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Analysis: How Islamic are Islamic countries? A rejoinder

Bahtiar Effendy, Jakarta | Sat, 11/12/2011 9:15 AM --- Prof. Komaruddin Hidayat , the rector of Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University (UIN), wrote an interesting column in Jakarta's leading newspaper on Indonesian Islamicity. His... more

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Jan 31	-	ARTICLE: RI's agriculture dominated by aging generation
Jan 19	-	Threats or Treats : Indonesia new honey pot for expatriates (?)
Jan 3	-	OPINION: The changing face of cyber terrorism (?)

Posted by Moderator in Technology on 06 30th, 2009 | DawnNews' Wired and Active show brings you this question of the week: Are newspapers a thing of the past?

Journalism as we know it is undergoing a transition. Prestigious newspapers in the United States are losing up to US$ 1 million a week. It is estimated that in the coming year, eight of the 50 largest newspapers in the US will cease publication. Already, publications such as The Christian Science Monitor are publishing only on the web. And many news outlets are increasingly producing bite-sized news items - SMS headlines, short podcasts, two-minute videos and news feeds - to cater to the fact that most readers and viewers are now accessing the news using mobile, hand-held devices.

The shift from print to web has also sparked other changes, both good and bad, in traditional journalism. For example, internet-based softwares such as blogs force reporters and columnists to hyperlink to their sources, thereby reducing plagiarism and making journalists' sources transparent. At the same time, numerous research studies have shown that people consume less news online: the average internet user spends 56 minutes a month on news sites (12.6 minutes a week) while the average newspaper reader spends 12.4 hours a month (2.8 hours a week) mulling over column inches.

Given the increasing ease with which people can access the internet and the present-day culture of a 24/7 media world, do you think newspapers are a thing of the past? Does the shift from print to web make news outlets better or worse? Do you prefer reading a newspaper or clicking through a website to get news and other information? Will mobile technology change our understanding of news delivery systems?

The best responses will be highlighted on this week's episode of Wired and Active, which airs on DawnNews on Wednesday, July 1, at 8:30 p.m.

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how do we make democracy work in a world where diverse media forms compete for diverse publics?" (Catherine Lumby) : "The top-down model of public discourse, so dear to the conventional left and right, no longer holds. We live in a world which is swaddled by communicaiton media, by films, books, magazines, radio programs, global cable TV, the Internet and video ...... Confronting this new public sphere means grasping the fundamental changes the mass media has wrought in the way we conceive of politics and culture." (Catherine Lumby)