D. New Forms of Media Publishing

What does most or majority of the community do when the moment we wake up? We login to Facebook. Social Media has affect our daily lives in keeping ourselves updated with the latest events or at least to fill in our leisure hours. Thus, affecting our social, online and mobile behaviours (Grove, 2010). These trends vary from tagging such as in Twitter or Facebook to connecting files sharing(Youtube) to group activities(MSN, Yahoo) to connecting locations(Foursquare, meetMoi, Yelp, CitySense) and more (Ziv, 2010).

Source: Mashable.com

With the wide growth of social media networks, news is easily accessible without having to purchase a print version which affects the printing industry on the sale of news papers, magazines and any other sort of hardcopy informative material. Foster (2007) asserts ‘Communities and individuals have a responsibility to choose their media sources wisely’. Today, the once known number one media device was the ‘television’ is now no longer. In the ecosystem, broadcasting in TV is declining but it does not mean it will vanish completely but instead it will continue to exist. This is a process of radical change (Naughton, 2006).

Source: Media Watch

With the new media contributing to society tremendously, some argue that broadcasting online requires a license for video or audio streaming under the rules and regulation of the Broadcasting Act of 1990 in the UK (Internet Rights). Additionally, certain advertisements of streamed media might need regulations from the Independent Television Commision.

Referencing:

1.       Foster,J 2007, The Effects of Print Media on Society, viewed 5^th May 2011, < http://www.ehow.com/list_6311916_effects-print-media-society.html>

2.       Grove, J.V. 2010, 5 Huge Trends in Social Media Right Now, Mashable, viewed 5^th May 2011, <http://mashable.com/2010/08/20/top-5-social-media-trends/>

3.       Internet Rights, 2011, UK Internet Rights Project, viewed 5^th May 2011, < http://www.internetrights.org.uk/factsheets/mediareg.pdf>

4.       Naughton, J 2006, Blogging and the emerging media ecosystem, viewed 5^th May 2011, <http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/fileadmin/documents/discussion/blogging.pdf>

5.       Ziv, Y 2010, 5 Trends Affecting How We Connect Through Social Media, Mashable, viewed 5^th May 2011, <http://mashable.com/2010/08/16/trends-connect-social-media/>

C. Explain briefly types of blogging communities & methods to build blogging communities. Then, discuss the structure of one blogging community in brief.

Blogging Community

Readers are able to visit a certain blog to actually form a group which defines community blog (Lim, 2006). By doing so, topics are shared with the aid of blog posts. As a result, blog communities are created and it also helps increase awareness in the community as its subject also relates to the community itself (Avenstar). The types of blogs converge with one and other whether or not it is a Single Blog Centric Community, a Topic Centric Community or a Boundary Community. Packwood (2005) mentions that a community is formed when a certain individual begins to express or share feelings and when people take actions and consideration on who said what.

How Do You Create A Blogging Community?

Not only in blogs, people sought for a certain appealing subject to satisfy their interest. In order to create a community blog, ensure (Rowse, 2008):

• ·         Questions are asks or Feedbacks are given. Comments are important
• ·         Readers participate in projects in the blog
• ·         Linking to reader’s blogs with the aid of permalinks or tags
• ·         To have an interaction device
• ·         To Enable publicity in your readers to make them known

Blogging Communities

Single Blog Centric Community-

The earliest blog community base which the community is able to get to know each other whether or not it is the blogger him or herself or the commentors and readers. The reason why it is referred as a single blog centric community is because this community is controlled by a single organization despite having a large amount of people blogging in the community (White, 2006).

Source: Personalbrandingblog.com

Topic Centric Community-

Group of bloggers who share the same interest and passion in a certain topic which forms a network formation.

Boundaried Community-

Is a collective blog contributed from the community which shares a social networking trait.

You are able to join or create a community blog to expose yourself to a diverse habit, interests and more. Popular blogging community sites such as Techcrunch, Global Voices and BoingBoing are well used today.

Referencing:

1.       Avenstar, Blog Definition 15 Different Definition for blogs.. that’s right – 15!, viewed 5^th May 2011, <http://www.avenstar.net/blogdefinition.htm>

2.       Lim, K 2006, Building Your Blog’s Community Using MyBlogLog, viewed 5^th May 2011, <http://theory.isthereason.com/?p=1091>

3.       Packwood N ,Gurak J, Antonijevic, S, Johnson, L, Ratliff, C & Reyman, J.,  2004, Geography of the Blogosphere: Representing the Culture, Ecology, and Community of Weblogs: Into the blogosphere: Rhetoric, community, and culture of weblogs, viewed 5^th May 2011, <http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/geography_of_the_blogosphere_pf.html>

4.       Rowse, D 2008, How to Build Community on Your Blog, ProBlogger, viewed 5^th May 2011, < http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/04/26/how-to-build-community-on-your-blog/>

5.       White, N 2006,  Blogs and Community – launching a new paradigm for online community?, The Knowledge Tree, viewed 5^th May 2011, <http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2006/edition-11-editorial/blogs-and-community-%E2%80%93-launching-a-new-paradigm-for-online-community>

B. Classification of Blogs & Opinion about the Most Appropriate Classification Approach.

The growth of the cyber world contributed to the increase of the number of bloggers and blogging in the world. Hence, blogs today are classified into various genres (Belardo, M 2010) such as:

Collaborative Blogs: A blog constructed with multiple links or with multiple authors in support of a certain thesis.

