The media is changing with the opportunities offered by social networking tools, said Professor Laura Tyson, dean of the Haas School of Business at Berkley, as she led a panel session on the phenomenon at the 5th Global Competitiveness Forum (GCF). Jared Cohen, director of Google Ideas, redefined the term “social media” as he felt that it did not explain the form or function adequately. “The term I believe is more appropriate is connecting technologies, that is tools that connect individuals to information, which we typically call new media, and to each other which we call social media,” he said. He felt that most important was the aspect that connected individuals to resources, including telemedicine and education for example.The reason that discussion of social or connective media was currently in focus, said Cohen, is the growth of electronic media and connectivity over the last decade. In that time, global cell-phone use had risen from 907 million to five billion and Internet connections from 361 million to two billion.The significant change, he said, was that 20 years ago large corporations from whom the user rented equipment owned the means of communication. “Now the user owns it,” he said.Social media has the power to transform lives, bring about social change and drive innovation. However, the creators of social network programs have no idea how they will evolve in different cultures, said Cohen, adding that their spread is inevitable. However, the writers and companies that generate these programs or tools, as he described them, take no responsibility for how they are used. “It is the individual’s choice to use the tools,” he said. The innovation in their uses will take place in countries where the tools are used, not made.“Technology doesn’t choose sides, people do,” said Cohen. “As a company that is pushing a lot of these tools out there we feel a sense of responsibility to be part of the conversation across multiple sectors, disciplines and experiences to look at some of these global challenges and rephrase them in ways that account for technology.”New media has both positive and negative potential, said Martin Dickson, deputy editor of the Financial Times. On the downside, it removed their ability to control ideas. “The implication for the old media — the sales and advertising revenue model looks pretty well bust,” he said.He added that although businesses got quicker feedback and allowed customer profiling for advertisers, the potential for danger to a brand was very high as a comment on the Internet was able to cause huge damage to reputations.Chrystia Freeland, global editor at large for Thomson Reuters, said social media “empowers the people against the hierarchy.” She noted that people were increasingly turning to their friends for information. However, users still looked for guidance from responsible, authoritative and trusted journalists.Social media also accelerated and exacerbated the rise of the “super star” phenomenon while ironically leveling the playing field for the majority of users. She gave the example of the rise of the Sarah Palin brand, self promoted from a house in Alaska with simple equipment and almost zero cost.David Eilenberg, head of development and current programming at Mark Burnett Productions, raised the question of quality and relevance of content that might be spread over 500 million “local neighborhoods.”He offered, as a solution, the idea of “thinking local and acting globally” — a reversal of conventional thinking.
Pakatan Rakyat can be killed off even before the 13th General Election if it is not careful, warns PAS MP for Kota Raja Dr Siti Mariah Mahmud. This is evident from the media blitz attacking the coalition from all sides on a daily basis.
According to the PAS leader, it is this media onslaught that is the top culprit and the main source of artillery fire that could rock the Pakatan.
Of late, the mainstream press including government-controlled TV stations have played a tremendous role in highlighting Prime Minister Najib Razak's 'achievements'. Pages and pages of such "advertorial" can be found almost daily in the newspapers who hire writers, journalists, reporters and analysts and instruct them to lavish praise on Najib and his BN government.
For instance, the My 1stHome initiative recently launched by Najib received widespread publicity. The coverage created an image of a PM who is caring for the rakyat as he wants everyone to own a home. But will the poor and the low-income group really benefit from this initiative? What about the burden of household debt incurred in the twilight years or if one loses one's job suddenly due to accident or poor health?
Yet, unquestioningly, everything in the mainstream media these days glorify the deeds of Najib and the BN Government.
According to Siti Mariah, constant media bombardment against Pakatan leaders will rub off one way or another - even if few Malaysians believe what they read or see and hear on TV these days. Come polling, Pakatan may lose out due to the mainstream media painting a very black and bleak picture of Pakatan and the future it offers.
"So much damage has been done to vilify us that it is going to be difficult for the general population to tell fact from fiction or to separate lies from truth," Siti told Malaysia Chronicle.
Criminals for hiding the truth from the people
Even former premier Mahathir Mohamad's mudslinging comments about Anwar Ibrahim has been given top coverage in the news. These comments which degrade Anwar's character and moral standing will surely be lapped up by the rural folks, who more often than not will believe wholeheartedly what they read from Utusan Malaysia andBerita Harian.
