The information technology world has never failed to surprise us with new inventions everyday. At first there was myspace, and then blogging. Just when we were starting to get used to a new form of media publishing, a new one comes up. Tech-savvy users are juggling to keep themselves up to date with the latest media trends.
New forms of media publishing have altered the roles of journalism. The best thing about these new media publishing is that there are no gatekeepers online and people are free to speak their mind. Nations no longer rely only on biased report filtered by the government on national newspapers.
As new forms of media such as Youtube, Facebook and Twitter starts emerging, online issues start arising as well.
Putnis and Petelin (1996) stated that expressive theorist value “truth” and “authentic voice” and that knowledge lie within individuals. This means freedom of speech. One of the issues pertaining blogging is the controversial article “Let’s send Altantuya’s Murderers to Hell” posted by Raja Petra. He alleged that our Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak and the First Lady was involved in the bombing of Altantuya.
Following the release of the article, Raja Petra was charged by the Internal Security Act. A sentence from www.blawg.joshua3.com stated that “You can say anything you want in your speech. It's your freedom after your speech that is in question!" So, are we really free to speak our mind through the new media publishing?
List of References:
Loone, S 2008, Raja Petra Investigated for Sedition due to Altantuya Article, viewed 18 November 2009,
<http://sloone.wordpress.com/2008/05/02/police-high-on-heels-of-raja-petra-due-to-altantuya-article/>
LegallyBlawg, 2007, Freedom of Speech: How qualified is Malaysia?, viewed 18 November 2009,
<http://blawg.joshua3.com/?p=5>
Putnis, P Petelin, R 1996, Professional Communication: Principles and Applications: Writing to Communicate, Prentice Hall, Sydney.
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