Infomation Graphics

This week we are given an assignment to analyze the data given by Dr. Chris during tutorial, we are needed to gather information and make visual graph to explain how the rising of fuel and cost of revenue in the Airlines. The data that were collected by the International Air Transport Association are below:-

The task that given to us is to “Generate an information graphic that explains the relationship among gross revenue, gross expenses, cost of fuel and cost of fuel as percentage of expenses from year 2000 to 2009”.

My answer:-

The reason for why we use the information graphic to explain the issues of IATA reports are to make more understandable about the issues arise, even if the cost of revenue is high, the expenses that includes cost of Fuel are also high by each year from 2000 to 2009, where 2008 and 2009 are prediction for the future. This shows the lost of the company profits. See at the graph below:-

The information graph above is a line graph, this is because a line graph is the best if we are trying to explain the trend in the data and used also in prediction where to the company issues is the rising of the cost of fuel expenses. We can see that the revenue and expenses of the company are rather the same, where thus there are fewer profits.

The graph has the specific title to show what actually we intended to tell to the shareholders, as we are explaining how the gross of expenses are rather the same or greater than the gross of revenue.  The shareholders will know what had been happening to the profits by seeing this graph, as according to Lester (1995), “Reader or viewer learns and remembers better if the journalistic questions are answered with a combination of words, images and info-graphics”.

Using info-graphics also can explain the overall message that was intended to tell or to show, as according to Petterson (1993), “information graphics provide the reader with a rapid and easily grasped overall view if a message and are therefore highly suitable as an introduction to and summary of a subject”.

However, info-graphics has a limited only to show findings or data which the info-graphic are not suitable for analyzing discussion or details as according to Petterson (1993), “Conventionally illustrated text is better for analysis, discussion and study of details – information in graphical media can utilize text, pictures, information graphics, and graphical design in conveying its message”.

References:

-          Petterson, R. (1993). Visual Information (2^nd ed) (pp.169-175). New Jersey: Educational Technology Publications.

-          Lester, P.M. (1995). Information Graphics. Visual communication: Images with messages (pp.200-211). California: Wadsworth Publishing.

Games and Avatars

Have you ever heard of online gaming?

Do you ever attempt to play online games?

I guess many of you play games no doubt about that.

The popular online games that played by thousands of people are World of Warcraft, League of legends, Second life and many more. Myself, I play online game named Shaiya. There’s the original Aeria Games for Shaiya but mostly I played the private servers. Here some images from the online game of Shaiya.

Do you ever think that people took vows with online games characters?

No?

Take look at this video this might change your perception on not believing that people actually married in online game.

This Japanese guy who called himself SAL9000 has married with Nene Anegasaki from the Nintendo DS game “Love Plus”. The wedding was actually performed in the real life where they had all the wedding ceremony, wedding receptions and also invitations to all gamers. The wedding was broadcasted through a website named Nico Nico Douga.

Feeling weird?

Take look at this one.

According to CNN, “British Couple who has married in Second Life are to divorce after one of them had an alleged affair in the online world”. The girl called Amy Taylor which avatar called Laura Skye filed for divorce to Dave Pollard which avatar called Dave Barmy after caught Dave having sex with other women avatar in second life.

Cyberspace is the virtual reality as Sherman and Judkins called it as truly the technology of miracles and dreams. Cyberspace often called the second life for people that were feeling lonely in the real life and need to escape from the reality. In cyberspace they can be whoever they want and do whatever they want to do as according to Kevin, “Virtual reality allows us to play God”. Means that you can create or choose what gender you want, build world which is beyond the mind of human and create life and love inside the virtual reality.

Do you believe that you are cyborgian in nature?

No?

Do you realize that if your mobile phone is missing or taken away by parents or teachers, how would you feel?

Anxious? Crazy? Feel your life is going to end?

This will make you think, mobile phones is a part of modern technology, and with that it is a machine, take for example, if you lose a leg what do you feel? Feel useless and want to die right? So if you lose your phone or laptops, you might feel a part of you is missing as this device is already attach to you even if you didn’t realize. This makes you a cyborgian even if you denied it.

 Moving on, according to Fung, “Cyberlife has evolved into a vital part of the real life to extent that real social relationships have become inseparable with cyberlife”. Take facebook for example, who don’t have a Facebook? Don’t lie. Who finds boyfriends or Girlfriends through facebook? As today, many Facebook users find relationships through this social networking either for fun or serious. In real life, do you talk to 50 people a day? It’s impossible, if one day you don’t check your facebook account what do you feel? Crazy? This has proven that you are a Cyborgian.

I agreed that I’m a cyborgian, without playing online game Shaiya, I feel bored and missing something, I’ve addicted to the game and spending a lot of time in the virtual world. No doubt that I am half human and half machine.

