Erykah Badu's concert cancellation over religious tattoos

Grammy Award winning soul singer Erykah Badu who was scheduled to perform in Malaysia on 29^th February 2012 caused many senior editors at The Star newspaper of being suspended due to the fact that they published a picture of the singer with temporary tattoos of the word ‘Allah’ on her body. The Information, Communication and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Rais Yatim put a halt to the concert because the picture that was published in The Star caused religious controversy (Ariffin, 2012).

Source: ekeleh.com

Badu was upset with the fact that her concert was banned due to the image that was published of her and later expressed in disappointed fashion that the paper wrongfully published the picture of her which was a fairly old one (Ariffin, 2012). Malaysia consists of multicultural ethnicity branches therefore it is most vital for one to fathom the cultural, racial and above all religious sensitive issues. According to the editor, he was not aware of the gravity of situation and that such images could lead to such repercussions and consequently apologizing along with The Star stating that publishing the image was indeed a mistake of theirs (Chooi, 2012).   

It is understood that ethnic and cultural differences may conjure a sense of ethnic bond and it is not always the message but the appearance of the image and how it forms an articulation of understanding coherent with their own comprehension (Eriksen, 1991). The matter could have clearly and easily been averted if The Star had paid more attention to details such as ethics which serve as pillars to the roof of understanding morality and service values (Walker, 2000). The comprehension of reading material may differ from different people from different backgrounds (Schriver, 1997).

In designing a document, it is most important to comprehend the cultural contexts that are involved in the dissemination of information to the reading public; therefore attention must be paid to the small details to avoid such circumstances (Walsh, 2006). The Information Ministry have come out issuing a statement saying that the main reason behind Badu’s concert cancellation was because she did offer sensitivity towards the religious backgrounds in Malaysia through her temporary tattoos (Yoong, 2012). 




References

1. Ariffin, L 2012, The Malaysian Insider Erykah Badu says disappointed, promoters blame The Star for concert ban, viewed 12th June 2012, http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/erykah-badu-says-disappointed-promoters-blame-the-star-for-concert-ban
2. Chooi, C 2012, The Star suspends two editors over Erykah Badu row, The Malaysian Insider, viewed 12th June 2012,http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/the-star-suspends-two-editors-over-erykah-badu-row 
3. Eriksen, TH 1991, ‘The cultural contexts of ethnic differences’, Man, vol. 26, no. 1, pp. 127 – 144.
4. Walker, M.U 2000, Naturalizing, normativity, and using what we know in ethics.Canadian Journal of Philosophy 26 (supp.), 75 - 101.
5. Schriver, KA 1997, Dynamics in document design: creating texts for readers, Wiley Computer Pub., New York.
6. Walsh, M 2006, ‘The ‘textual shift’: examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts’, Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 24 – 37.

       7. Yoong, S 2012, Associated Press Malaysia bans Erykah Badu show over Allah tattoo, Yahoo News,         viewed 12th June 2012, http://news.yahoo.com/malaysia-bans-erykah-badu-show-over-allah-tattoos-074941033.html

Kony's video goes viral

Joseph Kony the Lord Resistance Army is one of the world’s most notorious criminals due to the fact that he has apprehended over 650 children soldiers and sex slaves in the short span of 2 years (Green, 2012). There has even been a release of a video online gaining massive support over the internet concerning the halt of his operations.

Source: highsnobiety.com

Apart from that, Kony2012 is a film created to gain support from authorities by an organization called the Invisible Children who are spearheading this attempt to bring Kony to face international justice for his despicable acts of inhumanity. This short film is about an issue concerning a Uganda national warlord who holds children captive and uses them as slaves and/or soldiers. This video became viral on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter in an instant and is because its contents touch sensitive social issues (Cherubini, 2012).

It is understood that this video was made on the grounds of activism and that those social networking sites do not mainly serve as a platform for activism but the internet is able to conjure an orthodox method of activism by adding the current concept campaign through the use of emails (Harlow, 2011). In layman terms, the main purpose social movements such as these is to attract the attention of outstanding public figures thus sparking a movement aimed at the operations of bandits such as Kony.

Source: highsnobiety.com

In this context, the internet played a colossal part in shedding light on the situation to others as this video gained over 14.5 million viewers on YouTube in just a matter of days. Despite having millions of viewers overnight, it is believed that the World Wide Web can never outgun any existing activism through its massive number of viewers (Briggs, 2010).

