Internet & Journalism

With the global recession tripping up a newspaper industry, it is no wonder that the journalists are worrying about their future and how the future of journalism will be like.

Have you ever wonder how does internet shape the future of journalism?

Before the news media started to embrace new technologies by utilizing web 2.0 and the social media, traditional media of communicating and expression of news worthy information had been the only means. There is no direct answer as to how the decline of newspaper will affect the society. In our everyday life, do we really need professional journalists to do their job so as to provide us with the news that are happening every minute every second?

In today’s society, the newspaper is truly important to nearly every adult. Without newspaper, citizens will lose their main source of news about Parliament debates. Crime stories will not be known to most, foreign news will remain far away from our sight and readers might miss a wide range or commentary and analysis written by professional journalist. No doubt without newspaper, it is still possible to move the content of the world into the World Wide Web. However, is this really the best option or is the traditional newspaper the best option?

Let us take a look at some of the pros and cons internet!

Internet has its advantages in serving our lives in many ways. It truly helps us to be more informed, more connected and less ignorant to the things occurring around the world. It also helps individual to experience different point of views from people all over the world. With internet, any news uploaded will be able to reach a wider audience as compared to traditional media.

In contrast, internet has its disadvantages too. There is a possibility of information overload because uploading of news is free and there will be a wide range of information available online. Online sources could also be lack of quality as well as credibility because they are generally not controlled by any institutions. Also, even though we are living in the 21^st century, not everyone owns a computer with internet connection.

I believe the internet will have some effects on the future of the journalism such that the more educated people will probably read their news from the internet while the older/poor people will read their news from the newspaper. This would definitely result in lesser copies of newspaper being printed in the near future. With that, journalists will also earn lesser as compared to now.

Looking at the advantages and disadvantages of the internet, we can conclude that it will have a vast effect on the future of journalism. We could clearly see that if news were to be broadcast via the internet, there will still be a large group of poor people who could not afford computers and this will be an important factor for the journalists to take note of. Therefore, as long as there are still people who are willing to buy the newspapers daily, I do not foresee or think that the traditional media will cease any time soon.

Internet & Politics

“A politician needs the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn’t happen.”

There had been an increase in numbers of politicians using Internet and social media sites to update their political messages so as to reach their citizens. In America, Internet was used during its presidential elections. However, in Singapore, there are limitations for political campaigning over the internet. Thus, despite the goodness of internet, there are still many restrictions that hinder that use of internet.

On August 13, 2001, new rules were set to regulate political campaigning of parliamentary elections on the internet as well as the use of posters and banners. Let’s take a look at the power and limitation of internet for political campaigning in Singapore.

(POWER)Under the Internet Election Advertising rules, registered political parties are allowed to:

Display party posters and manifesto, candidate profiles and photographs, announcements of party events, party position on issues, moderated chats and discussion forums;

Publish any newsletter, journal or other periodical publication of the political party;

Send any message by electronic mail that promotes or opposes a party or candidate;

Host chat rooms and discussion forums, but must appoint moderators during the election to keep logs of all messages and ensure they conform with the law specified in the regulation.

(LIMITATION)However, no person is allowed to:

Send any statement or matter requesting the recipient of the electronic mail message to forward the advertisement or
message to any other person;

Conduct electronic surveys during the election period;

Appeal for election funds.

Credits to Koh Lay Tin (http://infopedia.nl.sg/articles/SIP_548_2004-12-18.html)

People are saying that the young adults and youth are apathetic towards politic. However, I guess the reason for that was the fact that we were born after Singapore gained its independence. It is hard for the young adults and the youths to truly understand the hardship that many politicians and citizens went through all these while because we had been living in a Singapore where things are generally excellently planned out by our government for the best of our growth. Most youths are unaware of who the different ministers are but I guess it is because we really trust that our government are well selected and that they will definitely bring us to a even better country to live in. Nevertheless, I think there will still be a handful of young people who are concern about politics issue in Singapore because when one reaches the age of 21, they will be able to make their vote during general election. In that way, they will be more involve towards political issues in Singapore.


Let's take a look at one of the most recent video by Tin Pei Ling on whether the youths are apathetic towards politic issues:

Apple's multimedia marketing strategy

What is one thing that most people look out for BEFORE they decide to buy a product? More often that not, when we have the desire to purchase a new gadget, we will go to the website to find out more about the product before we make the final decision to go ahead in buying it. I would like to take this chance to share with you how apple made use of different multimedia marketing strategy in successfully persuading consumers to buy their products.


Have you ever wonder why iphone4 is out of stock in Singapore even though at first, many users complain about the poor reception of the phone while making a call? I was using iphone 3GS back then and I tell myself that I will never get an iphone4 because of the complaints made by many people. However, the complains did not stop APPLE from advertising it's products.


