Blogging Phenomenon

e) What is good powerpoint presentation?

A good powerpoint presentation slides should be able to fulfil the ability of providing readers with clear information that they needed for understanding. (Reep, 2006) Besides that, a visual presentation is also a crucial element in powerpoint presentation. In order to produce an effective presentation of document, words and visual must be placed together. There are a few design principles that we need to follow to create a high quality presentation which is, balance, proportion, sequence and consistency.

Balance refers to a comparable visual “weight” of the slides of information. Paragraphs of words should be organized and divided equally so that the next slide of information will not having much of blank space. However, this issue can be settled by an example using large bold wordings to keep the pages balanced.

The second element would be proportion. Proportion in page design would be more to the placement of text and graphic aids. To avoid the presentation turning into a monotonous presentation, visuals and words should be organized wisely as audience could easily get message that is being conveyed. According to Teresa Bernard, a commercial artist in year 2009, she stated that good proportion adds harmony and symmetry or balance among the parts of a design as a whole.

Sequence is more to the arrangement of design features so that audience could see the best order of information and would not get confused easily.

For the element consistency, we focused on 3 parts which is the margin, typeface and indentations. Margin of each page should be consistent so that the pages look neat. Besides that, using a consistent font in the presentation makes audience feels the professionalism of the presenter. Consistent indentions also contribute to an effective presentation.

For a good writing in a presentation, we need to eliminate the long grandmother stories. Points should be short and brief for presenters to emphasize on main points while elaborating. Besides that, rhetoric elements such as ethos, pathos and logos should also being included in the writing so that the whole presentation is persuasive.

References

1. Reep D 2006, Technical Writing: Document Design, Technical Writing, New York: Pearson/Longman, New York, pp. 585.

2. Putnis, Peter and Petelin, Roslyn, 1996, Professional Communication: Principles and applications, Prentice Hall, Sydney.

3. Bernard T 2009, Principles of Proportion, online, retrieved on 25 August 2010, from http://www.bluemoonwebdesign.com/art-lessons-7.asp

4. Jirousek C 1995, Principles of Design, online, retrieved on 25 August 2010, from http://char.txa.cornell.edu/language/principl/principl.htm

5. Boulton M 2005, Design and The Divine Proportion, online, retrieved on 25 August 2010, from http://www.markboulton.co.uk/journal/comments/design-and-the-divine-proportion

Blogging Phenomenon

d) New Forms of Media Publishing

As we can see, our communication environment is now changing due to the emergence of all kinds of technology nowadays and all the “old” media were once new media as well. (Naughton, 2008) Blogging and as well as social networking sites has now become an issue and altered communication in the new media ecosystem.

This new form of publishing works with global networking so people could get first hand information. This has beaten down the conventional paper print newspaper that could not present those chilli hot news as fast as the new forms of publishing. Examples of new forms of media publishing are, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Blogspot and some other alternative online newspaper. These are the sites people are now using as the new channel of communication of the world. For example, the most recent hijacking bus incident that happened in Manila, Philippines about a month ago, there is a live television broadcast from some news channel. Some people could have missed it, however immediately the second day videos of incident have been posted up on Youtube for free viewing. Besides that, new and live updates also being posted on Facebook as well as Twitter. People just need to click on a “like” or “follow” button and they could enjoy the latest hot updates from all around the world.

Anyway, blogs could somehow have shaken the role of journalism in world. According to PRWeek-PRNewswire study, there are 52% of bloggers claimed themselves as a journalist. However I personally do not agree with that statement due to some reasons. Bloggers do blogging based on the information that is provided by Medias and bloggers comment about it. Blogging somehow gives a stand for another view of a particular issue, but not taking over the originate news. Raja Petra Kamarudin’s blog is an example of blogs that signifies a channel for freedom of speech.

