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First Edition 2008 © HADINA HABIL & HANITA HASSAN 2008

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Skudai, 81310 Johor Darul Tak'zim, Malaysia. Perpustakaan Negara Malaysia Cataloguing-in-Publication Data New perspectives in language and communication research / penyelenggara Hadina Habil, Hanita Hassan. Includes index ISBN 978-983-52-0691-7 1. Language and languages--Research. 2. Communication--Research. I. Hadina Habil. II. Hanita Hassan, 1971-. 407.2

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iv

iv

CONTENTS

Preface vi

Chapter 1 Persuasive Strategies of Tourism Discourse Hanita Hassan

Hadina Habil

Zaliza Mohd. Nasir

Language in the Workplace: Insights into Shared

Practices in Organisations Hadina Habil

Shameem Rafik-Galea

Semiotic Analysis: Compositional Meaning of

Corporate Web PagesHanita Hassan

Theo van Leeuwen

Advice Giving in a Health Emergency: A Case

Study of the SARs WebsiteNoor Aireen Ibrahim

Reaching Out: A Corporate Portrayal of

Telecommunication Companies on the WebHadina Habil

1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

21

39

53

75

v

95The Generic Structure of ‘About Us’ Web PagesHanita Hassan

Theo van Leeuwen

Weblogs in ESL ClassroomsMasdinah Alauyah

Hadina Habil

Ghazali Bunari

Reporting or Constructing “facts”: Childhood

Obesity in the National Press

Noor Aireen Ibrahim

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Index

Chapter 6

111

125

vi

vi

PREFACE

Language and communication is evolving as a result of advancement

in technology. Technology has changed life – the way we do

things, the way we communicate and the way we perceive life.

How does the change affect society, education and business? To

answer this question, research into the ways in which language and

communication affects life is necessary and crucial. Thus, this book

presents new perspectives in language and communication research

as a contribution to address the above question.

Persuasive Strategies in Tourism Discourse (Chapter 1)

presents Malaysian Tourism Board strategies in promoting Malaysia

to the world. Knowing how Malaysia entices the people of the

world is important in realising the function of language in tourism

promotion. Chapter 2 provides an insight into shared practices in

organisations. The adoption of email as a communication medium in

more organisations nowadays warrants a closer look at how people

use language in emails. Besides, the increasing use of website to

reach out to global readers has attracted language and communication

practitioners to examine websites and their functions in the corporate

environment. Thus, four chapters (Chapters 3-6) discuss different

ways of using websites to disseminate information, to market

products and services and to portray corporate identity. Realising the

importance of websites, Chapter 6 discusses the generic structure of

the web pages so that the design of the website is understood by both

designers and readers. In addition, technology also has changed the

vii

teaching and learning practices. Chapter 7 looks at the use of weblogs

in ESL classrooms so that teachers and learners would benefit from

the use of weblogs.

Finally, Chapter 8 presents discursive practices of news

reporting as a means of educating the public about health-related

issues that are important to society. We hope the chapters in this book

have presented views and issues of language and communication

research from a new perspective.

Editors

Hadina Habil

Hanita Hassan

Faculty of Management and Human Resource

Development Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

2008

1Persuasive Strategies of Tourism Discourse

1PERSUASIVE STRATEGIES OF

TOURISM DISCOURSE

HANITA HASSANHADINA HABIL

ZALIZA MOHD NASIR

1 INTRODUCTION

Tourism industry in Malaysia is fast growing and it has become

an important agent for economic development that brings in huge

revenues for the country. As Cara Aitchison said ‘tourism is frequently

cited as ‘the world’s fastest growing industry’ or ‘the world largest

business’ (2001: 133). It is therefore very crucial for this industry

to carefully promote the country, and this thus suggests that the

tourism industry should look into highly effective advertisements

as tools for promoting the country. This is to say that only through

advertisements, which focuses heavily on promoting the Malaysian

culture and its unique identity, the Malaysian Tourism Board (MTB)

is able to attract tourists to visit Malaysia.

Similar to many other countries, which have an agency that

is responsible to promote their tourism industry, Malaysian Tourism

Board is the government agency that is responsible in promoting

Malaysia. Besides promoting Malaysia as an international tourist

destination, MTB plays a significant role in the image building of

Malaysia. In addition the Ministry of Tourism Malaysia has newly set

up the Malaysia Convention and Exhibition Bureau (MyCEB), which

functions to help boost the country’s tourism industry via re-branding

Malaysia as the top destination for various activities, for example,

meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions (MICE).

2 New Perspectives in Language and Communication Research

Malaysia has so many beautiful places that have been turned

into tourism spots. The tourist attractions in Malaysia are not

confined in one area, but they are well distributed across the country.

Interestingly, each state has its own unique identity and cultures. Due

to the fact that the thirteen states in Malaysia encompass a variety of

cultures, this result in cultural diversity among Malaysians and the

diversity has become the most important attraction in persuading

tourists around the globe to visit Malaysia.

This paper thus aims to discuss the persuasive strategies of

tourism discourse employed by MTB in promoting Malaysia. In doing

so, this paper highlights the language styles and choice of words which

are specifically used in tourism industry of Malaysia. For example,

the latest news released on the website highlighted ‘Malaysia is the

best international destination 2008’, in which this news indirectly

portrays the self-presentation (Goffman 1957) of Malaysia that is

the best globally tourism destination. Self-presentation is one of the

important advertising strategies used by big industries in promoting

corporate identities and brand image (Hassan 2006)

2 DISCOURSE

Discourse, according to Stubbs (1983:1), is language above the

sentence or above the clause. The study of discourse is the study

of any aspect of language use, no matter whether it is speech or

writing, the discourse is seen as a type of social practice (Fasold 1990;

Fairclough 1992). Similarly, Wodak (2006) recently relates discourse

and society and suggests that there is an existence of a cognitive

level in a model of text production. This thus clearly suggests that

in analysing texts it is not sufficient to analyse the words literally

per se, but the hidden meanings could be interpreted via the sharing

of cognitive knowledge. Considering the relationships between

discourse and society, language use is part of social practice, or, in

other words, the language use which is beyond the literal meaning


of sentences, causes different people to infer significantly different

meanings when confronted with the same information (Wodak 2006:

183). Following this, this study thus aims to investigate how the

writers of tourism advertisements ensure that the intended meaning

is grasped by readers from different parts of the world, who have

different values and cultures.

Goodwin and Spittle claim that ‘discourse is shaped

and constrained by social structure (i.e. by class, by norms and

conventions, by systems of classifications and by institutions) as well

as being socially constitutive’ (2002: 229) and this means that the

origin of discourse depends so much on the society. Hatch (1992) and

McCarty (1991) define discourse analysis as a study of language of

communication. Discourse analysts are interested in the relationship

between the language used and the context: written or spoken. In

other words, discourse analysis focuses on the relationship between

language and the contexts of its use. To ensure that the communication

is successful, the interactants, for example, the speaker or writer

should share the same schemata or context with their receptors.

It is important to note that Fairclough’s (1992) model has

methodological implications for the ways in which the discourse

analyst examines language use. He advocates a simultaneous analysis

of discursive practice (the production and consumption of texts

– conceived of as either spoken or written instances of language use)

as a subset of the wider set of social practices to which discursive

practice is interrelated – with particular emphasis on the relations of

power and ideology within specific social institutions. The intertextual

nature of the discursive production of text (the ways in which it

either draws upon or challenges established ways of speaking about

and seeing the world) is particularly important here. This wider set

of concerns is combined with a detailed and systematic examination

of text. This analysis ranges from analysing the macro structure of

text; through an analysis of its major themes, the cohesion of its

clauses and sentences; and down to a consideration of wording, word

meaning, grammar and the use of metaphor. (Goodwin and Spittle

2002: 230)


An example of ‘homogenized syntax’ is the one found in the

cookery book, where Enkvist posts that ‘cookery-book writers who

make good use of structures such as into a large kettle put x, y and z.

this is obviously short for first take a large kettle and then put it into

x, y and z…. That cookery-book writers strive for conciseness can

be seen not in their profiting from iconicity but also in the frequent

object deletion, and of course in the traditionally formulaic disposition

(Enkvist 1991: 11).

Most importantly, readers should share the basic conventions

of a certain discourse so that they are able to understand the text

read, for example, in order to understand a cookery book, one needs

to know the styles in which it is written, the language and specific

conventions used (Enkvist 1991). This thus means that different

text types employ different syntactic conventions depending on the

common social practices (Faircloug 1992).

3 TOURISM PROMOTIONAL STRATEGIES

A tourist guide book could in principle be written with many strategies:

a chronological strategy arranging sights by age; a biographical

strategy arranging the sights by the persons they have associations

with, an architectural strategy grouping sights by building styles: and

so forth. Here the writer wanted to take his readers on a guided tour,

and his strategy might be defined as “stop-look-see”: first the tourist

should know where to go and stop, and next where to look. Only then

can he be told what he is in fact seeing (Enkvist 1991: 9). Following

this, in this study we were interested to determine the strategy or the

style adopted by Malaysian Tourism Board in promoting Malaysia.

Interestingly, this stop-look-see strategy is reflected in the

syntax that is ‘through fronting of locative adverbials: the pattern

is in location x is y rather than y is in location x (Enkvist 1991: 9).

The information flow, according to Enkvist, can be achieved in two

ways, which are passivisation and nominalisation of the locative.


The locative is used as a subject and normally marks the start of a

new text unit, for example:

On top of the hill is the X Palace. To the right of the main

entrance is the Museum. The first room on the left contains

a collection of armour. Facing the door is the armour worn

by A in the battle of Y.

(Enkvist 1991: 9).

Following this, we were very much interested in determining

the discourse features of the tourism brochures produced by MTB.

In other words, this study aims to analyse the language style or the

linguistic pattern used by Malaysian Tourism Board.

What is a strategy? Enkvist (1991) differentiates two

corollaries of a strategy. The first has to do with views of strategies

within such a decision-based model. A strategy can be seen as a goal-

determined weighting-and–seeing pattern of decision parameters.

The actual choice of expression, of words and syntagms, and their

exponents in speech and writing, can then be seen as a hierarchic

sequence of tactical solutions which carry out the strategy.

The second corollary states that in the text and discourse,

only the consequences of the winning, that is, preferentially weighted

parameters and their settings, are directly exposed to ear and eye. The

weaker, losing forces have disappeared. …, the surface appearance of

a piece of discourse may give clues to the conflicts and conspiracies

that must have gone into its production (Enkvist 1991: 13).

Due to the fact that personal experience often shapes and

directs visitor attention (Moscardo, 1999), it is therefore very crucial

for the tourism advertisement to create personal connections to

visitors. Personal connections can be a means of gearing tourists

to match the interpretation with their needs and interests (Blahna

& Roggenbuck, 1979; Christiansen, 1994). Having realised the

importance of personal connections, Moscardo (1998) suggests

several ways in which the advertisements can result in personal


connection to the visitors. The ways suggested are the use of examples

of everyday lives, a conversational style in advertisement, and similes

to explain facts in everyday terms.

Similar to other types of advertisement, which are meant

to be persuasive, the tourism adverts are also believed to have the

same aim. The question is how similar are the strategies adopted

by product advertisements compared to tourism adverts. This has

therefore led to this study of which the aims among others include to

investigate the persuasive strategies used in the tourism advertisement.

Previous studies have shown a variety of strategies that has been

adopted for tourism promotion. Stamous and Paraskevopoulous

(2004), for instance, in their textual corpus study highlight that

the notions of pleasure, impressiveness and recreational shape the

tourism and environmentalist discourse. In analysing the tourism

and environmentalist images, they found that ‘there is a dominance

of tourism over environmentalism’ (Stamous and Paraskevopoulous

2004: 110). They argue that even though the visitors believe that

Dadia forest needs conservation, the real reason for conservation

lies in the promising pleasure that will definitely be very impressive

and in turn be the tourism commodity as a place for recreation. This

study clearly shows the ways in which tourism is represented using

environmentalist discourse.

Another study that results in intriguing findings is Fiji tourism

discourse by White (2007). This study reveals the strategy adopted

by Fiji tourism promoters in marketing Fiji as the destination for

experiencing ‘genuine friendliness of indigenous Fijians as the

native’ (White 2007: 25). Interestingly, by foregrounding the Fijians

as indigenous people, it indirectly promotes ‘the primitiveness within

which authenticity becomes the principal commodity’ (Mowforth,

Martin and Munt 2003: 74). The primitiveness and genuine

friendliness therefore form the unique features or the strength of Fiji,

which are believed to be able to allure Western tourists, who very

much fancy otherness.

Different countries will adopt different ways in promoting

their tourism industry depending on the unique feature and the


strength of the country. Shepherd (2002) refers the unique features

as potential commodities of a tourism industry. Besides culture,

authenticity is another important element that has an influential role

in tourism discourse. Authenticity, according to Shepherd, involves

authentic things and places, in which he claims that it is very crucial

for authentic things to be bound up with authentic places. For

example, he argues that ‘Chinese food served by Chinese people in

a Chinese restaurant decorated to look Chinese’ is remarkably more

authentic compared to Chinese food served by non-Chinese and in

an American fast food restaurant.

4 DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF TOURISM

PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS

There are two approaches to discourse analysis, first the focus is on

the textual environment of which includes lexical, grammatical, and

rhetorical features are in the text. On the other hand, the analysis can

also concentrate on the extra-textual communicative situation (Biber

and Conrad 2003). In this study, however, we chose to employ the first

method, by which the emphasis of the discourse analysis was given

on the textual environment per se. This is to say that we did not take

other elements, which are not included in the text, into account.

Following this, we employed the linguistic analysis as

suggested by Fairclough (1995). Linguistic analysis is ‘an extended

sense to cover not only the traditional levels of analysis within

linguistics (…) but also analysis of textual organisation above the

sentence’ (Fairclough 1995: 184). Besides the linguistic level, we

also extended our analysis to the intertextual analysis, that is, to show

the ways in which ‘texts selectively draw upon orders of discourse,

… which are available to text producers and interpreters in particular

social circumstances’ (Fairclough 1995: 184).

The focus of this study was on the persuasive strategies in

the brochures of Malaysian Tourism Board. The common strategies


used in persuading tourists to visit Malaysia will be investigated using

discourse analysis method. In addition, the language varieties and

styles used in different media will also be highlighted. The aims of this

study among others include determining the tourism or commodities

highlighted by Malaysian Tourism Board (MTB), investigating the

persuasive strategies employed by MTB in promoting Malaysia and

finally analysing the ways in which the discourse is used by MTB in

portraying Malaysian identity and its uniqueness to the world.

4 FINDINGS

4.1 Persuasive Strategies of Tourism Discourse

A logo of a company plays a remarkable role in introducing the

company and portraying the identity and the brand image of the

company, or, in other words a company’s logo acts as an identification

marker to the company (Hassan 2006). Interestingly, in this study

we found that a specially designed logo for promoting Visit Malaysia

Year 2007 was displayed in all brochures produced by MTB. The logo

was extensively used in all types of materials produced by MTB, as a

significant identification marker that marks the most distinctive event

of the country, that is, in conjunction with the celebration of 50 years

of nationhood. Figure 1 illustrates the logo of Visit Malaysia Year

2007 which has been produced as a badge distributed by MTB.


Figure 1: The official logo badge of Malaysian Tourism Board

in celebrating Visit Malaysia Year 2007

The same logo has been used as car stickers (see Figure

2), and this car sticker is used to mark two events that took place

concurrently, Visit Malaysia Year 2007 and the celebration of 50

years of nationhood in Malaysia.

Figure 2: The official logo of Visit Malaysia Year 2007

introduced by Malaysian Tourism Board in conjunction

with the celebration of 50 Years of Nationhood

It is apparent that the logo constitutes of the hibiscus flower.

Hibiscus is declared to be a Malaysian national flower and it is widely

used in Malaysian tourism advertisement as a means of portraying

Malaysian identity, and simultaneously it is strongly believed to be

part of brand image building. The hibiscus in represented in five

different colours, this is to signify that Malaysia is full of colours.

This is true since one of the strategies in promoting Malaysia by

MTB is to foreground the colourful events of Malaysia. Malaysia is


remarkably a fascinating tropical country and it has therefore always

been imagined to be in bright sunny with colourful flowery shirts

roaming sandy beaches.

In addition, the use of various colours is to signify the

multiethnic nation of Malaysia. This is to say that Malaysia is

multiracial country and each race preserves their ethnic culture,

language and identity. Even though Malay is the official language,

English and the mother tongues of other races are widely used.

On top of that, due the fact that each race has their own festival

celebrations, there are therefore various colourful celebrations in

Malaysia and Tourism Malaysia clearly states on its official website

that ‘multiculturalism has not only made Malaysia a gastronomical

paradise, it has also made Malaysia home to hundreds of colourful

festivals’ (Tourism Malaysia 2008). Malaysians celebrate all types of

festivals as part of racial harmony process. The different languages

spoken by Malaysian and diverse cultures and celebrations add to

the colours of Malaysia.

The findings of this study show that there are six elements

of the tourism discourse employed by MTB and the elements are

Enticement, Places of Interest, Shopping, Dining, Entertainment and

Getting There; and each element will be discussed in turn.

4.1.1 Enticement

In the element the prospective tourists are enticed with words that

portray excitement, fascination, perfect and refreshing. This section

is placed at the very top of tourism brochures designed by MTB (see

Figures 3a and 3b).


Part of the text written in the Enticement Section (Figure 3b) is shown

in Extract 1

Extract 1:

Malaysia is an exciting destination, a beautiful nation

blessed with a fascinating diversity of cultures and natural

wonders. Explore Taman Negara, one of its world’s oldest

rainforests; feel the exhilaration of Formula One Racing;

dive into the heart of the Celebes Sea and swim among turtles;

tee-off at breathtaking fairways; or sail into the island

paradise of Langkawi.

Apparently, the words in bold indirectly signify the values

mentioned above, which are excitement, fascination, perfect and

refreshing. The words exciting destination and beautiful nation can

cause excitement in readers or prospective tourists. Readers are

believed to be fascinated by the cultural image portrayed that is a

fascinating diversity of cultures. The holidays will definitely be the

perfect one since there are various activities awaiting the tourists,

Figure 3a: The front cover of

Exciting Holiday brochure

Figure 3b: The next page of

Exciting Holiday brochure

Enticement Section


for example, exploring the world’s oldest rainforests, the feeling of

Formula One racing must be a memorable one, swimming among

turtles will surely be the most unforgettable moment and sailing into

the island paradise of Langkawi promises breathtaking and refreshing

activities.

It is crystal clear that words are carefully selected since this

has an important implication for the success of the advertisement in

creating an excitement feeling. In other words, discourse has the

potential in creating the high impact feeling that will in turn result

into actions, in which Goodwin and Spittle posit that ‘discourse is

a mode of action as well as a mode of representation… people may

act upon one another, as well as the world, by utilising discourse’

(2002: 229).

4.1.1 Places of Interest

The easiest way to loose visitor attention is to bore them with repetition

(Pearce 2004). It is therefore very crucial for the tourism advertisement

to avoid stereotype, this is, to be able to promote an endless variety

of travel packages, in so doing, tourists are offered with a variety of

experiences. Having realised the importance of diversity, Tourism

Malaysia purposely foregrounds the extreme contrast features of the

country, for instance, ranging from towering skyscrapers to humble

wooden houses built on stilts and accommodation provided ranging

from five-star hotels to ancient reefs (Tourism Malaysia 2008).

Having realised the needs to promote exciting holidays, MTB

has therefore listed numerous tourism activities that are believed to

be able to offer diverse experiences. Being able to offer distinctive

and unforgettable experiences is one of the top criteria in tourism

advertisement, as mentioned earlier, personal experience shapes and

directs tourist attention (Moscardo 1999).

Tourism destinations are being depicted as ‘the wonders of

Asia in one exciting destinations’ (Tourism Malaysia 2008). Below

are the samples of various types of destinations for prospective

tourists to explore.


The diversity of tourist attractions is also depicted through

images. Figure 4 is taken from the Exciting Holidays brochure, in

which different activities are represented by jungle trekking, kayaking,

shopping, Formula One racing and diving. This is found to be one of

the persuasive strategies of tourism discourse in promoting Malaysia

by portraying diverse tourist destinations and/or activities to suit

people of different needs or interest.

Figure 4: Diverse tourist attractions are depicted via images


Besides depicting different types of tourist attractions or

activities, MTB is also responsible to set up the brand image of the

attractions. Extract 2 below is taken from Tourism Malaysian Sarawak

brochure, of which Sarawak is rendered as ‘Land of the Hornbills’.

