New forms of media publishing.

With social networking sites and other new media surging in popularity, a shift in the way media works is bound to take place. Gitelman and Pingree (2003) sum it up quite precisely: “all ‘old’ media were new media once” (Naughton, 2006).

Thus what was once seen as a revolutionary means of conveying information to the masses is now conventional or even traditional, and similarly media goes through occasional changes nowadays, even more so with the advent of social networking sites and blogs (e.g: Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc.).

One of these changes is the increasing versatility with which the internet provides users in not only having access to information online, but also being able to contribute to the mass of information – Axel Bruns (2007) identifies this phenomenon as the age of the ‘produser’, where people are producers just as much as they are users.

The field of journalism has had quite a struggle in adapting to this new public competency, particularly due to social media being a more democratic, user-driven, and (most importantly) interactive means for people to gain information (Bound, 2010, ‘New media circus’, Monocle magazine, pp.93-97).

This sense of involvement is provided by the multimodality of such online sources, with “menu buttons...” inviting users to become “...active participants”, while giving the option of choosing “different pathways” depending on the reader’s interest (Walsh, 2006, p.32). This certainly outweighs the bland, one-way approach of newspapers.

It is not surprising then that most newspapers nowadays also have their online counterparts, for the sake of better timeliness in reporting as well as providing a more reader-oriented experience.

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References:

Bound, R. 2010, ‘New media circus’, Monocle magazine, issue 36, volume 4, September 2010, pp.93-97.

Bruns, A. 2007, ‘Produsage: A working definition’, Produsage.org, viewed 24 April 2011, <http://produsage.org/produsage>. 

Bruns, A. 2007, ‘Welcome to Produsage’, Produsage.org, viewed 24 April 2011, < http://produsage.org/>. 

Naughton, J. 2006, ‘Blogging and the emerging media ecosystem’, paper presented to Reuters Fellowship, University of Oxford, 8 November 2006, viewed 24 April 2011, <http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/fileadmin/documents/discussion/blogging.pdf>.

Walsh, M. 2006, ‘The ‘textual shift’: Examining the reading process with print, visual, and multimodal texts’, Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, volume 29, no.1, pp.24-37. (Accessed from UniSA online library)

Blogging communities: What are they and how are they formed?

Still very much in the thick of discussion in regards to the blogosphere, this post will briefly explain blogging communities and how they are formed.

A blogging community acts very much like community in the general sense, in that it consists of “groups of people...” – in this case bloggers – “...who, for a specific subject, share a specialty, role, passion, interest, concern, or a set of problems” (Garfield, 2010).

The formation of blogging communities came about with the proliferation of blogging, as more and more people started to blog, and as they did so, more and more topics were being talked about. This then lead to every involved blogger finding another by way of “commenting on each others’ blogs”, as well as having RSS and feedreaders offering “new possibilities” of how blogs were discovered and read (White, 2006).

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White (2006) further explains the nature of blogging communities, dividing them into three categories:

Single Blog/Blogger Centric Community:

A community based on one blog (managed by one or several authors), where the readers and commentors of the blog are the community members.

Central Connecting Topic Community:

A community that arises between blogs linked by a common passion or topic.

Boundaried Communities:

A collection of blogs and blog readers hosted on a single site or platform.

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One example of a blogging community would be Bloggers, a website that is home to “Millions of Bloggers”.

Bloggers' most popular blogs under the 'Arts & Culture' category.

(Source: http://bloggers.com/arts-culture/popular)

Bloggers' most popular blogs under the 'News & Media' category.

(Source: http://bloggers.com/news-media/popular)

A variety of blogs are aggregated on this site, with the main directory placing such blogs under different categories (arts and culture, business, entertainment, life and lifestyle, news and media, etc.).

As one author puts it, being involved in blogging communities gives you “strength in numbers”, among reaping other benefits (Banks, 2010).

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References:

Bloggers.com, 2011, website homepage, viewed 24 April 2011, <http://bloggers.com>.

Banks, J.B. 2010, ‘4 benefits to joining blogging communities’, BloggingPro.com, viewed 24 April 2011, <http://www.bloggingpro.com/archives/2010/06/07/4-benefits-to-joining-blogging-communities/>.

Garfield, S. 2010, ‘Communities manifesto’, viewed 24 April 2011, <https://docs.google.com/View?id=ddj598qm_44fx54rbg5>.

Kinkeldei, B. 2007, ‘Blog communities: Forging connections and promoting growth through blog communities’, whitepaper by 21Publish, viewed 23 April 2011, <http://www.21publish.com/pub/21publish/blogging-whitepaper.pd>.

