Reflection ~

Indeed, it has been a long journey and here comes the end of another semester in Taylor's University College. It's a mixed feeling of relief, happiness and anxiety, for college days might be over for some of us.

I have acquired invaluable experiences and knowledge through the creation of this web blog. In conducting my researches, I discovered the finest qualities of new media publishing through intensive reading and assimilation of news and data collection. In making a blog successful, a lot of researches and course readings are required to substantiate the facts and point presented in its content so as to make them more rhetoric and attractive.

I also learned that compliance with moral ethics is of paramount importance when publishing a post in my blog. According to Lannon ( 2006), he states that credibility and accuracy of information in a useful website is an essential credential. Therefore care must be exercised to give acknowledgment and the sources of information derived when quoting from other authors as a mean to give them credits. There should always be proper citation and referencing to avoid copyright infringement and plagiarism.

In ensuring that my blog can attract wide readership, its contents have been written in a simplified manner that are easily understandable. Creating a blog can be easy but the challenge is making it interesting so that the audiences will return regularly. Images are also inserted in my blog to give it an interesting look, as said in Shriver ( 1997) that text and images complement each other to convey effective message to the audience.

Lastly, a blogger has to understand that culture plays a huge role in the blogosphere as far as controversial racial and religious issues are concerned. An understanding of the diversified audiences and the various multimedia and communication laws is an essential criterion in the digital world. One should note that each individual has different view points and perception in society!

References

Schriver, KA 1997, ' Dynamics in Document Design : Creating Text for Readers', Wiley Computer Publisher, New York.

Walsh, M 2006, " Textual Shifts : Examining The Reading Process With Print, Visual and Multimodal Text". Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol. 29, no. 1, p. 24-37

Email Etiquette

Let's be honest, many people have no idea how to write, and many others have no idea how to interpret what they receive - Anthony Funnel, Media Watch Report 2007

In today's digital world, e-mailing is an effective tool of communication for many of us in our everyday lives, most importantly for work and social networking. However,communication via an e-mail will always be less personal as compared to inter-personal communication which enables us to study a person's facial expression,body language and intonation. When used as a communication tool, e-mails lack the visual and audio factor which is important to fully comprehend a message and its intended objective. Through personal experiences, communicating through writing an e-mail has caused some complications such as the recipient not getting the full meaning of a passage, as well as the right emotions. People often misjudge the emotions of e-mails due to their overconfidence with their perception of a particular e-mail even when there are few communicational cues in it ( The Media Watch Report 2007).Hence, the choice of language and words one use when writing an e-mail are very important to convey the correct message across.

According to Walsh (2006), about how multimodal texts convey meanings of documents through a synchronization of modes, the resulting of these culmination of modes often find its way in a new type of medium or genre as we are familiar with and experience on a day-to-day basis today. Since messages in e-mails are sometimes wrongly interpreted by the recipients, this had led American Scott Fahlman to invent the 'emoticon'. Emoticons are sideways smiley face that could simply be used for online communication by typing a colon, a hyphen and then parenthesis ( The Media Watch Report 2007). Today, smiley faces has taken over the internet world to enable people to express themselves emotionally by inserting emoticons in their texts to give an interpersonal feeling and affections. We can now send photos and videos of ourselves smiling, just to show that there is no trace of anger or frustration in the message sent.

Source : www. bestfreeicons.com

The female species has always been known to be the emotional gender, so most would assume it would be the same regarding the usage of emoticons in the cyber world. However, it is rather surprising when Wolf (2004) stated in her article studies indicated while the Internet may not promised great equalizer for the sexes, women have found a voice in computer-mediated communication (CMC) which denied them in face-to-face encounters. She also included that research shows that men have traditionally dominated the technology and have comprised the majority of users of computer networks since their inception. This could be due to the fact that women are the more personal sex and would 'monitor' their expression in public, the public sphere ( internet) included.

Will Schwalbe stated that the Generation Y ( also known as Generation Next) comprises the literate world that knows how to type, spell and use proper grammar ( The Media Watch Report 2007). Hence, to correct any imbalances, the older generation should learn about the proper em-mail etiquette from Generation Y as everyone should grasp and practice the proper writing style and expression in the modern cyberspace to be in tandem with each other to avoid miscommunication and misinterpretation.

For more information : http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2007/2064342.htm

References

Alecia, W. (2004), " Emotional Expression Online: Gender Differences in Emoticon Use," Cyberpsychology & Behaviour, The University of Texas, Arlington.

The Media Report (2007), Emotions and email etiquette (transcript), viewed on 10th June 2010,
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2007/2064342.htm

Walsh, M. (2006),” ‘Textual shift’: Examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts,” Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol.29, no.1, p.24-37