Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Qotw9: The STOMP to Citizen Journalism Blogging has become such a common thing in this era. Not only we blog about our own lives, but things that are happening around us. It seems so easy for anyone to perform citizen journalism. With a click on your multi-purpose hand phone, pictures or videos can be taken instantly, sometimes without even being noticed by the person whom you are taking.
What is citizen Journalism?
According to the Wikipedia, Citizen Journalism, also known as "participatory journalism," is the act of citizens "playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information"
Basically, Journalism came from people and from there it began to flourish. (Citizen Journalism, 2007) With the emergence of the internet and more social networking sites such as web blogs, message boards and Wikis, It is very easy to participate and be part of the citizen journalism. Not only that, we are more well-informed compared to the past. These ’tools have roots in networks that encourage innovation’ (Dan Gilmor, 2004)
The STOMP
In relation to the rise of citizen journalism, Singapore has set up their website, STOMP (Straits Times Online Mobile Print). 
It combines content and activities that are in the print, online and mobile. STOMP delivers content that is interactive which enable Singaporean communities to be bonded by shared interests. According to the STOMP website, the aim is to allow a forum of lively discussions to be formed, whether it is heavy national issues or the daily happenings in our neighborhood. Anybody is able to contribute any news they find interesting and send it over via their mobile phones or send their thoughts over. (STOMP, 2006)
After browsing through the STOMP website, I find the news quite entertaining and close to our daily lives. Different sections are set aside for different interest groups such as the’ foodie groupie’ allowing food lovers like me to know the places that has good food. In addition, Singlish are being used almost anywhere, adding to the local flavor. With the rise of popularity in blogs, there is also a section set aside for star bloggers such as the well known bloggers xiaxue or dawn young. Readers can read their views on the most talked issues in Singapore and leave their comments too.
Main page of STOMP
the Talked-back sections
Really ideal meh?
I think STOMP is quite an ideal form of citizen journalism for Singapore. As I explored the website, almost anything under the sun is being discussed. Readers are free to comment on issues and non-readers are able to contribute news that they find interesting around us. It is a good way for Singaporeans to catch up on news that are unknown in the mainstream news such as the TV news or the newspaper. With the informal presentation of news, readers feel comfortable reading it and contributing news.
However, I realize politics are not really discussed in detail in this website. Most of the news that is presented is mostly juicy and fun news. An extra column for politics will be better for people who like discussing it. As there are still administrators moderating the news contributed for the website, if videos that violate political parties in Singapore are contributed firsthand, there is still a possibility of the website not presenting it. Therefore, I guess there may not a total freedom in the content that is provided.
Other than that, I feel that links of other popular bloggers like Mr. Brown can be added in the website. This allows readers to read up more broadly on different issues other than the fixed topics given to the only six star bloggers.
STOMP is near to the ideal form of citizen journalism. Singaporeans are able to contribute what they find interesting and discuss freely on different matters. However, due to the lack of total freedom, there is still room for improvement for STOMP.
References
“Citizen Journalism” (March 28, 2006) From Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Retrieved March 28, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_journalism
Gillmor, D. “We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People” (July, 2004). Retrieved March 28, 2007 from http://download.nowis.com/index.cfm?phile=WeTheMedia.html&tip
STOMP (2006) From Singapore Press Holdings
Retrieved March 28, 2007 from
http://www.stomp.com.sg/
<3 8:25 AM
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Thursday, March 22, 2007
Qotw8: Mr. Wang and democracy I have to admit that I know nuts about politics. In fact, it is only through this class and the blog assignment that I know about political blogs existing online. Well, the only blogger I heard about in class and talks about the politics is Mr. Wang and so I shall talk about him in particular.
Blogger profile of Mr. Wang
Blog title and URL link:
Mr. Wang says so (http://mrwangsaysso.blogspot.com/)
Mr. Wang bakes good karma
(Old blog) (http://commentarysingapore.blogspot.com/2000/01/art1.html)
Blogger’s Name: Mr. Wang
Blogger’s occupation: Citizen Blogger
Blog date of birth: 1st January 2000 (old blog)
Technorati rank: 27,360 (328 links from 139 blogs)
2 blogs from mr.wang
After browsing through the two blogs Mr. Wang has, I realized he started out right in the beginning talking about Singapore; he talks about different aspects such as education, arts, culture, politics, social issues and anything that is related to Singapore. Articles mostly about Singapore issues are being put up and commented. Most of his blog entries are straight forward about how he felt about the Singapore government. I went looking for his earlier entries and I found one on ‘the dangerous blog where he talks about freedom of speech in the blogosphere.Though there may be other bloggers around who had no responsible in what they blog, Mr. Wang emphasize on the importance on some of the restriction of blogging. There must be a limit. (Mr. Wang, 2006) That entry leaves me an impression that Mr. Wang sometimes may be straight forward in certain issues but generally maintain a neutral stand. Questions are also sometimes asked to trigger thoughts of the readers. This allows users to comment freely and engage in a small debate of their own.
