MEDIA: 'Bloggers Have a Social Responsibility' (Q&A)

Once referred to as the 'most hacked blogger of Malaysia', Jeremiah Foo moves around in the music, publishing and computer industry circles -- yes, all of those. He co-founded the eMuse Network, a pioneer in digital media and content development in south-east Asia. Before becoming a full-time journalist, Foo was the artiste and repertoire manager for Sony Music Entertainment. The multi-awarded songwriter and composer was also co-founder of the National Music Society of Singapore.

Today, Foo is lecturer and Convergent Media programme manager of Shantou University in China, and visiting lecturer of The University of Hong Kong. He is producer-at-large of Asia247.tv, Asia's first podcast-only English news station, which assists traditional print media to enter the realm of rich media.  He is part of mybloggercon, which gathers together Malaysian Chinese bloggers in the hope of promoting Chinese-language blogging as well as to give them a venue to voice out their views about issues in the region.

In this chat, on the sidelines of his giving a session on convergent media to journalists in the Imaging Our Mekong programme,  Foo shares with IPS Asia-Pacific's Lynette Corporal his views about the joys and perils of blogging in the region, press freedom, citizen journalism and piracy, to name some. For Foo, education plays an important role in the quest for freedom. "If your mind is being constrained and limited by education, then you're not really free," he said. At the same time, this advocate of new media cautions people not to "lose themselves" in new technology, saying that "technology is like a road or a window [to the world], but it is not supposed to be worshipped". 

Q: The Internet has figured in a lot of controversies recently, with news about several Asian countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Burma and China tightening its grip on people's access to this technology. You're currently based in China. You're a blogger yourself. How bad is the situation in China?

It's not as bad as, say, Malaysia. In China, they make sure you don't make a mistake. In Malaysia, they are waiting for you to make a mistake. This is not to say that I agree with the whole idea of socialist communism. But the Chinese are a very practical people. In terms of finding tools and means to stop information flowing and spreading, they are pretty good. [The censors] are not called the 'Great Firewall of China' for nothing.

China censors blogs. In a way it is good, for the writer will know what is sensitive and what is not. Some people see free speech as the holy grail of everything else, but in order to have order and sanity among the public, it's necessary to control things a bit. Imagine having a TV connected to Playboy or an adult channel and you have a 17-year-old at home who can watch it. It's a double-edged sword, sometimes you need it, sometimes you don't. People who suffer from not having freedom will complain about it, and people who benefit from not needing it will think it is good. My philosophy is there is no such thing as good or bad. It is the perspective of the person concerned.

Q: Where do you draw the line then between what is free and what is not?

A: When I know I may hurt someone, which makes me think about the consequences first of my words before I put it up. I think journalistic guidelines have to be imposed on the more popular bloggers. If nobody reads your blog, it does not really matter. You can claim to be god and nobody cares. But if you are read by a lot of people, then you have a social responsibility.

A: I think public opinion generally is a combination of what the general public and the newspapers say. Not everyone blogs and if you take 100 percent of bloggers' opinions, you are only looking at 25 percent of the general public's views.  But blogs can be used as a guide. For instance, we encourage members of mybloggercon to blog in Chinese so they will retain the knowledge of reading and writing in the Chinese language. By promoting Chinese blogging, we are encouraging younger people to learn more about their language and their culture.

A: It's a very subtle thing but there is now an awareness, an awakening among young people. It's interesting to note that some Hong Kong-based publications, such as 'Asia Weekly', have mostly mainland Chinese reporters, which is unheard of in the past. Even though the magazine is banned in China, it is significant to know that mainland Chinese are writing for that magazine. 

In the end, I think peace is what everybody wants, but there is a difference between peace of mind and having real peace. For example, some members of the Vietnamese media have a different perception about press freedom. They are not in denial, but really mean it when they say they enjoy freedom of the press. It's very sad because these are second or third generation Vietnamese who attended schools run by the government and who totally believe that they have press freedom. Ignorance is bliss, and I think they're pretty happy that way. If they're happy, that's fine but the moment they get out of that 'matrix', and look at the real world, they will have a change of perception.

A: Citizen journalism and traditional media should complement each other. The only problem now is in our part of the world, there is no respect for these citizen journalists, because people in the media are afraid of this. There is always fear when there is ignorance. In contrast, CNN and BBC are asking people to participate and to send in their own videos and photos.

A: There's no such thing as new media. Media is never new, the only thing that is new is content. You can have the same newspaper every day but it's a new newspaper every morning, because the content is new. 

A: There is such a thing as 'Convergent Media'. It is about media that converges or combines the characteristics of the different types of media that we have right now. It is more like an application of information communication technology (ICT). We think that ICT is the technology and convergent media is the application of the technology.

A: I think most countries in the region have wrongly believed or adopted the wrong perception about technology. Most people think that by getting involved or putting their  trust in new technology, it will bring them out of poverty.  Asians have this mindset that 'if I have a computer, I will become a genius'. But it is not really the technology, but the person. It is the aptitude and attitude that define your skills. If you have no aptitude, you won't have the sensitivity to look at things and think. It is not the ICT, but the content.

As for the countries that are using ICT to their advantage, I think Hong Kong and Singapore are doing the right thing by investing heavily in rich media content-related products like cartoons, manga, animation, 3D, audio visual, and sound design. South Korea, for instance, is focusing on technology surrounding content development. During the Asian financial crisis in the late '90s, [popular Korean companies] Samsung and LG almost closed down but they turning to entertainment, and content creation saved them. Singapore, too, pumped in a lot of money on content creation technology by giving their schools the latest, greatest and shiniest equipment such as sound design animation, filmmaking and the like.

A: Piracy is a necessity up to a certain extent. When you want to learn something, the normal human behaviour is to imitate and through this we learn and try to excel. In some really poor countries where they cannot afford certain stuff, they have no choice [but to resort to piracy] as capitalism rears its ugly head. You don't expect poor people to pay 3,000 U.S. dollars to use software. But sometimes, if you don't allow students, for instance, to get a pirated copy of some software to learn how it works, it will be impossible for them to acquire the skills properly. I think it is a necessary evil.