Monthly Archives: November 2018

Essay #2

“Publication is a creation of a public” (Stadler) By simply uploading an information on the created website, it creates the “circulation of text, discussion, and gathering which creates conversation.”(Stadler) I created www.byeongsunglee.com where people gather who are interested to hear stories from a contemporary artist, Byeongsung Lee. www.byeongsunglee.com is an online public where the artist, Lee, introduces his artworks with images and descriptions of the idea. The contemporary art is complex in the way which the idea is hidden from the cultural, political, and personal context of the artwork. Often times, the audience could not catch the idea or misunderstand the idea of the artwork. In order to deeply understand the idea of the artwork, the audience requires to understand the cultural background of the artist. Not only the cultural background of the artist, but the audience also has to consider the materiality of the artwork, the historical concerning, and the national notion. www.byeongsunglee.com opens a public for the audience who is willing to learn and discuss the idea of Lee’s artwork. The artist’s online publication gives me the “agency and control”(Watters) especially when I am communicating with people on personal artworks.

The online publication is not the “objects of education technology software”(Watters), but the “subjects of their(self) learning”.(Watters) I am not only posting my artwork in order to inform the audience my artistic idea, but I also re-discover the unperceived idea from my own work. The act of textualizing the idea aims me to re-organize the idea in which I unconsciously re-generate a creative idea in my mind. On “Why We Need Social Paper”, Erin Glass describes that people are “hunger to find a space and a culture which promotes the practice and exchange of reflective thought.” I, as an artist, was always willing to expose my artworks and the idea to the world. Creating an artwork is essential for the artist, however, a publication is as valuable as the artwork in order to deliver the idea to the audience. www.byeongsunglee.com becomes an artistic publication in which the artist and the audience gathered for transmitting information. The website is not only a place for the transmission of information. www.byeongsunglee.com provides me a “digital citizenship.”(Campbell) By simply uploading artworks on my website, I “present (the artistic idea) to the world.”(Watters) I leave a footage on the online world in which personal identity is established in the online society. Earning the citizen of the digital world, the personal publication connects the artist with the audience.

Creating the personal publication in online is a complicated gesture in terms of a value of the contents, and the connection to the visitors. The information that is provided on my website is easily accessible to anyone. The information has to be accurate and firm. The incorrect information and unrelated content would result in the loss of the number of visitors. The distinctive feature of www.byeongsunglee.com is that the website does not only contain the image of the artwork, but also the processing image and the description of the idea. Many artists do not want to show the processing image because it is not artistic. However, I decided to exhibit the processing images for building a strong association between the artist and the audience. Mattew Sadler speeches on the Talk from the Richard Hugo House’s writer’s conference that “the publication requires a good host (who is) willing to change depending on who is there and what their needs are.” Listening is an essential attitude for the host of the website, and the website should be encouraged by the visitor. “The publication requires consistency.” It is a role of the host to consistently share information with the public. A lack of communication would disconnect the audience from the artist. In the past time, I understood the publication as speaking. I considered the host as a speaker and the audience as a listener. After becoming a host of the publication, I realized that the host does not only speak but also listen to the public. The transmission of information is not one-way dialogue, but the conversation is circulating. Moreover, I learn that the publication is not only the exchange of reflective thought. The publication leads the culture in which people are socially influenced by the public conversation. The online publication is a contemporary platform in terms of socially, politically, and culturally. I am not creating the publication by myself, but I create the publication with the audience.

Encouraging is the goal of www.byeongsunglee.com. I would like to inspire the audience differently. I would like to communicate with people who are not interested in contemporary art. Many people are interested in visually aesthetic artworks that capture audience’s eyes. However, the idea is the most important element in art, not the visual pleasure. Many contemporary artworks are visually disagreeable which people are not interested. However, the beauty is inside of the artwork. I would like to introduce the beauty of idea by specifically narrating the idea of the artwork. From my online publication, my goal is to create a connection between contemporary art and people. I would like to create a culture on the online publication. I am willing to develop an artistic movement starting from www.byeongsunglee.com. The concept of de-materialization is been introduced by several artworks on the website. I would create a number of critical analysis of the de-material artworks that I made, and I hope it would lead to the new concept of the artistic movement.

 

References:

 

 

Essay 2

As the internet keeps on evolving, it has been easier for people to create an online persona. It is becoming a new trend to have an online presence. In PUB101 I have built an online presences related to my interest about art history. Throughout my experience as an online publisher I have learned much more about how to build an online presence and the challenges one will face.

I created my blog called “Let’s talk about Art History” because during highschool I took a course called Art History 12 AP. I really enjoyed this course because I had a very artistic youth, being a photographer, being a son of a photographer and being dragged into many museums on family vacations. One concern I had about my highschool course was, it didn’t go into much detail of artworks I was curious about. So I decided to blog about Art History, to answer my questions I had about interesting historic artworks. Many photos that are on my website are some of my favourite art works and that is what made it so easy and enjoyable to write about. Knowing most of my information about art history really helped me create a blog that was personal to me.

One important lesson about publishing is tailoring your writing for your audience. According to University of Maryland, “Knowing your audience helps you to make decisions about what information you should include, how you should arrange that information, and what kind of supporting details will be necessary for the reader to understand what you are presenting”. This was something that I had to focus on when I was writing my blog posts. Before any post would go up on my website I always had to have an idea of who would be reading it. My audience was visual people aged between 25-55 years. Due to my audiences age, my writing was very sophisticated and straight to the point, providing the reader with proven facts. When creating my website layout I made sure to have more visuals than words on my homepage because my topic was very visual. Once users hovered over the images with their mouse, a small snippet of my article appeared and if they were interested, they could click to see the entire article.

Compared to the beginning and end of PUB101 my idea of publication has changed. Before enrolling in PUB101 I really didn’t know much about publishing. All I knew was that it was going to be a challenge creating an online persona that actually resembles who I am. However, after a few weeks of my website being up, I began to find it easier to build an online presence. I was able to make everything look how I wanted it to be and made everything personalized. Eventually, since my website’s design started to fit my personality, so did my writing. I started to go into deeper thoughts of my feelings, through my process posts and even my blogs. I even gave my opinion on history and what I would have done differently compared to pharaohs and kings. I probably won’t be interested in posting my articles on my wordpress once the course is done. Moreover, I will be taking into fact when posting to social media, that I can be fairly personal with my online presence. Online websites gave me tricks on how to better personalize my online writing. For example, writing as I speak, use personal language and tell personal stories. All of these tricks helps the readers understand me more. When comparing my first blog posts to my last blog posts, I can see the difference in how I became a more personal writer and I plan on continuing this with my social media accounts.

There are currently 75 million blogger websites, so many people will have similar challenges as I did when creating their blog. Many people planning when creating a blog will have to face trying to make their website more personal, appropriate for their audience and will have to know their information, in order them to have a successful blog.

 

References:

  1. Rowse, D. (2011, March 23). How to Write in a More Personal and Engaging Tone. Retrieved November 27, 2018, from https://problogger.com/how-to-write-in-a-more-personal-and-engaging-tone/
  2. Writing for an Audience. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.umuc.edu/current-students/learning-resources/writing-center/writing-resources/getting-started-writing/writing-for-an-audience.cfm
  3. How Many Websites and Blogs are on the Internet? (2018, September 27). Retrieved November 27, 2018, from https://blogging.org/blog/how-many-websites-and-blogs-are-on-the-internet/

 

Light on canvas 2017

Painting does not always have a physicality. Depending on what medium the artist uses, the painting might have the materiality or might lose the materiality.

For example, if an artist uses oil or acrylic paint, the work of painting does not lose the materiality. The movement of artist leaves brushmark on canvas which is permanent. At the same time, the movement of the artist leaves the idea on the canvas. The footage of the hand movement delivers the idea to the viewer. When an artist puts de-material medium such as air, evaporating water, sound, and light, on the canvas, the painting loses the materiality. The gesture of the artist would not leave any footage on the canvas, however, the gesture still leaves the idea on the canvas.

