# Digital Media Paper

>Name: Ying Ying Lee
Date: Feb, 2020
Seminar: Introduction to Digital Media
Prof. Dr. Frieder Nake; Dr. Petra Klusmeyer
Semester: WiSe 19/20

## What new kind of issues, problems, expectations, challenges open up for communication when media become digital?

On an ordinary day, I suddenly realized it is unusual that the black screen lighted up and mass information poured in from all directions. The moment, a sense of getting closer to the whole world brought me a hope of living in a more peaceful, democratic and prosperous generation than ever. I am from Taiwan, a fairly peaceful, harmonious and protected island in my opinion. Almost every international news I know comes from the internet. It was at one time an extremely joyful invention for me since people are no longer restricted, for the education channel has been expanded, the opportunity of showing talent has boosted, the access to information has been opened up, as well as the volume of individual and the crowds has been broadly amplified.

Media has been given thousands of new definitions along with the development of technology, leading to various possibilities which made human interaction a breeze. However, the virtual world looks flat calm as the surface of the ocean, whereas waves fiercely roar underneath. The great shock of the reality being far from ideal also came from the existence of digital media. I have seen major focus being obscured by reckless comments, misinformation being spread due to the abuse of dictatorship, and privacy being manipulated by enterprise which prioritizes its benefit. I wonder as a part of it, how to withstand the unprecedented social chaos and persist in listening, doubting and communicating with one another. I hope an open heart is the answer.

### The Changing Role of Reader and Journalist
How media changed overnight? Traditional media is considered obsolete, and the change of audience behavior is definitely one but not the main reason. Nowadays, news and knowledge are available anytime and anywhere through the access to the internet; however, carrying a newspaper or turning on the radio at home doesn’t take much effort. Radio, television as well as presswork haven’t walked into history due to the user fondness. Even though old media has undergone a radical transformation and launched with more novel features, it is still drifting further apart from digital media. The best explanation of winning the user’s heart is that new media has shifted user's role from a passive recipient to an active participant. In the past, people were free to decide the topic they were interested in but not the content written by the media. People believed what they read, because they were not offered a chance to corroborate. In other words, it is now possible to start a conversation not only with media press but also someone they don’t know, public figures or politicians. In this way, readers can participate in discussion and indirectly influence the work. They have more freedom to review the content's legitimacy, to comment on the stance of media policy and to proclaim justice through gathering voice online. Hence, given the rapid spreading speed everyone could be the first-hand source of the news on social media platform.

### Revelation of Misconduct, WikiLeaks and the Press Freedom
One sensational case of user gaining substantial influence on new media is WikiLeaks, the international non-profit organization, which publishes news leaks and classified media provided by anonymous sources. The founder Julian Assange has been accused to leak secret documents of the United States, including the collateral murder video, the release of military war logs from Afghanistan and Iraq, the large cache of diplomatic cables and the covered documents about Guantanamo Bay detainees in 2010. His leak of confidential documents damaged the international reputation of the United States, leading him to a 175-year imprisonment. However, his disclosure of the government’s misconduct is the best example of the evolution of digital media, which has generated a sense of public distrust and criticism in a brand-new way. It demonstrated the significant innovation that misconduct is easier to leave a record than ever and has a higher probability of being exposed to the public. In real life, people barely have permission to acquire and distribute confidential documents from higher bureaucratic class. However, for experts who are familiar with network architecture, it’s simpler to hack into online system amid the ongoing process and deliver it before the interception. After all, digital application is a relatively new domain, and there are still many loopholes waiting to be patched. But, the practice has delivered the concept of a dynamic executive procedure which only exists in digital media.

After applying for political asylum in Ecuador in 2012, Julian Assange has lived in the country's embassy in London for almost 7 years because he feared to be extradited to the United States. He described the experience as if he had been illegally imprisoned. Now he might be expelled from the United Kingdom. The United Nations torture expert Melzer said "The judiciary in this country, unfortunately, has proven either unwilling or unable to guarantee due process" and claimed that Assange appeared to have symptoms that were consistent with psychological torture. This turned many people to disappointment, so did I. I have to think profoundly about the justice and rationality of all his encounters. What if the outflowing documents and videos were real or partially real? Who can prove the authenticity? No government official took the responsibility for it despite the U.S. justice department didn't even deny the files were all accurate. When it comes to political power, things are inevitably complicated. Leaving aside whether he was a spy, what frightened me most was the distrust regarding human rights and the official press after finally having an opportunity to make information transparent.

