Old Schoolers and New Media in Angkasapuri (23 January 2014) I had the pleasure of being invited to a RTM talk show entitled ‘Wacana Nasional’ (National Discourse) yesterday evening. It was a recorded session and will be shown on RTM 1 on Sunday, Feb 2, 2014, at 10pm. It was my first time at Angkasapuri and I was pleasantly surprised to have received that invitation given my position as an opposition MP. The topic of discussion was the media landscape in this country with a specific emphasis on new media. I was the lone ‘alternative’ voice amongst the panel of 4. The other three panellists were two senior management team members from Bernama and Utusan and an Associate Professor in the journalism faculty at UiTM. I want to highlight three points arising from the discussing yesterday which proves to me that the established ‘old school’ thinking among these mainstream institutions – Bernama, Utusan, UiTM – just don’t get new media and the thinking of the younger generation. Which is why I think current and future developments in technology and social media will inevitably hurt the BN and by extension help Pakatan. (i) Old School ‘Development’ Journalism All of the other panellists are firmly entrenched in the ‘development journalism’ mode of thinking. To them, the media’s main priority is to help the nation achieve its goals of economic development and nation building. This inevitably leads to, in the context of countries without adequate safeguards for media freedom, propaganda-type news in favour of the ruling coalition. I took a completely different approach in emphasizing that the main responsibility of the media is to play a role of check and balance against the state. In other words, it is the ‘fourth estate’ that checks on the actions of the executive, legislative and judiciary. While the Assoc Prof from UiTM did acknowledge this responsibility, his other replies inevitably exposes his fundamental belief – the role of development journalism for the media. The panellist from Utusan also remarked that the younger generation were ignorant of the historical legacy and importance of Utusan as an institution which again reflects the total lack of acknowledgement of the role of the fourth estate. Of course, not all elements of new media are geared towards helping the media play its role as the fourth estate. New media shortens attention spans, favours ‘viral’ news, headlines and sound bites and doesn’t undertake proper due diligence with regard to sources of information. But on the whole, it has increased the level of accountability – politicians can’t spew out racist comments without it being captured somewhere – and also the level of information dissemination – just look at how Kadir Jasin revealed Najib’s New Year travel plans in his blog. As much as my distinguished panellists want to return to a time of command and control for the media, new media has very little room for development journalism approaches. Old school propaganda doesn’t play very well anymore, especially among the younger generation. While old school channels such as RTM and Utusan are still somewhat influential because of their reach in the rural areas and because they are read by those in power, this influence has and will continue to wane as urban media consumption patterns reach the rural areas. (ii) If you can’t control it, legislate against it All of my panellists expressed that new legislation needs to be introduced in order to control new media because new media is unstructured, because new media is irresponsible, because new media can increase racial tensions because of its anonymity, that new media destroys more than it builds up etc… All sentiments expressed from the point of view that if you cannot control something, you need to legislate against it. But none of them gave concrete examples of how new media created racial riots and how existing laws were not sufficient in going after those who post ‘irresponsible’ or ‘racially provocative’ stuff online. In fact, the Bernama panellist highlighted Alvin and Vivian’s bakuteh Hari Raya greetings as an example of posting racially inappropriate material perhaps without realizing that the both of them are being prosecuted under existing laws! The same panellist also used the stuffing of kangkung into the mouth of a Najib effigy example even though I pointed out that this action taken by a single individual politician didn’t have anything to do with new media! I took the point of view that new media can be and should be used by the government to evaluate ‘ground sentiment’ using the kangkung example to explain why there was such an immediate response to Najib’s statement especially on social media. If the conservative minded among the establishment – and they are in the majority – have their way and push for more controls (aka Singapore), I expect a big backlash from the public and the protests will be the loudest from … you guessed it … the denizens of new media. (iii) They really believe some of the stuff they print and they say! If the old school establishment does what it does i.e. printing and spewing propaganda because they have to do it – mesti cari makan mah – I would find it easier to understand their position, though I would still protest their actions. But I think my fellow panellists actually believe many of the things which they print and say and write! For example, the Utusan panellist actually believes that the DAP formed a ‘Red Bean Army’ and has hundreds if not thousands of paid workers waging cyber warfare against the BN! His source? A former DAP youth leader who was attacked by netizens for his pro-BN and pro-MCA views. If one were to read the comments section of the Malaysian Insider or Malaysiakini, it would not take a great leap of faith to realize that there are enough anti-BN people out there who would do this voluntarily without being paid or being coordinated by any party. The same panellist also wondered out loud whether the whole kangkung episode was manufactured and planned by an unseen force. The reason? Because the reactions including youtube parody clips of Najib singing a kangkung song went viral without a day or two. I think my protestations that this was a spontaneous reaction fell on deaf ears. What is as astonishing is the fact that all three panellists expressed concern that new media could unravel the racial harmony which exists in this country without realizing or admitting that their own institutions were often the cause of racial disharmony in the first place! I pointed out that what Utusan prints on a regular basis e.g. that DAP wants to establish a Christian nation is far more inflammatory than what has been circulating on new media! In conclusion… Instead of more controls, I proposed that we should move ahead to reach a level of political maturity where parodies of our leaders become part and parcel of the political and entertainment landscape and the need to over-react to supposedly ‘sensitive’ material on media, both old and new, becomes less and less. We had racial riots in 1969 when there was no new media present. We did not have a single incident of electoral violence leading to a fatality after the 2008 and 2013 elections where the opposition performed even better than 1969. If the old schoolers don’t ‘get’ this, then their days will be numbered.
Posted on: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 01:57:26 +0000
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