Print vs screen document design

          Reading had been an activity to spend your leisure time. People had spent US$108 billion on books in 2009 globally (Ballhaus 2011). Due to the increasing in smart phone and tablet usage, publishers are penetrating into digital books. As new forms of media publishing emerged, the layout content of document design are evolving. A print document is 2-dimensional as reader has to turn the page to view a fixed size of posters (Nielsen 1999). Compare to screen design such as eBooks, design is in 1-dimensional as readers can use scrolling, zoom in and out or even rotate the screen for preferable view (Nielsen 1999; Apple 2013). On top of that, publishers design to include music, videos and interactive graph into screen documents. 

          Below pictures show different on print and screen document design on Fortune magazine. On this print design had a heading on top, picture on top left and wordings from left to right. 

In contrast, screen document design had a greater flexibility on layout as design divided into two sides and has a big title, picture on right and a wordings that able readers to scroll on the right. 

Reference List

Apple 2013, Apple in Education, viewed 14 April 2013 <http://www.apple.com/education/>.

Ballhaus, W 2011, Turning the Page: The Future of eBooks, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Technology, Media & Telecommunications, Germany.

Nielsen, J 1999, Diffrences Between Print Design and Web Design, Nielsen Norman Group, viewed 14 April 2013 <http://www.nngroup.com/articles/differences-between-print-design-and-web-design/>. 

Discuss in-depth the newest trends/ issues pertaining to one new publishing form and relate to how it has altered communication in a new media ecosystem

‘Social media is growing at an explosive rate, with millions of people all over the world generating and sharing content on a scale barely imaginable a few years ago’ (Asur et al. 2011, p. 434). The media ecosystem is emerging under the pressure developing (Naughton 2006). New forms of communication among society had evolved and new media publishing such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Blogs, online news sources, and Instagram had emerged. Journalism, advertising and marketing had altered due to new forms of social media.

These new forms of media now allow users to comment and interact with each other online. Unlike print media which is based on one way communication. For example, micro blogs are short comments usually delivered to a network of associates. Jansen et al. (2009) described that micro blogging often referred to as micro-sharing, micro-updating, or Twittering. This provides an electronic word of mouth at a very low cost (Jansen et al. 2009).

(Source: https://twitter.com/AirAsia)

Above picture showing how AirAsia used twitter as electronic word of mouth to convey information to followers on twitter.

However, these new trends in online media publishing created privacy issues. Users tend to give up personal information to join social networks and disclosed all personal information (Barnes 2006). Some corporations and institutions may require to monitor employee on company websites or on video sharing to protect varied levels of privacy amid increasing public scrutiny (Lange 2007). For example, a lost of $17 million was reported by the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre due to the online dating scams happened in 2012 (CBC News2013).

(Source: http://money.cnn.com/2013/02/20/pf/online-dating-scam/index.html)

In short, the advantages that brought by the new form of media publishing have transformed communication into a new media ecosystem. The immediacy, unlimited capacity of publishing space online, the capacity for interactivity of online media, and lastly the contextualize of news story by making available resources have played a significant role in this transformation process (Stuart 2006, p. 25-26).

 Reference List

Asur, S, Huberman, BA, Szabo, G & Wang, C 2011, ‘Trends in social media - persistence and decay’, 5^th International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media, pp. 434-437, viewed 14 April 2013 <http://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/ICWSM/ICWSM11/paper/viewFile/2815/3205>.

Barnes, SB 2006, ‘A privacy paradox: Social networking in the United States’, First Monday, vol. 11, no. 9, viewed 14 April 2013 <http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_9/barnes/index.html>.

CBC News 2013, Woman says online dating scam cost her $42K,viewed 14 April 2013 <http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2013/03/15/quebec-laval-online-dating-site-scam.html>.

Jansen, BJ, Zhang, M, Sobel, K & Chowdury, A 2009, ‘Twitter Power: Tweets as Electronic Word of Mouth’, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, vol. 60, issue 11, pp. 2169-2188, viewed 14 April 2013 <http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.ezlibproxy.unisa.edu.au/doi/10.1002/asi.21149/pdf>

Lange, PG 2007, ‘Publicly Private and Privately Public: Social Networking on YouTube’, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, vol. 13, issue 1, pp. 361-380, viewed 14 April 2013 <http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00400.x/pdf>.

