Time went past so quickly as it was so similar to the development of information and technology. All these blog postings have brought me to a in-depth virtual tour throughout the blogging world.
By discussing blogging issues and features have somehow enlighten me as being one of the daily blogger myself, it lead me to a more critical analysis thought towards the changes i experience everyday in this virtual society.
As for the other issues on photojournalism, have made a great knowledge boost for me. Especially when I aimed to be one of the photojournalists in future, those ethical matters has somehow educate and remind me to be a responsible media person.
Nevertheless,I am glad i could relate to some of the theories I studied in class to this assignment. This has prove that those theories are applicable in real life. As for a blogger myself, it is vital for me to be responsible in using the correct phrase and words in the process of communication, or in short, rethorically accurate. Meanwhile, attributing to the sources is relatively important.
In a nutshell, this was a mind refreshing and educational cyberspace journey.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
More to expect
Photography has just emerged to a ‘higher’ platform to become one of the politics’ methods to mislead each other.
In a recent Israel news from Herald Sun, dated on 11th July 2008. The incident where the photographs were sent out from their authority were been proven doctored.
Here are the photos,
In a recent Israel news from Herald Sun, dated on 11th July 2008. The incident where the photographs were sent out from their authority were been proven doctored.
Here are the photos,
AFP-JAMEJAM ONLINE-SEPAH NEWS
Initially, the real photograph was the one with only 3 missiles but the Israel counterpart wanted to prove their military strengths and manipulated the photo to add in the remaining failed to launch missile.
"The whole purpose of this testing was to send a signal so Iran both exaggerated the capabilities of the missile in their prose and apparently doctored the photos as well.'' commented from one of the photography expert in AFP.
All these incident has bring out a trend of photo manipulation, it was a fact where all the photos we seen today are somehow being edited and is losing its’ originality. (Parrish, 2002) We as the viewer, have to practice our critical eye to not just trust what you really see which seems to be so true. They might be misleading. It also reflects that we are all seeking for the perfection and the ideal ideology but real life does not consist all of it.
-
Reference:Herald Sun, 2008, Iran 'Photoshops' more missiles in war games photo, retrieved on 11 November,2008,
URL; http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,,24003517-5012748,00.html
Parrish. F., 2002, Photojournalism An introduction, Wadsworth,United Kingdom
Eye test
Relating to the previous post about war photography, another article by Patrick Barkham, Spot the difference has given a different perspective towards the authenticity of some war photos.
He pointed out some of the valid examples to controversies like Hajj doctored photographs as below:
He pointed out some of the valid examples to controversies like Hajj doctored photographs as below:
The top photo is the original, while the below is the manipulated.
This two before and after photos has made a great influence to the credibility to all fellow photographers and also Reuters as the wired service provider who bought this particular photo. Adnan Hajj, the photographer who was involves in the case, is a Lebanese freelance photographer, have been working with Reuters for almost a decade was charged and fired from alliance with Reuters ( Marlantes, 2006). This particular manipulated photo was actually spotted by a blogger Charles Johnson.
Photoshop is not only the tool to manipulate photos, there is also staged cases like the Qana incident where photos shot in the same scene but the time stamping vary from other agency which was suspected as the later photos are staged and not real.
Undeniable, photographers do not only have to stick to his/her principles, they also need to obey to their respective agencies’ agenda from time to time. In the dark side of the photography line, there are also photos proven that the subjects have been re-arranged to create a greater impact.(Barkham,2008) Ethics issue once again juggling in the person behind the lens’ mind. What is more important to present nothing than the real truth? It is a terrifying fact in some sense, where you can not trust your bare eyes to view photos nowadays. It is indeed a threat to photography world, media, and the society.
Photoshop is not only the tool to manipulate photos, there is also staged cases like the Qana incident where photos shot in the same scene but the time stamping vary from other agency which was suspected as the later photos are staged and not real.