During the reign of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich, the Nazi dictator also used a propaganda team to influence the masses and garner support for the Nazi regime. As a sign of how strongly Hitler believed in the power of the press, he appointed the notorious Goebbels as his propaganda chief.
"I have information that it was the 'higher-ups' who instructed the mainstream media not to print any criticism on Najib and the whole BN cohort along with their plans, programmes and initiatives," DAP MP for Beruas Ngeh Koo Ham told Malaysia Chronicle.
How the mainstream media plays up issues to "dupe" the public is evident in the coverage of the RM50billion KL MRT network - Najib's pet project that was hammered through in secrecy and without any open tender.
Even former premier Mahathir Mohamad's mudslinging comments about Anwar Ibrahim has been given top coverage in the news. These comments which degrade Anwar's character and moral standing will surely be lapped up by the rural folks, who more often than not will believe wholeheartedly what they read from Utusan Malaysia andBerita Harian.
During the reign of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich, the Nazi dictator also used a propaganda team to influence the masses and garner support for the Nazi regime. As a sign of how strongly Hitler believed in the power of the press, he appointed the notorious Goebbels as his propaganda chief.
"I have information that it was the 'higher-ups' who instructed the mainstream media not to print any criticism on Najib and the whole BN cohort along with their plans, programmes and initiatives," DAP MP for Beruas Ngeh Koo Ham told Malaysia Chronicle.
How the mainstream media plays up issues to "dupe" the public is evident in the coverage of the RM50billion KL MRT network - Najib's pet project that was hammered through in secrecy and without any open tender.
On Tuesday, PKR in a press conference at the Parliament lobby requested that the MRT project be temporarily halted until all the questions pertaining to it - especially in regards to cost, suitability of the station's locations, inter-connectivity, et al - were answered satisfactorily.
However, on Thursday, a feature appeared in an English daily highlighting that many people wanted the MRT and a few members of the public were interviewed to give the effect of public clamoring. This may be subtle propaganda to promote the notion that Najib was again "thinking of the people's needs" first. It also puts PKR in a bad light and make it seem as if it was uncaring of the transportation problems faced by the man-in-street.
However, on Thursday, a feature appeared in an English daily highlighting that many people wanted the MRT and a few members of the public were interviewed to give the effect of public clamoring. This may be subtle propaganda to promote the notion that Najib was again "thinking of the people's needs" first. It also puts PKR in a bad light and make it seem as if it was uncaring of the transportation problems faced by the man-in-street.
"This systemic attack and concerted effort in the mainstream media to tarnish Anwar and discredit PR is part of BN's ploy before the 13th General Election. BN is now laying the groundwork for victory as Najib last year has announced that they will defend Putrajaya at all cost. At all cost means he will stop at nothing and leave no holds barred in his effort to stay in power," PKR assemblyman for Teja Chang Lih Kang told Malaysia Chronicle.
Brainwashing, the press and BTN
Ngeh also gave examples that in matured democracies like USA and UK, the newspapers were allowed to be critical of the government unlike in Malaysia, where all the government's moves are praised and lauded with maximum effect while a blanket ban is applied on dissent and the opposition.
During the heyday of the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler won the support of the masses due to Goebbels' success in spreading the Nazi propaganda
During the heyday of the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler won the support of the masses due to Goebbels' success in spreading the Nazi propaganda
Even the youth of Nazi Germany worshipped Hitler as a great hero thanks to the Third Reich recruiting them into organisations set up to specially brainwash and manipulate their young minds. In Malaysia, Mahathir has been accused of trying to do the same with Biro Tata Negara or the National Civics Bureau.
Try as it may, all the good that has been done by the Pakatan has often been burnt out by the intentional mis-reporting and information black-outs by the media.
The merits of the Pakatan's pride - its Buku Jingga or Orange Book that highlights its blueprint for economic reforms gets nearly zero coverage compared to comments by Najib, Muhyiddin, their BN colleagues and analysts even though many of their proposals are so extravagant it only takes common sense to realize that they will bankrupt the nation.
"We are at the mercy of the ruthless mainstream media. Hopefully the more well-informed rakyat and those in the know will not be so gullible," said Ngeh.