Naughton, J 2006, Blogging and The Emerging Media Ecosystem, viewed 14 April 2013 <http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/fileadmin/documents/discussion/b>.

Stuart, A 2006, ‘Online News : Journalism and the Internet’, Open University Press, Buckingham, p. 23-26, viewed 14 April 2013 <http://site.ebrary.com/lib/unisaau/Doc?id=10196990&ppg=35>

How do readers perceive blog credibility & how do you build credibility through content ideas?

Source credibility is defined as the ability of the speaker affect the persuasiveness of a communication and message (Johnson & Kaye 2008, p. 3). Highly credible sources influence the receiver’s attitudes and behaviours better than less credible ones. According to Johnson & Kaye in blog tricks (2008), the credibility of a blog is sometimes depends on its context. For instance, a war blog featured a variety of news or ran stories that were not covered on the traditional news has higher credibility because the author of the blog who posted the news are often people who witnessed or involved in the war (Hastings, 2003; Johnson & Kaye, 2006; Johnson & Kaye, 2004). However, there are some readers may think that traditional media journalists who have more training and access to the news have higher credibility in the sense of writing blog and reporting news.

Even the professional writers may get stuck in writing sometimes, but they are always able to produce great content on a regular basis. What are the reasons behind? There are many ways to make the blog content sounds compelling, one of the ideas is to have group brainstorming, when you are lacked of inspiration always reach out to someone for ideas be them your blogger friends, classmates or anyone that can inspire you and get you going (Clark n.d.). Since blogging is a two-ways communication, you can always seek for opinions from your readers . Feedback from readers can be valuable, as they know best on what they want and expect to read from your blog. (Clark n.d.). Writing a review for products can create a salience for your blog, you can always share with your readers about the reasons that why u like and dislike about the products and whether you would recommend it. The review of the product must be truthful to gain your readers’ trust (Clark n.d.).

 Reference lists

Clark, B n.d., ‘22 Ways to Create Compelling Content When You Don’t Have a Clue [Infographic]’, Copyblogger, blog posting, viewed 14 April 2013, < http://www.copyblogger.com/create-content-infographic/>. 

Hastings, M 2003, Bloggers over Baghdad, Newsweek, vol 141, pp. 48­49.

Johnson, TJ & Kaye, BK 2008, Can You Teach a New Blog Old Tricks: How Blog Users Judge Credibility of Different Types of Blogs for Information About the Iraq War, viewed 14 April 2013, < http://www.jou.ufl.edu/faculty/mmcadams/papers/Johnson_Kaye_2008.pdf>.

Johnson, TJ & Kaye, BK 2004, ‘Weblogs as a source of information about the 2003 Iraq War’, Global media goes to war: Role of news and entertainment media during the 2003 Iraq War, Ralph Berenger edition,  pp. 291­301.

Johnson, TJ & Kaye, BK 2006, ‘Blog day afternoon: Are blogs stealing audiences away  from  traditional media sources?’, Cybermedia go to war, Ralph Berenger edition, Spokane, WA: Marquette Books, pp. 316­333.

The different benefits of blogging to communities

In the 1990′s, blogging has started as the online journal where people shared their interests, hobbies and opinions. However, blogging nowadays has evolved into a business opportunity, it is no longer a site for bloggers to express only their feeling. For instance, the Huffington Post was sold for over $300 million in 2012 (Bullas 2012).

Blogging brings a lot of benefits to the communities. In certain countries such as Myanmar, Thailand and China where the internet speech are restricted under control, blogs serve as a network for private goods that allow teenagers or the citizens to express their own thoughts or keep record of their daily life experience (Chih-Hui 2011, p. 62). Other than that, blogs also serve as a knowledge network that allows knowledge exchange across the world (Chih-Hui 2011, p. 62). According to Chih-hui (2011, p. 63), a group of bloggers from Singapore that are interested in heritage and history created a meta-blog to draw attention to heritage among the larger society.