“Light on Canvas” is a painting that I created in 2017 at the Alexander Studio of Simon Fraser University. I grabbed sunlight from the window area where sunlight enters, and I placed the sunlight to the exhibition space where we call, Bartlette. I placed six circle mirrors at a certain point where they create the path for the sunlight. 

The light on canvas does not have materiality, and the audience could see the light only in the limited time period. It disappears after a certain time.

What the audience observe from the white canvas is light. Is the light an art object? or is this just a natural phenomenon? What people see is not actually a physicality of the object. What people actually see is a reflected light of a physical object. From this work of art, I am questioning about the boundary between materiality and de-materiality. What you see as a material object is truly a de-materialized light that is reflected from the material object.

ESSAY #2 September – November: Processing Growth

My experience starting a blog this fall has been both harder than I expected and more interesting than I expected. Street Stories allowed me to meet and speak with staff at NightShift who inspired me with their stories and vision behind the organization. It also allowed me to share coffee with street friends and have a window into what their daily lives are like. Alternatively, Street Stories created space for me to get frustrated with my inability to figure out WordPress, and exposed my visually uncreative side. Yet, throughout all of the ups and downs, I am proud of Street Stories and I hope to continue it.

Street Stories houses stories from Whalley, the city centre of Surrey, and NightShift, an organization that serves vulnerable people residing in this area. Throughout the blog, I mainly talk about my experience of becoming a volunteer with NightShift, my experience interviewing a few of their staff members, and an experience I had one time walking around Whalley and talking to some people on the street. My imagined audience for this blog is young adults from 18-30 who are looking for a way to give back to the community. I also hope Street Stories would be shared with people who typically hold a negative view of the homeless population in Surrey. I realize the importance of understanding the values of my intended audience and their attitude towards the vulnerable population in Surrey (Hassan, 2011). Considering I am a young adult, and I am constantly around young adults, I know that we are a group of people who are in love with being “too busy.” In light of this, there are many people who feel passionately about helping others in their city, but feel “too busy” to make steps towards putting that passion in action. Street Stories aims to confront young adults in this reality, letting people know that there is a possibility for a change in priorities to impact the greater good of their city.

Through content, I address these audiences by sharing the stories of what NightShift is doing on my blog. Through design, I address this audience by creating Street Stories to be minimalistic and easy to navigate. I also try my best to use photos that connect with the stories that I’m telling, because I feel that young adults connect with visual pieces. Lastly, I have displayed my Instagram to show more of who I am, in hopes of connecting with young adults who come across my blog.

The value provided by Street Stories is not tangible. I relate to Debbie Chachra when she states “I am not a maker,” (2015). She emphasizes how history has set up people who physically make things to be seen as superior to those who are caregivers, or those who teach (Chachra, 2015). Like Chachra, I push against this notion. Although Street Stories does not add any physical value to those who engage with it, it offers people the wonder of a human story. Also, it offers a platform for vulnerable people’s stories to be told. Awareness of the daily lives of those living on the streets and the amazing work that NightShift does is what people will receive when visiting Street Stories.

Using Google Analytics has not informed me of my audience and their behaviour because I do not have enough traffic coming through my site. However, I am thankful to have learned the basics of how to analyze the behaviour of my audience and create goals for my site. I hope to use this knowledge in the continuation of my blog.

Looking back to the first weeks of sunny September, the design of my blog has changed drastically but my core content has stayed the same. I changed my theme about half way through the semester because it was not allowing me to express my content effectively. My new theme shows more pictures, which allows me to communicate my content in an impactful way. As W. Gardner Campbell said, when one is intentional with building their personal cyberinfrastructure, they has the potential to create space for one to express their passions and aspirations (2009). Although my personal cyberinfrastructure still has a long way to go, I believe that it has come very far in the past four months.

All in all, I am grateful for all of the blogging experience I have gained this fall. Starting with a passion for the vulnerable people living within Surrey, navigating my way through design and themes, and learning to find my voice through it all has been a journey that I hope to continue. As I have just finished the volunteer training for NightShift, Street Stories will continue with stories from the people I meet through my weekly volunteer experience. Through this, I plan to connect my imagined audience with impactful stories that too often go untold.

Campbell, W. G. (September 4, 2009). A personal cyberinfrastructure. Educause Review. Retrieved from

https://er.educause.edu/articles/2009/9/a-personal-cyberinfrastructure

Chachra, D. (January 23, 2015). Why I am not a maker. The Atlantic. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/01/why-i-am-not-a-maker/384767/

Hassan, M. (March 1, 2011). Developing an audience profile. Communications Today. Retrieved from http://communicationandtechnology2011.blogspot.com/2011/03/developing-audience-profile.html

Experience as an online Publisher

As an online publisher for the first time I have come to realize many things as to having an online presence. To be a successful publisher, there are various aspects to take in to consideration. Before taking publication 101 at Simon Fraser University, I have always thought that a publishers main tasks was to write, write and write some more. Although a lot of what being a publisher requires is writing, I have come to realize how much design, engagement and statistics also come into play. All of these aspects work together for one to have a successful online presence.

My online presence was based through a WordPress blog and Instagram. I mainly focused on food and reviewed it for other readers who would be interested in trying something new. I targeted all of my content towards people in Vancouver, in hopes that they would visit the places I’ve posted about. After reviewing some of my statistics through instagram, most of my followers and engagements do come from people who are from Vancouver. Prior to creating this blog and online presence, I wanted to keep my tone on both platforms the same. Learning from other food bloggers I follow, I’ve noticed that having the persona of a friend and using a playful tone works the best. As I am giving food suggestions, to me, it feels like I am talking to my audience casually which allows for comments and feedback that opens to conversation.

The value I intend to give my audience is simple. I try my best to give honest reviews and answer any questions they have. Aside from the audience who come to my blog/instagram for food suggestions, I tag all the food stall owners into my posts. To my surprise, many of them responded back and appreciated the shoutout.

Accounts following my Instagram after posting a food review

Some of the food places who have an Instagram account even followed me back and reposted my pictures. To me, this was a success in the return of value for all three parties — me, my audience, and the food stall owners. Many of them also commented on my posts which increases my engagement. Other readers also comment and some even let me know that they would give my suggestions a try one day. This has influenced me to keep posting as when I see actual feedback from my targeted audience I know my blog is working!

Through comments, I get to express myself and use my online presence as an advantage. The fact that I do not put my identity out to the public allows me to be more expressive with myself. As psychologist John Suler termed the “online disinhibition effect”, he states that as you shed your identity, the usual constraints on your behaviour go too (Konnikova, 2013, para. 2). Although my anonymity allows me to fully express myself, I do not abuse this power. It encourages me to create a sense of community and be more proactive, whereas in real life I am more timid and worry about standing as an individual. Anonymity certainly boosts a certain kind of creative thinking for me as to other people. (Konnikova, 2013, para. 3). This allowed me to comment on other food blogger’s posts and start to make connections online.

One thing I would like to work on is to be more consistent. In the beginning of the term, I was more focused on the blog and uploaded more consistently. While I was doing this, I noticed a jump in followers, engagements and impressions. More people were visiting my blog/Instagram and it was at the peak. Though I tried to pick up my consistency again, it was hard to get back to my peak. I was not sure why this was the case, but I assumed it was because of the algorithm from Instagram. After trying to get back to higher engagements, I started to comment on other blogger’s content and my engagements started to increase as well.

