The Technological Advances In Media and Communication - Essay Example

Title: How have technological advances in media and communication reshaped political communication in ASIA? Student’s Name: Instructor’s Name: Course Code and Name: Institution: Date Assignment is due: How have technological advances in media and communication reshaped political communication in ASIA? Modern means of communication have been instrumental in the reshaping of politics in Asia. The evolution of communication technology has done much to influence the maturing up of politics in the world’s largest continent. Modern leaps in communication technology have in addition to transforming other facets of life, transformed the politics of Asian countries. The essay will highlight only a fraction of the Asian countries. The paper, however, puts it categorically that all Asian countries, from North Korea to Pakistan have been politically reshaped by the modern means of communication. (McLuhan and Quentin, 1964, 8-9). To start with, the advent of the television as a means of communication has gone a long way into revolutionizing political communication in Asia and the rest of the world. In its wake television has been followed by mobile telephony and recently that have done untold wonders in the area of political communication. This is because in the past during the time of newspapers a lot of political communication in Asia was mangled. This was especially so for people or politicians that were not in favor with the powers that controlled politics and media houses (McLuhan and Quentin, 1964, 8-9). . The 1990s saw a dramatic shift as governments opened up and political communication acquired more expansive means of expression. The media, which had expanded their technology, became a fair playing ground for politicians from either side of the political divide. This is because the opposition parties had the same opportunity as the parties in power to pass their political message. The advent of independent media houses saw to this. All what a party needed to have its policies aired on television was to pay for the air time. The I990s has been hailed as the decade that brought huge changes to the media industry. This decade brought forth a technological revolution that has never been surpassed. The advances in communication technology have been extremely great. Digital technology replaced analog machines in the transmission of electronic broadcasts (Flew & Humphreys 2005, pp.264). Even before the advent of digital broadcasting, the world witnessed a proliferation of media houses that were broadcasting to and from previously closed zones. This ushered in a period of unprecedented political communication. With the advent of the Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW) a communication revolution was born that has not lost its heat to date. The Internet opened up political communication in a new and liberal manner. Advances in communication technology have done much to reshape political communication in Asia. Some political leaders have benefited widely from communicating through the Internet. For example Roh Moo-hyun, who is South Korea’s president has benefited hugely in his campaigns by using the Internet. The leader, who is technology savvy decided to forgo the traditional means of political communication to a large extend. He managed to mobilize millions of young supporters who he hooked through his website. Thousands upon thousands of Internet savvy youngsters were logging into his website weekly and the result was that he won the presidential election with a landslide. His country is Asia’s digital and technological power house. For the efforts that have been made in South Korea, the country has emerged as the leading democracy in a region known for tyranny and political suppression. South Korea has made huge strides towards liberalizing political communication and for this; it has been lauded as the most sophisticated online democratic organization on earth today. South Korea’s precedence has made it the subject of study by political scholars who argue that the country is the first to enter the Webocracy era in the world’s largest continent. This has been proved by Roh Moo-hyun’s use of the Internet and other modern communication means to rise to the presidency. For contemporary democracies, the media has the essential role of disseminating information to the public. Dependable information is central to forming sound political opinions, which is a prerequisite for responsible participation in politics. The Internet in Asian countries particularly South Korea and Taiwan has increased the quality and the quantity of the available political information (Woodrow 1991). These have made the two countries to immensely benefit from the Internet politically. The two countries, South Korea and Taiwan have invested heavily in technology and this has paid dividends even politically. For example, it’s noted that in Asia, South Korea has the highest broadband Internet usage. The Internet is used by over seventy per cent of the citizens of South Korea. This has made the Internet a portend political tool. It’s reported that the Internet threatens the conventional media in dominance. The advantage of Internet use politically in South Korea is that it has increased the role and the participation of citizens in political debates and public affairs. Thus, it has played a significant role in participatory politics. It has also enhanced progressive politics and liberalization. Technological advances have played a significant role to pull some Asian countries out of isolationism. The Internet for example has affected the stream of information into and out of Myanmar (Burma). There has been a telling difference on the way political communication is done before and after the introduction of the Internet and the World Wide Web. Historically, Burma has been known for political unrests. Since it gained political freedom from Great Britain in1948, the country has been