New Forms of Media Publishing

Most newspapers are steadily making the transition into having online news portals where people can easily read news at the click of a mouse. The European Monitoring Centre on Change (2003) states that besides reducing production costs and being more efficient, digitization of content allows for it to be transmitted via social networking medias like Youtube, Twitter and Facebook.

A screen capture of TheStar's official Twitter homepage taken on the 30th of September 2010

This has altered the way of journalism and communication substantially, Youtube allows them to post up accompanying short videos to their news, The Star has even opened up a New Media department to handle their online tv portal- TheStarOnline.tv with a new term for the journalists that handle these stories: Mojo’s (A combination of Mobile+Journalists). On top of that, they have a Twitter account which allows them to send short snippets of news accompanied by permalinks that link to their online paper. Besides The Star, there are examples of 100% online newspapers, like MalaysiaKini, where people pay a small fee and read their newspapers online.

There is no doubt that the internet is an inherently democratizing force. In Malaysia where bloggers and journalists are warned not to publish any sensitive news (Anti-government) online, there is a freedom of speech the government cannot completely silence. MalaysiaKini journalist Steele (2009) quotes Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi as saying “We certainly lost the Internet war, the cyber-war... It was a serious misjudgement. We made the biggest mistake in thinking that it was not important." According to her, this insight came during the election of 2008 where opposition parties in Malaysia were only 30 seats short of winning a majority in Parliament. With at least 5 well-known bloggers elected to Parliament, there is no doubt that the power of online media should not be underestimated.

Reference:

European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions 2003, ‘The future of publishing and media’, Sector Futures, Wyattville Road, Loughlinstown, Dublin 18, Ireland, accessed 30^th September 2010, http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/emcc/publications/2003/sf_pm_1.pdf>

Steele, J 2009, “How Malaysiakini challenges authoritarianism”, MalaysiaKini.com, accessed 13^th September 2010, http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/117130>