Screen vs. print document design

There are differences when it comes to online document versus print document like the layout and writing structures. When readers encounter text, they ‘immediately start to take in many kinds of visual information about it, from its apparent size to details of type, color, layout, and illustrations’ (Hilligoss 2002). ‘Readers thus perceive, consciously or otherwise, the non-linear, spatial structure of the page, and are involved in the active, 'linear' process of traversing that structure, of “navigation” ‘(Kress& Leeuwan 1998).

An example of print document (Hall.J 2004)

An example of screen document (kathyp 2011)

For a screen layout, sizes of articles and pictures are different in a way that online writers are not restricted to word counts or number of pictures. While on the other hand, a print document has a set of word counts and number of pictures. The format sizes of articles and pictures are crucial for print document writers because they need to abide guidelines that are provided. Each and every newspaper or magazine companies has their own article format that a writer has to follow. In addition pictures used in print documents are usually lesser compare to pictures used in an online blog. As seen in the picture below.

The second differences would be writing structure, formality is essential for print documents like newspapers and magazines. However, an online writer has the freedom to write an article with formality or informality. Online writers usually gives their point of view by using ‘I’ or ’my’ while print document writers uses a 2^nd or 3^rd person point of view. A print document needs to be formal because it will be read by the public, as a form of respect to the public. An online writer gets the freedom because the blog that they own is their own space where they can speak freely or voice out any dissatisfaction towards anything.

Another example of writing structure would be print documents that cover other topics and usually provide facts or important points when writing a print article. Whereas online articles tend to catch the reader’s attention as their posts are usually to entertain the readers. As Nielsen and Morkes ‘study suggests that scannable, concise, and objective writing styles each make a positive difference in Web users' performance and subjective satisfaction’ (Nielsen&Morkes 1997). Thus, it is important for writers to produce an article that is fun to read.  

References:

1) Belam, M 2010, Oliver Reichenstein: Journalists are information architects in their way as well, viewed on 23 August 2011, <http://www.currybet.net/cbet_blog/2010/09/oliver-reichenstein-on-journalism-euroia2010.php>.


2) Hall, J 2004, Recycling with Papier Marche with Ernie!, viewed on 23 August 2011, <http://www.papiermache.co.uk/articles/recycling-with-papier-mache-and-ernie/>.


3) Hilligoss, S 2002, Visual Communication: A Writer's Guide, viewed on 23 August 2011, <http://www.ablongman.com/mycomplab_content/pdf/long_hilligoss.pdf>.


4) Kathyp 2011, Korean Fashion Icon: 2NE1 Wears Jeremy Scott, viewed on 23 August 2011, <http://www.asianfashion.com/blog/korean-fashion-icon-2ne1-wears-jeremy-scott.html>. 

5) Kress, G & Leeuwan, VT 1997, Concise, SCANNABLE, and Objective: How to Write for the Web, viewed on 23 August 2011, <http://www.useit.com/papers/webwriting/writing.html>.

New forms of media publishing

(Ahlin 2008)

There has been many new media in this century and one of it is the web called Youtube. What is youtube? As mention by (Youtube 2005), ‘YouTube allows billions of people to discover, watch and share originally-created videos’. Youtube has altered communication in a new media ecosystem, as mention by (Naughton 2006) that ‘an ecosystem is defined as a dynamic system in which living organisms interact with one another and with their environment’. Youtubers known as the Youtube users watches videos, produces videos and shares videos, this is where they interact with each other with videos.  ‘YouTube provides a forum for people to connect, inform, and inspire others across the globe and acts as a distribution platform for original content creators and advertisers large and small’ (Youtube 2005). By having this new media, media like television doesn’t get much attention anymore. This is because Youtube gives users the control to fast forward, pick the quality, download the video and more.

Youtube also changes news broadcast as they too provide the latest information, like the earthquake that happened this year in Japan. There was a life feed about it on youtube via channels like Aljazeera, TheT1TV5News and others. Consumers need not to go back home to switch on their television but just by using computers or smartphone one will be able to access the live news from youtube. This is where produsage a concept by Axel Bruns takes place. Produsage is “the creation of shared content takes place in a networked, participatory environment which breaks down the boundaries between producers and consumers and instead enables all participants to be users as well as producers of information and knowledge” (Bruns 2007). As mention above, Youtube is like the concept of Produsage. Where users produce their own videos and share them online on Youtube.

