Fast and instant.

Source: http://i.usatoday.net/news/gallery/2011/n110311-tsunami/n110311-aerial-pg-horizontal.jpg

With the new technology available now, news and social interaction can travel almost in an instant. Social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook are easily accessed using smartphones such as the iPhone and Blackberry. People can receive updates from all around the world with a few clicks and this especially became useful during the earthquake and tsunami disaster happened in Japan.

In an article written by Dorian Benkoil titled ‘How Social Media,Internet Changed Experience of Japan’, he described how he could receive information, live images and videos on the Japan earthquake immediately just with the use of new technologies and social networking sites. Thanks to that he never felt more connected than he ever had before (Benkoil 2011).

So how did all this happen? It is due to the new form of journalism that evolved from traditional journalism. Journalists now are using modern tools to broadcast news. Journalists can find experts of a certain field without actually meeting them in person, through the internet (Pavlik 1997). For example, if a journalist is not able to be in Japan to get the statistics on the amount of casualties that happened or the rate of the earthquake and tsunami, they could always go to news websites or websites that belong to scientists who happens to be investigating the earthquake to get the updates.

But even if Twitter is so fast and brief in giving updates on certain events, some of the updates are not necessarily true or could just be rumors. Updates presented on Twitter are not credible and there are no links there to prove its credibility (Rosen 2011). So a journalist still has to do some research to verify the statements provided in Twitter and social networking websites such as Facebook unless there is a link provided there already to prove its credibility.

References

• Benkoil, D 2011, ‘How Social Media, Internet Changed Experience of Japan,’ Public Broadcasting Service 15 March, viewed on 12 June 2011, http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2011/03/how-social-media-internet-changed-experience-of-japan-disaster-074.html .
• Pavlik, J 1999, ‘New Media and News: Implications for the Future of Journalism,’ New Media & Society, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 54-59, viewed on 12 June 2011, http://nms.sagepub.com.ezlibproxy.unisa.edu.au/content/1/1/54.full.pdf+html .
• Rosen, J 2011, ‘The “Twitter Can’t Topple Dictators” Article,’ Press Think 13 February, viewed on 12 June 2011, http://pressthink.org/2011/02/the-twitter-cant-topple-dictators-article/ .

Angry Birds are taking over!

Source: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6ykBniggeLfnkFH2hLOsz-g4OCPkf-CLyvqjenTvfKaMz_HA6s5_nS1b9HxELNfAPUgm37kPHJMLAHDogYb-pukzHbx7QeISO1GkG3c0wsdsw3iW7jS2vWLzLQcG15xCRb6cwWLWrYNA/s1600/angry+birds.png

We all know what Angry Birds are and apparently it is so famous that you can see shops all over the country selling its soft toys, key chains and collectibles. This mobile phone game is played by millions all over the world on their smart phones and just recently it even can be played on Google in High Definition.

In the article titled ‘Angry Birds: 200m downloads are the tips ofthe mobile gaming iceberg’ written by Stuart Dredge, he explained how the Angry Birds phenomena is going strong and the recent Angry Birds Rio which was inspired by Rio the movie has generated about 35million downloads. Researches did by Distimo and Newzoo on seven countries such as USA, UK, France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, and the Netherlands has brought conclusions that more than 63 million users of the iPad, iPhone and/or iPod Touch downloads about 2.5 games a month.

Since it is so well-known and everyone can play it since it is free, surely the design of the game is created to be user-friendly so that no one will have trouble when playing it. It uses a simple start page, visual imagery and sound effects also to attract users to download the game (Walsh 2006).  

How did it get so famous? Rovio, the creators of Angry Birds has used viral marketing in order to promote this mobile phone game. The six principles of viral marketing are giving away products or services, providing effortless transfer to others, scaling easily from small to very large, exploiting common motivations and behaviours, utilizing existing communication networks, and taking advantage of other’s resources (Wilson 2005). To relate this to Rovio in promoting Angry Birds, they provide the game for free that is why many people are able to download it, it is also easily found to download in the Android market or Apps Store, it started from mobile applications to now a game that can be played in Google, since most people are looking for a mobile phone game that can entertain them for hours by downloading this game they can be entertained, when people who played this game loves it then they will share it among their family and friends and through social networks and this will help to spread the Angry Bird game, and since Rovio has partnered with Google, they can now use Google to gain more downloads and fans.

References

• Dredge, S 2011, ‘Angry Birds: 200m downloads are the tips of the mobile gaming iceberg,’ Guardian.co.uk 19 May, viewed on 12 June 2011, < http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/appsblog/2011/may/19/iphone-game-stats> .
• 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. 2, pp. 24-37.
• Wilson, R 2005, The Six Simple Principles of Viral Marketing, Web Marketing Today, viewed on 12 June 2011, http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/viral-principles.htm .

Picture speaks a thousand words,literally.

Ever since the Japan tsunami earthquake disaster, many people are very aware that the people in Japan are suffering from the aftermath of the disasters yet some people wanted to lighten the mood so they drew a comic. That comic has given the public a very 'good' impression of Malaysians. We should be more aware on what kind of comics to draw depending on the current situation and how will the audience interpret it.

Source: http://multimedia.heraldinteractive.com/images/20110314/5f4ce0_comic31411.jpg

In a news article from The Star titled 'Berita Harian issues public apology over tsunami cartoon' written by Wong Pek Wei, the comic strip that was drawn by Mohd Zohri Sukimi but he is more well known as Zoy that shows Ultraman the cartoon character running away from the tsunami has made many Malaysians and people from other countries angry (Wong 2011). Berita Harian and the Malay Mail have issued a public apology through social networks such as Facebook and Twitter (Wong 2011). 

Texts and contexts have an interdependent relationship with each other and it affects one another even if it could be the text that determines the context or the context determines the text (Schirato and Yell 2000). But in this case, without text, the public can already decipher the meaning behind the comic strip. Could it be because of the current situation?

There are three conditions to determine context given. First condition is called field which is to find out the current situations and the reason for the communication. Second condition is called tenor which is to find out who are the participants, what are their roles in a certain communication. Third condition is called mode where we determine how the text is structured and to determine the code and the language used (Halliday and Hassan 1985). So the field in this comic strip ‘drama’ is that Japan just went through an earthquake which brought the tsunami and it has costs many lives and the artist drew the comic in conjunction to that. The tenor in this situation is that the public who saw this comic strip and they were angry at the artist who drew it. The mode is the comic strip and in the comic, it shows Ultraman running away from the tsunami. The reason that Ultraman is used because Ultraman is a character that is created by the Japanese.

References

• Halliday, M and Hassan, R 1985, Language, context, and text: aspects of language in a social-semiotic perspective, Speech Communication, The Pennsylvania State University, viewed on 11 June 2011, http://language.la.psu.edu/spcom497b/halliday.html .

• Schirato, T and Yell, S 2000, Communication and culture: An Introduction, 2^nd edn, viewed on 11 June 2011, http://books.google.com.my/books?id=x0eCjzs0bhwC&pg=PA109&lpg=PA109&dq=schirato+and+yell+on+context&source=bl&ots=1HAIVUbhv0&sig=tLFOc7uQ5CAKC3ekRLw6XhNVYWA&hl=en&ei=_IjzTfGgII3QrQes0dDzBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&sqi=2&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false .

• Wong, P 2011, ‘Berita Harian issues public apology over tsunami cartoon,’ The Star Online, 14 March, viewed on 11 June 2011, http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/3/14/nation/8262608&sec=nation .