End Note: The final post.

As this blog comes to its final post, I have learnt that blogs do not only work as public diary but also a knowledge Mecca that has assist me a lot in this assignment. I am an active blogger on another service provider. However, after having created this blog for assignment purposes, it has dawned to me that being able to argue on some significant media issues rather than just blogging about non-substantial topics makes me feel less narcissistic.

Amidst this, I have an in-depth knowledge in the reading that were required for this subject of Issues in Publication and Design, and have attained the ability to put good use in the theories and ideas found in the readings. Blogs have a more personal touch compared to other regular websites that share tips and suggestions relating to my interest. Such suppleness and informality present in a blog give us readers a sense of belonging and a common ground to interact with blog authors or other readers about relevant topics.

I have somewhat grown attach to this blog, so I might update it occasionally if I have any issues at hand to discuss about. Au revoir.

The Last Supper Controversy

Image courtesy of Google.

One of Indonesia's top news weeklies has apologized about the cover of its latest issue, which depicts former president Suharto and his children in a composition impersonating Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper.

Hayness states that something that is considered blasphemy can vary between religious groups and people (Michael 2007). Thus, due to cultural differences it shows that the Last Supper picture may not be sacred to other religious groups except for the Christians.
Tempo Chief Editor Toriq Hadad says, “We had no intention of hurting Christians. We were only inspired by the composition of the Leonardo painting, and not in the concept or context of the event told in the holy bible”. Several Christian groups and inter-religious organizations assembled at the Tempo office to protest over the cover. This has led to Hadad making a public apology: “For anything unacceptable arising from the publishing of that cover, I, in the name of the Tempo institution, offer an apology.”

The right and ethical thing that should be considered by everybody is taking responsibility for one’s action (Weber, 1995). Even though the Tempo magazine had already published but the Tempo chief editor nonetheless did the decent act by apologizing publicly to the Christians. This showed that he had ethics in publishing and he was liable for what was published by the Tempo magazine.

With regards to the issue, I felt that the cover of Tempo impersonating the last supper was undeniably wrong because it is something sensitive in the Christians believe as it is a fraction of the Holy Bible. Therefore, as Feijter (2008) states, “exploitation of religious themes or persons for the selling of products” is deemed as morally wrong and it should not be done by anyone.

Reference:

Feijter, I 2008, ‘The Art of Dialogue: Religion, Communication and Global Media Culture’, LIT Verlag Berlin-Hamburg-Münster [online, accessed on 9 November 2008]
URL:http://books.google.com/books?id=gq2yJFu3EUAC&printsec=frontcover

‘Indonesian weekly apologises over Last Supper Suharto cover’ 2008, ABC.net [online, accessed on 9 November 2008] URL:http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/02/06/2156269.htm

Michael, M 2007, ‘Freedom of Religion Confronts Journalism’, BCHeights.Com [online, accessed 10 November 2008] Url:http://media.www.bcheights.com/media/storage/paper144/news/2007/03/26/News/Freedom.Of.Religion.Confronts.Journalism-2791570-page2.shtml

Weber, J H 1995,’Ethics in scientific and technical communication’, WISENET Journal 38, [online, accessed 10 November 2008]
URL: http://www.jeanweber.com/newsite/?page_id=22

Trusting Wikipedia.

image courtesy of Wikipedia.

We have been told a million times from our lecturers that Wikipedia is not credible site to get your information, but somehow a few of us still rely on this free, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its name is a portmanteau of the words wiki (a technology for creating collaborative websites) and encyclopedia. Wikipedia's 10 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world, and almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone who can access the Wikipedia website.

Launched in 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, it is currently the largest and most popular general reference work on the Internet. Critics of Wikipedia target its systemic bias and inconsistencies and its policy of favoring consensus over credentials in its editorial process. Wikipedia's reliability and accuracy are also an issue.

Other criticisms are centered on its susceptibility to vandalism and the addition of spurious or unverified information. Scholarly work suggests that vandalism is generally short-lived. In addition to being an encyclopedic reference, Wikipedia has received major media attention as an online source of breaking news as it is constantly updated. When Time magazine recognized "You" as its Person of the Year 2006, praising the accelerating success of online collaboration and interaction by millions of users around the world, Wikipedia was the first particular "Web 2.0" service mentioned, followed by YouTube and MySpace.

To conclude, Wikipedia's source is legit when they provide citation and sources that are credible.

Reference:

Wikipedia, Wikipedia the free encyclopedia [online, accessed 8 November 2008]
URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia

The Facebook case.

Image courtesy of Mashable.

Facebook is one of the many social networking websites in the internet. Social networking has become very popular over the years. This social networking website enables us to share personal details, interact with other Facebook users, play games and use all sorts of applications.

L. Grossman (2007) Facebook has grown into popularity because of its classy and upmarket feel to it. Most people in Facebook use their real names compare to other social networking websites. They declare their genders, relationship's statuses and job affiliations.

Facebook Ceo Mark Zuckerberg decribes Facebook as "A lot of companies get grouped as social networking," says Zuckerberg. "Lots are dating sites, or media sites or sites for community. But our mission is helping people understand the world around them." (D. Kirkpatrick 2oo6)

Facebook also gives you a level of privacy compared to any other online social network website. For example you can set your privacy setting according to your groups. You can show your full details to a specific group you like to share it with and limit it to those from a different group.

More than 60% return to Facebook to find out what their friends are doing, check messages, send messages to others, and upgrade their profiles. These applications give facebook the edge compared to all other social networks.

