The End

I've surely learned a lot through the entire journey of writing this blog. It is very challenging to research about the new era today in the high technology world that does not stop inventing new things everyday.

I've also realised how the blog revolution actually hits the entire world through economy, political and education. I am a blogger myself and i realised my blog actually play a small role in the social community around me on what i write and review about without even realising.

Sometimes, being a fresh teenager who almost turn 21, we tend to express a lot of things without thinking and analyzing the issue. The issue on 'Blogging and Freedom of Speech' taught me that i should be careful with my words i live in the country where certain subject is sensitive towards the country and people, and the government has the right in taking action.

I've also thought that the traditional media such as newspapers, radio and magazine is dying, it comes out that people still favor traditional media since the online media is not interactive enough and the content length may be too short or too long. Again, the content decides on which media wins the audience.

Blogging may be a platform for 'citizen journalism', but i believe that as bloggers we should have our limits and our contents must interest the audience. As bloggers, we should not take advantage on writing things which is untrue or false. Proper souce and citations should be given to make your issue more trustworthy.

Earning Big through Blogs

We have heard about how bloggers such as Markus Frind to earn as much as 3 million. Local bloggers such as Kenny Sia earns the most from Nuffnang advertising. It's not surprised to say that most of the blogger earning comes from advertising placement and sponsors. There are 2 very popular blog advertising in Malaysia known by many of us which is Nuffnang & Advertlets.

Tiah (right) and Cheo, founders of Nuffnang

(Source, The Star May 29, 2007)

The Advantages

According to Tiah (Timothy Tiah Ewe Tiam, 24 founder of Nuffnang), advertising on traditional media is very costly and passing flyers around which is a cheaper method is not effective. So he and Cheo Ming Shen came out with a system to allow international and local companies to reach bloggers.

One of the main reasons why people choose to advertise online especially in blogs is that bloggers see themselves as "citizen journalists." Rhodes University New Media studies head, Vincent Maher said that “Citizen journalism happens when ordinary people write about extraordinary events. Normally it comes in the form of eye-witness accounts or insider information that sometimes becomes newsworthy,” says Maher. The people today wants a media which does not control their content instead they want to have a full authority on their content. "They want their news on demand, when it works for them. They want control over their media, instead of being controlled by it." (Rupert Murdoch, 2006)

Almost everyone in the entire world can afford to blog now where it is low cost in writing an entry since anyone with an internet connection and computer can publish. "One can reach their clients instantly without incurring cost using traditional methods like mailing. The best thing about internet advertising is that you can measure the results." (John Rognerud, 2009) Blogging create a higher credibility since the bloggers have more ownership over their content in blogs.

Problems

Research shows that even if the blogs is filled with millions of visitors a day, unrelevant advertisements available on the blog will not be viewed by the visitors. According to Gareth Davies, only bloggers who write about very specific topics can use AdSense as the ads generated would be consistent and relevant to the content.

The blogging revolution can be found in South Africa today but the usage and availability is limited as the people there are poor and their have lower income.
Jeff Ooi also mentioned that blogger may probably earn some money with ads on their blogs, but it will not be enough to pay off their bills one day when they quit their job.

Blogging is now the trend and the future advertising media which replaced the old way of advertising online that annoyed us with pops up while surfing the net. Besides, it is also cheaper compare to publising ads in the traditional media such as newspapers and magazine that sometimes cause companies a fortune.

References

Lee, C, 2007. Blogging and big bucks. Viewed on 14th June 2009, http://star-techcentral.com/tech/story.asp?file=/2007/5/29/itfeature/17847964&sec=itfeature

Matthew Buckland, Print vs Online: Interview with MArketing Mix, Viewed 14th June 2009, http://www.matthewbuckland.com/?p=13

Matthew Buckland, The Blog Phenomena, Viewed 14th June 2009, http://www.matthewbuckland.com/?p=45

John Rognerud, Advantage of Advertising Online, Viewed 14th June 2009, http://www.jonrognerud.com/blog/advantage-of-advertising-online/

The Power of Photography

We will be amazed on how much photography can affect us and how it changes the world today. According to Walsh (2006), written text is only one part of the message, and no longer the dominant part. Printed text used the be the major seller in most media but today, we all can see that visual plays a big role with text in delivering message to the people too.

