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The Idea of Stomp

STOMP (Straits Times Online Mobile Print) is an integration of content and activities of three platforms of print, online and mobile, to interact and engage with Singaporeans in new and exciting ways (STOMP, 2006).

STOMP wants to engage their readers in areas which appeal to them, thus providing readers with new avenues to express and interact among themselves. STOMP wants to be a forum of lively discussions, from topics ranging from national issues to where to get the best food.

Citizen Journalism??

Citizen Journalism also known as participatory journalism, as the words suggests, is the act of citizens playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information (“Citizen Journalism”, 2007). The intent of citizen journalism is to provide independent, reliable, accurate, wide-ranging and relevant information that a democracy requires (Bowman & Willis. 2007).

STOMP and Citizen Journalism

One first look at STOMP’s website, reminds me of Singapore Press Holding’s second highest circulating paid English-language newspaper, The New Paper. The New Paper targets readers with eye-catching tabloid style journalism coupled with sensational headlines (The New Paper, 2007) because these are what Singaporeans likes and wants to read. Singaporeans have a liking for gossip or anything new. This is why Singaporeans have been labeled as, “kaypohs”, meaning busybodies.

Thus, STOMP is using the nature of the “kaypoh” phenomenon and citizen journalism to generate news. So instead of just hanging around looking at something has happened, people take photos, send them to STOMP, and the rest of Singapore will comment over it.

Ugly Commuters = Ugly Singapore

There was this section of “Singapore Seen” there is this section, “Ugly Commuters”, whereby Singaporeans take photos and even videos of ugly commuters of the public transport of Singapore. A few quick clicks around the other sections of “Singapore Seen”, shows that the page views of each “article” of “Ugly Commuters” are viewed in terms of thousands of views, as compared to the rest of the sections of “Singapore Seen” which are only viewed in hundreds of views.

Firstly, this portrays how ugly Singaporeans can be on public transports, but, I personally feel that it is a disgrace to Singaporeans. Singaporeans are kicking a fuss over some other stuff that others have done. And with the set up of STOMP, Singaporeans have found an avenue of disgracing those that has not been behaving well in public. Take a look at the “articles” on “Ugly Commuters”, you have pictures and videos of people occupying more than one seat, people blasting their music out loud, people falling asleep, unwilling commuters that do not want to give up seats to the elderly or the pregnant women and people crowding over the entrance of MRTs. I felt that people are fussing over this kind of small matters that happens throughout the whole world. It is just the way people are. You might think that you are the most considerate being in the world but some others might not consider that. I’m very sure that people in the other side of the world, for example, in Japan, you would also meet some commuters that hog more than one seat.

Lastly, imagine someone taking a photo or video of you doing something peculiar, and your faces have not been mosaic? I feel that it disturbs my privacy a lot. Some might say that, if you dare to do something, you should dare to let others catch you in action. But, I feel, every image taken should at least seek for the permission of the person in the picture or video before releasing out into the public domain.

Thus…

As the title go, “Singapore Seen”, does everyone wants to be seen like what some of the other Singaporeans? Will these Singaporeans be willing or unwilling to be seen? Will STOMP invade the privacy of the “victims” of the photographs? I personally feel that it is good that Singaporeans are involved in Citizen Journalism, but, please be involved in news that are meaningful and not invasive.

References

Bowman, S. and Willis, C. (2003). We Media: How Audiences are Shaping the Future of News and Information. The Media Center at the American Press Institute.

Citizen Journalism. (2007, January). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved March 31, 2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_journalism

Gillmor, D. (2004, July). We the Media: Chapter 1, 3 & 9. Retrieved March 30, 2007 from http://download.nowis.com/index.cfm?phile=WeTheMedia.html&tipe=text/html

Singapore Press Holdings Ltd. (2006). About Us. Retrieved March 31, 2007 from http://www.stomp.com.sg/about/about.html

The New Paper. (2007, January, 24). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved March 31, 2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Paper

Labels: COM125 Assignments

About ‘Singapore Politics’

Title: Singapore Politics
URL: http://singaporegovt.blogspot.com
Owner: Thrasymachus
Occupation: Citizen Blogger
Blog’s Date of Birth: June 27, 2005
Technorati Rank: 139, 300 (58 links from 31 blogs)

This is one blog that many of my friends have used for this assignment. Maybe perhaps because when you search for “politics” together with “blog” in Yahoo! Search, you will find this blog returned as the first few results of your search. Perhaps, the Technorati Rank for this Singapore Politics blog will increase dramatically.

