Opinion

[the_future_modernes]

Whose truth? Internet vs Trad. Journalism

Against a backdrop of declining media businesses and emerging online media outlets, the internet has altered the balance of power as to who exactly controls the news. Increasingly, it's starting to look like citizens do. It's not just blogs that are providing alternative sources of news, but anyone with a mobile phone and a social media network account.
A recent example in Malaysia was when the 30 Sept 2009 earthquake in Padang, Sumatra, caused tremors and buildings to sway in Kuala Lumpur and Petaling Jaya. Instant updates were immediately posted on Twitter and Facebook from people who felt the tremors and had to evacuate their buildings.

The AYM summit showed that these social networking tools have also been used in other parts of the world to mobilise millions to demonstrate and overthrow governments. For example, the Facebook group "One Million voices against the FARC" succeeded in just one month to rally over 12 million people on the streets on 4 Feb 2008 against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. The coordinated mass protest took place in 200 cities across 40 countries, making it the largest protest ever against a terrorist organisation. Group founder Oscar Morales told The Nut Graph, "The result today is that FARC has released some kidnapped hostages and members are leaving the group when they realise that they have no more public support."

In Moldova in April 2009, a young reporter named Natalia Morar organised her friends on Twitter to protest against election results which returned the communist government to power. Twitter's reach resulted in thousands more protestors than expected turning up on the streets. The protests forced fresh elections in which the opposition formed the new government.
There were dozens of other inspiring stories from AYM, examples which show that people can define what is news for themselves, even becoming the news in the process. Perhaps the closest Malaysian example is the Bersih rally for electoral reform in November 2007 which was also organised through text messaging and blogs.

Citizen journalists
The violent aftermath of Iran's elections in June 2009 and the monks' protest in Burma in 2007 are but some of the more popular examples of citizen journalists posting video reports on YouTube. When governments crack down on traditional media, or even shut down the internet, what's evident from the Iran and Burma cases is that such efforts are futile.

Protester holds up a photo of a bloodied
protester in Tehran, June 2009
(© Milad Avazbeigi / Flickr)

In a similar vein that illustrates the emergence of competing news sources, newsmakers themselves can break their own versions of an event, and real-time at that. This is what happened during the 7 May 2009 Perak assembly sitting. Assemblypersons inside the chaotic House tweeted their take on the political fracas which culminated in the physical removal of Speaker V Sivakumar, of Pakatan Rakyat, from his chair.

In other instances, Members of Parliament do occasionally tweet on the goings-on inside the Dewan Rakyat. Politicians on the stump in many of the recent nine by-elections also kept followers updated about their movements and opinions as they went about the campaign trail.MORE

Ah history. So full of contention, even around something as supposedly innocuos as food.

[the_future_modernes]

Food fights and history lessons

AT the end of the year, the Tourism Minister is supposed to have identified certain foods to declare as Malaysian. According to the minister, Datuk Dr Ng Yen Yen, the months of October, November and December, when the Malaysian International Gourmet Festival is being held, will be the time when the selection is made. Ng went ahead and classified laksa, nasi lemak, bak kut teh, chilli crab and Hainanese chicken rice as worthy of being declared originally Malaysian.

Hainanese chicken rice

But then followed a "food fight" in cyberspace between Malaysians and Singaporeans. Singaporeans typically thought they had the better version, while Malaysians argued that the food down south was a shadow of the real deal. Some Malaysians were indignant too, when they checked the government's heritage food list and found that Penang assam laksa, Penang curry mee, nasi kandar and pasembor were not included. Meanwhile, Malaccans wanted even more definitive recognition — Hainanese chicken rice is ours, they said.

Onde-onde: on the heritage food list...

I wonder how Ng will go ahead with her plan. Thankfully, it does not include filing patents on the dishes. That would be silly. Who would be the patent holder? What about the fact that foreign workers from Myanmar were responsible for some of the tastiest hawker food I've ever had?

Ng claims she was surprised at the war of words over food that she had triggered, saying she only wanted people to know the origins of the food they enjoyed. And although she has been laughed at for her suggestion, we should actually thank her for this history lesson. Tracing culinary roots will take us back to the people who created these dishes. And that's where we'll find some parallels to and pointers about issues of race and identity in Malaysia. MORE