Analyzing New Media's Influence on Journalism in Asia: Sina Weibo

This essay examines the influence of new media on journalism in Asia, using Sina Weibo as a case study. It discusses how mobile phones, the internet, and social networking have become primary news channels for many urban Asians, impacting traditional print and electronic media. The essay analyzes how news travels through Sina Weibo, the response time to issues, and the ways traditional media adopts new media practices. It also addresses the Chinese government's role in monitoring and controlling information flow through social media to prevent social unrest. The study concludes that while new media has transformed news consumption and dissemination, governments still impose limitations, echoing constraints found in traditional media.

Running head: MASS MEDIA IN ASIA
MASS MEDIA IN ASIA
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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The essay will discuss about the use of Sina-Weibo which is a social media platform
used by the urban Asians in the country of China. The way in which news travels in the social
media application and the time that it takes to respond to the issues that are existent in the
application is viewed in the essay. The study will also contain a case study which will discuss
about a major disaster that has occurred in China through microblogging. The different ways
that traditional news media will apply to some of the practices of new media is discussed in
the essay.
Manovich, Malina and Cubitt (2001) explains new media as the convergence of media
technologies and computing which has taken a new form and faced a rise in the technologies
of the modern media. This new media has brought with it several graphics and changes that
makes the media more accessible to the public. The different examples of new media are
computers, telephones, computer animation and others. New media is often also a
development from old media which consisted of television, print media and radio. Mobile
phones and internet have contributed more to the change that has been brought about by
social media. Brossard (2013) state that the way that news is perceived has also changed in
current times due to the growth of new media. Social media has changed the way that people
perceive the world in today’s time. Earlier people used to read news by subscribing to the
local newspaper, however, with the advent of new media people have started reading news
from online and social media sites. People no longer read news from the traditional media
forms and depend on social media platforms for their knowledge of the happenings around
the world and the latest occurring around.
Social media is slowly becoming one of the most well-known and favourable
platforms for reading news online. This is because in the age of new media, the people do not
have to wait for another day to know about any breaking story that has occurred during the
day. They can know about the story as soon as it occurs since online news media would be

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informing the public about the story in every social media platform and online news portals.
In traditional media forms such as newspapers, the news would appear the next day and
hence, the people has to wait for a long time to receive the full details of the event that has
occurred. For this reason, every newspaper in current times have their own media sites which
shows the news during any important events that might have occurred during the day. Online
media dominates the market in recent times and the public consume news mostly through
online platforms as they are more convenient and easy to access at all times. People can also
find old news in one click and do not have to search millions of newspapers to find the news
that they want to see.
As stated by Westlund (2013) online news platforms do not have to follow any strict
guidelines, as is the case with newspapers where the journalists have to follow a strict set of
rules for the news that they write. Newspaper articles also have a fixed space in which the
journalist has to write the whole news so that it is clear to the public which sometimes leads
to the missing of several minute details and the public might not be aware of the whole
incident. The guidelines also leave no place for creativity on the part of the journalists and
they have to write the news piece in a very constrained manner. The path of approval for the
news in traditional media is long as compared to online media, as the news piece has to pass
many barriers and the news can be rejected as well if the journalist is not able to meet the
guidelines of the newspaper. In case of online media, the barriers are not so intense and the
journalist can post in their own free will. However, even in online media there are some
minute guidelines which the journalists have to follow of they do not want their news piece to
be taken down from the site.
Pavlik (2013) further states that the younger generation is far away from reading
news, especially from traditional media die to the fast pace of life and their disinterest
towards reading newspapers. Online news media has the potential to attract the younger

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generation to read news and get to know about the occurring around the world. Online media
can attract the younger people due to the extensive visualization of news with the help of
pictures and videos that decorates the news and make the young people eager to know about
the happening and the story. Online news also have content and there are reports about stories
that actually matter and can contribute to the betterment of the world. Online news also
travels faster as compared to online news media. Online news can be shared with several
people easily and the news can reach a global perspective in a matter of few hours
(Strasburger et al. 2013). News travels around much quicker in online media than in
traditional media as people cannot virtually share the news with one another. Social media
platforms and online news portals contribute to the global reach of the news in the way that
users share important and exciting news with one another as soon as they view it. This is very
favourable in case of any social or grave issue that might demand global attention. The
people all over the world can also publically share their opinions in these platforms and a
discussion can help the news to reach heights and exposure that might not have been possible
with traditional media. In current times, the opinion of the people in the online and social
media platforms, create an impact in many scenarios and also in the forming of many
government rules and regulations which is beneficial.
Sina-Weibo is a microblogging site in China which is seen as a combination
Facebook and Twitter, both the services being banned in the mainland of China. Sina-Weibo
was launched in the year 2009 and since then have gained a lot of popularity due to the
functioning of the micro-blogging site (Sullivan 2014). The authorities of China blamed the
free flow of information in the country as the reason for social unrest after the Urumqi riots
and hence stopped many of the social media and micro-blogging sites such as Facebook,
Twitter and others to stop this follow of information among the people. This is when Sina-
Weibo was introduced in the country by the Chinese authorities so that the government could

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keep a track on the sharing of news in social media and block the sensitive information that
would be passed between the people. Sina-Weibo gained a lot of popularity, despite there
being several micro-blogging sites in China. Weibo has a limit of 140 characters for each of
the posts that are shared ion the site and a network sees a follower-followee theory. The posts
shared in Weibo is much more than the post that are shared in Twitter in the other countries.
The users of Weibo also tend to disclose more information about their personal selves
on the media platform. There is intense discussion about corruption on the social media
platform despite the censorship which leads to believe that China is not a social media prison
and allows the free discussion of social news among their users despite keeping a track on
them. Even though there is a lot of constraints and limits to the sharing of posts and views
among the users, the people do have a freedom to discuss about the stories in their country.
There is however, a strict limit to the news that journalists would share on the social media
platform and the government keeps a track on the sharing of information which does not give
the journalists the freedom to write the way they please. The news scenario in China is
mostly based on the government and the politics of the country which makes the authorities
more aware of the information that the people of the country would share with one another
and be exposed to so that another riot or revolution would not be raised in the country due to
the surge in the flow of information.
Hence, it can be seen that new media has created a great impact on the way that news
is consumed among the people globally. There have been many changes that has been
observed in the society since the advent of new media and people in current times are more
aware of the occurring around themselves and the world since the emergence of new media
and social media platforms. The case study of Sina-Weibo also shows that the government
does put constraints in the sharing of news if they feel that the flow has increased and
therefore, new media is not free from the limit as traditional media.

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References:
Brossard, D., 2013. New media landscapes and the science information
consumer. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110(Supplement 3), pp.14096-
14101.
Manovich, L., Malina, R.F. and Cubitt, S., 2001. The language of new media. MIT press.
Pavlik, J.V., 2013. Trends in new media research: A critical review of recent
scholarship. Sociology Compass, 7(1), pp.1-12.
Strasburger, V.C., Hogan, M.J., Mulligan, D.A., Ameenuddin, N., Christakis, D.A., Cross,
C., Fagbuyi, D.B., Hill, D.L., Levine, A.E., McCarthy, C. and Moreno, M.A., 2013. Children,
adolescents, and the media. Pediatrics, 132(5), pp.958-961.
Sullivan, J., 2014. China’s Weibo: Is faster different?. New media & society, 16(1), pp.24-37.
Westlund, O., 2013. Mobile news: A review and model of journalism in an age of mobile
media. Digital journalism, 1(1), pp.6-26.