Blogging Community

A community is build through the communication between individuals, be it online or other wise. Blogging community allows you to keep track with your readers through comments or chat box, thus allowing them to interact with you.

The two major factors that need to be fulfilled in order to create a successful online community as stated by Hedstrom (2009) are select an appropriate community or social networking features that relates to the community in one way or another and to apply those features into your online application. The first step is crucial because many people fail to notice the first step, therefore failing to create a successful online community. Some of the ways to create a blogging community include:-

1. Create a chat box or chat group
2. Allow readers to comment on blogs
3. Allow readers to follow your blogs. For instance by using Google Friend Connect
4. Participate and be active on other blogs as well as social networking sites

The three types of blog based communities

Source: The Knowledge Tree

According to White (2006), there are three types of blog based communities:-

1. Single Blog/Blogger Centric Community

This is a type of community that develops and evolves around the primary blogger. This kind of blog is usually owned by one owner or organization but may have more than one blogger to blog (White 2006).

Single Blog/Blogger Centric Community

Source: The Knowledge Tree

2. Central Connecting Topic Community

This type of community is build up based on common interest and topic shared.

Central Connecting Topic Community

Source: The Knowledge Tree

3. Boundaried Communities

Boundaried communities are groups of blogs and blog readers hosted on a single site or platform (White 2006, p. 6).

Boundaried Communities

Source: The Knowledge Tree

An appropriate example of a boundaried community would be Myspace.com. It is a social networking site popular and oriented among the teens. It contains tools such as discussion boards, comment boxes, instant messaging and other social networking features (White 2006). Users are constrained within the community and it is easy to connect and access to each other’s sites or blogs.

Example of boundaried communities

Source: www.myspace.com

References

Hedstrom, J 2009, ‘Building Community with Open Source’, Nonprofit Technology Network,viewed 17 November 2009, <http://www.nten.org/blog/2009/05/28/building-community-open-source>

White, N 2006, ‘Blogs and Community – launching a new paradigm for online community?’, The Knowledge Tree, viewed 17 November 2009,<http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2006/edition-11-editorial/blogs-and-community-–-launching-a-new-paradigm-for-online-community>

Classification of Blogs

According to Wikipedia (2007), blogs can be identified through the content and the way is it being presented. This statement is agreed by many bloggers as content serves as an important element in a blog. However on the other hand, Miller and Shepherd (2004) stated that as the content of blog are wide-ranging; it is difficult to classify blogs.

People create different types of blogs based on their field of interest. Categories of blogs include personal blogs that serve as an online diary to keep in touch with friend and family, blogs which are identified by media type such as vlog (videos), photoblog and sketchblog, blogs that focus on a certain subject matter such as education, politics, travel, music and fashion, blogs composed with different type of media and blogs that are meant for business purposes.

Example of Photoblog

Source: www.flickr.com

Example of Vlog

Source: www.youtube.com

Simons (2008) on the other uses a different approach to classify blogs. Blogs that are intended for the family and friends of the blogger is known as “The Diary”. “The Exhibition Blog” is blogs that artists use to present their creation to the public and “The Advertisement” is blogs that a company uses to promote their product or services. “The News Blog” serves to cover and break important stories to the public. Other classifications of blogs by Simons are “Pamphleteering Blogs”, “The Digest Blog”, “The Advocacy Blog”, “The Popular Mechanics Blog” (focus on a particular subject interest, for instance gardening, photography) and “The Gatewatcher Blog” (a place for experts, specialists and people that have particular knowledge to share opinions).

Example of "The Diary"

Source: angelicnot.blogspot.com

In my opinion, different style of writing, topic and target audience help to define a blog genre. I believe that as more and more blogs emerge, there will be more classification for blogs. Blogs become more diverse according to the interest of an individual these days. There might be new word to replace “blog” in the future. Who knows?

References

‘Blog’, Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, viewed 17 November 2009,

< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog>

Miller, CR & Shepherd, D 2004, 'Blogging as Social Action: A Genre Analysis of the Weblog', Into the Blogosphere: Rhetoric, Community and Culture of Weblogs, viewed 17 November 2009, http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/blogging_as_social_action_a_genre_analysis_of_the_weblog.html>

Simons, M 2008, ‘Towards a taxonomy of blogs’, Australian Policy Online, viewed 17 November 2009, < http://www.apo.org.au/commentary/towards-taxonomy-blogs-0>

Blogging Phenomenon

Blog as current phenomenon and benefits to the community

“Weblog”, also known as “blog” is generally known as personal website which serves as a personal diary or journal. A blogger is a person who keeps and updates a weblog (WordNet 2009) whereas the process of updating a blog with regular entries is known as “blogging”.

It was said that the emergence of the first blog was in 1992. Blogs did not really start to take off until the late nineties. After 2000, blogs started to gain popularity (Ng 2007) and the amount of blogs created each day had been increasing rapidly ever since. Figure 1 shows the amount of blogs created since 2002 and through the statistics; it is proven that blogs have become a trend around the world.

