Emoticons and Emails Etiquettes

E-mails are a part of everyday life, however it is a saddening fact that e-mails are often misinterpreted causing misunderstandings and miscommunication. According to Byron (2007), the tendency of one to misinterpret emails are higher in people of lower status compared to the higher ones.

Schwalbe (2007) states that email should be used as a starting message followed by a proper note in events of importance, but not completely replacing it. He also states that Generation Y has proper e-mail etiquette more than older generations as they grew up with communications.


Figure 1 : Email
Source: abc.net.au

Of e-mails ...
According to Walsh (1996), reading from text involves decoding where the levels of meaning depends on the reader's background.Walsh's statement is also supported by Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) where they state that different interpretations of texts can occur due to different perspectives of people based on both cultural and social experiences.

I strongly agree with them as I believe that sometimes we get offended by graphics and text in an email, but from the sender's social and cultural background, that particular email may be a part of his culture. In my opinion, it is very hard to avoid misinterpretation of email in a culture so diverse.

Email is so easy that it is taken for granted and even used for important events such as condolences, thank you's, marriages and even divorces !

An American of Arab descent e-mailed his Saudi wife to break their marriage bonds. (Baron, 2002)

Some may not perceive this kind of usage of e-mail as an issue, however some may opine that e-mailing a person regarding important events shows the lack of sincerity and pervades irrespectiveness to the receiver. But, who are the ones who actually set the laws on what email etiquette should be? According to Baron (2002), stylistic practices are influenced by shifting social attitudes as to which parts of language should be normatively governed.

Of emoticons...
The invention of emoticons are a great boost to increase email interpretation accuracy as I believe people interpret pictures better than texts.

American Scott Fahlman was motivated to invent the 'emoticon' :-) due to the inability of people to interpret emotions and intentions in an email.


Figure 2 : Emoticons
Source : Icons-Land.com

According to Walther (2001), emoticons are used as substitutes for nonverbal cues that are missing from computer mediated communications (CMC) in this case e-mails in comparison to face-to-face communication.

The usage of emoticons helps in the interpretation of e-mails as it gives a more familiar touch to all and this simple graphic is far more easier to interpret compared to text.



References

1. ABC.net.au, 2007, Emoticons and email etiquette, viewed 15th June 2009, <>
2. Baron, NS 2002, Who sets E-mail style? Presvriptivism, Coping stragetiges and Democratizing communication access, viewed 15th June 2009, <>
3. Kress, G. & van Leeuwen, T. 2006, Reading Images, Routledge, London.
4. 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, pp. 24 - 37.
5. Walther, JB 2001, 'The impacts of emoticons on message interpretation in computer-mediated communication', Social Science Computer Review, vol. 19, no. 3, pp. 324 - 347, viewed 15th June 2009, <>
   

New forms of media publishing

Walsh (2006) states that a textual shift is happening in society today from monomodal to multimodal texts which comprises several modes of communications such as audio, video and graphics. New forms of media publishing such as YouTube and blogs are emerging. We will discuss in-depth how new forms of media publishing influences the society in Malaysia.

Written texts are no longer dominant. (Walsh, 2006)

Malaysia was shocked by the posting of a video on YouTube named 'Negarakuku' by Namewee a.k.a Wang Meng Chee in 2007.


Video : Negarakuku with Malay subtitles
Source : YouTube


The controversial video touches on his feelings about Malaysian society criticizing Malaysian police, the Malay race, and offended the national song of Malaysia by naming his video 'Negarakuku'.

This is a video clip on different views and opinions on political leaders and Malaysian residents on the actions that should be taken on Namewee.


Video : Negarakuku, Please forgive Namewee!
Source : Youtube

Malaysia government had even issue warrants of arrest for Namewee and the Immigration of Malaysia has even proposed to revoke his passport.

"Not only would the government provoke national outrage amongst Malaysians and those seeking space for freedom of Malaysians, the Malaysian government would also be subjected to international opprobrium for taking such harsh action against an ordinary university student who is not affiliated with any political party" - Lim Guan Eng, 2007

The original video clip of Negarakuku has been taken down and replaced with another one which aims to cultivate Malaysian unity.
YouTube is a form of new media publishing which sets a portal for everyone to post their videos and thoughts freely on the web. However, it also brings controversial issues such as freedom of speech and censorship.