plunged in bloodbaths, unrests and a myriad of political changes that have not augured well with the country. Beginning the early 1960s, the country entered a period of isolation. It was cut off from the international community and it had its borders closed even to its’ neighbors. The 1989 fall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of communism together with the end of the cold war begun to draw back Burma to the world. Global television net works like CNN and BBC played a definitive role in opening up Burma. They opened their studios to reformers from Burma. These then were able to appeal to the Burmese Citizens in The Diaspora through television. The totalitarian government then had no alternative but to gradually give in to the demands for change. The Internet and the World Wide Web have been the most influential in ending the isolationism of Burma (Eliot 1997, pp.23). It’s only recently that the western world has come to know and hear of Burma. The political situation was closed within the country because the government restricted the flow of information. The conventional media was under the watchful eyes of the omnipresent government and only political propaganda flowed to the citizens of the country. The outside world got to have a heavily edited and embellished view of events. The modern means of communication have changed this. In Philippines, modern means of communication and the Internet have played a significant role in politics. Philippines’ political parties are known for their wide usage of the television to reach out to the electorate. This is especially so for the right wing parties. The government of Philippines has been known to use the modern means of communication especially the television to pass political messages.2007presedential elections and President Gloria comes to mind. For a long time, some political entitles have been unwilling to change from the traditional means of communication. Some political parties and politicians have stuck to the traditional media to communicate politically (Woodrow 1991). The Internet, however, is beginning to make inroads into this country. One leftist political party has an official website where the citizens and the party supporters post their observations and opinions. The Congress of the country also has its own website where the citizens post burning questions and know about the bills being debated in congress. The country thus uses both the traditional means of communication and the modern means to communicate politically. The newest form of communication, the Internet is not been used maximally. This can be attributed to the low Internet connectivity in the country. This is because only three percent of the population is connected to the Internet (UNDP 1999, pp. 234). Advances in communication through the introduction of modern means of communication have reshaped political communication in Asia. China, since the days of the emperors has been one country that has been shut of from the rest of the world. The coming of the Internet has transformed all this (Specker 1997, pp.51). Ordinary Chinese have been able to expose some of the political injustices committed against them. This has seen the emergency of what can be called a fledgling democracy although the country is still socialist. This can be attributed to the fall of communism and the effects of social networking available through the Internet today. It is not only the Internet that has reshaped political communication in China today. Other modern means of communication like movies, television and mobile telephony have transformed the political landscape of China. China, which boasts of great technological advancement has mobilized and utilized these changes in the political arena. The central government in Beijing is famous for making political movies which are mostly shown to the peasants in the backwaters of the country. Movies have been mostly used by the ruling political party, the Socialist party to pass the party’s political agenda and hit at party critics. China has two layers of political fronts based on the proximity to urban centres.The politics that played along the urban areas, which the essay chooses to label sophisticated have exploited modern technology like mobile telephony to advance political communication.The other political arena is played deep into the Chinese country and is not given to the usage of modern means of communication (Specker 1997, pp.51). The advent of the Internet and the World Wide Web has greatly impacted political communication and politics in China (Gauntlett 2005, pp.118). This is because these two have introduced blogging, that is, a type of online journalism. The political parties have their own websites where they post their political communication and where their adherents can log in and follow party developments. Prominent politicians are also known to have their own websites. The Government has followed suit and it has its own website in line with modern means of communication. Political communication has been completely overhauled in the country. Dissidents can now have their voices heard if not by all the Chinese, at least by the Internet connected citizens. The people who have been neglected in the wide Chinese countryside now get to have their stories told to the world. In the past, when the country was shut off, the peasantry suffered untold problems (Gauntlett 2005, pp.118). All the time the citizenry was suffering, the Beijing administration was restricting journalists and other information merchants from revealing the deterioration in the country. Maybe this is the reason the Chinese government has tussles with Internet search engine, Google. Maybe they want to take the country back to the pre –Internet era when political lies and propaganda were the order of the day (Nimmo 1997). The country that has seen political communication revolutionized by Technological advances in the whole Asian continent is Japan. Japan is known to have the