Photojournalism

Journalist objective is to be the trustees of the public. Their role is to record or capture events that happening all around the world by their camera eyes (NPPA, 2011). Journalist keep records of events like war, deaths, disasters, riots, accidents and deliver them to the public through media as in newspapers. Journalist needs to deliver the truth to public as it is one of their objectives as a journalist where is uncover the truth to the public eyes. As according to National Press Photographers Association, NPPA (2011), “Our primary role is to report visually on the significant events and varied viewpoints in our common world – the faithful and comprehensive depiction of the subject at hand – we have the responsibility to document society and to preserve its history through image”.

Through the images taken by the journalist, we actually know that the event is actually happening somewhere somehow in other side of the world which will create an emotional point of views to the public or at least getting some attention to certain events or disaster as according to Zelizer (2005), “They rely on an unspoken ocularcentric bias of western civilization to be understood sufficiently, a bias that holds them to be largely affective, emotion driven and generating gestalt-like experience in their viewers”.

Photographs can reveal truth to the public but can public trust the photograph, as since the camera were invented there was manipulation that happened where the photographer manipulate the situation and sending false news as according to NPPA (2011), “Photographic and video images can reveal great truths, expose wrong doing and neglect, inspire hope… - photographs also cause great harm if they are callously intrusive or are manipulated”.

The manipulation of images and lies that deliver by the journalist has created huge responds from the public where this image has successfully persuade their viewers as according to Lester (1995), “Images evoke almost immediate emotional responses among viewers, pictures have tremendous impact – but the flip side to such visual power is that images can also offend, shock, mislead, stereotype and confuse”.

Toward this problem, journalists need to follow the steps or rules and regulations before publishing images to avoid of mislead, stereotype, shock to the public or viewers. Below are the rules of ethics that are needed as journalists:-

1.     1.  Capturing image of events.

As a journalist they need to capture events that were in front of them and deliver the image to the public as what they have seen because the public needs to know the truth that happening all around the world, As according to Warburton (1998), “Images are valued by journalists, who appreciate the message of ‘eyewitness’ authority, the notion of ‘having been there’ and the idea that ‘we were there and you were not’ – aims of accounting for the events of the world as they happen”.

2.     2.  Discover the truth.

Journalist needs to uncover the truth through the image they had capture, they need to be honest on what they want to deliver, the viewers trust the photojournalist to give them the truth about what really happened, where according to Warburton (1998), “Readers of the magazines and newspapers – appeared reasonably took these to be photographs of real event ..- News photographs was based on trust: trust that the photographer wasn’t duping picture editor about what his or her photograph really showed”. Also according to Lester (1999), “Every photojournalist at all times to strive for pictures that report truthfully, honestly and objectively.”

3.      3. Avoid manipulation.

As for today, we are at the era of computer technology, thus because of this lots of photographers can manipulates images and sometimes it’s hard to tell either the image is true or false, as according to Lester (1995), “The spread if computer technology that allows practically anyone to produce and disseminate visual messages in massive number for a world-wide audience”. Due to this manipulation will create different interpretation of the event that will lead to shock, confuse as according to NPPA (2011), “Do not manipulate images or add or alter sound in any way that can mislead viewers or misrepresent subjects”.

4.     4,  Do not show victims of violence images.

This will make the family of the dead will become offended because of the publish one of their family member which tragically killed or accidents, journalist need to treat the deceased with a respect only use the image if necessary, as according to NPPA (2011), “Treat all subjects with respect and dignity – give special consideration to vulnerable subjects and compassion to victims of crime or tragedy”.

5.   5.   Avoid stereotyping.

According to Lester (1995), “Stereotyping portrayals of ethnic, gender, physical characteristic, sexual preference and job-related cultural groups are a result of journalism professionals being lazy, ignorant or racist”. Journalist that uses African American to capture create attention to the public as this has shown the act of racism, portraying the African American as a criminal.

References:

-          Lester, P. M. (1995). Photojournalism Ethics Timeless Issues. Retrieved on November 4^th, 2011 from http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/lester/writings/photoethics.html.

-          NPPA code of Ethics. (2011). Retrieved on November 4^th, 2011 from http://www.nppa.org/professional_development/business_practise/ethics.html

-          Lester, P.M. (1999). Photojournalism an Ethical Approach. Retrieved on November 4^th, 2011 from http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/lester/writings/pjethics.html

-          Zelizer. B. (2005). Journalism through the camera’s eye. In Stuart. A. (ed.), Journalism: Critical Issues (pp.168-175). GBR: McGraw-Hill Education.