This slogan is functioning as the brand image of Sarawak, for instance,

many Malaysians could easily identify ‘Land of the Hornbills’ as

Sarawak, even though the word Sarawak is missing.

Extract 2

Sarawak Cultural Village - An award-winning attraction,

Sarawak Cultural Village showcases the diverse lifestyles of

the state’s ethnic groups. Visit the authentic dwellings and

view their crafts, household items and musical instruments.

The lively cultural performance is a major highlight here.

Sarawak Cultural Village is the venue of the annual Rainforest

World Music Festival.

Remarkably, the positive adjectives are extensively used in

the tourism discourse as a means of promoting tourist destinations

and this technique that is exaggerating facts, is known as intensifier

(Dyer 1982). It is clear that the words award-winning and Rainforest

World Music Festival are used to impress readers of its global

recognition. Diverse lifestyles and authentic dwellings, on the other

hand, promise the recreational experience for tourists. In addition,

two events, lively cultural performance and Rainforest World Music

Festival, have been planned for visitors’ pleasure. Similar to tourism

and environmentalist discourse (Stamous and Paraskevopoulus

2004), MTB brochures apparently display the three criteria which

are impressiveness, recreational and pleasure as a means of attracting

tourists of different interest.

4.1.3 Shopping

Most people find shopping as exciting and relaxing. These shoppers


regard shopping is part of holiday activities. It is thus very essential

for the tourism agency to consider highlighting shopping destinations

and events. Extract 3, for instance, is taken from the Tourism Kuala

Lumpur brochure that introduces the shopping centres to those who

love shopping so that they will not feel being left out.

Extract 3

KL is a veritable shopping paradise in the region with a

wide range of shopping establishments catering to every

taste and budget. A large number of upscale malls are

situated in Jalan Bukit Bintang, Jalan Ampang and Bangsar.

For bargain-hunters, Petaling Street is not-to-be-missed

shopping spot with a wide array of products and souvenirs.

If you have an eye for novelty items, visit Pasar Seni or

Central Market, a bazaar-styled arts and crafts centre. Popular

souvenirs include batik, pewterware and woodcarvings.

Apparently, similar to Extracts 1 and 2, the words used to

describe the shopping element are carefully chosen. The phrases like

veritable shopping paradise, a wide range of shopping establishments,

every taste and budget, a large number of upscale malls, bargain-

hunters, not-to-be-missed shopping spot, a wide array of products

and souvenirs, and novelty items are strongly believed to be able to

endure shoppers. Simultaneously, the phrases are to portray the wide

range of shopping facilities (from local to international level) provided

by the country and no doubt that these phrases play a significant role

in brand building.

4.1.4 Dining

Besides getting information on where to go and where to shop

via tourism brochures, prospective tourists are also equipped with

information on where and what to eat. Having realised that the

information on places to eat is extremely crucial, MTB therefore


includes the Dining section, in which necessary information pertaining

meals is provided. Extract 4 below illustrates a variety of food

available and different types of places, for example, hawker centres,

restaurants, cafes and hotels mentioned in the brochures.

Extract 4

Alternatively, you can embark on a gastronomic adventure

and sample local delicacies such as laksa Perlis, a seafood

noodle soup with rice, spicy and creamy fish gravy, ikan bakar

or spicy grilled fish and Chinese seafood steamboat. The

choice of eating places in Perlis range from hawker centres

and air-conditioned restaurants to cafes and hotels, where

western fare if also available.

The main reason for having various types of food and dining

places is that to accommodate tourists of different needs. In return

this information will be part of persuasive strategies used by MTB

in appealing tourists to Malaysia.

4.1.5 Entertainment

It was found that the same goes to the Entertainment section, by

which different types of entertainment are displayed as a means

of persuading tourists to visit Malaysia. Extract 5, for example,

highlights different entertainment modes available in the country.

Extract 5

An exciting choice of entertainment including concerts,

dramas, cultural performances as well as sports and

recreational activities are available throughout the state.

Interestingly, there are exciting choices of entertainment made

available, for example, concerts, dramas, cultural performances and

recreational activities.


4.1.6 Getting There

Flights are available from Kuala Lumpur, Kota Kinabalu

(Sabah), Miri (Sarawak) and Kuching (Sarawak) to Labuan.

Labuan is a 20-minute boat ride from Menumbok, a small

fishing town on the mainland Sabah. High-speed air-

conditioned ferries travel daily from Sabah, Sarawak and

Brunei.

4.2 Functions of Malaysian Tourism Brochures

The study found that there are three main functions of the brochures

prepared by the Malaysian Tourism Board. The functions are:

Disseminating information on the places of interests in

Malaysia

Promoting Malaysia by the following techniques:

– Foregrounding the uniqueness

– Portraying the alluring image

– Portraying cultural identities

Attracting tourists with the use of visuals such as pictures

and drawings of the places and cultural attractions of the

country

Thus the aims of Malaysian Tourism Board advertisement

among others include attracting tourists to Malaysia by foregrounding

the uniqueness and the alluring image of Malaysia, for example, a

fascinating diversity of Malaysian cultures. It is undoubtedly that in

most countries tourism has been part of ‘the most powerful agent of

economic drive’ (Irena Ateljevic and Stephen Doorne 2003: 123)


5 CONCLUSION

The findings of this study unfold the persuasive strategies used by the

Malaysian Tourism Board in promoting Malaysia. These strategies

are very useful for other small tourism industries, for example,

hotels and owners of private tourism destinations. In addition, the

findings highlight the language styles and choice of words which

are specifically used in tourism discourse such as employing certain

discourse strategies as a means of portraying self-presentation and

distancing ‘Us’ from ‘Others’. Most importantly, this study provides

a model or guidelines for advertisement purposes for other tourism

industries in helping them attract tourists.

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21Language In The Workplace: Insights Into Shared Practices In Organisations

2LANGUAGE IN THE WORKPLACE:

INSIGHTS INTO SHARED PRACTICES

IN ORGANISATIONS

HADINA HABIL SHAMEEM RAFIK-GALEA

INTRODUCTION

Organisation is a place where people work together to achieve a

common purpose. Language is used as a means of communication

where people with different skills, expectations and likings are bonded

together to meet specific communicative needs in the workplace.

The different individuals within the group often have different ways

of doing things and such situations would indirectly affect the way

these people communicate in the pursuance of their jobs. Hence, the

workplace provides a ‘common purpose’ for the different individuals

within it and language is used as means of achieving this purpose.

THE STUDY

This study focused on one premier manufacturing organisation in

Malaysia. This company manufactures, assembles and sells motor

vehicles and related products. Email communication dominates its

communications and at least half of the total communications in the

company is conducted through email.

The organisation is made up of a three-level structure: the

upper, middle, and lower level. The upper level is represented by the


upper management comprising the board of directors and the chief

executive officer (CEO) and/or chief operating officer (COO). They

are assisted by the vice presidents of divisions. The middle level is

represented by the managers or head of departments/divisions while

the lower level refers to the rank and file or the members of the

organisation who are not part of the management. The organisation

consists of a three level structure.

THE DATA

A total of 110 email messages were collected from Company A and the

messages can be further divided into sixty folders in which one folder

carries one subject. One email folder can represent a one-way email

or a chain of emails. There are thirty-one folders that characterise the

one-way email while the remaining twenty-nine folders characterise

the chain of emails. The chains of emails are labelled according to

the folder and numbered according to the sequence of interaction.

The emails collected represent both the internal and external

communication of the organisations although there were only a few

that represent external communication compared to the internal

communication. Internal communication refers to the communication

within the organisation while external communication refers to the

communication between the organisation and its external contacts

such as its clients, vendors, and suppliers. The emails also represented

the upward, downward and horizontal (or lateral) flow of information

within the organisations. The upward flow refers to the email sent to

superiors; the downward flow refers to the email sent to subordinates;

and the horizontal flow refers to the email sent to people at the same

level. This is usually denoted by people having functional authority

that is, senders and receivers of email are from the same level of

authority but they are from different departments or different areas

of expertise.


FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

1. Language style

The language style adopted in both organisations in most emails

is formal. This is because of the workplace nature of the email

communication. There are also instances of conversational and

formal/conversational style where writers combine elements of

informal/formal discourse (Rice, 1997). Gains (1999: 86) reported that

his findings identified writers using “semi-formal tone of cooperative

business colleagues”.

This point is also highlighted by Hadina and Rafik-Galea

(2002) who maintain that in the context of workplace communication,

the language style used is mostly formal although the language in

some emails carried conversational tones. This is because people

regard email communication as resembling spoken communication

because of the interactivity nature of emails and thus, writers tend to

write in the way that they speak.

As an electronic medium, email is known for its spontaneity

and speed and because of that, email offers the option of greater levels

of informality than any other forms of writing. Hence, abbreviations

are one of the features often found in email messages. The findings

of the two organisations also reported that common abbreviations are

used although the tone of the message is formal. So, the convention

of electronic medium is present even in the context of workplace

communication. Besides abbreviations, contractions, informal

spellings (thru for through, cud for could), clippings (e.g. info for

information), the use of symbols for words (‘a.m.’ for morning, ‘p.m.’

for afternoon, ‘#’ for number) were also identified in the data. The

presence of these features is also reported in Ferrara et.al’s (1991)

article.

2. Conversation structure

The conversational structure that depicts the five steps that take


place in a conversation is adapted for analysis. This is because email

communication is the closest to interpersonal communication among

all the forms of internet communication (DeVito, 1999). Furthermore,

writers of email indicate that they regard email as closely resembling

spoken interaction than written interaction. Besides, the nature of the

interactivity of email that transcend both written and spoken medium

as opposed to other traditional written medium influences the writers

of email to be more ‘informal’ or to use more spoken-like features

in their writing.

The analysis of the conversational structure of the email

messages showed that both the organisations adopt the opening-

business-closing sequence the most, followed by business only,

opening-business and business-closing sequence. The following table

summarises the findings for the two organisations.

Table 1: Summary of the conversational structure found in

email messages of Company A

1. Opening sequence

The opening sequence is characterised by mainly the use of declarative

mood or the use of statements, followed by the imperative (or

directive), interrogative and exclamative mood (refer table 2).

Conversational structure Company A

Opening-business-closing 34 (30.9%)

Business 29 (26.4%)

Opening-business 12 (10.9%)

Business-closing 12 (10.9%)


Table 2: The types of mood in the opening sequence

in emails of Company A

The reason for this is that the opening sequence signals the

starting point of the exchanges. Thus, writers will use statements to

provide an introduction, to recapture previous exchanges or provide

background information on a new topic.

The imperative mood which is realised by a directive or offer

is used in the opening sequence when the sender refers to a previous

communication. This usually takes place in a chain consisting of two

or more messages or a one-off message checking on a specific issue or

subject. This is illustrated in the following AA1 chain (email #55).

We would like to seek your cooperation to release the attached

Purchase requisition Number (PR). For your information,

the parts ordering is for Merdeka Race car preparation and

we need to replace all safety parts due to FIA standard andFIA standard and

vehicle safety requirements. (AAl#55 email)

The interrogative mood in the opening sequence is adopted

when the sender wants to confirm the information in the previous

email. This is illustrated in 12#19 when the receiver of the previous

email (J1#17/18) asks if the sender actually needs just one list. In

another mail (P2#31), the sender asks if the statement discussed in

the previous discussion is ready. For example,

Example (12#19 email): good morning! ...

Are you sure you need only packing list for LKT@61 shipment.

Declarative Imperative Interrogative Exclamation

Opening

sequence38 (76%) 6 (12%) 3 (6%) 3 (6%)


Anyway I don’t have it yet C02 other doc. prepared by motor

pool side. At the moment I what I have is the invoice!!!!! ...

Example (P2#31) email:

Bob,

Is the statement ready? I think we should list as follows:

a. amtpaid

b. amt with invoice but not paid

By the way, do you have a copy of the Agreement with Alfa?

The exclamative mood that consists of greetings and

exclamation are found in the opening sequence whereby the sender

greets everybody before giving details (T1#39 email). In addition, the

exclamation mood is used in (AI3#69 email) and (A W7#95 email)

when the senders just write a one-line message of thank you.

Example (Tl#39) email:

Good evening everybody,

Attachment below is the approved Calendar for the year

2000

Example (AI3#69) email: Thanks, Sani-san.

Example (A W7#95) email: Thanks.

2. Business sequence

DeVito (1999) describes this sequence as the substance and the focus

of a conversation. It is usually the longest part of the conversation.

This is where the gist of the information is disseminated. Hence, the

declarative mood is mostly used and this can be seen in 58.7% of the

emails. A combination of the declarative - imperative mood could


be found in 14% of the mails. The imperative mood is used in 9.8%

of the mails whereas a combination of the imperative - declarative

mood is evident in 7.6% of the mails (refer table 3).

Table 3: The mood identified in the business sequence


The declarative mood is used to inform procedure, to explain

situation, to notify company’s activities and to justify action taken

by managers, among others. As for the declarative-imperative mood,

it is used in emails where the sender explains the situation and asks

the receiver to carry out the tasks as in email n#17 (refer appendix

2A-l). In (ADl#60) email, the sender reports action taken and asks

the receiver to follow up.

Table 4: Conversational sequence of ADI#60 email.

On the other hand, the imperative mood is used in the business

Mood Declarative ImperativeDeclarative-

Imperative

Imperative-

declarativeExclamation

Frequency54 (58.7%) 9 (9.8%) 14 (14%) 7 (7.6%) 2 (2.2%)

Conversational sequence Email messages

OpeningThank you for the air-cond mix given this

morning

Business

- declarative mood

- imperative mood

However, I checked with costing/stock

section (Mr. S), some costing of the air-

cond models are not available (updated

cost).

Could you please update us the cost and

forward to Mr. S to do necessary job.


sequence of the emails to request/direct the receiver to take appropriate

action (Wl#45) email or to carry out an order (AC1#59) email.

Table 5: Conversational sequence of W1#45 email

3. Closing sequence

This is the last sequence in the conversation process according to

DeVito (1999) and it is the opposite of the opening sequence. Thus,

it usually consists of a combination of both verbal and nonverbal

elements of communication. The closing sequence signals the

intention to end the conversation and it also signals the end of

accessibility. Thus, the closing usually show some “degree of

supportiveness” (DeVito, 1999:57) in which the sender expresses

pleasure in interacting. In addition, DeVito states that the closing may

also summarise the interaction or sums up the conversation.

Conversational sequence Email messages

OpeningENCLOSED HEREWITH ARE THE FILES

FOR YOUR ATTENTION AND ACTION.

Business

- imperative mood

PLEASE CIRCULATE AMONG YOUR

STAFF WITHIN YOUR DEPARTMENT/

SECTION BY EMAIL OR HARD COPY.

- to request and direct action IF YOU UNABLE TO PRINT, PLEASE

GET A HARD COPY FROM ME.


Table 6: The mood identified in the closing sequence


The declarative mood is once again used very widely in the

closing sequence followed by the imperative and a few instances of

the imperative-declarative and interrogative moods are used.

The declarative mood in the closing sequence is used when

the sender wants to make a promise that action will be taken, to

show expectation, to express gratitude by thanking, to apologise and

to emphasise points made earlier. For example, G2#13 and 12#19

emails (refer appendix 21 and 2A-2 respectively). Meanwhile, the

imperative mood is used when the sender wants to give order or to

issue directive. It is also used to offer assistance pertaining to the

topic discussed in the mail.

Example (G2#13) emai1:

Once I have this infor I can then confirm your other details

you requested, many thanks.

SUMMARY OF ANALYSIS

The opening sequence in the emails of Company A uses the declarative

mood because the opening signals a stage of access and this is the

sequence where the writers of email provide background information

as a precursor to the business sequence. An imperative mood is usually

used in the opening sequence when the writers start immediately with

a directive and this takes place mostly when referring to previous

Mood Declarative ImperativeImperative-

declarativeInterrogative

Declarative-

Imperative

Frequency 28 (54.9%) 18 (35.3%) 2 (3.92%) 1 (1.96%) 1 (1.96%)


communication.

The business sequence is characterised by the use of the

declarative mood in more than half of the emails analysed. Since it is

the substance of the conversation, this sequence provides explanation

or details of the subject discussed in the email. The declarative-

imperative mood is used when the emails do not have a closing and

therefore, the business sequence marks the last sequence in the email.

Thus, the writers of emails use imperative mood to get the receivers

to carry out some actions.

The declarative mood is again used significantly in the closing

sequence since the closing signals the end of the conversation. In email

messages of Company A, the declarative mood is used when writers

promise action or emphasise points made earlier. The imperative

mood, on the other hand, is used when the writers are being reminded

of action to be taken or when issuing directives.

SHARED PRACTICES

An alternative way of explaining shared knowledge is by identifying

shared understanding of things and this can be traced in the referencing

practice used in email messages. There are two types of referencing:

inside the text and outside the text (McCarthy, 1991). Referring inside

the text comprises looking backward and/or forward (anaphoric

and/or cataphoric reference) while looking outward or outside the

text is called exophoric reference. McCarthy explains that exophoric

reference points to the immediate context where readers and writers

are assumed to have shared understanding of the world.

Making reference to events outside the text is known as

intertextuality. Johns (1997) states that intertextuality is a feature

that is present in almost all texts because readers and writers of texts

draw their meaning interpretation from their past experiences of all

kinds. They draw the resources from texts of the same genre as well

as from texts of different genres. Briggs and Baumann (1992) cited in


Johns (1997:36) note that “structure, form, function and meaning are

... seen as products of an ongoing process of producing and receiving

discourse”.

In addition to intertextuality, shared knowledge is also

expressed through code switching from English to BM and BM to

English. Code switching from English to BM is used when the writer

wants to rephrase or summarise what has been said earlier in BM to

facilitate accurate/better understanding. Code switching from BM

to English on the other hand, is adopted when the writer feels that

the English words or phrases can capture the meaning better than if

the words or phrases are written in BM. Besides, the English words

used are generally understood as the correct and appropriate words

to carry the intended meaning.

Values serve as guides and standards which shape any

managerial practices and they act as an informal control system that

informs employees of what is expected of them to effectively function

in the organisation. Hence, values make employees conform to the

business ideals and work to achieve the mission and vision of the

organisation. Values are not often written down but employees know

of their existence.

According to Asma (1996), common values that are inherent

in business corporations are profits, quality and excellence and those

values are embedded in corporate brochures and documents, training

programmes and other public relation activities. The values are

expressed through various symbols and rituals of the organisation.

Rituals include writing and speaking styles that members adapt in

their daily work while example of symbols include the language

and vocabulary used in communication at the workplace, ways of

addressing other members in the organisation and beliefs about the

use and the distribution of power and privileges.

The classification schemes are drawn upon the values that

accompany forces of change and they can be divided into those that are

task related, people related and values that characterise globalization

adapted from Asma (1996).

In expressing the sense of belonging, writers of email


use expressions that associate them with the activities within

the organisation, other members in the organisation or accepting

themselves as part of the organisation. For example, this is a company

event; our departmental activities; we will try to complete our tasks;

we propose for our meeting; we should feel proud of our work..

System orientation is a task related value and it is one of

the characteristics inherent in modernization. This category is

characterised by expressions such as the new junctionalities are ready

to be used, we have local stocks that we wish to use up, let’s try to

adopt the new process; we now have the opportunity to get ver 2.2

with additional enhancement.

The next category is the sense of authority. The use of

personal pronoun ‘F and ‘we’, the use of ‘Please’ + imperative,

passive constructions, performative verbs, and modal verbs portray

the authoritative tone in the force of utterances. Some examples of

the expressions are any excuses must obtain written approval, please

come prepared, please attend the meeting to discuss the urgent issue,

to name a few.

The conscious use of the expressions to get the expected

outcome shows that writers from both organisations are well-aware

of the strategies available to them if they need to get the desired

outcome.

Quality is characterised by the following values that are

present in the data: promptness, proactivity, conformity, precision,

objectivity and efficiency. There are quite a number of expressions

from both organisations that display/ portray the quality values such

as ‘we have taken a proactive action, advance notice allows sufficient

time for preparation, kindly ensure all units & documents in order

prior to vessels arrival and our requirement is minimal.

Common understanding refers to a category where writers of

emails made reference to a common knowledge among them. This

could be a reference to a common practice, previous events or an

expected action. This cross reference to another event outside the

content of the text highlights the existence of intertextuality aspect of

email communication. These include references to previous meetings,


telephone conversation or face to face meeting and discussion.