Beginning profile visits vs. profile visits during inconsistent posting

Aside from all the numbers and back-end statistics, I also tried to focus on the aesthetics of my blog/Instagram account. “Good designs are intuitive”  (Kaptelinin, n.d., para. 2), so I tired to make my blog as easy to navigate as possible for my audience. “Great, intuitive designs are those that allow us directly, and correctly, to see what we can do with a thing”  (Kaptelinin, n.d., para. 7). The human attention span when landing on a website is 7 seconds (Bowshier, 2017, para. 1), — that is shorter than a goldfish’s attention span of 9 seconds! Because of this, I tried to use effective affordance strategies on my blog. As Norman, director of The Design Lab at University of California would say, affordances provide strong clues to the operation of things (Norman, 1988). I made sure all my buttons on my blog look like they were clickable and that all my in-text links were underlined. The user will know what to do just by looking: no picture, label, or instruction will be needed to tell them what to click on. (Norman, 1988).

For the Instagram aesthetics, I tried my best to edit the pictures so they look extra appetizing. As mentioned above, some of the pictures have also been featured on the food place’s official instagram pages. I made sure to keep my blog and Instagram as a whole unit by linking my blog in the description, and adding Instagram icons on my WordPress blog. My online presence with this blog has been fun, it was definitely cool to meet new people online. I was able to share my experience while gaining insight from others as well. Past the end of this course, I hope to continue my food blog journey and keep my engagements stable by being more consistent and proactive as a publisher and audience to my peers.

word count: (975)

References

Bowshier, L. (2017). You have 7 seconds: Grab website Visitor’s Attention in Moments. Tribute Media. Retrieved from https://www.tributemedia.com/blog/you-have-7-seconds-what-a-visitor-should-know-about-your-website-within-moments

Hambil, J. ( 2016). How to Talk to Strangers. The Atlantic. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/08/civil-inattention/497183/

Kaptelinin, V. (n.d). The Encyclopedia of Human-Cimputer Interaction, 2nd Ed. Interaction Design Foundation. Retrieved from https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/book/the-encyclopedia-of-human-computer-interaction-2nd-ed/affordances

Norman, Donald A. (1988): The Psychology of Everyday Things. New York, Basic Books

Essay 2 – Experiences as an Online Publisher

I have always had an online presence, whether it was through a Facebook or Instagram account, there is no denying that I have been publishing my life online for quite some time. Upon reading about this class, Publications 101, it occurred to me that I have never written a blog or created my own public website. As much online activity and experience that I perceived to have had, it was apparent that understanding how to create, design, and write for a website was lacking. So, my interest was peaked and my creativity was sparked to expand my experience of being an online publisher.

As Erin Glass notes, “Let students, not the Edtech industry, debate and determine the emerging design of the space which will carry their voice…let them reimagine for the full possibility of speech.” (2015). Glass’ comment rings true to my approach and understanding of the class as it provided me with an opportunity to carry my own voice and reimagine the possibilities of public discourse. Instead of being in a strictly academic writing environment, the process of building and designing our personal blogs pushed our creative abilities and offered us a means to stray from common educational pedagogy. Furthermore, as discussed by Audrey Watters, the ability to have our own domain gave us the agency in what we want to publish for our site and online self and how we want to do so. We can demonstrate our learning “beyond the classroom walls.” (Watters 2015) and be able to have a better position in controlling our work, data, and self (Watters 2015).

I wanted to showcase these aspects of online publishing, as described by Glass and Watters, and highlight my creation of publication based on a distinct subject and design that I care about. I wanted to use this opportunity to carry a voice and reimagine the full possibilities of online discourse. This was done through my intentions of creating my blog as a public platform that brings attention to important issues of race, gender, and sexuality – all of which can be hard to publicly address offline. As described by Lori Hubbard from Chron, and Monique Sherrett from Boxcar Media, having a target audience is key in developing effective communication strategies as well as providing content that users can appreciate. The public that I envisioned for my blog were young individuals and groups of people who appreciate the arts. More importantly, I created this blog for the marginalized; I created it for those within the LGBTQ+ community, people of colour, and for those who want to learn, understand, and challenge the rigid social constructs set in place within society.

As noted by Michael Warner (2002) and Nancy Fraser (1990), the concept of the “public sphere” and what we consider to be public is often skewed – representing the “bourgeois society” and European “public concerns” and “common interests” (Fraser 1990 p. 58). This is where the concept of “counterpublics” arises in that I have created an online space that aligns with the notion where “members of subordinated social groups invent and circulate counter-discourses” (Fraser 1990 p. 67). I argue that this is a key feature for my blog and something that is possible due to the rise of public engagement through the Internet. This concept has become of value for me and hopefully for others, as it does not entail a focus on monetary value and simply falls down to challenging hegemony and the problematic and systemic social norms. Here, There hopes to bring people together and to highlight marginalized voices.

Apart from the overall concept of the blog, how I addressed my audience through the editorial design, and content, also aligns with my initial intentions for the creation of the site. What I kept in mind for the name, Here, There, was a mixture of simplicity and minimalism intertwined with a contemporary feel. However, l still wanted to be able to evoke emotions and meaning. I wanted to encompass the idea that voices will be heard from here and there and that there is no boundary as to who gets to be a part of this blog or who gets to be a part of society. Moving onto the design of the blog, again I wanted to create a space that was simplistic and contemporary with artistic elements to capture an audience of young, artistically driven individuals. I wanted to use soft colours and shapes that were inspired by contemporary designs, brands, and websites, such as Bouquet from Montreal, Poketo from the United States, and the website Them. I also wanted to capture the attention of a younger demographic recognizing that moving into the future, these are the people who will be leading society. The design of the hands for the header image supported my intentions of a contemporary and artistic theme. In addition, providing a visual element that connects to my message of coming together and connecting. With the implementation of music playlists, I also enhanced the ways in which I wanted to speak to an artistic audience. Pairing this with my blog objective, the playlists also speak to marginalized groups and for those who have a desire to challenge their understanding of certain norms set in place within society. Lastly, the content itself is directly related to what I aimed for in terms of my online self and publication and for whom this space would be for. By focusing my content on issues directly relating to race, gender, and sexuality, I hope that I can both connect individuals from afar whilst highlighting the importance of diversity.

Moving onto the data of our publication, the info gathered from Google Analytics was quite interesting. The presentation from Monique Sherrett from Boxcar Media was an eye-opening lesson on how to analyze our analytics and what to look out for. Keeping in mind the four aspects of analytics: awareness, engagement, conversion, and retention, it was possible to see how my audience and the public were interacting with my blog. However, since I did not share my blog widely, the awareness and engagement for my site were marginal. The views of my site did come in waves with periods of no activity at all and some moments with a spike in activity. This was most likely due to certain moments during the course when it was asked of us to look through our sites. The majority of users to my site were returning visitors, with the average duration and retention on my blog just a few minutes, around one to three minutes. In some ways, I wish I continued to update my blog more frequently in order to feel comfortable promoting it through other platforms, which in return would allow me to see more activity and data from users.

Throughout my time in Publications 101, my experience of creating online content has expanded. Although I always maintained a certain identity online by carefully managing my aesthetics and posts of my public profiles, such as Instagram, doing so on a blog proved to be quite different. I have not had experience with WordPress prior to this class, so, understanding the technical aspects were both challenging and rewarding, but also highly educational. Integrating my own voice and personality and publishing this through my site changed my perspective in that it is not an easy feat – it takes time, effort, and a clear understanding of the self and your goals to have it work well.

Beyond this course, I imagine my goals as an online publisher will continue to be the same. As an individual who has created an online self for a few years, the blog has helped to enrich my practice and experience of developing content online. This blog has sparked inspiration to continue to create an online presence and self that can challenge the norms of society, but it has also reminded me to be proactive in listening to diverse narratives online and offline. Currently, I am undecided if I will continue the blog as my schedule has been fairly tight. Continuing Here, There may be of a challenge, but because of its significant and meaningful topic (not just to myself, but hopefully for others as well), I believe that it will have importance towards the overall public discourse. Possibly, when I do have more time, pursuing the blog can be beneficial not just as a space to share knowledge and thoughts, but also as a rewarding opportunity to engage and have a public voice has been made possible through the Internet.

