New Forms of Media Publishing

Facebook, Twitter, Youtube are no longer foreign to many of us today. The existence of these online media platforms allows a new form of publishing other than using the traditional media.

Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) mentioned that there is a shift in visual literacy, from old to new style. In today’s era of globalization, we are no longer subject to use speech as major mode of communication. Most documents today incorporate a mixture of text, images, graphic and sound elements, or also called as 'multimodal'. Naughton (2006) endorsed by stating that the integration of digital convergence, personal computing and global networking seems to have contributed to the development pace and radical shifts in the current communication environment.

Take Twitter as an example. As the latest addition to the most popular social networking sites worldwide, Twitter allows its users to publish a short message within constraint of 140 words in one single post along with pictures or links to other sites (optional).

Image source: (appadvice.com 2010)

Twitter is proven to be a resourceful tool in providing latest news and updates, particularly during crisis. The recent earthquake in Japan is an example signifies how people has shifted to social media for alternative information source (Katy 2011). Even notable news sources such as BBC, CNN and The Star Online are now available on Twitter; sending out instant news updates from their own respective accounts.

References:

Katy 2011, Social Media Response During the Japanese Earthquake, viewed 25th April 2011, available at <http://agiledudes.com/all/utilizing-social-media-japan-earthquake/>

Kress, G and van Leeuwen, T 2006, 'The semiotic landscape: language and visual communication', Reading Images, pg. 16-44.

Naughton, J 2006, Blogging and the emerging media ecosystem, viewed 25th April 2011, available at<http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/fileadmin/documents/discussion/blogging.pdf>