Unless it was required by my boss, I never enjoy sitting in front of a monitor to write and type something after working hour (I am simply not a buddy of blog). Therefore, I need to learn technical terms and button-pressing procedure from the blog hosting company ( i.e. wordpress) in the process of blogging.
After a simple planning, I begin to write some message which is required to be short and concise. Besides, I need to learn the knowledge of copyright on web, the matching of visual elements to the text and how to choose a suitable theme.
As a blogger, I want to share something which is new and excited. Though it may not new to others, but the worldview and values beneath is what I really what to fire up other or just making friends with similar thoughts.
With the skills of intertextually, I express the blog as if “James Bong taking up challenges of exploring new media issues.” Readers are invited as an adventurer together with James Bond to discover and discuss.
By taking up Walsh’s (2006) suggestion, the blog is mainly constructed through a ‘logic of image’ on web environment. People are guided by the main header and the animated image in “about us”. Stage setting (Schriver 1997) skills in the matching of text and image is adopted in which the visual is forecasting the content of the blog – the challenges, yet underlying the theme of new media issues that would be further discussed in text mode. Relative smaller and supplementary(Schriver 1997) photos are used as a track for readers to catch up the main idea of each post quickly. Since a blog is a genre featuring “casual” and “personal”, is more likely to interacting with readers in a sense of “casual talks with a new friend” (cited in Chandler, 1997) .
To conclude, blogging gives the power of expression to people who are able to get connected to the worldwide web regardless his/her social status, it may bring a diversity of opinions in some social issues but it may not have a great influence in the reality unless blogs are promoted to those who do not read blogs. Although blogs are free and fast in terms of publishing, blogging is still a relatively expensive activity in the angle of a busy life- it consumes time, extra mental energy after work and the money to get a fast broadband.
Image source: www.morguefile.com
Reference:
Chandler, D 1997, ‘ An introduction to Genre Theory’, in Lo, E. 2009 (ed.), 9 July 2008 Tutorial Handout, School of Continuing Education, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong
Walsh, M 2006, ‘The ‘textual shift’ Examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts’, Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, Copyright Agency Ltd., Australia
Schriver, KA 1997, ‘The interplay of words and pictures’, Dynamics in document design: creating texts for readers, Wiley Computer Pub., New York
