Facebook and Identity

In the past, people normally wrote dairies privately in a notebook using pen. They are the written records for them to record their own personal feelings for self-memory and self-reflection. However, writing dairy is now no longer a personal event due to the technological advancement of electronic dairy services—facebook, twitter and blogs, it is now a published stories book for creating an ideal identity using languages and graphics; it is also a tool to socialize and ratify in-group identities.

My Facebook

The above facebook profile page is mine and I will use it as an example to illustrate how languages and graphics can create self unique and in-group identities, some ideologies will also be revealed and explained using the new media.


The language people used shows their identity. Regard to the facebook cover page, there is a sentence written near my name, ‘i gonna Australia asap!! lol, btw, 520, Australia!!’ This is a Netspeak which may only be understood by those teenagers who likes chatting on the computer or mobile. The sentence actually means ‘I go to Australia as soon as possible!! (laugh out loud), by the way, I love you, Australia!!’ Teenagers like the computer mediated language as they think it represents the identity of Generation Y and Z because it is their unique language. People who are not belonging to their group may not understand the languages. It is the reason why their parents do not understand the sentence as they are not familiar with the computer mediated language.

The parts of ‘information’ and ‘photos’ in profile page allow users to type their current location, relationship, birthday, educational background, interests and contact information. Users also can upload photos to show their current lives. Definitively, it is not a section simply for providing personal information; it is a part for creating self unique and in-group identities. The birthday and educational background indicate your generation as a teenagers or young adult. Besides, people draw inferences on a person quickly based on photos as some of the photos reflect your personalities which you want to show explicitly. For example, people think a person is outgoing, active, enthusiastic and independent if he/she likes travelling and organizing activities. A person is quite gentle and quiet if he/she likes reading or drawing.

Storybroad Design

Tilte: My unforgettable Memory
Editor: Crystal Wan

Storyboard 1

Storyboard 2



Storyboard 3



Storyboard 4

Online Animated News and Multiple Modes

Modern people rely greatly on multiple modes in every media due to a remarkable technological advancement.


Nowadays, readers are absolutely NOT interested in texts only contain words and few photos (they are so boring, modern people need a colorful life!); instead, people seek excitement from multimodal texts including animation, sound, color and visual organization. It is the reason why online animated news is produced to fulfill the need of modern readers.

Compare to online written news or newspapers, online animated news is not only inform the details of news but also entertain readers as they can achieve graphics, visual and audio enjoyment.


Now, an online animated news report from apply daily is used to act an example. The news is about an ambulance refused to send a drunken man to hospital as the health workers thought the man did not need emergency assistant, unfortunately, few hours later, the man died at home because of cramp. The news actually can be reported using 50 words (I used 34 words only from above description). However, it can be animated to a 2.23-minute multimodal video clip with animation, sound, color and visual graphics.

Firstly, the clip uses two eyes with tear and a title ‘ambulance refused to send a drunken man who died four hours later’ as a cover page. The crying face (image) of his wife creates an emotional effect to readers which is a sad story.

An opening with tears and title

Then, there is an animation to react the story; readers can witness the whole process through the animation. It causes a sensation which people should blame the health workers on ambulance.

An animation to react the news 

After that, in order to make the story more convincing, a narrative of the casualty is added to the clip.



A crying face make readers feel sad too



A narrative from the casualty. It is a real story !



I not blame the technique of using multiple modes in reporting news; in fact, it is a good entertainment to people. However, readers should be rational to analyze and criticize how truth the news is because selected data and animated clip may influence your determination. 

Sourse: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEfuibmU9iM