STOMP = citizen journalism ?

Citizen journalism, also known as "participatory journalism," is the act of citizens "playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information. (Wikipedia , 2007, citizen journalism) “With the evolution of the Internet, websites are no longer just a "read only" medium but a "read-write" medium. We now, than ever before, have access to a broader variety of current information, and we can use it with increasing sophistication (Gillmore, 2004)”. Yes it is true that with the advent of technology, the internet is not the only medium that we can get information, but also we can participate in this medium.

In a 2003 Online Journalism Review article, J. D. Lasica classifies there must have some elements to prove the media as citizen journalism.1) Audience participation, 2) Independent news and information Websites 3) full-fledged participatory news sites 4) Collaborative and contributory media sites 5) other kinds of “thin media’. The first element , “Audience participation” which is basically about the users comments on the attached stories, personal blogs, photos or video footage captured form personal mobile camera, or local news written by residents of a community .In the STOMP there are some sections such as “Star Blog” where you can make a comments on the personal blogs, and “ Singapore Seen ” where the slogan is "You generate the content. You write the reports. You take the photos. You shoot the videos" ("Singapore Seen", 2006).

The second element is called “Independent news and information websites”. It is something about consumer reports and the drudge report. “ST Foodies Club” and “ST Digital Club” are the sections in the STOMP where allows the citizens to write their personal experiences and how do they view on the individual restaurants or the digital product that they bought .This is a kind of consumer reports that allow to consumers to write about their experiences.

These are the examples of some elements that mention in STOMP. Other than that the rest of the elements are not really provided in the STOM . Therefore, I personally think that STOMP is a sort of citizen journalism but it is not a ideal form of journalism.

IMPROVEMENT

I think the most recent article posted showing up first and so on . Instead of readers to scroll through the headlines to find something that interests them . They should provide some categories in the first page where all the best articles can be posted and the voting system among the personal articles to find the best article of the week .

REFERENCES

Gilmor, D. (2004). We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People. United States: Oreilly Publishing. Retrieved March 28, 2007 from the World Wide Web:http://download.nowis.com/index.cfm?phile=WeTheMedia.html&tipe=text/html

Wikipedia. “Citizen journalism”. (2007). Retrieved on 28 March 2007, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_journalism

"Singapore Seen". (2006). [On-line]. Retrieved March 28. 2007 from the World Wide Web:http://singaporeseen.stomp.com.sg/index.aspx

Is there Democracy in singapore meida ?

Name Cherian George

http://singaporemedia.blogspot.com/

Occupation accademic and journalist

Blog's date of birth september 15 , 2005

Technorati Rank: 225 , 320 (56 links from 20 blogs)

He tilted his blog as " One country , two system , for how long? First of all he compared two main stram of media such as the national newspapers and broadcasters and websites and blog .Newspaper and broadcaster have been equated with a cluster of attributes: they are profit driven, resource rich, professionally run, mass oriented, large in readership and viewership, highly public, and regulated through discretionary licensing. Alternative media such as independent websites and blogs are associated with the converse cluster of attributes: they are not for profit, resource poor, run by amateurs and volunteers, niche oriented, limited in penetration, semi-public, and free of discretionary licensing requirements.

He mentioned that" this neat dichotomy has allowed the government’s dual regulatory regime to operate relatively smoothly: regulators apply far stricter standards to mainstream than to alternative media. In theory, in an age of digital convergence, regulations that are not platform-neutral will be unsustainable as they will generate inconsistencies. In practice, however, convergence has not run its course in Singapore; the dichotomy between offline mainstream media and alternative online media persists".

Does it really true ? which one allow for greater democracy ? In Singapore Straits Times , “Singaporeans are educated in English and have immediate access to the international media.” ( Lee Kuan Yew , Oct 31 & Nov 2, 1998). Singapore, like other commonwealth country, has English as their first language. This certainly has posed to be an advantage to Singapore, because most trades are done in English and English is the universal language for doing businesses. Most international media are in English, and certainly we have access to most international media, however not all.

