Module 8: Opportunities, Challenges, and Power of Media and Information

World Wide Web at the Forefront

 Multimedia forms have enriched information through synergy of text, audio, image, and video.
 Search engines have made information seeking and retrieval more sophisticated, thus,
satisfying more conveniently your information needs.
 Social presence in the online world transcended physical boundaries and cultural differences.
 New media is interactive and has linked every user to each other through vast networks of
platforms such as e-mail, Internet search, and messaging applications.
 More opportunities for interconnectedness are continuously being developed, e.g., the cloud
computing technology (or the technology that involves delivering hosted services over the
Internet).
Social Presence / Media Richness
Low Medium High

Social Networking Virtual Social

Self- High Blogs Sites (e.g., Worlds (e.g.,
presentation/ Facebook) Second Life)
Self-disclosure
Collaborative Content Virtual Game
Low Projects (e.g., Communities (e.g., Worlds (e.g.,
Wikipedia) YouTube) World of
Warcraft)

According to Cheng and Shen (2010), the process of information search that utilizes online portal is
classified into:
 Media document retrieval, or the functionality, i.e., search engines that enable users "to submit
one or more queries in the form of an example rich media object or keyword terms"
 Media content mining, or the techniques employed to extract "implicit knowledge, data
relationships, or other regular patterns," e.g., Boolean logic.

Socialness of Social Media

These days, you can count on the phenomenon of crowdsourcing in distributing information faster
than the blink of an eye. This is the reason why information made available on the Internet travels at a
rate that you cannot even begin to grasp. Media has really gone a long way from the invention of the
Gutenberg press. Social media has "democratized" the flow of information. This means that people
have more liberal access to thoughts and ideas. This, in turn, has increased the engagement of
people in creating their own content which you usually see in video sharing platforms and blog sites.
As quoted:
Because of the Web, we have seen amazing examples of "nobodies" becoming "somebodies"
overnight, of whiplash-fast events arising in previously obscure corners of the world. We witness
instances of super-empowered citizens, viral phenomena, and the seemingly instant coordination of
protests and celebrations alike. Memes and hashtags zip and proliferate.
-John Whibey (2014)

Wihbey (2014) classified netizens' engagement patterns with information as the following:
1. Media (broadcast) activation - known as the sharing of content among media users through
the different media forms such as television, radio, print media, and other traditional media.

2. Viral (peer-to-peer) - known as sharing of content through online or new media.

 3. Hybrid - a combination of media activation and peer-to-peer. There are challenges and
opportunities that you as a netizen face in the midst of your engagement with social media.
Table 8.2. The Challenges/Opportunities of Social Media
In terms of:
 Projects enable the joint and  The joint effort of many actors leads to
simultaneous creation of content by
many end-users
 Wikis Web sites which allow users
to add, remove, and change text-
based content e.g., online
Collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia currently
projects available in more than 230 different
languages
 Social bookmarking applications
enable the group-based collection
and rating of Internet links or media
content e.g., Delicious, which
allows the storage and sharing of
web bookmarks
 Special types of Web sites that
usually display date-stamped
entries in reverse chronological
order (OECD, 2007 as cited in
Kaplan & Haenlein 2010)
 The social media equivalent of
personal web pages and can come
Blogs in a multitude of different
variations, from personal diaries
describing the author's life to
summaries of all relevant
information in one specific content
area
 Usually managed by one person
only, but provide the possibility of
interaction with others through the
addition of comments
 Main objective of content
communities is the sharing of
media content between users
 Exist for a wide range of different
Content media types, including text, photos,
communities videos, and PowerPoint
presentations
Challenges/Opportunities
a better outcome than any actor could
achieve individually.
 From a corporate perspective, firms
must be aware that collaborative
projects are trending toward becoming
the main source of information for
many consumers. (e.g., although not
everything written on Wikipedia may
actually be true, it is believed to be
true by more and more Internet users)
 Many companies are already using
blogs to update employees,
customers, and shareholders on
developments they consider to be
important.
 [Risky because] customers who turn
out to be dissatisfied with or
disappointed by the company's
offerings may decide to engage in
virtual complaints in the form of protest
Web sites or blogs (Ward & Ostrom
2006 as cited in Kaplan & Haenlein
2010), which results in the availability
of potentially damaging information in
online space.
 From a corporate viewpoint, content
communities carry the risk of being
used as platforms for the sharing of
copyright-protected materials.
 While major content communities have
rules in place to ban and remove such
illegal content, it is difficult to avoid
popular videos being uploaded only
hours after they have been aired on
 television.

