Le Fin

My journey with IPD has been a educational one! When we were asked to blog, I was excited because blogging is one of my favourite pastimes. However, I soon found out that we were asked to blog about issues, therefore, my usual blogging style cannot be applied. But it is through this that I learnt how to blog professionally and with depth and content – this is important because Nielsen (1999) stated that ‘content is king’ and users don’t go to a website to enjoy the design of a website. Therefore, besides choosing a good layout and design, I also make sure my blog posts are relevant and informative.

(Source: Flickr 2007)

I also learnt that to have a good blog post, focus is important. Information overload must be avoided at all costs! The important points in my blog posts are made salient to guide the reader and to grab his or her attention (Kress & van Leeuwen 2006).

According to Shriver (1997), visuals help to enrich meaning and to assist the reader’s understanding. Hence, images are included for those purposes, in addition to appeal to the readers.

I am thankful to be enrolled in this subject. I learned so much about good writing and effective document design. I would like to extend my gratitude to my lecturers, Ms. Ngim and Ms. Jenny for their guide, help, support and encouragement throughout my IPD journey.

With that said, may this blog benefit its readers and au revoir!

(Source: Boston Herald 2009)

References

Kress, G & van Leeuwen, T 1998, ‘Front page: (the critical) analysis of newspaper layout’, Approaches to Media Discourse, Blackwell, Oxford.

Nielsen, J. 2000, ‘Chapter 3: Content Design’ in Designing web usability, New Riders, Indianapolis.

Schriver, KA 1997, 'The interplay of words and pictures', in Dynamics in document design: creating texts for readers, Wiley Computer Pub., New York, pp. 361-441.

Tsunami and the CNN Effect

In USA Today’s article entitled ‘Tsunami donors creative in giving’, Edward Iwata (2005) reports that philanthropies done by various ‘industries, charities and celebrities’ are using ‘marketing creativity’ and ‘business smarts’ to ‘raise cash and goods’ for the 2004 tsunami tragedy at Sumatra, Indonesia. Various parties use various ways to contribute to the tsunami funds. Airlines donated ‘frequent flier-type miles’ to UNICEF, the Red Cross, and the Salvation Army, while Starbucks gives $2 for each pound of Sumatran coffee sold and talk show host Ellen DeGeneres raised $1million for “Ellen’s Tsunami Relief Fund” from companies such like Yahoo and Toyota (Iwata 2005). A total $241 billion sourced from foundations, estates, corporations and individuals have been received by non-profits (Iwata 2005).

the December 26, 2004 tsunami in Acheh, Indonesia (Source: SCIAF 2004)

Amazing, isn’t it? How the abundance of donations and help pour in so generously? This is what we call the ‘CNN effect’, which refers to the Cable News Network who provides 24-hour news coverage. According to Robinson (1999), CNN effect is ‘the idea that real-time communications technology’ could elicit ‘major responses’ from political elites and domestic audiences to global events; while Belknap (2002) stated that real-time coverage resulted in ‘immediate public awareness’.

(Source: International Tsunami Museum Story 2007)

The 2004 tsunami incident in Indonesia made headlines worldwide. Stories and ‘heart-wrenching media images of the disaster touched everyone’ (Iwata 2005). All these moved and urged the public to contribute to the tsunami donations – a CNN effect. All those ‘media blitz prompted unprecedented generosity’ (Shah 2005). To emphasise how big the impact of the CNN effect had on the 2004 tsunami, a comparison can be made between the tsunami and the 18-year Uganda war. For the tsunami, an average of US$500 was donated per person, while for the Uganda war, only an average of 50 cents was donated per person (Shah 2005).


The comparison shows that the CNN effect is exclusive to certain disasters only. Media coverage is regarded as ‘selective and stereotyped’ by many aid agencies (Shah 2005). We are only concerned with matters and news that receive wide media circulation. Former US Secretary of State James Baker said, “All too often, television is what determines what is a crisis” (Livingston 1997). The 2004 tsunami garnered vast media coverage that lasted longer than any other modern history disasters (Shah 2005). What about other disasters that happened across the globe? An immense amount of donations that flooded in after the tsunami worried the aid workers that donations and media attention will be diverted away from the world’s ‘hidden disasters’ (Shah 2005).

the Uganda war (Source: Raquel Evita 2009)

In a way, I think that the CNN effect is a good phenomena – it generates great publicity to raise awareness, funds and support from the public for unfortunate disasters which leaves its victims in dire need of help. However, the effect is also selective – that would mean victims of other disasters that also need the same help but are not “selected” will be neglected and receive less help from the public. According to Shah (2005), disasters that are “forgotten” will often become chronic. Therefore, as a caring society, we should be more observant and lookout for other disasters that need our support. We must not rely on the mainstream media only and must not focus on only one disaster.


