New Forms of Media Publishing

The advancement of technology in today’s world has given way to new forms of publishing in the online world. Some of the new forms of blogs include (Wikipedia.Org, 2007):

- Vlog
- Linklog
- Sketchblog
- Photoblog
- Tumblelogs

Some of these blogs focus on particular issues such as (Wilipedia.Org, 2007):

- Political blogs
- Travel blogs
- Fashion blogs
- Project blogs
- Project blogs niche blogs
- Dreamlogs


According to Walsh (2006, p.24), the occurrence of Vlogs and Moblogs can be seen as multimodality which is the incorporation of ‘spoken or written language’. Youtube, for instance, can be incorporated to these new forms of media – Vlogs (Wikipedia.Org, 2008) where copyright infringement have become prevalent in it. People can post clips from movies or song clips without having any legal authorization.

(YouTube.Com)

In Malaysia, this new form of media broadcast has provided a platform for freedom of expression to the public which otherwise would not be allowed in mainstream media. However, this liberty given should not be misused by Malaysians as there are certain ethics that they should practice. Webber (1995) argued that although there are areas that require telling truth, misinterpreting information on purpose in down right wrong. Therefore, the public should not take advantage of this freedom given by these new media.

This is an example of a video posted on YouTube.Com by Aljazeera on the protest made by the Hindu Rights Action Force (HINDRAF) prior to the general elections in 8 March 2008.

Besides new forms of blogs, other new forms of media publishing can be seen through the available online sites of print newspapers, magazines and books.


References

‘Blog Types’ 2007, Wikipedia.Org, viewed on 12 November 2008, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blogs

'Ethnic Indians protest in Malaysia – 16 Feb 08', video recording, YouTube.Com, viewed on 12 November 2008, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fk4MwT92rLE.

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. 1, pp. 24-37.

Weber, JH 1995, Ethics in scientific and technical communication, WISENET Journal 38, viewed on 12 November 2008, http://www.jeanweber.com/about/ethics.htm