By IPS Correspondents
KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 3 2006 (IPS)

Jo Dongwon, who belongs to a South Korean activist group that broadcasts its own reports about trade meetings or Asian summits, is not trying to compete with international networks like the Cable News Network (CNN) in terms of reach, flash and cash.

But his group, MediAct (www.mediact.org), offers an alternative view of the political, social and economic situation in South Korea – and uses the fact that the country’s 70 percent broadband penetration rate is the world’s highest to get its message across.

At the December 2005 ministerial conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Hong Kong, MediAct’s ‘citizen broadcasters’ showed protesters being hosed down in the streets, doing ‘stand-uppers’ with a blue screen behind them as backdrop.

MediAct uses ‘guerrilla tactics’ amid the cacophony of mainstream media: blogging, moblogging or blogging posted to the Internet from a mobile phone or a personal digital assistant (PDA), and digital multimedia broadcasting.

MediAct is just one of the newer, smaller and more mobile media organisations in Asia that are using the ‘new media’ on the Internet, such as RSS feeds and blogging to differentiate themselves while reaching their targeted audience.

In a January meeting organised by the independent news website Malaysiakini (www.malaysiakini.com) and South-east Asia Centre for e- Media (SEACeM) at www.seacem.org, both based in Kuala Lumpur, activists and independent media groups discussed better ways to use the new media, which is changing traditional journalism, communication, social activism and freedom of speech.

At the ‘Asian New Media Forum’ meeting, participants agreed that the Internet is rapidly breaking down traditional communication barriers, providing new opportunities for groups wanting to use media.

”The economic logic of media is different now,” said Fons Tuinstra, Internet consultant and partner for the China Business Infocentre (www.cbiz.com) who also has an on-line business portal for foreign business people new to the country.

He explained: ”We now have many-to-many broadcasts at little cost, because there are no financial barriers any more” to setting up a mass medium, unlike decades ago when huge investments prevented the common person from reaching big audiences. ”The mass market is also now divided into many niche markets.”

Andrew Lih, a Hong Kong University lecturer cited Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org), an open encyclopaedia in cyberspace, as an example of how new technologies are used to share information and knowledge.

Derived from the Hawaiian term ‘wiki wiki’ (meaning quick), Wikipedia allows users to create any topic and edit any article, and uses discussion to settle disagreements about its published information.

The Wikipedia now contains more than 900,000 articles ranging from the contentious Iraq conflict, to the Octopus card, to ‘third culture kids’ (TCK).

In today’s Asia, different types of independent citizen journalism have been bringing information producers straight to audiences – without traditional gatekeepers such as editors.

Carol Arguillas created Mindanews.com, a news and information provider for Mindanao because ”Manila reporters usually view and report the Mindanao conflict either from a religious or separatist point of view, which is too simplistic.”

Mindanews tried to offer mainstream Filipino newspapers a different view of Mindanao, only to be told: ”We already have a defence beat.”

Arguillas eventually convinced others who became regular subscribers: embassies, peace advocates, community papers, local and international NGOs.

The changing face of journalism can also be seen in the popularity of OhMyNews.com, a South Korean site with the slogan ”every citizen is a reporter”. The site, which played a key role in the election victory of President Roh Moo-hyun in 2002, allows ordinary people to write articles and encourages readers to tip writers who have written good pieces.

Nevertheless, critics scoff at the notion of citizen journalism, saying those improperly trained in journalism may not stick to its ethical standards. Blogs have also come under attack because anyone can post their comments for the public to see.

The Wikipedia, said Lih, has also been accused of being like a public toilet. ”You don’t know who used it last.”

The rise of new media/Internet tools means various governments have been trying to control or censor cyberspace.

Jeff Ooi, whose popular political/social blog on Malaysia, www.jeffooi.com, is on Malaysiakini.com, says with its 94 million internet users, China has ”one of the most sophisticated, systematic, comprehensive, effective, pervasive and targeted censors in the world,” using the frequent description of ‘The Great Firewall of China’.

”Often, you would get a ‘page not found’ message for a certain website, when in reality, the message is a cover for the censors,” Ooi explained.

Besides simple gateway blocking, China also practises keyword search filtering, for words such as ‘Falungong’ or ‘Tiananmen’ and URL blocking, among others.

Other countries are more upfront with censorship. In the United Arab Emirates (UAE), an Internet user simply sees a message that a site is censored when he or she tries to access it.

The Yahoo and Hotmail sites, which provide web-based email services, remain banned in Burma. Besides using filtering software such as OpenSource and Fortiguard, Internet places insist that screenshots of user activity be taken every five minutes, Ooi said.

Cyber users and producers of new media are also constantly finding ways to evade filters.

Tuinstra said, “In China, you can use web-based proxies for URL blocks or software-based proxies to circumvent keyword filtering. Or you can also simply change your browser setting.”

He added, ”Internet users often use homonyms (words that are spelled differently but have the same sound) to search for websites deemed ‘naughty’ by the authorities.”

Participants at the conference agreed the Internet and the new media have made possible opportunities to challenge the status quo in the media. But the use of such opportunities for what Malaysiakini chief executive officer Prem Chandran calls ‘public service journalism’, is not automatic.

The Internet will continue to both create inspiration and instill fear in many years to come, because every invention is always followed by a debate on whether it is ‘good’ or ‘bad’, said Indrajit Banerjee, secretary-general of the Singapore-based Asian Information and Communication Centre (AMIC).

”The reality is that we are often blinded by new technological gadgets,” he said. But the quality of information depends on citizens’ commitment, the media environment and technology in a society, he explained.

”We should not underestimate the power of the people, because technology is just a tool,” Banerjee said.

(*This story was written for the Asia Media Forum (AMF) project of IPS Asia-Pacific.)

Excerpt: