EDITORIAL

New media, freedom of expression and responsibility - 14-Mar-2007

IN the past week, the Interim Government has been raising its concerns over the contents of an online journal or blog.

Apparently, some news-hungry journalists spiced up the soup regarding the death of a fourth person allegedly at the hands of the military as reported on the site, intelligentsiya.blogspot.com.

What irked the Interim Government, and certainly would worry a responsible media is the fact that reports on this blog had been irresponsibly regurgitated and sensationalised in conventional media. Some servings of the soup even ending up in the international media, further exacerbating Fiji’s strained relations with its regional big brothers Australia and New Zealand and adding more bullet points to their travel advisories.

While the debate rages on, what is evident is that the spread of the Internet and modern information communications technologies (ICTs) in Fiji is revolutionising the manner in which individuals express their opinions and thoughts on events and issues of national importance.

New media is emerging in Fiji as an alternative to traditional media and is challenging long-held rules of news reporting.

And this is why the Interim Government is so concerned and it is justified in doing so, considering Fiji’s ever growing new generation of young, socially mobile and liberal cyber-democrats. A text-based online environment that includes blogs, online discussion forums and internet chat rooms is changing not only the way opinions are expressed, these are also challenging long-held notions where the author decides what you read.
People can now easily air their views from the comfort of their personal computer, participate in discussion boards and receive or send emails on topical issues like democracy, human rights and governance.

There are also opportunities to send anonymous opinions to web blogs such as intelligentsiya.blogspot.com. These new media have a new rule “the author is dead, long live the reader”. It’s the nature of the Internet as a kind of virtual ‘black hole’ in which anonymous people and their opinions appear and disappear instantaneously.
There are no editors, no style and very little or no rules.

While the Internet provides a forum where individuals and groups can experience a renewed sense of democracy, it necessitates a greater sense of responsibility.
Web sites and blogs are not only used for democratic expressions and productive ends.
They have also become literary havens and propaganda machineries for terrorist groups, bomb makers, neo-Nazis and dictatorships.

The Internet is also home to pedophiles and others with evil intentions. In short, the Internet harbours both the good and the evil. For Fiji, we are beginning to experience the digital revolution and the impact of new media on our society.

The Internet has opened up opportunities and taken away customary restrictions and is challenging our post-colonial culture of silence.

The power and political clout of the Fiji’s post-colonial institutions that have dominated the social and political scene for so long is being undermined by our new generation of liberalised cyber-democrats.

In political terms, democratic governance, mass participation and mobilisation is being enhanced by the use of the Internet and other modern ICTs.

An this becomes more pronounced in our post-coup situation as people express their opinion against the coup in conventional media have come under the attention of the military regime.

Individuals are being forced to write blogs or report to Internet sites because their rights to express their opinions in conventional media is under constant threat.
While the concerns of the Interim Government does carry weight - after all writing anonymous opinions for public consumption is against the rule - we now live in world dominated by new media technology that occasionally blurs the line between truth and fiction.

Interestingly China has banned the opening of new cybercafés this year citing the rising influence of the Internet on its people.



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