References

1. Porter J 2010, Are Bloggers Journalist?, online, retrieved on 15 September 2010, from http://blog.journalistics.com/2010/are-bloggers-journalists/

2. Naughton J 2008, Blogging and the emerging media ecosystem, online, retrieved on 15 September 2010, from http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/fileadmin/documents/discussion/blogging.pdf

3. Hempel J 2005, Bloomberg: Are Bloggers Journalist?, online, retrieved on 15 September 2010, from http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2005/tc2005037_7877_tc024.htm

Blogging Phenomenon

c) Explain briefly types of blogging communities & methods to build blogging communities. Then, discuss the structure of one blogging community in brief, eg. Global Voices.

A blogging community is a community where you can start your own free weblog, share photos and videos, and sharing different information. There is not an exact definition of “blogging community”, but when these 2 words combined together, we will still have a rough piece of dea on mind of what is a blogging community. There is a guide for building a blogging community. The first thing to do is to read other people’s blogs. In addition, after reading a comment should be left as like leaving a calling card for others to link you back as well. Besides that, comments should also being replied to show the effort to engage with the readers. Keeping the blog updated is like keeping it alive and people do come back for more.

In my opinion, Technorati is one of the examples of blogging community. Technorati is the leading blog search engine; it publishes millions of blog post that has a wide range of topics written my millions of writers. Areas that are being covered are technology, business, entertainment, lifestyle, sports, politics, video and so on. Technorati hunts down not only the authority and influence of the blogs, but also the most comprehensive and what is most popular in the blogosphere.

References

1. Nikkis 2007, How to Build a Blogging Community, online, retrieved on 15 September 2010, from http://www.ehow.com/how_2152382_build-blogging-community.html

2. Gunelius S 2010, Definition of Blogging Community, online, retrieved on 15 September 2010, from http://weblogs.about.com/od/bloggingglossary/g/CommentDef.htm

3. Technorati 2010, About Technorati, online, retrieved on 15 September 2010, from http://technorati.com/about-technorati/

Blogging Phenomenon

b) Classification of blogs & opinion about the most appropriate classification approach

There are hundred billions of blogs in this world and there are so many types and topic discussed of the blog. There may be blogs for fashion, politic, comics, video, food and so on. These are the topics that could easily lead to the birth of blogs in this world. According to Elgersma and Rijke in year 2008, blog classification is still very much in its infancy and to date no directly related work has been published so far. However, according to the Super Tech Guide, blogs are basically divided into 2 categories which are personal blogs and corporate blogs. Personal blogs contains to be shared with family, friends or even certain users. Examples of personal blogs are informative blogs, review blogs, food blogs and so far. Corporate blogs are types of blogs which has certain limitation and presenting in a formal way. Examples of corporate blogs are political blogs, educational blogs, technology blogs and so far.

In my opinion, the Super Tech Guide is the most appropriate classification approached because both sectors have a wide coverage of it. It is able to fit in most of the types of blog that us existing. Besides that, there are also moblog, vlog, linklog and sketchlog. These are the terms for specific blogs. Moblog is the short form of mobile blog. Pictures and texts is updated using mobile from time to time. Vlog are more commonly known as video logs, especially for video postings blog. Linklog is a collection of URLs that viewers might be interested. Sketchlog is usually for sketches of being post up by interest.

References

1. Elgersma E & Rijke M 2008, Learning to Recognize Blogs: A Preliminary Exploration, online, retrieved on 15 September 2010, from http://www.sics.se/jussi/newtext/working_notes/05_elgersma_derijke.pdf

2. Super Tech Guide, 2010, Types of Blogs, online, retrieved on 15 September 2010, from http://supertechguide.com/?p=224

3. Heuer C 2007, Simple Blog Classification System, online, retrieved on 15 September 2010, from http://www.chrisheuer.com/2005/07/14/simple-blog-classification-system-please-no-acronyms/

4. Smitch M 2010, Web Hosting Blog: Different Types of Blogs, online, retrieved on 15 September 2010, from http://myhosting.com/blog/2010/04/types-blogs-2/