Reference:

L.Grossman (2007) Why Facebook Is the Future, Time [online, accesed November 7 2008] URL:<http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1655722,00.html>

D. Kirkpatrick (2005) Why Facebook matters [online, accessed 8 November 2008]

URL:http://money.cnn.com/2006/10/06/magazines/fortune/fastforward_facebook.fortune/index.htm

Freedom of whaaaat?

Freedom of speech is the right to express oneself, with words or actions (verbally or symbolically) without censorship or limitation. The synonymous term freedom of expression is sometimes used to denote not only freedom of verbal speech but any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used. Freedom of speech and freedom of expression is closely related to, yet distinct from, the concept of freedom of thought or freedom of conscience.

In practice, the right to freedom of speech is not absolute in any country and the right is commonly subject to limitations, such as on "hate speech". This is because exercising freedom of speech always takes place within a context of competing values.

The 'Submission' is a 10-minute movie showing a veiled woman, praying to Allah. The front of the veil is transparent and we can see the naked body of the woman on which verses of the Koran are written. During her prayer she professes here submission to Allah and her husband and other male members of the family, at the same time recounting acts of abuse and violence by these family members. The images of the praying woman are interrupted by images of parts of a mutilated female body. The contrast between the professed submission and the suffering undergone by that submission is stark and painful. Someone with a basic knowledge of Islam can imagine that this film is provocative, to say the least.

As a Muslim, I could choose to say nothing, but this movie has been very thought provoking, it is very controversial and people are in fact already stereotyping muslims in such a way that suits us, thinking that it relieves them from stupor and simply yet another trend. People love the hype, the passion it apparently commands. Sadly, it is 'cool' to hate, what merely is, one religion amongst many.

Still from the video Submission Part 1.

Reference:

Wikipedia 2007, Define Freedom of speech [Online, accessed 27 Oct. 2007].URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech

Youtube 2008, Submission Part 1, What Theo Van Gogh was murdered for [online, accessed 7 Novermber 2008]
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnKxefgI15A&feature=PlayList&p=0ADFEC0F4F46A684&index=0&playnext=1

Kees Bakker 2005, The Good, The Bad, And the Documentary [online, accessed 7 November 2008]
URL: http://pagesperso-orange.fr/kees.bakker/goodbad.htm

New Media Publishing

New media is rapidly changing in the way we search, access and create news and information. The Internet has become the focal point for all those people who are not happy anymore with the quality, depth and breadth of whatever news mainstream media networks deliver.

Users have started to search information in new ways: if once upon a time the only way to find news was to turn on the TV or browse a newspaper, Internet users now prefer to type keywords in the most important search engines and then to scan the search results until they find exactly what they want.

New trends are emerging; not only users tend to look for more information on the Internet, but they are also increasingly open to look for alternative and more specialized news sources.

According to Wikipedia,
a. Device/media types of blogs:
• Moblog – mobile blogging, e.g. mobile.antonypranata.com
• Vlog – video blogging, e.g. askaninja
• Splog – spam blog, e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spam_blog
• Linklog – URLs (hyperlinks) blogging, e.g. www.geekhideout.com/wlog.shtml
• Sketchlog – sketch blogging, e.g. Karin Rindevall’s sketch log
b. YouTube
c. Online newspaper
d. Online magazine
e. Online books

example of Youtube.

Reference:

The Hitwise Report 2007, US New Media Trends & Statistics [online, accessed 7 November 2008]

URL: http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2007/05/09/us_new_media_trends_and.htm

Wikipedia 2006, Blog [online, accessed 7 November 2008]

URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog

Print Designing versus Online Designing.

Image courtesy of Balakov.

The transition from page design for print media to page design for the web would be easy considering both are based on grids and tables. But there are still some lessons to be learned from eye-tracking studies that gauge how internet users read the sites they visit. Schriver (1997) agreed that different individuals approach documents differently.

Document designers must examine how individuals interpret visual and verbal language. It is vital to consider the individual differences and mutual ways people interpret documents, so that optimum understanding is accomplished.

The analysis challenges what many of us consider standard practices in online news. The following is a summation of the relevant portions of the aforementioned link and applies not only to online news sites, but web publishing in general.

Contrary to what a large number of us have been told, a web page's text attracts attention before its graphics, according to the analysis. Most users visit a site looking for information rather than images and as such, the most important parts of the text should be featured prominently.

A good percentage of internet users have short attention spans that should be catered to to provide the best information faster. That means breaking up that 50,000-word, in-depth, special report into small paragraphs across several pages. Adding subheads and bullet points will also break up the monotony of scrolling through endless blocks of text. Parker (2003) Since Online publication has links and larger canvas to play with. The information can be scattered in different pages. For example, the first page would have only the important information, you can later click on a link for more relating stories.

These differences in basic design also changes the way articles, stories are written on print or online. Kress andVan Leeuwan (1998) stated that nnformation on print such as newspaper and magazine has to be given in full. The readers must have all the information on the limited space the canvas given.

Parker (2003) Since Online publication has links and larger canvas to play with. The information can be scattered in different pages. For example, the first page would have only the important information, u can later press on a link for more information or relating stories.
Reference:

10, 000 words.net 2008, Why Print Design and online Design are not the same, [online,accessed 6 November 2008]
URL: http://www.10000words.net/2008/04/page-design-print-vs-online.html

Kress, G & van Leeuwen, T 1998, Approaches to media discourse, Blackwell, Oxford

Parker, C. 2003, Looking Good in Print, 5th edition, Paraglyph Press, Scottsdale

Reep, DC, 2006, ‘Document Design’, Technical Writing, Pearson-Longman, New York, pp. 133-172.

Schriver, KA, 1997, ‘The Interplay of Words and Pictures’, Dynamics in Document Design: creating texts for readers, Wiley Computer Pub., New York, pp. 361-441.