References

Fraser, N. (1990). Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy. Social Text, (25/26), 56-80. doi:10.2307/466240

Hubbard, L. (2018). Why is Identifying the Target Market so Important to a Company? Chron. Retrieved from https://smallbusiness.chron.com/identifying-target-market-important-company-76792.html

Glass, E. (2015). Why We Need Social Paper. CUNY Academic Commons. Retrieved from https://commons.gc.cuny.edu/papers/45249/

Sherrett, M. (2018). Publications 101: Marketing, Media, and Analytics. Simon Fraser University, Harbour Centre. Lecture.

Warner, M. (2002). Publics and Counterpublics (abbreviated version). Quarterly Journal of Speech, 88 (4), 413-425. http://knowledgepublic.pbworks.com/f/warnerPubCounterP.pdf

Watters, A. (2015). The Web We Need to Give to Students. Medium. Retrieved from https://medium.com/bright/the-web-we-need-to-give-students-311d97713713#.4d7j8rs6x

Self-Assessment 5%

I would give myself an overall score of 4.5/5 for my self assessment. As I learned how to present myself on the online space, I got better as the semester went on. I learned how to engage with my audience through instagram and even made a few connections with official accounts. I have also been featured on their accounts and gotten recognition from them. As to my statistics, I personally think throughout these 3 months, I did get some views (mainly on my Instagram rather than my website). Though there were not many visiting users, it is a start. I would like to continue my journey as a food blogger on instagram but maybe not on an actual website. Another aspect I would like to work on would be to be more consistent. Although I finished the posts in the end and created the content for my food posts, the consistent posts would have kept my statistics higher and kept me relevant. I’ve taken a lot from this course and the guest speakers really open up my perspective on their personal professions. My post and online presence was uniformed throughout the semester and I believe my use of another platform (Instagram) really enhanced my blog. I tried to be more personable and gave off a friendlier vibe to start conversation. People have left comments and even complimented my posts. This has been a great experience, and I am glad everything ran smoothly!

Essay No. 2- My Expirience as an Online Publisher.

All my life I wanted to share the wisdom I had, whether it was when I was 15 years old in high school when I shared with my friends that nothing good ever happens after midnight or to now. When this blog assignment first came to be at the beginning of the semester, I knew exactly what I wanted to write on, life rules. After reading an article by William Kraska, (“What Makes a Good Blog?”), I learned that to have a good and successful blog, “Blogs become successful because of specificity and passion, according to Kevin Donahue, co-creator of Fanblogs, a college football blog described by Forbes.com as the best blog dedicated to a single sport.” (What Makes a Good Blog? (n.d.). Retrieved from https://journalism.nyu.edu/publishing/archives/notablog/story/good_blog/).  After reading this article I knew, I wanted to make my blog about rules that have helped me throughout my short 19 years on earth. It was a specific genre and it was something I knew very well and would write on easily. I have not had too much success so far in building an audience, most of my comments are Russian bots, but I hope someday with more time and effort I will have an audience that will take what I say and use it to benefit their day-to-day lives. If anything Google Analytics has shown me the potential I have, like I previously stated, I do not have much of an audience, but I can have it, with the help of ads and promotions it is entirely possible for my blog to take off. 

Most of the enjoyment I had with this course, was the design aspect. After I got a hand on how to design and how to use WordPress, I enjoyed creating this online space that was the essence of me and what I was trying to convey. I first decided to make my blog more lively after reading the suggested reading ‘Design Machines- How to Survive the Digital Apocalypse’ by Travis Gertz (Author & Gertz, 2018).   I was inspired to make my blog stand out, Gertz explains how as a whole in this digital age it is so easy to get swept away with security and what we know will work, that all of our pages end up looking the same; and how it is so important to have design. He also explains how important it is that our content does not exceed our design or that our design does not surpass our content.  This article inspired me to continue to work on the creativity of my blog, yet also keep up the substance to an acceptable level.

I did a lot of research on different blogs to see how they used specific tools that benefited them with their audience. One night as I was going deep down the rabbit hole of blogs, I came across serval various blogs and websites that all featured a more personal side. I had the idea to post more photos of what made me, well… me, pictures and videos of my life coincided with the theme of my blog as well.  I also came across a website titled ‘Vandelay design’ (“Vandelay Design”), a design blog; an article struck a chord with me about design written by Steven Snell. It is called ‘Blog Design: Does Design Impact Your Success?'(“How Important is Design to a Blog’s Success?”, 2016), the article states that “The blog design can also seriously help or hurt the level of success of the blog by how it emphasizes or de-emphasizes the content. Readability is key. For visitors to appreciate the content, the design should emphasize it and not distract visitors away from it.” (How Important is Design to a Blog’s Success? (2016, May 23). Retrieved from https://www.vandelaydesign.com/impact-of-design/ ). I found that this article similar to ‘Design Machines- How to Survive the Digital Apocalypse’ by Travis Gertz, in the sense that, yes the design is very, but it should never take away from the actual content. 

Growing up I never had any interest in the traditional sense of publication. I believed my opinion was not worthy of being heard in such a public space (on the internet), as I have not had much life experience nor have I had much exposure to writing, I thought I would be heavily judged. During this past semester, I have uncovered many valuable lessons from Google Analytics and WordPress; the main takeaway I had was that even if nobody views your blog or website, we are all publishers. I realized more than anything that I grew as a personal author, my confidence grew, my writing skills improved, and my view on publication arose. Now that we end this course, I am left with the desire to continue to create and to find that sense of self within the publication.

Reflecting on this course, I have learned a lot, about myself, my personal views on life and my views on the publication of self. Moving forward I want to continue my online presence; I would love to make another blog or format my blog now into more advice while travelling solo. I have recently travelled solo, and I have so many tips and tricks that I would love to share, and I think people would like to listen. The main thing I have lesrned from this course and that I will take with me through my future endeavours in life is that everything good comes with time. Working with a blog your online presence could take months or even years to develop, to quote my favourite movie, ‘Field of Dreams’- “Build it, and they will come.” 

I, Tonya: An Artistic Look at a Controversial Story (95%)

I, Tonya deserves an Olympic gold medal for its successful combination of comedy and drama. The film is based on the life of US figure skater Tonya Harding and the attack on her competitor, Nancy Kerrigan, prior to the 1994 Olympics. Writer Steven Rogers and director Craig Gillespie took an artistic and entertaining approach in telling Harding’s story. The movie constantly flips back and forth from a chronological telling of Harding’s youth leading up to the attack to (acted) interviews with characters in the present day. This mode of storytelling also allows Tonya to break the fourth wall and correct any information she disagrees with from her ex-husband Jeff Gillooly’s interviews. The interviews and breaking the fourth wall are genius on their own because they capture the difficulty of one person trying to tell their story while close friends, family, the media, and entire nations overpower them and attempt to tell the story from their own contradicting perspectives.

While the movie touches on how the media may have abused and manipulated Harding’s story, there is a greater focus on Harding’s difficult home life, as well as exposing the unfair judgment she received in skating competitions strictly because she was not the idealized image of the American woman. Harding’s home life and marriage is often shocking and devastating, yet the blend of comedy amidst the drama made this movie feel more realistic. The witty lines bring the personalities of various characters to life.

The costumes and casting were also incredible for this film. The skating outfits were based on Harding’s actual outfits from her competitions. Beyond Margot Robbie’s amazing performance as Tonya, Paul Hauser’s performance as Shawn Eckhardt, Tonya’s bodyguard, was very accurate (stay and watch the real interviews in the credits and judge for yourself).

I also recommend this movie for anyone who enjoys great camera work. There is a wonderful long shot that moves from room to room in Jeff’s house and shows him moping in each place.  On the whole, this movie is both visually pleasing and masterfully written. Even if you’re someone who remains convinced Harding was more involved with the attack on Kerrigan than she claims, this movie can still entertain you and make you sympathize with the injustices Harding faced.

*This article was originally written for SFU’s student newspaper, The Peak.