Common practice is characterised by expressions that indicates

the day to day way of doing things by members in the organisation.

For example, ‘PIs. double click file’. This expression shows that it

is understood that information can be accessed in the internet by

clicking the file attached in the message. At the same time, it is also

understood that attaching information in email messages is acceptable

and expected as it represents a faster and speedier transmission of

information. A summary of the shared practices identified is presented

in appendix 1.

The values discussed above are present in the organisations

studied and they are manifested in the text produced by members of

the organisations. Thus, text is a product of social interaction and at

the same time, text is also a process. The creation of text is a social

process in that the people involved in the interaction influence the

form and function that the text is going to assume. For example, the

role relationship assumed by both interactants will affect the choice

of language, style, the mood and the choice of words, to name a few.

The situation that gives rise to the interaction such as the urgency of

subject matter influences the construction of messages. The discourse

that takes place, that is, the interaction between text and context

is regulated by a bigger, more influential force, namely culture,

specifically organisational culture. The organisational culture of an

organisation controls the norms and behaviours of people within it.

CONCLUSION

The findings of the study indicated that language was used creatively

by the interactants and this was achieved by adopting formal and

conversational language accordingly. The emails written show a

combination of formal and informal discourse. Elements of shared

practices can also be traced and these are present in the choice of

words used that reflect the referencing practice, code switching and


values reflected in the expressions used has a few implications.

The findings also have implications for the Language for

Specific Purposes (LSP) classroom depicted as follows:

Understanding organisational culture and structure is a

valuable start to any LSP courses because culture and

structure determines/influences communicative practices in

the organisation. Thus, the communicative practices could be

identified and taught in the classroom.

Understanding the conversational structure of email helps to

familiarise students with the genre of the written documents

in the workplace. So students are taught what they need to

know about their intended discourse community.

Understanding the linguistic features of email - how certain

features highlight shared practices in terms of shared

understanding of how things are communicated such as

referencing practice - intertextuality, anaphoric & cataphoric

references; code-switching; the moods in terms of the speech

acts theory - declarative, imperative, interrogative etc. - could

prepare students linguistically for the workplace.

Understanding values of organisations through various

symbols and rituals - ways of speaking & writing, for

example ways of addressing (dear.., name only, nickname),

and politeness among other things creates awareness among

students about the need to be aware of the culture of the place

they are going to work.

In developing courses such as ESBP (English for Specific

Business Purposes), attention must be given to features

which strongly indicate shared practices in organisational

email communication. In addition, contrasting features of

shared practices in the cross cultural context should also be

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.


highlighted

REFERENCE

Asma Abdullah. 1996. Going glocal. Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian

Institute of Management.

Briggs, c., and Baumann, R., 1992. Genre, intertextuality, and

social power. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 2: 131-

172.

DeVito, 1.,1999. Essentials of Human Communication 3rd

Edition, New York: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. -.

Ferrara, K., Brunner, H., and Whittemore, G., 1991, Interactive

written discourse as an emergent register. Written

Communication 8(1): 8-34.

Gains, 1. 1999. Electronic Mail-A New Style of Communication or

Just a New Medium: An Investigation into the Text Features

of E-mail. Englishfor Specific Purposes. Vol. 18, No.1: 81-

101.

Hadina, H., and Rafik-Galea, S., 2002. The Dynamics of Electronic

Mail as a Communication Medium. Paper presented at the IT

& Universities in Asia 2002 International Conference, 3-5

April, 2002. Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand.

Johns, A.M. 1997. Text, Role and Context. Cambridge, U.K.:


McCarthy, MJ., 1991. Discourse Analysisfor Language

Teachers. Cambridge:


Rice, R.P. 1997. An Analysis of Stylistic Variables in

Electronic Mail. Journal of Business and Technical

Communication. 11/1.


Appendix 1

Shared practices

Referencing practice - inside the text & outside the text

(mccarthy, 1991)

Code switching - to rephrase or summarise to facilitate better

understanding of subject

Values reflected in expressions used

1. Sense of belonging

THIS IS A COMPANY EVENT; OUR DEPARTMENTAL

ACTIVITIES; WE WILL TRY TO COMPLETE OUR

TASKS; WE PROPOSE FOR OUR MEETING ... ; WE

SHOULD FEEL PROUD OF OUR WORK

2. System orientation

TASK RELATED VALUE - THE NEW FUNCTIONALITIES

ARE READY TO BE USED; WE HA VE LOCAL STOCKS

THAT WE WISH TO USE UP; LET’S TRY TO ADOPT THE

NEW PROCESS;

3. Sense of authority

The use of power markers - ‘please’ + imperative; the use of

personal pronouns

‘i’, ‘we’;

Passive constructions

‘any excuses must obtain written approval; please

come prepared; please attend the meeting to discuss


the urgent issue’

4. Quality

Promptness, pro activity, conformity, precision, objectivity and

efficiency

‘WE HAVE TAKEN A PROACTIVE ACTION;

ADVANCE NOTICE ALLOWS SUFFICIENT TIME

FOR PREPARATION, KINDLY ENSURE ALL UNITS

& DOCUMENTS IN ORDER PRIOR TO VESSELS

ARRIVAL..’

39Semiotic Analysis: Compositional Meanings of Corporate Web Pages

3SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS:

COMPOSITIONAL MEANINGS OF

CORPORATE WEB PAGES

HANITA HASSANTHEO VAN LEEUWEN

3.1 INTRODUCTION

Web page layouts are fascinating because there are different kinds of

elements loaded on a single page. The arrangement of the elements

therefore plays an important role in the effective delivery of the

intended message to Web readers. Web readers, unfortunately, rarely

take notice of the layout and the arrangements of the elements on Web

pages, until it is time for them to write a Web page themselves. This

suggests that a Web page is usually written using common features

and organisation, and is based on copying others. The aim of this

paper is therefore to unfold the potential meanings of the Web page

designs, which are derived from their composition.

In analyzing multimodal texts, that is, the texts that have a

multiplicity of semiotic modes of which language may be one (Kress

2001), one might want to consider using semiotics. Even though

multimodal texts are commonly encountered everywhere at all times,

not many analysts are familiar with semiotics. Semiotics does not

only focus on language per se (even though language is the dominant

mode), but on other modes as well, for example, visual images and

sound. Hence, semiotics fits the multimodal text analysis very well.

Semiotics, as described by its founder Ferdinand de Saussure, is ‘a

science that studies the life of signs within society’ (1916) and a sign


is derived from two concepts: signifier and signified. The signifier

is said to have a potential meaning but not an actual meaning, while

the signified is the meaning which the signifier refers to.

Peirce (1985), who is the co-founder of semiotics, classified

signs into three major types: icon, index, and symbol. An icon is a

sign that refers to a direct or photographic representation, in other

words, the depicted object and its representation look alike. An Index,

on the other hand, is a sign which had some common quality with the

intended signified, for example, the Eiffel Tower is the index of Paris

(Dyer 1982). In symbols, the relation between signifier and signified

is arbitrary, in which the meaning, according to Peirce (1985), is

derived by ‘the virtue of law’. The examples of symbols given by

Dyer (1982), include a rose as a symbol for love or passion, and a

pair of scales as a symbol for justice.

The recent semiotic approach, which is known as ‘visual

grammar’, is introduced by Kress and Van Leeuwen (1996). Following

Halliday’s metafunctional theory (1994), ‘visual grammar’ is divided

into three elements: Representation, Process and Composition (Kress

and Van Leeuwen 1996; 2002). Representation which resembles

ideational can either be people, places or things. Processes, on the

other hand, are divided into two types: conceptual and narrative.

Conceptual process, borrowing from Halliday’s notion on transitivity

(1994), is the attributive process, i.e. the ‘process of being’, while the

narrative proves is the material process: the ‘process of happening or

doing’ (Halliday 1994; Kress and Van Leeuwen 1996). Composition,

an analogy to textual metafunction, comprises three crucial criteria

such as Information value, Salience and Framing. Composition,

as a whole, is the means by which ‘elements are integrated into

a meaningful whole’ (Kress and Van Leeuwen 1996: 181). The

discussion of this paper is however limited to the third element of

semiotics, that is, composition.


3.2 COMPOSITION

Composition is one of the visual grammar resources introduced by

Kress and Van Leeuwen (1996) to realize textual meanings using three

interrelated systems: information value, salience and framing.

3.2.1 Information Value

According to Kress and Van Leeuwen (1996: 183), information value

is looking at ‘the specific informational values attached to the various

zones’. Each ‘zone’, in other words, carries its own specific value or

significant meaning. Three kinds of positions have meanings: left or

right; top or bottom: centre or margin. We will discuss each position

in turn.

The first position is left or right. Following Halliday’s

Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) (1985/94), Kress and Van

Leeuwen (1996; 1998), in visual grammar, suggest that items on

the left are presented as Given while items on the right are New.

Given means something that viewers already know, and New, on the

other hand, means that the item is important and not yet known, ‘to

which the viewer must pay special attention’ (1996: 187). Semiotics

is believed to apply the notion of linguistics to the non-linguistic

interpretation (Kress and Van Leeuwen 1996; Berger 1998; Jewitt

and Oyama 2001).

Beside Given and New, elements can also be arranged ‘along

the vertical axis’ (Kress and Van Leeuwen 1996: 193), in which the

elements can be placed at the top or at the bottom. The elements

at the top simple connote Ideal, and on the other hand, elements at

the bottom connote Real. Kress and van Leeuwen propose that ‘for

something to be Ideal means that it is presented as the idealised or

generalised essence of the information’, while Real is said to present

‘more specific information … or more practical information’ (1996:

193), with which the details are added to the message.

The third, and final, position is the distinction between

centre and margin. Elements in the centre are commonly considered


as salient, in which they function as ‘the nucleus of the information’

(Kress and van Leeuwen 1996) and keep other elements together.

Elements in the margin, which are pulled together by the central

elements, are usually identical or belong to the same category.

3.2.2 Salience

Salience, as defined by Kress and van Leeywen, creates ‘a hierarchy

of importance among the elements, selecting some as more important,

more worthy of attention than others’ (1996: 212) no matter where the

placements are. There are many possible ways to highlight salience,

as suggested by Kress and van Leeuwen (1996; 1998), the ways are

through the use of colours (for instance, colour contrast and tonal

contrast), different kinds of perspective (for instance, either in the

foreground or background and an item on the right is more likely to

gain attention than one on the left), different in sharpness, and size

(the bigger the size the more salient it is, for instance).

What remains obscure is the degree of salience, because

‘salience is not objectively measurable’ (Kress and van Leeuwen

1998: 200). There is no definite yardstick to measure the degree of

salience. It is indeed very subjective to say that one element is more

salient than the other. The degree of salience however depends on the

reader, in which the important elements to readers might differ from

one reader to another. Measuring the value of salience is therefore

intuitive work.

3.2.3 Framing

The use of framing is either to connect or disconnect elements by

framelines or dividing lines, and ‘the stronger the framing of an

element, the more it is presented as a separate unit of information’

(Kress and van Leeuwen 1996: 214). The weak frameline, on the

other hand, is used to signal continuity from one element to another,

or in other words, the elements are presented as belonging to the

same entity.


Like salience, there are several methods for the realisation of

framing. Some of the techniques used are strong or weak framelines,

discontinuities of colour or shape and empty space between elements

(Kress and Van Leeuwen 1996; 1998).

3.3 COMPOSITION ANALYSIS

In this study, that is, to investigate the generic structure of corporate

Web pages, we started off with composition analysis. The purpose

of this analysis was twofold: first, to identify the verbal and non-

verbal elements found in the corporate Web pages and secondly, to

determine the placements of the elements and their meanings. The

data for this study were taken from a wide-ranging multinational

worldwide Corporate Web pages: corporate homepages and Web

pages titles ‘About Us’ or ‘Our Company’. The aim of these Web

pages, in general, is to introduce the corporations to Web readers and

they are functioning as self-presentation, by which the companies

attempting to present themselves in a most appealing manner.

All elements, either verbal or non-verbal, found in the web

pages were analysed based on three crucial elements of composition:

informational value, salience and framing (Kress and Van Leeuwen

1996; 11998). The purpose was to determine the placements, the

function(s) and the meaning(s) of the elements. Firstly, all elements

found were listed and their placements were then carefully noted.

Using composition analysis, as introduced by Kress and Van

Leeuwen (1996), the meaning of the placement for each element

was then determined, and the analysis then proceeded to identifying

salient elements and ways in which the elements are made salient,

for example, by the choice of colour schemes, images, typography,

size and/or framing. The last step of the analysis was investigating

the styles of framing and how framing is used to separate different

sets of elements found in a single page.


3.4 THEMEANINGSOFCOMPOSITIONOFCORPORATE

WEB PAGES

3.4.1 Information Value

The findings show that logo is always placed on the left to represent

given. Readers are likely to already be familiar with the corporate logo

and it is assumed that the logo does not contain any new information

and it is thus placed on the left to signify Given. The logo, following

Peirce (1985), is a symbolic representation of a corporation and is

commonly used in advertising as a corporate identification marker

(Goddard 1998). It is, in other words, a form of identity, which is

a tool for consumers or readers to recognize the corporation. Thus,

the logo comes first, at the top and in the left right hand corner, to

indicate the Web page belongs to the corporation.

However, in some cases, the logo can also appear in the right

to mean New. For instance, on the Yamaha homepage (Figure 1), there

is a repeated logo on the right. Interestingly, the repeated logo on the

right comes with its vision-statement ‘Creating Kando Together’ at the

bottom. Presumably, the new element here is the vision that Yamaha

Corporation would like to share with its readers or customers.

Figure 3.1 The Yamaha Homepage


Elements that usually (but not always) appear on the right

and represent New are images and verbal texts. Besides signifying

new elements, the right position also signifies the importance of

the elements. The images of different types of products of musical

instruments, for example, are found on the right hand side of Yamaha

Web page (Figure 3.1). Even though we personally feel that the

products are not new (in other words, readers could easily identify

or recognize them), the products might be new versions or new

model from Yamaha that readers are not familiar with and need to

be introduced.

The images and verbal texts, however, can also appear on the

left, to represent Given. This kind of composition apparently signifies

different kinds of meaning. For instance, the Toyota Web page (Figure

3.2) has images and a verbal text on the left. The reason for the

images and the verbal texts being placed on the left Given, maybe

Toyota Corporation believes these two elements do not constitute any

new information. The function of these elements is thus restricted to

reminding readers of what Toyota is. The meaning of this composition

however coincides with the meaning of its verbal text that starts off

with the sentence ‘You probably already know our vehicles’.

Figure 3.2 The Toyota Web page titled ‘About Us’


It is worth noting that a remarkable feature of corporate Web

pages is non-fixed placement, or to put it another way, the elements

found in the Web pages and homepages are mobile. The elements

can either be on the right or on the left. This is perhaps due to non-

standardisation of Web page design or the flexibility practiced by

Web designers.

In the second position, that is, vertical arrangement, elements

at the top simply connote Ideal while elements at the bottom connote

Real. An example of this kind of arrangement is Mercedes-Benz Web

page (Figure 3.3). On this page, the image of Daimler Chrysler’s

building is placed at the top to represent Ideal. The image of the

building, which is taken from below, signifies the power that the

corporation has over its readers. It could also connote that the

corporation is a powerful company and thus the products are of high

quality. The meaning is thus ideal and is meant to be persuasive. The

verbal text, with the title ‘Mercedes-Benz-the Brand’, is placed at the

bottom to signify Real. Both the verbal text and the image portray the

same meaning, and simultaneously, the placements of both elements

can also be construed in the same way. The text aims to inform readers

about who they are and what they do that makes them powerful.

The discussion will now turn to the third position, that is,

Centre and Margin. The Yamaha Web page (Figure 3.1), for example,

Figure 3.3 The Mercedes Web page titled ‘About Us’


has its logo in the centre and surrounded by the images of its products

(that fall into the same category), that form a circular margin on

the right of the page. This apparently signifies that the Yamaha

Corporation is the nucleus, pulling its product together. The ultimate

meaning to be interpreted from the visual image and its arrangement

is that the products are all from Yamaha Corporation.

3.4.2 Salience

One way of making an element salient is to have the right placement,

most likely in the centre, although it is not always the case. The image

of a car from Toyota that is claimed to have won an award is placed

in the centre of the Toyota homepage (Figure 3.4). Additionally, the

size of the image is enlarged and it takes up the biggest space of all

to make it profound. The main purpose is apparently to capture the

reader’s attention and to signify its salience (Goddard 1998). By

carefully selecting an eye catching image to be placed in the centre

and to make it profound suggests that the company believes that it

is important to highlight their award-winning vehicle to increase

confidence in their products and eventually increase their sales.

Figure 3.4 The Toyota Homepage with an Enlarged Image

in the Centre of the Web page to Signify Salience


It was found that colours play a crucial role in the Web

page layout. Colours are carefully selected to portray meaning,

however, as mentioned previously, the interpretation of colours is not

straightforward. The meaning can be direct and apparent, however,

it can also be ‘idiosyncratic, unpredictable and anarchic’ (Kress and

van Leeuwen 2002: 343). A lot of factors, such as culture, must be

taken into consideration when interpreting the meanings of colours.

The significant colour schemes used for background, typology or

frame-lines are remarkably meant for ‘identification’. The colour

schemes used are commonly the trademarks of corporations, with

which the same colours also being used in offline media like corporate

brochures, packaging boxes, television adverts, newspapers and so

forth. Figure 3.5 illustrates how the corporate colours are used for

identification. Readers who are familiar with IBM Corporation would

not find it difficult to identify that the Web page belongs to IBM’s

site. The blue background colour, on the left column, and the mixture

of different kinds of blue and black as framelines are the trademark

colours of IBM. Colour schemes can therefore be used to signal

‘corporate unique indentities’ (Kress and van Leeuwen 2002: 347).

Figure 3.5 A Web page, taken from IBM Web site, with which

corporate colour schemes are used for background and framelines


Besides that, distinct colours are frequently used to distinguish

link buttons or to form the foreground of certain link buttons so as

to mark their salience. Examples of distinctive coloured link buttons

are found on the Mercedes-Benz Web page (see Figure 3.3), with

which blue is the colour for the dialogue button and orange is used

for the help button. The use of distinct colours for these buttons is to

make them stand out and thus to signify that they are salient. Readers

are thus made aware of the useful and important button links. The

importance of colours might be taken lightly by readers (but absolutely

not from the point of the production), ‘even though it is, undoubtedly,

a very important resource of visual communication’ (Kress and Van

Leeuwen 2002: 347).

Interestingly, some verbal texts are written in different colours,

bold and/or underlined. These three features are used to signify the

salience of the texts and/or to signify that they are links provided

to other linked Web pages (Crystal 2001). For example, the Toyota

Web page (Figure 3.4) and IBM Web page (Figure 3.5) above have

words underlined and written in distinct colours to signify salience

and/or they are the links provided. This type of typographic feature

guides readers to skim for gist and eventually assists them in their

navigation.

As mentioned earlier, it is not viable to measure the degree of

salience however the salient element can be noted from the production

point of view. The Web provider will use different methods, as

discussed above, to signify salience. There is a common agreement

between readers and designers that these specific features are the

indications of salience, for example, in spoken language the ‘stress;

used in a word is the marker for its salience. Likewise, Web readers can

easily sense the existence of salient elements because these elements

are made stand out via many ways, for example, the use of colours,

images, movement, flashing and graphics (Kress and Van Leeuwen

1998; Crystal 2001). Our argument, however, is that the degree of

salience depends on readers, it is entirely up to them to decide which

is important by knowing what their needs are. This is from the reader’s

point of view, but from the production point of view, the degree of


salience is definite and the Web providers aim to create an awareness

of salient elements. Salience is therefore signaled by ‘user’s interest

and the designer’s skill’ (Crystal 2001: 196).

3.4.3 Framing

Remarkably, strong framing is not widely used in the Web page layout.

This suggests that different kinds of information given in different

sections are interrelated. Weak framing, in the form of thin lines

and different background colours, is commonly used to separate the

different sections but not the message.

Thick framelines or string framing, if used, have three different

purposes. Firstly, they serve to disconnect images from a text or other

elements (Toyota and Mercedes-Benz Web pages, for instance).

Besides separating the images from other elements, the second aim

is to indicate that the images are the salience. The readers’ attention

is therefore geared towards the salient images, which are placed in a

very noticeable frame. Secondly, thick framelines are used to separate

one set of links from another. Ford Motor Company homepage, for

instance, has three different sets of links titles “Our Vehicles”, “Our

Services” and “Our Company”. Each title is superimposed on a very

thick frameline, and placed in the centre on the page. These thick

framelines are used to separate the three sets of links but not to indicate

that they are of different entities, in other words, even though they

are separated, all three sets of link are interrelated.

