Tannertan’s Weblog

As discussed in the lecture, Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) is any form of communication using computers and computer networks, including e-mail, electronic conferences, newsgroups, and webchats. And this allows access and interaction between people and databases all over the world.

One common CMC that we are familiar with is webchats. And is very popular with the youth of today. One example would be MSN live messenger. I personally use this myself and I found it to be a very good way to keep in touch with old friends or friends you do not meet often. In addition, it provides an exellent platform for friends to coduct discussion without having to meet face to face.

Example Of A Webchat Program

As you can see, I use this particular webchat program to keep in touch with my friends to have conversations with them from time to time. And the friend list can be sorted based on personal preference and I favour this kind of communication over the telephone more.

Another common CMC used in the online world today is forum. There are many kind of forum in the world wide web and each is unique as they focused on different topic. People who are interested in such topics and log on to these online forum and have discussion with people from all around the world. One can also be able to find solutions based on personal problem he had and perhaps someone who have a similiar problem could share the solution with him or her.

Example Of An Online Forum

Personally I also frequent online forum especially those in relation to games. The picture above is an online forum which I have animated discussion and sharing of my personal views based on the Nintendo Wii console. Thus forum is also becoming another very popular means of CMC and it allows people of shy nature to be more outspoken. Expression of ideas is much easier as no one online will know your true identity unless you choose to disclose it.

The next form of CMC that is very popular in the world wide web is email. Many business use this as a platform to respond to clients in a formal way. Also unlike a telephone call, an email can allow users to attach documents and pictures which makes it much easier to communicate.

Example Of Email

As seen from above, personally I use email as a form of project work discussion. And it allows us to attach our own report to the email we send hence it is a very effective way to communicate ideas within the group without actually having to meet up. I have found email very useful in doing projects in groups by which it is hard to find a common time for discussion.

With the rise of popular MMORPGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games), such games have also been included as a form of CMC. The platform for which the communication takes place will be in the game itself. Popular MMORPGs such as World Of Warcraft allows players to communicate with one another as they perform tasks in the game together. For active gamers, they form such close relationships with other players in the game that they may even be closer to friends they meet on a face to face basis. This particular CMC allows the player to have parallel lives in the virtual world taking roles of different characters.

Example Of MMORPGs As A Form Of CMC

Personally, I have played world of warcraft myself. And I have form several close relationships with people from other parts of the world such as Malaysia and Australia. Due to the nature of the game itself which focuses highly on teamwork, good communication is neccessary to progress in the game. As the action happens in real time virtual reality, the importance of good communication is stressed in the game. Hence I found MMORPGs to be a very effective form of CMC in trying to built better communication skills.

The next form of CMC is web blogs, where people create an online diary for other people to view and comment and be immersed in that person life. Blogs are very common with the youth of today for allowing them to express themselves and allow their friends to keep in touch with their lives even if they have not seen one another for quite some time. This platform of CMC focus one a one point to many point kind of communication where the user blog about his or her life and others are free to comment on it.

Example Of A Web Blog As A CMC

Personally I use the web blog to blog about my current life and it is very nice to see how old friends comment on your own life. I am free to express myself and it is a very good way to communicate among old friends and to keep in touch with one another lives. Hence is particular form of CMC is especially popular among the youth of today.

The last form of CMC which I am going to talk about is computer network or more commonly known as social network websites. This website allows a person to built social network with friends who have also created an account on the website. Friends are allow to make and give comments to one another and when the user update his profile, his friends are able to see what is going on with his life.

Example Of Computer Network – Friendster

Personally, through use of such websites, I find it interesting to see photos that other people have uploaded and what is going on with their lives. And with the comment that people can leave for user, it is a interesting way of communication. Hence this form of CMC is also becoming very popular in recent years.

With the use of the world wide web today, CMC is becoming more and more commonly used by people around the world. Using CMC can allow people to better express themselves as compared to a face to face communication. I myself find CMC to be very effective way to keep in touch with people whom we do not meet often. And I am sure in the next few years, CMC will only become more and more popular.