This blogger, Thrasymachus, took a very neutral view about the politics in Singapore. It gives me the feeling that this blog could tell me more about the political scene in Singapore, instead of discrediting or bad mouthing. This blogger acts like a commentator about the political scene in Singapore, having views on their career and political life. This blog is very interesting. I wonder how much time this blogger has took to research and analyze about what ever that is in Singapore political scene.

Democracy & Internet & Blog

“The government will continue to set political agendas and rules of engagement in the face of the new media, and will not be dictated by online petitions or polls,” said Dr Vivian Balakrisnan at the Foreign Correspondents Association lunch on the government’s approach to the new media (Majid, 2007).

Now, the government wants to control our freedom of speech in the cyberspace. The Second Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts added that the government would not hesitate to prosecute those who post seditious or racially offensive content in cyberspace.

How is democracy’s going to be achieved when every part of our life is controlled by our government? We have to watch what we say or else, we will be prosecuted. But sometimes, things work in the way as in the more you do not wish to comment about some things, the more you will experience the certain matter appearing in front of you. Giving you the adrenaline and the guts to voice out your opinion, especially now, you could simply achieve that by switching on your computer, logging on to blogger and start rattling on what you have to say.

The role of traditional media, such as television, magazines and newspapers, in modern democracy is increasingly problematic, and serious questions have arisen about its capacity as a site for political criticism or rational debate (Thornton, 2002). Then, how about the new media, such as the Internet and its blog? Modern democracy would be much more problematic than the traditional one and more serious questions, criticism would arise, given the easy accessibility of the Internet.

One view that I personally agree with Dr Vivian Balakrishnan is what he has to say about the present amount of offensive and untrue material in cyberspace, that there is no need, nor it is practical, to pursue each and every transgression (Majid, 2007). In fact, there are way too many comments about that. But how is the government going to filter and pursue what the government deems as racially offensive or seditious. From what I know, there are way too many videos and clips made about racism. How is the government stopping that?

In conclusion, democracy in the internet is definitely something that is really hard to achieve, nevertheless, blogs. A blog is like a personal diary. It holds comments about our true self and our views on our life. Sometimes, it is just not that people like to raise racism comments, it is just about the way people are.

Reference

Majid, H.A. (2007, March 22). Government sets rules of engagement in face of new media. Channel NewsAsia. Retrieved March 24, 2007 from http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/265682/1/.html

Thornton, A. (2002, October). Does Internet Create Democracy. Retrieved March 23, 2007 from http://www.zip.com.au/%7Eathornto/thesis_2002_alinta_thornton.doc

Labels: COM125 Assignments

According to Wikipedia (Twitter, 2007), Twitter is a social networking service that allows members to inform each other about what they are doing and what they think. It also allows users to send messages via phone or instant messaging.

Then, what is the notion of an online community? Virtual communities form when people carry on public discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal relationships (Rheingold, 2000).

I personally would consider Twitter as an online community where friends or even strangers connect through a service by answering one question, “What are you doing?”, and people can answer your question via your phone, instant messaging or directly via Twitter’s webpage (Twitter, 2007).

The structural process associated with online community is communication. With communication, there will then be action to organize social relations (Fernback & Thompson, 1995). Thus, possessing the means of communication, where people could reply each other, Twitter is indeed an online community.

When I have successful signing up for Twitter, I felt so lost about the functions of Twitter. Twitter did not live up to my expectations of other social networking services like Friendster or MySpace. Rather I felt the services of Twitter were rather lousy as compared to the rest. Strangers could see what ever that is posted. Anyone could add anybody. And since anyone could add anybody, you can see everyone’s post. In fact, I felt it was rather messy, as in the topics do not follow a thread-like forum. Everything were just in chronological order and thus, imagine everyone talking about different topics, it will be quite difficult to see what is going on.

