Introduction to Blogging

A warm welcome to all readers! As online media has made its way successfully as an effective media to convey message, this blog is created to provide in-depth discussion on the different media issues around the globe which had deeply impacted our lives. This blog also serves to create awareness among readers of the media issues that arise as well as how issues such as document design play an essential role in effective transmission of message. Contents published in this weblog are targeted to guide students, media professionals, document designers as well as academicians in achieving maximum knowledge of the important media issues that would highly help in their further research.

The revolving era of technology and incessant developments of medias had nevertheless resulted in massive explosions of media communications technologies. From the 'old-school' telegraph to the current widely used World Wide Web, it is significant that communication around the globe is no longer restricted within borders. One of such examples of media are weblogs services.


Examples of free weblog hosts : Xanga, LifeLogger and Blogger

Blogs exist in many different types such as moblog (mobile-blog), vlog (video-blog), splog (spam-blog) et cetera depending on the purpose and intended audience of the blog. Blogs can be used as a personal diary, medium to communicate with others and also corporate blogs.

The world of blogging aka 'blogosphere' had enable the people to connect to the world without limits. Blogs had became an advertising medium, allowing companies and advertisers to spread messages to a wider scope of audiences. In addition to it, wide usage of the internet allows establishment of communities such as Nuffnang opens the opportunities for bloggers to earn extra income just by typing away on their blogs. Blog communities of the same interests such as fashion blogs (e.g Wussytoots) and trading forums (e.g LowYat.Net) are easily found and highly anticipated by audience as they cater for what the people wants and needs.

However, due to difficulties to regulate the Internet (as it is global), authorities have minimal control over the contents and contexts published over the Internet. No doubts, this had become a serious problem as bloggers are beginning to go against the laws and misuse the 'freedom' of the Internet through publishing of posts which are believed to lead to defamation.

For instance, the incident of a Malaysian national who was based at Taiwan for his studies, raised spotlights and covered the headlines of the local papers when his composition of "Negarakuku" courted controversy since it was posted on Youtube (a free-video sharing portal) and received hits of more than 400,000 within a month. As reported by The Star, Wee Meng Chee, who goes by the nickname Namewee, posted on his weblog a personalised version of Negaraku rapped out in Mandarin had be classified as offensive as it contains racial slurs and insulted the national anthem.

This signifies that blogs and video-sharing portals had become a common spot for the public to practice their rights to 'freedom of speech' without hesitations as they are well aware, the world is ready to listen.

Designing the website or weblog in accordance to the audience, purpose and contexts should also be made as priority as good document design not only attracts readers but engage and encourage readers to be involved with the organisation itself (Walsh 2006, p.34). Online media (websites, e-browse, weblog) and print media (magazines, fact sheet and newspapers) alter different design layouts to accommodate their purpose and space. As print media asserts a linear and sequential reading pathway, readers do not have a choice but to follow in order to gain full information from pages where as online media provides a non-linear reading pathway which provides readers freedom to choose and encourage interactivity (Walsh 2006, p.35).

Examples:

(Image source: http://www.sxc.hu/pic/m/m/mo/morvan/330852_open_book.jpg)

Books are a good example of print media where it does not offers flexibility and interactivity to the readers. In order to understand the message that the author is conveying, one has to read each and every text accordingly (linear).

Online media such as websites uses hyperlinks to engage readers with what they have to offer. Hyperlinks allow readers to choose their own pathway and to use the modal in ways that serves their interest and needs (Schriver 1997). Apart from that, segmentations and frames are widely used to keep the website tidy, eye-soothing and user-friendly. This is important as readers will not waste their time to read or browse sites that are too crowded and difficult to understand (Dubinsky, Paretti & Armstrong 2001).

Thus, blogs as a new form of online media are widely used to serve all purposes with moblogs to provide mobility to users while on the go, vlog for users to express themselves through compilation of videos posted on blogs as well as corporate blogs that are often used by companies to provide unlimited information and updates to the public.

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References:

Dubinsky, J, Paretti MC, & Armstrong, M 2001, Principles of Document Design, viewed 25 September 2007, <http://ebbs.english.vt.edu/tw/TechnicalWriting/docdesign/index.htm>

Namewee 2007, Namewee blog, viewed 25 September 2007, <http://namewee.blogspot.com>

Nuffnang 2007, Nuffnang, viewed 25 September 2007, <http://www.nuffnang.com.my/>

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

Tech Central 2007, ‘University student comes under fire for video clip’, TheStar Online, viewed 25 September 2007,
<http://star-techcentral.com/tech/story.asp?file=/2007/8/9/technology/20070809113244&sec=technology>

Walsh, M 2006, “The ‘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, ‘Negarakuku’, viewed 25 September 2007, <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyiBvJtJ5Z4