I have found Marshall Mcluhan theory that the medium is more important than the message very interesting and true. Hence I decided to do an entry on advertisment based on different medium and their advantages and disadvantages of using such a medium.

Advertisement With Television As The Medium

The first medium that is commonly used is the television. Majority of the household around the world would have a television set in the house. In some cases some household have even more than one television set. Thus this makes television one of the most common medium for advertisement.

Advantages
Highly Globalised Medium (Some Advertisement are being used worldwide – Visa’s Beijing 2008 Advertisement)
Combination Of Visual And Sound Makes Easier To Persuade Consumers

Disadvantages
Expensive To Produce (Actors,Directors,Props, Designers)
Expensive To Screen (Cost For Advertisement Is Based On Per Screening – More Expensive During Prime Time)
Easy To Ignore (Switch Off Tv , Mute The Sound)

Advertisement With Radio As The Medium

The next popular medium for advertisement is the radio. Radio advertisement make use of effective variation of sound and voice to bring the message across to the consumers. Unlike the television the radio is not as commonly used and it is limited based on region for example certain radio stations are only available in a single country.

Advantages
Relative Cheaper To Screen As Compared To Television
Cheap Production Cost

Disavantages
Too many radio channels available makes it hard to capture listeners
Sound does not have a greater impact as compare to visual coupled with sound

Advertisement With Website As The Medium

With the widely use of internet in our modern world. Advertisers have also approach website to host their advertisement. Usually host of website use such advertisers to allow their website to be host for free or at least subsidise the cost of running the website. One very common example of this would be street directory singapore website.

Advantages
Cheap Compared To Television And Radio
Popular Websites Could Generate hundred to a few thousand viewers in a day

Disadvantages
With Millions Of Website Available In The World Wide Web Viewers will tend to visit the one which is more popular
No Use Of Sound To Provide A Greater Impact

Advertisement With Blog As The Medium

Another interesting and uprising medium for advertisement is blog. People around the world today are very familiar with blogs which they can use to capture their thoughts and feelings. With the rise of people around the world using blogs, advertisers found this to be a new way to advertise their products.

Advantage
Very Cheap (Cost Just A Few Dollars For A Few Weeks Of Advertisemet On A Single Person Blog)
Blogs Are Very Common Especially With The Youth Of Today Hence Ads Will Be Easily Exposed To Them

Disavantage
Limited Viewers (Depending On The Person Blog but an average person would generate around 50 or less unique views a day)
Only Use Of Visual To Bring Message Across (Low Impact Without Use Of Sound)

Advertisement With Magazine As The Medium

As for advertisement that make use of magazine as a medium, they normally make use of striking pictures coupled with words to try to attract consumers. Advertisement normally will have the target audience in mind when choosing a magazine for their ads. For example is how clothes advertisements are placed in a teenage magazine.

Advantage
Cheap cost of production (Not much resouces needed for words and pictures)

Disadvantages
Limited Viewers As Dependant On The Nature of The Magazine
Has to make strong use of words and pictures to capture viewer attention

Quite similiar to the magazine as the medium would be newspaper. Unlike the magazines, newpapers are catered to a larger group of people.

Advantages
Large Audience However Normally Limited To A Country
Cheap Cost Of Production

Disadvantages
Headlines may take attention away from the advertisment
Hard To Create Impact As Compared To The News Itself

The above are just some examples of different medium that could be used for advertising. Each of them do come with their pro and cons and depending on the target audience, advertisers should only consider the medium which is most practical for them. Hence all these fits in with the theory of media determinism as different medium could change the impact of the message that is convey to us.

I shall dedicate my next post towards functioning of a group. My personal focus would be groups in MMORPGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) also more commonly known as guilds or clans. 

