New Media Publishing

Walsh (2006) acknowledged that a textual shift is taking place from the monomodal to the multimodal that includes different modes of communication such as prose, graphics, video and audio. One of the reasons this shift has been harnessed is because repetition and reinforcement are important to change the public’s values effectively (Kruckeberg, Newsom, and Turk 2000). Advertising and the media are becoming increasingly multimodal in the modern world, where new forms of media publishing continue to emerge in order to enhance messages sent across to the public.

In the States...

The success of Barrack Obama's campaign can be attributed to new forms of media publishing made possible by Web 2.0. Obama made masterful use of social media such as Facebook, Youtube, Flickr, LinkedIn, Digg and MySpace to reach out to his voters on all possible fronts, and even harnessed the iPhone to update supporters on the latest happenings.

Figure 1: Example of Obama's Campaign extending to the iPhone

Image Source: http://zedomax.com/

One of the most powerful things Obama did was to create a section on his website MyBarackObama.com that enabled Americans to voice out their opinions on critical issues. This opened a door of communication between the White House and the people which created room for greater freedom of speech and democracy.

The success of Obama's use of new media can be seen through the five million supporters garnered in third party social networks (MacManus 2009). 3.2 million people signed up as his supporters on Facebook during election period, and a group called Students for Barack Obama was created in July 2007.

In Malaysia...
Closer to home, the benefits of new media can also be felt as alternative media such as MalaysiaKini and other political blogs gain prominence. Readers are gradually turning to these sites for credible news because of government censorship in the mainstream media. However, bloggers should be aware of their social responsibility as malicious content such as rumours, defamation and slander can be easily spread through uncensored media.

For example, the Singaporean student Wee Shu Min had to take down her blog in 2006 because of elitist remarks that were deemed offensive towards the Singaporean heartlanders. Her father, Singaporean Member of Parliament Wee Siew Kim, apologized and commented that her comments should have been "tempered with sensitivity".

Some have proposed greater regulation of the blogosphere such as the registration of bloggers (The Malaysian Insider 2009) to prevent inciting anger among different racial groups, yet others think it is a futile exercise which is against the principles of democracy and free speech. I believe ethical publishing in new media is an issue that should continue to be debated so that a balance between protecting freedom of speech and social stability can be achieved.



References:

1. Kruckeberg, D, Turk, JV & Newsom, D 2000, This is PR: The Realities of Public Relations, 7th Edn, Wadsworth, USA.

2. MacManus, R 2009, 'Presentation: Barack Obama's Internet Strategy', ReadWriteWeb, viewed 2 June 2009, <http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/barack_obama_internet_strategy_presentation.php>.

3. The Malaysian Insider 2009, 'Proposal to Register Bloggers Needs Careful Study--Rais', viewed 3 June 2009, <http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/malaysia/27291-proposal-to-register-bloggers-needs-careful-study-rais>.

4. Walsh, M. 2006, "‘Textual shift’: Examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts", Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol.29, no.1, p.24-37.