Rivalries Are The Best Thing In Sports

Week 13 also known as rivalry week, because of the amount of instate matchups, is always known for having the best games and this year was no exception. This week everything from upsets, to classics, to possibly the greatest and craziest game of all time. This weekend also produced many, many points as defence was almost non existent the whole weekend. Image result for texas a&m lsu

#7 LSU vs #22 Texas A&M is undoubtedly the best game of the year and possibly the best college football game ever. In a stunning 7 overtime shootout, Texas A&M beat LSU 74 – 72 in the highest scoring game ever in college football. A&M was down by 7 with 2 seconds to go and with 0:00 on the clock they scored the game tying touchdown to send it to an overtime thriller. From there another 84 combined points were scored in overtime with the game officially ending when Kellen Mond connected with Kendrick Rogers for the two point play securing the win. If you love defence then this game definitely wasn’t for you as there were so many completely open catches and if it’s anything to do with the score the defence did not show up in College Station. If you weren’t able to watch the game live, I do recommend you go back and watch the highlights for this game as it truly was something special and there might never be another score this high ever again.

Image result for sad michigan fan

The second biggest game this weekend was “The Game”, between archrivals #10 Ohio State and #4 Michigan. Ohio State was on a 6 game winning streak in this rivalry with Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh having never won “The Game.” Ohio State extended their winning streak in this historic rivalry to 7 games as the trounced Michigan 62 – 39. Michigan came into this game with the #1 ranked defence in the nation but for whatever reason they could not stop Dwayne Haskins and the high scoring Buckeye offence. Michigan were the favorites going in to this game as they had looked super dominate the past couple of weeks and Ohio State was not looking impressive as there defence had just given up 51 points to Maryland. However, something must have changed in the past week and Ohio States defence looked fast and playoff ready. This game does pose a problem for the playoff committee because if Ohio States does go on and win the Big 10 Championship game, it will be difficult to allow them into the playoff with them having a terrible blowout loss to Purdue.

Overall this weekend was a super exciting weekend with contains all the best games of the year. Going forward, next weekend we have all the conference championship games, which will have the biggest impact on who makes it to the college football playoff. Depending on who wins and who loses it could make the choices made by the committee on who gets in either really straight forward or they’ll have to cut a few surprising teams.

Conference Championship Games:

 

Pac-12 Championship Game:

#16 Washington vs #17 Utah

ACC Championship Game:

#2 Clemson vs #24 Pittsburgh

Big 12 Championship Game:

#6 Oklahoma vs #14 Texas

AAC Championship Game:

#9 UCF vs Memphis

SEC Championship Game:

#1 Alabama vs #5 Georgia

Big Ten Championship Game:

#10 Ohio State vs #19 Northwestern

Mountain West Championship Game:

#23 Boise State vs Fresno State

 

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Process Post Week 12

Does privacy matter anymore? This is a question that can be very controversial and is more irrelevant than ever with society being in the state it is as a result of technology. Technology has lead the way of a more public society and now more than ever things are less private. For example, 50 years ago, if someone did something out of the ordinary in public they would maybe have a few people give them a glance but nothing much would change. Nowadays with almost everyone having access to a camera on their phone, the person who did something out of the ordinary is now a Youtube viral sensation and is getting booked on The Ellen Show for the following week. Technology has been a big component of the decrease of privacy in the world as with the click of a button anything can be sent to millions of people, thus there being little privacy. Privacy should still matter in this world because that person someone is taking a photo or video of might not want to be put on the internet and they should have that right to privacy and not have to be thrown into the spotlight. Now I believe, that if you got nothing to hide, you shouldn’t have anything to worry about privacy as there is nothing wrong your doing. However, this does not give anyone the right to take our privacy away from people as we don’t know if someone wants what they did shot in to the media. Overall, we still need privacy in this world as if we didn’t people would lose the basics of keeping something to themselves.

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Essay #2

Throughout my months in Publication 101, I learned so many new tips and tricks, and as a result my website got better while I gained more knowledge. So many components go into creating a website, and I had no clue what it was like maintaining an up to date website. I do have a fair amount of publishing background as I’ve created two yearbooks in highschool, but this was a lot different as it was all online. I can admit I am not the strongest writer, so when I first found out how much I would have to write each week it was a bit daunting and I wondered how I would fair. However, I found out that when writing about something you are really passionate about, such as college football, it makes it really easy to write and more fun.

 

When first got my website and I was deciding on what wordpress theme to choose for my blog, it was super difficult to decide which one to choose. There were literally thousands to choose from and it took a long time to find the right one. In the end I decided to go with one of the most basic themes called Aakriti Personal Blog, since I wanted my blog to focus mainly on the content and not have the theme distract the reader from my writing. I eventually introduced some color into my website after getting the suggestion from Jennifer’s peer review of my website. I then turned my website a neon yellow color. I choose a very unique color because I wanted to make my website stand out as I’ve never seen any website use yellow as their background and it helps set my website apart from all others and makes it distinct. One thing I did learn about the process while creating a website is that you must have a really good theme that allows you to manipulate it. The biggest regret of my website was actually the choice of theme. If I were to start over and make a new website, I would not use this theme again. I was very constricted on what changes I could make and I didn’t like how the sidebar was tucked away behind a three bar line on the top right which you had to click to get to the CFB standings and the archives. I wanted the standings to be on the homepage going down right hand side, but was not able to do that as I didn’t choose the right theme to get that. Overall, the theme I choose wasn’t right for me, but for the time it did its job and made my website very clean.

 

For the actual content I was producing, I looked to get inspiration from the leading producers in college football news. ESPN, Bleacher Report and theScore are just 3 of the biggest companies that write about college football. I used the general layout from Bleacher Reports articles on mine as I thought it might give my website more credibility if it resembles a well known sports writing website. These big companies didn’t get this big on luck so they must be doing something right so I decided to take a page out of their books. I also took suggestions from peer reviews to help improve my website. I implemented many great suggestions from Tessa’s peer review of my website. I switched the name of the author writing the posts from “admin”, to my name to make it more personal. I started using hyperlinks to make my posts look more professional Furthermore, I spread out the writing in to multiple paragraphs instead of just one long paragraph to make it easier to read. Getting suggestions for my website through peer reviews helped improve my website and every suggestion I really thankful for. Going forward, if I was to continue my blog I would want to figure out how to put videos directly in my posts so readers won’t have to click away in order to watch the video I am referencing. In the end, very happy about how my posts turned out and the way they looked in the end.

 

When I had to consider my audience for what I was writing about I had to do some research on who I was writing for. What I learned was that I was writing for all demographics. College football reaches over such a wide spectrum of people and after reading an article by nielsen.com on the reach of college football, I finally realized how big college football actually is. I learned that over  155 million Americans watch college football and it is split 50-50 by gender which makes college football a massive market. Also all ethnicities are shown to watch college football which really shows it covers everywhere in America. With this new knowledge, I had to make sure that what I was writing was very neutral and it wasn’t to difficult or to easy to read so it could appeal to everyone. Also if anyone has read many of my articles you might notice it follows the basic pattern of talking about the best teams in the nation. This is done with a purpose because typically the best teams are the most popular and have the biggest fan bases. For example, I would rather write about Ohio State, who has the #1 fan base of 3,167,263 than Maryland whos fan base is 474,059, according to a report done from the New York Times on where the fans lie. I want to attract as many people to my blog as I can and talking about the big teams was a tactic I used in order to get people here. This didn’t really work as my website had minimal viewership and almost no one went on my website. Hopefully, if I were to continue writing on my blog viewership would go up as that is one of my major goals of this website.

 

Having a blog and talking about something I’m passionate about each week has been an amazing experience and it was super fun. Going forward I will probably not keep posting on my blog as the college football season ends in just over a month and once its over there is almost nothing to talk about. I had a really fun time writing about topics I’m interested in and I might want to do something like this again next season. Likely I will not use a blog next season but rather I will create an Instagram account to post on, which will be a lot easier for me. What I learned most from this course is that I really enjoy creating content and whether it is on Instagram or a website I will try to always keep publishing something.