Undeniable, photographers do not only have to stick to his/her principles, they also need to obey to their respective agencies’ agenda from time to time. In the dark side of the photography line, there are also photos proven that the subjects have been re-arranged to create a greater impact.(Barkham,2008) Ethics issue once again juggling in the person behind the lens’ mind. What is more important to present nothing than the real truth? It is a terrifying fact in some sense, where you can not trust your bare eyes to view photos nowadays. It is indeed a threat to photography world, media, and the society.
-
Reference
Barkham P., 2008, Spot the difference, The Guardian UK, retrieved on 11 November 2008,
URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2006/aug/14/mondaymediasection.israel
Marlantes L., 2006, “Doctored war photos ignite controversy, ABC news online, retrieved on 12 November 2008,
URL: http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=2288892&page=1
URL: http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=2288892&page=1
Photos with soul
Wars going on and off have numbed our senses. How long have we stop and look at each and single people dying photographs on the other side of the world? What we see could be just a small part of the whole story. War could be the saddest incident happening in the world, but having it to continue is a more depressing fact.
According to the transcript from media report from http://www.abc.net.au/, Sonja Heizman, 2008 stated a point where there is a war gallery situated in the heart of Croatia’s war spot, Dubrovnik. The War Photo Limited Gallery has been set up in the place not long ago. To many survivors or the victim’s family, they are trying hard to forget how war had changed their life. However, setting up this gallery does not entirely lead to negative flash back, but creating a platform for war photography.
According to the transcript from media report from http://www.abc.net.au/, Sonja Heizman, 2008 stated a point where there is a war gallery situated in the heart of Croatia’s war spot, Dubrovnik. The War Photo Limited Gallery has been set up in the place not long ago. To many survivors or the victim’s family, they are trying hard to forget how war had changed their life. However, setting up this gallery does not entirely lead to negative flash back, but creating a platform for war photography.
Ethical issues arise where photographs of victims should not be published as it is could be a sensitive issue to the victim’s family. Yes, undeniable, it can be very tough for many local people in there, but it will eventually gives a deeper understanding to what had happen and how painful is that to us human kind.Once again, the power of photograph are very much stronger than words ( Schiver,1997 ), you could read a thousand words about the war, but it create a rather different image in everybody’s mind. Unlike photographs, it will be only ONE image showing the nearest to the incident.
A tribute to war zone photographers;
A tribute to those who survived.
-
Reference:
Heizman.S, 2008, The power of the photograph, ABC Media Report, retrieved on 10 November 2008,
URL: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2007/2051819.htm
URL: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2007/2051819.htm
Schriver K. A, 1997, Dynamics in document design : creating texts for readers, Chapter 6 The interplay of words and pictures
Photoshop or Photojournalism?
Photos in photojournalism have always been assumed as the most credible sources in the media line as they were taken by highly ethical photographers to present the truth to all the readers.
According to one of the article from The Guardian, ‘Photoshop is killing photojournalism’. Beechner stated that the journalism has becoming less credible compared to what it was in the past. Though there is evidence like the Stalin manipulated photo published in the newspaper way back before the editing soft wares are so common, doctoring photos are coming in as a ‘intruder’ to the photography’s authenticity aspect.
According to one of the article from The Guardian, ‘Photoshop is killing photojournalism’. Beechner stated that the journalism has becoming less credible compared to what it was in the past. Though there is evidence like the Stalin manipulated photo published in the newspaper way back before the editing soft wares are so common, doctoring photos are coming in as a ‘intruder’ to the photography’s authenticity aspect.
Stalin routinely air-brushed his enemies out of photographs. In this photograph a commissar (Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov) was removed from the original photograph after falling out of favor with Stalin.Photographs as the salience of every type of publishing material (Kress, 2006), they provide the first impression to the reader to what the news or message is about. If the photographs are manipulated, reader’s meaning-making process would be deceived from that point. Even so, there is now manipulating ‘guide book’ given by the editors to fellow photographers to lead them to a more ‘professional way’ of ‘changing the truth.