3.4 CONCLUSION

Most importantly, unlike other media, Web page designs are not bound

by rules. There are lots of possibilities or different ways how a web

page can be designed. Flexibility and lack of rigidity in designing a

Web page (for example, choice of elements and placements) result

in wide variations in Web page designs. The placement of corporate


logo is one example, even though it is always at the top on the left

hand side, the logo can also appear on the right. However, the logo

will less likely appear at the bottom, unlike some printed adverts, in

which the logo is found to be on the bottom right.

Web designers are responsible for directing readers’ attention

to the salient elements. In doing so, several methods (for example,

the use of distinct colour as background, thick framelines, and eye-

catching images) are employed by Web designers to signal salience.

Background colour and thick framelines are also part of framing

methods. Framing plays an important role due to heavy loaded

elements on a Web page. The framing is used to separate different

sets of elements (which are usually set of links), but not to signify

that the elements are of different entities.

REFERENCES

Berger, A.A. 1998. Media Analysis Techniques (2nd Edition).

London: Sage.

Crystal, D. 2001. Language and the Internet. Cambridge:


Figure 3.6 The New Modified Version of Yamaha Global Homepage.


De Saussure, F. 1966. Course in General Linguistics. New York:

McGraw-Hill.

Dyer, G. 1982. Advertising as Communication. London:

Routledge.

Goddard, A. 1998. The Language of Advertising: Written Texts.

London: Routledge.

Halliday, M.A.K. 1994 [1985]. An Introduction to Functional

Grammar (2nd Edition). London: Arnold.

Jewitt, C. and Oyama, R. 2001. Visual Meaning: a Social Semiotic

Approach. In van Leeuwen, T. and Jewitt, C. (eds.).

Handbook of Visual Analysis. London: Sage. Pp. 134-156.

Kress, G. 2001. Sociolinguistics and Social Semiotics. In Cobley,

P. (ed.). Semiotics and Linguistics. London: Routledge. Pp.

66-82.

Kress, G. and van Leeuwen, T. 1996. Reading Images: The Grammar

of Visual Design. London: Routledge.

Kress, G. and van Leeuwen, T. 1998. Front Pages: (The Critical)

Analysis of Newspaper Layout. In Bell, A. and Garrett, P.

(eds.). Approaches to Media Discourse. Oxford: Blackwell.

Pp. 186-219.

Kress, G. and van Leeuwen, T. 2002. Colour as a Semiotic Mode:

Notes for a Grammar of Colour. Visual Communication.

Vol. 1(3). London: Sage. Pp. 343-368.

Peirce, C.S. 1985. Logic as Semiotic: The Theory of Signs. In

Innis, R.E. (ed.). Semiotics: An Introductory Anthology.

Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Pp. 4-23.

53Advice Giving In A Health Emergency: A Case Study of the SARS Webpage

4ADVICE GIVING IN A

HEALTH EMERGENCY:

A CASE STUDY OF THE

SARS WEBPAGE

NOOR AIREEN IBRAHIM

1 INTRODUCTION

In the midst of the internet boom, there has been a growing interest

in the use of the information communication technology (ICT) for

the advancement of health. This led to IHC or ‘interactive health

communication

‘the interaction of an individual – consumer, patient, caregiver

or professional with or through an electronic or communication

technology devise to access or transmit health information, or to

receive or provide guidance and support on health-related issue’.

There is no denying the continued dramatic growth of the

internet for health-related purposes. The general use of e-health sites

grew 176% in 1999 much faster than the growth in general internet

usage (Media Matrix 2000). Given the popularity and the relative

infancy of the e-health technology, it is vital to ensure that the quality,

effectiveness, affordability and accessibility of the e-health sites will

have a positive impact on both the individual and public as a whole.

The global outbreak of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome

(SARS) in 2003 provided an opportunity to study how e-health sites

offer advice and information during a global health emergency. Thus,

this study focuses on health webpages from three countries: China,

Singapore and Canada which were worst hit by the disease.


Advice giving has always been a central part of various health

and medical settings. There is also ample evidence from previous

research to show the problematic nature of offering and managing

advice. The many implications of advice giving are at the heart of this

even more problematic when dealing with a disease like SARS. This

disease threatens not only the health and well being of people but also

the economic and social stability of the nation. The speed in which the

disease had spread as well as the rapid rise in the death tolls posed a

serious threat to a possibility of a global epidemic (CSR/WHO 2003).

Such serious threats to the global public health makes it even more

crucial for health professionals to provide information and advice to

the public in order to reassure people that something is being done

and can be done to control the situation.

2.0 THE SARS OUTBREAK: A BRIEF OVERVIEW

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), “SARS is the

21st century” (CSR/WHO 2003:1) which has caught the attention of

occurred in the Guangdong Province of China in mid November 2002.

Health on 11 February 2003. At that time, the outbreak had affected

out of the Guangdong province by an infected doctor who had been

treating patients with SARS at his hometown. The doctor travelled

to Hong Kong and brought the SARS virus to the 4 star hotel he was

staying at that time. Through the guests and visitors at the hotel, the

SARS virus travelled to the hospital system in Hong Kong, Vietnam,

and Singapore. As the infected hotel guests and visitors travelled

to other parts of the world, the SARS virus began spreading along

international air travel routes. Singapore for example had to deploy


military forces to assist in contact tracing and to enforce quarantine

measures.

On March 12, 2003, the World Health Organisation (WHO)

March where the level of the previous alert was increased with a

rare emergency travel advisory to international travellers, health

care professionals and authorities. In April 2003, WHO formally

launched the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN)

to establish in real time the 112 existing networks to gather data,

expertise and skills needed to seal off any opportunity for SARS to

establish an endemic status. Countries which were seriously hit by

SARS were under pressure to provide swift and necessary response to

combat SARS for health as well as economic reasons. One of the many

responses taken by the affected governments, ministries of health and

it to rapidly disseminate information, health warnings and advice

Pub Med lists 881 articles containing the search words “severe acute

respiratory syndrome” or “SARS” while search via the search engine

Google produced 358000 pages. (Eysenbach 2003).

2.0 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

SARS outbreak have demonstrated another capability of e-health in

the three issues related to telehealth application as outlined by Ratzan

(1994) which is the role in the prevention of a global epidemic. The

internet played a pivotal role not only in providing information but in

fostering the global collaboration to stamp out possibility of further

spread of the disease. Thus, researchers and health professionals

must study the impact and application of e-health on epidemiological

issue for example detection and prevention of a disease. The SARS

outbreak provides an opportunity for such study.


In line with the above, one of the aims set out by this study

is to be able to contribute an understanding of the complexities of

e-health. Realising the potential of the internet in disseminating

widespread information with incomparable speed and currency, it

is then important to seek to understand how health information and

advice is designed and structured during a health emergency and

widespread anxiety at a global level. Although the threat of SARS

has passed, critical questions must still be asked in preparation for

the possibility of another future public health emergency. Hence, this

study will address the following questions:

What advice is available on SARS in the health webpages

from China, Singapore and Canada?

Is there a difference between advice offered in these three

webpages, and if so, what are the similarities and differences?

3.0 CONCEPTUAL ISSUES: ACHIEVING

INTEGRATION

Advice and information giving in the e-health webpages like advice

giving in any other setting, for example in the typical clinical /

medical encounters, counselling sessions or during home visits can

be problematic. People who provide advice have always been seen

as the “expert” and the recipient of the advice see themselves as

being under the focus of evaluation, judgement and scrutiny. The

many implications carried by advice and information giving and

reception are at the heart of the dilemma experienced by health

professionals when faced with this issue. However, the research by

Celio et al. (2000) demonstrated that the acceptance of online help,

face meeting in their comparative study of an internet and classroom

delivered information regarding eating disorders. Important issues

involved in face to face interaction such as issues related to eliciting

client’s acknowledgement and acknowledgement tokens from client


are among the issues which may all contribute a great deal in other

Kinnell & Maynard 1996, Silverman 1997) but do not surface as

issues in this study. However, issues related to advice and information

giving in the context of e-health is an important area of research as

consumer use of the internet for health information continues to grow

with more than 70 000 websites providing health related information

and advice (Cline & Haynes 2000).

There is still limited literature on qualitative web based

Previous web based research (e.g. Baehring et al. 1997, Grunwald

& Busse 2003) have predominantly employed quantitative research

methods where respondents for the study answer online questionnaires

or email questionnaires sent to them. However, many e-health

researches (e.g. Pandey et al. 2003, Rozmovits & Ziebland 2003)

supplement their quantitative analysis with some form of qualitative

issues of advice and information giving and secondly is by integrating

theoretical methods of discourse analysis and the communication

perspective into the web based research to provide a robust analysis

and clearer understanding of the data.

4 ANALYTICAL TOOLS AND CODING

PROCEDURES

Trying to differentiate between advice and information giving has

always posed problems to previous researchers. In order to overcome

or forwards a preferred course of action” (pg. 368). Based on this


which do not were classified as information. For example the

indicates deleted text]:

The main clinical symptoms are fever, headache,

cases (…) (China/lines5-7)

spread to other countries

(Canada/lines10-11)

While the following statements were coded as advice:

Give accurate information to your doctor regarding

your recent travel and contact…

(Singapore/lines60-63)

Balance your diet, wear proper clothes according

to climate change, do exercise regularly (…)

(China/lines27-28)

From this categorisation, the two different categories of

users or recipients of advice emerged from the data. This observation

formed the basis for categorising the advice as follows:

Advice 1: Advice for the Low Risk Group (AD1/LRG)

Advice 2: Advice for the High Risk Group (AD2/ HRG)

For ease of reference, the following types of advice will be

examples of these two different types of advice found in the data

sites:


Seek immediate medical advice if you feel you have

5.0 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

characteristics of this type of advice lies in who is the targeted advice

recipient: the low risk group or the general public. The advice given

includes preventive measures that may be taken by this target group.

the

and the generic form of advice.

proximal or directly related to the disease. Advice that fall under this

category includes the following coded example:

Know the SARS symptoms…

Monitor your temperature daily


distal advice or advice which is not directly related to the prevention

or treatment of the disease. Instead the advice offered is more about

improving an individual’s overall or general health. The most common

advice under the generic sub-category is those which promote or

advocate basic personal hygiene practices. For example:

Wash your hand after sneezing and coughing

Use clean towels and paper to dry your hands


(China/lines24-25)

(Singapore/lines66, 78)

There is also advice on how to improve health and cleanliness

in general, for example:

Reduce your pressure and quit smoking

in (China/lines29-30)

Drink plenty of water

Exercise regularly, at least 20 minutes, 3 to 5 times every

week (Singapore/lines71-74)

The following table illustrates the typology of the sub-

categories of the advice directed at the low risk groups across the

three data.

Table 1 Sub-categories of the AD1/LRG

From the table above, one of the most interesting features of

or advice for the low risk group is found in all three data sites, the

China Singapore Canada Total lines

0 12 2 14Generic 9 16 2 27

Total lines 9 28 4 41


quantity in terms of the number of lines and the types of subcategories

the Chinese webpage only offer the generic subcategory of the

Extending on the previous point, the generic subcategory of

some extent in the Singapore data as opposed to the Canadian data.

It is also important to note that not only does the generic subcategory

Singapore data, the advice offered are also quite detailed. A clear

example of this detail can be found below:

Wash Your Hands

Regularly and thoroughly with soap and water

Before and after preparing food

After going to the toilet

Before and after eating

After coughing or sneezing (Singapore/lines65-70)

to hand washing and how the list of advice outlines the detail of when

hand washing should take place. A possible explanation to explain

this may be found in the data source themselves. This may actually

be an example of how cultural differences between developing and

practices such as basic personal hygiene practices for example the

‘how’ and ‘when’ of hand washing as still necessary and important

health advice to be given to the public. In comparison, such advice


is taken for granted in developed countries such as Canada and

webpage developers/ health professionals assume that such basic

advice concerning personal hygiene is no longer required or is no

longer a priority in public health promotion.

Having discussed in detail the characteristics and topology of

low risk group during the SARS outbreak. The section that follows

will offer some possible explanations as to why this is the case.

SARS: a critical moment for offering the AD1/LRG advice

Perhaps the most plausible explanation as to why more generic advice

may come from the sheer fear and panic generated by the SARS

outbreak. This feeling of fear and panic created by SARS fostered an

overwhelming sense of apprehension and concern in people for their

health and well-being. For the health professionals, this is seen as a

critical moment for advice giving. Pandey et al. (2003) have already

demonstrated in their study that because the internet has become an

integral part of the people’s daily lives, the need to stay healthy will

drive people especially women to turn to the internet to search for

health information. In short, with the undivided attention and the

overwhelming concern of the majority of people focused on their own

health and well-being brought about by the SARS outbreak, health

professionals see it as a critical moment for disseminating advice on

how to improve health in general. The SARS outbreak had created a

suitable and conducive period to offer health advice, whatever that

advice may be.

Silverman 1997) have shown that there is a relationship between

advice given at the most favourable environment with the uptake of

advice. These researches have shown how the favourable environment

can be “created” through the establishment of an agreed problem


Such favourable environment cannot be created in a web page

and need not be created in the case of SARS. Here, the favourable

environment lies in the timing of the advice giving and this “timing”

is already created by the very nature of the disease. According to

crucial information on disease prevention and risk factors from the

internet. Patients view such information as crucial knowledge that

can help save the eventual cost of treatment. In the case of SARS,

such knowledge becomes even more crucial and goes beyond

risk factors were regarded as knowledge that could save them from

a life threatening and fatal disease. Hence, the poorly understood and

highly dangerous nature of SARS created fear and panic in people

that they welcome advice and to a certain extent any advice from the

health professionals on ways to protect themselves from SARS.

Even more interesting would be to consider the reason why

generic or distal advice was so commonly offered. An obvious reason

for this phenomenon.

AD1/LRG advice: a strategy to control an epidemic of fear

The prevalence of the generic advice offered and the length and

detail of the advice given may be seen as the manifestation of the

way health professionals carry out their responsibility in the face of

a health emergency. With all eyes and focus turned on the medical

and health professionals, they face mounting pressure to inject a sense

of control over a health emergency which seems to be getting out of

control (Brashers, 2001). This pressure increased as the panic and

fear for SARS has spread faster than the virus, causing great social

unease, economic losses, and some political changes.” As the SARS

epidemic grew so did the epidemic of fear. This sense of fear is also


implicated in the data sites. For example:

(Canada/line67)

improvise a strategy to control both the disease and the fear it caused.

offered is framed as a defence against SARS. People now believe that

they have a sense of control over this dangerous disease by practising

basic and simple cleanliness routine. The advice offered to the low risk

group gave the general public a line of defence that they themselves

could put up against SARS without visiting the hospital or clinic.

(a term borrowed from Brashers 2001) to the hospital which were

already under considerable strain for caring for SARS patients who

required special care (CSR/WHO2003). Thus, the health professionals

hands of lay people through basic and simple health practices. This

helps to empower the users and is inline with the research by Reeves

(2000) who investigated how HIV positive patients used the internet

“internet use promotes empowerment, augment social support and

facilitate helping others” (pg.51). This can also be seen as transferring

the problem of dealing with the disease from the hands’ of health

professionals into the hands of the lay people. The second is to

alleviate some of the strain health professionals have in dealing with

the worried-wells. The third is by advocating and promoting trivial

and simple advice to combat the disease, the health professionals are

able to down play the whole global epidemic that is being portrayed

in the media and covered by the newspaper across the globe. This is

clearly illustrated in the following news headlines:

WHO fear epidemic may recur at the end of year


(Straits Times 2003)

Drug companies say SARS vaccine may take at least 5 years

to produce (Channel News Asia 2003)

By framing trivial and simple advice as a way to combat

the SARS disease helps to trivialise and downgrade it. The health

professionals seem to be reassuring the public that this is a disease,

which does not require major surgery, a course of antibiotics intake or

a series of scheduled injections to be prevented. Instead the widespread

be fought if only all of us would practice and exercise basic hygiene

practices.

Apart from the obvious health threat, there is also mounting

anxiety and concern regarding the social and economic consequences

of the disease. The overview of the SARS outbreak explored in

Section 2 highlights how for various reasons, the respond to SARS

became a government responsibility sparked by health and economic

reasons. Health-wise, the potential threat of SARS became a priority

at both the national and global level. Government of countries

SARS at the national level while WHO took on the leadership at the

international level. The implication that a sense of national and global

the data sites analysed by this research and will be the focus of the

following discussion.

the nation’s war

which provides a unique illustration of how in the face of such a

and governments of countries that were seriously hit by SARS were

making an appeal for unity through an appeal to people’s sense of


in the health webpages analysed in this research. The advice seems to

advocate not only personal responsible for their own health but also to

show concern and responsibility towards the health of others around

them. In other words, it was an appeal to people’s social responsibility

to stand together in the battle against SARS. This is also in agreement

Project, 2000) on how consumers use the internet to improve their

consumers or users seek health information for consultation with their

physician and as many as 54% of the respondents seek information for

others especially close family members and friends. Indeed, e-health

does provide a suitable medium for fostering a sense of responsibility

at the personal and social level.

This appeal to social responsibility does not stop

there, whole nations were called to unite as a member of a country

to wage their war against SARS. This appeal to individual and social

responsibility suggests itself in all three data sites. For example,

the Canadian webpage begins early on with advice giving which is

anchored to health responsibility at the personal level signalled by

(…) it is important to know the symptoms and risk factors of

SARS, so you can minimize your (Canada/lines2-3)

In the middle of the webpage, notice how the personal pronoun

shifts simultaneously as the move from responsibility at a personal

level to responsibility at the social level takes place:

Our society depends on everyone working together(…)The

you and

your family others. (Canada/lines50-52)

This is also evident in the other two webpages, however, the

pattern of sequence varies form one data to the other. The Singapore

webpage, for example, begins with an appeal to the user’s social


all of us are

socially (Singapore/lines38-39)

Then shifts to responsibility at a personal level:

your nose and mouth with tissue when you (…)

(Singapore/line64)

But ends the webpage by returning to an even stronger and

rather dramatic appeal to social responsibility:

(Singapore/line80)

low risk group seems to be trying to accomplish many goals through

the advice given; from advocating general health improvement to an

appeal to people’s personal and social responsibilities. In many ways,

their responsibility of “controlling what seems to be out of control”

(Brashers, 2001:482) in the face of a health emergency through advice

giving and through advocating personal and social responsibility in

the face of such crisis. Having explored advice directed at the low

risk group, the discussion will now shift to the second type of advice,

AD2/HRG: Accomplishing categorisation and avoiding

ambiguity

to have a higher risk of being infected based on the symptoms

they may have or/and recent travel to SARS infected area. The

categorisation of the advice in the SARS data sites which is primarily

based on the recipient’s assumed risk is indeed noteworthy. This helps


to illustrate how the internet can be used to support early detection

research carried out by Baehring et al. (1997) where users assess

their risk factors using an online questionnaire. This helps to identify

the risk factors of undiagnosed diabetes mellitus with high accuracy.

Consequently, this led to the reduction in the number of individuals

advised to undergo further check-ups or examination which helped to

which can be applied not only at the level of broad community health

education but also for epidemiological studies world-wide.

In the data sites analysed in this study, the categorisation of the

advice recipient or users into the high risk group is achieved through a

carries the hypothetical “if” statement or question. The hypothetical

“if” statement clearly signals to the users that the following advice

indicates deleted texts]:

What should I do if I have fever and cough?

(China/para 5)

What shall I do if

infected with the disease? (China/para10)

If you are unwell and have no contact history (…),

If you developed these symptoms and have travelled to any

(Singapore/lines43, 8)

If you have recently travelled to Asia or have had close contact

with someone who has SARS (…) (Canada/line61)

1992, Kinnell & Maynard 1996, Silverman 1997). Unsurprisingly,


categorisation in their talk or advice giving as clients often meet it with

minimal response or overt resistance. Interestingly, categorisation

what is relevant or irrelevant to them. When users read only what is

relevant to them the second aim is simultaneously achieved as the

or are the actual targets of the advice. In other words, categorisation

the advice offered reaches the target recipient.

what has been argued by Silverman (1997) about questioning in advice

giving which can imply some form of categorisation through which

he argues “that you imply that the question uses categories which

are relevant to the person at whom such a question is directed” (pg.

statement roughly corresponds to the hypothetical situation discussed

researches, hypothetical situation allows for some form of ambiguity

clearly categorise the clients into two separate groups which is the

high risk and the low risk group. To conclude, the clear demarcation


helps to ascertain that the advice given reaches the targeted users or

recipient.