References:

1)    Ahlin, TB 2008, Youtube Icon, viewed on 23 August 2011, <http://tobiasahlin.com/portfolio/youtube-icon/>.

2) Bruns.A 2007, Produsage: A Working Definition, viewed on 23 August 2011, <http://produsage.org/produsage.>

3)    Naughton, John 2006, Blogging and the emerging media ecosystem, viewed on 23 August 2011, <http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/fileadmin/documents/discussion/blogging.pdf>.

4) Youtube 2005, About Youtube, viewed on 23 August 2011, <http://www.youtube.com/t/about_youtube>.

Types of blogging communities & methods to build blogging communities.

As define by (Kinkeldei 2006) ‘blog communities aggregate the individual and independent blogs of a number of people with a shared interest’. Interests like fashion to food to politics and even to celebrities. In order to create a community, a blogger needs to abide a few guidelines like to respond to the communities’ comments, ask a question or two after a post, have some competition or projects where readers can participate and the most important one would be linking one another. ‘Community can be seen as one of the major attributes of the Internet, and it really does form friendships and a sense of companionship’ (Woods 2011).  

There are a total of three blogging communities, which is “the Single Blog/Blogger Centric Community, the Central Connecting Topic Community and the Boundaried Community” (White 2006). The Single Blog is a blog owned by one blogger or an organization where readers becomes commentors and starts to share their identity with one another as time goes by. Commentors do have the choice of providing a feedback or not but they do not have a choice when a blog runs down or changes anything. The commentors do not have a sense of control over the blog.

‘The Central Connecting Topic Centric blog community is a network formation’ (White 2006). Like what (White 2006) explained 'What links them is hyperlinks, in the form of blogrolls, links to other blogs within blog posts, tagging, aggregated feeds (using RSS), trackbacks and comments'. Blogs that falls under the same category would connect with one blog to another with a code.

Lastly, ‘Boundaried communities are collections of blogs and blog readers hosted on a single site or platform’(White 2006). The site could be a forum where the communities can register and join. The forum is usually controlled by the community where they can voice out, control posts, have discussions and more.

Screen capture of (UNISA blog)

To further discuss this, an example of Boundaried communities would be the blog like UNISA blog. Our own University blog, every student who studies under UNISA will be given an ID to log in. As seen in the picture above, the UNISA blog is a forum where one can have discussions, enquiry, messages and more posted on it. The forum also provide links to other student’s blog, where students can read and provide feedbacks.

References:


1) Kinkeldei, B. 2006, Whitepaper Blog Communities, viewed on 22 August 2011, <http://www.21publish.com/pub/21publish/blogging-whitepaper.pdf>.

2) UNISA nd, learnonline, viewed on 22 August 2011, <https://learn.unisa.edu.au/login/index.php>.

3) White, N.  2006, Blogs and Community – launching a new paradigm for online community?, viewed on 22 August 2011, <http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2006/edition-11-editorial/blogs-and-community-%E2%80%93-launching-a-new-paradigm-for-online-community>.


4) Woods, R. 2011, Why Are Online Communities Important?, viewed on 22 August 2011, <http://film315s.com/why-are-online-communities-important/>.

Classification of blogs & opinion about the most appropriate classification approach.

What is a blog? As stated by the website called “Blogger” ‘A blog is a personal diary. A daily pulpit. A collaborative space. A political soapbox. A breaking-news outlet. A collection of links. Your own private thoughts. Memos to the world. Your blog is whatever you want it to be.’ (Blogger 1999) There are many types of classification of blogs, for example classifying it by interest, hobbies, personal or organization. The table below will be comparing two classification systems of a blog.

Click here Margaret Simons classification system for more details.

The first classification system is by Margaret Simons who is an author and freelance journalist. She has a total of 9 types of blogs in her classification system which is shown above.