 On the positive side, the high

popularity of content communities
makes them a very attractive contact
channel for many firms.

 Other firms rely on content

communities to share recruiting
videos, as well as keynote speeches
and press announcements, with their
employees and investors.
 Applications that enable users to  High popularity, specifically among
connect by creating personal younger Internet users
Social information profiles, inviting friends
networking and colleagues to have access to
sites those profiles, and sending e-mails
and instant messages between
each other.

 Can include any type of

information, including photos,
video, audio files, and blogs
 dimensional environment in which
users can appear in the form of
personalized avatars and interact
with each other as they would in
real life.
 Probably the ultimate
Virtual game manifestation of social media
worlds
 virtual game worlds - require their
users to behave according to strict
rules in the context of a massively
multiplayer online role- playing
game (MMORPG).
 Provide the highest level of social
presence and media richness of all
applications.
 Allows for an unlimited range of self-
presentation strategies.
 Offer a multitude of opportunities for
companies in marketing
(advertising/communication, virtual
product sales/e-commerce, marketing
research), and human resource and
internal process management

 virtual social worlds - allow

inhabitants to choose their
behavior more freely and
essentially live a virtual life similar
to their real life

Cybercrime in the Philippines

 Cybercrime, according to the Department of Justice, is "a crime committed with or through the
use of information and communication technologies such as radio, television, cellular phone,
computer and network, and other communication device or application."
 The Philippines finally passed a cybercrime law in 2012. President Benigno Aquino III signed
the bill into law on 12 September 2012, and the newly signed law took effect several days
later.
  All was not well as some critics found the "libel provision added by Senator Vicente Sotto III
which provided for blocking certain computer data and for longer prison term for libel (Farmer,
2012)" very dangerous to online users.
 There were petitions submitted to the Supreme Court by several groups who argued that the
law was not clear on how to punish certain cybercrimes. Some even considered the law
"draconian." The Supreme Court eventually released a temporary restraining order on the
implementation of the law.
According to the 2001 Budapest Convention on Cybercrime, criminal offenses in cyberspace include:
1. offenses against the confidentiality, integrity and availability of computer data and systems;
2. computer-related offenses;
3. content-related
4. offenses related to infringements of copyright and related rights.
The following are cybercrime-related laws in the Philippines:
 Republic Act No. 10175 - Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 (which is currently suspended
due to a TRO issued by the Supreme Court)
 Republic Act No. 9995 - Anti-photo Voyeurism Act of 2009
 Republic Act No. 9775 - Anti-child Pornography Act of 2009
 Republic Act No. 9208 - Anti-trafficking in Persons Act of 2003
 Republic Act No. 8792 - E-commerce Act of 2000
 Republic Act No. 8484 - Access Device Regulation Act of 1998; and
 Republic Act No. 4200 - Anti-wiretapping Law.

Media and Information Literate Audience

 Information processing involves a conscious filtering and matching and construction of meanings
of these messages.

Table 8.3. Information Processing Tasks (Potter, 2011)

Task Goal Focus

Filtering Message  To make decisions  To attend to only  Messages in the
about which those messages environment
messages to filter that have some
out (ignore) and kind of usefulness
which to filter in for the person and
(pay attention to) ignore all other
messages
Meaning Matching  To use basic  To access  Referents in
competencies to previously learned messages
recognize referents meanings efficiently
and locate
previously learned
definitions for each
Meaning  To use skills in  To interpret  One's own
Construction order to move messages from knowledge
beyond meaning more than one structures
matching and to perspective as a
construct meaning means of
for one's self in identifying the
 order to personalize range of meaning
and get more out of options, then
a message choose one or
synthesize across
several

Media Content

According to Potter (2011), people live in two worlds: the real world and the media world. The
challenge is how you as students of media and information literacy are able to discern the thin line
that separates these two worlds. This means "being able to tell the two worlds apart as the two merge
together under pressures from newer message formats and newer technologies that seem to make
boundary lines... very fuzzy." Information processing is a skill that every media and information
literate audience must exploit to avoid automaticity and normalization.

