New Media Mania

Thailand-based author Christopher G. Moore has commented on last night’s Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand (FCCT) event “Thailand in the Eyes of Others”. Moore reports that both the all-Thai panel and the questioners in the audience completely ignored the role of new media in the recent troubles in Bangkok:-

“The evening was mainly a Thai critique on the international TV news about how the Thais in political conflict were presented to an international audience. In particular, the panel, as were Thai questioners, were highly critical of TV coverage by CNN and BBC.  [...] The digital world was largely ignored [...] Thousands of images, videos and commentary reached a larger world through the Internet.

“What Thailand in May 2010 has demonstrated is that news that shape international public opinion is no longer limited to TV network news. News coverage has expanded far beyond TV and the traditional print media. The old way of gathering, reporting, accessing and, indeed through comments, participating in the news has fundamentally changed.”

There have been plenty of international news stories over several years that have demonstrated this, but I guess this realisation has only now come home to roost for Moore, who is a resident of Thailand.  (And me also for the same reason.)

“If they did, the members of the [FCCT] panel did not show that they appreciated that Thailand found itself in the middle of a new media—where multiple gateways allowed viewers and readers to a rich variety of opinion, images and videos, along with interviews and on the scene reporting. Reporting is no longer in the hands of news professionals. What we saw over the last two months of demonstrations in Bangkok was how news coverage has radically altered.

“The digital genie won’t be easily pushed back to the magic lantern. It’s out for good.”

This genie is causing the Thai censors problems. For example, the controversial Thai-language Prachatai website continues to use up URLs in defiance of the censors. This morning www.prachatai3.info was working. This evening it’s a “bad request”. But these URLs can’t be blocked overseas, and they can be accessed from within Thailand via proxies. And there are plenty of people willing to repackage the content and send it back home, or simply host it on social networking sites such as Facebook. Are the censors going to follow Pakistan’s lead and attempt to block those as well?

Moore makes interesting observations on the differences between Thai and Western conceptions of “the role, function and purpose of freedom of expression”. Please read his full post here.