The Kuala Lumpur rain comes down in buckets, but it seems to evaporate with the heat before it splashes you. It is instant dry cleaning for your clothes – just by walking down the street.
The steam also came up with the Session 1 of the second day’s World Electronic Media Forum, the WEMFIII. It was about helping the ‘non mainstream’ listener, viewer, or user. There are the poor, and there are those with ‘special needs’. For the poor we may be on the threshold of the ’100 dollar computer’, to be made available to kids throughout the developing countries, which seems (to the author) the dream of the developed world too… miniscule power consumption, unbreakable, and easy to use. You know you want one.
The other user groups are those with ‘Special Needs’ – the handicapped. The Session showed that in Europe, Japan, and the United States engineers are working of the same kinds of things, like ways to make using digital television and radio receivers easy to use. Handbooks that don’t need a training course to understand? Same buttons on all equipment? Here, hang on, don’t even those without ‘Special Needs’ want this? The fact is the regions are all working independently on this, and so we are likely to end up with a lot of non helpful differences in this helpful technology.
Session 2 concerned how to make broadcasts available to everyone, particularly those in poor areas of the world. One of the tools available for bringing radio to Africa is the ‘wind up radio’ – apparently designed to look like a handbag, so girls don’t mind carrying it into the fields. Near the top of the causes of failure list (it was said) is goats eating the leads. Technology marches on, and the new version will also be an MP3 player, and have data ports. Nice, but is the need for such is coming to an end with the more widespread use of mobile phones with build in radios?
Session 3 looked at the ‘explosion’ of ways ordinary people can contribute to the media, what is called the ‘Public Sphere’. It is true that anyone can have a voice on Internet, but there were fears that this was not bringing a healthy diversification of views, but a polarisations of views around particular opinions. The web 2.0 might not be the harbinger of diversity, but of counterproductive polarisation. These were things to think about amid all the euphoria of the web global village.
Session 4. was about who decides what is important in the news we watch and hear – what are the most important issues of the day – academics call this ‘agenda setting’. A university professor from Iran reported an analysis of the media in the west, showing a lack of fairness to Iran. A doctor from Malaysia argued that agenda are set by groups of Elite. It was a touchy political debate. But no one argued that the news that the world sees and hears is mainly news about the ‘west’, though no ‘remedy’ emerged. Perhaps there isn’t one?. In a wrap up session, the conclusions from all the sessions were brought together, and suggestions were made for the common conclusions. The next WEMF will be in South America in 2009.
Let’s hope the mortality rate for Journalists has begun to fall then. We’ll probably be on ‘Web 3.0′ (at least). Maybe I’ll be able to buy a 100 dollar laptop there too?
Filed under: electronic archiving, Electronic media, journalist safety