 

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FORGE : DAY 2

FORGE Day 2 was practical and impactful. The first half of the Saturday morning was spent learning about Naloxone. Naloxone kits are used for people who overdose, and have saved many. Marty, who was teaching us about Naloxone, said that in July there were 135 deaths in BC associated with overdose. Overdosing is an ongoing public health concern, and since many of the people that NightShift serves are using, it was definitely useful to learn about.

Naloxone is an antidote for an opioid overdose, and does not work for a non-opioid overdose. Opioids are drugs that are used to manage pain, and they often slow the body down or cause sleepiness. The Naloxone kit contains gloves, alcohol prep wipes, 3 needles, and Naloxone. Our group practiced by injecting water into oranges, which was kind of fun, but scary at the same time imagining administering it to someone in real life. My hands were extremely shaky, and I was wondering if I would be capable of actually doing this if it came down to it. Then, a member of the group said something that changed my perspective. “Our moment of fear is so minimal compared to their moments of fear.” After that, I felt thankful that I had access to the tools to help someone in such a terrible situation.

The second half of our Saturday morning together was spent hearing from Trisha Baptie. Trisha shared her heart wrenching story of how growing up with an abusive father changed the trajectory of her life. Dropping out of school in grade 6, the only way she knew how to make money was through prostitution. So, this is what Trisha did over the course of many years. She had 5 children along the way. To support them, she would work during the night and be a mother to them during the day. After meeting a kind woman who worked with Trinity Western University one night while she was on the street, she built a relationship that ended up changing her life. This woman encouraged her to leave prostitution and orchestrate a better life and future for herself and her children. She gave Trisha an immense amount of support along the way. Now, Trisha works to empower women to live violence and exploitation free through her organization called EVE. She aims at decriminalizing people selling sex in hopes of protecting these women. When sharing about her job, she said that these women “honour me with giving me their story to keep. I share their truth to inform policy.”

Trisha’s work in informing policy around prostitution and sex trafficking left me awestruck. Considering she is a woman with grade 6 education and a past filled with abuse, she overcame all obstacles to get where she is today. I left FORGE day 2 feeling empowered and inspired, and I’m excited to see what the next two days will bring!

Essay 2: Reflecting as A Blogger

When reflecting on my own blog, I see a stark difference on what I expected and what the course has taught me. In the beginning, I had an innocent idea of blogs. It’s an online space to express yourself and connect with people who have the same ideas. I still keep that idea when I write on my blog. However, throughout the course, I have changed my perspectives because I am more conscious on how it affects cultures, individuals, and workers. As ‘neutral’ as my content is, I don’t feel ‘safe’ because I am vulnerable with my content. Anybody can find my information and turn it against me or misuse my words to feed their own narratives. I want to explore this ‘fear’ and how the course has made me more careful about what I post and what I share online. It doesn’t necessarily discourage me from using the internet and social media. But my awareness has allowed me to be more appreciative of the people who create ‘controversial’ content that can endanger them or the people around them just because one person on the internet does not agree with it. My goal is to express my self-awareness in an active role. It’s not enough that I consume media writing about someone’s demise to the pitchforks of the internet. I want to be aware of that in my daily conversation online and offline.

Alice Marwick and Rebecca Lewis writes about media manipulation and the dissemination of disinformation online (2017). They discuss the events revolving around Wikileaks’ distribution of the hacked emails of John Podesta, Hilary Clinton’s campaign chairman (Marwick & Lewis, 2017, p. 2). Users from the message board 4chan quickly spread misinformation about the emails and how subcultural groups such as the alt-right groups who have given this scandal greater media attention than Trump’s own allegations (Marwick & Lewis, 2017, p.2). These groups leverage their online presence and take advantage of the ‘vulnerabilities in the news’ and increase the coverage of their messages (Marwick & Lewis, 2017, p.3). This topical example has impacted U.S. politics today and in my opinion, gave voice to the hateful and divisive groups in America. I am reflective of how this affects my own online presence. It’s good to be knowledgeable and aware of the power of these groups, and I want to be more conscious about that in my own online interactions. In my blog, I speak about productivity and the impacts of smartphones on our day to day lives. I address the conflict between our attachment to our phones and this growing dependency to it. I think part of this conversation that I learned from the course is also the responsibility of the user. I cannot mindlessly use my devices and ignore what exists in the same spaces I connect in. I try to have ‘conscious’ content and express that throughout my blog.

Mike Caulfield writes a thought provoking piece on Digital Literacy and what we should follow (2016). What I found relevant to my reflection is his example of the Tree Octopus. These digital literacy acronyms and rules that are commonly shared to schools are useless in determining what is real or fake on the internet (Caulfield, 2016). The tree octopus is a fake cephalopod with a fake creature page that shows it has evolved into an amphibian and survives on land (Caulfield, 2016). What Caulfield found was they did not distinguish this by using acronyms to detect fake news, but just by knowing and learning that it’s impossible (2016). This leads to his proposal that to be digitally literate, you must know the web (Caulfield, 2016). What I think he means by this is that we must be aware and critical online as we are in our day to day lives. There are going to be groups and individuals who will misguide users because they don’t know anything better. Dissemination will be used for political gain or to harm minorities. I want to continue practicing these conscious ideas online. My blog is as vulnerable as anyone else’s. But I try my best to learn more and carry that knowledge with me.

I am reminded of UCL’s social media discoveries and why it’s important to be conscious of how it is affecting our day to day lives (2018). Discovery #12 writes that social media has a profound impact on gender relations (2018). This is a small example on this bigger picture of bettering myself in the online space. They find that users have benefits in using real or fake accounts to express sensitive topics and coming out against heteronormative relationships (UCL, 2018). Even though I am still cautious of my own personal information, I think there will be ways in which I can express myself. Knowledge and discussion will better me as a blog writer or an internet user. While I still carry this fear, I want to play an active role and this course helped me prepare for it.

References

Caulfield, M. (December 19, 2016). Yes, digital literacy. But which one? Hapgood. Accessed on November 26, 2018. Retrieved from https://hapgood.us/2016/12/19/yes-digital-literacy-but-which-one/.

Marwick, A. & Lewis, R. (2017). Media manipulation and disinformation online. Data & Society. Accessed on November 26, 2018. Retrieved from http://posiel.com/outline/full-semester-outline/.

UCL (2018). Social media can have a profound impact through gender relations, sometimes through using fake accounts. University College London. Accessed on November 26, 2018. Retrieved from http://www.ucl.ac.uk/why-we-post/discoveries/12-social-media-can-have-a-profound-impact-on-gender-relations-sometimes-through-using-fake-accounts.

PROCESS POST: Community guidelines (week 12)

Street Stories’ Community Guidelines

Street Stories is a place where the stories of vulnerable people living in Surrey and people involved with NightShift can be shared. In consideration of this, I will not tolerate any comments that are not respectful towards NightShift and those that they serve. Disrespectful comments that contain racism, sexism, or any explicit hatefulness will be deleted. In addition, these rules will be put in place to uphold the standard of respect desired on Street Stories. People who comment the following will be banned from commenting:

  • Name-calling, insulting, or attacking someone mentioned in a blog post, NightShift, or another site user
  • Posting inappropriate or abusive comments
  • Posting comments that question or devalue the voices of vulnerable people

These guidelines were inspired by Book Riot’s guidelines.

PROCESS POST: Class response (week 11)

This process post will be a response to the guest speaker we had in class named Darren Barefoot, who works with Capulet Communications. This was my favourite guest speaker we had this semester. Darren’s work reflects a lot of what I want to do in the future, which is marketing and communications for non-profit organizations. What compelled me most about Darren’s talk was when he spoke about Heartbeats and Remarkables. Heartbeats can be defined by the core operations of marketing within an organization. For example, every year NightShift does a fundraising gala and that is a Heartbeat of who they are and how they draw attention to their organizations. Another thing Darren talked about was Remarkables. Remarkables are campaigns that are out of the ordinary. They can look like PR stunts, gimmicks, pop-up events, or unique fundraising mechanisms.