Try as it may, all the good that has been done by the Pakatan has often been burnt out by the intentional mis-reporting and information black-outs by the media.
The merits of the Pakatan's pride - its Buku Jingga or Orange Book that highlights its blueprint for economic reforms gets nearly zero coverage compared to comments by Najib, Muhyiddin, their BN colleagues and analysts even though many of their proposals are so extravagant it only takes common sense to realize that they will bankrupt the nation.
"We are at the mercy of the ruthless mainstream media. Hopefully the more well-informed rakyat and those in the know will not be so gullible," said Ngeh.
At a roundtable on the “Role of media in building voters' awareness” moderated by Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu N. Ram in New Delhi on Friday (March 4, 2011), it was noted that voter participation has not been an area of keen media interest and that it had focused more on the politics of election and election dramas.
It was also stressed that there is a need for the media to take voluntary, not paid, ownership of creating awareness for better participation of voters in the election process
The participants in the discussion also emphasised for a greater and sustained interaction between the EC and the media at various levels — working journalists, senior editors and media proprietors.
Chairman of the Centre for Media Studies Bhaskara Rao said that “pre-emptive reporting” is a reason for less voter participation, especially in areas where television viewership is high. The print medium has to take more responsibility as its credibility is relatively more.
Speaking about paid news Ram noted that paid news, as a phenomenon which came to the fore during the 2009 Lok Sabha elections and also in some Assembly polls, has given a “very bad name” to the press.
He said: “Paid news created double jeopardy. It wrecked the concept of a free and fair press and undermined the democratic electoral process…this should not be looked at in isolation but as part of a larger problem which includes private treaties.”
Ram said: “There is a need to join hands to eliminate and crack down on paid news through discussions involving working journalists and media organisations.”
N. Ram, Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu, has called for “bold and radical” ways to check the ethical failings of the media.
Inaugurating a seminar ‘Whither Media,' organised as part of the three-day Third International Congress on Kerala Studies, which concluded here on Monday, Mr. Ram said that while the Indian media were on a strong footing, insofar as growth prospects were concerned, there were many things that were wrong when it came to quality and ethical issues.
Mr. Ram, who was commenting on the recent Niira Radia tape disclosures and the ‘paid news' phenomenon, said mechanisms such as the Press Council of India had proved to be inadequate to meet the challenge, as had been shown by the manner in which the council was unable to publish its own inquiry report on ‘paid news' on account of internal divisions.
He said it was thanks largely to the Election Commission of India that some solution for the menace was on the horizon. The Commission had taken up the issue fairly seriously despite having no jurisdiction over the media, he pointed out.
Surveying the global media scene, Mr. Ram pointed out that while the media in mature markets were faced with a meltdown and several of them downing their shutters, the media in India and the rest of the developing world were poised for further growth.
The crisis of the traditional media was also being accompanied by the Internet gaining centrality in developed markets. However, in the developing world, the Internet had much catching up to do. Thus, digital media was the future, but they would gain wide acceptance only after a sustainable revenue model emerged.
He said that regardless of the platform used, the media's primary functions and guiding principles would remain the same. Primary among these are the credible information function, the investigative/adversarial function, and the educational function.
Mr. Ram said one major criticism about the media in India, voiced by prominent academics such as economist Prabhat Patnaik, was that the media had fallen prey to the hegemony of the global financial capital and that its moral universe had shrunk. The media should function on the template of truth-telling, independence, justice and humanness, he said.
For the Indian media, the key question was one of covering mass deprivation. It should not be a case, as Professor Patnaik had pointed out, of the media seeming to be powerful when covering the financial capital and powerless when speaking for the poor, he said, adding that there was also the need to protect journalists against intimidation by the state.
Speaking on the occasion, Sashi Kumar, chairman of the Media Development Foundation, Chennai, said it was time to rediscover the concept of freedom of the press in Marxist terms.
He said the criticism that socialist systems were intrinsically hostile to freedom of the press was born out of a combination of exaggeration and lack of understanding about the reality. Karl Marx was passionate about freedom of the press, and the distortions of later times were an aberration.
In the 1840s, Marx used to say that censorship could never be legal even if it were the law.
For him, the press was “the realisation of human freedom” and that the first freedom was “not to be a business,” Mr. Kumar said, and regretted that in current times, the need for regulation of the press was being sought partly because of the irresponsibility of the media.