most transient political landscape in the world today (Nimmo 1997). Japanese premiers rarely last the four years of one term in office. Some are known to last just six months then they are ousted. The four major political parties always have to form coalitions every now and then. These political changes have been fertile ground for the political fraternity to invest in the modern means of communication in order to compete for survival in that cutthroat arena. Politicians have progressively used the modern means of communication to woo in voters. First it was television and now its mobile telephony mixed with the Internet. Even politicians who have secure places like the members of the upper chambers of parliament have their own websites. The Japanese nation which is perpetually on a campaigning mood has its television channels flooded with politicians and political party messages almost on a daily basis (Florian 1996, pp.79). Advances in technology have done much to initiate political talk and debate among the ordinary citizens in some Asian countries like Iran. Iran for one has been known to control political though since the 1979 revolution. Political expression was strictly censured and most citizens could not talk on political issues for fear of victimization by the authorities. But today with the Internet, Iranians are expressing themselves freely. They know that the authorities cannot trace them. Iranian dissidents have also added their voices to the political debates in the country. Political communication has been expanded in Iran due to the advances in technology. The political situation in Iran has been helped by the introduction of a television station in the Middle East that gives space to all politicians and political parties in spite of their political orientation. This station, Aljazeera has made the opposition in Iran to have a modern means of communicating their messages and grievances. The Iranian government has responded by using the official television to denounce the opposition. Ordinary Iranians have been left to use the Internet and mobile telephony to pass political message to one another. In a strange twist of events the government has turned to mobile telephony to pass its messages and to warn the citizenry of the dangers of being disloyal to the government. The Government has partnered with mobile providers in the country to pass short political messages every now and then. Whether the Iranian government will keep this trend of political communication is to be seen. What is apparent is that the modern means of communication have managed to tame to a large extend, the brutality that was exercised by the Iranian government against its citizens (Friedman 1999, pp.124). The modern means of communication have been responsible for the opening up of countries like Burma to the world thus ending its political isolation for over 50 years. Citizens of countries like Iran and China have alot to thank the modern means of communication for. For the said means of communication have done a lot to liberate them politically at least in the area of communication. Their governments also have a lot to thank media like television and the Internet, for they have been using the aforementioned media to pass political messages to the citizens. They have also been using the same media to pass on government policy to the public. Political messages that took governments in the 1950s days to transmit now get transmitted within the hour. However, majority of the countries in Asia have not taken up digital politics. This paper believes that if they do take up digital politics, communication between the leaders and the electorate will be greatly improved (Friedman 1999, pp.124). This paper believes that the political situation in some Asian countries will continue to be shaped by the advances in communication. This is because with globalization changes are spreading rapidly across the world. Countries copy from one another and by observance we can see several countries from Asia have copied forms of government from the western world. There are fledgling democracies in Asia a continent that was known for its dictatorial rule. The countries that have been able to copy the way of doing politics from the west have been able to accomplish this huge feat courtesy of the technological advancement in communication. The countries of Asia can speed up realignment that is due to their politics by beefing up technology that is essential to communication. They should invest in the latest means of communication for this will light up their political landscape faster. They should take the example of South Korea which has invested widely in communication technology and is today reaping the fruits economically, socially and most important politically. References Chomsky, N. & Herman, E 2002, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, Pantheon Gauntlett, New York, pp.45. Eliot, J 1997. Myanmar (Burma) Handbook, Footprint Handbooks, Chicago, pp.23. Flew, T, Humphreys, S 2005, ‘Games: Technology, Industry, Culture’ in New Media: an introduction (second edition), ed. Terry Flew & Humphreys, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, pp. 264. Florian, C 1996, The Handbook of Sociolinguistics, Blackwell, Oxford. Pp.79. Friedman, T 1999, The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization, Anchor, New York, pp.124. Gauntlett, D 2005, Moving Experiences - Media Effects and Beyond, John Libbey, London, pp118. McLuhan, M, Quentin, F1964, The Medium is the Message, Hardwired, San Francisco, pp. 8-9. Specker, R 1997, "Technology of freedom" Towards Cybersociety and "Vireal" Social Relations, Bantam, New York, pp.51. Nimmo, DD 1997, "Political Communication Theory and Research: An Overview," In: B.D. Ruben (editor), Communication Yearbook, volume 1, pp. 441-452. United Nations Development Programme 1999, Human Development Report 1999 UNDP, pp.234. Woodrow, A 1991. "Information manipulation," Félin, Paris, pp 109. . Read More