For a good portion of the class we talked about Remarkables and different ones that Capulet has been involved with over the years. My favourite type of Remarkable campaigns Darren spoke about were volunteer activations. These types of campaigns generally call for high threshold volunteerism. An example he gave was when a cancer agency worked with a hair salon to create a new haircut that inspired people to cut their hair for cancer. Although it is a big ask for people to cut their hair, it is a remarkable marketing tactic that people will remember.

I am so grateful that Darren spoke with our class! I learned a lot from him and I will definitely be looking at Capulet’s website to learn from the way they do things and check out their featured Remarkables.

PUB 101- Essay 2

Photo by Kaitlyn Baker on Unsplash

Before I get a chance to understand publishing, I thought it was merely publishing a book, sell it to somewhere, people read it and done. I never thought about the actual work and story behind every process until I get a chance to started writing my blog, publishing my work and sharing content to the audience. In the past 12 weeks, fortunately, I have an opportunity to experience how is it to be an online publisher. It might I need to overrate my self, online publisher, but I did have a chance to understand more details regarding editorial, design, marketing and content. After the brief online publisher career, I realized that publish good content. A successful model is much more complicated than I imagine. There are so much more than I could imagine before, lots of affording and work behind every process.


In this semester, I get a chance to experience to open my blog lift for live. I created my blog and shared my idea and through to other people. I created a fitness-focused blog to share my workout ideas and recommendation to other people so as to motivate people who are new to workout or want to know more about it. Everything started from sketching on my sketchbook, I drew the outline of the blog, considered the focus of the content and what was my purpose of creating a blog. Throughout the semester, I constantly change and improve my blog editorial concept, design layout and content. At first, I was using a big cover picture with a link at the middle. I thought that was a good idea that matches the current trend of blog design until I read Travis Gertz “Design Machines. How to survive in the digital Apocalypse.” In the article, Travis explained that all the webpage design are the same right now. All of them are sharing the same elements, and he asked a question to the audience “Without the logos, could you tell which companies own which screenshots?”(Gertz, 2015, para 7). I realized that If I put my page in one of the design, I could not tell which website is mine. Travis indicated that digital design is a human assembly line, designers are like a designer machine, they use the same elements over and over again to fulfill the trend of the world. As a design student, it was a wakeup call of mine. Therefore, I started to search other themes on the template. Although I can not do much configure on the webpage, I tried to find the theme that produces a different atmosphere but meanwhile match up with my theme. I ended up using the theme right now which is a slideshow post along with posts content below.


Besides the design elements, editorial and content design are also crucial in online publishing. Choose of words and tones are essential to content design, what do you want to build up the relationship. Friendly? Inform? Alternatively, Educate? Based on the tone we choose, the blog purpose may shift. In my blog, I decided to use a relatively friendly tone to my audience, and I intended to share my personal experience rather than teach them how to do it. I wanted to shorten the distance between me and the audience. Befriend with them rather than be a teacher of them.


Marketing strategies are one of the parts that I feel interested the most. From Shelby Carpenter essay “The Toast Is Toast: Literary Humor Site Shuts Down Over Ad Revenue Woes,” it gave me a brief concept of the current online publishing industry. Absorb the failure of the Toast, and I understand that as a publisher, it is necessary to set up the mission statement and ensure the niche of the topic. It will be challenging if the purpose is unclear throughout the publishing process. Also, proper marketing is crucial in a successfulness of business. In other words, you need to make sure your company earn money and make a balance in your business, increase the sustainability of the publishing of the business. In peer review 3, Joanna Kim gave me some ideas about what should I do to make my blog profitable. She points out that my blog should more closely relate to my training. She suggested that I should post a blog about my transformation to let the audience pay close attention to me so as to increase the publicity.


Looking back the semester, I learned many concepts from the course. It expanded my vision, publishing is not only in paperback and e-book, but the online trend is also taking over the publishing industry. Online publishing and marketing is the new benchmark in the publishing industry. No doubt printed publishing is still playing an important role in publishing, but the trend of online publishing is also arising.

Montreal Canadiens Rebuild Part 6

All images are from NHL 19.

Welcome to part six of the Montreal Canadiens rebuild in NHL 19’s Franchise Mode. Click here to catch up on part one, part two, part three, part four and part five. As mentioned last week, this week’s post will entail the remainder of the season simulation and hopefully a long playoff run.

 

Season Simulation

Upon simulating the remainder of the season, the Montreal Canadiens finished second in the division and conference, and fifth in the league with 102 points. E. Pettersson and F. Forsberg led the way offensively with 84 and 83 points respectively.

 

Playoffs Round 1

In the first round of the playoffs, the Canadiens faced off against the Tampa Bay Lightning. The game results were as follows:

Game 1: 3-2 OTW

Game 2: 2-1 W

Game 3: 2-1 OTW

Game 4: 4-2 W

This was a tight series as the score in the first three games only differed by one-goal. It could have gone either way, especially in the two games which went into overtime. Hopefully, our squad will take advantage of this quick series by resting and preparing for the next round.

 

Playoffs Round 2

In the second round of the playoffs, the Canadiens played against the Pittsburgh Penguins. The game results were as follows:

Game 1: 5-1 L

Game 2: 4-0 W

Game 3: 4-0 L

Game 4: 7-2 L

Game 5: 2-0 W

Game 6: 5-2 W

Game 7: 5-2 W

This was a long series where our team struggled in three of the first four games. However, they persevered and came through in game seven.

 

Playoffs Conference Finals

In the Conference Finals, the Canadiens played against the New Jersey Devils. The game results were as follows:

Game 1: 5-4 OTW

Game 2: 2-1 W

Game 3: 2-1 W

Game 4: 3-1 W

Similar to the first round against the Tampa Bay Lightning, this was a close series where the first three games only differed by one-goal. But the Canadiens were able to hang on and advance to the Stanley Cup Finals.

 

Playoffs Stanley Cup Finals

In the Stanley Cup Finals, the Canadiens played against the San Jose Sharks. The results are below.

This series went the distance, but the Canadiens were able to bring the Stanley Cup to Canada for the second year in a row in this simulation. Furthermore, T. Demko won the Conn Smythe Trophy while E. Pettersson posted 21-points in 22-games.

 

As promised in part one, The Hockey Singh has led the Montreal Canadiens to the Stanley Cup. Part six concludes the Montreal Canadiens Rebuild series. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did playing and writing about it. Please share your comments and/or suggestions.

Essay Two

ShhhKrystal is the handle I created for my blog as it is an abstract way of describing my personality. However, only I and people who have read my biography know the real meaning behind the name. As I did not want to use my real name for my blog, I opted for a handle that included my name but had an abstract beginning. Shhh is a sound people make when they want others to be quiet. Being an introvert, I prefer being alone most of the time but I do enjoy company once in a while. When I am in a group of people, I tend to be the quiet one. I prefer listening over speaking. My blog is an outlet for me to share my style with the public. Thus, requiring me to “speak” but through a blog as a medium. ShhhKrystal is a girl who prefers to not speak but speaks in another medium.

My blog was originally for myself. To keep track of how I have changed and how my style has developed throughout the semester. I realized that through this blog I am able to share my experiences and my style at the same time. Although my blog posts are solely on clothing pieces, I include brief explanations on how I decided what to wear and some random facts about what I encountered if something interesting arises. I also try exploring design trends I find and use them as my featured image instead of posting a picture of myself in different clothes (which readers will end up seeing inside the post anyway). My audience is those who are linked specifically to my website through Instagram. I imagine that most of my audience is interested in fashion and are interested in specific pieces I wear, which brings them to my blog.