According to Helft from the New York Times (2009), YouTube has been banned in China because of a video clip uploaded by Tibetan government showing the beating of Tibetans by Chinese police.



References

1. Helft, M. 2009, YouTube being blocked in China, Google says, viewed 15th June 2009, < http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/technology/internet/25youtube.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss>
2. 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, pp. 24 - 37.
3. Lim, GE 2007, Warns the government of the unhealthy consequences both nationally and internationally should the government follow Immigration Department’s suggestion to revoke Wee Meng Chee’s passport, viewed 15th June 2009, <
4. YouTube, 2007, Negarakuku, viewed 15th June 2009, < v="M-z2X0PeUWY">
   
5. YouTube, 2007, Negarakuku - please forgive Namewee, viewed 15th June 2009, < v="ax1Rosf6UH8&feature=">
   

Classification of blogs & blogging communites

Millions of blogs exists in the blogosphere today, classification of blogs is essential to enable readers to categorize blogs that they are interested in and to choose information they consume.

Blogs can be classified according to subject matter - politics, fashion, history, law, or by device such as moblog and its publishers' status - business and corporate blogs. (Wikipedia, 2007) However, author and media analyst Margaret Simmons (Funnell, 2008) provides a more detailed and complicated classification of blogs - the Political blog, Digest blog, Advocacy blog, Popular Mechanics blog, Exhibition blog, Gatewatcher blog, the Diary, the Advertisement, and the News blog. Despite the many types of classifications, I opine that blogs are not easy to classify as bloggers blog about a wide range of things and there is a very fine line between classification of blogs.

Blogging communities
Blogs are often situated within a blog community of similar interests. ( Wei, 2004)
White ( 2006 ) states that there are 3 forms of blog based communites which is the Single Blog/Blogger Centric Community, the Topic Centric Community and the Boundaried Communities.

Figure 1 : Blog based communities
Source : White, 2006


We will look into detail the Single Blog/Blogger Centric Community which often pervades in personal blogs which are often visited by teenagers today.

Figure 2 : Single blog/Blogger Centric Community
Source : White, 2006

The blog belongs to one blogger or organization, but it may have several authors, which we will refer to as 'A-list' bloggers. This community is built up by the blogger himself, and also his readers which frequently visits and drop comments not only getting to know the blogger, but also the community of commentors. Identity issues afloats here where the central identity is the blogger, however commentors' identities emerge over time.

One of the blogger centric community example is cheeserland.com


Figure 3 : Print screen of cheeserland.com
Source : http://cheeserland.com

The blogger goes by the name of Ringo, Cheesie and many more. However, she only has one identity where she shows her face in all her photos. Cheeserland.com was founded in 2004 as a personal blog with majority of postings are about the personal life of herself. (Cheeserland.com, 2004)



Figure 4 : Comment box of cheeserland.com
Source : http://cheeserland.com

A community is built through comments, as seen in Figure 4, where the blogger and its commentors interact.


Figure 5: Shoutbox of cheeserland.com
Source : http://cheeserland.com

The blogger and its commentors can also interact through the shoutbox as shown in figure 5.


References

1. Cheeserland.com, 2004, Cheeserland.com, viewed 15th June 2009, <>
2. Funnell, A 2008, A taxonomy of blogs, viewed 15th June 2009, <>
3. Wei, C 2004, Formation of Norms in a blog community, viewed 15th June 2009, <>
4. White, N 2006, Blogs and Community - launching a new paradigm for online community?, viewed 15th June 2009, <>

The blogging whirlwind

Blogging has become a phenomenon that has swept the world so swiftly where suddenly millions are blogging around the globe. Universal McCann (2008) surveys in March 2008 shows that 184 million people world wide have already started a blog, and 77% of active Internet users read blogs!


Figure 1 : Percentage of blog readers from each country.
Source : Universal McCann, 2008


The blogging trend
There is a significant difference in the trend between European and Asian bloggers. Technorati statistics shows that 52% of bloggers in Europe are 35 years old and above while only 27% of Asian bloggers are of this age group. The median annual investment of European bloggers are doubled compared to Asian bloggers, pervading the fact that the trend in Europe differs from Asia where they take a more serious approach in blogging.