The Department of Justice announced in its media release that Assange's action has seriously undermined United States national security in the benefit of its rivals and put irrelevant people in imminent danger of serious physical harm or arbitrary detention. People have the opportunity to unveil social loopholes, but whether communication can be unfolded and difficulties can be eliminated, it’s entirely contingent upon who the object is. So here comes a more serious problem, the press freedom. The supporters of Assange have been left outraged by the prosecution. Speakers at an event at London's Frontline Cub warned the case should be considered an attack on all journalists. Journalists have stated that they don’t consider foreign nationals to have first amendment protection. At the same time the U.S. government is chasing journalists all over the world, they claim that they have extraterritorial reach. They have decided that all foreign journalists have no protection. This is not about Julian Assange but about press freedom. Likewise, this was the trigger point of the Hong Kong protest.

### The Freedom of Speech in Hong Kong
Despite the freedom of speech has significant improved in comparison with the past, it is not as open as imagined. Until 1997, Hong Kong was ruled by Britain as a colony but then returned to China. Under the "one country, two systems" arrangement, it has some autonomy, and its people have more rights. But the extradition bill has triggered the unprecedented protest in Hong Kong taking an estimated total of more than one million people to the street. It would have allowed for criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China under circumstances such as giving a political statement of anti-government or pro democracy. Opponents said this risked exposing Hongkongers to unfair trials and violent treatment. They also argued the bill would give Beijing government greater influence over Hong Kong and could be used to target activists and journalists. In fact, the protest has long been censored by Mainland Chinese social media, such as Sina Weibo. The first two weeks of protest were largely ignored by central mainland media outlets, with no major stories published until 17 April. Officials simply detected the keyword "Hong Kong", "HK" and "extradition bill" to seek out posted content regarding the protest and then blocked it. On Weibo and WeChat, terms like "let's go Hong Kong" was blocked with the platform citing "relevant laws, regulations and policies" as the reason for not showing search results, meanwhile user accounts referring to anti-extradition were banned. Compared to the erase of relevant posts on social media, the extradition bill is regarded as the violation to human right. Once it is imposed, Hongkongers are likely to encounter the sentence under no foundation for statements that contradict the Beijing government. Even though the bill was withdrawn in September 2019, demonstration has continued due to the failure of communication. Clashes between police and protesters have become increasingly violent and frequent, with police using pepper spray at a close range, activists attacking officials and throwing petrol bombs. And I am sure what was displayed on my Facebook page is completely different from others. Nevertheless, media platform has played a pivotal role in the long-term battle delivering standpoints from the two sides to the world.

As the purpose of demonstration shifted from merely freedom of speech to the full democracy, the circulation of information has made digital media even more indispensable. How to present the true social condition in Hong Kong under the control of algorithms on media platform? To date, my Hong Kong friends have made several posts on Facebook and Instagram, condemning the inhumane action of the police. One of them said people in Hong Kong are scared of the whole escalating brutality and the trust in government has long gone. The police are not defending the people, but fighting against them. On the contrary, my Chinese friends generally hold a patriotic attitude toward the Beijing government. They condemned the chaos caused by Hong Kong activists leading the unnecessary injury to innocent people. Over the last few months, things have gotten worse and worse until the outbreak of coronavirus which distracted both of their attention. Since I knew them, the statements were never in align with each other and I always know the reason behind. The communication channel is still narrow under the the tight grip on information flows by the authority. However, conflict has not only occurred in Hong Kong but also within China. The Chinese government has also suffered from the self-inflicted consequence.