Media Effects

Media is pervasive. This being the case, you might not notice the subtle ways influence your
attitude and behavior.

… certain types of messages will lead to certain kinds of opinions and behaviors... as
individuals, we do not have much power to control the media, but we have a great deal of power (if
we will use it) to control the media's effects on us.

-W. James Potter, Media Literacy

Media has a particular power over audiences that media scholars call the third-person effect.
This is an effect that can make you think that media messages affect others but not you. This can
happen because you are made to think that media content may be too banal or simple to have any
effect on you. You have to remember three basic principles about media effects (Potter, 2011):

1. Media effects are constantly occurring because of media's constant and direct/ indirect
influence on you;
2. Media work with other factors... in exerting influence; and
3. You can control the effects process in your life.

Module 9: Current and Future Trends of Media and Information

Massive Open Online Courses

 EDUCAUSE, a nonprofit association and community of IT leaders and professionals,

described Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) as “a model of delivering learning content
online to any person who wants to take a course, with no limit on attendance.
 There is a growing interest on MOOCs as indicated by big investments in “companies
(Coursera, Udacity, Udemy), similar nonprofit initiatives (edX), and learning management
systems (Canvas, Blackboard).
According to tech writer Justin Reich, MOOCs are open in two respects (Vollmer, 2012):
 open enrollment to students outside a hosting university (as in "open registration"); or
 the materials of the course were licensed using Creative Commons licenses so their materials
could be remixed and reused by others (as in "open license")

 MOOCs are utilized primarily by education institutions and so are Open Educational Resources
(OER).
 OERS are "teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have
been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and repurposing by
others (Hewlett as cited in Vollmer, 2012). "
 The openness of OERS means that they must be "available at no cost" and can be legally
repurposed by everyone.
 With MOOCs, many people are no longer disenfranchised when it comes to accessing "high-
quality educational content." With Creative Commons (CC) licenses for MOOCs, there is a greater
chance for interested learners to use these materials without legal apprehensions. Educators may
also use MOOCs for other educational purposes.

Wearable Technology

 Also known as wearable devices on wearables, wearable technologer are "electronic

technologies or computers that are incorporated into items of clothing and women which can
comfortably be worn on the body?
The characteristics of wearables, according to Wearable Devices magazine, include the following:

 Performing computer-related tasks such as laptops and mobile phones

 Provide sensory and scanning features (such as biofeedback and rocking physiological
function) that are typically not seen in mobile and laptop deliver Have some form of
communications capability and will allow the wearer cess to information in real time
 Data-input capabilities
 Local storage capabilities
The online magazine further noted that wearables may either be worn or incorporded to the body "to
create constant, convenient, seamless, portable, and mostly hands-free access to electronics and
computers." This is an indication that cyborg technology is not far-fetched although technology has
yet to fully incorporate and hybridize the organic nature of the human body with electronics and
computers. Different fields such as "health and medicine, fitness, aging, disabilities, education,
transportation, enterprise, finance, gaming and music" have slowly started to adapt the use of such
technology to improve people's lives. Some examples of devices include:

 watches  headbands
 glasses  beanies and caps
 contact lenses  jewelry
 e-textiles and smart fabrics  hearing-aid-like devices (designed to look like earrings).

3D Environment
You may have seen computer graphics as well as animation and animatronics in video games,
movies, and TV shows 3D graphics or environments have added texture to our media experience
because of the images that we see in three-dimensional rendering. According to www.
imagearts.ryerson.ca, there are three basic phases in 3D computer graphics creation:
 1. SD modeling - the process of forming a computer model of an object's shape.