-          Warburton. N. (1998). Ethical photojournalism in the age of the electronic darkroom. In Matthew. K. (ed.), Media Ethics (pp. 140-144). GBR: Routledge.

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.

Visual Narrative and Media

What is narrative?

It simply called story-telling which consists of a series of events, time, locations and actors. Narrative can be found either in dramas, movies, newspapers, journals, books and many more, which function as telling the story of their lives or experiences. According to Fisher, “narration – communication rotted in time and space – covers every aspect of our lives and the lives of others regard to character, motive and action”.

The natures of narrative are Story and Discourse. Story is more to what the main agenda, the content, setting, actors, time and location, the story plot meanwhile Discourse is more on how the narrative is being told. Discourse makes the story more understandable.

The structure of narrative according to Aristotle’s Dramatic structure is a story need to have a beginning, middle and end, where Aristotle quote, “we have laid it down that a tragedy is an imitation of an action that is complete in itself, as a whole of some magnitude; for a whole maybe no magnitude to speak of – now a whole is that which has beginning, middle and end”.

There are two types of components in visual narrative, which are structuralism and post-structuralism.

Structuralism

Structuralism basically means that the narrative are being structured according to a typical concept where according to Strauss “Studies that structure of social system – Binary system create most social events – good or bad, right or wrong, light or dark. All elements of a culture and society are relational”. This kind of narrative often use in folktales, cartoons, and most films and movies. Take this folktale cartoon for example:-

This is an animation cartoon based on fantasy, where the characters are based on a princess, a prince, a king and a villain. The discourses of this cartoon are friendship between the princess and the fishes and her father, forbidden love between the princess and the prince and the battle of power between the king and the villain. The princess often be the damsels in distress and the prince will be saving her from evil and they will be happily ever after.

Post-Structuralism

Post-structuralism basically means that it is the opposite of structuralism, where there is no structured narrative, the meaning is unstable and we will not know what to expect from this kind of movie or films, the meaning are not logically connected as what the producer intended. For example:-

This movie is called the Epic Movie, where the has unstable meaning or plot to its structure, we didn’t know the story line of this movie until we actually see it because this movie are combination from all kind of movies which some are from Pirate of the Caribbean, Narnia, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The story line is not logically connected to any of the plot, where in the middle of nowhere superman appeared but burned down and dead. As we all know superman is unbeatable and strong and how in hell he can be dead just like that. There is no coherent meaning that the producers intended to send to their viewers.  


References:

•  Griffin. E., A. (2009). A First Look at Communication Theory (7^th ed.). Narrative Paradigm of Walter Fisher (p.299-300). New York: McGraw-Hill.
• Lamarque. P. Narrative and Invention: The Limits of fictionality.
• Huisman. R. Narrative concepts.
•  Aristotle. Aristotle on the art of poetry. Retrieved on September 25^th, 2011 from http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=AriPoet.xml&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=7&division=div1.
• Chandler. D. Semiotics for Beginners. Retrieved on September 25^th, 2011 from http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem01.html.

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The Art of Rhetoric and Persuasion

Advertisements as we all know are all around us every day whether we want to see it or not either it is from televisions, magazines, newspapers, billboards and etc. Lots of the advertisements are very persuasive to their audiences and some are not. have you ever think how the advertisements successfully persuade its audience? lets explore with me on the art of Rhetoric and Persuasion.


Rhetoric theory is a way to explain either we are able to persuade or influence audience unconsciously. According to Scott (1994), “Rhetoric is an interpretive theory that frames a message as an interested party’s attempt to influence an audience”. The advertiser needs to create a message that can be understood by relying to the audiences responses using their common knowledge and experiences then the audiences can create argument to the advert as a response. according to Scott (1994), “The sender – crafts the message in anticipation of the audience’s response using shared knowledge – as well as common experiences. Receivers – evaluate the argument, and formulate a response”. 


Meanwhile, the meaning of persuasion according to Blair (2004), “What seems to be a necessary ingredient in persuasion as a kind of cause of behavior change is that the person persuaded assents to the pressure of the vector of influence”. This means that persuasion is about making the audience believe of what the advertiser create or sells.