Designing my blog took me the longest as I had no experience with creating a platform about myself. I had a few Tumblr accounts in the past and was actively posting and reblogging for a few years. Since the blog was not about me but about interests that I had at the time, I had more freedom with how I could design my page. I did not have to introduce myself, show my followers what I looked like, or share specific details about myself. The disinhibition effect worked well for me; I had the choice to conceal my identity and live a separate life (Suler, 2004, para. 5). I also used a very minimalistic theme with a navigation bar aligned to the left, and a one or two column post area; no images whatsoever that related back to my true identity.

I started with a similar theme when I first created this blog and I realized it was not working. Following conventions, most fashion bloggers have an about page and share details with their readers to build a connection and earn their trust. With ShhhKrystal, however, I included an about me page to introduce myself to my readers. As I show my face in my posts, it seemed like an introduction was necessary. I did not include a full close-up image of my face to “draw [a] boundary between [myself] and others” as “managing the shifting public/private continuum is also an important part of a blogger’s experience” (Chittenden, 2010, para. 26).

The goal for the overall appearance of my blog was to incorporate the use of grids. I always enjoyed grids with pictures as I found it really enjoyable to look at and it “gives [audiences] a hint about what’s inside [the post] and teases out [their] emotion” (Gertz, 2015, para. 64). The landing of my blog is a statement introducing exactly what my blog is about. I particularly like how it teases readers and pushes them to scroll down to view more. I made sure to incorporate affordances in my blog to guide readers through my site as “designers should be concerned about informing users about the outcomes of users’ actions (Kaptelinin, 2013). This gave me an opportunity to incorporate more colour into my blog as the background colour is white, the headings are black, and body text is grey; too minimal for my liking. The affordances are displayed when links are hovered to indicate to readers that it is a clickable entity.

My definition of publication has changed drastically after this course. Courses I have taken at Simon Fraser University and working at SFU’s school newspaper gave me the perception that publication was mostly on print materials. The publishing course I have enrolled in prior to this course required us to print out everything for submission, and the school newspaper is printed as well. I never knew publication included the online spectrum; I thought there was another category for it. I have learned that publishing is a lot more than just words. The secret behind a successful publication is the collaboration and harmony between text and design simultaneously (Gertz, 2015, para. 63).

Moving forward from here, I do not plan on continuing this blog as posting consistently is extremely difficult for me. If I do try my best to post consistently, the quality of the posts would not be where I want them to be. Instead, I will try incorporating what I have done on my blog to my Instagram account. Being extremely wary of how others perceive me, I do not post as much as I would like due to insecurities. However, after this course and gaining more experience with being photographed and pushing out style content, I am a bit more confident.

 

References

Chittenden, T. (2010). Digital dressing up: modelling female teen identity in the discursive spaces of the fashion blogosphere. Retrieved from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13676260903520902

Gertz, T. (2015). Designing Machines: How to survive the digital apocalypse. Retrieved from https://louderthanten.com/coax/design-machines

Kaptelinin, V. (2013). Affordances. In The Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction. Retrieved from https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/book/the-encyclopedia-of-human-computer-interaction-2nd-ed/affordances

Suler, J. (2004). The Online Disinhibition Effect. Retrieved from http://truecenterpublishing.com/psycyber/disinhibit.html

Week 12: Online Shaming

In our second to the last week, we got to watch Jon Ronson’s TED talk When online shaming goes too far. He gave plenty examples of people who got affected by people who take the original post’s context or message out of proportion. The talk was compelling because it’s telling of how mob mentality can be dangerous in social media. I’ve seen many examples where even sharing from one account to another already leads to problems. It can ruin people’s lives. This is the world we live in. Information feels infinite and we take these small, consumable tidbits of information and blow it out. Jon Ronson did a great job presenting the helplessness that these people feel. Justine Sacco intended to mimic Americans who were ignorant of Africa as a whole and tweeted this:

In context, it makes sense. It makes sense to her friends and the people who know her but once it was shared by strangers, she was part of a social media crucifixion. They were ready to see what happens to her when she gets off the plane. She received the most unbelievable hate speech despite not knowing who she is. Her life has changed because people held on to this small piece of the Internet and created their own narrative. Online shaming reveals the human nature of being a part of something, but for the wrong reasons.

Essay 2

Ever since I could remember, I’ve loved gaming. Not just video gaming, but also board games and various other recreational games. On September 18th 2018, I made my first blog post. This was the Encounter With a Stranger post, it wasn’t particularly exciting nor accomplishing, but it was a step in the right direction. After 12 weeks of posting on my blog, I feel that I’d discovered an interest into content creation in the gaming genre.

The Online Self

Through all my process posts, there is a consistent theme of my bringing up of “The Online Self”. The online self is s persona that one creates or invents when they create content, such as Youtubers like Pewdiepie. The mannerisms and personality help the content creator engage with their audience, creating a coherent and loyal fanbase. I’ve had issues with developing an online persona around the first 3-4 weeks of the course, thinking that it’s awkward to be someone else. This led to the narrative of the blog being slightly dull, and my post introducing the game Overwatch perfectly illustrates a bland persona. There was no greeting to my audience at the introduction, I only focused on the technical analysis of the game, instead of cracking a few jokes, eliciting emotion or making connections to my real life. It was after I read John Suler’s The Online Disinhibition Effect, where I started to realize how I can develop my persona on my platform. Suler mentions seven different effects the online platform has on one’s personality, and the Dissociative Anonymity (Suler, 2004) effect resonated with me the most. Dissociative anonymity is the phenomena such that, a lot of times people interact with stranger on the internet, not knowing their true identity, and this anonymity empowers one to speak their true thoughts (Suler, 2004). This had taught me that I could display an even more “real” personality online, than I would with strangers in real life. From the post Infamous Second Son (PS4), I’ve started to incorporate greetings, and a few weeks later through Puzzles & Dragons (Mobile), I’ve integrated some of my real-life events like talking about my midterms. It is evident through my posts, that I was growing as a content creator, taking baby steps to engage with my audience.

The Design

At around week 10 of developing my blog, I started being more mindful on my Google Analytics, reflecting upon what the data tells me about my audience. According to my analytics by Monster Insights – a widget that I downloaded as an alternative to Google – there was a 62.96% bounce rate on my site. This means that around 63% of the sessions, the viewer leaves the site without going further than the homepage. My course of action against that was to drastically change the design of my webpage. The initial design of the banner, as I’ve been told by my peers, had too busy of a background which took the attention away from the navigation menu, which was integrated within the banner. This might have caused the user experience to lack in affordance. Affordance, according to Victor Kaptelinin in The Encyclopedia of Human Interaction, is design based on human intuitiveness (Kaptelinin, 2013). In order to create a more intuitive user experience, I changed the theme of my blog into having the banner on the left side of the page, taking up about 30% of the homepage. I feel that this puts more focus on the navigation menu, which helps the user explore my blog posts in a more robust manner. Furthermore, Mauve Page, a guest speaker from week 5 had given a presentation on web design and user experience. According to Page, contrast in the color and general content is critical in creating a point of focus for the audience (Page, 2018). This is also reflected on the change of banner on my blog, I chose a mostly white background for the banner, to create a contrast with the dark font of the navigation menu. This helps create a focal point for my audience, and ultimately develop an affordance in the navigation of my blog.

Final Thoughts

Over the course of the 12 weeks of this course, I feel that how my blog has evolved in terms of the Online Self and the Design and what I’ve learnt in this process is a skill that I will continue to explore. Blogging every week about gaming has been an eye-opening experience, as this is my first time creating content and a presence online. I’d like to continue this journey, expanding it to streaming games, creating Youtube commentaries or even podcasts. Developing an online persona has taught me how to engage with my audience, to create a coherent fan base.

Works Cited

  1. Soegaard, Mads & Friis Dam, Rikke. (2013). The Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction, 2nd Ed..
  2. Suler, J. (2002). The basic psychological features of cyberspace. In The Psychology of Cyberspace, www.rider.edu/suler/psycyber/basicfeat.html (article orig. pub. 1996)
  3. Page, M. (2018). Some Considerations On Web Design And Type On Screens