In a February 2007 blog entry ‘Duh, my head hurts”. He showed an article from ST forum on PM Lee emphasizing on family and pledging that the government will continue help fostering strong family ties. (Mr. Wang, 2007)Mr. Wang clearly felt funny with that statement and posted question out allowing readers to talk out loud about it. There were 42 comments for the post. Most of the readers responded to the questions and further discussed about the government incentives and even come out with policies that think would be more realistic for Singapore.
With relation to Mr. Wang blog, I really feel that blogs aids in greater democracy in Singapore. Political blogs like Mr. Wang’s gives Singaporeans a chance to express what they feel about different issues. Most of the Singaporeans are often afraid to speak their minds especially on political issues as they may get caught for that. Blogs create a platform for Singaporeans to freely comment what they want and is a place for them to vent out their disagreements on certain policies.
In fact, the government has seen this trend of blogs and even started blogging.Foreign Minister George Yeo was the first Cabinet minister to actually start blogging regularly. In his blog entries, surprisingly frank and insightful articles based on his interactions with foreign leaders can be found. (Giam, Gerald, 31st December 2006) This allows Singaporeans to know about what is happening in the parliament and a chance to talk about it.
I do not know if the near future there may be laws on freedom of speech in blogs. However, the nature of the blogosphere is free itself. There are no real restrictions in what can be said or not said. Therefore, I truly feel that blogs allows people to converse freely and aids in freedom of speech (the government always emphasize improving on this), enhancing greater democracy in Singapore generally.
References
Giam, Gerald (31st December 2006), Review- The politics of Singapore’s new media in 2006.
Retrieved on 22nd March 2007 from http://theonlinecitizen.com/2006/12/31/review-the-politics-of-singapores-new-media-in-2006/
Mr. Wang (2006), Mr. Wang bakes good karma,
Retrieved on 22nd March 2007 from
http://commentarysingapore.blogspot.com/
Mr. Wang (2007), Mr. Wang says so,
Retrieved on 22nd March 2007 from
http://mrwangsaysso.blogspot.com/
<3 8:59 AM
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Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Qotw7: The magical question: what are you doing now??
I was feeling bored and that is when Lirong approached me on msn and asked me to join the twitter. My first reaction, like everyone else is” What is twitter?? Is it another friendster look-alike website again?” Well, I guess I was bored to tears and so decided to try it out (partly due to the assignment too). It turned out to be something different from the usual online communities that I have been to.
What is twitter?
According to the wikipedia, it is a social networking service which enables members in the community to inform each other what they are doing or simply just chat freely on what they are thinking. Not only that, it allows users to send messages through their mobile phones or instant messaging. Apparently, users are able to receive updates messages from their friends via web, IM or sms. Twitter is also an example of a micro-blogging platform as they are able to type down their thoughts in that instant moment. (Twitter, 2007)
my twitter
Twitter = online community?
I have to agree that twitter is definitely a part of the online community. As mentioned from the article virtual communites: abort, retry and failure, “community within cyberspace emphasizes a community of interests, usually bounded by the topic under discussion that can lead to a communal spirit and apparent social bonding”. Users in the virtual community are able to exchange ideas on issues, have virtual business conferences, to communicate with friends or strangers and even to just gossip. (Fernback.J & Thompson.B, May 1995)
Twitter creates a space for friends to just pen down their thoughts or just gossips about any issues that is happening in school or work. Friends can be easily added to your own sphere and view your short messages of ‘what are you doing now” that was left online. A community is thus formed as your own circle of friends is added to the same space. Just like what Mr. Kelvin Lim has done for our com125 class, he simply just wrote down the link in the com125 website and everyone in class started joining the twitter. A class online community is formed; students exchanged ideas on twitter itself or just plain complaining of how boring the long break in school is. Once a comment is made, everyone will automatically respond to it and therefore discussion online can be continued effortlessly.
Twitter somehow serves as any online forum where people are able to chat and exchanged pointers. Also, it is like an smaller version of blog where one can write down that they feel; few words is sometimes enough to portray what one is feeling in that moment.
Besides that, twitter kind of reminded me of MSN messenger. MSN allowed users to chat real time online and the newer version enable users to see some of the offline messages that were left behind. Messages in both MSN and twitter are mostly short and concise. They are also in conversational style and informal in nature. With this feature, this makes sharing of thoughts and ideas less restrictive and encourages users to communicate more freely.
Another added feature twitter has is the ability to add and view each others’ profiles easily. This feature is similar to another popular community—friendster. Through this online community, people are able to increase their social circle as friends of friends or even strangers may add you to their friends’ list. However, friendster restricts users from surfing profiles or adding people beyond four degrees which is friends of friends of friends of friends. (Boyd Danah, December 2006) Twitter does not restrict anyone from adding more friends. Anyone can be introduced or added to the online community.
Twitter not so good
Well, twitter may seem to be something innovative as it resembles the instant messenger and friendster; it is very user friendly. However, not all people may favor twitter. The reason is that most Singaporeans already had a blogger, friendster or MSN messenger account. They are already used to communicating via these online communities. Not only that, too many of these similar online communities are surfacing out. I guess majority of the people will felt indifferent to another new online community.
