Reflection

After creating and writing in this blog, now I see that writing blogs is not easy at all! Writing about serious things with a formal-yet-informal approach may be easy when we are writing only for ourselves, but in this assignment, I needed to make sure that the future audience will gain knowledge from my writings. It is not actually that much different from the basics of creating a good document, I just needed to make sure that my writings are easy to read,the format helps readers read efficiently and also enable to reader to point out the most important of the document (Putnis, Peter & Petelyn & Rosyln, 1996). Putting it simply, it has been a very exciting experience, I learned so much about the journalism world, how the internet IS a vital part of everything nowadays, and I am even considering to create my own personal blog to update daily. Wish me luck. Lots of ‘em. <3

 

References:

1. Putnis, Peter & Petelin, Roslyn 1996, ‘Writing to communicate,’ in Professional communication, Prentice Hall, Sydney, pp.223-263

How the Internet Helps the Good Old Comic Books

Reading the article by Mike Rosen-Molina, I cannot help but wondering, is this the future of comic cartoons? As another piece of ‘art’ being viewed online? The article does give a very detailed explanation on how the cartoonists actually engaged their readers, how they create controversy and different kinds of emotions making their work both attractive and enjoyable at the same time.One of the cartoonist Francesco Marciuliano was quoted "Once I really start to hate a comic enough, a lot of the time I actually start to love it,". Most of us would probably still remember how enraged we were (still are) with how indecisive Archie was with his choice of Betty or Veronica, wouldn’t we?

It was also being discussed how people react to their cartoons, how being published online helped the cartoons gotten noticed and fished out people’s real reaction to the storylines and pictures. Twitter, for the most part, has been a great help in supplying positive feedbacks while letters (including email) have been proved otherwise. It is also their needs to exist from time to time, creating headlines and twists in their storylines, to make sure that at least their works would stay on the radar, not abandoned or forgotten.

A great example is what The Garfield’s creator, Jim Davis, did. When Dan Walsh, of Travors.com created the Garfield without Garfield page, he was flattered and joined in on the effort. Well it was pretty funny seeing Jon Arbuckle talking to himself in all the bxes, but avid fans of Garfield must not be happy when they see it.

(Wikipedia)

(Garfield without Garfield)

And it is quite a sad thing to see him talking to himself. Well, in conclusion, it has been said that the internet would bring an end to the comic artists, since less people are buying the printed version of their works nowadays. Despite the success of the recent crop of super hero films , it is no secret that the increased interest in those characters hasn't exactly translated into a dramatic upswing in the sales of the comic books that spawned them. People are more engaged when they watch the movie, with the presence of visual and audio effects. However, it was a good move for the cartoonists to join the internet army, hopefully just like in the comic books, this will be when the hero sweeps in and save the world!

 

References:

1. Garfield minus Garfield, viewed on 16 June 2010 at http://garfieldminusgarfield.net/

2. Is There a Future for Comic Books?, 2005, comics.ign.com, viewed on 15 June 2010 at http://comics.ign.com/articles/629/629984p1.html

3.Rosen-Molina M, 2009, Newspaper Cartoonists Engage Audiences (including haters) Online, PBS.org.

4. Schiver, KA, 1997, Chapter 6: Interplay of words and pictures, in Dynamics in document design: creating text for readers, Wiley Computer Pub, New York

The picture that makes thousands speak (or shout?)

What do you see in the pictures above? Random people may only see pictures of random guy who looks and dresses funny, but these pictures have actually sparked more than controversy when it was first published in 2005. Denmark's embassy in Damascus had been torched the day before. Effigies of the Danish prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, were burned in Turkey, and demonstrations quickly spread from the Middle East to other countries across the Muslim world, including Indonesia, Afghanistan, Somalia, India and Pakistan. Many protests degenerated into riots, and in the resulting clashes with security forces around 450 people were killed, some 800 were injured.( source: ABC). This is actually a compilation of the works of 12 different cartoonists on how they view Mohammed, the Muslim savior. As we can see, most of them are not actually depicting Mohammed at all. There is,however, one picture in particular, that caused the uproar:



.
This image touched subjects which are so sensitive, even people would not discuss them in public. The view of the Christian cartoonist towards the Muslim religion, which sadly is how most people prejudiced them, and the depiction of bombs indicating the suicide bombings actions all over the world are may be just too much too handle. There is only one thing that newspapers had not been able to explain, the 5 months gap between the actual publish date and the starting period of the demonstration and legal actions. Is it too much to think that may be, just may be, someone or some groups were behind the incidents, provoking rages and angers to the short-tempered and controlled them like puppets, while staying behind in the shadows.