What say you? Do leave a comment below or drop a message in the chat box at the sidebar!


References


Belknap, MH 2002, 'The CNN Effect: Strategic Enabler or Operational Risk?', Parameters, vol. 32, no. 3, pp. 100-114.


Iwata, E 2005, 'Tsunami donors creative in giving', USA Today, 17 January, viewed 17 June 2010, <http://www.usatoday.com/money/2005-01-17-creative-giving-cover_x.htm>.

Livingston, S 1997, Clarifying the CNN Effect: An Examination of Media Effects According to Type of Military Intervention, Research Paper R-18, viewed 17 June 2010, <http://genocidewatch.org/images/1997ClarifyingtheCNNEffect-Livingston.pdf>.

Robinson, P 1999, 'The CNN effect: can the news media drive foreign policy?', Review of international studies, vol. 25, no. 2, pp. 301-309. 


Shah, A 2005, Media and Natural Disasters, viewed 17 June 2010, <http://www.globalissues.org/article/568/media-and-natural-disasters>.

the Un-credible Wikipedia

Source: Ecdlcentar.com 2006

In 2009, it was announced by Microsoft that its online encyclopedia, Encarta will be shutdown due to its faded popularity after Wikipedia was launched in 2001 (ABC News 2009). The article, entitled ‘Encarta to end after Wikipedia’s rise’ said that the termination of the online encyclopedia – that was launched in 1993 to compete with Britannica Encyclopedia – will be done on October 31 on the same year (ABC News 2009). "People today seek and consume information in considerably different ways than in years past’, said Microsoft (ABC News 2009).

Now a piece of news like this wouldn’t affect me in any way at all, because I am a die-hard Wikipedia fan. Whenever I want to find more about something, anything, the first source that I would go to would be Wikipedia. According to Chen (2009), many ‘often follow their existing habits to find information’ and might be ‘unwilling to explore new resources due to the constraints of time, effort, money’ and so on. Although deep inside I know the information there might not be the most reliable, but I continued using because I am familiar and comfortable with it, and I feel unwilling to try other information platforms.

Source: Cybernetnews 2008

Besides that, according to Reep (2003), a website’s content is the attraction that will draw users to surf. I find that Wikipedia’s content is thorough and contains sufficient information that is just what I was looking for. There are also many hyperlinks that will direct me to more information. The use of headings and headers made locating special information easier and enhances usability (Reep 2003). I can find specifically what I needed without going through one whole article.

Even with all these advantages, Wikipedia isn’t exactly a researcher’s best friend. Anyone, including students who needs to research for their school or university work is strongly discouraged to cite Wikipedia, some to the extent of banning the website on the school computers. Taken from Crovitz & Smoot (2009),

Wikipedia is blocked on all computers in the Warren Hills Regional School District. Some teachers at Easton Area High School discourage its use, as do offi cials at Centenary College and Lehigh University.

—“School Officials Unite in Banning Wikipedia,” Times-Express

(Easton, PA), Nov. 21, 2007.

Why is such drastic action taken? This is due to Wikipedia’s popularity and improbability. Everyone is depending on a source that is not credible. Wikipedia’s critics describe the website’s ‘universal editorial access as its most egregious flaw’ (Crovitz & Smoot 2009). As Wikipedia (n.d.) itself states – ‘Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit’. This denotes that Wikipedia entries lack ‘scholarly backbone in the form of subject experts and a referee process’ (Chandler & Gregory 2010).

Source: Theory of Knowledge 2008

Furthermore, even Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales himself discourages students to cite Wikipedia, saying “For God sake, you’re in college, don’t cite the encyclopedia?” (Chandler & Gregory 2010). Well, with that said, despite all those advantages that Wikipedia provides, I will try to stop reading Wikipedia as my first source when searching for information.


What say you? Do leave a comment below or drop a message in the chat box at the sidebar!


References


ABC News 2009, 'Encarta to end after Wikipedia's rise', 31 March, viewed 16 June 2010, <http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/31/2530782.htm>.


Chandler, CJ & Gregory, AS 2010, 'Sleeping with the Enemy: Wikipedia in the College Classroom', The History Teacher, vol. 43, no. 2, pp. 248-257. 

Chen, HL 2009, 'The use and sharing of information from Wikipedia by high-tech professionals for work purposes', The Electronic Library, vol. 27, no. 6, pp. 893-905.