2. Layout and animation - the motion and placement of objects within a scene.

3. 3D rendering - the computer calculations that, generate the image based on light placement,
surface types, and other qualities.
In a 3D environment, an artist creates an object rendered in three-dimensional space to be able to
"make 3D models, animate them, give them surface, render them all in one seamless environment...
[and] export the rendered file to different medium." Some common uses of 3D environment are in

 three-dimensional still models, landscape to represent buildings, objects for architecture or

print;
 two-dimensional animations for film or video effects, games, broadcast, Web and
 advertising: three-dimensional virtual spaces; and
 interactive 3D theaters.

Ubiquitous Learning
 A kind of e-learning experience that is more context-based and more adaptive to learner needs
is called ubiquitous learning or u-learning. From the name itself, it is a learning environment
that can be accessed in various contexts and situations, most prominently through mobile
learning.

 A student is more involved in the learning process because u-learning utilizes all forms of
materials "that may be transferred to mobile devices via cable or wirelessly and [can] be
operated in these mobile devices." These materials can be videos, audios, PowerPoint
presentations, or notes with embedded source data in them.
 Ubiquitous learning is especially important in education for several reasons:
1. It has shifted the learning paradigm from teacher-centered to learner-centered.
2. Students "access instructional materials at different times from different locations"
making them "lifelong learners in that they are able to use multiple devices to access
and search for knowledge and information while developing their search skills (Alsheail,
2010)."
3. When you engage in u-learning, you are more equipped to face real-life challenges
because of your exposure to new technologies that can help you in your careers.
4. Your teachers can perform more efficiently because u-learning helps them present
knowledge without exhausting too much of their energy.
Wiki

 These are applications allowing several people to collaborate, modify, extend, or delete the
contents or structure of a particular page devoted to a topic or content. Unlike blogs, a wiki has
no defined writer or author and has "little implicit structure, allowing structure to emerge
according to the needs of the users.
 The most popular example of a wiki is the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.
 Wikis are useful only at a certain extent because of the absence of a defined author. But they
can be a jump-off point for locating other sources or references, as well as related topics
through links called wiki nodes.

Module 10 Media and Information Literate Individual

Unmasking Media Messages

  Media scholars have a long-standing debate about the capacity of media and information to
cause a significant effect on the people's knowledge, attitude, and behavior.
 There are ways media can affect your psyche:
 Through objectification which is common in visual forms of media.
 This happens when the camera pans in certain portions of the human body to
highlight that portion.
 Relying on the symbolic and ideological codes that you are familiar with, the
message injects in you a particular idea that it aimed to embed. An example is how
some billboards present skimpily-clad undergarment models.

Another way media covertly injects ideologies is through appeal to fallacies and propaganda
techniques. Messages with ulterior motives commonly use any of the following techniques:

 Ad hominem  Demonizing the enemy  Labeling

 Ad nauseam
 Appeal to authority
 Appeal to fear
 Appeal to prejudice
 Bandwagon
 Cherry picking (fallacy)
or Selective truth
 Classical conditioning
 Cognitive dissonance
 Common man or "plain
folk" approach
 Diktat  Latitudes of acceptance
 Disinformation  Loaded language
 Euphemism  Love bombing
 Exaggeration  Milieu control
 Foot-in-the-door  Name-calling
technique  Operant conditioning
 Framing  Oversimplification
 Glittering generalities  Rationalization
 Guilt by association  Red herring
 Half-truth  Scapegoating
 Intentional vagueness  Unstated assumption
 Virtue words

 Media also has the tendency to commodify objects.