AD2/HRG: Advice for More Information

disease which the WHO referred to as “

disease” (CSR/WHO 2003:1), it is not surprising that the advice

health professionals in giving advice. This may also help to explain

Table 2: ADI/LRG and AD2/HRG Advice

is not advice about seeking treatment for SARS for the obvious

reasons that there is no vaccine or treatment for the disease. Instead

the advice offered under this category is actually an advice to obtain

further information and advice from health authorities either at the

clinic or the hospital. For example;

If you are unwell and … go to a polyclinic or a General

Practitioner (GP)

If you develop these symptoms… please seek medical attention


China Singapore Canada Total lines9 28 4 41

7 21 9 37

Total lines 16 49 13 78


Seek immediate medical advice if you feel you have the

(Canada/lines59-60)

6.0 CONCLUSION

The discussions have focused mainly on advice and advice giving

while many previous works on advice have often been discussed

with close reference to information giving. For example, previous

researches have shown how information plays an important role in the

study reveals that, in the case of SARS, there is little evidence to

indicate that information has any strong direct relationship with the

way advice is packaged and structured. I believe that this is unique

to the SARS data sites analysed in this study. Faced with the lack

advice becomes the central issue for health professionals. What

advice can be given about a disease which is so poorly understood

and seems puzzling even to the health professionals themselves?

Ironically, the mysterious nature of the SARS disease helps to put

many observations into perspective. The non-existence of treatment

or screening test helps to explain why advice to the high risk group

or information about the disease from the health authorities and

advice or advice directly related to the prevention of the disease

compared to the generic advice offered in the SARS web pages.


REFERENCES

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Medical Informatics 61 (2001): 1-10.

Baehring, Thomas U., et al. “Using the World Wide Web - a New

International Journal of Medical informatics 46 (1997): 31-

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Cline, R.J.W., and K.M. Haynes. “Consumer Health Information

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Available: http://pewinternet.org.19/08/03.

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297-98.

Reeves, Patricia M. “Coping in Cyberspace: The Impact of Internet

Their Illness.” Journal of Health Communication

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Qualitative Study of Information Needs.” Patient Education

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http://www.who.int/csr/sars/country. 16/08 2003.

75Reaching Out: A Corporate Potrayal of Telecommunication Companies on the Web

5REACHING OUT: A CORPORATE

PORTRAYAL OF

TELECOMMUNICATION COMPANIES

ON THE WEB

HADINA HABIL

INTRODUCTION

The advancement of technology has changed the way people

communicate and the way organisations reach out to their customers.

The technological development has resulted in information travelling

with lightning speed from one side of the world to another. The

notion of ‘borderless world’ requires organisations to keep track of

the development taking place around them and recognise the changing

environment The changing environment for business requires the

organisations to communicate strategically with its customers. One

of the options is through the use of web sites. A website, according

to Boardman (2005) is a collection of interlinked web pages that are

maintained at the same website address known as Uniform Resource

Locator (URL). A website can be regarded as a hypertext-based

system for sharing and storing information.

FEATURES OF WEB PAGES

A web page will consists of a large quantities of linear text – that is text

which follows the unidimensional flow of speech, as well as non-linear

texts – texts which can be read in a multidimentional way (Crystal,


2001). He further explains that some pages on the Web have areas

allocated to particular kinds of information and designed to attract the

attention of readers through the use of colour, flashing, movement and

other devices. These elements disturb process of predictable reading

through the screen in a conventional way. The combination of linear

and non-linear texts or images on a website provides challenge to

linear viewing. Other kinds of graphic organisation of a webpage,

according to Crystal (2001) include the following:

Lists – sequences of pieces of information, ordered according

to some principle, which have a clear starting point and a

finishing point

Matrices – arrangements of linguistic, numerical, or other

information in rows and columns, designed to be scanned

vertically and horizontally

Branching structures – structures used whenever two or more

alternatives need to be clearly identified or when the history

of a set of related alternatives needs to be displayed.

(page 197)

Another important feature of a web page is the hypertext links

– the jumps that users can make if they want to move from one page

to another. The links can be both internal (within a page or between

pages at the same site) and/or external (between sites). The links

enable users or readers of the webpage to find related information

easily by following the links. This provides a dynamic interactivity

between different web pages having similar information. Another

feature of the Web is that it is graphically more eclectic than any

domain of written language in the real world (Crystal, 2001). The

combination of different semiotic modalities in a website including

photographs, visual imagery, video and language is what makes it

an effective and attractive medium to disseminate information or to


persuade its audience or readers.

Duda et al. (2007) stated that a website can be examined from

the syntactic arrangement and distribution of its sign, the semantic

format of its contents and the pragmatic embedment of a context

of action. This is done by studying syntax – looking at text as an

image; semantic – examining meaning and understanding it; and

pragmatic – assessing meaning in use. In addition, they recommended

that narrative is used in the website because narrative tells a story

which deals with primary conflicts and their solutions and addresses

fundamental psychological needs. This would enable one to address

website audience at an emotional level that would directly appeal to

them. Thus, they proposed a model of ideal language on a website

illustrated below:

Figure 1: Model of ideal language on a website (S. Duda et al. 2007)

Narrative

Add ressing of Psychological Needs

Use of Me taphors

Pragmatics

Concrete Call to Action

Semantics

Precise Description of Facts

Emotional Appeal

Syntax

Scannable Appearance


Moreover, Laine (2003) examined the contribution of

verbally coded information to the interactivity of webpages. He

defined interactive language as the extent and type of language that

encourages users to interact. Laine summarised the key characteristics

of interactive language in the following diagram:

Figure 2: Characteristics of interactivity (Laine, 2003)

The diagram suggests that a sufficient amount of explicit

information is assumed to increase the user’s confidence in the product

and services offered in the website. This is achieved when the system

is able to inform the user of the function he/she is going to perform

or the target he/she is aiming to access.

Web site

The user is encouraged

to interact by means

of:

- Interactive elements

- Visual effects

- Appropriate

windowing

- Functional website

architecture

Interaction

Which is reflected in

the language of

interactive labels that:

- Assigns the user an

active role

- Challenges the

user to interact

- Provides the user

with sufficient

information about

the consequences

of the interactive

operation

User

The user feels:

Empowered

Active

Involved

Confident,

unhesitant


THE GENERIC STRUCTURE OF CORPORATE WEB

PAGES

Several studies on corporate websites have been conducted and it was

found that there was a generic structure of corporate websites. Hassan

and Van Leeuwen (2004) reported that corporate websites consist

of obligatory and optional elements arranged in layers. Optional

elements are ‘must have’ elements whereas optional elements are

those not necessarily present and if they are, the optional elements

will cause variations to the websites. Both obligatory and optional

elements can have fixed position or they can be mobile. Boardman

(2005: 63) stated that pop-ups which are one of the features in

websites, are one form of “enforced hypertextual narrative”. The

generic structure of corporate web pages is expandable since the

elements that made up the website are flexible and dynamics.

According to Hassan and Van Leeuwen (2004), the

information that can be found in corporate websites falls into the

following categories: Products, Online Services, Corporation, Social

Responsibilities and Global Network. The information is arranged

over many pages that made up the websites.

METHODOLOGY

This is an exploratory study of corporate websites in Malaysia,

focussing on three telecommunication companies in Malaysia.

The study attempts to identify the purpose and audience, and how

those aspects are used as communication strategies with audiences/

customers. The websites are analysed for their features qualitatively

using genre approach. This paper will discuss features of the front

page and the corporate information in the websites.


FINDINGS

Generally, the three corporate webpages analysed consist of obligatory

and optional elements arranged in layers with each layer having a

fixed and/or optional element. Those elements can either have fixed

or mobile placements on the page.

COMPANY A – MAXIS

Company A – Maxis, is Malaysia’s leading telecommunications

company and the market leader with a total mobile phone subscriber

base of more than seven million as at 31 December 2006. The front

page of Company A’s website has a combination of graphic and texts.

There are four different graphics and animation that changes every few

seconds and the graphics and animation were updated regularly.

Figure 3: Front page of Company A (top half view)


The obligatory elements found on the front page are logo,

search function, visual images, primary index, copyright, sitemap and

disclaimer buttons, and subscription button. The optional elements

are banner, audio-video text, and secondary index.

The company’s logo is placed at the top left corner of the

page. The banner highlights festival greeting while the animated

visual images change every few seconds. The texts are arranged in

5 columns with each column representing a different category with

links to specific pages.

Access to corporate page can be found in the About Maxis

column (refer to Figure 2). There is a link to the Corporate Profile

page. The information about Maxis Corporate Profile is organised

in the following way:

About Maxis ---- Corporate Profile -- Who we are -

Our vision & values

Figure 4: Front page of Company A (bottom half view)


Word choice

In order to win over its readers, Maxis portrays the company as having

partnership with its customers and readers. This is exemplified in

the following example:

Who we are

‘with Maxis, you can be sure of services and

technology that help you stay ahead in your

life, whether at work, at home or at play’

We’d like to share our achievements, our partners

and our vision for the future with you

The use of inclusive language ‘we’, and ‘our’ show that the

company would like to appear reliable to its customers by including

them as part of the company.

When introducing its vision and values, the company portrays

its aspiration: To be a regional communications leader of choice. It

also used action words to describe its values: …we are driven by a

set of values that serves, unifies, provides and defines…

Short description is provided for each value.

COMPANY B – DiGi

Company B - DiGi is another leading mobile telecommunications

company which provides a comprehensive range of affordable,

convenient and easy to use wireless services. DiGi has a partnership

with Maxis to offer a cross-tracing mobile services to subscribers of

both companies.


The front page of Company B’s website consists of audio

visual component which plays the commercials for Company B’s

product and these commercials are aired on national television. This

audio visual component takes central position on the webpage. It

reflects its purpose that is to get audience attention. Other components

available as buttons on top of the page are What’s Hot, Prepaid,

Postpaid, International Services, and Data Services. Meanwhile,

the sidebars comprise buttons for further services provided by DiGi.

Logo is placed at the top left corner of the page while its banner

carries festival greetings. Primary index buttons can be found on

top of the page at the same line as the logo for easy navigation. For

other services or topics that readers would like to have access to, six

Figure 5: DiGi’s front page (top half view)


icons represented by pictures and texts are provided on the left side

of the page.

The page also has ‘Quick Links’ and ‘Change Display’

buttons. ‘Hello, ;)’ greetings can be found at the bottom left corner

of the front page and its presence adds an air of informality of the

webpage. The Copyright, sitemap and disclaimer are placed outside

the page frame.

Access to DiGi’s corporate page can be found in the Quick

Links, under About DiGi category. The corporate information is

organised in the following ways:

Quick Links - About DiGi -- Corporate Overview --

Introduction -- Aspiration & Key Principles --

Corporate Milestones -- Board of Directors -- Lines of

Business -- Access Reference

Figure 6: DiGi’s front page (bottom half view)


Looking at the access to corporate information, readers/

audience of DiGi’s website has to spend time trying out the icons or

buttons available on the front page before they could find the About

DiGi button which is located under Quick Links button. So access

to corporate information is not immediate.

Word Choice

In trying to convince its readers/audience, DiGi uses assertions

to remind their audience of what the company is about. This is

exemplified in the following examples taken from its Corporate

overview write up:

Corporate overview – Introduction

DiGi is a leading mobile communications

company…

We have an established presence as a leader in

voice and data…

To show that the company is ready to serve its customers and

that their services are customer focused, DiGi claims;

At DiGi, your needs are at the centre of everything

we do

Whoever you are, wherever you go and whatever

your needs are, we’re there for you!-

Contact information is also provided at the bottom right corner

of the page, next to the above paragraph.

The company portrays itself as an industry leader with the

use of adjectives to indicate positive image: Be the Industry Shaper

by taking leadership positions through series of innovative value


proposition, simplicity and excellent execution.

In order to emphasise its achievement, DiGi lists its

achievements over the years starting from its inception in 1995 under

the heading Corporate Milestones.

COMPANY C - TMNet

Company C, TMNet was established in 1995 to provide Internet and

multimedia services as a subsidiary of TM, a former government-

owned company. It has over the years introduced a few Internet

related products and services.

Figure 7: TMNet’s front page


The front page of Company C’s website shows a smiling

lady besides a ‘welcome’ message. The top right column gives

announcement of the company’s maintenance service. The side bars

on the left consist of buttons that represent products and services,

customer services, online services, and corporate information. The

main buttons in the middle of the page provides access to personal

or business information.

TMNet logo is placed at the top left corner of the page. The

main category links can be found at the left side buttons while the

service announcement column is positioned at the right side of the

page and the Need Help column is placed beneath it.

Access to corporate information can be found on the front

page via a Corporate Information link button on the left column. The

information is organised under the following headings:

Corporate Information -- Company profile -- Vision &

mission -- Board of Directors -- The Management --

Career Opportunity-- Newsroom

Word choice

The front page of TMNet’s website is presented in such a way

that readers/audience who are interested to find out more about its

corporate information would be able to do that easily because a button

that provide easy access to the link for Corporate Information is

provided on the front page. Contact information is also provided at

the bottom of the page for easy access. Under the Company Profile,

TMNet portrays itself as filling in the gap in the industry. It can be

seen as positioning itself in the industry as shown here: Bridging the

gap between now and the future. The company also asserts its success

beyond Malaysia as exemplified in this example: Today, we’ve not

only become a leading ISP, but also one of SEA’s largest

In writing out its vision and mission, TMNet promises its

customers:


Vision

TM Net is committed to…

TM Net will lead the way…with a commitment

focused on…

Mission

We will continue to provide…

Our aim is to enrich our customers’ experience…

An interesting finding in its Corporate Information is the

different way the company describes its Board of Directors and its

Management team. This is illustrated in the following examples:

Board of Directors

T h e p e o p l e w h o m a k e i t a l l h a p p e n –

acknowledging key people in organization

Here are the drivers who make it all happen – sense

of organizational effort leader-follower; lists all

the Acting CEO, GMs and CFO

The Management

Key leaders that make a difference –

Thanks to our dynamic leaders; Here are the people

we are proud to call our leaders;

The company acknowledged key people in the organisation

and showed a sense of organisational effort of having leader-follower.

It lists all the Acting CEO, General Managers and Chief Financial


Officer. In addition, when introducing its management team, the

company shows distinction between leaders and managers by careful

choice of words leaders versus drivers and managers.

THE ‘PRODUCT’ COMPONENT

The Product component introduces company products to the audience.

This component is usually placed on the front page or the cover page.

Any information considered relevant to the audience is included

in this category. All the three companies use Product and Services

as one category since the services are also directly related to their

products. Company A places the information about its products and

services under the category Consumer which is the first category

offered on the front page. The buttons for the related links are

provided under 4 different headings. Company B provides links to

its telecommunication services in two different locations: the sidebars

and the right column links. The right column links uses ‘What’s Hot’

label to introduce audience to the 8 buttons which provide links to its

telecommunication services. Company C lists its telecommunication

services in 10 buttons under the Personal category. Beside this, the

front page also lists its Products and Services in the side bars.

THE ‘CORPORATION’ COMPONENT

The Corporation component is one of the important components in

corporate web sites. This component introduces the organisation

by presenting the corporate profile, its mission and vision, research

and development programmes, news as well as company’s events.

The information in this component often serves as ideology that the

corporation would like to propagate to its audience or customers.

Company A’s corporate information is listed under the ‘About

AA’ category with buttons that have links to Corporate Profile,


Investor Relations, AA Scholarship for Excellence, AA International

Ventures, Media Centre, and Careers at AA. The sidebar titled

Corporate Profiles provides a link to the Vision and Values page of

the website. The information here explains more about the values

that are embedded by members of the organisation.

Company B’s corporate information is presented in the

‘About BB’ component under the Corporate Overview section

which introduces the company, claimed as the leader in the

telecommunication industry. Other information presented under

Corporate Overview is linked to 5 buttons labelled Aspiration &

Key Principles, Corporate Milestone, Board of Directors, Lines of

Business, and Access Reference. Other components placed in the

About BB page are BB Stock Info, Latest, Media Room, Corporate

Social Responsibility, Investor Relations, Careers, and Contact BB.

For Company C, Corporate Information button is placed at the

bottom of the front page. Under this category, 6 different links are

provided to give further information on Company Profile, Vision &

Mission, Board of Directors, The Management, Career Opportunities,

and Newsroom. For each of the pages, the left side bar provides other

links that will enable audience to get a look at the CEO’s Blog and

to learn more about the Internet connection available for businesses

as well as for households.

One important feature of the front page of the three websites

is the company logo which is placed at the top left corner of the page.

The logo serves as corporate identity which is, according to Berstein

(1984), a set of distinct features in which the public can recognise

and differentiate one company from the other.

THE FUNCTIONS OF CORPORATE WEB SITES

The different components identified on the front page of the three

corporate websites represent different kinds of information. The


components form a hexagonal structure where the corporate homepage

is in the centre and acts as a nucleus, pulling other components together

(Hassan and Van Leeuwen, 2004). Thus, the homepage which is the

front page of the websites is a gateway to corporate information where

audience can access all types of information as needed.

One interesting feature of the generic structure of the websites

is expansion. Each component on the front page can be expanded

via the buttons that provide links to subcomponents and possible

expansion to more subcomponents. The expansion of information can

be likened to the crystal lattice structure (Hassan and Van Leewen,

2004) where the same structure is regenerated again and again and

arranged into a regular pattern.

The availability of links makes the structure of the websites

flexible and dynamic where the audience can continuously change

directions of their reading to suit their needs. There is no one-way

of accessing the information on the websites. The generic structure

of the websites is also not sequential or non-linear. There is no fixed

direction of reception and production of information. This makes the

structure ‘open’ in nature where there is no ‘end’ to it. The nature of

the dynamicity of the websites does not comply with Van Leeuwen’s

description of generic structure that says that ‘generic structure is the

syntagmatic structure of discourse which has beginning-middle-end’

(1993: 194).

The analysis of the websites revealed that the main purpose

of corporate websites is to disseminate information to the audience

consisting of customers, shareholders, public organisations,

jobseekers, competitors and other users. In the process of doing that,

the websites promote the organisations corporate identity as well as

advertise their products and services to enhance their image in the

eyes of their audiences. This is supported by Schwartz’s explanations

that a website has several goals besides providing information, that

are to enhance brand image, to spur sales and to attract prospective

customers.


CONCLUSION

The study has found that corporate websites have their generic

structure and the most important information is provided on the front

page of the websites. The information provided used a combination

of multimedia content and texts to attract audience. Buttons for

different links are provided either as sidebars on the left or on the

right of the page. These buttons provide a quick link to specific

information required by audience. The components that can be found

on the front page are Product and Services, Corporate Information,

Customer Service and About the Company. Different strategies were

adopted for different customers – young ones were tackled with the

use of catchy terms and incorporation of animation. In addition,

different communicative purposes were served with different ways

of accessing the information. The purpose of the websites is mainly

to disseminate information to the audience besides advertising the

companies’ products and promoting the companies’ images and

corporate identity. The use of websites to promote the organisations

is crucial as the way of doing business changes to suit the changing

way people communicate.

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Bernstein, D., 1984. Company Image & Reality: A Critique of

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Hassan, H. and Van Leeuwen, T., 2004. Web Site Design: The

Generic Structure of Corporate Web Sites. Paper presented

at the Document Design Conference, The Netherland. June

2004.

Laine, P., 2003. Invited workshop on digital interaction:

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communication technologies ISICT ’03. Retrieved from

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pdf on 20 December 2008

Van Leeuwen, T., 1993. Genre and field in critical discourse

analysis: a synopsis. Discourse and Society. Vol.4 (2).

London: Sage. Pp.193-223.

APPENDIX


Company A

Maxis

Company B

DiGi

Company C

TM1. Banner / / No banner

2. Logo Top left Top left Top left

3. Primary

index button

Same line as banner

and logo

Below banner, same

line as logo

Main category

– products &

services divided into

2 buttons. Other

primary index

buttons are placed at

bottom half of page 4. Search / / /5. Video picture / / X

6. Still picture / / /7. Main

category links

Take up 2/3 of

page width under 5

different categories

X (hidden under

Quick Links)

Left side buttons

8. Internet &

mobile products

& services

buttons

Right side, bottom

half of page width

Left side, 1/3 of

page width

Left side, top half of

page width

9. Subscription

button

Bottom left of page Right, top half of

page

X

10. Secondary

index buttons

Bottom left Bottom right X

11. Copyright

, sitemap &

disclaimer

buttons

Bottom left - inside

frame

Bottom right

– outside frame

Bottom right – no

frame

Front Page Features of Telecommunication Websites in Malaysia

95The Generic Structure of ‘About Us’ Web Pages

6THE GENERIC STRUCTURE OF

‘ABOUT US’ WEB PAGES

HANITA HASSAN, PH.DTHEO VAN LEEUWEN, PROFESSOR

6.1 INTRODUCTION

The Web is now becoming a very profound media for advertising.

