Reflection - Understanding What I have learned

These postings and analysis of articles have aided me to have a better understanding towards the importance of communicating a message, whether it is via print, video, or pictures. I have better understanding of how the combination of visual and texts can provide a clearer picture as compared to just print alone (Shriver 1997). I have also learned that this combination of visual and text is also a ‘mode’ of communicating text known as multimodal text (Walsh 2006). It has also helped me see the changes and developments that have been made towards the combination of visual and text; how text are now no longer as dominant as compared to the visuals (Kress & Van Leeuwen 1998). Having understood this, it is clearer to see why this integration with visual and text has been more prominent in the recent years and how much emphasis it has been given via the improvement of technology.

References

Kress, G & Van Leeuwen, T 1998, ‘Front pages: (the critical) analysis of newspaper layout,’ Approaches to media discourse, Blackwell, Oxford

Schriver, KA 1997, Chp 6: The interplay of words and pictures, Dynamics in document design:creating texts for readers, Wiley Computer Publishing, New York

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

Japan Disaster - A Different Experienced

Internet has enabled a constant growth and improvement to social media. It has been provided us the opportunity to change the way people utilise their freedom of speech and helped sped the spread of information globally. With the aid of the article published on Mediashift, it would be clearer to understand the changes it has made.

 

The article, ‘How Social Media, Internet changed experience of Japan disaster,’ illustrates how, in the eyes of Dorian Benkoil, the internet/social media has enhanced the experience of the Japan disaster as compared to if the disaster had taken place many years back. Benkoil points out that back in 1995 there was still the difficulty of understanding what was being broadcasted in the news report. However, now with the internet and social media vehicles, the Japan disaster is exposed everywhere from the television right up to the iPad. There is also an increased of video footage published on vehicles like Youtube and Facebook, which can provide the viewers a live experience of what is or has taken place as compared to what a media print could provide. All these have been able to emotionally affect our experience towards the disaster than it could have many years back.

 

From the article, it is clear to see that the internet has somewhat improved the multimodality of texts. Multimodal refers to the different ‘modes’ by which information can be communicated (Walsh 2006), in this case the article emphasised on the multimodal texts in non-print form i.e. videos. Heath (2000) further emphasises that visual texts have impact on ‘neural networks’ and leads to different conceptualisations and different way of thinking. On this note, internet has thus allowed an increase of video footages to be viewed by audiences and it aids us in our understanding and perception towards, in this case, the Japan disaster. As seen in the article, video exposure of the disaster alongside personal sharing of experience of the event has helped viewers around the world to be drawn emotionally to obtain a full understanding of all the little, but real, details of the situation and then contribute, if they can, to help them.

 

In conclusion, the internet and social media vehicles have allowed a further advancement and development to multimodal texting. These improvements to multimodality has provided viewers around the world to understand, not only emotionally, but with full details of how tragic was the Japan disaster on its people.

References

Heath, SB 2000, ‘Seeing our Way into Learning’, Cambridge Joumal of Education,

Vol.30, no.1,121-131.

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

 

Cellphone Videos Fuel Arabs!!!

Technology advancement has accelerated the growth of social medias, allowing faster spread of information via different media vehicles, especially the cellphones. Cellphones and their in-built cameras have given people the ability to publicise videos and pictures as information faster than before. This then could be dangerous as they will be purely free from media and public relations manipulation.

 The article “Social Media, cellphone video fuel arabs,” displays how cellphone videos lead to the removal of Muhammad Hosni Sayyid Mubarak’s of his presidency. Murbarak is the fourth president of Egypt and due to the Egyptian revolution which took place earlier this year. Footage from camera phones, displaying harsh crackdowns by security forces on crowds of protestors, were uploaded to Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and other sites, leading to international condemnation for the Bahrain and Libya government and increased anger in the streets. Once these footages were posted on media vehicles like Facebook and Youtube, the event was blown up and already spread like wildfire.

The older form of media took longer to have an effect on the viewers’ emotions. Newspapers and other print media had a limit to providing a full depiction of an event. But with the invention of television and, now, the internet and other social media vehicles, full pictures or videos could be easily seen and understood. All these can lead to changes in behaviour and thoughts, especially from observing models in the world around us like our parents, peers, or other role models, such as those provided by mass media (Murray 2008). The videos were able to fuel the anger of the people because there was no media manipulation involved, meaning there was no bias selection or press selection (Parenti 2001) on what should be shown to the viewers, thus allowing them to have a full ‘down to earth’ (Gunther & Van Leeuwen 1998) representation of the event from the eyes of the people there. These footages also do not fall under media ownership, meaning that the media does not possess ownership or power to select, edit, or choose the manner of its presentation (Armijo 2009), thus it is free to be shown via media vehicles like Youtube, Flickr, or Facebook.

 In conclusion, technology has advanced and improved our freedom within social media networks. These advances has allowed us to practice a whole new means of freedom of speech as well as accelerated the spread of news globally.

References

Armijo, 2009, 'Media ownership regulation: a comparative perspective', The Georgia journal of international and comparative law,

vol. 37, no. 3, p 422 – 467, viewed on 11 June 2011,

<http://heinonline.org.ezlibproxy.unisa.edu.au/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/gjicl37&collection=journals&page=421>

 

Kress, G & Van Leeuwen, T 1998, ‘Front pages: (the critical) analysis of newspaper layout,’ Approaches to media discourse, Blackwell, Oxford

 

Murray, JP 2008, ‘Media Violence: the effects are both real and strong,’ American Behavioural Scientist, vol.51, no.8, pp.1212-1230, viewed on 11 June 2011,

<http://abs.sagepub.com.ezlibproxy.unisa.edu.au/content/51/8/1212.full.pdf+html> 

 

Parenti, M 2002, ‘Monoply Media Manipulation,’ Mediterranean Quarterly, vol.13, pp.53-66, viewed on 11 June 2011,

<http://stopnwo.com/docs2/michael_parenti_monopoly_media_manipulation.pdf>