Business? It's more about content

The argument set by the article, "It's all about business" (Today, 19 Dec, p14) – that new media cannot threaten the dominance of traditional media unless it has a viable business model – is flawed on at least three counts.

First, it is important to note that the distinction between an online and published news-source exists only in the real world. In cyberspace, everything arrives in packets of information. This is an era where the audience gravitates towards sources that need not be 'official', but experientially accurate nevertheless, like the moblogs from the Tibetan riots.

Second, the idea that an online channel cannot be monetised ignores the very real figures of online advertising. It seems that online media does have a business model: Lots of people are looking at my site, so pay me to put your logo here, and people will look at it, too. That is a casual example, but there are actually various means developed to measure online readership, some more complex then the subscription model used by newspapers.

And third, the concept of 'threat' necessarily implies a potential lost, which then implies that there is a finite resource in contention – for any media, that usually translates to eyeballs and advertising dollars. Of course, in the real world, we only have one pair of hands to flip one newspaper, but the concept of tab browsing different webpages at one time is the norm today. If anything, this practice has actually expanded the opportunities-per-viewer for advertisers.

So, the debate that is of greater value is not so much about who would stay victorious in getting the attention of the audience and the subsequent check from the advertiser. Rather, it is an issue of why online media, especially some long-running blogs, are still around, when all the financial odds seem stacked against them.

The answer could be attributed to technology, since online media has a much faster response rate than traditional print or broadcast. But the true reason, I would argue, is content – the ability to mean something to your reader and connect in a way that others cannot. It explains ‘followings’ for particular blogs and website, and the conscious effort of adding a weblink to your ‘favourites’ compared to having the dailies routinely dropped at your doorstep every morning.

Some might argue that this is merely niche interest, but I was born of the school that believes there is no such thing as ‘mass media’, anyway. N

Shouting up the right Tube?

In the wake of the Obama phenomenon, many, especially those in the political profession, will be eager to re-flex those online communication skills in an attempt to reach out to their citizenry.

The effect, it seems, is not lost to our leaders, as featured in “PAP ready to YouTube to reach young” (TODAY, p3, 17 Nov 2008).

However, a quick scrutiny of www.pap.org.sg does not seem to bring substantive justification to the claim of getting the message across in a serious way, which people can accept, and to resonate with them.

If we want to take a leaf from Obama's success, as Minister George Yeo proposed in “Woo the young? Like Obama, use the Net” (TODAY, p6, 6 Nov 2008), there are three key factors that must be fulfilled.

First, relevance. Obama's online campaign revolves around a feel for the ground. He had videos of himself going to average Americans to ask what ails them most about the economy, a true ear for the people’s voice. He did not claim himself to understand the hockey mom, but showed how a baseball mom eked a living to get by.

In an economic downturn, documenting how a website's party members showed spirited patrotism in a national event near four months ago, feels just a little too detached.

Second, focus and consistency. Obama did not waffle on what he wanted to talk about. The blog entries were to brief and the point, communicating just what he wanted people to know. It also carried the momentum of his campaign, such that the reader can see how his strongly-held beliefs is made living proof by how he views the campaign on the road.

A website laden with categories of information, tagged with un-intuitive sub-categories, and teeming with general and often repeated party lines would feel more like the same thing again. It is just not the best way to attract and retain your readership.

And third, understand that the views of others matter. All of Obama’s videos are posted on YouTube, usually flooded by comments. His blog also carries the comment feature- almost a defacto standard today. It could invite adversarial comments, but to engage online, one has to live with the worst and roll with the rest.

Having a website that claims e-engagement with netizens by posting a few videos, with no option for feedback, and cannot be found on other website that allows that, just doesn't cut it in today’s age.

Evidently, the conversation that goes on in theonlinecitizen.com, and even the straitstime.com points to a rather sore fact: If it is not a good conversation with you, it is usually a bad conversation about you.

Ultimately, adopting a medium for the touted qualities of that medium is not going to guarantee that your message gets through. This is especially so for new media, in a world where everyone's opinion is of equal value. Relevance, clarity and direction, and a willingness to actively engage are much better bets. N

So it ends for an old warrior

When Singapore’s Speaker’s Corner first came into being, I can't remember JBJ's exact words on why he would not participate at Hong Lim Park, but I would always remember their spirit - Singapore is a free country, so why can't we speak up anywhere?

Ironically, JBJ had first hand experience of exactly why. Too liberal a tongue landed him in legal trouble, bankruptcy and a political slide that he never really recovered from.

Yet behind the (some say excessive and unnecessary) public drama that surrounds the man, a certain light shines through that citizens should take another look at.

JBJ's "national policy", if we can put it as that, was based on simplicity.