How To/ Tutorial Blogs: Useful informative blogs for the purpose to guide and teach others on a certain subject.

Travel & Culture Blogs: Similar to advertising but promotes a certain location while providing special offers to travel while enabling people to share their travelling experiences.

Fashion & Lifestyle Blog: A creativity sense in dressing in accordance to the latest styles and trends.

Personal Blogs: The most practiced blog among the society mainly teenagers expressing daily routines, hobbies, interesting events and more.

These blogs can comprise multiple topics relating and depending to its subject matter such as politics, fashion, history and law. Blogs today are not only being posted via desktop but also with the aid of mobile devices which gave the term ‘moblog’.

The information projected is also spread with various media types with the help of vlogs, linklogs, sketchlogs, tumblelogs and more where it is in a video format or drawings which are more interesting. Business and corporate blogs also have status in terms of publishment.

According to Margaret Simons (2008), a prominent Australian blogger, Simons came up with nine types of blog which is:

1. Pamphleteering blogs
2. Digest Blog
3. Advocacy blog
4. Popular Mechanics blog
5. Exhibition Blog
6. Gatewatcher Blog
7. Diary
8. Advertisement
9. News Blog

                Blogs today are difficult to classify as they fall upon more than a single genre. As a result, we are able to understand why Simons had created these blog classifications. Although its field is vast detailed and wider compared to the various classifications, it is quite similar. The Diary blog for instance is similar to personal blogging and the pamphleteering blog is similar to collaborating blog. I find these classifications quite alike but the only difference is Simons touched more into a detailed group of categorization.

Referencing:

1. 1.       Belardo, M 2010, The 5 Types of Blogs | Which One Suits You Best?, Ink Rebels, viewed 3^rd May 2011, < http://www.inkrebels.com/insp/the-5-types-of-blogs-which-one-suits-you-best/>
2. 2.       Simons, M 2008, Towards a taxonomy of blogs, Australian Policy Online, viewed 3^rd May 2011, < http://www.apo.org.au/commentary/towards-taxonomy-blogs-0>
3. 3.       The Media Report 2008, A taxonomy of blogs, viewed 3^rd May 2011, < http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2008/2372882.htm#transcript)>

A. Blogs As Current Phenomenon & Benefits To The Community

According to Hopkins (2009), the size of blogosphere has come into a calculation halt in 2008. Thus, in 2009, there were no statistics provided on the value of the blogosphere ever since. The size of the blogosphere came to a halt with the value of over 70 million weblogs and growing until today although the size is immeasurable (Sifry, 2007).  In 2010, the number of bloggers was not specified. Instead, a survey was conducted among 7,205 bloggers from all around the world by Penn Schoen Berland (Technorati.com, 2010).

Source: 

http://www.leehopkins.com/secondlife/2009/12/26/technorati-and-the-size-of-the-blogosphere-it-cant-be-that-hard-to-figure-out-surely/comment-page-1/

In 2010, a tremendous growth in mobile blogging was the key trend aside from smartphones and tablet markets blogging worldwide including Asian-Pacific countries. Another main unexpected trend was also the usage of blogging by mothers (Sobel, 2010). Due to this occurrence, Technorati has focused the blogosphere mainly on females commencing in 2010.

Source:

                                          http://technorati.com/blogging/article/state-of-the-blogosphere-2010-introduction/page-3/

There are many types of blogging and each serves a different purpose which can either be from informative news to a diary or advertisements and many more. In 2010, Asia scored the highest in terms of blogging followed by Europe and then China (Internet World Stats, 2010). 70% of Malaysians refer online, mainly blogs, during elections to decide who is a better candidate for their up-bringing country (The Star Online, 2008). For China, retail blogging is the best way to sell items which contributes to their growth in economy. China now ranks second taking over Japan's spot in the sector of economy (Hurst, S 2011).

Referencing:

1.  Hurst, S 2011, If You Are Going to Sell in China, Maybe Online is the Best Way to Grow, SDL, viewed 3^rd May 2011, <http://blog.sdl.com/blog/2011/03/if-you-are-going-to-sell-in-china-maybe-online-is-the-best-way-to-grow.html
2. Hopkins, L 2009, Technorati and the size of the blogosphere: it can’t be THAT hard to figure out, surely?!,  viewed 22^nd April 2011, <http://www.leehopkins.com/secondlife/2009/12/26/technorati-and-the-size-of-the-blogosphere-it-cant-be-that-hard-to-figure-out-surely/comment-page-1/>
3. Sifry, D 2007, The State of the Live Web, April 2007, viewed 22^nd April 2011, < http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000493.html>
4. Sobel, J 2010, WHAT: Topics and Trends - Day 2 SOTB 2010, viewed 22^nd April 2011, < http://technorati.com/blogging/article/what-topics-and-trends-day-2/>
5. The Star Online, 2008, Blogging In Malaysia ranks among highest in the world, viewed 3^rd May 2011, <http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/4/3/nation/20827588&sec=nation>