New Media in Practice

The article I'm reviewing is written in June 2008 by Neil Duncan & Dr Jim Macnamara. It is posted on OnScreenAsia.com, a website created as a joint effort from Asia Image and Television Asia Plus, two of Asia's B2B publications for television and entertainment industries. The article is called New Media in Practice. (You can click on the title to read the content).

The authors questioned whether new media really has more or equal impact on society in comparison with television, newspaper, and radio. Contrary to the popular belief that new media has helped young voters engage in more open political chats, many major parties did not use new media as their focus to reach out to voters. Candidates and political parties did not spend enough time updating their website and responding to voters using popular networking sites. Australian Federal Election in 2007 showed the insignificant role of "web 2.0". And the current US elections, Barack Obama has more engagement on YouTube and Facebook than Hilary Clinton. Obama has 500,000+ groups supporting him and Hilary has only 100 groups.

In the future politicians will have to use new media to obtain more support for their campaigns. Political parties should also use new media to view and understand voters' opinions, values and beliefs. In this way politicians will be able to relate more to the masses, especially the younger generations. In the last few years we've come to realize the importance of new media and we observed that it is currently vital for us to understand the appropriate use for new media and learn the etiquette of the "Web 2.0".