Photojournalism is a combination of photography and journalism where the visual reporting most of the truth. ( Parrish, 2002). Parrish also stated where photographs will be meaningless if it is not being seen by anyone. So, in the end of the day, is still the audience perceiving the meaning behind every picture.
Do we want to see the very artistic point of view to the photographs that make us distort from the sense of reality? Especially in newspaper or magazine, ethically, photographers and editors have the responsible to report what it was in a rather neutral way than playing with reader’s mind by using various tools. Photoshop could be a very useful and creative invention in the first place for us to put our imagination to a rather substantial way.( Parrish, 2002) However, using it to negative purpose or unethically, is pretty much not recommended.
For more manipulated photos
Click on the link below:
-
Reference:
Beehner L., 2008, Photoshop is killing photojournalism, The Guardian UK, retrieved on 11 November 2008,
URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/16/photography.iran
Kress, G. & van Leeuwen, T. 2006. Reading images. Chapter 6: The meaning of composition.
Parrish. F., 2002, Photojournalism An introduction, Wadsworth,United Kingdom
New media
We are now talking about two way communication, where people are seeking for two-way dialogue. (Gill, 2004) Blogs, forums, chat room are created based on that methodology.
Media convergence, are coming in from everywhere like phones, television, internet, etc. Every single communication tool has added in an important element, which is interactivity to form a new form of media.
Blog as one of the new types of media publishing has few main features that distinguished itself with the ‘old media’.
Principles of eCommunication,
- Blogs also became a platform for amateur journalist and a practical tool for students to communicate findings and share ideas.
- New media requires real time elements that keep pace to the rapid changes, as blogs could do that where proven many political campaigns used that as the new communication tool.
- Blogs has lead to a field where users are becoming the content producers, which means they are communicating actively as there is abundant of information can be found over the internet.
- Interactivity factor plays a big role in the new media, Leaving comments, polling, having hyperlinks to link to related information are all evidence of blogs leading the new path.
For more paradigms, click to 10 Paradigms of eCommunication
Anyhow, new media does not have to be replacing old media as they co-exist in the world of communication.
The new way of publishing requires someone who is capable to decodes every media available in the industry as it could be as useful in terms of creativity and breaking through the old style of media publishing.
-
Reference
Gill, K, 2004, How can we measure the influence of blogsphere? Retrived on 13th November 2008
URL: http://faculty.washington.edu/kegill/pub/www2004_blogosphere_gill.pdf
Orihuela, 2004, Blogging and the eCommunication paradigms: 10 principles of the new media scenario, Comunicação e Sociedade, Vol. 5, 2004 retrieved on 13th November 2008
URL: http://ojs.portcom.intercom.org.br/index.php/cs_um/article/viewFile/4676/4395
Print Vs Online
The genre change with print based and online documents consist of similarities and differences. Print based documents are based on textual material, while the online one can be a multi-modal basis.
From the layout point of view, print documents has a more direct salience point where the readers usually start from the left of the text, till then end of the material. The reading path is very much restricted (Walsh, 2006). In the mean time, visuals add in is to create a better understanding so that the reader has a better ‘picture’ towards the whole story line. On the other hand, online media provides a non-linear or sequential reading path which gives the audience the opportunity to choose and interact (Walsh, 2006).
Ironically, this phenomenon brings out an issue where the audience could not focus on getting the main idea but rather distracted by various elements like prose or interactivity of the web page (Schiver, 1997). Therefore, designing for online requires more theme based materials, which put all the related information in chunks and separate them to different categories for easier browsing.
The placement of both prose and graphic in these two documents are quite different as the designer can put alone a photo or picture could stand alone in the online publishing. Meanwhile, designer would at least place a caption for the photo if it was going to be published on print media. Prose and graphics are usually used more in web compared to print documents because the trend of retrieving information has transform towards visual cues.
-
Reference:
Schriver K. A, 1997, Dynamics in document design : creating texts for readers, Chapter 6 The interplay of words and pictures
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.
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.