During the Iraq war which started during the year 2003 which was entirely control by the troops of United States and United Kingdom. Through political view, the war was right but the president was wrong (Jonathan Rauch, 2007). There were bombs and air raids drop into villages in Iraq causing the innocents; more than one million people mainly young children have died as a direct result of the US led blockade on Iraq (Rania Masri). During the war,there were lack of food and medicine, women were not able to breast-feed their children, families were not able to feed them well which lead to a lot of them seeing their children died on the way to the hospital.

Image Source: War Photo Limited by Kate Brooks

Caption: Devastated by the magnitude of the bombing at the Tomb of Imam Ali mosque and unable to retrieve smoldering corpses in a nearby burning car, men become hysterical.

President Obama then took over to deal with the policies and torture created by Bush administration. He took very precautions steps such as discouraging private commission to further investigate the torturing and releasing Pentagon photos of abuses instead of opposed releasing it. During the National Archiver speech, he said "We need to focus on the future with a strong desire to focus on the past,"

There are millions of photographs taken during the war by journalists and photographers and being shared through the nets and galleries around the world. It allows the world to know in a global perspective way what actually happens during the world.

The problem is, text could not deliver the story like how photographs can. According to Wade Goddard "In the media, we have editos, publishers, who are sitting at their desks with their own political or ideological views of telling the story," Photographers were there when pictures was taken, and they were the one who smell, felt and touched the story. Juan C. Dürsteler said that "Visual information is generally better remembered than verbal information," Photographs of Iraq war may remain a longer time in our mind compare to written text.

The Iraq war gives a big impact towards the world through photographs taken during the war and the photographs as the witness to such events tells the world about the violence and injustice in many places these days what drives photographers to show the world.

References

Jonathan Schell, Torture and the Truth, The Nation on Iraq War, Viewed 8th June 2009, http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090615/schell

Juan C. Dürsteler, An Image is worth 1000 words, Viewed 8th June 2009, http://www.infovis.net/printMag.php?lang=2&num=18

Rania Masri, The Women and Children in Iraq, Viewed 8th June 2009, http://www.ibiblio.org/prism/Mar97/iraq.html

Walsh, M 2006, The 'textual shift': Examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts', Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 24-37

War Photos Limited, Viewed 8th June 2009,

http://www.warphotoltd.com/?section=museum&page=3&item=1

Wikipedia, Iraq War, Viewed 8th June 2009, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War

Zfacts, Reasons for Iraq War, Viewed 8th June 2009, http://zfacts.com/p/775.

The Future of Journalism

The traditional media used to be the television, radio, and newspaper but the current platforms for journalists today are all of those above mentioned but can now view on screen that can do anything from anywhere around the world which is known as the Internet while blogging, tweeting and podcasting seems to be the new tools of the journalist.

The question is "Whats the future of journalism?," Since there are so many media platforms around, which media platform will survive?


Newspaper exists since 1950s and had been a very crucial media that updates and delivers the public with the latest news. Newspapers back in the old days only have printed words but as trend passed 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 elements on the page. Visual then creates larger attention in order to attract audiences.

However in the late 1990s, the 24 hour television channels and the Internet affects the business model of the newspaper. This lead to newspaper around the world to launch the online editions in order to keep up with the circulation of audience. According to The Guardian's uber-blogger, Roy Greenslade, "The reason that young people are not buying, is not simply about them choosing to go to the net, they are going to the net, of course, but they're no longer seeing the paper as part of the unifying element of the home." Young people are now equip with mobilise technology that they no longer consider the traditional paper that keeps them update.

There has been the degree to which text of all kinds necessarily 'participate' in genre and the extend to which they are likely to participate in more than one genre at once (Derrida, 1990). Therefore, since there are so many genre these days, newspaper may not be the first choice of the public's media. Again, people turn to the Internet where all news and information is a click away.

However, will newspaper die one day? CBS President, Leslie Mooves said "This is not a TV company, newspaper company, it's also not an online company, it's an audience company, and that is just what it's about, it's about audience, and the smart media executives and the smart media companies will be the ones who follow the consumer or the user, not the other way around like it used to be before.

Again, its about the content that matter most. It's the really good content that will lead the media to win, and it won't change the journalism practices as the result of it. In short, the best story will win.