### The Freedom of Speech within China
Recently, the epidemic of coronavirus has caused panic throughout the world. A Chinese citizen journalist has taken the risk to defy government efforts on controlling the information. He filmed the situation in the Wuhan hospitals, the epicenter of the virus outbreak and uploaded it online. A week later, he disappeared and has not responded to messages. Authority said he’s been forcibly detained based on his mental health problem. But he is not the only one to pay the price for defying the state authority. Another man received a menacing knock on his door after taking a video showing body bags, victims of the virus in Wuhan’s hospital. In one of his video, he told the police that “I am not sick. My temperature is normal.” He has been posting videos daily proving that he was free. But the uploads stopped soon and he’s been unreachable by phone fueling speculation of his arrest. What has happened to them? Anyone who attempted to bring the extend of the outbreak to light is assumed to be arrested. Media digitization only shortly elevates the transparency of information, but the following question is that what method could be applied to tackle the abuse of government right and to protect freedom of speech. Even though Chinese’s authority is not living up to transparency as people understand it, at least, after knowing the fact and truth, chinese deep-seated mistrust has added pressure online and off on the government.

### The Daunting Problem - Disinformation
Whether social media is beneficial to life, such a topic has been continually discussing by people. It is a new force to fight against injustice and an opportunity to view issues from diverse aspects. However, the other side of its coin is the issue of fake news. People confront the challenge of distinguishing between real and unreal while accessing breaking news and information from Facebook, Twitter and YouTube instead of traditional media. The perception to detail is rather important for living in an age of flood of misinformation. Fake accounts are simple to create and only limited responsibility has to be taken for anonymous users. On the one hand, it is almost impossible to capture the netizen hidden behind the screen. It is a gigantic mission since there are tremendous of them and the required workforce for censorship is not cost-effective. On the other hand, the legislation can hardly keep pace with technical crime due to the time-consuming procedure and the obscure definition of various crimes. Therefore, after a series of modifications, one story could have thousands of versions due to the subjectivity of human opinion.

Certainly, subjective opinion doesn’t count as fake new, and even if some rumors are intentionally spread, it won't stay long because people who knows the truth will come up with another voice. In fact, the lethality of fake information is not from individual but from the government, who take it as a cyber weapon to discredit political opponents or instigate a conflict among powerful authorities. When politics is incorporated into the game, the scale of influence by the data-driven propaganda is considerably unpredictable. “Falsehood diffused significantly farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth in all categories of information, and the effects were more pronounced for false political news than any others” cited in the MIT research paper “The spread of true and false news online”. It is not a surprise that authorities, with no difference in types, has been taking control over media content. I have just experienced it few months ago through the presidential election of Taiwan.

### The Presidential Election in Taiwan
Months before the presidential election in January 2019, a plethora of disinformation has threatened Taiwan. The current president Tsai Ing-wen, seen as an advocate of Taiwanese independence, has been discredited due to Chinese infiltration on social media. Every day, an incredible amount of false slanders was produced constantly on the web. Many posts were allegedly traced by internet users to IP address in China. According to a 2019 report, Han Kuo-yu, candidate from the China-friendly opponent party, received support from a Facebook group running by administrators in China for the mayoral campaign in 2018. He won the election and became the current mayor of Kaohsiung city. However, after Tsai secured 57 percent of the popular vote in the presidential election with a record-breaking over 8 million ballots, several fan pages of supporting Han’s run have been removed silently by Facebook. The fact of bribery has only changed from traditional newspapers or television media to new online media, but the later leaved a great amount of clues than the former.

Along with the trend of digitalization, four traditional major news corporation in Taiwan, the Liberty Times, Apple Daily, the United Daily News and the China Times have placed significant impact on readers. Taiwan government has sought to keep out direct or indirect investment from China in local media companies in order to prevent it from influencing the pace and direction of cross-strait relations. However, the China Times, chaired by the Beijing-friendly businessman Tsai Eng-meng, received directives and published paid content from Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office, according to reports from the Financial Times. The China Times thereby sued the Financial Times for calling its report “fake news.” Besides, Beijing has attempted to destabilize Taiwan’s democracy through social media apps such as Line, a WhatsApp-like platform. With a population of 23 million in Taiwan, LINE has 21 million active users. One of its additional features is the button which allows users to toggle to news pages.