 Commodification refers to "those processes through which social relations are reduced to an
exchange relation." In this way, media puts an economic value to any idea or concept.
 Commodification is most effective when propaganda techniques are also used.
Media in Nation Building
 The power of media to persuade is not entirely harnessed for economic or personalistic
interests. Media as a watchdog of the society has a role to play in nation building.
 In the 1987 Philippine Constitution, there are provisions stating the importance of media and
communication in the process of strengthening the nation. Such provisions are as follows:
Section 24, Article II.
The State recognizes the vital role of communication and information in nation building.
Section 11, Article XII.
No franchise, certificate, or any other form of authorization for the operation of a public utility
shall be granted except to citizens of the Philippines or to corporations or associations organized
under the laws of the Philippines at least sixty per centum of whose capital is owned by such citizens,
nor shall such franchise, certificate, or authorization be exclusive in character or for a longer period
than fifty years. Neither shall any such franchise or right be granted except under the condition that is
shall be subject to amendment, alteration, or repeal by the Congress when the common good so
requires. The State shall encourage equity participation in public utilities by the general public. The
participation of foreign investors in the governing body of any public utility enterprise shall be limited
to their proportionate share in its capital, and all the executive and managing officers of such
corporation or association must be citizens of the Philippines.
Section 10. Article XVI.
The State shall provide the policy environment for the full development of Filipino capability
and the emergence of communication structures suitable to the needs and aspirations of the nation
and the balanced flow of information into, out of, and across the country, in accordance with a policy
that respects the freedom of speech and of the press.
The Philippines is divided by lands and languages; thus, to bring the people from these islands
closer, infrastructure on media and information must be continuously built and propagated.
 Aside from being labeled as "watchdog." media is claimed to be the Fourth Estate because of
the way it establishes a check and balance among other estates such as the church, the
government, and the citizens. It provides access to information that is necessary for citizens to
have "informed choices rather than acting out of ignorance or misinformation."
 Media can educate and enlighten people about the matters that citizens are directly or
indirectly affected. In a democratic society such as the Philippines, media can be used to
cause social change by encouraging the "public involvement through advocating issue and
transferring knowledge, skills, and technologies to the people (Dash, 2009)."

Module 11 People and Media

Perspectives on Media Effects

In the media education, the three main paradigms on effects are:
1. Powerful and direct effect
 The most classic and already debunked theory on direct effect is the magic-bullet or
hypodermic needle theory which posits that audiences are devoid of agency on their
media reception and that media is capable of greatly influencing the attitudes and
behaviors of these audiences without even realizing it.
 Audiences are considered automatons and are at the mercy of media.

2. Limited effect
 believes that you are highly capable of discerning propaganda and that media has
limited capacity to persuade you.

3. Moderate effect.
 reconciliatory and is mid-way between the two.
 Audiences are not passive and are capable of creating meaningful experience.
 This paradigm "acknowledges that media effects can occur over longer period of time
(while the limited effect was unable to understand the media role in cultural changes)."
People as Media

 Any person who is exposed to media messages is also able to serve as a conduit of
information and an influencer of ideas.
 You can be considered people as media when you yourselves are well-oriented to media
sources and messages and when you are able to provide information as accurate and reliable
as possible.
 People as media are highly expected to be responsible disseminators of information.
 In Ground Wars, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen wrote that in the realm of political communication,
you would expect politicians to rely on supporters to go to places and cover more ground to
promote these political candidates (Kreiss, 2012).
  This is in response to an "oversaturation in advertising markets, media fragmentation, and
signature social science field experiments" thus motivating political candidates to resort to
"volunteers and paid canvassers going door- to-door to identify the partisan affiliations of and
deliver messages to voters-all in the hope of bringing sympathizers to the polls on election day
(Nielsen as cited in Kreiss, 2012)."
 In this example, you will see how people are able to "mediate" or communicate the information
to others without necessarily having to spend too much resources on media technologies or
advertising schemes. People are mobilized to relay messages.

 This is aptly termed by Nielsen as:

1. Ground wars, which means people are sent out to do the legwork of campaigning and
sharing information through word-of-mouth
2. Air wars, or the use of the airwaves to advertise the platforms of political candidates.

Political communication – the exchange of information within the context of politics and
governance, is perhaps one of the most apparent examples of how human act as media.

 As Lalla (2012) “WWW has gone from meaning merely the World Wide Web to becoming
Whoever Wherever Whenever, and Whatever."

