Explore The New World

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23673379-2862,00.html

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23673455-661,00.html

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23673284-2862,00.html

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23673285-2862,00.html

http://www.theage.com.au/national/sydney-slips-in-city-rankings-20080611-2oqf.html?page=-1

http://www.nlc.edu.au/main/index.php

http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/news/features/s2359868.htm

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24078936-2862,00.html

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/05/12/1210444339492.html

I remember one day when I just come to city, I saw that hundreds of Melbourne taxi drivers blocked a major city intersection demanding better safety after one of their own was critically injured in a stabbing. An unidentified 23-year-old taxi driver, a student from India, was stabbed and critically injured by a passenger in inner suburban Clifton Hill about 3am.

Then, there were a series of articles in Herald Sun about the difficulties that the overseas students in Melbourne have faced. According to these articles, racist attacks, high renting, low-paid jobs are making life a misery for many foreign students in Melbourne, especially Indian students.

However, according to Mercer’s Worldwide Quality of Living Index, Melbourne and Sydney are among the world’s best cities to live in.

In a forum of MOVSA (Melbourne Overseas Vietnamese Student Association), there were a debate around an article which was published in a Vietnamese newspaper. This article is about the life of international students based on the data from the articles in Herald Sun. This story made the parents of Vietnamese students worried.

So, in summary, is Melbourne a safe place for the international students?

We plan to interview some international students in generally and Indian students in particularly about this issue. Also, we try to contact to Eric Pang, President of NLC (National Liaison Committee for International Students in Australia) for the interview. One of the events of the year 2008 by NLC is “Safety First – On Campus & Beyond”.

Webpage: Afghanistan – The Violent Frontier

http://www.smh.com.au/multimedia/afghanistan/main.html

• How well does the site use navigation?
• How effectively is it designed?
• How effectively does it use photos, graphics, broadcast and interactive elements? List the elements that are present.
• How well are the stories written/presented/packaged?
• What did you love about it? Hate about it? Why?

Firstly, this website impresses me by its color. There are only two colors: back and white. When I look at the front page, I immediately think about the war and death. So this website is successful about the color if the designer want readers to imagine something behind the color.  However, it is not like the news website. It is more like the game website about the war and battles. The front page is boring. It is not active, not animated. There are only text and images. The main things they used are photo (slideshow), video and audio. The navigation is simple. The readers need more options to link pages.

The

At the end of August, there was the big issue in the Australian press. Fairfax, Australia’s leading media company,  says it will cut about 550 jobs, or 5 per cent of its workforce, as part of a “business improvement program”. Fairfax journalists across Australia were on strike in protest at the company’s plans.

Why Fairfax decides to cut so much jobs like that? During discussion with my classmate from South America, she told me this happens regularly in her country and Western countries.

This case continues the debate about development and future of newspapers. Revenue/profit, breaking news (looking news in depth) and freedom of speech are the important things that affect on any kind of media.