Figure 1

There are many different types of blogs these days. To name a few, some of the examples of blogs include personal blogs, education blogs, business blogs and political blogs. In Malaysia, political blogs have started to become popular and candidates and politicians who own a blog have clearly affected the people’s choice in the General Election back in March 2008. Some of the well-known political blogs available in Malaysia include:-

1. Politics 101 Malaysia
2. Che Det (Former Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad)
3. Lim Kit Siang for Malaysia
4. Screen Shots (Jeff Ooi)
5. Rocky’s Bru (Ahirudin Attan)
6. Chua Soi Lek – Change to Move Forward

In Europe, blogs were still less popular and unfamiliar to some of the people back in 2006. According to research, the reason why the reading rate is low was due the lack of trust towards blogs (Brook 2006). However nowadays, the popularity of blogging has also increased in Europe.

No doubt blogs have created an impact towards the community. For instance, Malaysia General Election 2008 was affected by political blogs. People blog for many reasons, to name a few, it is use as a hobby, for business purposes, to meet and connect with people. Thus, no doubt that blogging has created an impact towards the community.

References

2009, ‘WordNet Search’, Princeton University, viewed 17 November 2009,

<http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=blogger⊂=Search+WordNet&o2=&o0=1&o7=&o5=&o1=1&o6=&o4=&o3=&h=>

Brook, S 2006, ‘Blogs struggle to impress in UK’, guardian.co.uk, viewed 17 November 2009, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2006/jun/20/pressandpublishing.newmedia>

Ng, 2007, ‘What are blogs?’, WiseGeek, viewed 17 November 2009,

<http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-blogs.htm>

Document Design

A document design is a combination of two important elements, which is writing and designing. It focuses on the needs of the readers along with the skillful selection, organized layout and structuring as well as apparent emphasis of the content.

"Document design is the field concerned with creating texts, that is books, pamphlets, posters and others that integrate words and picture in ways that help people to achieve their specific goals for using texts at home, school, or work". (Schriver, 1997)

Some of the functions of a document design include assisting people in decision making as well as helping the readers to understand the visual and context easily and use them in ways that serve their interests, needs and requirements.

According to Reep (2006), "Document design usually refers to the physical appearance of a document". Visual presentation of the text and the printed words which are used to support the message both play important roles in order to attract and capture the readers' attention. The visuals and texts need to support each other well in order to produce a good and effective document design.

A good document design serves as a communication tool and is able to convey meanings and messages to the readers. Anderson (1987) said, "A good document design enables readers to comprehend easily as well as highlighting on the significant points".

Figure 1

According to Walsh (2006), "Images have other effects that are different from words, particularly at effective, aesthetic and imaginative levels. Based on the research I've done on document design, it clearly shows that the combination of texts and images bring better understanding and effects to the readers. In the example of figure 1, readers might not get the message and might get confused just by looking at the image in the the manual without its words to explain. By combining the image with words, readers will get a better idea and understanding on the what the images supposed to mean. Thus this clearly shows that the combination of texts and visuals are more effective in conveying the meanings to the readers as well as to capture their attentions.

Mackenzie (Putnis & Petelin, 1994) opines that type and size of font used as well as the amount of white space between the lines are important factors that are involved and they contributes in producing a good document design.

Figure 2

Figure 2 shows an example of a bad document design. The size of the font used are a little confusing. We can see that the font size of the words "Source: "Acid" Text, Biology-Online" is bigger than the main text of the slide. Readers might get confused and have no clue on which is actually the main point of the text. Besides that, the slide is very wordy and the whole text seems very congested as the words are placed closely to one another. Readers would not pay much attention on a slide which is wordy and lengthy. Clearly, this document is not a good document design and it would not be able to capture the readers' attention. This slide can be improved by changing the font size so that the words does not look congested and is equally spread out.

A good document allows people to use the text in ways that meet their interest and needs (Schriver, 1997). It equally combines visual and text together and is able to clearly convey its meanings and messages to the readers.





List of References

Anderson, P. 1987, "Technical Writing: A Reader-Centered Approach". 2nd ed., Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Orlandao, FL.

Putnis, P & Petelin, R 1996, "Writing to communicate", in Professional communication: principles and applications, Prentice Hall, Sydney, pp. 223-263.

Reep, D. C. 2006, "Document Design". in Technical Writing, 6th ed., Pearson/Longman, New York, p. 133-172

Schriver, A. K. 1997, "Dynamics in document design: creating texts for readers." Wiley Computer Pub., New York.

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

Purpose

This blog is set up with the aim to review, analyze and discuss on issues pertaining publication and design. This will also be my learning ground and a place for me to understand how the concept and relation between visual and text reflects on our daily lives, as well as how they are integrated and used in the modern context. As for my audience, I will target on students majoring in the communication field, along with people who are interested in publication and design.