Media ICT Internet
What challenges do state-controlled media face in a new global, digital age? Refer to current issues surrounding the relationship between state and media censorship in at least one national context.
With the proliferation of information and communication technology (ICT) in modern society, a vast amount of opportunities for new means of global communication have arisen across the globe. The Internet stands at the forefront of this technological revolution, with its global presence and significance increasing daily ever since it's tenuous creation in the 1970s. As a result, this has seen a number of scholars come to believe that the use of this ICT, in particular the Internet, could penetrate national barriers of previously closed regimes. However, although it is apparent that some authoritarian regimes have fallen during the rise of ICT, most notably the Soviet Union, a significant link between the two has never been substantiated, primarily due to a lack of conclusive evidence. Work by scholars has provided no real support for this revolutionary ideal and a number of case studies from across the globe show that oppressive regimes are finding new ways to counter and even control the political impact of ICT. Perhaps the most notable case exists in the People's Republic of China (PRC), where modern technologies, such as the Internet, are censored in accordance with a series of laws and administrative regulations passed by the dominant communist government. While the long-term political impact of the Internet remains completely unforeseeable, Shanthi Kalathil, an established scholar in the field of the political impact of information and communication technology, believes that it is apparent that these strategies for control may continue to be feasible in the short term. The communist regime of the PRC, which began with Mao Zedong in 1949, has seen a long and seemingly successful history of control over several developments in ICT and has more recently taken firm control of most Internet developments within their borders. However, this apparent state driven hegemony has recently come under potential threat from the counter-hegemony of the Chinese masses. With figures of an estimated 33.7 million Internet users by the end of 2001, China's growing new media sector provides the means to potentially challenge state authority in several areas. It is believed that the public masses, civil society, the economy, and the international community all stand to be tested in this new global, digital age, while the authoritarian states appear to respond to these challenges with a variety of reactive measures, including restricting Internet access, filtering content, monitoring online behavior, and even prohibiting Internet use entirely. In an ever changing digital age, it is almost impossible to predict the impact future technologies will have state-controlled media; however, currently it appears that many authoritarian states are successfully manipulating ICT to their advantage, limiting its ability to provide counter-hegemony and even cultural imperialism.
With media convergence, new forms of media use have emerged: users can enhance a media encounter by controlling the streams of information and have the ability to interact with not only the media itself, but also the content provider and other users. Technical developments have also resulted in affordable off-the-shelf production equipment. Today it is probably easier to set up a worldwide accessible radio station on the internet than it is to get employment in a traditional radio station. Hence control over media production is diverging and new, sometimes less traditional, content providers are entering the media industries. However, research on media convergence has mostly addressed stationary settings. But with the growing phenomenon of mobile information technology (IT), it is becoming increasingly important to consider mobility as a dimension of media convergence and mobile media as a new research field.
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