There has been this blog post about Twitter flaming out before the end of 2007 and I totally agree with the writer. According to Balez (Balez, 2007), there are three main points why Twitter will not survive. Firstly, there is no value in twitter, as in there is no deep content, nothing to learn, and no reason to going back to using the service. Secondly, Twitter requires quite an amount of effort. People are lazy, and Twitter requires time, effort and attention to read through the postings. Lastly, key users will bail, similar to the double-edged sword of network effects. These are potential reasons why Twitter cannot survive and I myself agree with them, as this is exactly how I feel with using Twitter.

Wikipedia do also states that Twitter is experiencing different problems and challenges such as eliciting mixed-feelings in the technology-savvy people who have been the early users of Twitter. Twitter users feel that it is a good way to stay connected with friends, especially when you have a busy schedule, but, some users felt they became too connected with Twitter as they check in to Twitter at odd hours, and also incurred higher hand phone bills because of using the services of Twitter.

Thus, Twitter could have been a favorite among other social network users, but to me, Twitter is one service that I will never use again, unless the services of Twitter are improved. I just do not like that fact that I have to read through every single posting. It is just too time consuming. I should prefer the traditional thread-like forum where I can selectively read or reply what I want to read or reply.


REFERENCE ...

Balez, M. (2007, March 14). RIP Twitter (2007-2007). Retrieved March 17, 2007, from http://web1979.wordpress.com/2007/03/14/rip-twitter-2007-2007/

Fernback, J. & Thompson, Brad. (1995). Virtual Communities: Abort, Retry, Failure? Retrieved March 17, 2007, from http://www.rheingold.com/texts/techpolitix/VCcivil.html

Rheingold, H. (2000). The Virtual Community. Retrieved March 17, 2007, from http://www.rheingold.com/vc/book/intro.html

Twitter. (2007, March 16). In Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved March 17, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter

Twitter. (2007). Twitter: What are you doing? Obvious. Retrieved March 17, 2007, from http://twitter.com/

"Don't Worry! I Don't Take Picture, I Take VIDEO!"

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzOGCTHqP6Y

This one video I have chosen is one typical video that you will see or even experience in the roads of Singapore, especially when you are involved in an accident. Hot headed drivers shouting vulgarities at each other, all shouted in the fit of anger? Do they really mean it? Some might even get of their vehicles to pick up a fight. When in a fit of anger, one could even kill a person.

That’s the reason why, with the convenience of camera phones, people take videos of the confrontation that would be going to take place. It could be acts to safe guard themselves, if anything was to go wrong or a legal case is filed. These videos would act as a form of evidence to protect themselves. For this particular video, there was evidence of criminal intimidation and road rage, in which the lorry driver could pursue and present the case to the Police. Apparently, the motorists was traveling on the middle white line and the lorry driver horned to alert the biker that the lorry was going to overtake him but the motorist did not hear it. The lorry got nearer to the motorist and the Indian motorist got agitated and stopped the lorry to confront the lorry driver.

I’m not trying to be racist or what, but I felt that the tone that the Indians started off was way too much. They approach the lorry driver greeting them with vulgarities. Who would like it? Instead of hurling vulgarities back, the Chinese lorry driver was calm and I really applaud the way he handled the situation.

Everything was put to an end with the involved apologizing to each other. But when the Indian realized that the Chinese passenger was taking a video of the whole confrontation, the Indian got even more pissed. One funny sentence that the Indian said was that he claimed that he knew what he was doing, but actual fact, I doubt he knows.

I feel that the Indian might be intimidated when he realized that the whole confrontation was video-taped. He even suggested to the Chinese passenger to put his picture in the press. But I feel that he do not mean it as he was very angry at that time. Perhaps upon reflection, he feels that he might be in the wrong.

This video is an example of sousveillance, meaning bringing the camera or other means of observation down to human level, either physically or hierarchically (Wikipedia, 2007). It was discovered that sousveillance can cause conflict and sometimes confrontation (Wikipedia, 2007) and this is what exactly happened in the case of the video.

One could easily take videos, with the ease of camera phones. Thus, whenever one is in this kind of situation similar to the video, one should just be careful of what he or she is talking about because you will never know who is videotaping the whole incident down.

