Today's Forms of Media Publishing

Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) pointed out that communication modes have shifted from the "old literacy" to the "new literacy". Hence, our current learning environment are filled with multimodal texts, which incorporates a collective of modes, such as usages of images and sounds in delivering messages (Walsh 2006). 

Such changes of communication modes also exist in the field of media publishing. The existence of Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, as well as online news portals have altered the roles of the traditional media by creating a new trend for media publishing. As explained by Naughton (2006), such new media ecosystem exists due to digital convergence, personal computing and global networking.

For a better understanding, consider Twitter as an example. With the existence of Twitter, it changes the environment of news reporting as most newspaper outlets, such as The Star  and Berita Harian are using Twitter to inform the public about the latest local news headlines and updates.

(Image source : Twitter 2011)

Moreover, in a larger scale, Cashmore (2009) mentioned that Twitter is also proven to be very efficient in disseminating globally-significant news, such as the Japan's tsunami and earthquake crisis. Besides than The Star, CNN also uses its Twitter account to provide constant updates on the Japan's crisis to the public. According to CNN (2011), the Japan's crisis has contributed to a total of 314 tweets in their two Twitter accounts. Furthermore, it was also mentioned that posts concerning the coverage on the Japan's crisis were also being re-tweeted at 198% more than the total of the re-tweeted tweets for the Egyptian's crisis coverage.

At such, it clearly proves that the existence of Twitter has altered the communication pathway in the media ecosystem, specifically in news reporting, whereby news can be disseminated even faster and more efficient as compared to the traditional media.

References

Cashmore, P 2009, Michael Jackson Dies: Twitter Tributes Now 30% of Tweets, viewed 28^th April 2011, <http://mashable.com/2009/06/25/michael-jackson-twitter/>.

CNN 2011, CNN.com sets global records for Japan coverage, viewed 4th May 2011, <http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2011/04/04/cnn-com-sets-global-records-for-japan-coverage/>.

Kress, G & van Leeuwen, T 2006, Reading images: the grammar of visual design, 2nd edn., Routledge, London.

Naughton, J 2006, Blogging and the emerging media ecosystem, viewed 28^th April 2011, <http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/fileadmin/documents/discussion/blogging.pdf>.

Walsh, M 2006, 'The 'textual shift': Examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts', Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol 29, no. 1, pp. 24-37.