Internet & Journalism

Internet communication had shifted from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0.
What is Web 2.0 then?
For those of you who are still unaware of its definition. It is basically a set of applications and technologies that allows users to create, edit and distribute content; share preferences, bookmarks, and online personas; participate in virtual lives; and build online communities.

Thus, with this shift, the work of reporting news now not only belong to the professional journalists. There is now a term called the Citizen Journalism, in which normal citizens like us are also able to report the news online just like that of a journalist. It was said that the intention of this is to provide independent, reliable , accurate, wide-ranging and relevant information that a democracy requires.

In my opinion, how accurate, reliable and relevant can information from non-journalists be, and to what extent would one be able to accept a piece of news that was reported by normal citizens like us?



STOMP (Straits Times Online Mobile Print), is the interactive site of Singapore Straits Times that accepts reader-submitted news stories. This is suppose to a citizen journalism site created for Singaporeans. However, in my opinion, it is not very successful, as STOMP seems more like a gossip site, rather than one which reports relevant and accurate news.

Is STOMP 'Citizen Journalism'?



http://singaporemedia.blogspot.com/2006/07/is-stomp-citizen-journalism.html


The above link is a blog post created by a current associate professor at NTU, who is also journalist. She, too, criticized about STOMP being not good enough to be qualified as a citizen journalism, as it is unable to separate journalism posts from gossip. Furthermore, a commentor on her blog post also mentioned that Straits Times is perhaps just merely trying a little to hard to advertise STOMP.

In addition, although Wikipedia is not a citizen journalism site, it functions almost like one as it is also involves a Web 2.0 process. In which, citizens can post information on the website, and it is supposed to be rather accurate. However, it might not be the case. This is because Singapore's famous blogger, Xiaxue, once found news about her on Wikipedia, saying that she had met with a car accident in Texas, and died. Contrastingly, she is still much alive and kicking. Therefore, this goes to prove that when it comes to news reported by non-journalists, the credibility could be rather low.

Hence, in my point of view, there is still a long way to go for Singapore to have a more professional citizen journalism site. Furthermore, I would still prefer the work from a true journalist, as being nurtured in the profession, they should be subjected to provide citizens with a more accurate, and reliable and relevant news coverage. Therefore, I feel that journalists still have not truly lost their monopoly.

Internet & Politics

Obama & Maccain

Everyone should be well aware of who Barack Obama and John Mccain are by now.
Black versas white, I guess that most of you would think that Mccain would most likely be elected as the American President, as racial discrimination against the Blacks are rather obvious in the United States. Furthermore, Mccain has been the cabinet for a longer period of time in comparison to that of Obama. Thus, speaking in terms of experience, Maccain most probably had a higher chance of winning. However, surprisingly, Barack Obama did it! He won the election and is the first Black American to make it onto the presidential position.

Many of you might have been wondering how Obama did it. Well, he thrived through the use of one thing that Mccain lacked in. That is the use of INTERNET!

As we all know that the generation of today, most of them would be almost uninterested to be involved in politics, including me of course. Furthermore, with the invention of Internet and the mass usage of it now, involvement in the traditional media such as the television, radio had decreased tremendously. Therefore, if only traditional media is used in trying to gain popularity and increase one's vote, one might not neccessarily succeed, unlike before. Alternatively, if one is able to find a way to get the involvement and votes of the younger Americans, one would most likley be in the upper hand. This is what Barack Obama did, not only did he made use to the traditional media, he also publicized his campaign via the Internet to get the attention of the younger generation, encouraging them to cast their votes to him. And with the younger generation of who Obama is and what his speech is about, through the Internet, most of them casted their votes for him.

Contrastingly, Mccain only made use of the traditional media, and he also admitted in an interview that he did not know how to use neither the computer nor the Internet. He got most of his work done through the help of his secretary. In addition, to prove the powefulness of Internet, a video was made on Maccain, about the 10 facts that most of us most probably would not have known.

10 Facts That John Maccain Doesn't want you to Know:

This illustrated that Internet can either aid one in a positively way just like that of Obama, or make one sank further in the case of Maccain.

LG KF350 Ice Cream Phone Ad

Brief history of LG Group:
LG basically stands for "Lucky Goldstar", and it is South Korea's third largest conglomerate that produces electronics, chemicals, and telecommunication products. It also operates subsidiaries in over 80 countries.

LG KF350 Ice Cream Phone!


This is one of LG's latest cellphone products, before the current LG Lollipop Phone was introduced. In my opinion, this is a very smart move in introducing such a cellphone design to the market. As we all know that each year, different companies will come up with new cellphone products, emphasizing on their wonderful functions. However, they are have a similarity, that is the colors of the cellphones would usually come in 2 basic colors- Black or White, which in my point of view, is rather dull.

I feel that LG is smart to realise that in today's era almost all teenagers and young adults would at least own 1 cellphone. Furthermore, this group of people they usually do not need alot of functions in it except for the basic ones such as sms,radio,etc. More importantly, they love their cellphones to look cute, nice and different from the usual ones that we see on display. Therefore, although the cellphone may only consist of the basic functions, and despite it not being a touchscreen phone, I believe that it will have its own group of supporters.

In addition, it is this main point that make it stand out among other cellphones.

Thus, the introduction of LG KF350, looking at the design and colors, it is rather obvious that its target audience would be the teenagers and young adults, especially women.

In my opinion, I feel that this advertisement is an attention grabber. Due to the color, audio effects, graphics and animations used.

1. The color of the whole advertisement is in baby pink, which would be able to capture most of the audiences' attention as it is bright. Furthermore, it may appeal more to its target audiences.
2. The audio effects used are usually in line with the transitions of scenes in the ad, which hence be able to enhance the audiences' imagination about the cellphone.
3. Rather than having one to check out the functions of the phone, it provides audiences and potential consumers with the basic functions, making use of different colorful and cute graphics and animations to make the product seem more attractive than it might be in actual fact.
4. Simple sentences are shown in each scene, allowing the audiences to easily remember the main functions that it provides.
5. A female voice is used to introduce the theme "Lovely Sweet Ice Cream", to make the phone seem more appealing and to make the product seem really as sweet as an ice-cream.