The cartoonist had even received death threats and said to experienced an actual terrorist attack in his own house. In my opinion though, if Muslim people really want to prove that these people’s depiction of their savior (and them) is wrong, they should not turn right into the violence way. Just a suggestion of an innocent bystander though. :)

 

References:

1. DISSENT: The Cartoon Controversy: A Critique of Islamism, March 2006, viewed on 15 June 2010 at http://www.siliconeer.com/past_issues/2006/march2006.html

2. Flap, 2010, Danish Cartoonist Kurt Westergaards Attacked by Somali Linked to Radical Islamic al-Shabah Militia, viewed on 15 June 2010 at http://flapsblog.com/?s=mohammedcartoons

3. Mares, P 2009. The Cartoons that Shook The World, ABC.net.au

Why So Serious? :-)

The Evolution of Email Etiquette

Considering the wide usage of internet nowadays, writing emails to your friends and family members is almost as normal as sending them a short text message or leaving messages on their phone mailboxes. It used to be a more formal way of communicating in the old days. It is still is mainly used as a more formal approach in sending messages to colleagues or distant friends, but the etiquette of using Dear Mr./ Mrs. (last name) is only no longer being used in every email. Sending jokes and junk mails are what teenagers nowadays do everyday with their emails, rendering it less reliable for sending important and urgent messages. Some basic protocols are also being forgotten. I personally hate it when people send me emails with all caps or way too many emoticons used interchangeably with their wordings, it is just confusing and hard to read. What is it with the emoticons anyway?

Emoting Icons

There are so many people all around the world speaking and typing different kinds of languages. There is one thing, however, that we can find in every chatroom all over the world. The smileys. Why is this so then? ;)

Let’s us start from the beginning then. Do you know that the smileys were originally used to distinguish serious posts and jokes posted on the message board. Scott Fahlman came with the idea after he had difficulties distinguishing serious posts and frat jokes at the Carnegie Mellon University message board. This is an excerpt of his original message.

Isn’t it amazing how, after more than a quarter of decade after its invention, these three-symbol emotive icons are still being used very widely? Eventhough its functions may have changed very radically, :-( is no longer the symbol for being not serious, but foe being very sad or depressed. And many short-forms have taken over the internet to substitute the use of the smiling face at the end of a joke; some examples which are LOL (laugh out loud), ROFL (rolling on the floor laughing) etc. Putnis&Petelin (1996, p. 297)stated that the time, culture, and personal circumstances in which we live structure our attitudes and values and is reflected through our writings that explains the concept of intertextuality: that all texts contain explicit or implicit traces of other texts. This is one of the reasons why we love emoticons. Most of the times, pictures can say more than words can say.Many modifications have been done to show different kind of expressions and activities. Some of such can be seen in the next image.

This is modernity. Say good bye to the good old clear emails and messages and say hello (with a big yellow grin) to the world of icons picturing your every emotions. =p

References:

1. Davis, A n.d, Emoticons and Email Etiquette, ABC.net.au

2. Putnis, P & Petelin, R 1996, Professional communication: principles and applications, Prentice Hall, Sydney.

3. Scott Fahlman, smileypedia, viewed June 14,2010, at http://www.smileypedia.org/wiki/Article:Scott_Fahlman

4. Wikipedia 2010, Emoticons, viewed at June 15, 2010, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emoticon

Privacy? No such thing, said the Internet

Internet privacy consists of privacy over the media of the Internet: the ability to control what information one reveals about oneself over the Internet, and to control who can access that information. With the rapid growth of technology, especially the internet nowadays, it is only normal that general information of generally most people can be found on the net with a single click. Have you tried Goggling your own name? Most of the time, people will straight away be connected to their Facebook page, Twitter profile, MySpace, or the good old Friendster page. It is easier than ever to get connected to friends and family, but at the same it is also easier for people who do not even know you, to know almost little thing about you.

Mary Madden, a senior researcher at the Pew Center’s Internet & American Life Project, said with social networking becoming mainstream, there are bound to be missteps by Web sites that will challenge users’ views of privacy online.

The vast amount of content available on the Internet is overwhelming. And with no strict rules to control them, the actual usage of the internet would be so terrible it would not be safe to let our kids surf the internet alone. Kids love to learn about new and exciting things. However, there are many sites that contain material that would be deemed harmful to children such as pornography, sex, violence, and hate groups. It is easy to accidently pull up a site that contains these items. Some of these sites are just there a click away, with attractive cartoon moving images and music, inviting not only children, but most of the population, to go and check it out.

Facebook had an issue with its privacy setting starting last year, and it since had changed its setting several times, now including limiting the people who can see your profile and pictures. But how does this affect the privacy? When we are connected to so many people on the net, most of them are the ones we know nothing about, would you care if one or two people would not be able to see some of your pictures? Your pictures can somehow still managed its way to be a funny emoticon used by random people, or worse, on a porn website page. This is what scared the Japan government so much that when a picture of their royal princess was taken and posted on the net they intended to take a legal action to the poster. 

With the rules present in the current situation, internet users need to still be very careful to post any information of themselves on the web. Now that “Google” is a verb, there is virtually nothing people cannot find once they “Google” it out.

References:

1. Hobson, D 2010, The Fall of Some Social Networking Sites, Press Distribution, June 11, 2010, viewed on June 14, 2010 at http://www.pressdistribution.net/10217/the-fall-of-some-social-networking-sites

2. Kang, C 2010, is Internet Privacy Dead? No, just some more completed: researchers, Washington Post, June 14, 2010

3. Marx, WD 2009, The Fear… of The Internet, NeoJaponisme, viewed June 14.2010 at http://neojaponisme.com/2009/05/19/the-fear-of-the-internet/