His second remark on Singaporeans having immediate access to international media is controversial. It may be true if the content is not sexually explicit or engaging in domestic politics. First of all, what does he mean for media?Does he mean for what Mr. Cherin as tradional meadia as singapore straits time or alternative media as internet? To ban sexually explicit content is acceptable in the Asian context as most of us are against it and it is against Asian culture. To ban contents that engage in politics, however, is questionable.

Straits Times and its other sister magazines are allowed to discuss political issues, especially during the election days. However, Straits Times’ publisher SPH is partially owned by the government, in other words, Mr. Lee has a say on what has to be in it and what not. So do you think is there any democracy in Singapore Newspaper? This issue was further brought up due to the ban of Eastern Economic Review (FEER) for failing to apologize for an article on Dr. Chee Soon Juan, an opposition politician from the Singapore Democratic Party. It is probably the article’s title that sparked the wrath of Lee family (Singapore’s matyr; Chee Soon Juan). FEER was banned starting from 28th September 2006. Even to have subscription to FEER is now illegal.

How then, can we say that Singaporeans have immediate access to the international media? After FEER debacle, the government have learnt and made an amendment to the Section 24 of the Newspaper and Printing Presses Act; for foreign newspapers to be distributed here, they have to give a security deposit of S$200,000.

If we think that it is only the print media that was affected, we are wrong. What about the internet? It is a same thing . The government has gone to the cyber world too. Not only do they have the capability to scan and check what we are doing, but they are acting on it too. During Election Day, no pod-casting on political issues are allowed. This rule actually applies to anyone pod-casting openly political content during the local elections. Does internet allow grater democracy in singapore? the answer is NO ! What about blog?Does government can scan and check in the blog ? "This did not stop some Netizens from publishing videos of numerous election rallies on their blogs". (Giam , 2006 ) So does it allow grater democracy in blog ? Democray is something that you are freely to do whatever you wish to do . You are freelly to write , discuss , mention and express without any restrictions.Blog is "The fear is that government controls will diminish the ability of the Internet to support democracy effectively"( Thornton, 2002). Indeed blog allows greater democracy in singapore.

Reference

Giam, G. (2006), “The politics of Singapore’s new media in 2006.” Retrieved on March 23, 2007 from,http://theonlinecitizen.com/2006/12/31/review-the-politics-of-singapores-new-media-in-2006

Thornton, A. (2002, October). Does Internet Create Democracy. Retrieved March 23, 2007 from http://www.zip.com.au/~athornto/thesis_2002_alinta_thornton.doc

Lee Kuan Yew (1998, October) Singaporeans are educated in English and have immediate access to the international media. Retrived March 23, 2007 form

The Singapore Straits time , October 31st , page 5

Let Me Twit

What is twitter? “Twitter is social networking service that allows members to inform each others about what are they doing and what they think of. It allows message to send via phone or instant messaging” (Wekipedia, 2007)Yes, twitter is a very simple service that allows you to send the simple status update message to your friends via SMS , IM or very basic web interface . Those message are then sent to everyone who follows your updates by using any of the communication of methods available. Thus, the twitter is a very great way that friends, colleagues can shadow and learn each other. A global community of friends and strangers are answering one simple the question “What are you doing?” This lets you know and feel of hour-to hour of your friends’ activities.

Twitter is like a blog which let the whole world know that what are you doing or what are you interested in. Sometimes, it is very difficult to keep updating in the blog for every few minutes to tell the whole world that what are you doing at the very moment but twitter does. Using twitter is a lot easier than setting up a private blog to distribute the same information. Having the twitter account is very easy. Anyone can register the account with existing email account and get the password and leave the message to the friends.

