Freedom of Speech Online

Freedom of expression is a right given to all and though it included in the Federal Constitution of Malaysia, there are still some repressive laws that restrict that.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) implemented on the 10th of December 1948, states in Article 19 that‘Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers’ (Amnesty International Malaysia 2006).

Mainstream media itself is mostly owned by the government so there is no room for any critical opinions that would not be in the favour of the ruling coalition. Then, Internet changed it all. The power of political blogs and online news portals away from the reach of the government was realized by the public. But the more the government loses its grip over underestimating online media, the more they try to repress it such as the case of the 'controversial' Malaysia Today online news portal being blocked. However, the MSC Bill of Guarantees promised no Internet censorship, creating a loophole in this (Nurbaiti & Cheok 2008).

The Internet has proven to be a free and big place for freedom of expression. Despite political parties in power trying to restrict access to different opinions, there is no possibility they can repress all. One blog closed does not mean another one cannot be opened (Cheah, Lim & Sim 2008). Similarly, like the Malaysia Today case, though its ISP address was blocked, people were still able to access it.

References:

Amnesty International Malaysia 2006, ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights’, Amnesty International Malaysia, viewed 5 November 2008, http://www.aimalaysia.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=25&Itemid=23.

Cheah, R, Lee, YP, Sim, LL 2008, ‘Malaysia Today Controversy gets hotter (Update 4), The Star Online 28 August, viewed 9 November 2008, http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/8/28/nation/20080828134908&sec=nation.

Nurbaiti, H & Cheok, LP 2008, ‘ISPs ordered to cut access to Malaysia Today website, The Star Online 28 August, viewed 9 November 2008, http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/8/28/nation/22187596&sec=nation.

Classification of blogs

So we figured out the whole big issue with blogging. The Blogosphere is big, it reaches out to a lot of people and is made up of a lot of people. The amount there is, rest assured, do not express their thoughts over the same issue. In fact, blogs can consist of anything you desire, falling under several common categories.

In an ABC media program guested by author and media analyst Margaret Simons in September 2008, she listed down several different genres as such:

• Pamphleteering

This is similar to what we would casually know as 'political blogs'.

• Digest

A type of blog that summarises and collects material from elsewhere, usually known to be mainstream, and posts up links to it. A good example of this would be Metafilter, proclaimed the best media blog in 2003 by Forbes.com (Hesseldahl 2003).

• Advocacy

This genre is quite similar to 'Pamphleteering' but is usually published by an interest group or an advocay group.

• Popular Mechanics

An weblog version of how-to-do information varying in categories from photography to gardening to sewing. Basically, any sort of speciality.

• Exhibition

Like the title given, it is a blog that exhibits works done by the blogger. In simple terms, it can be a photoblog or even a blog with your own writing works, be it poetry or fiction writing.

• Gatewatcher

Interestingly, this is quite like a media-critique blog by small groups with such interest in observing the actions made by the media. One such example would be Australian blog, Possum Comitatus.

• Diary

The name says it all, it is basically an online journal that depicts about anything personal of the blogger's. Personal journals, as agreed by Simons, seem to be the most popular genre taking about 70 to 80 per cent of blogs (Rosen 2004). According to Technorati's 2008 report, this genre is less popular in Europe. However, though this is depicting one's personal life, some do become rather popular as in the case of local teenager Lim May Zhee.

• Advertisement

A commercial blog advertising its products or services.

• News

Blogs that break and report news, the new level of journalism.

Besides this, there are also various other mediums of blogging such as video blogging (vlog), audio (podcast), photo blogging as mentioned earlier (photoblog), and several others (Wikipedia 2008).

As it is, even from those categories, many other sub-categories can be formed based on topic. For some, it is quite hard to specifically classify a blog type. For example, how do you classify a video blog that uploads news programmes with a summary of it? Is it a vlog or a news blog?

This is how globalized and advance our technology has become. It is hard to generally categorize a blog with just one category. Perhaps that is how with various interests, blogging communities are formed to discuss and to share.

References:

Simons, M, Funnell, A & Davies, A 2008, A taxonomy of blogs, radio recording, ABC Radio National, viewed 6 November 2008, http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2008/2372882.htm#transcript

Hesseldahl, A 2003, Best Media Blog, Forbes.com, viewed 6 November 2008, http://www.forbes.com/2003/03/17/cx_ah_mediablogslide.html?thisSpeed=20000

Rosen, J 2004, Your Blog or Mine?, The New York Times, viewed 6 November 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/19/magazine/19PHENOM.html

Technorati.com, State of the Blogosphere 2008 - Day 2, viewed 5 November 2008, http://www.technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/the-what-and-why-of-blogging/

Wikipedia 2008, Blog, viewed 6 November 2008, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blogging

Blogging: The New Phenomenon

In the past, one could express themselves in a way that limited an audience size because of distance or timeliness. It's not easy publishing your comment in a newspaper or a magazine when there are thousand others for the editors to consider. Television? That five minutes of fame isn't that easy to come by either.

But weblogs - or more commonly known as just 'blogs' - gives a different scenario altogether. It gives you the freedom, the space or a global audience for your disposal to be heard. Of course, one should stick to the average code of ethics and not abuse that given freedom.

To answer the question of 'what is a blog', Blogger (2008) said 'Your blog is whatever you want it to be' and they could not have phrased it better.

The Blogosphere, as Wikipedia (2008) put it, is a colleective community where all blogs that are somehow interlinked together, almost making it similar to a social network. However, as the World Wide Web became increasingly popular as is the trend in blogging, the Blogosphere has changed tremendously in size and influence, making it truly a phenomenon.

The size of the Blogosphere 2008

[Source from: Technorati.com]

To top that off, the size of the Blogosphere is still growing. On average, Technorati Media (2008) receives data that 175, 000 new blogs are made every day. Not to mention, bloggers come various backgrounds and different places. Make that a global phenomenon.

Geographic Distribution of Bloggers 2008
[Source from: Technorati.com]

References:

Blogger 2008, What's a blog?, viewed 5 November 2008, http://www.blogger.com/tour_start.g

Technorati.com, State of the Blogosphere 2008, viewed 5 November 2008, http://www.technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere

Technorati Media 2008, About, viewed 5 November 2008, http://technoratimedia.com/about/

Wikipedia 2008, Blogosphere, viewed 5 November 2008, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blogspace