Based on those statistics and figures, I firmly suggest that online activism can spread like wildfire as more and more people are dependent on the internet for dissemination of information and above all, it is easily accessible. Based on the Kony case above, a proper activism movement in the real world is sparked by video that went viral on the internet. Therefore, the internet also serves as a platform on which millions are gathered before a proactive movement is created (Eichstaedt, 2010). I would like to stance that online distribution of information is arguably the fastest method in creating awareness to the public.


References

1. Green, M, 2012, The Wizard of the Nile: The Hunt for Africa's Most Wanted. Portobello Books. p. 121
2. Cherubini, F, 2012, Kony2012: once information goes viral, there's no stopping it, World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, March 9, viewed at 12 June 2012,http://www.editorsweblog.org/2012/03/09/kony2012-once-information-goes-viral-theres-no-stopping-it
3. Harlow, S, 2011. Social media and social movements: Facebook and an online Guatemalan justice movement that moved offline, New Media & Society, vol. 14, np. 2, pp. 224-243.
4. Briggs, J, 2010. Innocents Lost: When Child soldiers Go to war. pp. 105–144.
5. Eichstaedt, P, 2010, First Kill Your Family: Child Soldiers of Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army, p. 206

Good Design for Screen Genre

In order to attract the attention of specific audiences, proper designing and presentation of information is pivotal. The main importance of design increases the attention of the reader, directing texts in order to imprint important information in the heads of readers and a design that reflects its designer (Reep, 2006).

The two diagrams above depict different ways in which the message is conveyed, one through blatant, lengthy text and the other being in brief bullet points. In our modern world, everything can be gained through the palm of our hands, therefore it is important to have information disseminated quickly and briefly as people look forward to instant information rather than lengthy blocks of text (Esperdy, 2009). 

Reep (2006) also mentions the importance of having color in the process of passing information to the reader. She mentions that colors reinforce the message to specify the intended audience. Despite having such an impact on information dissemination, excessive use of color may not necessarily have a positive implication of readers. Based on the diagram above, the example on the left would be an over-the-top manner in which this theory is applied as too many colors were used as background which makes the text difficult to read as the colors shift among themselves. Over at the right, even though a variety of color was not used, it is still distracting as it possesses lines which clash with the color of the text. In the block right down the middle however, a contrasting theme was adopted making reading much simpler as readers rather have a text and background contrast to ease reading (Esperdy, 2009).

References

Reep, Diana C. 2006, ‘Chp 4: Principles of Document Design,’ in Technical Writing, 6th ed., Pearson Edu, Inc., New York, p.173-190.

Esperdy.G 2009, Less is more, viewed 13 April 2012, <http://www.designobserver.com/observatory/entry.html?entry=8097>

New Forms of Media Publishing

New forms of media emerge from the development of technology and most importantly the internet, where most of these new forms of media are published at large. A few examples of these are blogs, video logs, micro-blogs and etc. The positive in having new forms of media is that news and updates are disseminated almost instantaneously and they even provide a platform on which the public are able to interact (Oyanagi, 2010).

Twitter

With the introduction of Twitter a few years back, micro-blogging has become somewhat of a trend. Various celebrities and famous bloggers even have twitter handlers whereby people are allowed to 'follow' and receive instant updates or news from them. Even worldwide news organisations such as CNN and Al-Jazeera have adopted this concept as to provide their followers with breaking news and updates of any kind (Rao, 2010). Political wings have also learned that Twitter serves a perfect platform to gain support and votes of the younger generation (Zahiid, 2010).

YouTube

Video blogging is made possible with the existence of YouTube where any lay person is able to record material and post them up into their channels where subscription is possible. This eliminates the written blog custom as certain bloggers find that adopting this concept is even more interactive compared to written material as it offers audio and visual representations which relate more to the public (O'neill, 2010).

Facebook

Facebook is definitely in the driving seat where social networking is concerned. Media is published through various functions on Facebook, such as through notes and even groups that can be created (Naughton, 2009). People who wish to promote their products or organisations may do so by simply opening a fan page whereby people are able to obtain information by the simple task of 'liking' or subscribing your page.

