The Journey of New Media

New Media is radically changing the way we consume media and entertainment contents. An interesting example is the phenomena of the YouTubers, people who use new digital technology for editing and recording gameplays to share the videos in social platforms like YouTube or Twitch.

With millions of followers, these YouTubers have a tremendous influence over the habits (and purchases) of young people. And some have incomes well over 1.000.000€ and actually earn more than the games creators themselves. In this context, it’s easy to guess the interest of the games creators to have a share of the benefits of the YouTubers, and of the industry to influence them to promote their products.

Such are the kinds of challenges of the media world looking to 2018 – social media, traditional media, crowdsourcing, user generated content, new distribution channels and new business models coming together to create new value chains and even new forms of content.

More signs of this new world include:

§ The 2014 Commonwealth Games were streamed live to the Oculus Rift (a Virtual Reality headset) by the BBC

§ League of Legends (an online video game) is the biggest spectator sport in Korea, and Twitch, the platform most use to watch it, has more global viewers than HBO

§ With HoloLens Microsoft will be putting serious Augmented Reality in a mass release product possibly later this year

§ For the Super Bowl on February 1, 2015, the number of social network posts, comments, likes, tweets, etc. was greater than the number of people in the USA

§ Recently a professional skier raced against two online gamers in the world’s first interactive mixed reality downhill ski competition

New media is more than just a means of entertainment and knowledge sharing, many people spend more time engaging with new media than with any other daily activity except perhaps sleeping, having become the most important way we interact with each other and collectively. At the same time we are beginning to see new technologies for dynamic content creation and interactive, shared consumer experiences, enabled by context-aware computing, wearables, ever more powerful gaming and 3D engines. As well, given the proliferation of content on the net, much of it for free, new business models beyond advertising and pay-per-view are needed. These factors taken together lead us to the new economy of data – monetization of user data at both individual and collective levels. Enterprises across all market sectors must embrace new media as essential part of their go-to-market strategy.

Online media is not just a different distribution platform, the nature of the content itself is changing. This has profound implications all through the value chain, from content ideation and creation through to consumption. Traditionally media has been based on linear narratives but now interactivity, context and user/viewer behaviour can allow for different experiences for each user, allowing narratives to evolve and change in response to implicit or explicit real-time feedback, social network analytics and changing context which will even include user biometric information via wearables. By 2018 we will see radically new ways of experiencing media, built around narrative forms that have as much to do with gaming as they do with traditional linear story-telling.


The future of media sees broadcasting, IP, social media, virtual worlds and gaming all converging to produce social, informational and entertainment hubs where we can share collective experiences of content and stories personalized for us not only based on our preferences and past actions, but on our current emotions and feelings and interactions with others. At the same time all of this data and content being generated leads to the double edged sword of fantastic new business opportunities and potentially unacceptable threats to our privacy.

Transforming India through Digital Revolution

Technology is proving to be a disruptive influence on education today. With technology as a catalyst, education is moving from a knowledge-transfer model to a collaborative, active, self-directed, and engaging model. This change couldn’t have come at a better time for India.

The urban population in India is expected to grow faster than its overall population by 2030. This will create a huge pressure on the economy and the education system. Along with this there are other challenges in our education system. First is the sheer capacity to deliver education to all sections of our society. The quality of existing educational institutions is another challenge. Technology has the capability to address all these issues. Trends such as the growing penetration of high speed broadband, low cost computing devices and a strong thrust from the Government are accelerating the transformation of India’s education system.

The typical Indian classroom was once characterized by students sitting through hour-long teacher monologues. Now, technology is making life easier for both students and educators. Schools are increasingly adopting digital teaching solutions to engage with a generation of pupils well-versed with the likes of PlayStations and iPads, and trying to make the classroom environment more inclusive and participatory.

Education sector in India has long awaited an overhaul to meet the growing demand for a contemporary education system that is accessible to all. Children and youth in India have in the last decade become increasingly technology-driven, revealing considerable potential and readiness to imbibe and learn using digital media.

1. Creation of a knowledge based society: Digital India has been envisioned as an ambitious umbrella programme to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy.

2. Improve attendance in schools: More than 90 million children in India aged 0-8 years do not have access to quality education. While enrollment in primary school is almost universal, according to Custom Data Tables, ASER and Census of India 2011 survey has concluded that almost 20 per cent children aged between 6 and 8 years cannot read letters or words and are unable to recognise numbers.

3. Bridge digital; divide: The power of technology cannot be denied. With approximately 131 million cellular-phone households in the country, we believe that delivering education through the digital platform to children and teachers could be a potential way to bridge the education deficit. However, the challenge has always been how the technology will get adopted to make a significant difference. With the various digital initiatives that the government has launched, we are hopeful that it will help strengthen access to technology especially in government schools and preschools.

For the education sector, tech companies have to take the lead and help enable a strong ecosystem by providing technology driven educational devices which should be backed by creative and engaging content. This calls for a number of stakeholders across the country to come together and support this initiative and thereby strengthen the education sector in India.

