Reflection

“Meaning is produced and reproduced under specific social conditions, through specific material forms and agencies. It exists in relationship to concrete subjects and objects, and is inexplicable except in terms of this set of relationships”

- Kress and Van Leeuen, 2002

According to Kress (2003), semiotics takes the sign - a fusion of a form and a meaning, as its basic unit. In making signs we, embedded in our cultures, select forms in such a way that they expresses the meanings that we have hence signs always express, through their form, the meanings that the makers of signs have wished to make. Through this assignment, I have learned about the ethics of blogging and the design structure that goes into making a blog look presentable. As in most blogs form follows function, ours was for college it had to keep a professional tone. My task was to attempt to follow the pre-given ordering of the written text, as addressed by Kress and Van Leeuen (1996) embodying the authority of the author, working assiduously to reproduce the meaning which the author had intended to retain credibility of my content what I referenced various scholars and avoid defamation and infringement rights. Images were to be articulated carefully and sourced if they were not our own. Balance in photo placement, text layout, and colours were essential to the final product of this blog.

Hope you enjoyed reading my blog!

References:

Kress, G.R, 2003, Literacy in the new media age, Routledge, London.

Kress, G.R. and van Leeuwen, T 1996, Reading Images: the grammar of graphic design, Routledge, London

Kress, G.R. and Van Leeuwen, T 2002, Multimodal Discourse: the modes and media of contemporary communication. Edwaqd Arnold, London.

The newspaper is dying.. NOT!

In an article titled “The fallacy of ‘the print is dead’ meme”, Josefowicz (2009) begs to differ from societal agreement that print is dying. That's because most of the public discourse tends to be dominated by information junkies and if there is little doubt that if you're an information junkie, the web is the way to go. But the reality is that info-junkies are only a small tribe. They consume the news at a prodigious rate and the web is the fastest way to satisfy their appetite. One of the posts was titled, Print is still king -- only 3% of newspaper reading is happening online. While the exact numbers are open to further investigation, the thrust of the argument is that the overwhelming majority read newspapers in print, not on the web. But even if talk about the death of print is very noisy, there's no denying that the web has changed and will continue to change the nature of print journalism. Newspapers must become digital enterprises, even if they choose to continue to print on some days or on every day of the week.

According to Walsh (2006), whether it is print, visual or multimodal, a reader should engage with a broad cultural and intellectual context, a wider textuality and politics. As practiced in the Singaporean Academy today, print media has for most part isolated textuality from the circumstances, events, and the physical senses that made it possible to render it intelligably. Kress (2003) posit a social trend away from the dominance of the written word and towards technological modes that stress the visual and the integration of multiple modes at the same time. According to him, while reading in the language-as-writing mode is fixed both by time and by strict standards of interpretation, reading in the multi-modal era departs from the unique significance of the image to a much more open field of interpretation. Van Dijk's (1991) thesis, like Wodak and Kress, implies that the exercise of power in modern, democratic societies is no longer primarily coercive, but persuasive, that is, ideological.

In my opinion, because there is a shift in audience expectations, people are looking to find information that is on-the-go. Yet it is safe today that watching people read the newspaper on the train, or picking up a copy from a near buy store has not died away and this genre will continue to provide it’s audience with deep analysis of everything happenings in years to come.

For furthur information on the future of print media, read here

References:

Josefowicz, M 2009, The fallacy of “the print is dead” meme, Media Shift, viewed June 12th 2010

http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2009/04/the-fallacy-of-the-print-is-dead-meme117.html

Kress, G 2003, Literacy in the New Media Age, Routledge, London

Van Dijk, T 1991, Racism and the Press, in Robert Miles, Routledge New York

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

Tweeting and Politics

In an article titled “Blogging is so Yesterday”, Zahid (2010) addresses on how microblogging has been influential to politicians in Malaysia. The 62-year-old PKR de facto leader, Anwar Ibrahim, has been actively tweeting as a way to counter what has been described as the ruling coalition’s alleged attempt to demonize him through government-linked media. The keywords are mobility and speed. Unlike blogs, Twitter’s emphasis on short status updates over often personal journals has made it more attractive.