Reference:

Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. (2007, 7 February). Sousveillance. Retrieved March 8, 2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sousveillance&printable=yes

Labels: COM125 Assignments

Friendster ...

Friendster, where you find; search old friends, classmates or anyone, connect; view profiles and grow your network and stay in touch; getting friend updates, share photos and videos (Friendster, 2007). These may sound like great reasons for you to sign up for a Friendster account. But how much truth will you put into these kinds of online social network accounts?

It depends on the purpose of setting up this kind of social network accounts and I should use Friendster as my case study. People set up Friendster primarily for three purposes. The first reason being, to maintain the contact with people that you know, for example, your workplace colleagues, classmates or even relatives. Secondly, to make more friends through Friendster by visiting their Friendster profiles. Lastly, to find their old friends, provided they have signed up with Friendster.

How much information do you intend to put into your Friendster profile? For my own personal Friendster account, I could say that the information that I have put up are brief descriptions of what I am truly am and what I am doing currently. The information that I put up are all real information of mine, as I feel, my friends, would really want to know how am I doing and likewise, I would in turn also want to know how they are doing without having to ask them.

According to Rosen (Rosen, 2005), in this age of the internet, we are increasingly forced to interact with strangers whom we will never meet face-to-face, and as a result, individuals find themselves in more and more situations where they feel pressure to reveal details of their personal lives without being able to gauge the audience’s reaction. Thus, this pressure pressurizes people to divulge personal and truthful information about them.

Nobody likes anyone who deceives people. Thus, imagine you putting false information of yourself on your Friendster profile, and your friend sees it and one day, and realizes that what ever you have put on Friendster is all a hoax. What will you friend see you from then on? Definitely, the impression of you in your friend will definitely change drastically. “Trust is built faster and maintained longer when people believe you are being real, not putting on a false front to cover up what’s really going on inside of you. When it comes to relationships, authenticity is what others say they want most from us and we make the most lasting and vivid impressions when people witness us being true to our beliefs, staying in alignment with who and what we really are” (Rosen, 2005).

Thus, people tend to divulge their real information about themselves because they would not want to be in the dilemma of deceiving others. I myself feel that there’s nothing to hide about my own self. One important thing when creating these kinds of Friendster profiles is knows what you want to let the whole world to know. For example, if you do not wish to tell people where is your workplace, then do not put in down. Keep it blank. Feel how your friends will feel when they find out that you are reading something that is so not true. Sometimes, trying to fake information is not as easy as what you think. You have to think hard on what you want to replace this real information with the fake information.

Authenticity refers to the psychology concept in which the individual derives gratification and positive emotions from excercising signature strengths (Wikipedia, 2007). Last but not the least, one tip that I would give to people when creating Friendster profiles is you divulge your personal information only if you are comfortable on letting others know, otherwise, leave it blank or use a metaphor. Authenticity of information increases trust and likewise, false information decreases trust.

References:

Friendster. (2007). Friendster – Home. Friendster, Inc. Retrieved March 10, 2007 from http://www.friendster.com/

Rosen, J. (2004). The Naked Crowd. Retrieved March 9, 2007, from http://www.spiked-online.com/Printable/0000000CA5FF.htm

Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. (2007, 10 March). Authenticity (Philospohy). Retrieved March 10, 2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authenticity_%28philosophy%29

Labels: COM125 Assignments

my precious princess marie~!

Morale of the Story: Never invite a looney friend (like me) to your birthday dinners or celebration.

What do you get in the end: 23 pieces of prata for birthday cake!

Ha ha... guessed the above summarised everything.

Lovebirds, Candice & Bryan & the Cake

The Birthday cake lighted up!
An idea contributed by baby, Weiliang~!

Yours Truly,
Devil for that night.

Guess how much i've finished?
Only the prawn n crackers!

The eyes are cute!

Wine can't kill me. Sasaki tried to kill me that night with all the wine.. No no! I will survive! In the end, i killed his daughter and son instead. Slayed! Ha ha.. Dun mess with me with alcohol~!

Miko dressed up in her pink bag. Vain pot~!

It's been a long long time since i've updated this blog... since my last com125 assignment... ha ha.. i'm gonna mass update now... on the day that i have to revise for my mid terms for 2 papers the next day. YEAH!!! BLESS ME TM!!!!