Crovitz, D & Smoot, WS 2009, 'Wikipedia: Friend, Not Foe', English Journal, vol. 98, no. 3, pp. 91-97. 


Reep, DC 2003, Technical writing: principles, strategies, and readings, New York, Pearson/Longman. 


Wikipedia n.d., Wikipedia, viewed 17 June 2010, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page>.

Emoticons - the useful three little characters

In Anthony Funnell’s interview with Scott Fahlman, the inventor of the emoticons is surprised ‘how universal the emoticon's become’ and wonders how "these three little characters have survived" [referring to ;-)](Funnell 2007). More than 25 years ago, Professor Fahlman from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh made a suggestion to his colleagues that ‘a little sideways smiley face’ should be inserted at the end of a joke made online (Funnell 2007). As the internet developed to new places, email too arrived at those new places, followed by the emoticons and by 1990, emoticons ‘kind of burst into people's living rooms,’ said Fahlman (Funnell 2007). Falhman also said that he sees ‘an awful lot of mail with the original three characters and so people must find it useful’.

So what is emoticon? According to Kasper-Fuehrera & Ashkanasy (2001), the word ‘emoticon’ comes from the words ‘emotion’ and ‘icon’ and is the ‘illustrative of the innovative tricks that e-mail correspondents use to communicate’. Emoticons consist of typed symbols to signify emotions i.e. : -), being the ‘smiley’ (Kasper-Fuehrera & Ashkanasy 2001).

It's not that hard to decode what does this smiley mean. You don't need to tilt your head sideways! ;-p

Source: Brainsonfire 2007

As mentioned above, Falhman observed that many mails use that three little characters, therefore "people must find it useful" (Funnell 2007). However, the use of emoticon is often criticised. According to Pollach (n.d.), emoticons are not used for it would make reviews appear less professional. Besides that, Scheuermann & Taylor (1997) stated in their list of netiquettes (‘etiquette on computer networks’ and ‘conventions of politeness recognised on Usenet and in mailing lists’) that emoticons should be avoided:

Avoid smileys (or emoticons as they are sometimes called.

People don’t read with their heads sideways to the monitor. And anyway, they’re confusing. What does this mean? ~:-)- Curly headed guy with a cigarette in his mouth? I don’t know either.

I must differ with Scheuermann & Taylor. Why do we need to adhere to these rules? It isn’t like we will be penalised and be thrown to jail if we use emoticons! Yuasa, Saito & Mukawa (2006) said that emoticons play an important role to emphasise the conveyance of emotions in a sentence. One may wrongly misinterpret a message because emotions are hard to be conveyed when email is used as a medium of communication. This is because email is a form of computer-mediated communication (CMC) which ‘replaces face-to-face interaction’ that altered the ‘nature of communication’ (Huang, Yen & Zhang 2008). Therefore, the use of emoticons should be encouraged. Not only emoticons are fun to use, it enriches information, subsequently improving communication effectiveness, resulting in users can ‘convey more in less time’ (Huang, Yen & Zhang 2008). 

So what if a document does not look professional with it? Trends are ever-changing. Instead of stubbornly refusing to follow it, people should accept and keep up with it. Eventually, what was regarded ‘unprofessional’ will be accepted soon if it is widely used. 

What say you? Do leave a comment below or drop a message in the chat box at the sidebar! ;-)

References

Funnell, A 2007, 'Emoticons and email ettiquette', The Media Report, ABC Radio National, viewed 14 June 2010, <http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2007/2064342.htm>.

Huang, AH, Yen, DC & Zhang, X 2008, 'Exploring the potential effects of emoticons', Information & Management, vol. 45, pp. 455-473. 

Kasper-Fuehrera, EC & Ashkanasy, NM 2001, 'Communicating trustworthiness and building trust in interorganizational virtual organizations', Journal of Management, vol. 27, no. 3, pp. 235-254. 

Pollach, I n.d., "Trust me, I'm an expert": The transmission of social cues in consumer interactions on the WWW, viewed 16 June 2010, <http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/ci/cyber%20hub/cybercultures/c3/pollach%20paper.pdf>.

Scheuerman, L & Taylor, G 1997, 'Netiquettes', Internet Research: Electronic Networking Applications and Policy, vol. 7, no. 4, pp. 269–273.

Yuasa, M, Saito, K & Mukawa, N 2006, Emoticons Convey Emotions without Cognition of Faces: An fMRI Study, viewed 15 June 2010, <http://delivery.acm.org.ezlibproxy.unisa.edu.au/10.1145/1130000/1125737/p1565-yuasa.pdf?key1=1125737&key2=9144866721&coll=GUIDE&dl=GUIDE&CFID=91921916&CFTOKEN=57562771>.

