Blogging..The New Media

Yesterday a student of Journalism from UiTM who is also a Blogger interviewed me on Blogging. I have written many times on the subject of blogging especially in the contact of the Malaysian society. This is one of such article which was first posted in this blog in November 2007. I have revised it and since it is as relevant as ever, am posting it here again.

A lad, a university student still in his teen from the generation of my grandchildren while on a holiday recently watches me on TV. He is among the millions who watch that Talk Show on TV9 that day. Most I believe just watch it as another entertainment program but some do listen to it attentively and one of the people is this lad. After watching it he wrote to me and said that my talks do open his mind toward what blogging is all about. Before that he has totally different views of what blogging is. He thanks me and says that he like what he saw and heard and he might start blogging. I replied thanking him for been so sincere and told him that he should try blogging. And guess what! He did just that. And I believe some of you have already visited his Blog and found him to be a resourceful person for his age. He is now a Medical Student at the International Islamic University at its Kuantan campus. I am indeed glad that at least another young Malaysian have start blogging and this add to the thousands that are already enjoy blogging and by doing that contributing contents to the Internet. Remember by blogging you activate your thinking cap and for the young it would open up their minds and start to think outside the box. Student would be more knowledgeable and resourcefully and this would made them easily marketable after graduation. We should remember that when we share information we also get to learn more from the feedback. Knowledge is like that, the more we talk about it the richer our knowledge would be. Interaction of knowledge between more people makes the knowledge richer and more useful.

Science and technology are changing our world very fast indeed. Television and the Computer are in the process of converging into one. Because of this blogging is going to be a very powerful tool, more powerful than the present media like the Radio, TV and the Newspaper. Together with You Tube I believe it would become an alternative if not competitive media with the old media as the means of spreading news to the masses. But some in our society has yet to come to grasp with this new media, a media where the people would be the sources of future news. Just imagine there are Newspapers or Radio station or TV station in every corner of the country where individual are the owner, the producer, the editor of the program that are accessible all over the country and the world. That is what Blogging and You Tubing are going to be in the near future. Soon Blogs would spreads all over the country. All these Blogs would be the source of firsthand news that you would get on your laptop or your Smart Phone all days long. That scenario is not an impossibility but would be a reality once the masses get to understand of what the New Media is all about. And how it could change the society and fast-forward reform to the Malaysian society, thus change the Malaysian mindset into a global thinker.

It is somewhat a reality in the west, where politician and businessman are using blogging to reach the masses and it is working well. But sad to say some of ours are still in the dark of what blogging, You tube, Facebook, Twitter are. They have not really understood the philosophy of the new tools as yet. I hope that they wake up fast to the reality of what the Internet and the New Media could do to improve the quality of the civil society in this country, where accountability and transparency would be the norms. A society that is as democratic as never before, where the power of dissemination information is in their hands rather in the few. The New Media like Blogging, You Tube, Facebook and Twitter. The future is here already.

What a coincidence that I found this book ' We're All Journalists Now' by Scott Gant' and reading through it found that my thoughts on this subject are in tune with what this author wrote. I have just gone through the book on my first reading and have to do a second reading before I could digest all the thoughts and ideas that have been put so brilliantly by this author. For now let me summarize that it is a godsend book for our time especially so for Malaysian where blogging are beginning to made it impact on the socio political scenario. Before Blogging news has always been a one sided affairs, what the Publishers want us to know and that its. And because in Malaysia you need a license to start a Newspaper, only a few got it, thus the limited number of Newspapers in the country. But with Blogging, the citizen journalists have open up the Pandora box on the flows of news. Now the information and ideas comes from the people as well. The status quo has changed. The flood gates of news has been open by blogger and there are no ways of stopping, except with the truth. It is a fair game now; the playing field is getting even day by day. Those who refused to accept these facts would surely be swept by the new waves. The new Media, Blogging or Citizen Journalism [Citizen Journalism is a term use by the author Scott Gant].

On further reading this book, although the contents are of the American socio political/cultural scene, I found that there is so much in common with our ideal. That is the need to have free flows of information and ideas especially from the ordinary folks. In the past it was not possible to do that but blogging has made the flows of information and ideas; to quote the author "a Marketplace of Ideas, which provides the best chance for uncovering truth" possible.

Another aspect that I found to be in agreement with the author is that Journalism should be part and parcel of good governance. In the past government has always been referred as the sharing of power between the Executive, the Legislative and the Judiciary only. The author has pointed that the role of Journalism especially Citizen Journalism could made government more accountable and transparent. So a good government in a democracy should be the sharing of power that includes Journalism, first dubbed as the Fourth Branch by another author Douglass Cater in 1959. Thus the four branches should now be The Executive, The Legislative, the Judiciary, and the Journalists. With the element of Journalism in it, it would surely create good governance for any country and in turn would be good for its citizen.

Folks the old media would still be there and as usual with things it would evolve in its own ways. Citizen Journalism would play its role and evolve as it goes. Changing the ways we get news. Quote from the book “The days of the mainstream media as the "voice of God" are over, declared Dean Wright, a vice president at Reuters". I believe it is so and I am not dreaming but just been an optimist. There are already thousand of Malaysian blogs that provide posting on various issues and soon there would be more and more. The few socio political blogs has already made an impact on the political scene of the country. I believe that in the not too distance future there would be blogs in every corners of the country; it sure going to change the way of how we get information. Even now in this country people look to the Internet/Blog/Facebook first to get the latest news of the happening, especially so on the socio political scene of the country. In such a short span of time Blogging has already made its impact. It is already a challenge to the old media and it is only a mater of time that it would supplement the old media for our source of Information and Ideas.

Have a nice day.