Take the example for the advertisement above, this is the Nike advertisement. On the advertisement, they have shown three people from the famous football team. As for me, I'm not a crazy football fans and I don't know those guys in the picture, then I may not be persuade for this advert but for those who is football insane fans, they might get persuade by this advert because this advert made them think about the slogan by Nike which is "Every player has the tool for the job, but it's your job to match the player with the tools. GET STARTED". This slogan is truly very catchy and tricky to persuade people or fans of football players to think that if they buy Nike products, they are one step closer to get their dream come true to be a footballer. 


Moving on to the rhetoric in advertisement, according to McQuarrie and Phillips (2007), “rhetoric in advertisement are more concerned with style and content” which means (Scott, 1994) the advertisements are more interested on how to illustrate an image, rhetoric in advertisement is more interested in how to say things and what to say (McQuarrie and Phillips, 2007) by adapting ways of thinking about imagery to fit our needs to make it easier to read the visual message (Scott, 1994).

This advertisement is from the United Colors of Benetton to fight against HIV/AIDS. This advert features an ass of two different colors, one part of it is light and other part is rather dark, this has shown the variety of culture where the dark part represents the black people and the light part represents the white people. Looking at this advert, the first thing on my mind was an ass with a HIV positive stamp on the it then maybe this is a homosexual kind of things. As a fact that most HIV positive are mainly males that were homosexual, this is where the advert trying to say to their audience to stop homosexual and stop HIV from spreading. This image has been said very controversial because of the HIV sign was tattoo on human body part that was similar to how humans sign the animals back to claim that its theirs. This kind of advertisement may be successful because if there's a lot of people talking about something then that event will be more famous and more people will be aware of this HIV. We can see that the unique style and content that occurs inside this advertisement had delivered the main purpose or aims to the people which is to stop HIV from spreading.


Reference:

-          Blair, J. A., (2004). The Rhetoric of Visual Argument. Retrieved September 17, 2011, from  http://www.angelfire.com/planet/samshanks/Blair_RhetoricVisualArguments.pdf.

-          McQuarrie, E. F., & Phillips, B. J., (2007). Go Figure! New Directions in Advertising Rhetoric (p. 3-15). Armonk, NY, USA: M.E Sharpe, Inc.

-          Scott, L. M. (1994). Images in Advertising: The Need for a Theory of Visual Rhetoric. Journal of Consumer Research, vol.21, 252-256.

Gestalt Effect and Schema Theories

Gestalt theory

Gestalt according to Wertheirmer’s theory is wholeness means operational principle of the brain is holistic, relationship of the object create as a whole and the contexts is space and culture may alter meanings. This mean Gestalt is the whole is different from the sum of its parts.

There are five laws of Gestalt which called Principles of Perceptual Organization but I took only three out of the five laws. There are Proximity, Similarity and Continuation.

Proximity

This means that the object is joined as group together. Take a look at the image below:-

As we all know, our brain are too lazy to operate or think anything. It will scan and decide the closest thing that looks like in this image. The closest image that our brain can come out is an image of a Dog.

To explain more on Proximity take this image for example:-

In this image we can see that the vegetables are grouped in term of their forms and types. This is how our brain works; we see an object and form them into group to make one simple conclusion which means this is vegetable’s section in supermarket.

Similarity

This means that the object that we see and look similar to another and often group them as the same. Take the image below as an example:-

We see that this image is a picture of sea lions laying on the ground like sun bathing their body but as you look closer at the end of right side, it doesn’t look like a sea lion but instead it’s a camping bag that shaped and color like a sea lion, because of the similarity of the shape and color it can be mistaken as a real sea lion.

To make more understandable to this similarity law, take a look at this image:-

This image shows gray scale of human look alike body and somewhere in there has a yellow scale of human look alike body but as our brain perceive it, we will group it as the same as the rest because the shape of the image is similar as the gray scale image.

Continuation

This is where our eyes are naturally moved through one object to another or our brain trying to fill the empty spot that was left. Take this video for example:-

When you look at the dominos falling to each other your eyes are forced to see how they flow till the very end and you don’t realize that your brain has been replaying the scene that catches your intention where the dominos are perfectly on timing to fall and accurate place and you will definitely remember the thumbs up. This is what meant by the law of continuation, it catches your eyes in a motion to another object and also making our brain to repeat the event to fill the empty spot inside our imagination.

References:

The Gestalt Principles. Retrieved September 10, 2011 from http://graphicdesign.spokanefalls.edu/tutorials/process/gestaltprinciples/gestaltprinc.htm