New Media – Power to the people or threat to stability?

The age of globalization also brings about the period of mass media where everyone is a click away. With the advent of the internet and introduction of web log or better known as “blog”, people have been given great abilities to express themselves but is this power too much to handle?

Blogging has truly been a major phenomenon in the last few years. Number of bloggers are staggering and still rising. However blogging is not limited to only authoring blogs and maintaining it but also to simultaneously transcribe events on television. Bloggers are free to express their opinions in their own personal space any way they wish with no interference. Comments given can be used constructively. But with their increasing numbers, who is to stop them from posting illegal, sensitive or propaganda through the net. Even with government censorship, it would be a logistical nightmare to sift through loads of e-mails, blogs and websites brought about by this new media.
Furthermore with the presence of forces trying to fight back censorship of online materials, the very essence of stability is made more prone. Mindless propaganda, riots inducing sensitive messages can be circulated in the web for ages before officials can detect it. Through this perspective, new media is indeed a threat.

On the flip side, one can argue that people should have freedom of speech; however there are limitations to what we can say. New media has given great power to people of today but too much of it would be a big threat to stability. The situation now is constantly viewed from a one-sided perspective resulting in imbalance. Over censorship would defeat the purpose of blogging in the first place while having non-existent censorship would mean that bloggers have no limit to what they can write. Therefore there is a need for greater censorshipto come after efforts are done to improve freedom of speech to remove them. . Proportionate amounts of freedom and censorship would guarantee some equilibrium.