Firstly I must admit that I am an avid gamer and my favourite kind of games are MMORPGs as I love the interaction I can get with different people. So why do people join this so call groups? It could be to satisfy our own interpersonal needs of inclusion, control or affection. Personally I look for a group to have a sense of belonging to something big.

As for groups, normally they have a collective identity or known as the gaming world as a guild name. My first taste of joining a gaming group was in 2003 in the game Ragnarok Online. It was a mixed group comprising of people mainly from Singapore and Malaysia. We call ourselves “Odin Cathedral”. This was our collective identity. 

Collective Identity

How we interact was through the game, sometimes we would just sit a one location  in the gane and begin chatting just like how a few friends would chat in a coffeeshop. At other times we would band together for a group activity like hunting down boss in the game.

Group Activity

But the main purpose we all had as a group was to excel in guild wars. Guild wars in the game is known as War Of Emperium by which guilds compete with one another to capture castles and protect the emperium (heart of the castle) from other guilds. Each of us in the guild have different role during the war. And it requires everyone effort and full support for the whole group to suceed and obtain our objective. Personally I played the bard character and my role was to assist the guild’s wizards to help them cast spells faster. For the wizards it was to release spells after spells into the enemy. Warriors role were to protect the wizards from any attacks. Assassins’ role was to sneak into enermy defense to destablise them. And so on and so forth. Thus, we can see that everyone is the guild has an active role to play, and for the guild to perform well, everyone must do their part.

Guild Wars In The Game

Our Show Of Teamwork

And one is in a group, there would be evaluational process about an individual involvement in a group. For example, I was consider a prospective member when my friend introduce me to join the group. After by which when I was accepted, I became a new member. With my increasing committment to the group, I was later become a full member. And after being in the same guild for a long time, I was known as a senior member. A senior member is someone who assist the guild leader on matters for the well being of the group. Also may be known as a guild council.

Just like any organisation in real life, our group in the game also has issues to discuss. We even have issues base on finance. Our guild was the strongest in the game and we won the Malaysia-Singapore Ragnarok Championship (MSRC). The prize money amounted to a total of 2.5k RM. So members of the council decided on having a guild gathering for everyone to enjoy.

Post MSRC Gathering

Before I end this post, let me summarise the purpose of a group. People join groups in games for individual reasons, I myself join one to be part of something great. Full membership comes with time, I was in the guild for a few years before becoming a senior member. Every group will have their own goals and objectives, for us in Odin Cathedral, it was to be the best guild in the game. For the guild to achieve its purpose, it requires the full support from its memeber, each member has he or her own role to play. Depending on the level of membership, each person can contribute differently to the guild. Therefore, a group can allow individuals to achieve something that they alone cannot.

Dedicated To Odin Cathedral (2003-Present)

Visa Credit Card Advertisement

I decided to do an entry on nonverbal communication that is present in a Visa advertisement. I feel that nonverbal communication is very interesting as the cues we get from them can explain a lot on the person feelings. Also nonverbal communication and the meaning we derive from it is based on our own perception. However this perception is also based on cues that people in a culture of society generally agree on. And from the nonverbal cues given, we are able to know the person emotions. There are many kinds of nonverbal communication and I will discuss about a few and how it relates in particular in this advertisement.

In the first scene, the lady is looking up at the trees, such an action could be percieve that she is amaze by the beauty of this particular place. Also next when the person she is with smile and point to a shrine, we can percieve it that he is her tour guide and he is showing her the sights of this place. Next when they both spot a orangutan lying in the middle of the road, as the woman is getting out of the car, we can percieve her to have a look of worry on her face. And as the orangutan smiles at her, her face change to a look of shock. After that, the orangutan has her handbag and she waved her finger and point to the bag, from this simple action we can tell that she wants her handbag back. And as for the part where the banana is delievered, she put her hands on her hips while bearing a smug look, from this we can percieve she is confident that she can get her things back. As you can see, despite being no verbal communication attached to these actions, we are able to percieve quite a bit of information on the person’s feelings and emotions. Hence personally I feel that nonverbal communication can overlap verbal communication.