With technological advancement and the arise of various platforms of new media, the call for freedom of speech is at a large request as the world wide web is known to be not owned by anyone specifically. Examples of freedom of speech issues would be Raja Petra's blog as well as NameWee's video on his distress with the Malaysian government (Zahiid, 2010)

References

Oyanagi.M 2010, Vol.22 – What Distinguishes Internet/Web From Traditional Media? , viewed 13 April 2012, <http://megoyanagi.thoseinmedia.com/2010/02/21/vol-22-%E2%80%93-what-distinguishes-internetweb-from-traditional-media/ >

  Naughton.J 2006, ‘Blogging and the emerging media ecosystem’, viewed 13 April 2012, <http://reuteursinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/about/discussion/blogging.html >

O’neill.M 2010, Is youtube the new American idol? , viewed 13 April 2012, <http://www.socialtimes.com/2010/04/is-youtube-the-new-american-idol/ >

 Rao.L 2010, Study:52 percent of bloggers consider themselves journalist, viewed 13 April 2012, <http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/01/study-52-percent-of-bloggers-consider-themselves-journalists/ >

Zahiid.S.J 2010, Blogging is so yesterday, politicians turn to twitter, The Malaysian insider, viewed 13 April 2012, <http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/malaysia/52749-blogging-is-so-yesterday-politicians-turn-to-twitter >

Blogging Community

Blogging community is defined as a bunch of people of similar interests collectively participating and interacting on the same topic in a specific blog post. Certain blog communities even apply rules and guidelines by which participants have to adhere to and this creates a proper community atmosphere. Bloggers share what they know and learn through their posts and in return followers or readers contribute sufficiently by commenting or sharing (Wei, 2004).

Blogging communities have been identified and are segregated into 3 parts as below (White, 2006):

1. One Blog Centric Community:

In this community, the blog is known to be owned by one person or an organization collectively but may have multiple authors. The author has full control of comments as well as the flow of discussion and also has the authority to remove or censor comments. Detailed filters are also in the hands of the author who is the sole proprietor of the blog.

2. Topic Centric Community:

This form of community of bloggers arises when there is a common thought or interest which is shared among a group of people and membership is enforced as well as domain within the community. This sort of community basically begins through an exchange of thought on the same topic of interest.

3. Boundaried Community:

In this community, readers as well as blog writers are required to register in order to join the platform in which they may create their personal blog.

Blogging is considered to be a passive activity, therefore in order to build a community, readers are advised to participate and dive into the communities around by joining in on any discussion pertaining a topic of interest. By installing RSS (Really Simple Syndication) on your computer, you are then able to locate a community of interest efficiently rather than browsing through various sites (Denise, 2009). Apart from this software, the tagging option in any post also helps attract and categorize readers into topics of their interests, thus creating a community (Chastain, 2009). 

References

Chastain. S n.d, What is tagging, viewed 12 April 2012, <http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/glossary/a/tagging.htm> .

Denise 2009, How do you build community?, viewed 12 April 2012, <http://www.blogher.com/how-do-you-build-community >.

The star, n.d, RSS, viewed 12 April 2012, <http://thestar.com.my/rss/>.

Wei. C 2004, Formation of Norms in a Blog Community, viewed 12 April 2012, <http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/formation_of_norms.html >.

White. N 2006, Blogs and community-launching a new paradigm for online community, going communal, edition 11, viewed 12 April 2012, <http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2006/edition-11-editorial/blogs-and-community-%E2%80%93-launching-a-new-paradigm-for-online-community>.

Classification of Blogs

The term blogging can be interpreted in different ways as many types based on how the information is presented. However, according to Rowse (2005) there are as many as 20 types of blogs and a few of them will be discussed further below.

The first kind of blog is instructional blogs where proper steps are included in the writers blog in order to complete a task, for instance to brew a proper mocha coffee or to dismantle a mobile phone completely (Knudson, 2003). Another type of blog would be corporate blogs where individuals promote their product or company and include descriptions of them in it as well. Personal blogs are blogs where writers merely share thoughts and ideas regarding topics at random to their readers. Video blogs are also at large these days and this is where the blogger opts for a video instead of writing it down, this is considered to be a more interactive method as opposed to writing (Knudson, 2003). Photo blogs are blogs where the bloggers simply posts up photos and pictures of any sort which enables comments from viewers, for example tumblr. Lastly would be review blogs where bloggers review an item which has been recently purchased, hardware or software, allowing readers to view the reviews and judge the product themselves, for example gizmodo.com where latest news and updates as well as reviews on gadgets are available (Bashbosh, 2009).

