Goodbye old! Hello new!

"New media is a way in which the delivery of news and information follows a many-to-many format" (Maltoni, n.d). The rise of new media has led people to access information easily and efficiently via different types of media publishing tools. Such media publishing tools include moblogs, vlogs, photoblog, and news portals. However, there is another particular new form of media publishing that is widely used among web users is YouTube.

Google Image: YouTube

YouTube was founded in 2005 and ever since then it became the godfather in internet-streamed video whereby web users are able to watch and share their videos worldwide (YouTube.com, n.d.).

In a local context, Malaysians have the tendency to rely on YouTube as an alternative media because of the many restrictions of press freedom. The mainstream media in Malaysia have always seen to be closely knitted and controlled by the government (Kenyon & Marjoribanks 2007). Hence, certain information that is censored in Malaysia’s mainstream media can be found alternatively on YouTube. The following video shows an example of video censorship that occurred in Malaysia. It is regarding the HINDRAF (Hindu Rights Action Force) rally which has been briefly covered by the mainstream media.

Then again, according to Ashley Jones (2007) YouTube has faced a lot of copyright lawsuits because users post up videos without the right to do so. Jones adds that this have led YouTube to clean up the people’s mess. The Law of Copyright states that “patents, trademarks, and copyrights are all ways of protecting original creations” (Walker 1997). Thus, internet users need to think twice before posting any materials that do not belong to them because it is unlawful.

Reference

‘Company History’ n.d, YouTube.com, viewed on 10 November 2008, http://www.youtube.com/t/about

Jones, A 2007, ‘YouTube’s Legal Issues Grow’, Econtent.com, viewed on 10 November 2008, http://www.econtentmag.com/Articles/ArticleReader.aspx?ArticleID=39887

Kenyon, A & Marjoribanks, T 2007, ‘Transforming Media Markets: The Cases of
Malaysia and Singapore’, Australian Journal of Emerging Technologies, vol 5, no. 2, pp. 103-118, viewed on October 18, 2008 http://www.swinburne.edu.au/hosting/ijets/journal/V5N2/pdf/Article3-KENYON.pdf

MalaysiaKini, ‘Hindraf "Rose" - No Freedom to Protest in Malaysia -Part 1’, video on YouTube.com, viewed on 10 November 2008, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9lCovcxuM8

Maltoni, V n.d, ‘What is New Media?’, ConversationAgent.com, viewed on 10 November 2008, http://www.conversationagent.com/2007/11/what-is-new-med.html

Walker, J 1997, ‘Intellectual Property in the Information Age: A Classroom Guide to Copyright’, University of South Florida, viewed on 10 November 2008, http://personal.georgiasouthern.edu/~jwalker/ip/ipdummie.html#special