One distinctive feature of Web advertising compared to other media

(television and radio, for instance) is that the role of advertising is

not limited to advertise products but simultaneously to advertise a

corporation. In so doing, a linked Web page that informs readers about

the corporation is allocated on the website, and this page allows the

corporation to include necessary information regarding them. This

special linked Web page is known as ‘About Us’ Web page, it might

come with different names like ‘About the company’, ‘Learn about

the company’, ‘About Toyota’ and so on, but whatever the name is,

the main function is to tell readers or customers about them. This

linked Web page is carefully designed with the intention to portray

the alluring identity of corporations.

Realising the importance of this Web page to a corporate

website, we decided to investigate the generic structure of corporate

websites and to notify the function of each element of the generic

elements. In this study we adopted multimodal analysis which

combines both: systemic functional linguistics and semiotic

analysis.


6.2 SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS

This section discusses the two types of analysis done, which were

compositional and image analyses. The discussion starts off with the

compositional analysis and followed by image analysis.

6.2.1 Compositional Analysis

Compositional analysis was conducted at the beginning of this study

and the purpose of this analysis was twofold: firstly identifying verbal

and non-verbal elements that constitute the genre of corporate Web

pages and secondly determining the placement of each element.

Following this, the non-verbal elements identified in this study

were then analysed based on three crucial criteria of multimodality:

information value, salience and framing (Kress and van Leeuwen

(1996).

Firstly the information value, in this stage the meanings; left

or right, and, top or down. We will discuss both positions in turn.

The first position if left or right. Following Kress dan van Leeuwen

(1996), items on left mean Given while items on the right mean New.

Logo is usually placed on the left, Given. Perhaps readers are already

familiar with the corporate logo and it is thus placed on the left to

signify Given because there is no new information to deliver.

In contrast, items that usually (but not at all times) appear on

the right represent New are images and verbal texts. When these items

appear on the right, it signifies that they contain new information and

also signifying the importance of the elements. Canon ‘About Us’

Web page, for instance, has three images depicting its products on the

right. This indicates that the products are new products ‘something

which is not yet known to the reader’ and hence readers ‘must pay

special attention’ (Kress and Van Leeuwen 1996; 1999). However,

the products (computers, a camera and photocopy machine) might

not be new to readers and they are easily recognized, perhaps it could

also mean the latest modified versions of technology products from

Canon.


Meanwhile, the elements can also be arranged ‘along the

vertical axis’ (Kress and Van Leeuwen 1996: 193), that is, the

elements can be placed at the top or at the bottom. The elements at

the top simply connote Ideal while elements at the bottom connote

Real. An example of this arrangement is Mercedes-Benz ‘About

Us’ Web page (Figure 6.2). On this Web page, the image of Daimler

Chrysler’s building is placed at the top to represent Ideal. The image

of the building, which is taken from below, signifies the power that

the corporation has over its readers. It could also connote that the

corporation is a powerful company and thus the products are of high

quality. The meaning is so ideal and is meant to be persuasive. On

the other hand, the verbal text with the title ‘Mercedes-Benz – The

Brand’ is placed at the bottom to signify Real. The text aims to

inform readers who they are, what they do and eventually why they

are powerful.

Figure 6.1 The Canon ‘About Us’ Web page which has a set of

‘About Us’ links on the left and its product images on the right


Once the placements and their meanings were determined,

we moved on to identifying the salient features and analysing the

ways in which they were made salient (for example, through the

choice of colours, typography or framing). It is apparent that colour

is the profound feature of salience of corporate Web pages. Colours

represent corporations and resemble the ones used in other printed

media. Canon, for instance, has red to represent the corporation and

the same colour is used in packaging, printed or screen advertising.

Besides that, distinctive colurs are used to distinguish link

buttons or to foreground certain link buttons as to mark the salience.

The examples of distinctive coloured link buttons are found on

Mercedes-Benz Web page, by which blue is used for the dialogue

button and orange is for the help button. The use of different colours

for these buttons makes them stand out and thus signify that the links

are salient. Readers are made aware of the button links that are useful

to them.

In addition, images embedded on Web pages are made salient

via different strategic locations. As mentioned earlier, the obvious

characteristics of Web page layout is that most of its elements are not

fixed. The images are normally placed in the second layer, however,

they can be on the right, on the left, at the top or in the centre but never

at the bottom. The Toyota Web page shown in Figure 6.3, for example,

has an image placed in the centre of the page and the image has been

enlarged to cover half of the page. This is absolutely to portray the

salience of the image and meant to capture readers’ attention.

Figure 6.2 The Mercedes-Benz Web page with the

Image of its Building Placed at the Top to Signify Ideal


A strong frame line around the image specifies that the image

is the salient feature of the Web page. Not only frame lines, framing

the image can also be done through distinctive background colours.

Yamaha ‘About Us’ Web page, for example, has a very strong frame

line plus a distinctive colour around its ‘About Us’ links. This

apparently indicates that the links are the salience and due to that the

links are made foreground through a strong frame line and distinctive

background colour.

6.2 IMAGE ANALYSIS

Embedded images were however analysed further in terms of

representation, interaction and processes (Kress and Van Leeuwen

1996). The main purpose of image analysis was to determine the

function(s) of images by interpreting the potential intended meanings

either they are meant to be explicit or implicit.

The representation is identifying the represented participants

that can either be people, places or things. Interestingly we found that

the represented participants, on the Web pages, are not restricted to

things which are depicted as products. People are depicted as team

Figure 6.3 The Toyota ‘About Us’ Web page

with the Image in the Centre


workers and customers while corporate buildings are portrayed as

premises to inform readers where they can be found.

The findings show that the images of people depicted as

workers or customers have different significant interactional meanings.

Two types of relationships between represented participants identified

are offering and demanding. For instance, the image of a man on the

Honda ‘About Us’ Web page (Figure 6.4), who is looking directly to

readers, connotes that demanding. The verbal text that accompanies

the image tells the

MISSING TEXT

In the process analysis, the kind of process involved between

images and readers was determined, that is, either narrative or

conceptual. Narrative process is the process of happening or doing

whilst conceptual is the process of being which Halliday (1994) calls

relational or attributive process.

Images found on the Canon Web page (Figure 6.1), for

Figure 6.4 An Image of a Man Signifies Demanding


instance, have two types of processes simultaneously. Firstly, the

image of a man with a camera. The man is either looking at the

camera or doing something to the camera, by which ‘is looking ‘and

‘doing’ are transactional reactions. Both are narrative processes, by

which the man is the actor and the camera is the goal. On the other

hand, the image can be interpreted as ‘the camera is the product of

Canon’ and thus the process is a symbolic attributive. In the latter

interpretation, the man does not play a role but the camera, which is

in the foreground, is the salience.

Similarly, the image of the photocopy machine is in the

foreground signifying that this is another product of Canon. Hence,

the process is again conceptual or a symbolic attributive. But at the

same time, it can also mean that the photocopy machine will do the

job for you so that you can save your time for other matters. The

process is now narrative, of which it informs readers that the machine

can help (doing) people at work.

6.2 SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS (SFL)

Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) analysis, on the other hand,

aimed to investigate the function(s) of verbal texts found on Web

pages. Following Halliday (1994), the analysis was carried out using

three important elements of SFL: Theme, Transitivity and Mood.

6.2.1 Theme

Theme, according to Halliday (1994: 37), is ‘the element which

serves as the point of departure of the message; it is that with which

the clause is concerned’. There are three categories of Themes: (i)

textual, (ii) interpersonal and (iii) topical.

The first category is textual. Textual Theme consists of

continuative (for instance, oh, well, yes and now) structural (can either

be a conjunctive like and, or, but, or WH-relative) and conjunctive

(Adjunct) (Halliday 1994). Theme helps us to identify either the text


takes written or spoken mode.

Interpersonal Theme (can either be a vocative, modal or

mood-marking), on the other hand, results in more informal texts

but uncertain. The example of interpersonal Theme is given in

Extract 1 which is taken from the Toyota ‘About Us’ Web page.

The interpersonal Theme probably already increases the level of

friendliness in the text however decreases the level of certainty.

Extract 6.1

You probably already know our vehicles.

Topical Theme (that can either be a participant, circumstance

or process) notifies the focus of the text. The extensive use of first

person and third person pronouns, for example, suggests that the

main concern of the main texts is ‘Us’ (the corporations). When the

third person pronoun is used (the Toyota team members, Daimler

Chrysler, Microsoft, and Harris, for instance), it makes the texts to

appear in a careful written mode. However, by having both first and

third pronouns will result in more informal tone, that is, there is a

balance between written and spoken modes.

Besides the three categories, Themes are divided into two

types: marked and unmarked (Halliday 1985/1994). Marked Theme

is when the Theme is either an adverbial group, a prepositional phrase

or a complement and not the subject in a declarative clause. The use

of circumstantial elements, for example, the word ‘at’ (in at IBM, at

Ford Motor Company and at Daimler Chrysler), as a topical Theme

is marked Theme. Circumstantial elements, that function as Marked

Themes, acts like ‘Given’ information (Halliday 1985/1994) and

the marked Themes make texts to be more of a written mode than

spoken.

On the other hand, when ‘the Theme is conflated with Subject

in declarative and with Predicator in imperative’ (Halliday 1992: 328),

it is called unmarked Theme. For example, the use of first person


and third person pronouns as topical Themes will result in unmarked

Themes. The unmarked Theme is found in Extract 6.2, by which the

imperative, Get, is used as the predicator as well as the Theme.

Extract 6.2

Get the latest Intel News straight from the source.

6.2.2 Transitivity

In this part of analysis, we were interested in identifying the

participants and processes involved. Based on Halliday’s (1992,

1994) method, there are different types of processes but only three

were used in this study: Material, Relational and Mental.

Material process is the process of doing or happening, with

which the doers are the corporations. This it to signify what they

do. The clause in Extract 6.3 taken from the Ford Motor Company

Web page, for example, emphasises the material process work and

the doer we which refers to the corporation.

Extract 6.3

We work to approach every challenge with ingenuity and

caring…

If the material process tells readers what corporations do, the

relational process, on the other hand, informs readers what they have

and eventually to signify who they are. The function of the relational

process has, in Extract 6.4, is clearly to notify readers of the attributes

of the corporation which eventually turn the company into a global

player an automobile industry.

Extract 6.4

A real global player, Daimler Chrysler has more than 50

productions as assembly plants as well as 6,300 service and


sales support outlet cars…

Remarkably, material and relational processes are more

apparent on Web pages but not a mental process. However, in

some circumstances, mental processes are metaphorically used as

relational processes. For example, Extract 6.5 below illustrates the

ways in which the mental process are committed with we as the senser

and continuous improvement, looking forward to new tomorrows as

phenomenon can be interpreted as a relational attributive process.

Extract 6.5

As the fourth-largest automaker in America, we are

committed to continuous improvement, looking forward to

new tomorrows.

The phenomenon can alternatively be considered as ‘the

vision’ of the company and acts as an attribute. Whilst the senser

we is now the Carrier and the mental process are committed can be

interpreted as a relational process has. In other words, the clause

can mean ‘we (the corporation) have vision’.

6.2.1 Mood

Two kinds of moods were observed: firstly it was declarative that is

to give statement or information and secondly was imperative with

the purpose is to give command or to request (Halliday 1994). The

example of declarative clause is given in Extract 6.6, with Harris

Corporation as a topical Theme and it clearly shows that the function

of this clause is to inform readers about Harris Corporation.

Extract 6.6

Harris Corporation (NYSE: HRS) is an international

communications equipment company...


Unlike declarative, imperative clause is used with the aim to

command or to advise readers on what to do and requesting readers

to comply with the corporation (see Extract 6.7). However, it is

remarkable that the main aim is still to inform readers about the

corporation.

Extract 6.7

Explore opportunities for doing business with us.

Although the predicative Explore is commanding, it is to

advise readers to read up more about the company, how they can do

business with the company. The declarative clause and imperative

clause used on the Web page are thus having the same function, that

is, to disseminate information.

6.3 THE GENERIC STRUCTURE OF ‘ABOUT US’ WEB

PAGES

The findings show that there three obligatory and seven optional

elements arranged either in two or three layers. Each zone has fixed

obligatory and/or optional elements. However, the placements of the

elements in each zone are not fixed, which means the elements can

either be at the centre, on the right, or on the left.

Two remarkable features of corporate Web pages are: (1) the

optional elements outnumber obligatory elements and (2) the movable

elements. As a result, the generic structure of ‘About Us’ Web pages

is complex and its representation is dynamic since there are many

different ways of designing Web pages. In other words, the optional

and the movable elements allow the generic structure of ‘About Us’

Web pages to generate a large variety of different unique designs,

and yet the designs are of the same genre.

Figure 6.5 illustrates the generic structure of ‘About Us’ Web


pages. There are three zones and each zone contains different kinds

of elements. The first zone consists of two obligatory elements:

Logo and Primary Links. We found that there is only one obligatory

element (Sub-Links) and four optional elements (Main Text, Blurb,

Illustration, and Additional Links) in the second zone. Lastly, the

third zone consists of two optional elements (Secondary Links and

Contact Info) and no obligatory element, due to this the third layer

is automatically optional. Unlike printed materials, the copyright

statement, which is optional, is always placed at the bottom or end

of the page.

Figure 6.5 The Generic Structure of corporate Web pages


6.3.1 Realisation of Structural Elements

The first element in Logo and it is usually placed on the top left, Given.

Its main function is to indicate that the Web page belongs to a certain

corporation. Besides indicating the ownership of a respected Web

page, logo is also used to indicate the brand. Branding is the technique

used to distinguish several products of the same kind produced by

different companies (MacRury 2002).

The second obligatory element in the first layer is labeled as

Primary Links. They are commonly found on the right, New and their

function is similar to the table of contents of a printed material, that

is, an index of the overall contents of the corporate website.

In the second layer, the function of Sub-Links and Blurb is to

help readers to access the needed information quickly. The position

of Sub-Links is not fixed, meaning that they can appear on the left,

right or at the centre. Unlike Primary Links, the Sub-Links are an

index of the contents of ‘About Us’ Web pages. On the other hand,

the Blurb is a brief explanatory note that follows each Sub-Link and

its function is to inform readers what they link is about. If the Sub-

Links are obligatory, the Blurb is however optional.

The other three elements in the second layer (Main Text,

Illustration and Additional-links) are however optional. From the

Systemic Functional Linguistic analyses done, we found that the

purpose of the Main Text is to disseminate information about the

corporation to readers. This is clearly seen from the Theme (with

which the focus is so much on the corporation itself), from the mood

used (which is more declarative and imperative is used when the

corporation wants readers to find out more about them) and lastly

from the transitivity (which show that the text aims to tell readers what

they have and who they are). It is remarkable that unmarked Theme

is more favourable compared to marked Theme. The extensive use

of unmarked Themes thus suggests that the texts are written with a

simple language. Perhaps the target readers are the public and thus

it is very crucial for the corporations to keep their text as simple as

possible to ensure that it is readable and understandable to a wide


range of readers. Another reason for keeping the text short and simple

is to suit the screen of reading activity.

As mentioned earlier in the image analysis section, whereby

the represented participants can be people, things and places. We found

that people ca be depicted as customers or team workers, things can

be depicted as the company product while places can be depicted as

corporate premises. These three represented participants portray who

they are/or who their customers are, what they do or what they have

and where they are. It is more on telling readers about the corporation

than anything else, or in other words, this is ‘Us’. For instance, the

image of the building is always taken from below to indicate the power

that the corporation has over its customers, readers or competitors.

Illustration is thus used for the self-presentation purposes, how the

corporations want their identity to be portrayed.

The illustration and Main Text are related, which means both

carry the same meaning but being delivered in different modes. The

main function of the Main Text and illustration, besides disseminating

information, is to persuade or to allure readers into buying the

products through fascinating identity. That is what the communication

between corporations and customers about in the first place, that is,

to influence and meant to be persuasive. The portraying of positive

image or identity in the corporate self-presentation will eventually

give credits to its products.

Now let’s turn the discussion to the position of Illustration

and Main Text. We found that there are two types of position used:

right and left, and, top and down. In the first position, it is either the

Illustration or Main Text is on the right or left. The element with the

new information is however placed on the right, New. By contrast,

the Illustration is always at the top, Real, in the second position, and

followed by the Main Text at the bottom, Ideal.

Additional links are usually news or updated financial

information of the corporation. They commonly appear on the

right, New. These additional links are optional and these links can

also appear in a different linked Web page, for example, a corporate

homepage.


In the third zone, there are two optional elements which are

Secondary Links and Contact Information. Secondary Links are the

continuation of the Primary Links at the top. Both, Secondary Links

and Primary Links are indices to the corporate website as a whole.

They are thus more likely to appear on every linked Web page, not

restricted to ‘About Us’ Web page only, while the corporate address

and telephone number are the component of the Contact Information

element. This element is to allow readers to communicate with

the corporation perhaps to request further information which is not

provided on the website. These two elements, Secondary Links and

Contact Information, signify the end of the Web page and they act

as a bottom border.

6.4 CONCLUSION

The main aim of Web advertising is not limited to selling products,

but corporate identity and ideology are also part of the commodities.

In other words, consumers nowadays are not only paying for the

products but for the identity as well. Perhaps this is the reason for

the emergence of ‘About Us’ Web pages, with which the corporation

could deliver the intended message about them, besides products, to

readers.

The model for ‘About Us’ Web pages was generated

using Semiotic and Systemic Functional Linguistic analyses. The

representation of ‘About Us’ Web page generic structure combines

composition and genre. It is very dynamic due to the outnumbered

optional elements and the movable features. In other words, there

are many possibilities in designing the Web pages and no matter

whatever the design is, it still belongs to the same genre.

The most important elements of the generic structure of ‘About

Us’ Web pages are Main Text, Illustration and Sub-Links. Readers

are able to guess the kind of information, about the corporation,

that is made available by scanning the Sub-Links. The Illustration,


juxtaposed with the Main Text, portray the alluring identity of the

corporation with the ultimate aim is to persuade readers to buy their

products.

REFERENCE

Halliday, M.A.K. 1992. Some Lexicogrammatical Features of

the Zero Population Growth Text. In Mann, W.C. and

Thompson, S.A. (eds.). Discourse Description: Diverse

Linguistic Analyses of a Fund-Raising

Text. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Pp. 327-358.

Halliday, M.A.K. 1994 [1985]. An Introduction to Functional

Grammar (2nd Edition). London: Arnold.

Kress, G. and van Leeuwen, T. 1996. Reading Images: The

Grammar of Visual Design. London: Routledge.

Kress, G. and van Leeuwen, T. 1999. Representation and Interaction:

Designing the Position of the Viewer. In Jaworski, A. and

Coupland, N. (eds.). The Discourse Reader. Pp. 377-404

MacRury, I. 2002. Advertising and the New Media Environment. In

Briggs, A. and Cobley, P. (eds.). The Media: An Introduction

(2nd Edition). London: Longman. Pp. 39-56

111Weblogs in ESL Classrooms

7WEBLOGS IN ESL CLASSROOMS

MASDINAH ALAUYAH MD YUSOF HADINA HABIL

GHAZALI BUNARI

1 INTRODUCTION

‘It is difficult to write’ – a remark we often hear from students, both

undergraduates and post-graduates. Many of them sighed as they

urged their language lecturers to help them write. Lecturers, too, after

giving a numerous inputs on writing skills, would sometime groan

and feel annoyed with this same request from students. Why can’t

the students write? They have learnt the skill ever since they were in

primary school. What else can be done to help them improve their

writing? We are aware that the skill of writing needs to be carefully

developed and constantly polished if one wants to be a good writer.

Some of us also believe that a person with good writing skills can

eventually make money by just writing – expressing his ideas on just

anything. A writer, Jeniri Amir, has actually published a book on ‘Buat

duit dengan menulis – Make money by writing’ with the hope that

others would take up his suggestion or should we say ‘challenge’.