References:

•           Fung, A.  (2006). Bridging Cyberlife and Real Life: A study of online communities in Hong Kong. In Silver, D., Massanari, A., & Steve, J (Eds.). Critical Cyberculture Studies (pp 131-132). New York: NYU Press.
•           Second life affair ends in divorce. Retrieved on October 20^th, 2011 from http://articles.cnn.com/2008-11-14/world/second.life.divorce_1_second-life-virtual-world-online-relationship?_s=PM:WORLD
•           Japanese man marries computer game character. Retrieved on October 20^th, 2011 from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/6718706/Japanese-man-marries-computer-game-character.html
•         Revealed: The other women in Second Life divorce who now engaged to the web cheat she’s never met. Retrieved on October 20^th, 2011 from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1085412/Revealed-The-woman-Second-Life-divorce--whos-engaged-web-cheat-shes-met.html
•          Robins, K. (2000). Cyberspace and The World we live in. In Bell, D. & Kennedy, B.M (Eds.). The Cyber Culture Reader (pp 77-78). London: Routledge.
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Cinema and Television: Cultural literacy and the question of "What's it for?"

Have you seen the first film that ever been made?

Let’s see this clip below and be hold to the first film that was made in history.

It was recorded 12 frames per second for 2.11 second which were invented by Eadweard Muybridge.

And below is the clip of the first showcase of cinema to audience which is created by Louis and Auguste Lumiere:

Now lets see the first Television Broadcast in History:

John Logie Baird is the pioneered of Television invention, using wire transmission from London to Glasgow in 1926.

Different between Television and Cinema

Televisions as we all know it produce motion picture through cathode rays while Cinema uses projector and film to produce picture. Televisions can only transmitted via electromagnetic signals from satellite and Cinema can be watch in movie theaters.

The cultural literacy and the media

Cultural literacy are both knowledge of meaning and ability to negotiate within different cultural context, which means we need to understand what other culture do or knowledge of their culture before trying to make conversation or dealing with them. According to Strokes (2003),”Studying text can improve our understanding of cultural life – of how things mean – meaning is one of the most important aspects of media use”.

Take this movie for example:

This show called Mad TV:  An Average Asian, this show is about a group of American people, one of them has invited an Asian man to her party and because they doesn’t know the cultural literacy of Asian people, they starts to bow to him and greet him welcome, they had assume that all Asian people are Japanese. They speak slowly and loudly to him as if he doesn’t understand what they were talking about. This is how the American people would act if they are confronting Asian people because they have low cultural literacy of the Asian culture. They stereotyping the Asian man as they are all know origami which is the art of paper folding, professional in traditional medicine and when they heard a word Asian, they all think his from Japan. Not all Asian people can do origami, I’m an Asian girl but I don’t know how to do origami and I’m definitely not Japanese.

Learning cultural literacy of other culture can be provided in television, media, movies and many more as media are now the very useful tool in today’s world, where according to Strokes (2003),”Media texts are part of our world: they are social phenomena and often part of the debates about society going on in the world – makes them more topical and socially relevant.”

References:

•           Bellis. M., The History of the Motion Picture. Retrieved on October 16^th, 2011 from http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blmotionpictures.htm
•          Strokes. J., (2003). How to do Media and Cultural Studies. London: Sage Publications.

Photography

What is the History of Photography?

The first successful image that ever captured was created by Joseph Nicephore Niepce using camera obscure. This took 8 hours to develop and it was only black and white. This is how the camera obscure works see this video and the first ever photograph ever taken below:-

The First photograph ever taken

This is what camera obscure looks like

Explanation more on how obscure camera works

Louis Daguerre created the first successful camera called daguerreotype camera, where it took 3 hours to develop and the people that usually took their picture at that time using daguerreotype are wealthy people and because they took time to develop, the person who were getting his or her picture need to stay still for 3 hours to prevent the picture to be blurred. Here’s the image of daguerreotype and the peoples that were taken photo by that camera:-

This is the image how the daguerreotype camera looks like

The first person image taken using daguerreotype camera

A women taken photo using daguerreotype camera

video on daguerreotype camera till the camera present today

What is photography?

Photography itself is the art of the memory where in early 1859 the American writer Olive Wendell Holmes called photography “the mirror with a memory”. Photography in a way creating nostalgia events that were happening years before we were born and by looking at the photograph we can see and feel the history behind the image either it is happiness or sadness. Photograph also can be used as witness or record of a crime events and so forth. Photograph also can influence people in a way how the image of the photograph was presented either it is for stopping war, or stop hunger which anything about solving the world’s problems. Take the image below as example:-

Image of Kampong Ayer taken by me

As you all know that this is the image of kampong Ayer surrounding in Brunei-Muara, Kampong Ayer is one of the largest water village in the world but what we can see here that the surrounding are effected the beauty of the environment where Kampong Ayer is the main tourist attraction but how can this be tourist attraction when the surrounding is that dirty. There been thousands of complaints regarding Kampong Ayer rivers being polluted and here is the evidence that I captured by myself, when I photograph this, I see rubbish were being dump at the bridge and I think that Bruneian people need to be more responsible and try to work out on how to lowering down the pollution on kampong Ayer river. The authorities have been working so hard on campaign on cleaning the river but somehow the people living around the Kampong Ayer careless about their own surrounding. This photograph can be use to aware people on the pollution that they been doing to our environment and hope someday they will realize and start to act fast.

References:

•           Bellis. M., History of Photograph. Retrieved on October 9^th, 2011 from http://inventors.about.com/od/pstartinventions/a/stilphotography.htm
•          Geoffrey. B., (2004). Forget Me Not. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.