Social Media and Indian Regulation

Lack of geographical boundaries makes social media regulation an arduous task. Nonetheless, increasing ambiguity of content, rickety sentiments around fragile subjects and varying public opinion in general have given rise to a sharp need of touchstones that sunder acceptable from something that is not.

Not many days ago, Twitter made its user guidelines available in vernacular languages. This is however limited to readers who actually have the patience to read those guidelines – slim pickings indeed.

Between, July to December 2014, Twitter received 41 account information requests from the Indian government. So, who actually requires building a regulation mechanism, Twitter, Indian government or the users who actually post ambiguous content?

Self regulation & Government

In 2007 Indian law enforcement entered an agreement with the then popular social networking site Orkut to track down what it deemed as defamatory content which, in their example, included content critical of Bal Thackeray.

Additionally, in 2011 Kapil Sibal, the then acting Telecommunications minister of India bought in pre – screening of content on popular websites such as Google, Facebook and Yahoo!

However, that has been the extent of it. Not to mention that taking off content on Bal Thackeray neared more to anarchism and not regulation.

On similar lines, in 2012 Australian MPs started using their legislative powers, compelling social networks to swiftly delete offensive content. The move was taken, briefly after Facebook refused to take action against a “controversial humour.” (Yes, the page did disappear miraculously after a few days).

Where does one draw a line between anarchy and regulation?

A change in Violent Threat policies by Twitter or other such generic movements need to be translated into niche solutions basis culture of individual countries. Look at it this way, buddhi (old lady) might not be a violent word according to Twitter. However, when placed it in India in a tweet by KRK, everything becomes violent.

The need is of customised solutions which require the Government to team up with social media platforms to nurture content.

Also, when there is an IBF for television, ASCI for advertising, then why not a regulatory body for social media?

Self regulation & users

While we discuss the responsibilities that social networking sites and the Government need to take up, we also need to vouch for the fact that a major chunk of responsibility lays with us citizens.

How many of us actually approved to the tweets put up by Farah Khan and Abhijeet on #SalmanVerdict?

As a socially responsible citizen we need to account for what we put up on our social media pages. Yes, it is our personal page to voice our personal opinions. But there has to be a shade of regulation to it. If we draw a line between strong opinions and hate speech, the Government may actually not have to resort to anarchism.

The final step

From backlash on Deepika’s cleavage post to varied responses on received on AIB Knockout, India so far has not incorporated self regulation in its social media deeds. Will we take an action before it’s too late?

Is Twitter more popular than news?

The list of social media tools could probably run on for paragraphs, and today’s technology changes so rapidly that many industries, including corporations and news media, can barely keep up. In the traditional world, newspapers, corporations, governments, or other types of leading organizations simply had to give out information, and people would consume it by reading or looking at it. But this seemingly tried-and-true method is transforming.

Twitter has revolutionized the newsroom as well, speeding up an already complicated new gathering process. What used to slowly crawl in over the wire, now comes over in real time, tweet after tweet. The modern day journalist mustn’t rest his eyes for a moment for fear of missing vital information.

However, the 24 hours news cycle may provide a unique value to journalists. Crowd-sourcing has become a technique many are using to compile details on a story. Twitter provides real time information, reactions, and public opinion during breaking stories.  Some studies suggest that today, journalists use Twitter for up to 80% of their news-gathering techniques.

But, reporters must remain cautious and filter through what is fact and what is fiction. Twitter has created an atmosphere where anyone can break a story. Misinformation can spread across the globe quicker than the time it takes to write your first tweet of the day.  The average citizen now owns part of the news reporting process, and a subsequent demand for fact-checkers has been established. The public relies on journalists to fill that fact-checking void.  News outlets once had the freedom to report on eventsand explain its details at the same time. Now, the demand from reporters has shifted to the explanation process, sometimes skipping the reporting all together, and leaving little room for error.

An increasing number of sources tend to be in agreement: more people appear to be choosing Twitter as a news source over viewing traditional media outlets. While actual statistics may be hard to measure accurately, consider a few comparisons.

CNN regularly has approximately 1.1 million viewers (this number increases during major events of importance, such as the recent presidential election.) However, at the time of this writing, CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk on Twitter) has 2,764,433 followers.Of course, it isn’t really all that hard to figure out why there is such a major difference in numbers.Through Twitter, and with a mobile device, people can receive updates anytime, anywhere, as soon as they happen. Seeking out a television or a radio is no longer a necessity for receiving breaking news, and waiting for the morning newspaper to read about a news story is simply an outdated concept.

Consider the death of Michael Jackson. Within a manner of minutes, millions across the globe were aware of the story before many of the major networks had even assembled their news team. An unfortunate side effect of the Twitter effect is the rapid spread of misinformation, such as the reported death of Jeff Goldblum, or false Amber Alerts that circulate through Twitter on a recurring basis.

