My road to...blog

I started this blog because of the course requirement. I have my own blog as well written in Chinese. At the very beginning, I thought that I would not really indulge in blogging as this blog is obviously for academic purposes only, but not self-expression. Yet, I find that I really enjoy writing this blog now because of all the creative and useful comments given by my EN4166 classmates and lecturer.

I still remember one of the lectures, we were taught about how different people use blog to communicate with others. For example, when we talked about new education tools, we compared two blogs: one was to seek help and one was to introduce tools to bloggers. One thing really impresses me is that, how comment works on the writer and contributes to the blog. For the one which mainly focuses on seeking help from bloggers, he really got so many replies from both teachers and students. Teachers shared their same frustration towards the new teaching method and support each other; while students also leave comments to give advice. At this stage, blog became a powerful tool to connect people together, not ordinary people but the ones who were also interested in/ concerned with the same issue. Though the supports were from the anonymous, this would boost the writer to continue his writing as well as the road as a teacher trying to use new education tools. For another blog, it provided a number of selected new education tools, with screenshot and guide to use which are very user-friendly. A huge number of comments also included appreciation towards the work by the writer. Less recommendations were given in comments may be due to the fact that the post had already covered almost all aspects and the post actually served as recourses/ reference page.

By now, I have typed a few posts. The first one was about the brief description of the new media tools introduced/ presented by our classmates. My very first intension was just to remind myself the pros and cons of each tool and appreciate what my classmates had presented as I found their analysis was very useful and comprehensive. Blog post may be a more casual way to express our own opinions about the lecture as blog originally or say, is normally treated as a self-expression tool which does not require any special format or guidelines. There is more freedom when you use blog rather than others as the environment seems to be more relaxing or casual. 

Guest Lecture today

Dr. Katerina Tsetsura talked about media transparency and social media in the advertising and promotions field. I think it's a great lecture as it adds more details and factual cases related to what we are taught before in the 9 lectures we had.

Old advertising strategy:

Vertical: Top down process (target audience)

New and now:

Horizontal: Engagement process (public)

Writing for Digital Format

Print: reading, Studying, Linear Sequence

Online: scanning, searching, random-sequencing

Strategic Com.

1. Shaping Strategies (using social media)

2. Engaging publics

3. Uniting for a common course

4. Demanding social change

5. Dealing with consumer complaint

Case Study: Give up control and invite participation

Website:My Starbucks Idea

--Tell us how you want us to change

--Vote which idea is the best: then the company really implement it

Case Study: Listening to Global Issues

BRITA (Filter for good com)

Public: try to find some –ve things e.g How BRITA destroy the environment

Top-down: press conference. shut down the website

Now: start responding the –ve comments

Create: Recyclable filter!!!!

*Social engagement*improve the reputation of company

Case study: Fast Mobilization of Activities

Non-profit-making company

in just 45 mins, mobilize a huge number of retweeting and sharing

CSR: Corporate social responsibility

Earn Media VS Paid Advertising

Why good? Higher Credibility : if your friend introduces it to you, you gonna believe it


**While I was preparing the project for World Englishes, I found this:
Acer CSR
Samsung CSR

I found that CSR not only means the advertising part, but also the part for community responsibility like environment concerns. Another thought is that, CSR actually is a term to build a company's reputation.

Media Transparency- Disclosure of sources

Media Non-transparency- Any disruption of media transparency

Possible Problem

We don’t trust anybody!

Reflexion

Trust is Crucial- what about transparency?

Every company is a media company- who has the voice?

Everyone says something- who is listening

Everyone uses social media- effective? Ethical, legal?

Blogs or flogs?

Flog- fake blog

Over 80%- connection with the brand/company

Business of Blogging: e.g. :Reviews from other moms: mommyblogging

Blogger=jounalist?

Before being a blogger...

It seems that more and more people nowadays get involved in new media tools especially social networking, we can both participated actively as a writer or a reader. However, by the time when we enjoy this superb experience throughout the internet, we may easily step into grey zone or evenunintentionally.

In class, we’ve talked about Creative Commons which aims to protect netizens work and intellectual property. In Hong Kong, CreativeCommons Hong Kong (CCHK) gives not only public consultation but also help to local netizens on how to protect and respect copyright.

But what I am really inspired by and want to recommend it to my classmates is:

Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)

Just after the first project of the course, I think that I'm quite unclear of what as a blogger/netizen can do or cannot do. The legal rights and responsibilities of the role are also quite vague, or simply say, some of us may easily neglect them.

Source: EFF

About the Bloggers' Rights

According to EFF (they are still battling for bloggers' rights in the courtroom),

1.Bloggers can be journalists.  

2.Bloggers are entitled to free speech.

3.Bloggers have the right to political speech. 

4.Bloggers have the right to stay anonymous.

5.Bloggers have freedom from liability for hosting speech
   the same way other web hosts do. 

These are only few rights that EFF suggests, one of the web page
that worth-reading is about the Legal Guide for Bloggers. 

What legal liability issues can arise from my blog? 

