More than Just a New Media Ecosystem

Whenever I come across worth to-be-shared music videos, I will always share it with my friends and families by posting a link of it on my Facebook account. Undeniably, social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter have relatively made sharing easier, doesn't it?

As explained by Hobson (2005), the emergence of new media has created the 'new water cooler' for the community to interact with each other at anytime and anywhere. Thus, creating an ecosystem for new communities in the digital world (Aids.gov n.d.).

 

(Image source: Blogworld.com 2010)

Apparently, the emergence of such media ecosystem also forms a new platform for the public to voice out their political opinions. On 28th February 2011, TechCentral (2011) released an article, 'Social media, cellphone video fuel Arab protests', which reported on how social media played an essential role in supporting the anti-government protests in Cairo, Egypt.

In the article, it was stated that protesters were using their cellphones to document the demonstrations (via images and videos) against their rulers and such documented materials were posted on social networking sites. Additionally, recorded videos of the rally were even aired on Al-Jazeera.

Moreover, images and recorded videos showing security forces using harsh treatments towards the protesters even earned international disapproval and critics over the government's ruling. Wael Ghonim, the Google executive and cyberactivist who was the leader of the rally commented that without the existence of the new media, the rally would not even be so successful. 

With that, existence of social media has created a new public sphere among the political community. As defined by The World Bank (n.d.), public sphere is defined as a platform for the community to come together freely to discuss and to identify the current societal problems. 

Jurgen Habermas, who is an expert in the study of public sphere, explains through his Deliberative Democracy Theory that through the existence of public sphere, it encourages active participation among citizens in the political arena (Kellner n.d.). And with the existence of internet, media plays a crucial role in the development of such public sphere (Thornton n.d.).

Moreover, Habermas stresses that such public sphere also encourages the formulation of public opinions; hence, enabling actors outside the public sphere to play their roles in the distribution of political powers (Schulz 1997).

With the help of social media, public are able to be more open in voicing out their political opinions. With that, it enables the government to be more alert towards its publics' voices because negligence of such situation could be severe. Hence, emergence of social media has added a new vocabulary of democracy for us, which is 'cyberdemocracy' (Thompson 1995). 

References

Aids.gov n.d., What is New Media, viewed 10^th June 2011, <http://aids.gov/using-new-media/basics/what-is-new-media/>.

Hobson, N 2005, The New Media Ecosystem: Conversations, Influence, and You, viewed 10^th June 2011, <http://www.nevillehobson.com/pubfiles/downloads/051020_NewMedia_FEIEA.pdf>.

Kellner, D n.d., Habermas, the Public Sphere, and Democracy: A Critical Intervention, viewed 11^th June 2011, <http://www.davidtinapple.com/comaff/Habermas_Public_Sphere_Democracy.pdf>.

Schulz, W 1997, Changes of Mass Media and The Public Sphere, viewed 11^th June 2011, <http://www.javnost-thepublic.org/media/datoteke/schulz-2-1997--4.pdf>.

TechCentral 2011, Social media, cellphone video fuel Arab protests, viewed 10^th June 2011, <http://techcentral.my/news/story.aspx?file=/2011/2/28/it_news/20110228100840&sec=it_news>.

The World Bank n.d., The Public Sphere, viewed 10^th June 2011, <http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTGOVACC/Resources/PubSphereweb.pdf>.

Thompson, JB 1995, The theory of the public sphere: a preliminary assessment, Polity Press, Cambridge.

Thornton, A n.d., Does internet create democracy?, viewed 11^th June 2011, <http://www.zipworld.com.au/~athornto/thesis2.htm>.