Internet As Mass Media's Future
By Andrew Wong

Bandar Seri Begawan - Young Bruneians surmise the Internet will soon overtake the print media as a means of mass communications, due to its already unmatched widespread usage by people both in the country and overseas.

One youth told The Brunei Times that although the Internet is considered by some to be apart of mass media, more people consider it to be a separate entity that is capable of supporting all current forms of mass media.

"I think very soon we will see the Internet basically absorbing all of the current forms of media and hosting them online, he said. "Already we are seeing newspapers hosting articles online. We are also able to view recorded news broadcasts and favourite TV shows. Soon media, such as the television and radio, will become obsolete."

Now that the Internet is able to attain higher rates of data transfer and has become more affordable, morn people opt to send and receive video and audio files that wouldd previously have taken too long to transfer. Users are now able to download their favourite television shows.

One youth said he regularly downloaded favourite TV shows because he was too impatient to wait for another week and find out what happened to the movie heroes.

Some teenagers said the Internet was the favoured means of watching TV shows because they could access even the latest episodes on American television programmes, whereas those broadcast through Asian television were usually a season behind.

However, the Internet-savvy teenagers were also aware of the shortcomings of the Internet. In terms of the spreading of news; one teen said, "It might become difficult to rely on the Internet as a source for what's happening in the world as websites can be hacked and their articles edited or, worse still, shut down."

Media is a relatively new tradition in Brunei Darussalam and the country today has a small number of newspapers only.

For a number of people, newspaper is a cultural accessory. One young adult said, "It would be odd to no longer see people reading the newspaper at coffee shops or in the office."

One teen mentioned, "If news agencies began relying on the Internet for publication, we would be robbing the human race of the time-honoured pastime of reading a newspaper while in the loo."

The writer is a freelance reporter. -- Courtesy of The Brunei Times

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