Taunted Virtually

“Am I Taking Crazy Pills or is Nicole Kidman the Worst Actress in the World?"

Source: Facebook 2010

This is the name of a group created in the world’s leading social networking site, Facebook. As if the name of the group is not degrading enough, members of that hate group are so filled with ‘loathing and spite they are inspired to digitally alter photos so she looks 100 years old or attack her entirely innocent newborn baby’, according to Fox News (2008). In the same article entitled Nicole Kidman Takes a Beating on Facebook, it is mentioned that viewers of that Facebook page will be exposed to the ‘horrible, disturbing, catty world of Kidman haters’.

What would you do if the above were to be your images?

Source: Facebook 2010, taken from Kidman's hate page

This is a case of cyber bullying, which has a steady rise of 2-3% every year over the last 3 years (Herald Sun 2010). As defined by Patchin & Hinduja (2006), cyber bullying consists of ‘willful and repeated harm inflicted through the medium of electronic text’.

I am sad to reveal that this virtual form of bullying is unfortunately common and happening around the world. A group of high school students in Kuala Lumpur posted atrocious comments such as “Let's slice her boobs and rub chilli on them roast her pubic hair and make her eat them," in a forum about a certain school prefect that apparently made their life ‘miserable’ (Anandarajah 2004). In January 2010, 15-year-old Phoebe Prince in Massachusetts took her own life after being ‘taunted’ by ‘school bullies’ for months ‘through…Facebook, and other social networking sites’ (Fox News 2010).

The Internet, in my viewpoint is providing too much freedom and platforms to do malevolence. The keyword here is access. Prof. Donna Cross, of Edith Cowan University said that “more young people are spending more time online, or getting mobile phones. So their exposure is greater, and so is the risk of things happening to them” (Betts 2010). So what drives these people who have access to do malice? Anonymity. This enables people to bully and verbally attack all they want with no fear or repercussion whatsoever. Shariff & Loff (2007) describes cyber bullying as ‘especially insidious’ due to its ‘anonymous nature’. Unjustly, offenders usually get away from committing cyber bullying. According to Campbell (2005), ‘perpetrators can often not be identified’.  


What can be done about it then? In my opinion, tightened or harsher laws on cyber bullying will not curb this problem. Why? Because these laws can only be exerted if a report is made. Unfortunately, most cases of cyber bullying are unreported, for victims are engulfed with fear of being back lashed, that is, instead of receiving mercy and support, they get penalised instead. Beale & Hall (2007) said that victims are afraid that ‘their computers will be taken away or will be barred from using the Internet’. Therefore, if a victim opens up, be supportive and helpful. ‘Stay calm and keep lines of communication and trust open’ to help the victim (Beale & Hall 2007). 


For more information on how to combat cyber bullying, click here. 

What say you? Do leave a comment below or drop a message in the chat box at the sidebar!

References
Anandarajah, A 2004, 'Cyber Bully', New Straits Times 30 September, viewed 15 June 2010, <http://www.cybersecurity.my/en/knowledge_bank/news/2004/main/detail/904/index.html>.


Beale, AV & Hall, KR 2007, ‘Cyberbullying: What School Administrators (and Parents) Can Do’, The Clearing House, vol. 81, no. 1, pp. 8-12. 

Betts, M 2010, 'Federal Police research finds up to one in three teens are cyber bullied', Herald Sun 10 April, viewed 15 June, <http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/federal-police-research-finds-up-to-one-in-three-teens-are-cyber-bullied/story-e6frf7kx-1225852033539>.


Campbell, MA 2005, 'Cyber Bullying: An Old Problem in a New Guise?', Australian Journal of Guidance & Counselling, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 68–76. 

Fox News 2 December 2008, 'Nicole Kidman Takes a Beating on Facebook', viewed 15 June 2010, <http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,460165,00.html>.

Fox News 27 January 2010, 'Two Massachusetts Teens Suspended in Cyber Bullying Suicide Case', viewed 15 June 2010, <http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/01/27/massachusetts-teens-suspended-cyber-bullying-suicide-case/>.


Patchin, JW & Hinduja, S 2006, 'Bullies Move Beyong the Schoolyard: A Preliminary Look at Cyberbullying', Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 148-169.


Shariff, S & Hoff, DL 2007, 'Cyber bullying: Clarifying Legal Boundaries for School Supervision in Cyberspace', International Journal of Cyber Criminology, vol. 1, no. 1, viewed 15 June 2010, <http://ccrimejournal.brinkster.net/Shaheen&Hoffijcc.htm>.