The world of personal self-expression is no longer dominating the blogosphere, it is only a minor part that retains the vibrancies of blogging in this current trend. Instead, a significant part of the rapidly growing web is taking place. It is often used by companies to display their thought leadership and expertise online (Bullas 2012). According to Bullas (2012), a statistic shown that 8% of people are able to earn enough money through blogging to support a family, 9% of bloggers are able to make enough money to sustain their lifestyle on a 4-6 hour a day blogging basis and the very rare 2% of bloggers are able to make $150k out of blogging on a 1-2 hours daily blogging basis from exotic locations.

Blogging aids in brand building, it is one of the simplest way to get your brand to be known by thousands people whom otherwise would never know about your brand’s existence. Bloggers use blogs as a platform to market their products, they are able to send out updates in the form of direct communication to subscribers who have interest in their products through blogging. Most importantly, setting up a blog is relatively cheap compared to other form of advertising.

Reference List

Bullas, J 2012, ‘Blogging Statistics, Facts and Figures in 2012 – Infographic’, Jeff Bullas.com, blog posting, viewed 14 April 2013, <http://www.jeffbullas.com/2012/08/02/blogging-statistics-facts-and-figures-in-2012-infographic/>

Chih-Hui, L 2011, ‘A multifaceted perspective on blogs and society’, Journal of International Communication, vol. 17, Issue 1, pp. 51-72.

Differentiate the functions of blogs, Facebook and Twitter. In addition, what role do they play to co-exist with the traditional media?

In this fast moving century, smart phone allows us to get in touch with friends, family or even strangers from all around the world through social media networks such as blogs, Facebook and Twitter. With the convenience of all these devices, three of these social medias were made available to consumer with just a click away. According to the recent survey done by Swartz (2013) on Technorati website, Facebook has the highest popularity where managers choose to let their brand going social which is 91% followed by twitter which is 85% and blog 32%.

A blog is a website published online that allows readers to read and leave comment. There is no specific rules on how to blog, the content of the blog can be the author’s personal site that shares about his personal life, express his thoughts and opinion, a discussion over some topic or even a platform for the blogger to market his products (Blooger.com 2013).

Facebook is a free social networking site online that allows the registered users to make friend with other registered users from all walks of life by creating their own profiles, share pictures and video on their profiles or even sending personal messages to friends. “Facebook's mission is to make the world more open and connected” (Facebook.com 2013).

Twitter is a “micro blog” with 140 characters limit for each tweet. “It is a real-time information network that connects people to the latest stories, ideas, opinions and news about what you find interesting” (Twitter.com 2013). Twitter allows users to post pictures, video and conversations. Users are able to see the whole story by just giving the tweet a glance in one place. According to O'Donnell (2011), Twitter provides a window into the broader world of digital conversations.

            The mass media plays the role to inform, to educate and to influence opinion. According to Nagasvare (2013), “These distinctive features of traditional media have been challenged by new media, which is changing the participation habits of the audience”. It has been seen that the Traditional media is now served as a companion and an important source of information for the audience. In a survey conducted by Monica (2013), about 91 % of journalists and 71% of bloggers claimed that the quality and standard of new media were not maintained as compared to the traditional medias. Because there is no specific rules in blogging hence 90% of journalists also consider that the credibility of blogging is relatively low compared to traditional medias.

Reference Lists

Blogger.com 2013, What’s a blog?, viewed 14 April 2013 < https://www.blogger.com/tour_start.g>.

Facebook.com 2013, About, viewed 14 April 2013 < https://www.facebook.com/facebook>.

Monica, 2013, Socially Inept: Can Old and New media successfully coexist?, Axicom-benelux.com, viewed 14 April 2013, < http://www.axicom-benelux.com/insights/socially-inept-can-old-and-new-media-successfully-coexist>.

Nagasvare, K 2013, New Media vs Traditional Media, Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development, viewed 14 April 2013, <http://www.aibd.org.my/node/1226>.

O’Donnell, C 2011, New study quantifies use of social media in Arab Spring, University of Washington, viewed 14 April 2013 < http://www.washington.edu/news/2011/09/12/new-study-quantifies-use-of-social-media-in-arab-spring/>. 

Swartz, J 2013, Technorati Media’s 2013 Digital Influence Report, Technorati.com, viewed 14 April 2013 <http://technorati.com/business/article/technorati-medias-2013-digital-influence-report/>. 

Twitter.com 2013, About, viewed 14 April 2013 <https://www.twitter.com/About>.