Industrial Application of People as Media

 In a Web log by King Fish Media (2013), it is interesting to note how people as media is
defined in the light of a marketing approach that a famous shoe brand employs.
 People as media has been described as a way of "turning your customers into brand
advocates by starting conversations and bringing like-minded people together." Customers
guide fellow customers about the product or service at hand.
 According to Lalla (2012), traditional media have diminished in providing profitable returns for
consumer goods/brands. In the words of Lalla: "The ripples of influence come from the people
carrying a message, instead of the channel carrying it. These ripples spread and create
waves... get powerful as they overlap and spread further and farther." This means that more
than the technology used to relay the message, it is the people that uses the technology who
influences the receivers of the said message.

Opinion Leaders as People Media

 One of the more important features of people media is the existence of intermediaries who are
also known in media studies as opinion leaders.
 The two-step flow theory explains the role of opinion leaders in developing consciousness
among lower-end users of media.
 The proponents of the theory are Paul Lazarsfeld and Elihu Katz. Variations of the theory
have been developed by other scholars such as Robert Merton, C. Wright Mills, and Bernard
Berelson.
 The two-step flow is alternatively known as the diffusion of innovation theory because
innovative ideas are diffused or transferred to media users through opinion leaders.
 The theory was developed by Katz and Lazarsfeld from their research on personal influence.
The research was interested in looking at how the 1940 presidential election in the United
States “indicated that media influence on people's voting behavior was limited by opinion
leaders.”
 Opinion leaders are expected to have a first instance of exposure to the media content
especially on topics that they are more involved in. They interpret the media content based on
their views and biases, and these interpretations are then passed on to opinion followers,
who are assumed to have less frequent exposure or contact with media (Baran, 2010).
  Opinion followers are less socially active even if they are on the same social status as opinion
leaders (Baran and Davis, 2009).
 Katz (1957) identified the following reasons as to why opinion leaders are more influential than
the media themselves:
 They are seen as trustworthy and nonpurposive
 They have a more changing or determining role in an individual's opinion or action
 Littlejohn (2008) argued that "opinion leadership changes from time to time and from issue to
issue" and that an opinion leader may be monomorphic (or someone influential in one topic)
or polymorphic (or someone who is well- versed on a variety of topics).
 Gatekeeping is also one of the perceived functions of opinion leaders because they "screen
media.
Citizen Journalism
 Perhaps one of the most recent developments in the aspect of information sharing is citizen
journalism.
 Also known as "public," "participatory," "democratic," "guerrilla," or "street" journalism, citizen
journalism occurs when members of the public become active participants in the collection,
reportage, analysis, and dissemination of news and information to other citizens
(mashable.com).
 Citizen journalists are able to provide immediate and, oftentimes, real-time information on
events that mainstream reporters would normally have no instant access to.

Social Journalism
 Is a model of information relay that combines professional journalism with those offered by
citizen journalists or even regular audiences who post feedback, comment, or who share
content (such as stories and events) on their online accounts.
 Social journalism is likened to open publishing where readers intentionally or unwittingly
contribute content just by sharing through their online social media accounts. But the
distinguishing factor between social journalism and citizen journalism is that the content.
 Social journalists are essentially professional journalists or "paid and unpaid contributors and
readers." The main concerns on social journalism include level and strength of writing, minimal
factual errors, low self-promotion and covert advocacy, and inherent trustworthiness of the
information at par with journalistic standards.
 Professional journalists practicing social journalism are people media precisely because their
mindset is toward higher participation among outside contributors to be more involved in
information sharing (but still within the bounds or parameters of the journalism practice). Social
journalism can be made more reliable by:

 explicitly identifying the designation of the person contributing the information (e.g.,
writer, columnist, expert contributor, guest contributor), so that the readers/ audience
are well-aware of the contributor's level of credibility;
 providing the credentials of the contributor in the byline to give audiences the
opportunity to judge the contributor and the contribution;
 exhaustively doing a background check of the contributors because asking a third-
party to contribute content is different from randomly soliciting for an idea from a
regular audience;
 requiring contributors to disclose possible conflicts of interest in the information
 they are sharing to the public;
 encouraging contributors to engage in formal online media ethics and editorial and
professional compliance training;
 implementing explicit and strict rules on content publishing to avoid issues regarding
libel or factual errors;
 discouraging anonymity and emphasizing that social sharing should promote personal
and professional integrity; and
  vetting/verifying information from anonymous tipsters, gossips, and whistleblowers to
avoid misinformation and spreading of harmful propaganda.