Click Shiva Chettri's classification system here for more details.

The second classification system is by Shiva Chettri from NetChunks Webmaster’s Magazine. She has a total of 5 types of blogs in her classification system which is also shown above.

These two classification system is somewhat similar, however Chettri’s system is classify simpler compare to the Simons. Although Chettri’s system is not as specific as Simons system, her system is easier to understand as she gathers the type and genre’s together. Chettri also provided types of blogs by device, which Simons did not mention in her system. The format given by Chettri is also easier to understand as she summarizes the explanation of blog types. While Simons format is based on a dialogue where she talks about the types of blogs. The readers would prefer reading a simplified text rather than reading a long dialogue as it is easier to digest or understand. However different individual has a different preference in classifying their blogs. Hence, one can classify their blogs by doing more research on other classification of blogs.

References:

1) Blogger 1991, What's a blog?, viewed 21 August 2011, <http://www.blogger.com/tour_start.g>.

2) Chettri, S 2011, What is Blogging? What Are The Different Types of Blogs?, viewed 21 August 2011, <http://www.netchunks.com/different-types-of-blogs/>.


3) Simons, M 2008, A taxamony of blogs, viewed 21 August 2011, <http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2008/2372882.htm#transcript>.

Blogs as current phenomenon & benefits to the community.

‘Habermas develops the normative notion of the public sphere as a part of social life where citizens can exchange views on matters of importance to the common good, so that public opinion can be formed’ (Habermas 1989) . As reported by technorati ‘the state of the Blogosphere is strong, and is maturing as an influential and important part of the web’ (Sifry 2007).

                                                                       (Sifry 2010)

The graph above shows that, there are at least 70 million weblogs tracked and ‘120000 new weblogs being created worldwide each day’ (Sifry 2007).

                                                                     (Solis.B 2010)

Micro-blogging is the current trend these days, most of the bloggers at least own either twitter or facebook. Through micro-blogging, bloggers are able to share and promote their blogs. Like the graph shown above, most of the bloggers link their micro-blogs and blogs together.

Blogs are also the current trend these days, for example personal blogs in Asia. Bloggers in Asia usually create personal blogs as a hobby during their free time. Personal blogger usually posts about their daily lives or blog about their hobbies. 

On the other hand political blogs are the current trends for countries like the Middle East and Malaysia. Political blogs are prevalent in Malaysia as a way for public to voice out their opinion and discuss issues that are not brought up in the media. Through blogging, bloggers are able to voice out freely without feeling restricted by the government. Although political blogs are also a trend in Middle East however ‘in 2003 Iran became the first nation to imprison a blogger for blogging’ (Sussman 2009). Thus, political blogs in the Middle East are not fully prevalent as there are rules to abide when they blog.

There are benefits from reading or owning these prevalent blogs. For example, Voice of Malaysian, jeffooi, rockybru, limkitsiang. Political blogs like these provides the latest information about Malaysia’s politics and it gives a variety of perspectives. As mention above, the public will be able to share their thoughts about the politics. Owning blogs benefits the blogger because, advertisers place their advertisements on famous blogs to promote their item. In return the blogger would have an income from the company advertising on their blog.

References :

1) Habermas, J 1989, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, viewed on 20 August 2011, <http://www.zipworld.com.au/~athornto/thesis2.htm >.

2) Sifry, D 2007, The State of the Live Web, April 2007, viewed on 20 August 2011, <http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000493.html>.

3) Solis, B 2010, The State of the Blogosphere 2010, viewed on 20 August 2011, <http://www.briansolis.com/2010/12/the-state-of-the-blogosphere-2010/>.

4) Sussman, M 2009, Day 5: Twitter, Global Impact and the Future Of Blogging, viewed on 20 August 2011, <http://technorati.com/blogging/article/day-5-twitter-global-impact-and/page-2/>.

Purpose.

The purpose of this blog is to provide new and fresh perspectives to the audience. My audiences would be the IPD (Issues in Publication and Design) peers, in order to achieve a better or mutual understanding towards the digital world. In the upcoming posts, blogging issues will be discussed.