Going back to the fundamentals gave him a focus that distinguished him from other public figures. By going back to what freedom of speech should really be for Singaporeans, he forced us, or at least the more questioning among us, to take a step back and consider why we even need a pre-defined space for public speaking, when the public sphere is really and already out there for our taking.

This simplicity extends also to the way he weighed in on many issues, as he voiced out about benefits for the lower income group and the electoral system alike.

This simplicity should also not be confused with simplification. Granted that we do face complex problems, but ours have been a society that tend to over analyse and second guess every move we make, to the extend that “matters are not as simple as we think” becomes a mantra that have become almost too convenient a reason for those who drive our policies.

If we take a step back and look at a problem for what it is, the solution is usually straightforward and staring us blatantly in the face.

Many would espouse JBJ’s legacy as opposition leader, radical and zealot, bent on seeing the end of political monopoly. But I remember him as a passionate man and the way he conducted himself right to the very end.

He picked himself up every time he was knocked down, refused to give up, and clung on to ideals that remain rooted in simple facts, believing that his fight is for the basic rights of Singaporeans. Idealistic and misguided, perhaps, but passionate and patriotic, nevertheless.

And so it is that we lose a passionate man on Tuesday, as he passed on amidst controversy of the Prime Minister’s supposed condolence letter to his surviving family, and the fiery volleys from the online community that smothered it.

In an age when Speaker’s Corner undergoes a facelift, it would do its new wave of participants good to take another look at the spirit of JBJ’s words on the topic, as this patriot surrenders his. N

Comments on AIMS paper

Really really late, thank to the new addition to my family... :) But better late than never, says that old one. So, the following was what I posted on the AIMS forum. I think I did it out of pity, really - nobody seems to be commenting on the forum.

* * * * *

Just to drop a few lines to give my two-byte's worth on the paper.

My view is that it is generally well written, with many issues surfaced. However, some critical segments might be lacking in terms of their inability to reconcile with themselves. This leads to self-contradiction at best, and an alarming lack of understanding of online communication and social engagement at worst.

Political expression and e-engagement were studied separately, and rather different 'solutions' considered for each. This should not be the case, as harnessing the people's political expression online must be part of e-engagement. We cannot deny that the political process has a huge effect on our everyday lives through the implementation of policy. To evaluate them on separate terms risk disconnection between the people and this papers writers - both in terms of what society wants and needs, and the very basic understanding of social discourse.

E-engagement has been viewed in mostly marketing terms on behalf of the 'knowledge owners' to disseminate information to the people. That is erroneous, as it ignores the fundamental two-way communication and debate that typifies online communication. The 'crisis' that we have today is the belief that someone holds all the truth, and others are mostly misguided or do not have all the right information. True engagement must come with both a sense of humility and subjectivity, an understanding that information is only as true as what the reader wants it to be.

There is also an issue with the proposed panel of experts who would be called to decide on who transgresses boundaries of fair online political discourse. Such a panel, unfortunately, can only play an enforcer role within conditions that are set for online expression. Besides begging the point on who sets these parameters and how this defers from the current judicial system, questions should also be raised on how this panel hopes to be a credible voice, minimally to the online community, in such disputes, when the Internet remains a limitless space that have communal rules that are impossible to be subject to any one definition.

I am also concerned about the follow-up on this paper. It might come as some dismay, if you cannot feel the sense of irony, that all the conversations going on about this topic are happening in other blogs and forums. To that extent, there were probably more comments in hardcopy newspaper forum pages than on your online one. It does not speak well of this consultation paper, nor bode well for what is likely to be propose in the final analysis, as it shows a disconnect or disregard for and from ground sentiment. People not talking to you usually means they are talking about you. Don't host a forum for forum's sake. Try to do more by pulling in articles or posts, reaching out to be part of the conversation, which is 24/7 with no foreseeable cut-off date, whether we like it or not. Minimally, it shows a willingness to be open to alternative ideas and discussion that are not necessarily on your own terms - that itself is the true plague of e-engagement today. N

Going public in a world of alternate truths and multiple realities

Any media student worth his salt would tell you that the two key transformations that radio and television brought about to everyday life is immediacy and enhanced reality. With modern modes of communication came the ability to reach out to a wider audience, “live and uncensored”.

Gone were the days of measured penmanship, which gave way to showmanship. Public figures who wished to make an impression must not only look and sound appealing (whatever the flavour of the decade for appealing was), they must also risk having their slightest mistakes captured and subject to scrutiny. It was not easy to be famous in the days of television.

But if that were so, harder still it would be in these days of the Internet. In a world where the user decides on the content, what the famous try to portray is subject to multiple reproductions, as it is subject to multiple interpretations. The “official” opinion matters less on the surf waves as it does on the air waves. What matters more is how the person at the receiving end understands it and reproduces those thoughts for the rest of the world to agree, renounce, ridicule or simply enjoy.