Apple continuously uses different multimedia marketing strategy to promote it's iphone4. Commercials between television programs, commericals before a movie starts as well as uploading many different videos to show consumers the goodness of their iphone4 are some way in which Apple utilizes for their marketing strategy.


If one were to enter http://www.apple.com/, they will see a wide range of links available in helping them to know more about an iphone4. Some links includes the features of the phone, the design, the cost and last but not least, the apps for iphone. All these details were written carefully in a way that will entice the person who clicks on the link. It plays with their emotions in having the desire to on such a phone because of it's awesomeness that was described in their website.


 Even though a commercial break might seem insignificant to most people, there will still be a high chance that people will notice the ad because putting up an advertisement is definitely better than not doing so. The details might be limited in an advertisement but their website used for marketing strategy is really something to commendable. Knowing that in this centuary, most people surf the net for information, I feel that apple truly maximize the use of their website in promoting their iphone4 by providing many important facts and information about their products. Truly, we can see that Apple is indeed a brain-storming company in making sure that their marketing strategy is useful in reaching to the audiences' needs. Through that, they successfully persuaded their audiences to purchase their products. Thus, they have been doing so well up till date!

Cyber-Crime

Mary Tan (not her real name), age approaching 40, registered herself in a popular international online dating site. The site promised to help her find the love of her life. Many applicants look responded to her but eventually, she was attracted to a guy name James who claimed to be an American diplomat stationed in London. They chatted often enough and soon, Mary’s feeling towards James grows beyond friends.

One year later, James made his move. He claimed that his friend wants him to help in a property business in Singapore. He was told to transfer funds to his friend before starting the business. Mary had to open a bank at America after which, she had to transfer the money in to the America bank before transferring the money to her Singapore bank. James persuaded Mary to help him and Mary finally gave in. Mary had a hard time transferring the money because every time when she tried to do so, she met with an error that asked her to consult the bank for help. She was told to pay a sum of money before they send her the security code. For fear of being caught, she was told by Sarah to transfer the money to eight different bank accounts.

However, she met with the error again and was told to pay for a non-residential code before she can transfer the money. She did not want to pay the bank anymore however, trusting that James will come to Singapore to see her; she eventually gave in and paid the bank for a non-residential code. Again, an error occurred and she called the bank for help. She was then told that she had to pay a sum of money for the currency transaction tax. Finally, this time round, she managed to transfer the money over, not knowing that it was a cyber scam all along.

Throughout all these while, James kept reassuring her that he will return her the money and that he will be buying ticket to come Singapore to visit her. When the transaction was finally successful, he told Mary that her money will be transfer to her account the next following day. Unfortunately, the money did not show up in her account. James called her a few days later and asked her to help him by lending him some money for the business.

Mary went to borrow money from her friends who later told her that she might be scammed. Mary went home to call the parent bank and was told that they had received such reports recently too and advised her to stop sending money over because it could be a cyber scam. Mary then went to report the case and was told that all the transactions and people that she had come in contact with were all from Nigeria instead of America or even London.  Mary lost SGD200000 all within three weeks.

Protection and risk prevention and methods against virus, worms, spyware, phishing, and other threats etc.

Exercise caution when dealing with unknown persons “befriended” through the internet. Never put yourself in a vulnerable position or give out personal details about yourself when interacting with other internet users.

Do not remit any money to unknown person. Inform the police immediately if anyone attempts to threaten you.

Never click on links that are unfamiliar to you. Even if they are given by your friends (in msn), do not click on it because it might have virus that might spoil your whole computer.

Google tool & Microsoft Movie Maker

INTRODUCING TO YOU GOOGLE READER TOOL!




Below are the steps you can follow if you are lost in using google reader tool!

1: Go to http://www.readergoogle.com/

2: Login to your google account

3: On the top left hand corner, click on “Add a subscription”

4: Enter the URL in the box

5: The website will appear beneath “Subscriptions” at the left side of the page.

6: It will show you how many post you have not read while you scroll downwards.

7: If the site address does not work, you may have to subscribe to the site feeds directly.

8: Click on Site Feed symbol and it will link you to the site directly

9: Copy paste the URL and start from step 3 onwards.

EASY? In my opinion, I think this google tool is rather user friendly and easy to use. It not only help us keep track of the things we might have missed out noticing/reading, it also helps us to categorise our web links neatly!

Here is a video I made using microsoft movie maker.  

Experience of video making:

It was my first time using microsoft video maker to make a video. I would say that this video maker is indeed very user friendly as it resembles microsoft powerpoint. I was able to locate the tools for each functions by myself without having to search for help in the internet. Pictures loading were easy for me to handle as I do not have to upload one by one. After completing the video, I was able to save it into my desktop in less than 3 minutes. It has many other functions such as sharing it in facebook, converting it into email file or merely saving it onto the desktop of my computer. The movie maker even helped me to converted my video into media player format so that I could easily upload it into my blog. Wonderful experience with microsoft movie maker and I look forward to using it for other meaningful purposes in the near future!