Media Issue (2)

(2) Emoticons and email etiquette

The ABC Radio National presenter, Anthony Funnel had interviewed Wil Schuwalbe ( New York-based publisher and author), Associate Professor Kristin Bryon ( Whiteman School of Management, Syracuse University,New york), and Professor Scott Fahlamn (Camegie Mellon University, Pittburgh) on the issues pertaining to the usage of emoticons and email etiquete.

(Andert & Burleson 2005) stated that emoticon which derived from the word emotion and icon are used to indicate simple emotions. For example, when writing an email or chatting with a friend online, smileys are often used to express emotions of a person in a computer mediated communication.

Besides that, different cultures may perceive differently on a particular emoticon. For example, according to (Constabile & Paterno 2005), cultures sometimes accept different characters for the same emoticons, the emotion angry >.<>

Walsh(2006) also states that multimodal texts have more than one form, and it may be integrated with spoken or written language, still or moving images and appear on print pr electronic media.

In addition, as users of emoticons, it may be misleading as sometimes recipient of emails might make a mistake in the judgment of an emoticon.

These are some examples of emoticons:

HAPPY, SMILING, LAUGHING
:-) smiling; agreeing
:-D laughing
|-) hee hee
|-D ho ho
:-> hey hey
;-) so happy, I'm crying
:'-) crying with joy
\~/ full glass; my glass is full (Windweaver 2004)

On email etiquette, Egan (2004) suggested that there are 32 behavior rules that may be useful when composing an email. Below are the top ten most frequently used:

-Be concise and straight to the point
-Answer all questions
-Check for grammatical errors
-Personalize
-Make use of templates
-Use proper format
-Respond as soon as possible
-Do not attach redundant documents
-Avoid using long sentences
-Do not reply to spam

Hence, it is important for all online users to take heed when using emoticons in communication and adhere to the behavior rules when responding to an email.

References:

Andert, S & Burleson, D 2005, Web Stalkers:Protect Yourself from Internet Criminals & Psychopaths, Rampant TechPress.

Constabile, M & Paterno, F 2005, Human-Computer-Interact 2005,Birkhauser.

Egan, M 2004, Email Etiquettte,Cool Publications Ltd.

Walsh, M 2006, The 'textual shift': Examinig the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts, Routeledge, London.

Emoticons and email etiquette 2007, online, retrieved 10 November 2008, from http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2007/2064342.htm

Media Issue

(1) Media report on ABC Radio National

The controversial news weekly (Tempo), showed Suharto which depicted Jesus Christ sitting at a table surrounded by Suharto's six children sparked pretests from Christians.

Source : Tempo 2008

Later, the enws daily made a public apology on page two with the title "Tempo Magazine Apologizes," with the subheading:" We had no intention of hurting Christians."

According to Barret (cited in Steenbrik 2003) stated that Indonesis is made up of 43.2 per cent Muslims, 36.44 per cent new-religionists, 11 per cent Christian, 5.1 per cent Tribal religions, 2.1 Hindu and 1.0 per cen Buddhist. Here, we can conclude that , Christians in Indonesia are minorities.

Minority or not, these groups of people felt that they hace been marginalized. They accused the news editor for being insensitive of their religion. In response to that, the chief editor, Toriq Hadad had primised to publish a public apology in the next issue.

According to Reep(2006), graphic aids such as photographers are used:

-To provide brief explanation to complicated subject matter
-To separate the main topics in compounded data and appeal more to the general public

In short, photographs are used to assist readers to see the scope of the news. As for this case, the Christians did not see and agree with the angle that Tempo took, where they were 'inspired' by the work of art of Leonardo.

A word of advice to all journalists, be sure to be considerate of the graphic aids before publishing, to avoid debates as such.

References :

Indonesian weekly apologises over Last Supper Suharto cover, ABC NEWS, 6 February 2008.

Steeinbrink, K 2003, Catholics in Indonesia:1808-1942, KITLV Press.

Reep, Diana C 2006, Techinical Writing, Pearson, New York.