Conclusion
Though there are some similarities twitter has with other online communities such as friendster and there may be some disadvantages of twitter, it is definitely an online community that aids in linking different social networks together.
References
Fernback.J & Thompson.B (May 1995) Virtual Communities: Abort, Retry, Failure? Retrieved on March 15, 2007, from
http://www.rheingold.com/texts/techpolitix/VCcivil.htmlTwitter (14 March 2007). In Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved on March 15, 2007 from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TwitterBoyd Danah (December 2006) . Friends, Friendsters, and Fop 8: Writing community into being on social network sites. First Monday, volume 11, number 12. Retrieved on March 15, 2007, from
http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_12/boyd/index.html#p4 <3 11:59 PM
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Thursday, March 08, 2007
Qotw6: Privacy = kiss and tell?
I used to keep a handwritten diary and wrote most of my private thoughts in that book. To me, inner thoughts and opinions are meant to be private and not be shared among other people. Ever since the appearance of blogs, my views changed.
I treated the blog as something personal and surprisingly I am not against the idea of sharing my thoughts online to anyone anymore. It became a place for me to vent my displeasures and stress, just like my old private diary. Have I forgotten about the issue on privacy and felt that it is fine for strangers to read my personal life?
What is privacy?
According to wikipedia, "Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to keep their lives and personal affairs out of public view, or to
control the flow of information about them. “ It is somehow related to anonymity as people may want to remain nameless so as not to reveal one’s real identity.” Privacy can be seen as an aspect of security—one in which trade-offs between the interests of one group and another can become particularly clear.”(Privacy, 2007) With relations to the internet, it is now very easy for one to reveal information about you by looking at one’s history or even checking a person’s IP address to know one’s real identity. There is no real privacy in the internet world. According to psychologists, “it’s important to reveal yourself to friends, family and lovers in stages, at appropriate times. But few boundaries remain. The digital bread crumbs you leave everywhere make it easy for strangers to reconstruct who you are, where you are and what you like.” In some cases, by just reading a blog post can reveal what you think. We are living in a world that is hard to keep a real secret. (Sullivan Bob, 2006)
Exposing myself
As mentioned earlier, I shared my thoughts, interests and even pictures of my personal life in my blog. It became a daily routine for me and I felt all right exposing myself to the whole public domain, including strangers. Well, I am definitely not the odd one out. Many citizens now do not feel embarrassed or uneasy to share their lives and pictures. It is a norm now to actually share personal information about yourself all over the net; it increases intimacy between people as your friends or strangers will be able to know something about you through your personal blog. I even have long lost friends who found my blog and we connected each other by just blog viewing. However, the bad point about exposing yourself online may also affect your offline relationship between people. A couple may no longer communicate properly as they can just view each other's blog to know their inner thoughts. Not only that, the rest of the world is able to know how you think as well and that depicts the purpose of having a real soul mate. (Rosen Jeffrey, 2004)
An example of my own blog with my thoughts and pictures.
To trust or not to trust is the question
We are living in the era where most people are open about their lives and self disclosed. But does that mean that all of them have forgotten about privacy? When a person blogs, I am sure that most of the people are still aware that this is a public domain and will be somehow careful about what they reveal. The online environment enables one to be able to create their online identity and of course their own characters. A blogger may avoid talking about negative things and try to create a positive outlook of them. One can control what they write in their blog and what they want to reveal in the end. There may be some authenticity in the blog content but definitely not all are true. Another problem of revealing private thoughts would be that the truth may hurts. I had friends who encountered incident of reading other friends' blog and found out that they wrote something nasty or impolite about them. Their friendship was destroyed right after the blog incident. As the blog is part of the public domain and everyone is free to express themselves, some people may then straightforwardly wrote down how they felt about things and whom they dislike. Being too honest may cause more misunderstandings to happen and relationships to drift away. I guess some issues are better to be kept within you as sometimes the truth hurts.
Conclusion
The issue on privacy online is controversial. People gladly expose themselves through blogs but it is important to note that not all thoughts and issues can be openly discussed. It is still important to protect one's privacy.
Reference
Privacy (7 March 2007). In Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved on March 8, 2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy#Internet_privacy
The Naked crowd (19 July 2004).Rosen Jeffrey. Retrieved on March 8, 2007 from http://www.spiked-online.com/Printable/0000000CA5FF.htm
Privacy lost: Does anybody care? (17 Oct 2006). Sullivan Bob. Retrieved on March 8, 2007 from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15221095/print/1/displaymode/1098/
<3 8:22 AM
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What is citizen Journalism?
It combines content and activities that are in the print, online and mobile. STOMP delivers content that is interactive which enable Singaporean communities to be bonded by shared interests. According to the STOMP website, the aim is to allow a forum of lively discussions to be formed, whether it is heavy national issues or the daily happenings in our neighborhood. Anybody is able to contribute any news they find interesting and send it over via their mobile phones or send their thoughts over. (STOMP, 2006)
After browsing through the two blogs Mr. Wang has, I realized he started out right in the beginning talking about 
With relation to Mr. Wang blog, I really feel that blogs aids in greater democracy in 