In Jan 2011, the power of new media writing was demonstrated thoroughly by the uprising in Egypt and Libya. Facebook and Twitter are credited to the rebellion without a clear leader, but a distinct goal. Even though some credit these social networking tools for inciting the turmoil, others believe that they have nothing to do with the rallies. However, even the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom David Cameron did think of enacting censorship on Facebook and Twitter. It seems as if the power of new media writing really deserves our attention.
Since 17th September2011, the Occupy Wall Street movement has been gaining the momentum across the world, stirring hundreds of thousands of demonstrators to air their grievances against financial and social inequality. Over 1500 cities have joined the occupy rally and hundreds of "Occupy Communities" have been created in most of them. Certainly, there is no exception of Hong Kong. The local protestants have been setting their camping tents on the floor of HSBC Main Building in Central, building their own community for two weeks. And most importantly, they engage in Facebook to spread their messages and encourage others to join them.
Then how do the power of new media writing influence social movement? It is beneficial that people as observers can report the reality to mass, which may not be covered in the traditional media. Those traditional media which may take a opposite political orientation against the protest would only pay attention to the superficial issues without reporting the underlying messages. Whereas loads of on-line media instead of traditional one act as the role of reporter, revealing the reality with no distortion or selective retention. For instance, Hong Kong In-media as a citizen journalism website. As I mentioned before, every content on Facebook hits an average of 150 friends. This would be an efficient tool to spread messages to mobilize people to join the social movement. In this sense, new media writing play a much more important role than traditional media in reporting news and mobilization due to its openness.
In additional, multi-modality of new media writing enhances the attractiveness of content. As everybody knows, multi-modality enables content creator to embed video clips, images, or hyper-link in the text, which can draw a fuller picture of the message. And, content creator can also touch audiences' emotion via video easier than text does. Moreover, multi-modality improves the verifiability of content. Social Record Association, one of the local example, is an organization providing video streaming and social activities' recorded video. This is important while rumour or smear spreads on protestant by political opponents.
To be cont'd
Then how do the power of new media writing influence social movement? It is beneficial that people as observers can report the reality to mass, which may not be covered in the traditional media. Those traditional media which may take a opposite political orientation against the protest would only pay attention to the superficial issues without reporting the underlying messages. Whereas loads of on-line media instead of traditional one act as the role of reporter, revealing the reality with no distortion or selective retention. For instance, Hong Kong In-media as a citizen journalism website. As I mentioned before, every content on Facebook hits an average of 150 friends. This would be an efficient tool to spread messages to mobilize people to join the social movement. In this sense, new media writing play a much more important role than traditional media in reporting news and mobilization due to its openness.
In additional, multi-modality of new media writing enhances the attractiveness of content. As everybody knows, multi-modality enables content creator to embed video clips, images, or hyper-link in the text, which can draw a fuller picture of the message. And, content creator can also touch audiences' emotion via video easier than text does. Moreover, multi-modality improves the verifiability of content. Social Record Association, one of the local example, is an organization providing video streaming and social activities' recorded video. This is important while rumour or smear spreads on protestant by political opponents.
To be cont'd
I do agree that new media have allowed everyone to be writers. Hong Kong In-media is one of the website that I visit quite often since they provide coverage of news in multiple dimensions, and their promotion of reporting less subject to interest conflict like the mainstream media. After viewing their reporting you will certainly be shocked by the amount of details omitted and selected by the mainstream media!
ReplyDeleteHi Ken,
ReplyDeleteI had been reading In-media for quite a long time. I really appreciate that people gather first-hand data and analyze in order to maintain the citizen journalism. And that's exactly what you have portrayed about mainstream media. A friend of mine had the personal experience about this, so I hold the same view with you about distortion or omission of news by mainstream media.
I agree that new media facilitates social movement to a huge extent. Multimodality and the ever-growing popularity of new media allow quick and effective sharing of news that might have been intentionally omitted in mainstream media. Hopefully, the continuous sharing of news by friends could create some sort of 'spiral effect', which encourages people who used to pay less attention to news to change their attitudes. :)
ReplyDeleteI have the experience on that. I remember that there was a big rebellion on the building of High Speed Rail in January. I was in the demonstration. There was only a few people from political organizations at first. But later the incident was widely discussed in the forums and facebook. Surprisingly, there were more than 50,000 teenagers joining the rally. Even the police and the govt were shocked with the number of people. I believe that the digital world will bring a new face for hong kong politics.
ReplyDeleteHi Emily,
ReplyDeleteYes. I wish that new media could improve the society. And yet, we have to realize that on one hand, new media brings communication efficiency and higher mobilizing ability to social movement; on another, it increases individualism and provide entertainment, which might induce political apathy as well.
So, the impact of new media on social movement is quite complicated.
Hi Edith,
ReplyDeleteYeah, I was there too. To be frank, all of the social movement I joined were closely tied with Facebook. I obtain information and even discourse on Facebook. If there was no Facebook, I think it was not easy to know much about them.
Facebook, in local context, really play an important role in organizing events. Its efficiency is much better than interpersonal communication.
Hi Noc,
ReplyDeleteI believe that with the advancement of media tool, citizem journalismm will be more and more universalnthese days. The immediacy and also the credibility of citizem journalism is quite controversial i believe. I wonder whether we should have the skill to critical thinking of whether choosing the genuine and accurate information or not, as we actually cannot simply identify whether the news that is publisned by citizens are geniue or fake. So that's the question I'm worry about. Hope that this is not too off-topic. :)