In response to the rise of fake news, the independent agency, National Communications Commission (NCC), is founded on February 2006 to regulate the information, communications and broadcasting industry in Taiwan. The current ruling party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), urged NCC to strike back, demanding that if any website or TV station reports false information, they want the NCC to fine it or block the website. The agency announced an investigation into three television stations named in the Financial Times reports, but no result has been released until March 2019. The committee said that after analyzing the TV station's news broadcast for one week in February, they found that Han's daily coverage accounted for 56.7 percent of the network’s total content. Similar incidents happen in an endless stream, but fortunately, people are more alert to the threat carried by mainstream media. Except for mainstream media, local media becomes another reference for issues. When it comes to the common dissemination methods, it is nothing more than forwarding specific news everywhere, grasping for attention with sensational headlines and unverified storylines, trying to incite conflict without providing reasonable explanations, and making contradictory and dubious comments yet giving no response. But digital media also has its advantages which allows users to look into the comments carefully and to find the subtle clues. Abnormal phenomena could be articles derived from unknown source, accounts named in a similar way, such as a serial number, or either articles or accounts disappeared in a short time.

### The Concern of Anti-Infiltration Act
Beijing has never concealed its desire for cross-strait, but it is difficult to determine the actual scope, intent and effectiveness of how it influenced the campaign through media platforms. It is hard to deny that Tsai Ing-wen’s success in re-election was highly related to the ongoing protests in Hong Kong. Namely, Hong Kong people's online and offline support have added tailwinds to her win. In addition, Taiwan has its unique communication ecosystem which is not easy to intervene. At least in this election, the adopted network tactic from China has failed. Therefore, the Anti-infiltration Act, passed two weeks before the presidential election was widely debated during the campaign. People worried that it might cause a counter-effect of suppressing internal instead of external freedom of speech. However, this was Tsai’s action of fulfilling her commitment on the defense of Taiwan's democracy. “To put all the blame on China alone will not solve the problem, it will only narrow the gap between Taiwan and China.” opponents declared. Many countries under such new threats have adopted legislation to prevent fake news which came after digital media. Global best practices to combat fake news strongly discourage governments from monitoring information stating that crackdowns on disinformation in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and other areas have been criticized globally.

“When the government is in a position to declare something ‘fake news,’ it just opens the door to abuse,” said Steven Butler, the Asia program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). “In no case can the executive power take the responsibility to decide what is fake news and what is legitimate news,” said Cedric Alviani, the director of the Asia bureau of Reporters Without Borders. As a result, Taiwan's new legislation has drawn hard scrutiny from observers within and outside of the country. Legislation is a two-edged sword, that can not only defend but also infringe human rights. Instead of sacrificing freedom of speech, governments should apply smart approaches to combat fake news. When fake news appears on media platforms, instead of imposing meaningless fines on large media groups, finding the basis will be a lot more effective. Otherwise, when the network system is invaded in full scale, the government doesn't even know where to begin the restoration of system vulnerabilities. Especially, when the era of 5G technology is coming, relying on Chinese or any 5G providers would put national systems in jeopardy. Preventing network systems from vulnerability to interference, tampering and espionage is the common goal around the world, and no country can be left out.

### Challenge of Global Cybersecurity and Data Privacy
At the recent Munich Security Conference, the Americans made it clear that the confrontation with China is the theme of the century. If any consensus has ever been reached by countries, that is cybersecurity. Regarding China's long-term manipulation of the international order through internet technology, nations finally wake up to the crisis of China's political strategy after the Huawei threat. The United States took the lead in saying that the partnership has to be re-evaluated owing to the tactics China used to gain the world's leadership. Before Europe was aware of the severity of the condition, the United States had accused Huawei of stealing intellectual property in three major means, one was to violate the confidential agreement established with the intellectual property owners, and the other was to hire employees from IT industry to obtain the intellectual property of their former companies. The third was to obtain patent through professors and other workers in scientific research institutions. Huawei is also suspected of establishing a bonus system to reward employees who obtain secret information from competitors. This has explained why the United States declared that the relationship between them and Europe depends on the European response to China, such as whether European countries build 5G technology with or without Huawei, because this could compromise the communication. Europeans is drawn into dilemma and forced to choose a side between the two. But in the past few months, Beijing has indeed threatened various European countries with consequences if they exclude Huawei from the establishment of the 5G network.