Still, credible news sources, such as CNN, no doubt are well aware of the massive reach Twitter can give them beyond the restrictive confinements of television. The entire world is rapidly turning mobile, and the desire for instant information is perhaps more prevalent than instant gratification. Twitter is the means to fulfilling that desire, and will likely play a major role in the evolution of media.

Is our Cyber Policy really "democratic"?

 

The Union Government of India on 1 July 2013 launched the National Cyber Security Policy 2013 at New Delhi with an aim to protect information and build capabilities to prevent cyber attacks. The aim of National Cyber Security Policy 2013 was to safeguard both physical and business assets of the country.It aims at protecting the public and private infrastructure from cyber attacks.The policy also intends to safeguard "information, such as personal information (of web users), financial and banking information and sovereign data".

The KPMG report identifies ten things one should know about India’s National Cyber Security Policy 2013:

1. Set up a 24×7 National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC) for protecting critical infrastructure of the country.

2. Create a taskforce of 5,00,000 cyber security professionals in next five years.

3. Provide fiscal schemes and benefits to businesses for adoption of standard security practices.

 4. Designate CERT-In as the national nodal agency to co-ordinate cyber security related matters and have the local (state) CERT bodies to co-ordinate at the respective levels.

5. All organizations to designate a CISO and allot a security budget.

6.Use of Open Standards for Cyber Security.

7. Develop a dynamic legal framework to address cyber security challenges (Note: The National Cyber Security Policy 2013 does not have any mention of the IT Act 2000)

8. Encourage wider use of Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) for government services.

 9. Engage infosec professionals / organizations to assist e-Governance initiatives, establish Centers of Excellence, cyber security concept labs for awareness and skill development through PPP - a common theme across all initiatives mentioned in this policy.

10. Apart from the common theme of PPP across the cyber security initiatives, the policy frequently mentions of developing an infrastructure for evaluating and certifying trustworthy ICT security products.

But the result…

Is the Indian Cyber Security Policy conducive to the Democratic Society? Let us look at some prevalent examples

1.       Ambikesh Mahapatra, In 2012, the chemistry professor was arrested for circulating by email a cartoon that poked fun at West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. The cartoon, which was a parody of a scene in a popular Indian movie, went viral on social media.He was charged with a range of offenses including defamation, insulting a woman and sending offensive messages from a computer.

2.       The two girls--Shaheen Dhada and Renu--were sent to 14-day judicial custody by a court. Dhada was arrested after she posted comments on the social networking site opposing the shutdown in Mumbai after Bal Thakre’s death. Dhada's friend Renu was arrested for 'liking' the post. "Police arrested both of them under section 505(2) (statements creating or promoting enmity, hatred or ill-will between classes).

The Cyber Laws whose misinterpretation makes us undemocratic

The Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008:  The main Indian act that addresses legal challenges specifically as they relate to the Internet is the Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008, or for short, the IT Act.

Section 66A: Do not send offensive messages: Section 66A of the Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008 prohibits the sending of offensive messages though a communication If you’re booked under Section 66A, you could face up to 3 years of imprisonment along with a fine.

Sections 67 and 67A: No nudity, please: The most important tools to curtail obscenity are sections 67 and 67A of the IT Act, prohibiting obscene and sexually explicit material respectively.

Section 69A and the Blocking Rules: Allowing the Government to block content under certain circumstances: Section 69A of the IT (Amendment) Act, 2008, allows the Central Government to block content where it believes that this content threatens the security of the State; the sovereignty, integrity or defence of India; friendly relations with foreign States; public order; or to prevent incitement for the commission of a cognisable offence relating to any of the above.

Section 79 and the IT Rules: Privatising censorship in India: Section 79 of the Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008 regulates the liability of a wide range of intermediaries in India. The section came in the limelight mostly because of the infamous Intermediary Guidelines Rules, or IT Rules, which were made under it. The IT Rules constitute an important and worrying move towards the privatisation of censorship in India.

Later this year, an Internet surveillance mechanism called NETRA -- an acronym for network traffic analysis -- is expected to go live. Its exact functions haven't yet been spelled out by the government, but it can be possibly used as a tool for untargeted, dragnet surveillance…

On one hand we have aspirations for digital India and then we also have programs like NETRA which is nothing but a large, massive surveillance project. With over 200 million internet users, soon going to cross half in billion in coming years, over 900 million mobile telephone subscribers, and a thriving and robust internet ecosystem, India is well poised and should play an important and constructive role in evolving the global internet governance ecosystem, and in the process, make it more credible. While our country has indeed benefited from the growth of the internet,we also cannot ignore several serious strategic and public policy challenges that this domain has presented, lack of truly representative and democratic nature of the existing systems of internet governance, including the management of critical internet resources, leads to "trust deficit" in the system.

It is beyond doubt that internet governance ecosystem has to be sensitive to the cultures and national interests but it cannot be to please the lunatic fringes just because of the political clout – one has to also measure its democratic nuances to evaluate the efficacy of such sensitive and crucial policies.