As such, it came as a surprise to read Nazry Bahrawi write about “That YouTube style of politics’” (Today, Jul 3, p2) with some rather serious misconceptions about how the “YouTube generation” assimilates with the media they consume. Jeremy Au Yong’s “Vivian’s Vision from the Internet” (Straits Times, 3 Jul, pH04) and Lynn Kan’s “Sift truth from ‘virtual shouting’, Vivian tells students” (Business Times, 3 Jul, p9) also reflect the same news story in the same vein.

For a start, the key determinant that distinguishes the Internet from traditional media is not that it prefers style over substance. It is a grievous fault to think that is the case, because it glosses over the important fact that, what generations of media owners have tried to reproduce to no avail, is today simply and beautifully accomplished with every blog entry, every mashed-up vodcast and every ranting opinion shared online.

In other words, what distinguishes the Internet from other media is that the meaning making process has become transparent. Generations of media owners have, consciously or not, tried to bend and prod the moment of production to the moment of interpretation, in the hope that they will agree somewhere.

But to see it all played out on the Internet every second is a marvelous thing. A supposedly objective news clip can be cut, modified and relaunched online in the exact way that the vodcast editor wants it to be played ,and the same repeated with different results with another.

This is the crux of the matter that today’s public figures need to grapple with. It is not that there is no truth on the Internet. Rather, it is that truth and reality are no longer that easy to define, as they are now subject to alternate truths and multiple realities.

A simple search for the word “politics” in Facebook would demonstrate this point. The top two entries are a group in support of Barack Obama’s policies, close to a million friends, and a group against Hillary Clinton’s, a little more than half a million friends.

Are these two groups pointing towards the same conclusion? Not necessarily. Do they throw up some doubts on the complete for-and-against traditions of political alliance? Most surely. Have they secured the idea that, as long as you have an opinion, you will surely find your supporters? You can bet all you Linden dollars on it.

But if public figures today still hold out that the Internet propagates half truths, then it is a matter of time before they own opinions become extinct, because opinions online are worth only the number of supporters they can get. Online communities are forgiving towards plurality, but they do not take lightly attempts to discredit the same plurality that gives each one of them their essence.

For sure, there are shouting matches going on in cyberspace. But just as there are many contests that slam away at a dogmatic opinion, there also exist a fair number that debate and rationalise on issues that gives everyone a fair say.

Perhaps it is more important for us to have the ability to discern what opinion fits us best. However, we are still the nation that pines for a liberal arts college to deliver critical thinking, instead of making it part of our regular school curriculum.

Perhaps more dangerous are those that manage to get their opinions out unchallenged, for they will never know if the online audience agree with them whole-heartedly – almost a self-delusional impossibility but absolutely believable in the days where the one-way delivery of the television message is king – or if they are silently sniggering away at what they perceive to be nonsense.

Ironically, it is in the days of the Internet, not television and radio, where our views are subject to even more stringent public scrutiny, where every word and sound bite can be recorded, reproduced, remixed and re-circulated at the fancy and opinion of the reader, not the producer.

To be part of the online public sphere today, one must come to the virtual table with a certain degree of humility. Accept that the truth is really what people make it out to be, as it has always been, but with the understanding that today, people will not hesitate to leverage technology to make their views known. N

"Nothing like the printed word" - a response in Today

And would you believe it, someone actually bothered to comment on my letter! See Lai Yew Chan's letter here.

A very good contradiction - almost the perfect mirror opposite I would have imagined, had I been a staunch 'official news' supporter. Lai's position was that print media gives 'credible' content, while I believed that it was the variety of Internet content, sometimes extreme, that leads to thought. Lai preferred to think that "not all Internet users are thinking readers", yet I maintain that all readers are thinking readers!

I enjoyed it completely, as I could imagine it had we been face to face. Two positions taken at the exact opposite ends of the spectrum, exactly what I wrote about!

Interestingly enough, it came out in the printed word, while I was arguing that balance is best achieved online where all angles of the argument are fair dinkum. Looks like there is hope yet for 'old media'... :) N

"The Internet and Beyond" - Today

And after almost a week, a space for all beliefs end up here... And I think it's been chopped up a bit too much, good grief! Some points seem to have been lost, too.

Ah well, at least the full story can always be found on this blog... N

State of journalism in Singapore - sounds fairly familiar... :)

Loh Chee Kong did an interesting one about the State of Singapore journalism in Weekend Today, 19 April 2008.

A pretty good one, I'd say. However, it reminded me of something I wrote a good year or more back, a commentary on - well, well! - another of Loh's articles. The issue of having journalists who have the guts to ask the right questions seem to have eluded us all this while. Are we still debating the same thing?