White, N. 2006, ‘Blogs and community – launching a new paradigm for online community?’, The Knowledge Tree, edition 11, September 2006, viewed 24 April 2011, <http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2006/edition-11-editorial/blogs-and-community-–-launching-a-new-paradigm-for-online-community>.

Blog classifications.

As I have mentioned in my previous posting, the blogosphere is massive. It comes as no surprise then that with such a scale comes a variety of blog types that comprise the entire ‘blogscape’.

In her article ‘Towards a taxonomy of blogs’, media analyst Margaret Simons classifies blogs into nine different categories based on function, being: Pamphleteering blogs, the digest blog, advocacy blogs, ‘Popular Mechanics’ blog, exhibition blogs, gatewatcher blogs, the diary, the advertisement, and the news blog (Simons, 2008).

Meanwhile, other classifications such as those suggested by Talwar (2010) via BloggingJunction.com and Belardo (2010) via InkRebels.com are based on the nature of the blog’s content. The former mentions company blogs, personal blogs, general blogs, and niche blogs, while the latter lists collaborative blogs, tutorial blogs, travel/cultural blogs, fashion and lifestyle blogs, and personal blogs.

Blogs are also categorized by the medium through which their content is presented. For instance, Blogging: The Phenomenon bases its categorization on whether a blog relies on more text-based presentations or otherwise (podcasts, videocasts, and photologs).

Even with the specificity provided by these classifications, the process of definitively identifying a blog remains a tough one, as blogs may take on several different forms at any given time.

For instance, a diary blog may take on a quality similar to that of an advocacy blog (one that is a proponent of a certain political/social/public cause) by providing personal yet informed musings regarding a certain issue.

Therefore, even as the classifications provided remain to be relevant and applicable to the current blogging scene, the lines between different categories seem to blur as blogs get more explorative and expansive, including different media and approaches in presenting their content.

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References:

Belardo, M. 2010, ‘The 5 types of blogs – which one suits you best?’, InkRebels.com, viewed 23 April 2011, <http://www.inkrebels.com/insp/the-5-types-of-blogs-which-one-suits-you-best/>.

Blogging – The Phenomenon, 2006, ‘Blogging – The Phenomenon: Types of blogs’, viewed 23 April 2011, <http://library.thinkquest.org/05aug/01130/typesofblogs.html>.

Funnell, A. 2008, ‘A taxonomy of blogs’, ABC Radio National’s The Media Report, interview with Margaret Simons, viewed 23 April 2011, <http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2008/2372882.htm#transcript>.

Simons, M. 2008, ‘Towards a taxonomy of blogs’, Australian Policy Online, 11^th September, viewed 23 April 2011, <http://www.apo.org.au/commentary/towards-taxonomy-blogs-0>. 

Talwar, S. 2010, ‘4 different types of blogs that exist!’, BloggingJunction.com, viewed 23 April 2011, <http://www.bloggingjunction.com/4-types-of-blogs/>.

Blogging as a current phenomenon and its benefits to the community.

Just how big is the blogosphere? Well, to start with, just the mere mention of the word “blogosphere” brings to mind a mental image of a massive, borderless entity – similar to how one would imagine the atmosphere, or more simply, our planet as one big (almost) spherical mass.

The exact population of the blogosphere is hard to pinpoint for certain though, as Caslon Analytics state that there are very “few credible estimates about the number of online blogs”, due to the inconvenient fact that “many figures are contradictory or self-serving” (Arnold, 2009). However, a few legitimate and well-researched sources place the blog-count as of 2010 at 152 million (Pingdom.com, 2011), an increase from the previous 144 million as stated by BlogPulse (Morris, 2010).

Having said that, it is safe to assume that this number will definitely see an increase in the near future, as it is believed that more and more people will start to embrace blogs and the blogging culture as a whole over traditional media (Technorati, 2010).

Not one to be left out, Malaysia is among a few other Asian countries that are taking the lead in the adoption of social media, with a growing myriad of blogs abuzz with activity (Ooi, 2007, p.1).

Among the types of blogs most prevalent within the Malaysian ‘blogscape’ are those about “food, the social scene, family life, books and hobbies” as well as “political blogs” (Ooi, 2007, pg.2).

Having such a varied repertoire of topics does indeed benefit blog readers and ultimately society. For instance, political blogs provide alternative views on a current issue at hand and may even lead readers to question the objectivity of mainstream media (Attan, 2008).

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To download Yang-May Ooi’s articles on Malaysia's social media scene and its often uneasy relationship with mainstream media and the government, click here.

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References:

Arnold, B. 2009, ‘Blogging: Statistics and demographics’, viewed 22 April 2011, <http://www.caslon.com.au/weblogprofile1.htm>.

