Plagiarism and publication ethics: Dos and dons, Indian Journal of Dermatology, Venereology, and Leprology, vol.74, no. 4, pp.301-303.

paulrobesonlibrary. (2007). What is Plagiarism? [Online Video]. 13 November. Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P05vgxDoPU. [Accessed 14 November 2011].



Monday, November 14, 2011

e-book and print book, which wins?

Internet sites have the potential to combine both texts and images in complex structures with hyperlinks, menu bars and video clips which benefit the users (Walsh, 2006, p.30). Meanwhile, due to the advance technology such as the invention of smartphones and tablet PC such as iPad, people are able to access articles and information anywhere, anytime, as long as they are able to access to the Internet. As a result, many companies started to transform the printed books into e-books so that readers can update themselves in an easier way with cost efficiency and environmental friendly through electronic devices (Capeloto, 2011).




Traditional way people reading books in bookstore






Latest way people reading article through e-reader





Both images source from: http://www.ebook-reader.com/


However, as the need of obtaining information online increasing rapidly, it is surprise that students still prefer printed textbooks rather than online version (Capeloto, 2011). According to Shriver (1997), users are reluctant to use online documents may due to their perception which they feel difficult to understand and hard to link the text elements from the Internet. As a student, I prefer printed textbooks too. It is because I can have my own notes written on it and highlight with the key words which can enhance my memory when I start my revision in the future. It makes my learning progress more easily as I do not need to carry my laptop wherever I go.

On the other hand, there are still many benefits to students by accessing the texts electronically (MacManus, 2010). Even students do not bring their textbooks, they can still have a quick refer to the study materials once they downloaded it into the phone. Hence, as readers are aggressive in obtaining information online, their tolerance towards useless information is lower. In this case, journalists need to carefully identify what their readers want, instead of writing their own opinion to deliver knowledgeable contents to fulfil with readers’ expectations.

As the content of printed books may be outdated as time passes by, it would be challenging to produce these printed books in the future as by times it needs to compete with the fast changing media environment. Therefore, we need to catch up with the changes, we are encouraged to use the electronic devices to support the learning process and update knowledge in the fastest way.


One interesting video showing the difference between ebook and print book,


Video designed by mattyoung037 from www.youtube.com

There are still other episodes from mattyoung037,
Book vs. E-Book: Episode 1 - Touch & Smell
Books vs. E-Books: Episode 3 - On the Bookshelf



Reference List:
Capeloto, A. 2011, How e-textbooks, online modules could keep journalism education current, PBG.org [ONLINE] Available at:
http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2011/08/how-e-textbooks-online-modules-could-keep-journalism-education-current237.html [Accessed 13 November 11]

MacManus, R. (2010), 5 ways e-books are better than paper books, ReadWriteWeb.com [ONLINE] Available at:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/5_ways_that_ebooks_are_betterthan_paper_books.php [Accessed 12 November 11]

Mattyoung037. (2010). Book vs. E-Book: Episode 2 - In the Bath. [Online Video]. 09 August. Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwmrHWHi74w&feature=related. [Accessed 14 November 2011].

Schriver, K.A (1997), 'Chapter 6: The interplay of words and pictures,' in Dynamics in document design: Creating texts for readers, pp.361-441, Wiley Computer Pub., New York.

Walsh, M., 2006, ‘Textual shift: examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts’, Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol. 29 (1), pp. 24-37.



Thursday, November 10, 2011

The Reliability of Newspaper Publications

From the image, what’s missing?
 


 


Both images source from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/10/jewish-paper-apologises-hillary-clinton

 

The Guardian (2011), a weekly newspaper publisher has published news about the Orthodox Jewish Newspaper apologized for the deletion of both women in an image released by The White House -  the US secretary of state: Hillary Clinton and the Counterterrorism director: Audrey Tomason.