The next aspect I am going to talk about is Paralinguistics. As there is not much verbal communication going on in this advertisement, I am only going to talk about this point briefly. The part after she notices the orangutan stealing her bags, she shouted a “hey”. From how she say this particular word, we can tell that she is surprised. And this word when said differently can have varying meanings like for example some people use this word to express displeasure or anger. Following that, she said another word, “wait”. From the way on how she said this particular word, we can percieve that the is a panic quality in her voice. Also the lighthearted music when the advertisement is going on, tells us that this advertisement will be more on humor than something series. Hence paralinguistics also do make up a huge aspect of nonverbal communication.

As there is nothing much on chronemics in this advertisement, I would not touch on it. I will move on to the next aspect which is Objectiscs or Artifacts. The use of banana in this advertisement tells us that the orangutan loves it a lot and as compared to the lady’s bags, they would rather return them so that they can have the banana. However there is also the use of the Visa Credit Card where they lady uses it to buy bananas for the orangutan. So from the use of this credit card we can tell how useful and important such an object is. And this is furthur enforced at the end when a orangutan wants to trade the car keys for the credit card itself. Therefore artifacts also play a role in nonverbal communication and depending on the way that they are used, they can carry very varying meanings.

The next point is Oculesics, oculesics are also known to be the windows to our soul. In this particular advertisement, oculesics is used to futhur enhance the meaning of the actions. Such as when the woman look at the surrounding, her eyes are percieve to be taking in the beauty of the landscape. Also when they saw the orangutan lying in the middle of the road, the look of worry she has is futhur enhance by her eyes. And when she takes out her visa credit card, her eyes become wider and coupled with the expression on her face, we can percieve that she has come up with a solution to get her bags back.

And the last part I am going to talk about is physical apperance. From this advertisement, we can tell the man to be a local tour guide or ranger due to the uniform he is wearing. While the woman is someone who is not native to the area. Also the hairstyle of the woman is very elegant and the way she carries herself, we can percieve her to be someone which has a social status.

Therefore with all these cues of nonverbal communication, we can tell how important they are to convoy a person feelings and emotion even without any use of words. I find that this particular advertisement is very well done, as it managed to capture the nonverbal cues in carrying out the messages. Thus I find this to be a very useful advertisement to be used to analyte the cues associated with nonverbal communication.

Music Video

For this entry, I am going to analysis the above music video and how miscommunication can actually takes place. This particular music video is an Indian production hence the language of the song is Indian as well. For verbal communication, there is quite a few language-based barriers. One of such barriers is language and culture. For those of us who are not familiar with the Indian language will find it hard to understand what this music video is about. Some of us might even have miscommunication to what the lyrics is about. Since English is considered to be a more general language, this is an example of how someone who has no background in Indian has interpreted the lyrics to be.

Misintepretation Of Music Video

As you see, a person who does not have any background in the Indian language might actually change the whole meaning of the song all together. This is a good example on how miscommunication can happen. This music video is using exclusionary language, which means that anyone who does not has the background in the Indian language will be excluded. This music video is directed more towards the Indian population whom will be able to relate to what the singers are singing.

Also this makes use of the principles of bypassing which means misunderstanding due to misinterpretation. As said before, people who are more familiar with the English language might make out the lyrics of the song to be something like in the misinterpretated video. Hence they might change the whole meaning of the song all together. However if an Indian who is familiar with his or her own language, might be able to tell a whole different story after hearing the song.

Another principle of communication I would like to talk about is perception. As seen in the music video, the Indians are seen to be good dancers. A lot of us will percieve Indians to be good dancers because of how the media has protrayed them to be. An example is Bollywood which is the term used for Indian based productions. Many productions from them feature professional dances which is not seen in any Hollywood movies. Hence our perception of Indians are that they are generally good dancers. We form prototypes based on our real experiences of specific people. Hence my own interaction with my friends that are Indian people furthur enforced my perception that Indians are good dancers.

