Blinkered view of the Internet

The Star (23 June) “celebrated” its tenth anniversary of its online edition and took the occasion to unveil its latest version of it. At the same time its In.Tech section featured several articles about the Internet. But the paper ended up offering a rather narrow view of the Net.

The paper is to be commended for publishing some informative and interesting pieces. One is the people behind Jaring, the first ISP in Malaysia. Another is the ambitious plan to digitise books in libraries and how Google’s involvement in it since last December has generated excitement as well as a fair amount of concern over the commercialisation of libraries.

What about the digital divide?

Problem lies in what the paper left out. One major article missing is the digital divide in Malaysia. Computer ownership as well as Internet penetration is no small issue as it has increasingly contributed to the gap between the haves and the have-nots. The paper was not unaware of the issue as it actually ran an article about it. But it is the shortest of all the articles published and is buried at the bottom of the second last page of the In-Tech section. Also, the piece, from the wire service Agence-France Presse (AFP), focuses on the “Connect the World” programme set up by the UN’s International Telecommunication Union to bridge the digital divide between rich and poor countries as well as the rich and the poor within a country. It gives no more than a general idea of what the programme is about.

But what about the digital divide in Malaysia? How serious is the problem today? What has Malaysia been doing about it? How successful are some of the efforts undertaken to address or bridge the divide?

Internet as alternative media

Another topic The Star could have included is the private, non-commercial use of the Internet. For example, what about civil society’s use of the Internet such as the many NGOs in Malaysia? Is that not important? Does or does not the Internet offer them an alternative to the mainstream media and play a major role in their work?

We agree that the paper could not cover everything about the Net. But it is precisely for that reason that they should have taken the occasion to highlight topics not regularly featured, such as the two mentioned above. Really, do we need more articles on Internet games, music and movies - which took up quite a few pages of the In.Tech section? Are such articles not already frequently given a lot of coverage in the media?

In the end, the overall impression left by the paper is the promotion of a particular view of the Internet – that is, as a consumer resource or commodity rather than the more inclusive social resource or public good. It neglected to cover the crucial role the Internet plays in offering an alternative medium for diverse civil society groups to get their message accoss.