Types of blogs
The top 10 blogs in Malaysia are mostly personal blogs! Based on technorati and Alexa readings, Hong Kiat, Kenny Sia, Paul Tan, Raymond.CC, Anwar Ibrahim, Lim Kit Siang, Hemmy.net, JeffOoi, LiewCF, and Cheeserland.com are the top 10 blogs in Malaysia. (Wong, 2009)


Figure 2 : Hongkiat's blog - Technology
Source : http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/



Figure 3 : Kennysia's blog - Personal
Source : http://kennysia.com/



Figure 4: Paultan's blog - Automotive
Source : http://paultan.org/

Majority of the top blogs in Malaysia are political (Anwar Ibrahim, Lim Kit Siang & Jeff Ooi), technology (Hong Kiat, LiewCF, & Raymond.CC) personal (Kennysia & Cheeserland.com) and entertainment (Hemmy.net) blogs.

Benefits of blogs

Figure 5 : Search benefits of the blogosphere
Source :Elliance.Inc, 2009

Brands and advertising are finding its way in to blogs today. As noticed in Figure 2 - 4, majority of blogs in Malaysia carries advertisements in them.

One of the top blog advertising company is Nuffnang, Asia's first and leading blog advertising community. (Nuffnang.com.my, 2009)


Figure 6 : Nuffnang, Asia's blog advertising community
Source :Mohdhakim.com, 2009

"Nuffnang is a new ways to advertise, it enables local businesses to put up advertisements on homegrown blogs, and for bloggers to make some money off ads from their self-published sites"
Tiah, 2007 - Founder of Nuffnang.com
Source : Starbiz, 2007

The conventional advertisement of print-ads and Tv-ads are costly to some companies, while low cost advertising such as brochures, flyers, and posters are proven uneffective. Blog advertisements has became an effective alternative to most companies today. Benefiting the Malaysian community by not only saving budget but also teaching bloggers today to earn money while blogging! Moreover, while browsing blogs for leisure, one can also gain awareness on brands, events, and many more.



References :

1. Starbiz, 2007, Tiah turns blogging into business venture, viewed 14th June 2009, <>
2. Technorati.com, 2009, State of the Blogosphere, viewed 14th June 2009, <>
3. Universal McCann, 2008, Power to the People : Social media tracker wave.3, viewed 14th June 2009, <>
4. Wong, A 1009, Top 100 Malaysian Blogs, viewed 14th June 2009, <>

Document Design

The emergence of visual literacy has brought upon a new perspective in document designing. A good document must not only comprise good verbal language but also good images as well. Schriver (1997) opines that professionals should solve complex communication problems by applying visual and verbal rhetoric knowledge.

In this slide of my Individual Presentation you can see that images and words rely on each other to convey the message to the audience.
The theory of ideal and real can also be applied here, where Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) says that the top signifies a generalized definition while the bottom provides a specific and detailed evidence. In this case, the top photograph represents a photograph of night view in Kuala Lumpur city, the bottom description clarifies to audience about the meaning of the photograph which is portraying Earth Hour 2009.


Color is another crucial element in document design. According to Reep (2006) color in a document catches the reader's eye and is appealing to reader. It can also distinguish levels of information and code information of their purpose or importance.

Therefore, I have changed the background colour in my individual presentation slides to a light shade of pink rather than plain white in my group presentation slides. The titles in my individual presentation slides are also bolder and deeper coloured.


Group presentation slide

Individual presentation slide


Putnis and Petelin (1996) says that rhetorical appeals and strategies in writing is often used to pass the message across to the readers. I have learnt that both verbal and visual literacy is equally important in document designing to produce a good document. Multimodal presentation works better in maintaining audience interests (Walsh, 2006)




References :

1. Kress, G. & van Leeuwen, T. 2006. Reading images. Chapter 6: The meaning of composition

2. Putnis, Peter & Petelin, Roslyn 1999, Professional communication, 2nd edn, Prentice Hall Australia Pty Ltd, Australia.

3. Reep, DC 1997, Technical writing: principles, strategies, and readings, Allyn and Bacon, Boston.

4. Schriver K.A 1997, Dynamics in Document Design: Creating Texts for Readers, Wiley Computer Pub., New York.

5. 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

The purpose of this weblog is to discuss the issues of publications and design in today's contemporary society. In the era of the textual shift and emerging new visual literacies, document designing has became increasingly important in publications to ensure the correct message is conveyed to the audience.

In this blog, the main discussion will be focused on what makes a good document design and how to produce a piece of good writing. This blog is meant to be shared with everyone who has the passion for the area and who wants to know more on issues in publications and design.