Re: The social responsibility of media - old-school as well as new-media

drewbomber — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 08:10:28 -0000

Osama,

Thank you for your thoughtful comment on this issue.

As the media landscape is changing at a rapid pace, now is an opportune time for societies to step back and take a look at the role which media should play in all of our lives. Asking such questions now will help shape our changing media landscape in a positive way.

In my opinion, the media landscape is changing for the better. In the past, media was dominated by television, films, newspaper and radio. They talked to their audience, and communication took place on a one way basis. Worse, with significant barriers to entry, the old media landscape in many countries was dominated by a few big media players, who controlled what we watched, listened to and read about.

Nowadays, the media landscape is much more diverse and interactive, with the audience being able to provide significant input. This is particularly the case with blogging.

You mentioned in your fifth point the issue of accountability of media. Even in traditional media, the new media landscape allows for traditional publications to add more accountability to their stories by providing online reference to their sources. My favorite newspaper, The Australian, regularly provides online readers to full text or video coverage of it's source documents or speeches. This way, readers can not only read the article, but can check the source of the article and read source material in its full proper context.

I agree with your first point. Media should aim to promote fair and open debate, and open people's minds to new perspectives. Media should not, in my opinion, tell society what to think. Instead, media should present a fair and balanced view of the facts, so that people can develop their own informed opinion.

With respect, I do not agree that media should 'teach people how to think by compelling them to do so.' The media should present and explain different points of view in fair and balanced coverage, it is our responsibility to think for ourselves and form our own opinions.

Also, I respectfully disagree with your comments that blog posts need to be updated when checking facts before posting was not realistic and that readers who may act on that post should be notified. I think that the reader should realize and understand that blog posts are written to the best of the bloggers knowledge at the time. For me, that is good enough. Sure, posts could be updated where information is later found to be materially incorrect, but still, readers should realized that the post reflected the blogger's knowledge of facts at the time.

Thank you again for your thoughtful comment.

Cheers

Andrew

Disqus - Latest Comments for drewbomber

Re: The social responsibility of media - old-school as well as new-media