A microblogging site like Twitter allows political leaders send short instant updates, ideas and thoughts on current affairs instead of long personal journals. A study showed 3G mobile user numbers are rising sharply. From 3 million in 1999, the numbers have skyrocketed to 28.9 million up to last year and are still growing, which makes applications like Twitter, designed specifically for mobile-phone users, the preferred option for information. With Twitter, you get snippets of information but blogs give you in-depth information. Anwar Ibrahim said that information from Twitter will reach voters first instead of blogs which makes the microblogging service the primary arena to win public opinion.

Not just in Malaysia, according to BBC (2008), blogging played a key role in the 2008 presidential elections. Obama launched a blog to win support of the the largest state of Florida which was of Jewish majority and most citizens were against him. But with his campaign and promises through blogging, he won the votes by a 60% margin.

According to Crossley (2010), Twitter is used by friends and businesses alike, with most users having the tool running as they work or surf the internet to keep in touch. People share links to interesting articles they’ve read, what they’ve eaten for lunch, discuss politics and plan their social lives on the popular microblogging tool. Although this may sound incredibly trivial, Brewer (2010) argues that businesses are now using Twitter for serious networking and the service has been used for breaking news - the recent China earthquakes were very quickly ‘Tweeted’ to the outside world by Twitter users in the region well ahead of the major news agencies.

References:

1. BBC 2010, Obama’s historic win in US election, BBC.com, viewed June 12th 2010

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/us_elections_2008/7709978.stm

2. Brewer, D 2010, Editorial Ethics for Twitter Journalists, Media Helping Media, viewed June 12th 2010

http://www.mediahelpingmedia.org/training-resources/social-networking/401-editorial-ethics-for-twitter-journalists

3. Crossley, J 2010, Ethics on Twitter, Net Registry, viewed June 12th 2010

http://www.netregistry.com.au/news/articles/470/1/Ethics-on-Twitter/Page1.html

4. Zahid, J 2010, Blogging is so yesterday, politicians turn to Twitter, The Malaysian Insider, viewed June 12^th 2010

http://m.themalaysianinsider.com/articles_headlines.php?id=malaysia/52749-blogging-is-so-yesterday-politicians-turn-to-twitter

Issues in Photojournalism

In an article titled The Power of the Photograph, Heizmann(2007) reports from Croatia about a War Art Gallery and the impact it has in journalism. The gallery displays a visual view from both sides of the conflict and four international photographers put them together trying to produce a more global perspective of what actually happened during the war. This is quite different from the 15 seconds of TV newsreel that you get the international news channel. The exhibits always try to follow a story and get a little bit further into the story and closer to touch the lives of those who are affected by war. In the media, they have editors, publishers, who are sitting at their desks with their own political or ideological views of telling the story. The idea is to concentrate on conflicts that are happening in our lifetime today and to make people more aware of these conflicts. Photojournalists think a picture is more impressive than words. You can look into the eyes of the children; they're very terrified, very afraid. The War Photo Gallery is unique, because it is dedicated to conflict zone photographer, it is almost purely for educational purposes.

Lester (1991) argues that media critics and viewers question the use of gru

esome images, dozens of photographers hounding celebrities, picture manipulations that present misleading views, visual messages that perpetuate negative stereotypes of individuals from various multicultural groups, and images that blur the distinction between advertising and journalism.

Because images evoke almost immediate emotional responses among viewers, pictures have tremendous impact. Patterson and Wilkins (1998) believe that with well-chosen words, visual messages combine to educate, entertain and persuade. But the flip side to such visual power is that images can also offend, mislead, stereotype and confuse.

Emery and Curtis (1995) explains that editors need to be sure that images of murder or automobile victims are really necessary to tell the story. The media concentration on criminal activity creates an exaggerated perception of crime in the minds of viewers. Rather than focusing on bloody body bags, journalists need to explain the underlying social forces that cause such tragic events to occur.

