Assignemt 4 - The future of Journalism

1. The writer of the blog is King Kaufman

2. The article on the blog entails valuable information about the future of journalism as a career options . With the emergence of new technology, this career field has undergone, huge tranformations, especially in the 20th century. In the old days, there where no computers available, and all the publications of journalists were printed in newspapers and broadcasted on TV. But now in the modern era ( period), new electronic media such as the internet and blogging sites were developed, which allow journalists to publish their work to a broader audience. In the old days, journalists have found easily work but today there is a lot of qualified people with journalism skills who struggles to find employment. Those( people) who had a job currently in this industry, stand a huge risk of loosing their work, especially with the bad economic growth and recession periods that many countries face, right now. One of the reasons why there are so many unemployed journalists, today is because journalism schools are not doing enough to prepare people for the market industry, after they have completed their studies. Many of these journalists do not have the skills, required of them, in this field. Therefore it is very important that students who study in this field familiarise themselves with new technology, by writing constantly on websites and the create their own blogging sites. This method will help them in the end of the day, to improve their writing skills. Websites such as Beat Blogging org, can also help students to learn more about social media. To have a degree in journalism would always be an advantage, for many people when it comes to career purposes but to have this paper is not enough. I think it is very important for students in thid field to take up internships, so that they can gain practical experience in the field. This is what companies want, they want people who has the qualifications but also have the experience.


My own comment on the Semenya case:

As we all, know by now the new world record holder Caster Semenaye, a South African athletic from the Limpopo province, had to undergone a gender test last week at the Olympic atheltic games in Berlin. Through such a request, I think the IAA F humaliated Semenaye in front of the whole world, when they spread the news globally that she is a man indeed of a woman. It is for me ridiculious, that they published such information to the world without having done any test results, yet. Why did'nt the authorites banned Caster in the first place from the games , if they had doubts about their gender and sexuality. Why all the fuss or big talk, after she won that golden medal. All people throughout the world should have been happy with her but indeed, they decided to embarrased her, globally. There are a lot of females in the athletic world, that are very masculine, especially women from Jamaica and USA . The fact that Caster look like a man does not mean that she is a man. How could Athletic South Africa, enroll Caster Semenaye as a man in the Olympic games. I think those who identitfied Caster as a man, is just jealous that a woman from Africa, has done us proud in front of the world. I would stick to my belief that Caster is a women and the treatment that she had received oversea's was ill, pathetic and cruel. No human being should be treated like this.


Sharmaine Witbooi
27 August 2009.

Assignment 3 - about blogging websites

Question 1 :
1. Blogger -Mail & Gaurdian online
Site belong to -Thought Leader
Writer - have different writers: David Saks, Micheal Tripedo, etc.

2. Bloggger - The Times
Site belong to - Times Online
Writer - Anjana Ahuja

3. Blogger - The Sport Blog
Site belong to - The Gaurdain. co. uk
Writer - have different writers: Sachin Nakrani, Richard Willliams, Sean Ingle, etc.

4. Blogger - World Cup Blog
Site belong to - South Africa World Cup Blog
Writer - Dyral

5. Blogger - Indiewire Blog Network
Site belong to - Anthony Kaufman
Writer - Anthony Kaufman

6. Blogger - Sujewa Ekanayake
Site belong to -Indie Film Blogger Road Trip
Writer - Sujewa Ekanayake

Question 2:
Profile on: Sujewa Ekanayake:

Sujewa Ekanayakeu is originally(born) from Sri -lanka but moved at an early age, to the United States of America. He grew up there (U.S) and started his film career at the age of 18. He is well- known as the independent, low budget filmmaker of Brooklyn, New York. Sujewa was also the director, producer, editor & cinematographer of some of his own films: Indie Film Blogger Road (a documentary that explores the vibrant world of blogs) and the Date Number One ( comedy about several first dates). He always had an interest in vertical, horizontal and circle dimensional portals (computer websites ). He has been using the digital video technology and the internet to produce the film (Date Number One). Both the internet and digital video technology was important for him to publish his movies / films to the world and to get other people's view points on his work. Digital video (DV), is for Sujewa an affordable and high quality film making medium for poor people and the internet is a tool that serves free publicity to the outside world. Therefore he decided to create website - blogs on the internet, where he published almost all his films on. He created nineteen other blogs, where some of his films: Actress Movie, Brooklyn Fantastic, DIY Filmmaker Sujewa, and the Srilankas in America, etc. have been published on. Sujewa interest in portal ( computer websites) and his good film making skills allowed him to be good blog writer on the internet. His favorite music include songs from good musicians such as Fugazi, anything from Ian Svenonius, G Love & the Teenbeat, etc. His favorite books must have candy coated pages in it, which means that he is a person that loves chocalate and sweet baking stuff ( things ).

