Week 9
For this week, we covered on internet journalism!
To start off this entry, take a look at this article here.
It is a discussion if print is dead as a result of the rise of internet journalism. Kevin Fagan then made a very important point when he commented that "The core thing to remember is that it’s not journalism that’s broken. It’s the advertising model."
I do not fully agree on his comment though. Now as the advertising model is made easier, where anyone can become a reporter, just how reliable is the news? Therefore, is journalism really not broken?
The internet will definitely change the future of journalism. In fact, now many younger people who do not follow the papers get their updates from famous blogs instead! The internet is a tool that people can use to introduce politics and current affairs to the younger generation. This may also be a problem as nobody can assure that what is being fed to the readers are accurate.
Here is another article on internet journalism. In this article, it is believed that internet journalism will narrow the news agenda. This is a very different view as many would have believed that internet journalism will widen the agenda instead.
Here is a video of Wikipedia co-creator Jimmy Wales, as he debates with internet cultural critic Andrew Keen on this topic.
There are many interesting points brought up in the video above. There will always be critics in every step, thus it is of no surprise with internet journalism. I believe that with internet journalism, it may help to arouse more interest of current affairs among the younger generation. The younger ones may no longer turn to papers for news, rather sites and blogs, which is both a boon and a bane.
There is no correct answer to this, the only way will be to wait and see!
Week 8
This week, we touched on internet and the politics.
During this period of time, just a mention of the word "politics", everyone thinks of Obama! Looking at his campaigns, you can see how the internet was very wisely used. We shall look into the various internet tools he used for his campaign.
1. Youtube
During class, we were shown the music video for Obama's "Yes we can" campaign.
Not only was Youtube used for videos of Obama, his speeches are also uploaded here, such as his 2009 inauguration.
2. Facebook
He obviously have many accounts on facebook, however which is his real one is unclear.3. Website : http://www.barackobama.com/
4. Friendster(I am not on friendster, thus unable to get a screen shot of it!)
In fact, he uses so many internet tools that in an article titled "Barack Obama Being the First US "Tech President"", Obama is described as a technology-savvy politician. Read the entire article here.
Indeed Obama have proven that being internet savvy is very important even in the world of politics!
Week 7
For this week, we learnt about multimedia on the internet!
Very much like the image above, multimedia is not just any traditional form of media, rather it is a blend of media such as audio, images, video, animation; all of which adds interactivity and life. Not difficult to understand why it is also termed as "rich media".In fact, multimedia is all over! We use multimedia for our project presentations, for our own entertainment, and even for interaction among other users. Any website which uses not only words, but images or videos are considered multimedia. This blog, is a multimedia!
Other than multimedia, one interesting topic we touched on was on 'Kumo' vs Google.
Everyone knows about Google, but what exactly is Kumo?
Kumo is rumored to be the brand that Microsoft will be using as their search. It means "cloud" or "spider" in Japanese. Personally, I feel it will need a lot of work to compete against Google. Based on this article, it seems that this rebranding effort by Microsoft may just backfire instead as it may confuse users between Kumo and Live Search.
Although all great things have to begin somewhere small, thus, we shall wait and see how it progresses. As a consumer, it is definitely exciting to see companies coming up with new innovations competing with one another!