In my opinion, photojournalism will continue in forms of Art Galleries, news, as long as they continue to make an impact on its viewers. Pictures and words co-exist with one another and today’s society is more likely to judge an article by the pictures presented more than the text itself.

For furthur information, click here.

References

1. Emery M & Curtis, T 1995, Photojournalism Ethics: Timeless Issues, CSUF, viewed June 12th 2010

http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/lester/writings/photoethics.html

2. Heizmann, S (2007), The Power of the Photograph, ABC.net, viewed June 12th 2010,

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2007/2051819.htm

3. Lester, P 1991, Photohournalism: An ethical approach, Laurence Erlbaum, New Jersey.

4. Patterson, P & Wilkins, L 1998, Media Ethics: Issues and Cases, McGraw Hill, Boston.

5. Sontag, S 1977, On Photography, Straus and Giroux, New York.

Issues shifting from the traditional TV to Mobisodes and Webisodes.

In an article titled Webisodes for Kids, Funnell (2007) talked to Chris Corbett on 20th December on webisodes as a growing outlet for creative TV. Corbett, a traditional TV writer/producer, created the webisode TinyTown. He believes they have a chance for greater autonomy, it skips the part where producers have to convince people to make it and the nature of the web itself allows greater response from audience due to its accessibility and time-shift. He does not compromise on quality production as Youtube uses cheap home-cameras to make its videos. Corbett uses HD camera and even though it grounds down to Youtube size, the quality looks great. He believes the length of a mobisode should not be more than 5 minutes as it can lose you at any point with the click of a button. Corbett was a traditional writer for television and found it more difficult to write a short mobisode as every scene had to be concise, have drive and momentum and can not afford to lose people.

According to the Writers Guild of Canada (2007), popular scripted YouTube has a ‘poorly’ lit handycam look and very rarely follows a classic three act structure.

This is a direct indication from the audience that this is the screen language they want be spoken in. It sounds so simple but it is worth pointing out: there is a reason that the 12-24 age bracket is leaving broadcast television. What they find there does not appeal to them. They do not want procedural crime drama and they certainly do not care that writers who went to film school. According to Dawson (2007), to consume mobile television is to escape the social and spatial constraints of the home as well as the feminine connotations of domestic viewing and for more interactive forms of perambulatory public leisure and consumption.

The issues faced by shifting TV to mobisode and webisode production can be summed up by the way the way “24” was made. Dawson (2007) explains that 24: Conspiracy, a serialized spin off of Fox’s 24, uses a different cast for its mobisode production. 24 is one of the most expensive productions on television with high-tech special effects. 24: Conspiracy, on the other hand, was shot on digital video on a shoestring budget, employing a non-union crew, unadorned sets, minimal location shooting, and unknown actors. Each webisode was limited to one minute in duration. Over 70 percent of shots are tightly framed close-ups, lit in a flat, high-key style as opposed to 24’s distinctive cool blue color scheme. Dialogue is terse, just like Corbett assessed, even more so than on the laconic 24 and performances are exceptionally expressive. Blocking centers characters squarely in frames shot with an extremely shallow depth of field. It was moderately well-received by viewers and critics, and in 2006 it received an Emmy nomination for outstanding internet, cell phone, or iPod programming.

In my opinion, mobisodes and webisodes are a relatively new medium and yet they have managed to impact society and their viewing habits at an exponential rate. They will continue to make progress as producers and writers in this medium keep innovating with new ideas and applying it to this genre to meet audience expectations.

References:

1.Dawson, Max 2007, ‘Little players, big shows: format, narration and style on television’s new smaller screen’, Convergenge: The New International Journal of Research on New Technologies, Sage Publications, Vol 13, No. 3, pp.232-250.

2.Funnell, A 2007, Webisodes for Kids, ABC.net, viewed June 4th 2010

www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2007/2124198.htm

3. Writers Guild of Canada 2007, Writing for Webisodes, Mobisodes, Games and Other Digital Platforms, Writers Guild of Canada, viewed June 4th 2010,

http://www.wgc.ca/files/Digital%20Guidelinesfinal.pdf