Though lecturers like us could not really spend time to write and make

money as much as much we want to, we believe that by helping our

students to master the skills of writing, they could at least write a

good project report and thesis. We also believe that our students need

to experience the joy of expressing their thoughts without having to

worry too much about forms - if they can write about things around

them and give their views and comments on other people’s written

work; they have actually overcome one of the hurdles to becoming a


good writer. Hence, with these beliefs, we dared ourselves to embark

on the weblog journal writing project.

For this paper, we will focus our discussion on our experiences

using the weblog as a writing tool to help our students express

their thoughts and views on things around them. Hence, to ease

understanding of the discussion, this paper will first define the

concepts of journal writing and weblog journal writing, then followed

by an explanation on the undertaken weblog journal writing project,

the benefits of using weblogs in English language classrooms and the

challenges in implementing the weblog. Finally, suggestions on the

logistic requirements for successful implementation of the weblog

project will be given.

JOURNAL WRITING

Different people may define journal writing differently. To some, it

could mean writing a daily life story while to others, it could mean

writing their experience of a journey. Some write to record memories

while others write for the public to understand and to experience the

same experience they have journeyed without really going through

the journey. No matter how it is being defined and what the purpose

is, a journal could be a tool for writers to express emotions, ideas,

and views of events that he would like to keep to himself or share

with others.

Language teachers, for this matter, have long used this journal

writing activity in their language classrooms. However, the focus

and implementation process of the journal writing activity differ

from one lecturer to another. Though many may focus on helping

students improve their expressions of thoughts, there are some who

would focus on both content and forms. Likewise, the implementation

process is often not the same as some lecturers felt that it is better for

the journal writing activity to be a communication device between

students and their lecturers. In contrast, others might feel that the scope


of communications should be widened to allow students gain more

feedback on their writings and to respond to any inquiries. Williams

(2003) tended to agree with the latter as he believed that besides

broadening the communication scope, journal writing should also

be more than just a place for learners to write freely without undue

concern for grammaticality.

Ways of keeping journals also vary from one person to the

other. Some like to have a small notebook to record their words while

others prefer to use the computer as they believe they could keep a

clean record of their thoughts without any messy scribbles here and

there. There are also some who favour the more innovative method,

i.e. the online journal, to record and publish their written notions.

In supporting these differences, Brown (2001) agreed that students

should be allowed to choose the mode of writing journals – entries

to journals could be in the form of language learning logs, grammar

discussions, reading logs and reflective notes of oneself.

But why journal writing? Kerka (1996) argued that journal

writing could actually lends itself well to a heuristic learning approach.

Several benefits of journal writing for teaching and learning were

listed by Kerka in her article ‘Journal writing and adult learning’,

such as:

Writing journal entries is less formal and less threatening, thus

students can write without self-consciousness or inhibition

Journal entries can provide tangible evidence of mental

processes. They make thoughts visible and concrete, giving

a way to interact with, elaborate on, and expand ideas.

Journals are tools for growth through critical reflection, for it

is not enough to observe and record experiences, but equally

significant is to make meaning out of them.

Maloney and Campbell-Evans (2002) who investigated

how interactive journals were used also agreed that journal writing

1.

2.

3.


promotes reflective learning. Interactivity in their research meant an

ongoing pen-and-paper written dialogue between a teacher and his

or her students. They found out that students used the journals to

get direction on practice and planning, as a tool for analysis, as an

emotional release and as a way of ‘sorting things out.’ Through journal

writing, one can revisit his or her experience and reap lessons from the

experience. Nevertheless due to time constraint in a normal educational

setting, the primary audience of a student’s journal is restricted to

the instructor. Due to this, it would be beneficial for the learning

process if journal entries can be published and received feedback

from the public. Comments on ideas written by others would mature

students’ critical thinking and enhance argumentative writing skills.

The degree of interactivity will increase as more people participate

in a communication process and this will provide opportunities for

language learning. Computer-mediated communication provides

wider opportunities for interactivity to flourish.

WEBLOG JOURNAL WRITING

The concept of weblogs is almost similar to web-based e-mail

applications except writings in weblogs become public because they

are posted as a webpage. In a language learning environment, weblogs

might be a better choice of technology for a journal writing task. It

can promote a high degree of interactivity by supplying writers with

more readers.

As defined by Pyra Labs (2000), a weblog is:

“… a web page made up of usually short, frequently updated

posts that are arranged chronologically—like a what’s new

page or a journal. The content and purposes of blogs varies

greatly—from links and commentary about other web sites, to

news about a company/person/idea, to diaries, photos, poetry,


mini-essays, project updates, even fiction.”

On the other hand, Blood (2002), in the introduction to We’ve Got

Blog, describes blogs (short for weblogs) as:

“… a training ground for writers--and there is fine writing

being produced daily on hundreds of sites. They are platforms

of intelligent reaction to current events and ubiquitous

pundits.”

The advancement of technology has now allowed journal

writing to be published on the web at a very low cost. Users just need

a web browser (Internet Explorer or Netscape) and a computer that

is linked to the Internet to write and read entries. Currently, there are

thousand of weblogs in cyberspace - many free weblog services are

available and most of them are user-friendly. Weblog services such as

Blogger.com and Livejournal.com, for instance, have made it easier

for non-IT savvy individuals to publish journal entries and archive

old ones on the Internet. Weblogs may become a “killer app” because

of their ability to engage writers in collaborative activity, knowledge

sharing, reflection and debate (Hiller, 2003). Most weblogs are in

a form of personal journal type in which writers report their lives,

thoughts and feelings (Herring, 2004). Besides writers writing their

entries, these weblogs also allow visitors or readers to respond to

the entries by providing a comment. Due to this, Kairosnews (cited

in Richardson, 2006) believed that blog posting can make students

become active participants of a conversation.

THE UNDERTAKEN WEBLOG JOURNAL WRTING

PROJECT

This project was carried out with 48 first year students at a

university in Johor, Malaysia. These students were from the Faculty


of Education who took the UHB1412 course - English for Academic

Communication. It was one of the mandatory English courses which

these students have to take at the university. The students were

selected on the basis that they were available, prepared to participate,

and convenient to access. The action research project was executed to

help students express their thoughts and views in addition to gaining

marks for class participation which was part of the coursework

assessment. Due to the lack of opportunity for students to participate

in class, we believe that this weblog journal writing project could

provide the students a channel to do so.

As this blogging project was done outside of the class hours

in duration of 15 weeks or one semester, students had to wait for

our invitation before they could register into the assigned weblog

(mynewscorner.blogspot.com, see appendix 1) and start posting their

entries. The students had to post a minimum of five one-hundred-

words entries in the specially assigned weblog. Their entries had

to reflect on the events that had happened to them or around Johor

Bahru. Initially, it was intended that marks were to be given based on

the completion of task and the amount of comments made by their

course mates on their entries. The original requirement of the task

was as follows:

TASKS FOR UHB1412

Write 5 entries. Each entry should be more than 100 words.

Entries should be about real local events (especially around

UTM).

Collect 5 comments for the entries you have written. Each

comment should be more than 50 words.

* Make sure you indicate the number of words you use and

your real name after each entry and comment.

1.

2.


CHALLENGES IN IMPLEMENTING THE WEBLOG

At the beginning of the implementation of the weblog, several

problems arose. There were frequent problems with the students’

registration into the assigned blog. Although we had invited the

students to join the weblog several times, they still could not register.

To solve the problem, we had to ask students to send an email to us

so that we could cut and paste their email addresses to the invitation

list. By doing so, it had helped reduce the error made due to incorrect

email addresses.

Later in the semester, several students had complained that

they could not get the required amount of comments for each of their

postings. This was straightened out by modifying the requirement in

relation to comments. Instead of collecting comments, students had

to give comments to their peers’ postings and the amount is still the

same.

Up to the date of this presentation, there are 161 entries

written by the students. Although the assignment requirement was

only 5 entries, some students wrote more than that. The deadline for

the project has been extended due to problems related to network

connection in campus.

BENEFITS OF WEBLOGS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE

CLASSROOMS

Blogging everyday, he will become a more confident writer.”

(Blood 2000). Is it true? Can bloggers really express their ideas,

articulate their views to others in writing and gain confident of

doing so?

To investigate students’ perspective on the impact of weblog

as a tool for the journal writing assignment in a language learning

environment, a survey was carried out just before students completed

the task at the end of the semester. The following three open-ended

survey questions were posted on the blog:


Q1. What do you like most about this weblog task?

From the analysis of the first survey question, it was found that

students enjoyed doing the weblog task. The main reason given

was weblog empowered them to share their views outside of the

class environment. Here are some of the responses collected:

Student A said:

“Personally, there are two things that i love about this

weblog task. First, i can give comments to anybody

in the blog. Everyone can have their own views in the

topic. Next, we can write whatever topic that we want

and we can share it with everyone in the class.”

Student B said:

“For my answer,i think that what most i like about

this weblog task is in this weblog i free to give my

own personally comments and give my opinions about

about the topic that my friends write.I also can share

my experience in this weblog taht cannot be share in

the formal class.”

Student C said:

“i like this weblog task because i know many

information from this weblog and teach me to give

response and change opinion to other people.”

Student D said:

“For me, it is good for using webblog as a

way for us to post our idea and is a great class

participation activity. Blogging requires us to

brainstorm so that to give unique and valuable ideas.


I found that after this activity I have learnt how to create my

own blog and use it to post my comments and many stuff

more, including uploading message and many more....

I used to become a forum administrator and website

designer, but still, blogging seems fresh stuff for me,

I am thankful because I have learnt it... “

Q2. What do you hate most about this weblog task?

Students were confronted with need to think of something to write

and transfer it in the form of writing spontaneously. They are not

used to this kind of challenge. Due to their belief that a piece of

writing has to be grammatically correct, they were apprehensive

about their entries. When they have to write on the spot they were

not satisfied and confident with their sentence structure.

Here are responses collected for question 2:

Student A said:

“I just don’t like doing writing. The articles that i post

are all written on the spot. I don’t do drafting or the

outline.”

Student B said:

“But,the most i hate about this weblog task is

everyone must think first and get the idea before

we enter and write something in weblog..So that for

somebody who does not have any idea to write,they

have to take time to think what they want to write

And one more think we always fear that that have a

spelling or grammar mistake in our writing.”


Another popular lament was the problem of slow connection rate

of the Internet access in campus.

Student C said:

“i hate this blog when the server so slow to enter this

weblog.But currently thing.Our speed Lan in UTM

support just 10Mbps and i heard from my friend

system of LAn in singapore is 100Mbps.”

Q3. Do you think you have become a confident writer by

blogging?

Responses to the third survey question revealed that students

felt their writing skills have improved. They claimed that they are

now able express their thoughts and support their arguments. Some

have even stated that they are now able to give comments

Student A said:

”But after joining blogging, i think that i have improve

a little bit on writing as i tend to think about the

fact that i want to include in my writing in a short

while.”

Student B said:

“For me that have less confidence to communicate in

class i think that this weblog give me a chance to give

my opinions and comments as well as i can...”

The above responses revealed that weblogs empowered

students to publish their thoughts for the whole world to read.

Although their writings were not perfect, the students felt that

the weblog journal writing task was good for the development of


their writing skills. This is corresponds to Blood’s (2002) claim

that weblog creates better writers. It was also found that students

loved the facts that others can read their entries and in most cases

they valued the opportunity to give and receive comments.

CONCLUSION

Teaching methodology such as journal writing via weblog fits the

sociocognitive approach to network-based language teaching.

It can promote negotiation of meaning through interaction and

create a discourse community with authentic communicative

tasks. Perhaps by promoting a well established tool like weblog

for language learning purpose, students will be motivated to

continue to write beyond the requirement of the classroom

assignment. Nevertheless, the logistics requirements for successful

implementation for the weblog journal writing project need to be

ensured. For the adaptation of the weblog in the classroom, we have

to make sure there is sufficient ICT infrastructure on-site especially

a sound Internet connection.

REFERENCES

Blood, R. (2000). Weblog: A history and Perspective. Rebecca’s

Pocket.

http://www.rebeccablood.net/essay/weblog_history.html

Blood, R. (2002). Introduction. In J. Rodzvilla, J. (Ed.), We’ve got

blog (p. xii). Cambridge: Perseus Publishing.

Blood, R. (2002). The weblog handbook. Cambridge: Perseus

Publishing.

Brown, H.D. (2001). Teaching by principles: An interactive

approach to language pedagogy. New York: Addison

Wesley Longman.


Herring, S. C., Scheidt, L. A., Bonus, S., & Wright, E. (2004).

Bridging the gap: A genre analysis of weblogs. Proceedings

of the 37th Hawaii International Conference on System

Sciences (HICSS-37). Los Alamitos: IEEE Computer

Society Press.

Hiller, J. (2002). Blogs as disruptive tech: How weblogs are

flying under the radar of content management giants.

http://www.webcrimson.com/ourstories/blogdistruptvetech.

htm [19/06/2005]

Kerka, Sandra (1996). Journal writing and adult learning. ERIC

Digests No. 174. ERIC Clearinghouse on Adult Career and

Vocational Education. Columbus Ohio.

Maloney, C. and Campbell-Evans, G. (2002) Using interactive

journal writing as a strategy for professional growth. Asia-

Pacific Journal of Teacher Education. Vol. 30. No. 1. 2002.

p. 39-50

Pyra Labs (2000). ‘About’ : http://www.blogger.com/about.pyra

[19/02/2002.]

Richardson, w. (2006). The Weblogg-ed: The Read/Write Web In

The Classroom – Why Weblogs? http://www.weblogg-

ed.com/why_weblogs

Williams, J. (2003). Preparing to teach writing: Research, Theory

and Practice. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: New Jersey


Appendix 1:

Screen capture of the class weblog: my newscorner.blogspot.

com

125Reporting or Constructing “Facts”: Childhood Obesity in the National Press

8REPORTING OR CONSTRUCTING

“FACTS”:

CHILDHOOD OBESITY IN THE

NATIONAL PRESS

NOOR AIREEN IBRAHIM

1.0 INTRODUCTION

On the 31 August 1998, the first International Congress on Obesity

was held in Paris to caution governments around the world about

the threats of obesity. The International Obesity Task Force (IOTF

2004) outlined the need to take urgent and decisive action to curb the

obesity problem which threatened to lead to soaring medical costs and

a range of weight-related illnesses burdening and crippling health care

systems around the globe. The IOTF team of experts also predicted

that obesity could affect nearly half of the population in the United

States, Australia and the United Kingdom within one generation.

Obesity is not only a major problem in the adult population, but

is fast becoming a serious issue in children’s health as well. An

estimated 17.6 million children under the age of five are estimated

to be overweight worldwide. Taking into consideration the health

and financial implications of obesity on the healthcare system, it is

unsurprising to observe the trends in obesity-related media reports.

According to figures from the International Food Information Council

Foundation (IFIC 2003), there appears to be a significant increase in

mass media attention on obesity-related media reports.


The above figure illustrates the dramatic rise in obesity-related

media coverage since 1999. For example, between October 1999 and

September 2000, there were 395 obesity-related media reports; this

grew to 4767 between October 2002 and September 2003. There

appears to be almost a ten fold increase within the space of 5 years.

There is, however, relatively little research on obesity in the media.

One study is by Lawrence (2004) who examined how obesity is

framed in news coverage in the United States. Lawrence carried out

a content analysis of obesity in the front-page stories in the New

York Times from selected years between 1985 and 2003. Lawrence

identified three prevalent frames: the biological, the individual and

the environmental frames. Her findings strongly suggest that there

has been a vigorous frame contest between the individual frame

which focuses on obesity as a personal responsibility issue and the

environmental frame which emphasises the social environmental

aspect including public policy and the food industry. The analysis of

media reports discussed in this chapter runs parallel to the analysis

carried out by Lawrence (2004).

Figure 1: Trends in obesity–related media coverage (IFIC 2003)


When reporting on health or medical issues, it is common

practice for journalists to gather the “facts” from scientific and

medical literature. This practice is evident in how journalists,

usually science correspondents, attribute their claims to scientific

sources. Studies on the media (e.g. Oxman et al. 1993, Freimuth et

al.1984) have shown that media reports on health issues acquire the

status of “facts” from medical or scientific articles published in the

scientific/medical literature. If this is the case, do media reports of

health issues reflect what is documented in the scientific journals?

Thus, this is one of the questions which will be addressed in this

study. Hence, research into health issues in the media such as this

one must be consolidated with an examination of what is available in

the scientific/medical literature. Most importantly, this will provide

some indication as to what the “experts” perceive as the potential

causes of obesity in children.

In what follows, I provide i) an overview of childhood

obesity reports published in six British national newspapers between

October 2002 and October 2004 - a period in which obesity-related

media reports increased dramatically (see Figure 1, IFIC 2003) and

ii) a systematic review of childhood obesity articles obtained in the

scientific/medical literature during the same period. This comparison

will provide us with some interesting insights into what is documented

in these two key sites with regard to childhood obesity during that

critical period.

2.0 AIMS OF THE STUDY

This study sets out firstly, to describe the different ways in which

the cause of childhood obesity is framed in the British press during a

time when press reports of the issue saw the most dramatic escalation.

Secondly, this study will offer a description of the different information

available on childhood obesity documented in the scientific/medical

literature. Finally, I aim to link the findings of the content analysis of


the media data with the content analysis carried out on the medical/

scientific literature. In short, the aim of this study would be to answer

the following research questions:

What are the different causes of childhood obesity and how

often are they articulated across the media reports?

What information with regard to childhood obesity is available

in the medical and scientific literature?

Do the causes of childhood obesity found in the medical/

scientific literature get reported in the media?

Do some of the factors get played down or become altogether

silenced in the reports?

3.0 CHILDHOOD OBESITY IN THE MEDIA

The analysis of media reports are carried out in two stages. In the

first stage, 159 media reports from six British national newspapers

were analysed. Three broadsheet (The Times & Sunday Times, The

Guardian & the Observer, The Telegraph & the Sunday Telegraph)

and three tabloid (Daily Mail & The Mail on Sunday, Mirror &

Sunday Mirror, The Sun) newspapers published between October

2002 and October 2004 were coded for any mention or no mention

of cause. Any instance of causal talk, claim or explanation of cause

in the headlines and lead paragraphs was coded. This means that

causal links are realised through linguistic features and are explicitly

marked via the lexical choices used in the form of individual words,

phrases and clauses in a given text. The lexical choices include the

use of phrasal verbs that signal causal relation as indicated in the

data examples below:

(1) Childhood obesity caused by poor nutrition and lack

of exercise is creating a looming health crisis in Britain, with

average life expectancy expected to drop for the first time in

more than a century. (BS-Grd60/L)


(2) ONE in three kids is FAT because they spend too

long in front of the TELLY, a new report says.

(TB-Sun13/L)

Using the qualitative research software NVivo, news

reports were coded for their topical focus on childhood obesity in the

headline and in the lead paragraph. Out of the total 159 reports (80

broadsheet and 79 tabloid reports) coded, 114 of them (64 broadsheet

and 50 tabloid reports) had some mention of the cause of childhood

obesity. The remaining 45 reports (16 broadsheet and 29 tabloid

reports) did not include any explanation of cause. In other words,

more than 50 percent of the coded reports had some mention of the

cause. Through this initial coding of the data, it is clear that media

reports have a tendency to focus on the cause of an issue, in this case

childhood obesity.

It is important to note at this point that not every report

coded in this analysis made reference to just one type of cause.

Many mentioned more than one type and thus the number of causal

explanations reported will not be equal to the number of reports

analysed as will become apparent later. As I have previously outlined,

the analysis aims to establish the occurrence of each type of causal

claim across the six newspapers: therefore the numbers reported here

do not reflect the strength of each type of cause, but rather how often

they occur throughout the data corpus.

In the second stage of coding, the remaining 114 reports that

had some mention of childhood obesity causation were coded for the

different types of causal explanation. The analysis revealed that the

explanation of cause can be divided into two types of accounts. Here,

I have adopted Van Dijk’s (1988) term “explanatory framework” to

describe the two main explanation of cause. These frameworks will

be referred to as:

i) The Individual is ing Explanatory ( INDex)

framework


ii) The Systemic Explanatory (SYSTex) framework

The difference between these two types of frameworks can

be understood in terms of the internal or external source of causality

as will be further explained in the following section.

3.1 INDIVIDUALISING EXPLANATORY (INDEX)

FRAMEWORK

In the Individualising Explanatory (INDex) framework, the

explanation of cause is located within the individual or internally. The

cause is made to appear as though it does not come from any external

source but from the individuals themselves. These may stem from

the individual’s behaviour, lifestyle and/or genes which may include

their eating habits, their choice of leisure time activities and their

predisposition to put on weight based on the weight of their parents.

