Power of Change: New Media and New Communities

In the 21st Century, the power of change will be changed tremendously. It is no more a superpower to monopolize the views of others and to dictate what other should do, but rather the community of cyber world will have better say now. The recent turn of event in United States of bombing Syria for example showed that the US Government or even the President without the support of alliance countries and people of America has to think twice and back track from the decision of evading Syria. This power of change is expedite because of the advancement of new media and new community. The social media optimizing the strength of information technology has expedite the way people disseminate information, broadcasting the news, making an informed decision and framing up own opinion towards an issue. There are pros and cons on this. If the information gathered is genuine and trustworthy, then it help to democratize people’s mind and involvement in the society and development process. However, if fault news are circulated without any authenticity checking, then it is a dangerous of creating chaos and conflict. On the other hand, new community away from the community at neighbourhood area is created with the existence of social media. People sharing the same interest or hobby can form their own community or discussion group. Similarly, if a group of people sharing same vision and passionate about doing some common things, they will use social media as a platform for discussion and meeting or even planning an event together without physically attending to a meeting room. How should we call this kind of community? They are definitely different from the community we know of. Traditionally, community are created because everyone is staying in a place, sharing public facilities and services, using same access road and perhaps going to local school or places of worship together. As time pass on, the sense of community spirit inculcated and getting stronger. They will look after the safety and health issues in their living environment. But with the community in cyber space, will they care about surrounding and happening in their living area? Perhaps it is time now for community in neighbourhood area to change, to adopt to the advancement of technology and apply it in the daily routine, communication, planning and monitoring and etc. Perhaps it is time to reshape the planning guidelines to facilitate the application of social media in the community planning. Without that, without doubt in near future, our next generation might be saying that my soul is elsewhere although I am physically belong to this neighbourhood. Certainly, we do not want this from happening.