Crowdsourcing

 This is when a group of people or a crowd is solicited for information by certain entities or
institutions.
 A person over a social media network can post a question or inquiry in his or her social media
account where other people (either random strangers or people within the social circle) can
openly share their answers or thoughts.
 Crowdsourcing is also called collective mobilization.

As a 21st century phenomenon, crowdsourcing can be used to do the following:

 Promote innovative ideas
 Encourage interconnectedness in idea sharing
 Motivate co-creation
 Encourage participation from consumers or ordinary citizens Promote a more efficient and
productive way of sharing information

People in Media

 They provide information coming from their expert knowledge or first-hand experience of
events. People in media are those involved in the media forms that they are primarily engage
in-print, broadcast, film, new media, and gaming.

Module 12 Text Information and Media

Defining Text

 According to Rouse (2015), a text is any "human-readable sequence of characters" that can
form intelligible words. It may be in the form of phonetic characters or even glyphs which are
associated with ancient writing culture.
 Text, when used in information technology, is distinct from "noncharacter encoded data, such
as graphic images in the form of bitmaps and program code."
 According to Parekh (2006), the textual medium offers an easier and more flexible use in terms
of content production, which is why it is ideal for learning. ‘
 Text is one of the elements of multimedia products that can then be combined with several
other elements to present information and create an impression or impact.

A text may be categorized into three:

1. Plaintext - consisting of fixed sized characters having essentially the same type of
appearance.
2. Formatted text - appearance can be changed using font parameters
3. Hypertext - serve to link different electronic documents and enable users to jump from one
to the other in a nonlinear way
Unformatted Text
  Unformatted text, or the plaintext, corresponds to a set of characters in the American Standard
Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) Table). The table consists of characters represented

by a unique 7-bit binary code (Parekh, 2006). For instance, when you type a particular letter
using a word processor, the letter actually has an equivalent set of characters when translated

into a computer program.

The ASCII Table

The Extended ASCII Table

Formatted Text

 The formatted text, on the other hand, offers some control over the general appearance of
alphanumeric characters.
 The formatting refers to the changing of the typeface of fonts such as bold, underline, italics,
superscript, subscript, shapes, font sizes, and colors. Text processing software provides such
options.
 Formatted text is most often used in text publishing. Printers should recognize formatted text to
achieve the appropriate appearance as generated using text processing software (Parekh,
2006).
 Font names are what distinguish one formatted text with another.
 Two general types of fonts are the serif (with curves, such as Times New Roman, Book
Antiqua, Cambria, Copperplate Gothic Bold, and Courier New) and sans serif (fonts without
curves, such as Arial, Tahoma, Verdana, and Calibri).
What happens when a specific font is not available in an operating system?

 The text is converted to a default font when the font used is not installed in the system.

Some software application packages allow font files to be embedded within them so that
when a presentation file created using that package is shown on a target system which do not
have the requisite font files, then the embedded fonts are used instead.
-Parekh, 2006

Font size
 is another aspect of formatting.
 It is usually described in a unit called point (pt) which is equivalent to / of an inch.
 In other cases, font size may be in terms of pixel, which is "the basic unit of programmable
color on a computer display or in a computer image." Spaces between fonts are adjusted
through kerning (changing the horizontal gap between the characters), or leading (changing
the vertical gaps between two lines of text). Special effects such as bending, slanting, warping,
rotating, adding shadows and 3D effects, or text manipulation through animation (scrolling,
fading, changing colors, adding sound effects) may also enhance the formatted text (Parekh,
2006).