P. Sainath, Rural Affairs Editor, The Hindu, said the media had been keeping a “conspiratorial silence” on ‘paid news' despite the Election Commission holding hearings to decide whether the former Maharashtra Chief Minister, Ashok Chavan, should be disqualified over the issue, and despite the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) issuing stringent guidelines following disclosures about the happenings in connection with the last Maharashtra elections.
Mr. Sainath said the time had come for a concerted effort to retrieve the media as a public space, to expand public interest, clean up the public broadcaster, introduce courses on media literacy, initiate anti-monopoly legislation, launch a small journal movement, strengthen journalist unions, fight the contract system, and assert that while “media are business, journalism is a calling.”
Fredrik Laurin, Swedish Public Broadcasting, Prabha Varma, resident editor of Deshabhimani, and R. Parvathi Devi, media coordinator of Kudumbashree, spoke.
Inaugurating a seminar ‘Whither Media,' organised as part of the three-day Third International Congress on Kerala Studies, which concluded here on Monday, Mr. Ram said that while the Indian media were on a strong footing, insofar as growth prospects were concerned, there were many things that were wrong when it came to quality and ethical issues.
Mr. Ram, who was commenting on the recent Niira Radia tape disclosures and the ‘paid news' phenomenon, said mechanisms such as the Press Council of India had proved to be inadequate to meet the challenge, as had been shown by the manner in which the council was unable to publish its own inquiry report on ‘paid news' on account of internal divisions.
He said it was thanks largely to the Election Commission of India that some solution for the menace was on the horizon. The Commission had taken up the issue fairly seriously despite having no jurisdiction over the media, he pointed out.
Surveying the global media scene, Mr. Ram pointed out that while the media in mature markets were faced with a meltdown and several of them downing their shutters, the media in India and the rest of the developing world were poised for further growth.
The crisis of the traditional media was also being accompanied by the Internet gaining centrality in developed markets. However, in the developing world, the Internet had much catching up to do. Thus, digital media was the future, but they would gain wide acceptance only after a sustainable revenue model emerged.
He said that regardless of the platform used, the media's primary functions and guiding principles would remain the same. Primary among these are the credible information function, the investigative/adversarial function, and the educational function.
Mr. Ram said one major criticism about the media in India, voiced by prominent academics such as economist Prabhat Patnaik, was that the media had fallen prey to the hegemony of the global financial capital and that its moral universe had shrunk. The media should function on the template of truth-telling, independence, justice and humanness, he said.
For the Indian media, the key question was one of covering mass deprivation. It should not be a case, as Professor Patnaik had pointed out, of the media seeming to be powerful when covering the financial capital and powerless when speaking for the poor, he said, adding that there was also the need to protect journalists against intimidation by the state.
Speaking on the occasion, Sashi Kumar, chairman of the Media Development Foundation, Chennai, said it was time to rediscover the concept of freedom of the press in Marxist terms.
He said the criticism that socialist systems were intrinsically hostile to freedom of the press was born out of a combination of exaggeration and lack of understanding about the reality. Karl Marx was passionate about freedom of the press, and the distortions of later times were an aberration.
In the 1840s, Marx used to say that censorship could never be legal even if it were the law.
For him, the press was “the realisation of human freedom” and that the first freedom was “not to be a business,” Mr. Kumar said, and regretted that in current times, the need for regulation of the press was being sought partly because of the irresponsibility of the media.
P. Sainath, Rural Affairs Editor, The Hindu, said the media had been keeping a “conspiratorial silence” on ‘paid news' despite the Election Commission holding hearings to decide whether the former Maharashtra Chief Minister, Ashok Chavan, should be disqualified over the issue, and despite the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) issuing stringent guidelines following disclosures about the happenings in connection with the last Maharashtra elections.
Mr. Sainath said the time had come for a concerted effort to retrieve the media as a public space, to expand public interest, clean up the public broadcaster, introduce courses on media literacy, initiate anti-monopoly legislation, launch a small journal movement, strengthen journalist unions, fight the contract system, and assert that while “media are business, journalism is a calling.”
Fredrik Laurin, Swedish Public Broadcasting, Prabha Varma, resident editor of Deshabhimani, and R. Parvathi Devi, media coordinator of Kudumbashree, spoke.
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