Reflections

This is the first time I blog therefore what I could reflect from creating this blog is that I have manage to acquire skill in designing for the internet and I learn a lot of issues faced by web designers and publications.

The host of my blog is Blogspot because I find it easy to do my blog there. Blogspot's facilities are very user-friendly for beginner in blogging like me. In this blog, I apply some theories that i have learn in my class. I made sure that the design that I chose for this blog does not cause eye strains for the users, I made sure that this blog is scannable and has good contrast between the background and the foreground. I also apply other elements such as outbound hyperlinks and C-Box to make my blog more interactive. The image that I have in my blog, I made sure that it is source in order to prevent copyright issues.

Blogging is one of the most in-thing to do on the internet because it is very useful. Some use it to do goods like sharing personal experience whereas some would misused the blog like creating a Hate Site. So as a World Wide Web user, it is up us to choose how we wanna use our blog because every blogger has a purpose.

Citizen Journalism

From Citizen Journalism to Citizen Paparazzi

Citizen journalism is used to describe a form of media that allows the public to become journalist by reporting online (Tryemayne 2007, p. 240) whereas citizen paparazzi is not really a new concept, it is just taking picture using the cameraphones and videophones (Glaser 2005). But the big question is how did the citizen journalism turn into citizen paparazzi?

The very famous incident that cause the citizen journalism to transform themselves into citizen paparazzi was the London bombing. When the victims of the London bombing was in pain and suffering, flashes of light coming from digital cameras, videophone and 35mm cameraphones can be seen all over the place (Glaser 2005). Instead of lending a hand to the victims, the citizen paparazzi were busy taking the best pictures that shows the most gruesome shots of the victims (Glaser 2005). Why were these citizen paparazzi eager enough to get the nicest shots?

(source from: http://www.rwevans.co.uk/~r/rwevans/wevansnet08/p-mid089LondonBombing.jpg )

Example of a citizen paparazzi's picture

The reason why the citizen journalism has change to citizen paparazzi and taking the nicest shot of the situation is so that they can post it in their blogs, wikipedia etc. The picture will help improve the their blog's credibility due to the fact that there is visual proof because according to Nielsen and Morkes (1997) the internet users mostly judge the web's credibility by looking at the quality of the web's content.

In the book, the 'Text Shift: Examining the reading process print, visual, and multimodal texts', Walsh (2006) describe that "written part is only one part of the message, and no longer the dominant part" therefore therefore they are striving to get the best pictures and why they are turning into the citizen paparazzi. If citizen journalist include pictures in their document, it will make the reader's life easier because the according to Karen Schriver, it is faster to search for a specific information by looking at the graphics instead of the prose.

But overall before becoming a citizen journalist or a citizen paparazzi, we have to be a decent human being. Instead of taking gruesome pictures of the victims, we should help them out and respect what they have been through.



Reference List:
1. Glaser, M 2005, 'Did London bombings turn citizen journalists into citizen paparazzi?', Online Journalism Review, viewed 12 June 2008,
http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/050712glaser/

2. Morkes, J and Nielsen, J 1998, Applying Writing Guidelines to Web Pages, viewed on 10 June 2008
http://www.useit.com/papers/webwriting/rewriting.html

3. Schriver, KA 1997, 'The interplay of words and pictures', Dynamics in Document Design: Creating text for readers, Wiley Computer Pub, New York, ch. 6 pp. 361-441

4. Tremayne, M 2007, Blogging, Citizenship, and the Future of Media, Routledge: Taylor & Francis Group, New York

5. Walsh, M 2006, The 'textual shift': Examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts', Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 24-37

Game Design Causes Aggression and Violence

What does all these three games have in common?

(source from: xbox360.ign.com/articles/838/838366p1.html)

Grand Theft Auto (GTA)is a game that was designed and created which allows the players to play a role of a criminal that can roam freely around a city and causing crimes such as bank robberies and assassination etc at the same time.

(source from: http://www.nuttersmark.com/images/blog/top5games/doom1.jpg)

Doom is a 3D graphics, networked multiplayer game that allows the player to be the first person shooter.

(source from: http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p46/gilcarlesso/f49498363.jpg)

Counter Strike is a game that allows you to kill terrorist because the players are first-person shooter. This game is quite similar to Doom.

Violent Games

The answer is violence. I have played two out of the three games mention above, which is Grand Theft Auto (GTA) and Counter Strike (CS) and I have to say these games should not be played by those who are not mentally mature enough.

These games are meant for people above the appropriate age, somehow children and adolescents manage to get their hands on it. Children and sometimes adults are not aware of the consequences that they might face when they play these games. They might not be mentally and physically ready to be expose to the contents of these games. According to the Bruce Bartholow, conductor of games research, results shows that violent games has effects on the brain that predict aggressive behaviour (BBC news 2006).