Attan, A. 2008, ‘Trends and future of the Malaysian mass media’, presented at The National Alliance of Bloggers (All-Blogs), Dewan Tunku Canselor, University of Malaya on 30^th October 2008, viewed 22 April 2011, <http://www.ssig.gov.my/ssig/kcent/material/Ahirudin%20Attan.pdf>.

Morris, A. 2010, ‘2010 Social blogging trends: There’s only enough room in the blogosphere for the 144 million of us’, Ignite Social Media Blog, posted 5^th August 2010, viewed 23 April 2011, <http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/social-media-trends/2010-blogging-trends-blog-growth-statistics/>.

Ooi, Y.M. 2007, ‘Blogging thrives in Malaysia’, Communication World, November – December issue, viewed 22 April 2011, (downloadable from) <http://www.zenguide.co.uk/2007/11/blogging-thrives-in-malaysia/>.

Pingdom.com, 2011, ‘Internet 2010 in numbers’, viewed 20 April 2011, <http://royal.pingdom.com/2011/01/12/internet-2010-in-numbers/>.

Sobel, J. 2010, ‘State of the Blogosphere 2010’, Technorati.com, viewed 20 April 2011, <http://technorati.com/blogging/article/who-bloggers-brands-and-consumers-day/page-2/>.

What makes a PowerPoint presentation, a good PowerPoint presentation?

   A PowerPoint presentation, being a document genre on its own, can be developed and made effective in its process of conveying information by applying the design principles that encompass genre and determine the quality of the document.

   In addition to making a document more aesthetically pleasing, good document design enables efficient reading, proper emphasis, as well as a heightened sense of confidence regarding the overall communication between the reader and the document (Anderson as cited by Putnis and Petelin, 1996, p.254).

   In regards to these quality-defining principles, the PowerPoint slides my group designed and used for a previous presentation assignment could have been improved in several ways.

   First among these improvements would be to ensure consistency throughout the entire presentation, namely the typeface. Among the various determinants of good document design, Reep (2006, p.136) states consistency as an essential tool for emphasizing recurring or similar types of information. 

Fig. 1a

Fig. 1b

   Upon observation, it can be seen that the fonts used in both the slides shown in figures 1a and 1b are different (fig. 1a uses Bell MT, while fig. 1b uses Verdana). Therefore, either one of these two fonts should have been chosen and used throughout to maintain consistency and ultimately improve the overall quality of the PowerPoint presentation.

   Apart from consistency, I would suggest that the font (namely, Bell MT as seen in fig. 1a) be made bolder, or switched to a more distinct one. This is to further enable the audience to read the information better and improve the process of conveying information (Marquez, 2011).

   Therefore, by having changed these few parts of this PowerPoint presentation, the overall process of presenting our findings and resultant knowledge from the analyzed readings would have been more effective, without being obscured by possible faults caused by typeface discrepancies and font unreadability, among others. 

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References:

Bear, J. H. 2011, 'Before you create a PowerPoint presentation', viewed 8 April 2011, <http://desktoppub.about.com/od/microsoft/bb/powerpointrules.htm>.

Marquez, Z. L. 2011, 'How to make a good PowerPoint presentation', viewed 8 April 2011, <http://ezinearticles.com/?How-to-Make-a-Good-PowerPoint-Presentation&id=4313178>. 

Putnis, P & Petelin, R. 1996, 'Writing to communicate', chapter 7 from Professional communication: Principles and applications, p.254, (UniSA online library), viewed 7 April 2011, <http://p8080-130.220.236.155.ezlibproxy3.unisa.edu.au/fedora/get/changeme:554412/CONTENT>. 

Reep, D. 2006, 'Document design', chapter 6 from Technical writing (sixth edition), p.136, (UniSA online library), viewed 7 April 2011, <http://p8080-130.220.236.155.ezlibproxy3.unisa.edu.au/fedora/get/changeme:931547/CONTENT>.

Reynolds, G. 2005, 'What is good PowerPoint design?', viewed 8 April 2011, <http://presentationzen.blogs.com/presentationzen/2005/09/whats_good_powe.html>.

  

A reason, a purpose.

In this blog I will discuss issues related to the field of document design, with which I hope to bring a convergence of views and opinions from my fellow peers, as well as possible input from professionals in the media industry.

So, stay tuned as I will be posting my subsequent discussions soon.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Dimitri. Nice to meet you. Let's begin.

Welcome. I have commenced this blog in accordance with the requirements of the Issues in Publication and Design (COMM 1043) course I am taking in my second semester of my Communication and Media Management degree under Taylor's University.