Ride The Wave Of New Media And Social Network - Minister

KUALA LUMPUR, March 1 (Bernama) -- Asean has to reinvent itself and ride the wave of the new media and leverage on the popularity of the social network in a way that would keep them current and relevant as disseminators of information, said Information, Communications and Culture Minister Dr Rais Yatim. He said Asean member countries should reorganise their strategies and approaches so that they would be able to convey the message of Asean to the people, especially the younger generation. "The role of the media itself and the methods of information dissemination have changed tremendously. Unless we review our roles as Information Ministers, we may become irrelevant and risk being consigned to the peripheries of the Asean community building process," he said. Rais said this in his opening statement at the 11th Conference of Asean Ministers Responsible for Information (AMRI) at a leading hotel, here Thursday. He said Asean countries must be mindful that while the new media or social media opened up an avenue for governments to interact with citizens, the government must also work together and collaborate to prevent the spread of wrong information over social media networks. "This has the potential to destabilise the security of the individual Asean member states and the region as a whole," he said. Rais said, as consumers of social media, Asean should work with the social media providers towards ensuring that their domestic laws were respected and that they jointly promoted the positive use of these new media applications. He said ministers tasked with the information portfolio could not afford to ignore the social media and the impact on the populace. "The majority of populace, especially the younger generation communicates by means of the social media and accesses information through the new media. "The growth of mobile communications, broadband and high speed networks in Asean has contributed to the exponential growth of social media users and brought Facebook, Twitter and the like to rural communities in our region," he said. AMRI should draw synergies with other relevant Asean sectoral bodies in trying to capitalise on the advantages of social media and at the same time, cooperate with them to minimise the negative impact of these applications, he said. "We must work together to counter the anonymity that the Internet and social media applications bring. Freedom of expression has often been said to be not absolute. Neither is the Internet. "What cannot be said in traditional media similarly should not be said on the Internet. Unfortunately, that is not the case in many Asean countries. And for this, we must cooperate with haste to promote positive usage of this civilisation tool, rather than dwell on the negativities," he said. Rais said the social media, used positively, would bind Asean member countries more ardently towards a more united and harmonious Asean. He said it was the task of ministers of information to communicate Asean's aspiration, create awareness of Asean and to inform the people of Asean about the need to forge an Asean identity, foster a sense of belonging and build the One Asean Community. "Asean is a region of almost 600 million people with diverse ethnic origins and multifarious cultural traditions. Therefore for the Asean community to become reality there is a need for the Asean people to be aware of their shared heritage, appreciate their oneness and transcend their diversity," he said. -- BERNAMA