Sunday, June 14, 2009

New Media or Old Media?




"Today we are beginning to notice that the new media are not just mechanical gimmicks for creating worlds of illusion, but new languages with new and unique powers of expression."

-Eric McLuhan-


In today's digitized world, the new media are challenging for convergence in both social and cultural context. The new audience formation of the internet is obviously affecting the role of traditional media, especially in country such as China and Malaysia where strong rules of laws are applied control information flowing as well as freedom of speech( Watts, 2005). For Instance, In Malaysia context, almost every mainstream medium are controlled by the ruling political parties- UMNO, MCA and MIC. Self-censorship is practiced when reporting about certain ‘sensitive’ issue. ( Venkiteswaran, 2009) .

Old Media, New Media?
The role as a watchdog for traditional media has been taken over with the emergence of new forms of media such as blogs, Youtube and online newspaper. This is because the information richness and reach ( Nightingale,2008) are so much more advance and in-depth when compared to the old media.. For instance, a Youtube video was uploaded two years ago that gotten more than 260,000 views and got duplicated plus uploaded to other Youtube account, the video shows politicians arguing and discriminative words were shouted to the Chinese Politician (SangHarimau, 2006). This will never have publish on the Malaysia mainstream media.

There are many other political blogs, as well as alternative online press that can be accessed by the local audience. The new media are becoming more influencing over the year, I believe that sooner over later the mainstream media will ‘lose’ the readership war as the information from the new media are reaching more people every minute.

New forms of media include:

  1. Mobile Blogging ( Moblog) : Blogger post up directly from their mobile phone.
  2. Video Blogging (Vlogs ) : Embedded video post or video links with text.
  3. Photography Blogging ( photologs) : Photo sharing with caption .
  4. Micro-Blogging ( tumblelogs) : a mixed of media posted on blogs.
  5. Youtube-: Allows video sharing and interactive communication with users around the world.
  6. e- News paper/e- books/ e-magazine: Downloadable files from the internet.
    ( Reichmayr, 2005)

References:

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