References

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

Neale, S. , "Introduction: What is genre?," The Television Genre Book, p.1-3

The Media Report, Survival of media platforms for journalism, Viewed 7th June 2009, http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2009/2436717.htm

Blogging & Freedom of Speech

Blogging usually have no restrictions of its content but countries like Malaysia, we have limited freedom of speech even in blogs. According to David Sasaki ""Blogging, podcasting, and citizen media has not reached that tipping point in Malaysia because there aren’t enough people jumping off the rock. We need a concerted effort and a lot of people who are motivated to apply for some of these grants - who are willing to take the risk." Malaysiakini added that "If there are enough people to do it, then there’s not going to be any arrests because you have that critical mass." The question is, is there a big number of us who is willing to take the risk?

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.



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.

In the book, chapter of Culture as ideology, Billig (1988) & van Dijk (1998) said that "The term ideology is understood here as the social (general and abstract) representations shared by members of a group and used by them to accomplish everyday social practices; acting and communicating. Therefore, the social group who agrees with Raja Petra comes from the same background and understanding while other groups remain neutral or unknown. Bloggers like Raja Petra express the truth and gather its community through blogging because according to Billig (1988), the objectives of self or other representations and express opinions that represent and satisfy their preferred view of reality.

When public are not allowed to express the truth through media, they tend to move into the World Wide Web where freedom of speech is not restricted. However, every country have its own laws and rules which they might be detained (eg under ISA) once they are track and the government consider their work or acts that might harm the national security.

References

Chris Barker & Dariusz Galasiński, Culture as ideology, Culture studies and discourse analysis, pp. 65 -67

Fauwaz Abdul Aziz, Bloggers: Between Fear and the Tipping Point, Viewed 2nd June 2009, http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/73248

Lagallybawlg, Freedom of speech: How qualified is it in Malaysia?, Viewed 2nd June 2009, http://blawg.joshua3.com/?p=5

SK, Blogging in Malaysia: Fear Factor Vs Tipping Point, Viewed 2nd June 2009, http://www.skthew.com/2007/10/08/blogging-in-malaysia-fear-factor-vs-tipping-point/

Victor, Malaysian Blogger: Sentence for two years jail, Viewed 2nd June 2009, http://committeetoprotectbloggers.org/2008/09/22/malaysian-blogger-sentenced-to-two-

Media Publishing

New Forms of Media Publishing

With better technologies these days and the wide use of World Wide Web, the emerge of online newspapers, online magazine, vlog (video blogging), moblog (mobile blogging), and many other more forms of media publishing had influence the users widely today.

Is the internet taking over the print media?

According to Andrew West, a journalist who writes both for traditional newspapers and on-line publications in the United States "Now I still love the idea of writing in ink and paper, I mean I make my living writing for a newspaper, I’ve written books, but nonetheless this is a very exciting medium in the sense that it democratises the media."

Media journalists are still coping the balance between online and print, and much have actually move into the blogging world where they have much more space for their opinion and immediate feed backs from a wide range of audience.


MoBlog


Mobile Blogging (Moblog) is when user publishes post directly to the web using mobile phone. It helps bloggers to post write-ups directly from their mobile phone and it is also popular among mobile users that send email or MMS.

It is also helpful especially for travelers when there is limited access of the Internet connection. Travelers uses this as an advantages when they can shoot anything with a GPRS or WAP enabled phone which easily upload pictures with text descriptions directly to their blog.

References

Suad Amiry, Big Ideas, Viewed 1st June 2009, http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bigidea/stories/s1485827.htm

Wikipedia, Mobile Blogging, Viewed 1st June 2009, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moblog

Blog and Community

Classification of Blogs & Methods to Build Blogging Communities

People with different interest and background creates different kinds of blog such as;
Food Travel Design Fashion Cars Pet

Blogs are also classified into;
Filter Blog - Is build through a whole commentary of hyperlinks.
Short Form Journal Blog - A much more personal experience blog writing on thoughts, observations and events.
"Red-flag" Blog - It uses the original blog entry as the starting point for the rest of the series of the posts, either as comments or reciprocal links. E.g Mike Davidson Blog

Building a Community

When readers are attach to you or they love your reading your blog a lot that they return to view it again and again, commenting on the issues you write on. Building a community in your blog is good to keep track on your readers and allowing them interact with you as well. It also creates a sense of loyalty and readers who like you will help you out in various ways (Daniel Scocco 2007). Through this, it makes your blog different from others and create a good positive impression among others.




