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| Traditional Mass Media |
Mass media plays a crucial role in connecting the world of individuals. It has the ability to reach wide audiences with strong and influential messages which impact upon society. Television and Radio have been influential on people’s daily lives and routines, affecting the content and times that audiences watch and listen. The mass media has at least three important roles to play: to inform, to educate and to influence opinion. These distinctive features of traditional media have been challenged by new media, which is changing the participation habits of the audiences.
Radio broadcasting services were introduced in Malaysia in the thirties while television services started in 1963. In the early days, people gathered around the radio set in the evening to listen to popular network programmes. When television finally became a living room reality, people sat around TV sets watching their favourite shows. In 1969, both radio and television were grouped under the Ministry of Information. The pace of development quickened, and it was then that round the clock radio services in various languages started.
Mass media enables people to participate in events and interact with communities over long distance. One needs only to think of democratic elections, World Cup soccer and royal weddings to appreciate the intensity with which people can share in these events. TV, radio and newspapers bring the outside world into our homes. The broadcast times of programmes set the routine of life within homes. Their content provides viewers and listeners with something to talk about for days. Traditional media has served as a companion as well as an important source of information for the audience.
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Modern Mass Media
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This should be the golden age for new media or modern media . We have the technology. We have the professionals to deliver high quality services. We have a great hunger among people for reliable, timely and useful information. Welcome to the digital and internet revolution!
As confidence in the media grows, a crisis is creeping up on one side …… In the push for more channels and choices, market models have been depressingly uniform. As a result, local content suffers, and cultural values are weakened in the process.
It is little surprise then that there is a growing debate about how to put quality back into traditional media and curb the influence of the increasingly powerful elite. The argument is that the media market itself cannot protect pluralism and diversity, and people need information services outside the market.
Now, fast developing technology is fuelling an information revolution. The modern media, digital broadcasting and the internet are sweeping away the limitations of the analogue world and weakening the grip of government-owned platforms. The nature of the relationship between the broadcaster and its audience is changing. New media in this information age provides an immediate, informative, intelligent, interactive platform for discussion and debate.
New media is essentially a cyber culture with modern computer technology, digital data controlled by software and the latest fast developing communication technology. Most technologies described as “new media” are digital, and often have characteristics of being networkable, dense, compressible, interactive and impartial. Examples are the internet, websites, computer multimedia, games, CD-ROMs and DVDs. Young people are attracted to the easy means of getting information with internet based terminals or hand phones which provide them information of their choice anytime, anywhere. They need not have to wait for any broadcasting schedule to be connected to get the information.
Internet blogs, news portals and online news, Facebook, You Tube, podcast and webcast, and even the short messaging system (SMS), are all new media. The modern revolution enables everybody to become a journalist at little cost and with global reach. Nothing like this has ever been possible before. The impact of new media was noticed by the Malaysian government which lost its two thirds majority in Parliament during the 2008 general elections. The government then depended on the mainstream media which it controlled to give information to the electorate while the opposition used new media which was faster, cheaper and reached a bigger audience. Ironically it was the malaysian government which spent billions of ringgit to foster the growth of new technology.