Assignment (CBFJ 2103 - Basic Journalism)

Name:Henry Clement

Matric No:74120312579002

Lecturer: Jaswinder Kaur Kler

ULC: Sabah Learning Centre

Contents

The content of this blog is divided into 4 section as below:


1. Introduction
2. Advantage
3. Disadvantage
4. Conclusion

Conclusion of blog journalism

Conclusion

The changes in technology and journalism media made it easier for journalist to give information to the readers and readers are easier to access the information. Even though blog is easy to use as journalism media, the readers have to accept that not every post is written by professional writer. wide range of information discrepancy might be spotted from different writer. Some informations can be misleading and provocative because of lack of research, exaggerated, and the writer have poor writing skill. The issues mentioned before is a concern to us because journalism can give impacts to the readers. Words can spread quickly therefore, the accuracy of the information given is important.

Blog journalism advantage/disadvantage

Advantage

Advantages of blogging depend on the objective of the blog weather it is for universal subject or personal subject. Some people prefer to stay at home and reading online articles rather than newspapers. Blog is easy to access and mostly available as free to the readers. It is also easy for journalist to post his/her writing while on vacation. Journalist were offered convenient interfaces to write and organize their posts in the blog. In the nutshell, it is convenient to use anywhere (Keeble, 2005)

(a) Anytime, anywhere, journalists nowadays are able to publish new blog posts using mobile phones. Their blogs can be fully viewed with the mobile phones just like they did with a normal web browser like (b). (c) It is easy to post new news and blog post. Most blog hosts offer simple user interfaces for blog post editing. A blog can be edited using Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) as well, but this feature usually used by advanced users.

Secondly, Blog does not need to be print out to the readers as stated in the first paragraph. Hence, journalist would not have to worry about the column size, publication costs and other financial need to posts their articles. In fact, Journalist can get financial benefit by using the 'pay-per-click' system or allowing advertisement to be publish in their blog.

Disadvantage

The disadvantages of blog journalism can come in many ways. A website (Blogging: the new journalism, 2003) mentioned that blogging cannot be considered as journalism because of blog is opinionated, and mostly the contents are incoherent, biased, and little regard in the accuracy. Most of the disadvantage mentioned before were resulted from lack of research before writing a topic and ignorance to the correctness of information to readers. This could mislead the readers to believe in something diverted from the real issue. Professional journalist consider blog as a mockery to them because of the issue above (Burgh & Bradshaw, 2008). For an example, the 9/11 terrorist attacks draws readers to search for more information and news. Irresponsible journalist that report wrong information in blog might cause panic to the public. Most countries have their media law that control the rumors spread by the irresponsible journalist. As an example, Malaysia has its own Media law. Anyone who publish a journal that promotes hatred, and ill feeling about other races or other classes will be charged under Sedition Act 1948 (Act 15). Other than that, journalist will also be punished if he or she publish a statement that can lower the individual's (subject) reputation so that the public will shun her or avoid the person (Defamation Act 1957 (Act 286).

Some examples of blogs that often publish posts that criticizing the government. The posts inside these blogs are good in provoking the readers' thoughts, however, they should be careful of what they had read because most of the posts were based on personal opinions. 

Blog journalism issue in Malaysia

Blogging issues in Malaysia is a little bit complicated than the western countries. Others would have the opinion that freedom of speech was attacked by the Malaysian government. Malaysia is well-known to have its mixed culture society which leads to tension and vitality to the country. Sensitive issues in newspapers and web sites/ weblog were dragged to behind curtain to prevent misunderstanding such as the 13^th May 1969 incident (worst racial riot in Malaysia) and recently, the usage of “Allah” word issue in different religion media which leads to bombing of churches. Malaysia is strict to its press censorship works. One of the examples, Raja Petra Kamarudin was held and questioned by the police for posting articles that potentially induce racial hatred in his blog (Teaching Online Journalism, 2010). The impact of blog journalism in Malaysia might not be as hard as printed media (e.g. newspapers) because of its popularity is limited to certain group (computer literate& internet users). However, it can also give significant impact to the readers especially those who have their own blog too. Therefore, the Malaysian government is stricter to the media law than other countries (e.g. America and United Kingdom) to preserve the peace.

In addition to politically controversial blogs, there exists a wide range of Malaysian blogs that frequently contain political content but are not focused on political change. In other words, they do not, for the most part, address such issues as human rights, freedom of the press, or government activities. However, they do, challenge the by writing about subject matter not normally discussed in domestic public forums, including sexuality, women’s rights, religion, and legal and illegal substance usage.

Yet, in the Malaysian scenario, these mediators do not provide multiple perspectives and instead play a developmentalism role that avoids any serious critique of the existing state of affairs. In this kind of environment, blogging opens up at least a little space for critical information and dialogue up till now unavailable within the country about issues such as Bumiputra positive action policies, cronyism, press freedom, religion, government mega-projects, and environmentally destructive initiatives like the Bakun Dam and Broga Incinerator.

Blogging in Journalism?

Introduction

At first emergence of blog, it is defined as a contraction of weblog. As the evolution of technology and its uses expanding, the definition of blog also evolves. The new definition of blog is a communication channel that is highly democratic and comprehensive. Blog has become the favourite media for most groups of people due to its popularity and influence in public user of internet. 

Weblog history is as old as the web itself. World Wide Web (www) was first implemented during 1990 by Tim Berners-Lee. At first, the web is seen as not important and only text-based but it has been used long by the scientists and programmers. Today’s blog are expected to change regularly which means they are frequently updated for the readers. During 1990’s, weblog has a different definition “the number of guest log into the website which the web administrator can see”. The word weblog was proposed by Jorn Barger to be use as today’s blog in December 1997. Jorn barger introduced the first word new defined ‘weblog’ in his site “Robot wisdom: A weblog by Jorn Barger” (Rettberg, 2008).

In early 1990's, blog was created as personal blog which the writer write about their daily life, routine, diary and about anything that they like or fancy. It is a bulletin board where other internet users can post comments, links and discuss. As the popularity of blog increases, journalists realize that blogging is a medium to express their writing skill in an inexpensive way. Blogs that written based on universal matters usually have a lot of follower. Followers are the readers that interested to follow the latest news posted in the blog or simply for the blog comment's thread.

Above are a few types of blog hosts that commonly chosen by most individuals including journalists. They are free to use, however, most of them insert advertisements along with blog posts. A follower may "follow" any blog by subscribes newsletter, web feeds such as Really Simple Syndication (RSS) and Atom, or via Facebook. 

A simple tutorial on how to create a blog with Blogger.com. 

Blog search engine is a special web directory that will only list out blog sites so that bloggers with similar interest can find each other. The function of web blog search engine is nearly the same as web search engine. The only difference is web search engine will list out other website page lists.

Some journalist support the idea that blog can be used as the new journalism but others see it as a mockery (Quinn & Filak, 2005). It is a subjective matter to decide whether blog can be used in journalism or not. Journalism is defined as the investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to the public audience. Blogging can also fall into this definition. Despite the blog is well-known to the internet user, it is also have advantages and disadvantages to be consider.