(quoted from EFF-Legal Liability Overview

)

Generally, you face the same liability issues as anyone making a publication available to the public, and receive the same freedom of speech and press protections. The main legal liability issues include:

• Defamation
• Intellectual Property (Copyright/Trademark)
• Trade Secret
• Right of Publicity
• Publication of Private Facts
• Intrusion into Seclusion

One of the interesting things about legal issues is, while I just quote the part of legal liability from EFF, I am thinking whether I have already infringed copyright of EFF or not. The Copyright Act says that "fair use...for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright."

t.b.c.

Lecture 5 now...

We have today:

*Storify
-Mash up new stories (new media tool)
-Drag and drop different resources (tweet, YouTube...)
-Grey Area (Intellectual Property)

*NICO NICO DOUGA
-Japanese,English, Chinese
-Live broadcast
-Live comments on screen

*Prezi
-IMPRESSIVE! XD
-I will surely use it instead of PowerPoint from now on..
 (until I find its limitation)

*WiZIQ
-Virtual Classroom (Intuitive tool)
-Instant Chat room (Real time request and response)
-Lectures can be downloaded/replayed
-Geographical spatial
-India Based
-Teacher take control

*280 Slides
-Online Presentation tool
-Over 280 actually
-Share through blog, Slideshare
-Text Box
-Less customisation
-No Spell Check (but it's very important for me@@)
-No chart/ animation
-Only English alphabet
-Free!

*Weibo
-Micro-blogging tool
-Block of twitter in China
-Joining groups
-Celebrities Validation
-Commenting and forwarding
-Immediacy and Intimacy
-Followers! Hyper- forwarding problem
-Strict word limit
-Formatting doesn't matter
-Twitter VS Weibo

>For both entertainment and news
  but central government control over weibo is an problem
>Still a wider platform for Chinese

*Voki
-Expanding personality in virtual world
-Default computer voice/ recording /audio file
-Different Languages/ Accents
-Link to different social media
-Official Forum
-Not fully support browsers like Firefox and Safari
-60 secs only

*Draw a stickman
-Input, getting comments, new input
-Animation/ game
-Linear only
-Screen capture function

*500PX
-Photo sharing website
-Upgrade to awesome means?
-Convenient platform to learn from photographer
-Different from flickr: show according to popularity
-Encourage one to upload the best photo only
-Dislike Button
-Create own E-portfolio
-Seek for approval, motivation
-Lack suggestions
-Uploading limit: 20 photos per week
-Dominated by foreign nature photos

*HubPages
-Learning Centre
-Publish easily
-Earn revenue through ads
-Not a blog, but a magazine-style article covering specific subject
-Monthly Contests
-Hub Trails Programme
-Weekly Hub Mob
-Hub Nuggets
-Keyword approach
-Interaction between hub writers and readers, e.g. Poll
-Low earnings?
-No apparent quality control of articles<- same feeling!


I couldn't believe there are so many different new media tools and all of us introduce different ones! I think I will definitely try some of them as they're really worth playing.

My digital life & inspiration from lectures

I am wondering what I should start talking about with. I am not really into high-tech gadgets as I think a desk top can satisfy all my needs already. However, I also find new technology very attractive as it not only brings us convenience, but also helps people communicate. More important, it is so much fun! Like the picture taken at a farewell party last month at my home, we did spend almost an hour to take these kind of photos! Maybe new technology does a great job in saving us from normal daily and dull life. Haha...

I don't know many tools but  I really enjoy using some of them! 1. All Google Products especially Google Chrome
- I enjoy it simply because I can pick different  functions that I want to extend like auto replay for Youtube and Google dictionary (I can still use this I don't know why). Google scholar and doc. definitely help me a lot in handling assignments or projects.

2. Communication Tools like Facebook and Whats App
- I use these tools every day, or I should say, every moment that I am free to do so. Though some may argue these kind of tools limit our communication as we use less words to share ideas to others and reduce the chance to chat face to face. But these tools are really convenient!  Maybe they have become a part of my life already!

After taking this course, I found that there are much much more new media tools than I could imagine. And there are not only social media but multimedia tools to help express your ideas in many various ways.  And I feel like I am an idiot about tech as I even don’t have any accounts for Socialmention, Twitter, Plurk, Blogger.....The lectures help me discover the nature of those media tool and how they create the netmosphere. But one thing that I concern is the problem of our privacy. It seems that the service providers often change terms and conditions so that our privacy may be intruded silently and we get nothing noticed.

I find it quite beneficial to us when lectures introduce the concept of protecting intellectual property, as nowadays it is too easy to access to those property and share it or even mix it. Though the concept of copyright is rooted in my mind for years, I didn’t really take it so serious.

I hope I may grasp more chance to understand more about new media tools. I know I can’t experience all of them, but at least, I wish I can appreciate them and make good use of them to facilitate my work or studies. I long for learning more techniques in writing for new media as I know the skills may absolutely be very useful and practical for our future career.   This is a video I searched in Youtube which is quite easy to understand how the social media world goes these days.    

My first taste of new media tool