TL: DR = Too Long: Didn’t Read

One of the dangers of writing for the web is that you are left to your own devices, enabling you as the creative master of the work to branch off and talk endlessly about an issue to death. Making it easy to loose sight of a main objective of writing any piece of reading; to enable others to find the information they are looking for, whether for simple entertainment or educational purposes.

Elaborations become too detailed, and you forget to let the readers explore certain key facets of the issue for themselves, swamping them with facts and figures that at times bewildering, especially those who are novices to its topic of discussion. This coupled with a language so complex and literary may inadvertently have a “Boomerang Effect”, ‘where attitudes change in the opposite direction of what the message advocates; audiences driven away rather then drawn to the idea’ as implied in the Social Judgment Theory by Muzafer Sherif (Em Griffin, 2012).

Ironically, pushing away the readers who might most benefit from reading such a discourse in how the internet, as a media or information gathering, shapes their daily lives. The online article titled; ”Artikel 3: BALKANISASI SIBER: GANGGUAN KEPADA SEMANGAT 1MALAYSIA” by blogger http://suaramurba.blogspot.com/ or Dr. Rahmat Ghazali, is too rigid and hard-fact based for audiences who are not used to the high academic level discourse that it presents to the public.

They would instead shy away and gravitate towards easier to understand articles relating to the issue, which probably would provide worst educational value to them at best and misinformation at worst. As painstakingly explained in the original article, the audience has an overwhelming power to pick and choose what they want to read, hear, feel and at the end of the day, the best way to change their wants and needs is to influence their perception to de-balkanize their world-view.

Thus then it is imperative to KISS(s); Keep It Short and Simpe (stupid), a fundamental concept in Journalism where keeping everything concise and simple allows for better initial appeal, understanding and hopefully a change in mind-set for its readers. At the end of the day, not everyone has the luxury to read pages after pages of academic discourse when they can get a summarized version, like this tidbit espoused by Dr Rahmat Ghazali ini his article;

References:

1. “A First Look at Communication Theory” by Em Grifin [McGraw-Hill, 2012]
2. “Media Society: Industries, Images and Audiences” by David Croteau & Williams Hoynes & Stefania Milan [SAGE Publications, 2012]
3. Rahmat Ghazali.. (2011). Artikel 3: BALKANISASI SIBER: GANGGUAN KEPADA SEMANGAT 1MALAYSIA. Retrieved 29 April, 2014, from http://suaramurba.blogspot.com/2011/11/artikel-3-balkanisasi-siber-gangguan.html