When people's interaction and connection is overly interfered by software, it would lead to counter-effect of unnatural state. One of my experiences was the travel in Beijing last year, sitting in a restaurant in Gubei Water Town, a famous tourist attraction and looking for the menu. Soon I realized that scanning of QR code was the only way to order, and binding credit card to WeChat payment was the only way to pay. I was first surprised at the penetration rate of WeChat apps but then understood that I was actually the outlier. For them it was nothing more than normal to communicate with people through the fingertips. The side effect is that greeting is completely dispensed under the convenience of smart application. The tiny screen showed the position of tableware and the status of food for customers to pick up the meal. From this I can already foresee the future, what has hidden behind is the complete surveillance manipulation to peoples' daily life. In order to meet consumption demand, people have to follow merchant's requirement, and merchants have to comply with legal regulations. Under the conditions, they have no choice but to sacrifice the privacy, seemingly not lethal, but has already trapped them in an invisible cage. Even more, it is a temporary experiment, as Taiwan is another test field for the techniques of hacking trade secrets, intellectual property and valuable data. When the right time comes, the globe will become its next target.

### Privacy Leak from Social Network Company
Another pivotal player which is often forgotten in the game of profit is the mediator of information, the network enterprise. Softwares establish a connection to another computer, mobile device, or network, and manage the transmission of data, instructions, and information for users. Thanks to the effective functionalities, users are able to communicate with one another through a variety of interfaces. In contrast, the power of control over what news and information to be shown to the users is in the hand on network companies. Without informing responsibility, the algorithm has become the admin, proactively distributing advertisements and specific articles to users, and user’s habits are passively recorded. Revealing personal information on social sites can make users vulnerable to crimes like identity theft, stalking, etc. Despite enterprises including Google, Facebook and Twitter have regularly published their transparent reports to share data of how the policies and actions of governments and corporations affect privacy, security, and access to information, under the pressure of rapid evolution of technology, it is comprehensible that they decided to succumb to high-handed policies to protect the self-interest, making users victims of the battle. Therefore, while enjoying the fruitful scientific and technological achievement, users must reduce the dependence on software and increase the awareness of risks. To undertake the responsibility of protecting personal privacy, users must understand the operation of network system, the possible forms of online virus and the channels of its intrusion, as well as the reliability of the source of information and its authenticity. These have become the fundamental knowledge and skills that everyone has to obtain.

### The Rise of Cynicism
In real life, unfortunately, the easier the connection is made, the weaker the relationship is remained. Most people scroll through their message feed and ignore it after reading the words. The dialog ends before it even starts. They thought they are going to reply later, but after the messages pile up, they don’t want to reply anymore. People tend to take their possession for granted, and unconsciously forget that the essence of online media and social platforms is to build a bridge for them to effectively connect with individuals and the world. But concentration and perception are easily distracted by the vast of information, and the investment time seems to be stolen, hardly to remember how it was spent. A present story can be forgotten in next minute because of how fast stories can get turned around and shared. Therefore, people gradually become apathetic and even cynical about the surroundings. Cynicism is one of the gravest problems brought about by the digital media so it is usually after the tragedy that the distress signals of people in need are found. When accustomed to and enjoying the Internet, people must awaken the consciousness and empathy, and don't over-indulge in the virtual world and disconnect from the real world.

### The Emblem of Democracy
Despite the more I probe into social issues, the more grieved I am, for I have to accept the imperfection of the world, there is no denying the importance of social media. It is a manifestation of democracy.

Needless to say that social media has changed the way society works, whether it’s the exchanging of an idea, the communication of news, or the availability of a product or service. Social media is now widely used in every part of lives. Individuals with great creativity and marketing skills can achieve financial success on social media. Social media has changed from "nice to have" to "must have" or department of a company's business strategy. When it comes to social circles, social media broken down communication barriers and people are spoilt for choice in the way connecting with someone. Social media also makes it easier to express oneself. By publishing articles, recording videos, and various conversational applications, one can express personal opinions not only to friends, but also to the outside world. Normal people now have a myriad of stages to express opinions on a large scale. Within minutes, it is no longer impossible to be recognized by thousands of people. For some ethnic groups, it is even a life-saving pathway.