In my personal opinion, classification of blogs are not difficult to distinguish as they are easily sorted out to specific audiences through the material in which it contains (VanFossen, 2007). Each material has its own audience therefore classifying a blog is not much of a headache.

References

Bash Bosh Specials, 2009, ’25 Types of Blog Posts’ viewed 12 April 2012, <http://www.bashbosh.com/blog-post-types/>

Rowse, D 2005, ’20 Types of Blog Posts – Battling Bloggers Block’ viewed 12 April 2012, <http://www.problogger.net/archives/2005/11/29/20-types-of-blog-posts-battling-bloggers-block/>

VanFossen, L 2007, Are you really writing for your blog audience?, viewed 12 April 2012, retrieved from http://www.blogherald.com/2007/05/04/are-you-really-writing-for-your-blog-audience/

Knudsen, J 2003, Introduction to mobile blogging, viewed 12 April 2012, retrieved fromhttp://developers.sun.com/mobility/midp/articles/blogging/

www.tumblr.com

www.gizmodo.com

The Blogging Phenomenon and its Benefits to Society

Over 50 million blogs have been tracked since 2006 by Technorati and it is reported that 175, 000 blog posts are checked in daily. This shows the waves which blogging has created that have swept our ever-growing community in terms of technology. Based on that statistic, one could only wonder the amount of blog posts that exist ever since Technorati began their annual reports back in 2004. Blogging has somewhat become a trend among writers and regular folk for purposes such as entertainment, news or even a public diary; however it has not replaced traditional forms of media despite being mainstream. 

It is said that a majority of bloggers are indeed highly educated and are a respected bunch with research showing that almost half of them having a graduate degree (Sussman, 2009). Apart from that, statistics also show that two-thirds of bloggers are males between the ages 18 and 44.

According to reports, there are four different types of blogs in existence and they include hobbyist (72%), part-timers (15%), self-employed (9%) and professionals (4%) (McLean, 2009). Bloggers who blog completely out of hobby do not make profit from their posts as opposed to part-timers, self-employed and professionals who actually derive profit from their blogs. 

The blogging phenomenon however varies from different cultures and nations, like for instance in Europe where blogging is not a popular endeavor among people. Only 2% of them write blogs, 11% reads them, and 37% are not even aware of blogs (Rubel, 2006). Contrastingly in Asia, blogging has spread like wild fire over the past decade, credit to popular American entertainment blogs such as people.com and perezhilton.com.

In Malaysia however, the blogging trend seems to be quite different from that of in the Western hemisphere. A strong majority of influential blogs are pertaining personal events which occur (28%) whereas politics and technology are right behind the majority (16%) (Loone, 2007). Popular blogs among Malaysians is believed to be those into politics such as Anwar Ibrahim as well as Lim Kit Siang as they offer an alternative perspective and understanding of happenings in and around the political ring without censorship (Wong, 2009).

References

Loone, S 2007, ’50 most influential blogs in Malaysia’, Sloone.wordpress, weblog post, 6 February, viewed 12 April 2012, <http://sloone.wordpress.com/2007/02/06/50-most-influential-blogs-in-malaysia/>

McLean, J 2009, State of State of the Blogosphere 2009 Introduction, Technorati, 19 October, viewed 12 April 2012, <http://technorati.com/blogging/article/state-of-the-blogosphere-2009-introduction/>

Rubel, S 2006, ‘Blogging slow to take off in Europe’, Micropersuasion, weblog post, 3 April, viewed 12 April 2012, <http://www.micropersuasion.com/2006/04/blogging_slow_t.html>

Sussman, M 2009, Day 1: Who are the bloggers? SOTB 2009, Technorati, October 19, viewed 12 April 2012 <http://technorati.com/blogging/article/day-1-who-are-the-bloggers1/>

Technorati, 2006, State of blogosphere, viewed 12 April 2012 <http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000436.html>

Wong, A 2009, ‘Top 100 Malaysian blogs’, Rice blogger, weblog post, 7 May, viewed 12 April 2012,<http://www.riceblogger.com/top-100-malaysian-blogs/>