This image captured a historic moment where President Barack Obama and his staffs were monitoring in the real time of the operation by navy Seals that killed Osama bin Laden. Thus, the image represents as apprehend the mastermind of the September 11 attacks after the decade-long US effort (The Guardian, 2011).


However, as a traditional policy of not printing women’s images of the Yiddish language publication, Di TzeiTung altered the image with the explanation of the cultural conflict with its most Jewish readers’ belief that showing images of female form is 'immodest'.
 
Today, the emergence of advance digital photography and technology do offer the opportunity for photo manipulation, reproduction and transmission of images (Wikipedia, 2011). As photojournalism is about presenting an accurate image and viewer’s ability to interpret it (Bersak, 2006, p.7), even Di TzeiTung was trying to avoid the cultural conflict with its readers; the action of photo manipulation did raise some ethical issues. According to the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA, 1991), it states the guidance as journalists should keep the subject matter accurate and comprehensive, avoid presenting own biases and do not manipulate images that can mislead viewers. The 2006 Lebanon War photographs controversies is a notable example of ethical issue due to photo manipulation.
 

In fact, newspaper works to provide the function of reporting the accurate information and uncover the truth to its readers.  In this case, it is quite disappointing and upset as the issues of photo manipulation happened in the newspaper publications.

Hence, if the Yiddish publication continues to do so in the future, the trust from its reader will start to crumble as readers may fear to receive not trustworthy reports which being manipulated in its news again.
Image source from: http://www.penn-olson.com/2010/04/05/we-trust-brands-on-social-networks-almost-as-much-as-we-trust-peers/



Reference List:

Bersak, RD 2006, Ethics in Photojournalism: Past, Present, and Future, Lodon, pp. 2-71, [ONLINE] Available at: http://web.mit.edu/drb/Public/Bersak_CMS_Thesis_FINAL.pdf [Accessed 9 November 11].
Donald R. Winslow. 2006. Reuters Apologizes Over Altered Lebanon War Photos; Suspends Photographer. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.nppa.org/news_and_events/news/2006/08/reuters.html. [Accessed 10 November 11].
NPPA (1991), Digital manipulation code of ethics, National Press Photographers Association. [ONLINE] Available at:
The Guardian (2011), Orthodox Jewish paper apologizes for Hillary Clinton deletion, Associated Press. [ONLINE] Available at:
[Accessed 7 November 11].
Wikipedia. 2011. Photojournalism. [ONLINE] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photojournalism. [Accessed 08 November 11].





Friday, August 26, 2011

Screen vs. print document design

Design techniques for screen and printed document are two different approaches. The elements should focus for both documents are not the same.

Screen Document

For screen or blog design, the designing concepts need to be attractive and engage to catch people's attention as people normally tend to read the online information partially (Jonah, 2007). For instance, the design of the blog can be more colourful and putting some interactivity such as chatbox and hyperlinks to those bloggers are able to get interact with. Hence, the attractiveness, theme and colour of the design are the main focus for screen document.

                        

Printed Document

For printed document such as newspaper, the layout is important as it will affect the structure of the content in the document. Newspaper requires a well-organized system in its layout (Leeuwen & Kress, 1998). Since newspaper contains a lot of information that is too wordy, the arrangement of photographs, headlines and blocks of text will have big influence on reader's willingness to read. Therefore, the design for printed document should be more professional and serious by emphasizing on the elements of size, color tone, fonts, spacing and etc.

    



Reference List:


Jonah, 2007, 'Document Design: Blogs vs. Print', red dot semiotik: sociopolitical and electronic publishing commentary in Singapore, retrieved from: <http://semiotik.wordpress.com/document-design-blogs-vs-print/> [Accessed on 26th August 2011]

Leeuwen, V, Kress, G, 1998, ‘Front pages : (the critical) analysis of newspaper layout’, Approaches to media discourse, Ch. 7, pp. 186-219

New forms of media publishing

The advanced of technology has great impact on conducting to the new forms of media publishing over the old media. According to Naughton (2006), the communication in the new media ecosystem has changed due to the combination of digital convergence, advanced personal computing and global social networking. With the new trend of media publishing, people are able to get updated news from various categories such as business, politic reviews, and etc.