For that reason, I did not respond - and also the fact tht I am dead beat with a long work day! I agree with this latest piece. However, Loh is two steps short of stating what it is that reporters can do directly to lead the change, rather than react to it, so that they may be worthy of the professional title "journalist". It sounded too much like a desire to wait for all the planets to fall into place - the perfect media environment - before quality journalism can come about.

Or am I too militant in my thinking?

Interestingly, it is also the same issue that reported bloggers suggesting to MICA on laws to regulate the Internet. Coincidence, that the issue that calls into question the quality of journalism in the 'new media' age, is als othe issue that deal with 'new media' starting to officially regulate itself? One can never tell... N

A space for all beliefs

Smugly, my brother-in-law slipped me a YouTube link. The Great Global Warming Swindle, he said, a BBC documentary to debunk the environmental doom-sayers.

Dutifully, I went online. Yes, it was a critique on the much touted Inconvenient Truth of Al Gore. But undaunted, and being the self-proclaimed tree-hugger, I immediately Googled for the antithesis to this new conspiracy theory. I can't wait to share with him my findings.

But while a seed of doubt was planted, I clung fervently to my take on global warming. I am also aware that my brother-in-law is no lumberjack, but probably watched one too many episodes of Myth Busters and enjoyed the scientific deconstruction of everything.

He is a good eight years younger than me, and his take on life would surely be different. He would also typify the Internet Generation who some of us old sluggers might shadily suspect to be living off the radio waves emitting from their wireless modems.

But what struck me most about our exchange was how the Internet has become the centre in our quest for knowledge, not less because it gives us a variety of opinions and facts, but that within a click of a mouse, it could provide us with polar opposites of the very same belief.

And that piece of reality is a far cry from Low Chee Kong’s article (“PM Lee on Internet lessons”, 14 Apr), which suggested that the Internet today has been used to propagate information that does not give due consideration to the political motivations of those who disseminate them.

Such a preposition forwards two assumptions. One, that information available online is more skewed towards one particular ideal or agenda, compared to non-online media. And two, that the key problem of such a bias is that readers will believe whole-heartedly with the agenda proposed.

From the surface, the first assumption holds true. Writers are human, subject to their own biases. In the limited space of one publication or blog entry, it is difficult to portray both sides of the debate. That is even more so in modernity and online, where short attention spans do not take kindly to dual analyses. A writer makes his point as quickly as possible, and usually that which is of the greatest concern to him. The Internet plays host to a variety of extreme views that are often one-sided in coverage.

But the Internet must be viewed in the larger scheme of things. Like the antithesis I found online, the Internet as a whole is choked full of opinions, some in direct contradiction to each other. Cyberspace is not like a newspaper, which you buy one copy of and is thereafter subject to the content it holds. Rather, cyberspace provides a reader access to a wide range of views.

The recent unrest related to Tibet, China and the 2008 Olympics were picked up in a number of websites and blogs, but not all espouse the anti-China take on the issue, as much as controversial opinion would have you believe. For every search entry that paints China as the denigrator of human rights, another portrays Tibet as the propagator of violence.

Differing views expressed online usually vehemently support one cause. Biased, you might call it. But there are articles that spend laborious hours of research to refute or prove a point. The knowledge used in the analysis can span a wide range of disciplines, drawing references from yet other online sources. The level of detail is astounding, which only goes to show the passion and belief that the writer has in his views. Search for another article that argues strongly for the opposing view, and you have a healthy debate brewing in your mind.

Of course, you might agree with them, or not. Or you might choose to pick a bone with them, or not. Add this to the information that is already available offline, and one thing remains certain: The choice remains yours.

Which brings us to the second assumption. We too often assume that the information we see online is taken in whole by its audience. In reality, readers often engage in a selective process of accepting or denying the information they consume. This is influence by pre-conceived ideas of what the information is about, and the beliefs and concerns they have when reading it.

A case in point is the Malaysian elections. While it is easy to assume that Malaysiakini played a big part in turning votes against the ruling party, the truth is that voters saw a connection between what they experience in life and what was written online. No amount of virtual cajoling could have convinced them, if what they read bears no resemblance to what they feel on the ground.

More often than not, online readers find an easy connection with what they read, or choose to search to read. Regardless of what we believe, the Internet has a space for each of our beliefs.
In fact, with the diversity of opinions on the Internet, the bigger worry is not those who have a reason to seek out and find affirmation with information that they already believe in. Rather, it is those who have yet to decide which side they want to take that should concern us. Radicalism is already the status quo; who we stand to lose in the flood of variety are the skeptics, the potentially cynical. N