### Humanitarian Crisis in Xinjiang
For the disadvantaged groups who send out the prays for rescue, digital media is the only access to justice, the only way out of the deteriorating humanitarian crisis. Recently, Western media has published hundreds of pages of detailed surveillance documents about Xinjiang detention center, where Chinese government imprisioned the Uighur Muslims. According to estimates, at least 1 million of the roughly 10 million Uighurs living in Xinjiang have disappeared into these centers. Beijing has long insisted that its vast camps are voluntary vocational training centers, where people learn job skills and are then free to leave. With watchtowers and high wall around countless camps, it is hard to believe such narratives. The leak portrayed heavily reinforced re-education centers designed to turn Uighurs and other Muslim minorities into good Chinese citizens who speak Mandarin. They are normal people who were arrested even for the simple act of praying, instead of so-called extremism. There is no indication that the documents are fake after verification by several experts, whereas the Chinese foreign minister claimed that "no one has seen any kind of concentration camp in Xinjiang and it is hundred percent rumors. It is completely fake." However, the documents contain an enormous amount of specific data and the Chinese Foreign Ministry earlier has not directly questioned its authenticity. It is a frightening fact that yet happens at a corner not far away from my hometown. Were it not for social media, this misconduct will never be presented right in front of the eyes of the world and turn to force the Chinese government to give an explanation. "For all its efforts at secrecy, the Chinese government can no longer hide the extent, and the reach, of its campaign of repression in Xinjiang," regional expert Adrian Zenz wrote in the New York Times. Despite China's official statement has not changed, this has already reached a significant progress on speaking for vulnerable groups.

Digital media has made outstanding contributions in various fields such as art, culture, design, engineering, and environment. No matter through graphic or dynamic methods, it adds unlimited possibilities for the transfer of information. However, I chose to discuss it from social perspective because it has the most obvious negative impact on human mentality. I can only talk about the influence of social media on issues that have encompassed me from my childhood; however, I believe there are injustices everywhere, such as the U.S. and Russia ’s involvement in the Lybia truce, Chile ’s feminist protest, and conflicts between India and Pakistan. Most of the plights revealed on digital platforms are not new. Our Society seems to face more problems, but that regards power abuse, racial discrimination and freedom of speech has long existed. It's just deficiencies of the world are being exposed more comprehensively and prominently. Before digital media exists, I can barely access what is happening in the world. As far as I am concerned, the advantages of digital media definitely outweigh the disadvantages. Even if the world is inequitable, as the jungle has its own rules of survival, people can still squarely face and overcome the adversity, making it tough for injustice to continue in the gray area and I believe only by cultivating the sound value system can the value of digital media be truly realized.

### References

* [Study: On Twitter, false news travels faster than true stories](http://news.mit.edu/2018/study-twitter-false-news-travels-faster-true-stories-0308)
* [The spread of true and false news online](https://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6380/1146)
* [Taiwan’s War on Fake News Is Hitting the Wrong Targets](https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/10/taiwan-election-tsai-disinformation-china-war-fake-news-hitting-wrong-targets/)
* [Taiwan’s president is battling a deluge of election-linked homophobic fake news](https://qz.com/1780015/taiwan-election-tsai-ing-wen-faces-homophobic-fake-news/)
* [Google Transparency Report](https://transparencyreport.google.com/?hl=en)
* [Huge leaks are exposing Xinjiang's re-education camps. But don't expect Beijing to back down](https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/26/asia/china-xinjiang-leaks-analysis-intl-hnk/index.html)
* [U.N. TORTURE EXPERT 'OUTRAGED' BY WIKILEAKS FOUNDER ASSANGE'S EXTRADITION CASE: 'WHAT ABOUT THE WAR CRIMES?'](https://www.newsweek.com/wikileaks-julian-assange-extradition-trial-nils-melzer-frontline-club-london-1486230)
* [The Hong Kong protests explained in 100 and 500 words](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-49317695)
* [Die neue Verteidigungsdoktrin der USA zielt auf China](https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article205902965/Globale-Konkurrenz-Die-neue-Verteidigungsdoktrin-der-USA-zielt-auf-China.html?wtmc=socialmedia.facebook.shared.web&fbclid=IwAR0oFeaD6X8igLJ1Edx8LJWQizNLwclKg5tnwrVny_EeU8tXTYpLLvD8q-M)

###### tags: `Digital Media` `WS19/20` `HFK`