One of the reasons that cause the new publishing techniques is the cost saving (Hibbert B, 1999). As Internet is fast and vast, people tend to reliable on the Internet resources such as reading newspaper online instead of reading printed newspaper. In this case, firms are able to save costs while it is very convenient for readers to get the latest information every time, anywhere online.
Example of Online Newspaper,
Source: The Star Online http://thestar.com.my/

The social networks affects the way people communicate (Williams, 2008). Twitter, Facebook and Youtube are the social networks that provide latest trend and easy access to exchange information and to connect with friends.
Moreover, these social networks provide the capabilities for the users especially students to link themselves in their pages to inform their friends about their latest information such as the check-in function on Facebook.
Examples of social networks,
     
      

However, by too focusing on social networking online, the chances of isolating from visual communication in society are high as people are not getting aware of what happen around them. This issue should be avoiding as human beings need to have a balanced lifestyle.



Reference List: 
Hibber, B 1999, 'Publishing and the media industries in the digital age', The Journal of Policy, Regulation and Strategy for telecommunications information and media, vol. 1, no. 5, pp. 393 - 403, Retrieved from: <http://www.emeraldinsight.com.ezlibproxy.unisa.edu.au/journals.htm?issn=1463-6697&volume=1&issue=5&articleid=873838&show=pdf> [Accessd on 26th August 2011].

Naughton, John 2006, Blogging and the emerging media ecosystem, retrieved from: http://reuteursinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/about/discussion/blogging.html [Accessed on 26 August 2011].

Williams,T.B. 2008, Tomorrow Will Not Be Like Today": Literacy and Identity in a World of Multiliteracies. [Online] 51(8); pp.682-686. Available at: http://www.jstor.org.ezlibproxy.unisa.edu.au/stable/pdfplus/40012405.pdf [Accessed 26 August 2011].

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Explain briefly types of blogging communities & methods to build blogging communities

Blogging Community

Blogging community is a way that links bloggers and readers together. It is a personal interaction that connects with others by actively leaving comments to the blog (Mueller, 2009). Successful bloggers take time to build relationships with their readers in a matter of sharing.

 


Types of Blogging Community (White, 2006)

The blogging community consists of three types which is the Blogger Centric Community, the Topic Centric Community and the Boundaried Community.  

  
In the Blogger Centric Community, the blog is owned by one owner or organization. Bloggers select the topics that can communicate and share information with audience.


  
In the Topic Centric Community,  it is like a network formation with other bloggers that linked by common topics or same interest such as travel blogger, food blogger and so forth. Bloggers may leave personal details to others via emails.


In the Boundaried Community, readers are hosted on a particular blog that required members to log in or register for the blog. This community owns discussion board and social features such as MySpace.com.

                 

Global voices community focuses on creating a shared community with others. It is having the features as Topic Centric Community which bloggers or readers are able to find the information regarding to the topics they interested by tagging it on the search bar provided.

                  



Reference List:

Mueller, E 2007, How to create community on your blog, viewed 25 August 2011, retrieved from: <http://blissfullydomestic.com/2009/how-to-create-community-on-your-blog-for-wordpress-users>

The Knowledge Tree. 2006. Blog and Community - launching a new paradigm for online community? . [ONLINE] Available at: http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2006/edition-11-editorial/blogs-and-community-%E2%80%93-launching-a-new-paradigm-for-online-community. [Accessed 24 August 11].

White, N. 2006, 'Trying to Explain. Blogs and Community:Launching a New Paradigm for Online Community?', Australian Flexible Learning Framework, 11th edition, pp. 1 - 41, viewed 26 August 2011, retrieved from: <http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2006/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/The%20Knowledge%20Tree%20Ed%2011.pdf>