Blog Types and Case Study
As mention in the earlier post, blogs are a hybrid of textual and visual materials. There are several types of blogs, such as:
• art (artlog)
• photographs (photoblog)
• sketches (sketchblog)
• videos (vlog)
• music (MP3 blog), audio (podcasting)
• Micro-blogging (short post blogs)
Case Study-Blogging communities
• art (artlog)
• photographs (photoblog)
• sketches (sketchblog)
• videos (vlog)
• music (MP3 blog), audio (podcasting)
• Micro-blogging (short post blogs)
Case Study-Blogging communities
This photo site, provide users to upload photos and in the mean time organize, apply tags to photos for better viewing and search purpose. Besides that, users can also choose their visual materials to be view in private or public status. This has gives a choice of privacy to the user whether to expose their photos
Where else, FlickrBlog is the companion blog of Flickr, which created a similar platform as the blog, but it is more has a specific photo base theme. This blog is also considered as one of the examples of photoblog.
The biggest feature of this blogging community is where the users can leave comments on the photos. Photos are also being tag so that when it was mentioned in the blog, it could link the relevant photos to others’ who has a similar photo. So this link has created a virtual community ties with each Flickr member.
Blogs as current phenomenon & effects on community
Weblogs (blogs) adapt web technology to allow for instant, updated and frequentcommunication of information such as events, personal interests, thoughts, and news. The conversational nature of blogs can be used to uniquely identify topics and similar areas ofinterest (Herring et al., 2005).
‘A Web Blog / Blog is a web site structured like an on-line diary, with one or more people posting messages’ (Reep, 2006, p.41.) This is more referring to bloggers that use blogs as a online diary, posting personal messages.
The biggest selling point of blogs is where there is a interactivity compound inside where ‘visitors’ can leave comment and interaction can be made though blogs. Blogs has also makes a great impact to the internet and setting a platform for more freedom of speech online.
The estimate numbers of blogs has reached to over 2.1 million, which 66 per cent are active. (NITLE Blog Census,2004). It is so easy to create a blog nowadays with the help of free blog hosting websites. Everyone from 8 to 80 years old can blog.
As for the community effects, it is once said that blog has become the alternative media which have joint up with multi-media technology. Photos, videos, hyperlink and many more widgets can be added in to the blog.
Furthermore, blogging has expands the freedom of speech online, giving whoever to have a chance to publish their work and exposing their interest to anyone around the world. It also became one of the trading site, where people post items on their blogs to sell, which is consider as a no-cost trading.
The biggest selling point of blogs is where there is a interactivity compound inside where ‘visitors’ can leave comment and interaction can be made though blogs. Blogs has also makes a great impact to the internet and setting a platform for more freedom of speech online.
The estimate numbers of blogs has reached to over 2.1 million, which 66 per cent are active. (NITLE Blog Census,2004). It is so easy to create a blog nowadays with the help of free blog hosting websites. Everyone from 8 to 80 years old can blog.
As for the community effects, it is once said that blog has become the alternative media which have joint up with multi-media technology. Photos, videos, hyperlink and many more widgets can be added in to the blog.
Furthermore, blogging has expands the freedom of speech online, giving whoever to have a chance to publish their work and exposing their interest to anyone around the world. It also became one of the trading site, where people post items on their blogs to sell, which is consider as a no-cost trading.
-
Reference:
Herring, S.C., et al. (2005) ‘Conversations in the blogosphere: an analysis “from the bottom up”’,Proceedings of the 38th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Los Alamitos,USA, pp.107–118.
Reep, D., 2006, ‘Technical Writing: Principles, Strategies & Reading, 6th edn, Pearson Education Inc, USA
Purpose
The main purpose of the blog is to discuss about the phenomenon about blogs and how has online blogging in the perspective of publishing. Besides that, this blog also aim to set a platform to issues relating to publishing and designing in different aspects. Hence, the more specific topic will be more towards photojournalism. Mass media student who has the pursue of photography and journalism will be my target audience.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)