The design of these games are getting more and more realistic which makes it more difficult for player to differentiate reality and fantasy/virtual reality. GTA has come out with its latest game which is Grand Theft Auto IV. According to Rory Cellan-Jones (2008), this latest game is "ten times more realistic, immersive and interactive than the original version". As a gamer myself, I have to say that there is a huge difference between the current games and the old games. If we compare the graphics and content, the old games do not contain obscene language and bloody scene in the games but the new games does. Not just that, the new games are now mostly 3-dimensional therefore causing and making it harder to differentiate real life and game life.

Due to the new highly advance graphic design, there are negatives effects on the players. The players has a direct interface with the games, so they can easily get affected by the games just by watching it because there is evidence that watching violence can increase the level of aggression (Kirsh 2006, pp. 130-137). The other thing that we have to worry about is the fact that the players tends to imitate what they see (Krish 2006, pp.130-137) and sometimes they act it out. They imitate because they are confuse between reality and fantasy. This is because games are getting too realistic due to the graphic designs of the games.

Solution...

Game developers or publishers should consider how the readers or in this case the players interact with the product (schriver 1997, p. 362). Even though there is a high demand for violent games in the market, there is a limit to how far you can go with the amount of violence you put in the games.




Reference List:
1. Cellan-Jones, R 2008, 'GTA - The Outrage Fades', BBC news, viewed on 11 June 2008
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2008/04/gta_the_outrage_fades.html

2. Kirsh, SJ 2006, Children, Adolescents and Media Violence, Sage Publications, Inc, California

3. Schriver, KA 1997, 'The interplay of words and pictures', Dynamics in Document Design: Creating text for readers, Wiley Computer Pub, New York, ch. 6 pp. 361-441

4. Violent games affects your brain 2006, 10 January 2006 BBC News, viewed on 11 June 2008
http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=3809188252404769645&postID=1569903926547918886

Can online Encyclopedia be trusted?

(source from: http://ucmerced.citris-uc.org/system/files/imce-u10/Wikipedia-logo.png)

VS.

(Source from: http://www.webtraderuk.org.uk/_Attachments/Gallery/Shared/10044%20Encyclopaedia%20Britannica.jpg)

As a student, I rely a lot on online information especially when we live in this era where we are very dependent on online resources to do our assignments. Some of the online sources that I highly rely on is the 'WIKIPEDIA' and 'ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA'. According to Diana Reep (2006), a website's content has to be relevant to the users and whether the users need or want the information and as a student I find that both of these sites essential. However my lecturers advised us, the students, not to use Wikipedia but we are allowed to use Encyclopedia Britannica due to the fact that it is considered more reliable and credible when both are compared to each other. But how sure are we that Encyclopedia Britannica is a better source than Wikipedia?


Research Conducted by the Nature

Three years back, The British journal, Nature, conducted a research that examines the credibility and reliability of these two sources. Experts from that research have found that the level of accuracy for Wikipedia is not far apart from Encyclopedia Britannica. The study shows that Wikipedia had 4 errors per article whereas Encyclopedia Britannica has 3 errors per article (zonk 2005) and the type of error is misinterpretation of concepts. According to the BBC news (2005) report, 162 factual errors and false statement was found in Wikipedia whereas Encyclopedia Britannica has 123. Though Wikipedia has more errors when compared to Encyclopedia Britannica, but the difference between the two sources are not that far apart. Therefore Wikipedia is almost as accurate as Encyclopedia Britannica.


How can Wikipedia improves on its credibility?

Nielsen and Morkes (1997) stated that credibility of the website is important because online users wouldn't want to feed by false statement. In my opinion, Wikipedia should do a proper citing and referencing for their websites in order to gain the user's trust. Nielsen and Morkes (1997) also said that outbound hypertext links will increase the credibility of the website and make the site more believable. Currently Wikipedia has outbound links in their websites therefore they should maintain that. If Wikipedia follows these instructions, one day it might be accepted by our lecturers as an academic source for assignments.




Reference List:
1. Morkes, J and Nielsen, J (1998), Applying Writing Guidelines to Web Pages, viewed on 10 June 2008
http://www.useit.com/papers/webwriting/rewriting.html

2. Reep, DC 2006, Technical writing: principles, strategies, and readings , 6th edn, Pearson Education , Inc, New York.

3. 'Wikipedia survives research test' 2005, 15 December 2008 BBC news, viewed on 10 June 2008
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4530930.stm

4. Zonk 2005, 'Wikipedia's Accuracy compared to Britannica', SlashDot, viewed on 11 June 2008
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/15/1352207&tid=95&tid=14