Hypertext

 The principle of a hypertext makes use of linking a text to another text "in such a way that the
user can navigate non-sequentially from one document to the other for cross-references
 The hypertexts are also known as hyperlinks or underlined text strings.
 The underlined text string is the anchor, while the document to which the user was directed to
is the target document. You often see hyperlinks as related stories or materials in a Web
content. The target documents are assigned with a Web site address known as Uniform
Resource Locators (or URL).
 Aside from the Internet, hypertexts are also used to link one document to another (or even a
part of the document to another part inside the same document) in desktop applications.
 These are useful to integrate some form of interactivity and mobility in the acquisition of
knowledge from different digital documents.
  Texts may be generated or inserted by typing using a keyboard, copying from another
document and pasting it to another, or "scanning from a paper document and converting image
format into editable text format using a software called Optical Character Recognition
(OCR)."
 A word processor is any computer software used to "produce, edit, and format mainly text-
based documents [such as] writing letters, memos, reports, creating letterheads, producing
labels, etc."
 Unlike the computers, typewriters offered limited set of formatting when it comes to
typography, which refers to the general character or appearance of printed matter.
 'Speech-to-text’ means that the sound of your voice will be recognized by a computer
software or application and associate it with characters in its databank.
 A file format refers to the digital document or information that is stored in a computer as a
sequence of bits and bytes. You would normally recognize the file format by looking at the
extension at the file name.
Common File Formats (Parekh, 2006)

TXT (text)  unformatted text document created by an editor such as Notepad on

Windows platform
DOC (document)  a native format for storing documents created by MS Word package
contains a rich set of formatting capabilities
RTF (Rich Text  cross platform document exchange; default format for Mac OS X's
Format) default editor TextEdit
 WordPad editor earlier created RTF files by default although now it has
switched to the DOC format
PDF (Portable  developed by Adobe systems for cross platform exchange of
Document documents supports images and graphics
Format)  an open standard and anyone may write programs that can read and
write PDF's without any associated royalty charges
PS (PostScript)  a page description language used mainly for desktop publishing
 page description language is a high-level language that can
describe the contents of a page such that it can be accurately
displayed on output devices usually a printer

 The .doc file is more sophisticated because the document may contain formatting, page size,
and other elements that are stored in complex encoding.
 The downside of this file format is that its encoding is owned by the company that developed it.
But there are open applications developed that resemble the .doc file. One such example of an
open platform is the Open Office.
 The .doc is also selective of the operating system to which it can be accessed. The file may
not be readable or may not open correctly in other platforms or applications, or may have
limited access to the full specification of the application.
 Files with the .doc extension may get damaged when opened in a non-compatible application
and the damage may be irreparable, and thus, corrupting the file or making it unrecoverable.
There are also occasions where the older version of the document may not open in the new
ones, or vice versa.
 PDF files are somehow similar to .doc files and are viewable and printable in practically all
major applications "using free software provided by Adobe (or others)." PDF documents are
usually secured and are not readily enabled for editing. When choosing a file format to use for
storage of information, you have to consider the following:

1. Proprietary constraints from a competing file format developer

2. Format specification
 3. Issue of obsolescence especially the earlier versions of a file format
4. Convenience of extracting the data for further use and indexing
5. Fidelity (or maintenance of the quality of the text when saved in a particular file
format)
6. Compression (that can a make a file "less robust to errors in data transmission or 6
damage or degradation of storage media" because of the desire to use less disk
space
7. Accepted standards on choosing a file format
Storing a file in a particular format is an important decision since you need to consider
how the document may be migrated and be accessed in another computer system.
Desktop publishing
 is another technology associated with text information and media.
 esktop publishing is when text and graphics are arranged "into professional looking
publications which can then be printed out."
 Desktop publishing is usually done to create specialized informational materials such as
"flyers, brochures, posters, and business cards." Book and magazine publishing also employs
desktop publishing. The principle of desktop publishing is still latched on the basic use of word
processing technology, but desktop publishing deals with the combination of texts and
graphics.
 Printing presses are still primarily used in the production of newspapers and magazines and
traditional layout practices such as manual preparation of dummy sheets are still
commonplace.
