Saturday
14Jan2006
The rise of new media
Saturday, January 14, 2006 at 15:35 How the emergence of electronic communication will change the political landscape
How do you explain the government guaranteeing non-censorship of the Internet yet controlling traditional media – TV, radio and print – as tightly as it does?
The only conclusion you can make it that the government is complacently assuming that New Media will have little reach – and an even smaller impact on the masses. At least for the foreseeable future, anyway.
Well, the future is nearly here. Want proof? In a word: Squatgate.
The tiny video clip of the Chinese-looking Malay lady being made to do nude squats, while in police custody, will probably have more impact on the police force than the voluminous Royal Commission report on the police.
That clip, apparently, was shot on a mobile phone and made the rounds probably via MMS and e-mail. Online-only news site Malaysiakini also made an edited version of the clip available on its site. Everybody I know has seen it. This was truly a New Media phenomenon.
And it's just the start. Almost every phone now has a digital camera and many of those can take videos too. It's just a matter of time before we have our own Rodney King video, if the police force doesn't reform itself.
But it's not just shocking videos like Squatgate that can make a difference. Blogs are making their impact too.
The fiasco that was Universiti Malaya's drastic plunge in rankings from 89th to 169th position in the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES), in one year, was kept alive not by the mainstream media but by blogs maintained by opposition leader Lim Kit Siang and a couple of former ASEAN scholars, Tony Pua and Ong Kian Ming.
Through clever analysis, Pua and Ong managed to correctly figure out that the drastic plunge was due to erroneous assumptions made by the THES the previous year that caused UM to be incorrectly ranked 89th. In fact, they argue conclusively (using some math and statistics) that the 169th position could very well be an improvement as UM would probably have not even made the top 200 the year before last.
These are a couple of examples of how New Media is starting to rock the boat. But they are just a curtain raiser for the shape of things to come. Advances in broadband have made some technologies like streaming video viable where just five years ago, it was pretty much dead in the water.
Streaming video, which can be described as a form of broadcasting on the Net, is experiencing a second wind with interesting efforts by Malaysiakini and by former TV3 anchorman Suhaimi Sulaiman going live soon.
Such efforts will be interesting because video streaming is delivered via the Internet and is therefore unregulated and uncensored. So, expect the programs to be punchier, rougher-round-the-edges and yes, more provocative.
Podcasting has yet to arrive in Malaysia in any significant way. This probably has to do with the fact that MP3 players are still not that widespread but more significantly, because podcasts – which is a form of online talk shows – is not that easy to create… yet.
But that will change. New Media giants like Yahoo!, MSN and Google will soon make podcasting as easy as 1-2-3. How can I be sure? Because podcasting is so hot, none of these companies will ignore it, and you can always count on technology getting cheaper and easier to use.
Blogging used to be a difficult thing to do. But look at blogging today. Even a child can do it. And the same will happen with podcasting. Just give it a year, max. Then you will see a thousand online talk shows blossom across the country.
The other technology that will give New Media a big boost is 3G. It's already available through Maxis and Celcom but things will only start getting interesting when the third and fourth companies get their 3G licences. Three companies are bidding for these: DiGi, MiTV and Time Dotcom.
The licences are scheduled to be given out in February. It will take the two new licensees probably six months to roll out their 3G services. So, expect the competition to hot up around the third quarter of next year.
With two new entrants, the two incumbents will be forced to buck up and offer better, more compelling content than the lame stuff they have right now (Repackaging Astro for mobile? Puh-leeze!).
At least two telcos I know are considering turning to New Media sources – such as bloggers – to provide more compelling content, rather than relying only on traditional media.
Don't worry, old media is not going away any time soon. It'll always be around so you have something to read when you're in the toilet. But in terms of dynamism, timeliness and interactivity, there's no way it can hold a candle to New Media, which is the wave of the future.
And the future, as I noted earlier, is nearly here.
How do you explain the government guaranteeing non-censorship of the Internet yet controlling traditional media – TV, radio and print – as tightly as it does?
The only conclusion you can make it that the government is complacently assuming that New Media will have little reach – and an even smaller impact on the masses. At least for the foreseeable future, anyway.
Well, the future is nearly here. Want proof? In a word: Squatgate.
The tiny video clip of the Chinese-looking Malay lady being made to do nude squats, while in police custody, will probably have more impact on the police force than the voluminous Royal Commission report on the police.
That clip, apparently, was shot on a mobile phone and made the rounds probably via MMS and e-mail. Online-only news site Malaysiakini also made an edited version of the clip available on its site. Everybody I know has seen it. This was truly a New Media phenomenon.
And it's just the start. Almost every phone now has a digital camera and many of those can take videos too. It's just a matter of time before we have our own Rodney King video, if the police force doesn't reform itself.
But it's not just shocking videos like Squatgate that can make a difference. Blogs are making their impact too.
The fiasco that was Universiti Malaya's drastic plunge in rankings from 89th to 169th position in the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES), in one year, was kept alive not by the mainstream media but by blogs maintained by opposition leader Lim Kit Siang and a couple of former ASEAN scholars, Tony Pua and Ong Kian Ming.
Through clever analysis, Pua and Ong managed to correctly figure out that the drastic plunge was due to erroneous assumptions made by the THES the previous year that caused UM to be incorrectly ranked 89th. In fact, they argue conclusively (using some math and statistics) that the 169th position could very well be an improvement as UM would probably have not even made the top 200 the year before last.
These are a couple of examples of how New Media is starting to rock the boat. But they are just a curtain raiser for the shape of things to come. Advances in broadband have made some technologies like streaming video viable where just five years ago, it was pretty much dead in the water.
Streaming video, which can be described as a form of broadcasting on the Net, is experiencing a second wind with interesting efforts by Malaysiakini and by former TV3 anchorman Suhaimi Sulaiman going live soon.
Such efforts will be interesting because video streaming is delivered via the Internet and is therefore unregulated and uncensored. So, expect the programs to be punchier, rougher-round-the-edges and yes, more provocative.
Podcasting has yet to arrive in Malaysia in any significant way. This probably has to do with the fact that MP3 players are still not that widespread but more significantly, because podcasts – which is a form of online talk shows – is not that easy to create… yet.
But that will change. New Media giants like Yahoo!, MSN and Google will soon make podcasting as easy as 1-2-3. How can I be sure? Because podcasting is so hot, none of these companies will ignore it, and you can always count on technology getting cheaper and easier to use.
Blogging used to be a difficult thing to do. But look at blogging today. Even a child can do it. And the same will happen with podcasting. Just give it a year, max. Then you will see a thousand online talk shows blossom across the country.
The other technology that will give New Media a big boost is 3G. It's already available through Maxis and Celcom but things will only start getting interesting when the third and fourth companies get their 3G licences. Three companies are bidding for these: DiGi, MiTV and Time Dotcom.
The licences are scheduled to be given out in February. It will take the two new licensees probably six months to roll out their 3G services. So, expect the competition to hot up around the third quarter of next year.
With two new entrants, the two incumbents will be forced to buck up and offer better, more compelling content than the lame stuff they have right now (Repackaging Astro for mobile? Puh-leeze!).
At least two telcos I know are considering turning to New Media sources – such as bloggers – to provide more compelling content, rather than relying only on traditional media.
Don't worry, old media is not going away any time soon. It'll always be around so you have something to read when you're in the toilet. But in terms of dynamism, timeliness and interactivity, there's no way it can hold a candle to New Media, which is the wave of the future.
And the future, as I noted earlier, is nearly here.
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