The individualising Explanatory (INDex) framework can be further

classified into the following two sub-categories: Biological (INDex-

Bio) and Behavioural/Lifestyle (INDex-Behav/LStyle).

Under the first sub-category, the Biological (INDex-Bio),

the cause of childhood obesity is located within the individual but

focus specifically on biological aspects of the problem. This may

include both the genetic predisposition of the individual or any

biological disorder and condition. For example:

(3) Children whose parents are overweight are more likely

to grow up to be obese because they share the same ‘fat gene’,

scientists said yesterday. (TB-Dlm12/L)

(4) Some children are born with a genetic defect that

means leptin does not work properly. As a result, their bodies

believe they are permanently starving. A more common


childhood obesity disease is Prader-Willi Syndrome, which

leads to an insatiable appetite. (BS-Tgh14/L)

The explanations in the second sub-category in the

Individualising Explanatory (INDex) framework make reference

to the behaviour and actions of the individual as the source of

the problem. The INDex-Behav/LStyle sub-category includes the

following types of action or behaviour: food/drink consumption,

unhealthy eating habit, physical activity or exercise, television and

video games, and (general) parental role and responsibility (see Fig

2). For example:

(5) PARENTS were urged last night to limit children’s

exposure to television after a study found excessive viewing

could damage long-term health. Children aged between five

and 15 who sat in front of a television for more than two hours

a day tended to be fatter as adults, have higher cholesterol and

smoke more. Scientists say it is the first study to suggest that

“couch potato” viewing habits in childhood could leave lasting

health damage. (BS-Tgh01/L)

(6) One in three kids is FAT because they spend too long

in front of the telly, a new report says. The study of ten-year-

olds found more than half had a TV in their bedrooms.

(TB-Sun13/L)


Taking a closer look at the difference between these two

categories under the Individualising Explanatory (INDex) framework,

it is obvious that a significant number of the coded reports made

reference to the behaviour and actions of the individual as the cause

of the problem. The frequency count shown in Figure 2 suggests that

the Behavioural/Lifestyle (INDex-Behav/LStyle) framework occurs

more often than the Biological (INDex-Bio) framework. Out of the

total occurrence of 160 for the Individualising Explanatory (INDex)

framework, the Behavioural/Lifestyle (INDex-Behav/LStyle) subtype

Broadsheet

(The Times, The

Guardian & The

Telegraph)

Tabloid

(The Mail, Mirror &

The Sun)

Total

Food Consumed 17 28 45

Exercise/Physical

Activity

16 24 40

Parental Role and

Responsibility

17 20 37

Television, PC and

Video Games

3 13 16

Unhealthy Eating Habit 1 6 7

Other 3 4 7

Total Behavioural/

Lifestyle

57 95 152

Biological 5 3 8

Total INDex 62 98 160

Table 2: Individualising Explanatory (INDex) Framework in the

British broadsheet and tabloid press (October 2002 – October 2004)


occurs as many as 152 times, 57 in the broadsheet press and 95 in the

tabloid press. In contrast, the Biological (INDex-Bio) subtype occurs

a mere eight times, five in the broadsheet and only three times in the

tabloid press.

3.2 S Y S T E M I C E X P L A N AT O R Y ( S Y S T E X )

FRAMEWORK

In contrast to the Individualising Explanatory (INDex) framework, the

Systemic Explanatory (SYSTex) framework refers to the explanation

of cause that appears to be outside the (control of) individuals. In

other words, the source of the cause is located within the community

and other larger forces of society. The two main subtypes of SYSTex

identified from the data corpus are the Government (SYSTex-Gov)

and the Food Industry (SYSTex-FI).

The first subtype of the Systemic Explanatory (SYSTex)

framework refers to the explanation of cause which focuses on the

government and government bodies as contributing to the growing

number of childhood obesity in the UK. Subcategories that fall under

this type of explanatory framework include Government policy,

Government action, School dinner and School system. Here are two

coded examples:

(7) SPORTS stars yesterday blamed the Government for

the growing number of overweight children. England rugby

player Jason Leonard and athlete Colin Jackson said there

had been years of under-investment in school sports and

PE. (TB-Mir04/L)

(8) A lack of “joined-up” thinking by Government has

allowed obesity rates in Britain almost to double in the past

decade, according to the Commons Select Committee on

Health’s report on obesity. (BS-Tms30/L)


The second subtype of the Systemic Explanatory (SYSTex)

framework refers to explanation of cause which points to the food

industry as the source of the problem. This may include marketing

strategies employed by the food industry, food labeling and food

advertisement as follows:

(9) FAST FOOD FIRMS ACCUSED OF USING SPORTS

TO ATTRACT CHILDREN: Health campaigners fear that

obesity in the young is being encouraged by multimillion

pound sponsorships of celebrities and events.

(BS-Obs14/L)

(10) FOOD ADS ‘MAKING KIDS FAT’

(TB-Sun16/L)

Broadsheet

(The Times, The Guardian &

The Telegraph)

Tabloid

(The Mail, The Mirror

& The Sun)

Government (SYSTex-Gov)

The Government 4 1

Government Action 4 3

Government Policy 2 1

School Dinner and Food 5 3

School System and Curriculum 4 1

Total SYSTex-Gov 19 9

Food Industry (SYSTex-FI)

Food Label 2 2

Food Advertisement 11 7

Marketing Strategy 6 2

Food Content 6 2

Other 1 1

Total SYSTex-FI 26 14

TOTAL SYSTex 45 23


An analysis of the two different categories under the Systemic

Explanatory (SYSTex) framework shows that there is a slight

difference between them. It is evident from Figure 3 that the Food

Industry (SYST/FI) subcategory in both the sub-corpora occurs more

regularly than the first sub-category: Government (SYSTex-Gov).

For example, in the broadsheet press, the Food Industry (SYSTex

/FI) sub-category occurs as many as 26 times whilst the Government

(SYSTex-Gov) sub-category occurs only 19 times. Similarly, in the

tabloid press, the Government (SYSTex-Gov) sub-category occurs

only nine times, whilst the Food Industry (SYSTex-FI) subtype occurs

as many as 14 times, almost twice as often. The Food advertisement

subcategory of the Systemic Explanatory (SYST/FI) framework

is the subtype most often cited as the cause of childhood obesity

occurring seven times in the tabloid press and as many as 11 times

in the broadsheet press.

More importantly, the analysis carried out revealed that

in framing the cause of childhood obesity, the Individualising

Figure 3: Systemic Explanatory Framework (SYSTex) and the sub-categories

across the British broadsheet and tabloid press (October 2002 – October 2004).

Framework Broadsheet Press

(The Times, the Guardian

& The Telegraph)

Tabloid Press

(The Mail, The Mirror &

The Sun)

Total

INDex 62 98 160

SYSTex 45 23 68

Figure 4: Individualising and Systemic frames in the British national

newspapers (Broadsheet and Tabloid Press)


Explanatory (INDex) framework is more recurrent than the Systemic

Explanatory (SYSTex) framework. In Figure 4, I have provided

a breakdown of the number of times both types of explanatory

frameworks occur in both the broadsheet the tabloid press (see Fig. 4).

As can be seen, the Individualising Explanatory (INDex) framework

occurs a total of 160 times, more than two times higher than the

Systemic Explanatory (SYSTex) framework which occurs 68 times

in both the broadsheet and tabloid press. This clearly suggests that it

is more common to locate the cause of childhood obesity within the

control of the individual rather than positioning the cause externally

or outside the individual’s control.

3.3 THE EXPLANATION OF CAUSE IN THE MEDIA

REPORTS

It can be seen that the Individualising Explanatory (INDex) framework

– which locates the cause of the problem within the individual – is the

most frequently mentioned across the data corpus. What this suggests

is that the media appears to be framing the childhood obesity issue

as a health problem inflicted by the behaviour and lifestyle of the

individuals. Selective explanation, such as this, is concerned about

constructing a particular version of the world (Potter 1996). This

selective explanation also suggests that individuals, or in this case

the overweight or obese children and their parents, are responsible for

the health problem. In fact, the reference to parental responsibility is

one of the top three categories of causes mentioned in the broadsheet

and tabloid press (see Fig. 2).

If indeed the focus on the individual’s behaviour and lifestyle

is supported by facts, then such a focus must be encouraged as a way

to provide guidance to the public as to the solution to their health

problems. However, many scientists have expressed concerned

about the inadequacy and misinformed nature of health and medical

reporting in the media. Journalists have the tendency to overstate


scientific findings which may lead to sensationalised or dramatised

reporting of the findings (Cohn 1989, Wiltse 1992, Wilkes & Kravitz

1992, Oxman et.al 1993, Schuhman & Wilkes 1997). Thus, the

analysis in this study looks at what is documented in the scientific

journals with regard to childhood obesity to provide key insights into

the comparative similarities and differences between the source and

the mediated material.

4.0 CHILDHOOD OBESITY IN THE SCIENTIFIC /

MEDICAL LITERATURE

In order to carry out the search for scientific/medical articles written on

childhood obesity, I utilised one of the most popular medical databases

– PubMed which provides an index of more than 4,000 medical

journals with over 16 million citations from life science journals for

biomedical articles (http://libdatabase.uche.edu). A search was carried

out for articles by entering the following keywords: overweight,

obesity, children and aetiology. It is important to mention that although

my initial aim was to utilise similar terms for the searches carried out

in both the scientific/medical literature and the media reports, this

plan proved unworkable. Using the keyword “cause” in the search

for the scientific/medical articles resulted in a zero search return.

Alternatively, the keyword “aetiology” was entered to replace the

word “cause” in the search which yielded 202 hits. The total number of

articles eligible for further analysis is 150. The other 52 articles were

excluded for various reasons. As with the media data, the search for

scientific/medical articles is also limited to those published between

October 2002 and October 2004.

My examination of the key research themes found in the

scientific/medical articles on childhood obesity was primarily focused

on a content analysis of the abstract section of the articles. Abstracts

written for scientific and medical journals often adhere to a standard

format in which the following headings are explicitly laid out:


Background, Aims and Objectives, Methods, Results/Discussions and

Conclusions/Interpretations. These sections present the focal point

of the research. From the abstract, I coded relevant texts, phrases

or clauses which indicate the focus of the reported research which

often signalled by common words or phrases such as “to examine”,

“to evaluate”, “to quantify” and “to identify”.

4.1 KEY RESEARCH FOCUS IN THE SCIENTIFIC/

MEDICAL LITERATURE

Six broad categories of research focus have emerged from the

analysis of 150 articles generated from the PubMed database search.

A summary of the overall frequency count of all six categories of

research focus is shown in Figure 5. At this stage, it is important to note

that the total number of categories coded is not equal to the number

of articles analysed as some articles have focused on more than one

category of research theme. The most frequently researched theme in

the scientific/medical literature is the Obesity Risk Factor (ObesRP)

occuring as many as 79 times. The are two sub-categories under the

Obesity Risk Factor/Predictor (ObesRP) are: (i) the Individual Risk

Factor/Predictor (ObesRP-Ind) and (ii) the Systemic Risk Factor/

Predictor (ObesRP-Sys).

Category 1: Obesity Risk Factor/Predictor (ObesRP).

Under this category, I have coded articles that locate possible risk

factors/predictors for developing obesity internally or within the

individuals themselves. These include behavioural or lifestyle factors

such as physical and sedentary activity, dietary or calorie intake.

Under the second sub-category, the Systemic Risk Factor/Predictor

(ObesRP-Sys), I have coded articles that identify risk factors/

predictors for developing obesity, which fall outside the control of

the individual. These include socio-cultural factors such as ethnicity

and socioeconomic factors such as income status.

1.


This sub-category occurs four times in the frequency count.

Out of the three sub-category under the Obesity Risk Factor/Predictor

(ObesRP) category, the first one, Individual Risk Factor/Predictor

(ObesRP-Ind) is the most prevalent sub-category occurring as many

as 43 times in the frequency count, whilst the Systemic Risk Factor/

Predictor (ObesRP-Sys) occurs only 18 times.

It is clear that under the Individual Risk Factor/Predictor

(ObesRP-Ind) sub-category, the Behavioural/Lifestyle Factor

(ObesRP-Ind/Behav) is the most frequent category focused on,

occurring as many as 26 times in the frequency count (see Fig 5).

Under this sub-category, I have included articles which focused on

examining the effects or association of behavioural and lifestyle

factors with childhood obesity. Examples include studies into

childhood obesity and its relationship with physical activity and

dietary habits. The second category under the Individual Risk Factor/

Predictor (ObesRP-Ind) is the Biological Risk Factor/Predictor

(ObesRF-Ind/Bio). Articles coded include those which focus on

biological risk factors for developing obesity. The factors that I have

identified include adiposity rebound,1 weight at birth, breast and bottle

Categories Number of occurrences

Category 1: Obesity Risk Factor/Predictor

(ObesRP)

79

Category 2: Obesity Health Consequences

(ObesHC)

64

Category 3: Obesity Prevention (ObesPrev) 31

Category 4: Obesity Trend (ObesT) 14

Category 5: Causes of Obesity (ObesCaus) 07

Category 6: Other (ObesOth) 03

Total 198

Figure 5: Categories of key research focus and number of occurrences


feeding period in infancy, parental BMI and genetics. The third and

final sub-category, Psychological Factors (ObesRP-Ind/Psycho), is

the least common – occurring only three times in the frequency count.

Under this sub-category, I have included studies that investigate the

possible role and impact of psychological factors which include

behavioural problems such as unhealthy eating habits and binge or

comfort eating.

There are two sub-categories under the Systemic Risk Factor/

Predictor (ObesRP-Sys) as shown in Figure 7. There is only a slight

difference between the occurrences of these two sub-categories.

Articles that focus on examining possible risk factors associated

with socio-economic issues occur 10 times. Under this theme, I have

coded articles which focus on examining the relationship between

socio-economic factors and overweight or obesity in children. Coded

articles include studies concerning social deprivation and income

status as predictors or risk factors for developing overweight and

obesity in children. The second sub-category is the Socio-cultural

Risk Factor/Predictor (Sys/ObesRP-sociocul) which occur eight times

as a research focus in the frequency count.

Sub-categories Number of occurrences

Behavioural/Lifestyle Factor

(ObesRP-Ind/behav)

26

Biological Factors (ObesRP-Ind/Bio) 14

Psychological Factor (ObesRP-Ind/Psycho) 3

Total ObesRP-Individual 43

Table 6: The Individual Risk Factor/Predictor (ObesityRP-

Individual) sub-categories and number of occurrences


Category 2: Obesity health consequences (ObesHC). The

possible health implications of childhood obesity and the steps that

need to be taken to deal with the consequences are also featured

in the scientific/medical articles. This category is the second most

common focus of research during the period analysed. The articles

coded under this category are those examining obesity as a predictor

or risk factor for other health complications such as Cardiovascular

Diseases (CAD) and Diabetes faced by children who are overweight

or obese. Health consequences of childhood obesity appear as many

as 64 times as a study focus in the coding. The two chronic diseases

that have been identified as the main health consequences of being

overweight or obese in children are coronary heart disease – e.g.

chronic heart diseases (CHD) or cardiovascular diseases (CVD) – and

diabetes, which occurred 18 and 11 times respectively.

Category 3: Obesity Prevention (ObesPrev). Articles which

focus on obesity prevention and intervention (ObesPrev) are the

third highest in the frequency count (31 times). Articles under this

category focus on examining issues surrounding strategies and efforts

to prevent and/or reduce obesity in children including treatments for

obesity. Here, the most frequent prevention strategies discussed focus

on the modification in dietary habits and physical activity directed at

overweight/obese children, parents and the whole family.

Category 4: Obesity Trends (ObesT).Under the fourth

category, Obesity Trends (ObesT), the articles coded focused on

examining the prevalence of childhood overweight and obesity, or

more precisely the BMI trends in children. This category occurred 13

Sub-category Number of occurrences

Socioeconomic Factor (ObesRP-Sys/socioecon) 10

Sociocultural Factor (ObesRP-Sys/sociocul) 8

Total ObesRP-Systemic 18

Figure 7: The Systemic Risk Factor/Predictor (ObesityRP-

Systemic) sub-categories and number of occurrence


times as the central research focus in the articles analysed.

Category 5: Causes of Obesity (ObesCaus).The fifth

category which occurs seven times as a research focus is a particularly

important category as it identifies studies which look into the causation

of childhood obesity or those which suggest explicit causal association

between obesity and a particular factor or several interrelated ones.

It is interesting to note that establishing causal association is a rare

sighting in the scientific/medical literature analysed appearing a mere

seven times as the research focus. It is interesting to note that out

of these seven occurrences, four provided a review of the different

causes. It is only the remaining three articles that focused on a specific

factor as the cause of childhood obesity. This clearly demonstrates that

the medical perspective on this issue is not made apparent in media

reports of childhood obesity. The multifactorial and complex nature

of childhood obesity appears to be lost in the media reports.

5.0 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

The initial analysis of the 159 press reports revealed that most of the

reports analysed in the data corpus include some kind of explanation

of cause which substantiates the tendency of media reports to focus

on the cause of a particular health issue. These explanations could

be further categorised into two broad explanatory frameworks based

on the source of causality. The Individualising Explanatory (INDex)

framework places the source of the problem internally or within the

(control of) individual while the Systemic Explanatory (SYSTex)

framework points to some external source, which is beyond the

individual’s control as the cause of the problem e.g. the environment,

the government or the food industry. The frequency counts reveal

that the Individualising Explanatory (INDex) framework occurs

more regularly than the latter, which suggests that the cause of the

childhood obesity problem lies with the obese or overweight children

and their parents.


The comparative analysis of the causal explanation found in

the media reports and the scientific/medical literature suggests that

there appears to be a discrepancy between what is documented in

the scientific/medical journals and what gets reported in the media.

The review of the scientific and medical literature suggests that the

cause of overweight and obesity in children are multivariate and

complex. It has already been established from previous research that

the interpretation of cause entails some form of judgment on agency

and the assignment of blame and responsibility. Similarly, selective

and biased explanation becomes an effective way of attributing blame.

In addition, rarely do media reports point out the complexity and the

multifactorial nature which surrounds the aetiology of childhood

obesity. The discriminating nature of media reports along with the

propensity to single out specific groups of people in the explanation

of cause all contribute in framing the childhood obesity issue as a

health problem caused by the actions and lifestyle choices of the

overweight and obese children and their parents. What this appears

to imply is that responsibility to curb and resolve this health problem

also falls on these individuals.

This is consistent with the findings of the study on media

framing of obesity carried out by Lawrence (2004) highlighted earlier

in the chapter. In her study of obesity reports in the American press,

obesity causation is prevalently framed as located in the behaviour

and lifestyle choices of the individual. This includes high calorie

consumption and the lack of exercise. Lawrence also notes that in

1996, the behavioural frame was the default explanation for the

cause of obesity. Her analysis also suggests that although obesity

has been reframed in the past two decades from an individual and

biological frame toward the realm of environmental causation, the

role of personal responsibility for one’s health has been strongly

articulated in response.

According to Iyengar (1991), one of the most important

consequences of the way a public health issue is framed is the

solution to the problem that the frame implies. The analysis shows

that childhood obesity is framed as a health problem which is caused


by the behaviour and lifestyle choices of the individual. If this is so,

then, according to Iyengar, it would also imply that the solution to

this health problem also lies with the individual. The findings of the

content analysis suggest that childhood obesity is caused by too much

eating, a lack of physical exercise due to sedentary lifestyle brought

upon by excessive time spent watching TV and playing PC/video

games, or the lack of parental responsibility. What this entails is that

the solution also lies with the individual or parents themselves to

begin to curb overeating and control TV viewing whist encouraging

physical play and exercise. However, if the problem lies in the lack of

suitable infrastructure to encourage play or as a result of consuming

unhealthy food that is so readily available, then the solution would

be for the government to make allocations to ensure that safe play

areas are accessible to all and initiate a policy which regulates the

salt and sugar content allowed in food sold in fast food restaurants

and supermarkets. Instead, the recurrent focus on the individual’s

behaviour and lifestyle choices as the cause of childhood obesity is

significantly juxtaposed by the apparent lack of reference to other

social forces or institutions such as the government and the food

industry, which has implications for who is responsible for the cause

and the solution of the problem.

REFERENCE

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Lawrence, R. G. 2004. Framing obesity. The evolution of news

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