This might not be true for Indians generally, but this shows how important the media is for changing our perceptions of objects. Perception also varies based on the individual and depending on the personal experiences that he or she has in the subject matter. Miscommunication happens more frequently in verbal communication due to many language-based barriers as seen in this particular example. Therefore we should practice extra caution when faced with an familiar language to avoid miscommunication.

After learning about verbal communication in COM 101, I decided to analyse the beer advertisement by Budweiser. I feel that this particular advertisement emphasised a lot of verbal communication which is good to apply what I learned. 

We learned that communication can be used to established relationships among people. In this advertisement, the person greeted the other guy over the phone very casually. Also from the choice of words that is used, we can deduced from this advertisement that their relationship among each other is that of close friends.

In addition, verbal communication can also be used to convey a person emotions and feelings. In the later part of the advertisement, they greeted one another with “Wazzup”. From how they said the greeting, we are able to tell that they are happy from to hear from one another. The word “Wazzup” is also considered to be a slang of their social group. By the way they greeted one another, we can tell that they used this greeting often among themselves. And this is a greeting that they would not use to a person that is not from their social group. This is furthur enforced when their friend who just came back from buying more beer. He pressed the intercom and greeted with a “Wazzup”. The person who was answering the intercom was able to identify that it was his friend based on this particular slang word used.

Also when the person ask what he was doing, he said he was having a bud. Only people who are familiar with Budweiser beer would know what that person is talking about. If not misconceptions might developed by people who are not familiar with that beer. So this short formed version of the word Budweiser is very exclusive only to those who know about it.

I feel that the creator of this advertisment choose to use the short form and informal language, is to give everyone a casual feel. And it is to show that Budweiser is actually a beer to be shared and enjoyed among close friends. However, I am sure many people will have misconceptions about what this advertisement is about until the last part where the name of the beer is displayed. This shows that verbal communication is very easily subjected to miscommunication. And we should avoid using exclusionary language as it is a language barrier for communication.

But in the end, the creator of the advertisement managed to captured the audience attention. Audience who watch this advertisement will be curious about why people are saying “Wazzup” to one another and will watch the advertisement till the end. Also people who seen this advertisement will associate the word “Wazzup” with Budweiser beer in future. Hence I feel that this advertisement is successful and a good use of verbal communication.

Reference

Budweiser Official Website

I am sure many of you have seen the Mocca Advertisement on TV, the one which feature a body builder selling his house. After this advertisement has been screen on TV, many issues were raised in regard to this. For example, many people complained that this advertisement is too graphical and its a complete turn off. However there are also many others that found this advertisement to be very entertaining.

As for me, I find that this particular Mocca advertisement is done very well. It has obtain its objective of leaving a deep impression on people. This way people will tend to visit the website to find out more about it. To advertisers, leaving an impression on people is very important specially to attract more consumers for their product. However, many advertisers failed in this aspect. The reason this Mocca advertisment is so sucessful is due to its unique unconventional approach to selling a house. By adding a colourful character with a humourous contend, people will pay more attention to the advertisement.

However, after this advertisement has been screened. Many people started imitating the actor in the advertisement. People from as young as children all the way to even adults are imitating him. Although this can be entertaining among friends, but when it becomes repeptitive, it will become irritating. Also many parodies of the actual advertisement began surfacing. All these parodies degrade the image of the organisation that the actors come from such as their schools. Most of these videos are uploaded on youtube, which allow anyone in the world to be able to acess to.

However, the main reason I chose advertisement as a discussion topic, is because it is a very common medium of communication in our world tod. And the main objectives for advertisers is to attract cosummers. Out of all these advertisements, I find that very few actually manage to capture one’s attention. Therefore, advertisements in general can be a very effective medium of communication, depending on how they are being portrayed.

Reference

Mocca Official Website