Reflection

At the end of all the postings, blogging is not just as simple as it looks. One has to be ethical, tactful and careful before splilling out those controversial messages, or any form of racism targeted towards a particular group. Besides being informative in writing a blog, the designing of the layout of the blog is quintessential as Walsh (2006) stated that documents these days work in multimodal form and no longer just based on texts. Reep (2006) also noted that there are many factors to be considered while designing a document, in this case a blog.

After completing this weblog, there is no denial that the introduction of blogs has transform the way of journalism, as it has been used widely as an alternative source to the mainstream media. However, as Zahiid (2010) stated that the rise of social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook has declined the usage of blogs. Anyway, blogs is the solution for alternative information and one’s point of view on that issue.

Much thanks to Miss Jenny and her guidance, teachings and advises.

Reference

Reep, D 2006, ‘Chapter 6: document design’ in Technical Writing, 6th edn, Pearson/Longman, New York, pp. 133-172.

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.

Zahiid, SJ 2010, Blogging is so yesterday, politicians turn to Twitter, The Malaysian Insider, viewed 10 November 2010, <http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/Blogging-is-so-yesterday-politicians-turn-to-Twitter/>.

Blogging Community

The word ‘community’ is defined as a group of people in where the people share a common interest and would often share a common cultural heritage (Dictionary.com, 2010). In the ‘blogging community’, the community consist of bloggers which share a common interest which is to write blogs to speak out or share their interest with others.

Create a Blogging Community

In order to build a solid and strong blogging community, there are various methods and approaches to build a blogging community. As suggested by Acollins (2010), it is necessary for the blogger to insert the “share” option, in order for the audience to be able to “like” a certain post or comment. Besides, Acollins (2010) suggested that the blogger should spent some time reading other followers’ blog in order to increase audiences

Types of Blogging Communities

According to White (2006), the blogging community consists of three categories - single centric blogging community, boundaried blogging community and topic centric blogging community. The single centric blog is normally managed by a single blogger and the community centralised around that particular blogger (White, 2006) whereas the topic centric blog is linked by a common interest or topic among the bloggers such as movie blogs and food blogs (White, 2006). Boundaried communities blog as noted by White (2006) is a collection of blogs and readers based on a single platform, such as MySpace.com.

Reference

Acollins 2010, Build a stronger blog community by sharing and collaborating, Astonish Result News, viewed 19 September 2010, <http://www.astonishresultsnews.com/2010/07/30/astonish-bloggers-uniting/>.

Dictionary.com 2010, Community, viewed 16 September 2010, <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/community>.

White, N 2006, Blogs and community – launching a new paradigm for online community?, Australian Flexible Learning Framework, viewed 19 September 2010, <http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2006/edition-11-editorial/blogs-and-community-%E2%80%93-launching-a-new-paradigm-for-online-community>.

Classification of Blogs

Blogs can be categorized according to many aspects such as based on the media or based on the subject matter of the blog. Corporate blogs or enterprise blogs is a form of classification of blogs which can be later classified based on external and internal (Enterpriseblogs.info, 2010). Branding blogs and sales blogs are examples of external corporate blogs whereas culture blogs is an example of internal corporate blog (Enterpriseblogs.info, 2010). Besides, blogs can also be classified according to the type of media such as video sharing, microblogs and social bookmarking (Onbloggingwell.com, n.d.).

Classification of Blogs

According to Simons (2008) style of classification of blogs, she classifies blogs into eight categories which are the pamphleteering blog, digest blog, advocacy blog, popular mechanics blog, exhibition blog, gatewatcher blog, diary, advertisement and news blog. Basically, Simons (2008) classify blogs based on the subject of the blog. Based on that, classifying blogs according to topics or subjects is the most suitable and appropriate way as classifying blogs according to audience and style would be inappropriate and inaccurate. For instance, classifying blogs based on the type of audience would be difficult to identify. A blog’s audiences would not just consist of those who are interested but also those who just glance through the blog and those who are uninterested.

Reference

Enterpriseblogs.info 2010, Corporate blogging, viewed 20 September 2010, <http://www.enterpriseblogs.info/corporate-blogging>.

Funnell, A 2008, A taxonomy of blogs, The Media Report, 19 September 2010, <http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2008/2372882.htm#transcript>.

Onbloggingwell.com n.d., 23 types of social media sites, viewed 20 September 2010, <http://onbloggingwell.com/23-types-of-social-media-sites/>.

Purpose of Blog

Nothing is perfect in the media industry. Therefore, the purpose of this blog is to discuss various issues regarding the media and designs. The main targeted audienece for this blog is for those who are interested in designs, regardless lecturers or students, and for those are pursuing in the media field, especially advertising, journalism and digital media.