Most of the people mentioned that the blog is a virtual community . How about twitter? Is it a virtual community? The answer is definitely. In my opinion, it is best and most efficient way of online community. Virtual communities is a "social aggregations that emerge from the Internet when enough people carry on those public discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal relationships in cyberspace" (Rheingold ,1993). In the online community, people can communicate each other “without regard to race, creed , gender or geography”(Wellman & Guila, 1996). Not only for social networking within friends, twitter is very useful when it comes to the work place . for example, two coworkers in the same company have to act upon different concepts of work day effectiveness. Twitter allows employees to interprect each others.Therefore, those poeple in MNC, Twitter can also help convey ideas and atmosphere in real time which is something most distance workers wouldn't normally experience in such an informal manner."Community plays a significant part in our lives especially our development and maturation through exchanging our experiences with others in the community" (Fernback & Thompson, 1995). Therfore, twitter is indeed virtual community.

REFERENCE
Fernback, J. & Thompson, B. (1995, May). Virtual communities : abort, retry, failure? Retrieved 21:00 March 17, 2007 from http://www.rheingold.com/texts/techpolitix/VCcivil.html
Wellman, B. & Gulia, M. (1996, April). Net sufers don’t ride alone: virtual communities as communities. Retrieved 21:00 March 17, 2007 from http://www.acm.org/~ccp/references/wellman/wellman.html
Wikipedia (2007). Twitter. Retrieved March 17, 2007 from

Privacy Today and Yesterday

With the advancement of technology, privacy is getting more and more like a luxury. Everything is getting more transparent and information, be it private or public, is now easily available (in a click). Everyone knows what you are doing, if you are doing benevolent deeds, great. How if you did something that you don’t want any one to know? Sometime it can severely affect our life, look at Tammy from NYP, whose secret video was leaked out. The whole world knows what she is doing and laughs at her. The internet is certainly speeding up the distribution of her video. Is she a celebrity now? Or a victim? Especially in the Asian context, her reputation is all but gone. The whole family and her inner circle must be embarrassed or pity her as well.

A second example is when Saddam Hussein was hanged, the whole world is interested in going into you tube to download his hanging video. Further, the video is recorded by someone using hand phone camera . This kind of doing is called surveillance which is personal experience capture. According to the wikipedia, surveillance is the recording or monitoring of real or apparent authority figures by others. Even in his death, silence is not granted to him. Any one in the world with access to the internet are practically seeing his hanging which supposed to be done in “private”.
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However, privacy is not really new issues. It has been in years and years that people can steal other people privacy offline which is called identity theft. When someone wrongly obtains or uses another person’s privacy or personal date in some way involved fraud or deception typically for economic gain. Most of the identity theft criminal engage in “shoulder surfing” , watching you from a nearby location and as you punch in your telephone calling card number or credit card number or listen in on your conversation and if give you give your credit card number over the telephone to a hotel or some company . Sometime area near your home or office may not be secure. Some criminal engage in “ dumpster diving “ going through your garbage cans or communal dumpster or trash bin to obtain copies of your checks , credit card or bank statement or other records that typically bear your name, address and even phone number. This type of records makes it easier for criminal to get control over account in your name and assume your identity.

However, in recent year, internet is become the most appealing place for criminal to obtain identity data such as password or banking information. A lot of online identity is occurred as phishing , bogus website address in spam email , Pharming . The British Socialogist “Antony Giddens that citizens in a risk society no longer rely on traditional or fixed hierarchy to establish their identity or to give them reliable guidance about whom they turst in a society ”(Rosen, 19/7,2004)

Therefore, in order to prevent form being the victims of identity theft don’t give your personal information unless you have a reason to trust them. If you have credit or debit card check whether you have been receiving the lists of the transaction for the most recent moth or reporting period.

Reference

Rosen, J. (2004). [On-line]. Retrieved March 9, 2007 from the World Wide Web: http://www.spiked-online.com/Printable/0000000CA5FF.htm

Sousveillance. (2007, February 7). [On-line]. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved March 9, 2007, from the World Wide Web: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php? title=Sousveillance&oldid=106389703

Corel , Section, Criminal Division, U.S. Department of Justice, Retrived March 9,2007 from http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/fraud/idtheft.html