Assignment two: State Censorship, Freedom of Speech

1.What is the limitations of state censorship that have been made clear recent in
Iran.
The presidential election in Iran recently have resulted in street riots, inwhich many protesters were killed by Iranian government forces. The violent protests occured, because the Iranian people were against the re-election of Mahmoud Amhadinejad, as president of the state. During the protests,the Iranian government prohited all publications of violent images in newspapers, on radios and televisions, to the global world. All the writings and visual images collected by journalists, were put under censoring by the state, to make sure that images of brutality caused by the state police in these events, did not get published. When a state control the press, they have an agreement with their journalistic opponents about how to communicate information to the public. But new media and other social networking tools such as the internet, satellite television and cellular camera phones provide the access of publication of violent images of the protests in Iran, on websites like You Tube and the Twitter. The publications of the protests on websites ( You Tube & Twitter) made it impossible for the government of Iran ,to control the spread of these violent images to the outside world. The Iranian governnment's instability became evident, when they blamed, Western countries( United States of America & Canada ) for producing these "deviant new sites". For example, the image of a young man,bleeding to death in a white shirt, beaten by government forces, was published on You Tube. Here we can see that the use of new media and electronic technology have spread information of the protests to the rest of the world and the state of Iran had no control to stop this, from happening.

2. a.Explain how the use of "new media" in these cases enabled protest / criticism that formarly not have been heard of.

With new technology, the creation of blogging on websites ( new media) such as You Tube & Twitter, make it possible for internet users to talk openly about their experiences in life and how they were affected by it. In the Deflamtion / Offence lawsuit case: a tenant has been using the mirco blogging service of the Twitter (new media) and globally complained about the mould in her Chicago apartment. In the other case: Smashed Guitar, You Tube song - United is listening A singer, musician called Dave Carroll have used You Tube ( new media) and published three protest songs about his shocking air -travel experience with the United Airlines. Dave Carroll used You tube instead of a newspaper to complain about the smashing of his 710 Taylor acoustic guitar, by baggage handlers of the airliner. We can see, that both individauls in both cases used the internet to speak what is on their minds freely, without doing a interview with the press, for their stories to be published. The internet is being used nowadays, as a tool for Freedom of Speech discussions. Both these websites ( You Tube & Twitter) have blogging spaces for comments, which allow other internet users to pose their view points on the complains led in both cases.

2.b. Also if a person or institution feels that the use of new technologies has defamed them. What recourse do they have? How can they expect the injury to their good name to be repaired?
Individuals and institutions, who feel offended with the publication of information about them can ask for the withdrawal of such information from the blogging sites, You Tube & Twitter, etc. If their requests were ignored by the producers of these blogging -websites, then they can be sued, if they keep refusing to the person request. Individuals that used these websites such as You Tube and Twitter can also been taken to court, for publishing information that is damaging towards others. A claim can be brought against them, where they could be paying up to millions of rands for the harm and suffering that they caused to other individuals, if the court of law find them guilty for the defamation of the person's or institutions character and for insulting their integrity, in these publications.

Assignment One : What makes blogging an important form of media

As we all a bog is a type of website, that is usually maintained by an individaul with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events or materials. The media have been using the radio and television to communicate with people around the world, by letting them know what is going on around them. With the development of technology, the internet has growth tremenously in the past couple of years and allow us, also get in contact with people that is at a far distance from us. Blogging became an essential form of media because it allows instructors to organise class seminars andd to provide summaries of readings. What a convenient way to keep people informed, by writng to them. What makes blogging so exciting, is that it gives us as students the opportunity to exchange our point of views with the rest of the world not just with people in our immediate environments. Blogging faciliates, online learning to us students, and it allows us to gain more online writing experiences, and writing to a broad audience than just writing with a pen and paper to our teacher. Such learning experience of writing online, will help us as students to develop our writing skills, and it will motivates us to write more. When we publish our blogs, people around the world can respond by posting their comments to us. Through this way, they can ask questions or simply tell us, what they think about the work that we published. We can then know, if people like, what we have written and this will give us an indication, how to improve our work. By reading these comments, we can know our weaknesses and our talents. Having conversations on the web - blogging,is an amazing tool, because it can bring learners in a way together.Students can get to know each other better by using and reading each others blogs. In such a way, we can discover our similiarities and differences. Students who ausually talks loud in the classroom and students who are timid can have the same writing space to voice their opinion and this can put students in a situation of equity.