Some informal thoughts on PR Academy’s conference on New Media: The New Frontier In Communications And PR while I compile my notes on what the speakers covered.
It was a meeting of traditional media practitioners and new media practitioners. Journalists and bloggers. Though some of the more enlightened argued that the dichotomy between old media and new media didn’t really exist, it was quite evident there was a clear divide. There were whispers of war.
I twice overheard traditional media people telling each other that most stuff on the blogosphere was trash. Then Margaret Thomas from Mediacorp said it out loud on stage. Miyagi came across (to me) as rather snide when he told Margaret that Straits Times Interactive was digging its own grave by charging a subscription fee. A few hours later, a blogger who was at the conference wrote about how she had to refrain from rolling her eyes or giggling when the traditional media folk didn’t seem to know what RSS was.
They (traditional media folk) laugh at us and label us as infantile, while we laugh that they seem so slow on the uptake when it comes to technologies millions use on a daily basis.
But we have to see that both camps need each other.
The blogosphere, particularly Singapore’s, needs to learn many things from old-school journalism. It was fitting that Mr Brown and Mr Miyagi were the new media representatives at this conference. During their presentation they continually spoke of themselves as entertainers. The Singapore blogosphere is dominated by entertainers. Maybe it is because there is a fear of saying things out loud, that hiding under the shelter of humour is the only way to say what we really mean.
But humour’s only demand is laughter, not thought or action, though the two may come as weak by-products. The Singapore blogosphere is slowly learning how to construct and communicate intellectually complex ideas, engaging in serious discourse. The quality of writing in some of these blogs occasionally surpasses that found in the local papers.
I think I need not re-emphasise the need for traditional media organisations to restructure their business models in order to survive the influx of the ever-increasing internet-based content. I’ve been subscription-free for almost 3 years now, and I don’t miss getting my fingers sooty from handling a newspaper. I second Miyagi’s call for The Straits Times to save itself by opening up to the online audience.
We would advance so much faster as a society if we worked together with mutual respect.
Comments
I agree — there is no need for a “Them Vs Us” approach. I guess it’s just a human trait to draw lines perhaps even more so when there’s either real of perceived “threats” to our beliefs. It sounds almost religious isn’t it? But I think notions of “Blogging” and “Traditional Media” are just that — beliefs.
Posted by: Ivan Chew | June 19, 2006 3:07 AM