The Amazing New Age Media

I think most of the young people won't think twice about googling for info. 7 or 8 years ago Google became a verb and the rest is the present. Need to find a recipe? Google it! Want to find out more about a disease? Yup! Google it! I even use Google to learn Mandarin. Need to find out the meaning of a word, phrase... Yup again! Google translate it! That's just the learning and knowing part! You can locate and pinpoint as well. But of course, all this can be quite scary. Between Google and Apple, they own almost everything else that makes this possible.

What I find even more amazing is the way things can go viral in a short time. The digital media has a tendency to keep things alive in a WYS format. You get to see things in ways not imagined before. CSL vs LGE debate... Never before has a debate gone so viral and with a constant barrage of commentaries, pictures and videos to add. And because of these viral ability, one ambitious-trying-to-please her political master probably never imagined finding fame in such a short time. Ms Tow Truck! LOL! I keep think of Mater in Cars! 10 years ago, only those in the hall would have seen her performance. Today, everyone who wants to see needs only a few clicks, at will. Amazing!

And the influx of news... Amazing speed they are delivered too. 1Care? It would have been bulldozed through successfully before this age of New Media. Then Bayan Mutiara land deal. Who could have imagined that the CM's office would castigate his accusers so quickly.

It would have taken ages or perhaps never for news that the former Chief Justice is now into business and just landed the contract to build a highway. Being senior appointees in the corridors of power is very lucrative, apparently. Allegations after allegations have been thrown by sources from inside and outside the country. Our very own Cowgate and even Lynas... Once upon a time, the gateway to all these information was held by only ONE. These days, the Old Media is still controlled but again and again as it has been shown, the old media might find itself facing obscurity. Twitter, FaceBook, Google, YouTube, news aggregator... the list is unending. They give the reader an other side of the coin view. The study of mass media has indeed gotten blown way out of its original size. New Age Media!! I think it's kinda cool at the moment. It's like a second Age of / Renaissance. When Gutenberg invented the printing press, he enabled the folks back then to read the Bible for themselves. That sort of exposed the sham the clergy were and it freed the people from the shackles of those who used religion to enslave the majority. This New Age media is like that printing press... Now to see whether it will herald a new Age of Reformafion.

This New Media seems to be providing a level playing ground in a different way. It's providing fodder for social uprising in a manner which defies whatever that we've studied in history. It would be interesting to compare the Arab Spring of 2011 and the Bolshevik Revolution of 1905. The manner that information has been able to get to the people.... the manner how vivid graphics are shared worldwide.

New Media... I wonder too whether it could be used to bring about changes in many of our institutions which fallen to rot of mediocrity brought about by incompetence. My little mind has gone overdrive thinking about possibilities.... LOL!