Absolute freedom of the new media would bring harm to social harmony

The debate about how the absolute media freedom and how it could affect social harmony has been going on for quite some time nowadays, with the emergence of the new media, mainly the internet, it had caused a lot of arguments between the experts and the users. Media is an important tool in our everyday life. We rely on them for every occasions and sections in our activities, it is our source of information and communication.

There is always the negative and positive side of everything that evolves in human’s life, this applies to media freedom as well. As the internet provides the domain for absolute freedom for media material, it is still somehow being controlled under a particular organization. If we look at it in the Malaysian context, the media is basically being controlled by the government. It is not a bad thing at all, as a communication student, I am being bombarded with media ethics and also journalism ethics that gives me the guideline about what is appropriate to write or publish or broadcast for the public, because in Malaysia, we are living in a multicultural society.

In my own personal opinion, absolute freedom of media would not harm social harmony depending on the users. Users here applied in two forms, first, the one that wrote, published or broadcasted the information (sender), and the second form is the one that perceive the information (receiver). As a member of society, we have our own responsibilities, as a Malaysian, we are instilled with the lesson of respecting others. In conjunction with social harmony, there is respect. If we did respect each other, we would not degrade any other people no matter what their races, religious beliefs and status are.

But I do question whether does everybody respects each other? I know that I have to remember the fact that not everybody knows about media and journalism ethics as I am, but the issue of people being detained in the Internal Security Act (I.S.A) contradicts my point of view. Some of the posts on blogs contribute to moral decay in our society. Probably, we are not ready to be given the benefits of absolute media freedom.

All of us know the power of media, how it could influence the way we think and do things. It holds such a great power. With irresponsible usage of the media, it could cause chaos and social clashes in our society. That is what the debate is all about, people outside the media and communication field may not aware of the existence of ethics applied in the industry. They may write, publish, or broadcast something that will directly or indirectly destruct the social harmony of our citizens.

In conclusion, I think that when the time is right, depending on our social situation, absolute media freedom will not cause harm in social harmony. This can only occur when the sender (refer third paragraph) is responsible enough to distribute messages that will avoid defamation, seditious, libel and hatred that can cause social clashes and the receiver refuse to take in any information that offers the same kind of messages. All I can say that it is all rely in the hands of the users.