Starting a community;

1.Show Map & Time
Show your readers where you are, and it also allows you and others to know where are the other readers come from. Timezone is important as they allows international readers to know when are you available for consultation.

2. Create a chat group
Allows fast and effective feed backs from your readers even if they do not have an account.

3. Commenters
Select the month's best commenter (chosen by yourself or the community). They may be inspire by to win again and make a greater effort to write comment regularly. E.g Huffington Post

4. Work together
Bloggers play their role by writing and allow others to read on it, on the other hand you can post a topic and asking them for tips and by allowing them to submit their tips via the comment section. Readers are likely to get involved in creating a role in the content.


5. Forum
Host a forum or use free online services forums. It will reach the extend where your forum might become popular creating a loyal community and meeting place within your own niche.
Even if it is small, it gives you the opportunity to get to know your readers better.

References

Barry Schwartz, Building your Blog Community, Viewed 31st May 2009, http://searchengineland.com/building-your-blog-community-10556

Daniel Scocco, Building a Community around your Blog, Viewed 1st June 2009, http://www.dailyblogtips.com/building-a-community-around-your-blog/

Motive (Ltd), The Motive Design Web Glossary, Viewed 31st May 2009, http://www.motive.co.nz/glossary/blogs.php

Blogging Trend

Blog as the Current Phenomena and Benefits on Community

In 1998 there were numbers of sites of the type that are now identified as weblogs (named by Jorn Barger in December 1997). Public diaries are generally now refer to as Blogs. Blog has been around for almost a decade now, and the amount of users using it had been increasing rapidly and growing everyday. According to Luigi Canali De Rossi, about 120,000 new weblogs and 1.5 million posts are created each day. It is now a major trend which is use among the young and old in the whole word.

Why do we Blog?

There are different kinds of blogs ranging from political, corporate, genre, media, device and personal. Blogs are updated daily and often reflect the personality of the author (by Frank Catalano 2005). Blog do not usually have restrictions on the form of content being posted. It is web interface and easily accessible from any browser. The chart below shows the reason of blogging, a survey done by The Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Unlike any single piece of print journalism, its borders are extremely porous and its truth inherently transitory (Andrew Sullivan 2009). Blogging is a form of self global publishing that allows us to express ourselves and link others to related references and unlike other media,webs or journalism writing, there are restrictions and borders from getting us into a particular information, and writing an issue.


Benefits on Us

Many bloggers' these days had made themselves into the coverage community of young Malaysians and Singaporeans such as Kenny Sia and Xia Xue. Blogging is now another daily life thing, like brushing your teeth, watching television ads, commonly used by ordinary people, politicians, and celebrities. However, according to Perlmutter, "Blogging won't replace TV ads," and when different technologies come working together such as Blogger, YouTube, Digg, Google, can be a multiplier force in shaping our society.

Blog actually provide unlimited space of information, this lead to response from public opinion, arguments, criticism and freedom of speech. In the past, when a journalist did not manage to pick on something important on time, he might not have his news published at all or he needs t0 wait for an empty space in the newspaper or web but with blog, it changes everything. According to Martin Nisenholtz, senior vice president of digital operations for The New York Times Company “We have the bones now and the infrastructure to report about and edit the news continuously,”

References

Andrew Sullivan, "Why i Blog," Viewed 1st June 2009, http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200811/andrew-sullivan-why-i-blog

Brandis Griffith, Effects of Blogs on Politics, Viewed 2nd June 2009, http://www.oread.ku.edu/2006/november/20/blogs.shtml

Frank Catalano, Why Blog, Viewed 31st May 2009, http://www.thejournal.com/articles/17616

Mathew Ingram, "Can blogs affect Politics and Society?," Viewed 1st June 2009, http://www.mathewingram.com/work/2006/04/27/can-blogs-affect-politics-and-society/

Rebecca Blood, "Weblogs:History and Perspectives," Viewed 31st May 2009, http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html

Scott Karp, "The Evolution of Media," Viewed 2nd June 2009, http://publishing2.com/2006/07/19/3-million-bloggers-looking-to-make-money/