Forum: New Media & Society

China’s aggressive strategy to develop a modern economy is matched only by an even more ambitious program of technological development. The Chinese government has earmarked digital broadcasting as the pre-eminent media technology to emerge in China’s expanding and diversifying mediascape. Yet, in spite of predictions of 30 million subscribers by 2005 and $220 billion in revenue by 2015, there is still much to do to sell digital broadcasting to consumers and achieve these targets. This study examines the challenges facing China’s digital broadcasting industry using the theory of controlled commodification to critique implementation strategies. Emerging from this analysis is a deeper understanding of the contested role of media in China’s socialist market economy, which has had an impact on the successful adoption of digital broadcasting at a crucial stage of development.

The Indian Ocean tsunami of 26 December 2004 was one of the greatest natural disasters; it was also the first internet-mediated natural disaster. Despite the presumed ubiquity and power of advanced technologies including satellites and the internet, no advance warning was given to the affected coastal populations by their governments or others. This article examines the conditions for the supply of effective early warnings of disasters, drawing from the experience of both the 26 December 2004 tsunami and the false warnings issued after another great earthquake in the Sunda Trench on 28 March 2005. The potential of information and communication technologies for prompt communication of hazard detection and monitoring information and for effective dissemination of alert and warning messages is examined. The factors contributing to the absence of institutions necessary for the realization of that potential are explored.

Nico Stehr’s idea of the knowledge society presents a vital alternative to orthodox beliefs about the organization of social, cultural, economic and political life. With the formation of a global market and institutions that seem to have entrenched inequalities, there is a need to examine how vested interests determine the use and application of information and communication technologies and intellectual property. Using examples from Australia and India, this article critiques the effect of vested interests and cultural effects in limiting the prospects of a global knowledge society before presenting some remedial advice to policymakers.

Email communication fosters an environment where messages have an inherent ‘truth value’ while at the same time senders have reduced inhibitions about the types of messages sent. When this is combined with a convenience and ease of communication and an ability to contact huge numbers of people simultaneously, email becomes a rapid and effective distribution mechanism for gossip, rumour and urban legends. Email has enabled not only the birth of new folklore, but also the revival of older stories with contemporary relevance and has facilitated their distribution on an unprecedented scale.

Cellphones provide a unique opportunity to examine how new media both reflect and affect the social world. This study suggests that people map their understanding of common social rules and dilemmas onto new technologies. Over time, these interactions create and reflect a new social landscape. Based upon a year-long observational field study and in-depth interviews, this article examines cellphone usage from two main perspectives: how social norms of interaction in public spaces change and remain the same; and how cellphones become markers for social relations and reflect tacit pre-existing power relations. Informed by Goffman’s concept of cross talk and Hopper’s caller hegemony, the article analyzes the modifications, innovations and violations of cellphone usage on tacit codes of social interactions.

In a complex and changing communication environment public service broadcasting is being subject to increasing scrutiny. Using a series of exemplars from various information society programmes, this paper explores the social relations of a new communication environment, audience participation and public service values in the reconfiguration of new media forms in the European Union. These developments require a new analytical framework of a new public service communication environment which enables us to identify ‘reconfiguring’ forms of media, constituted from both traditional and new media. Our mapping of new, traditional and reconfiguring forms of media helps us to identify under what circumstances and institutional conditions the public service ethos is being sustained and rethought.