Imagined Communities

People who study Mass Communication or related fields would have often heard the term 'imagined communities', which refers to the publics as target audiences or subjects under governance.

These days, imagined communities can be very real, especially with interactivity of communication on the Internet. Take the example of forums. People participate and voice their views publicly, but these people do not reveal their real names and often use short names or nicknames to hide their identity. These are people I would term as real imagined community or communities, since there are so many forums on the Net.

Another imagined community which is very real indeed is what known as Online Communities, such as the popular friends’ community sites like Friendster and MySpace. People participating in such communities often feel attached to the imagined friends they have in their list and through participation in their forums and multimedia groups, people begin to identify and feel belonging as if they know each other personally.

For example, models, movie stars, and popular personalities have their fan clubs formed in groups where audience can subscribe to access photographs, chats, discussion messages and many more. The star of the object needs only place occasionally entries of messages, say, to describe themselves, and all subscribers will be able to know the object intimately, sharing with others of like minds.

These imagined communities can become very real, depending on the amount of participation by the individual in commenting or writing testimonials on their imagined friends' blogs, profiles, and photographs.

With such technology these days, people do not feel as lonely as they should be, because they can imagined virtually the 'friends' they have, but in reality, such 'friends' are often imagined and some are represented by avatars, which essentially are fake identities, so whether the other party is real or imagined, disguised or true, male or female, it is up to one to decide to what extend he or she should indulge in this unreal world!

Confession of a Pusher

You may be wondering what a pusher has to do with writing or journalism, but do not be mistaken, this article is not about drugs or about acts outside marriage. It is about what captures the attention of the readers and about captions and headlines, so if you wish to know what the pusher's confession is all about, read on, for the story begins here ...

It irks me that I am a pusher and I have to do it daily. It is not as if I am enjoying it, but rather I don't have a choice.

Let me tell you my story, how I became a pusher. I work it a place remote from public transport and I have to take a feeder bus to reach my destination. Each time the bus arrives, a huge crowd will gather to enter to a one-door entrance up the bus. There is no queue to decide who goes in front of another nor the cue to know the exact spot where the bus will stop, so everyone has to move discerningly in anticipation, to position a good spot when the bus is seen arriving.

When the bus arrive and stop, all hell will break lose and everyone will be rushing to get up the bus relentlessly. Some passengers however will be stricken with fear of stampede and freeze without moving forward, and that is where I become a pusher.

I push people to move forward to reach the bus. Many people surrounding the bus will try all angles and means to make their way forward and up, inch-by-inch, step by step, but with some fear stricken people ahead, there is seldom chance to reach the goal. The only way, therefore, is to PUSH ahead using a finger or one's body, with a stare that can kill, to make sense to the person ahead, to quit being a stumbling block and move forward and up.

This is my story of how I became a pusher, and it is an unpleasant daily experience for me, because I have always pride myself in acting gracefully, but for this case, I do not have a choice, so if you are one of my victims, I hope you will understand.

As you can see from what is written above, a header or a title of an article plays an important role in drawing the attention of readers and target audiences. Like tabloid news, however, sometimes the content of the story may fall short of expectation of what the headline may have promise. This is what is known as sensationalizing news, which often leaves the readers disgruntled at the end, if he or she ever reads to the end.

A lesson for the writer or journalist is therefore to write responsibly, professionally, and credibly, in providing a content that substantiates what the headline promises.

Conversational Writing

When writing for the broadcast media, it is usual to write in a way similar to a conversation, such as talking to someone or an audience. This is called conversational writing.

A common practice of conversational writing takes place when we chat and give comments in blogs. People use conversational writing or words to chat with others on the Net, and some use words in chat to flirt with others whom they can only 'see' or imagine from photo images or avatars representing them.

In the 'real' world, people who flirt online may really be quite tamed, while people whom seemingly keep silent and use ordinary pictures to represent themselves on the Net may be reversed.

Words, verbally spoken or casually written, are often assumed harmless because people on the Net seldom meet each other and unless they do, nothing physical can happen. However, the truth about words is that it can send sensory signals to a person's innermost being, triggering roaring desires hidden within.

Whether we think of words as harmful or otherwise, it is prudent for us to be wise, to note the things we say, to keep ourselves from harm's way!

Blog Disaster: Death of Free Speech

The death of the freedom of speech and the dangers of blogging are not something that happen only in countries that practise communistic or social responsible models, but also in countries that uses the freedom of the Fourth Estate or the Western model.

In August last year, Friendster, the online social networking organization that promotes self-expression among peers, fired one of its employees for her personal Web log. Read the story by Stefanie Olsen, "Friendster fires developer for blog" at news.com (assessed July 28, 2005) for more information.

Friends or Avatars

Writing an article these days require the writer or journalist to be conversant with the language of the Internet and the web. For the next 3-6 months, my studies will encompass the topics of online web journalism, radio and television journalism, and journalism ethics.

In the World Wide Web, many people get to 'know' each other through blogging, chatting, and emailing, and in many cases, these people do not meet the other face to face or even see their real faces. A photograph of someone on the Net, even with a name attached to it, is seldom the actual face of the person you are communicating with. It is usually just an avatar.

An avatar, according to the Cambridge Dictionary, is "an image which represents you in online games, chat rooms, etc." This essentially means a picture which is not you, placed anywhere online in the Internet or the World Wide Web, to represent you.

This form of representation can be discreet or exploitative. Discreet means to put an image that is obviously not you to represent you, such as a cartoon, a comic character, scenery, or something else. Exploitative means stealing or borrowing someone else's image to represent you.

For example, when John communicates on the Internet to write blogs or to chat, he uses avatars, obvious avatars that let the other party knows he does not want to be seen. He does not steal or borrow someone else's identity to pretend it is his. His many cyber friends also use avatars, but unlike him, they use cool pictures of images to represent themselves, mostly stolen identities or impersonation. It may be the real person is not handsome or pretty, but to have images that attract a person in order to be friends is not always ethical or acceptable at times, but then again, maybe, like John, they have something to hide, just as John discreetly hides behind avatars.

The 'reality' is, as users of the Internet, many people represent themselves using avatars. This can pose a problem. If some day a person gets close to knowing another on the Net and they wish to meet, it may turn out to be a shock when they do, because being beautiful or handsome sometimes plays a very important role to chemistry. As long as avatars are involved, people on the web are just 'real' individuals who hide behind masks!

Is It Worth It?

As I walk this narrow way

Where the sun shines and set everyday

The things we count valuable

Will sooner or later fade away
Let me learn to count my days

To walk upright in acceptable ways

To live my life worthy of the call

To lead the world to a place above

This poem is written as an afterthought from an early morning nature walk.

The World Beyond

There is a world we look beyond

A place we long to go

The place we can only presently dream

Of peace and joy we yearn to have

Free of dust odours and pollution
Utopia of nature undefiled

An environment only of pleasant smell

In hearts within we long to possess

The place in God can we only have

A promised land of blessings beyond imagination

A truth we can only see to comprehend

To catch a glimpse of the world beyond,
view the picture at this post,
created using 3D art by ShiftedReality.com.