Regulating New Media in Malawi

The advent of new media, also called social media, the form of media that is based on technology and not traditional form, printed paper, has seen the emergence of new industries and different consumer behaviors. Technology has fueled the transformation of news sourcing, dissemination and how customers interface with news content.

Long gone are the days when media outlets acted as the only sources of news, armed with intricate distribution channels or networks which pushed the material to customers. In this new age, a disruption has taken place within the print and media industries, which has seen a shifting of the entire ecosystem of how media outlets are interfacing with their customers.

The cell phone has acted as a catalyst in the creation of the new media industries mainly due to lowering prices of the handsets, a global phenomenon, as well as the increased computing power that modern cell phones carry. With this increased computing or processing powers, developers are being given a blank canvass with which they can push the envelope in terms of application design and requirements.

Globally, it is estimated that there are more cellphones than toothbrushes in use per day. People have become more attached to their cell phones more than they are hygienically aware of the dental health. You are more likely, in less than 2 minutes, to remember that you have forgotten your cellphone in your house, than you are to remember the driver’s license that is next to the cellphone. This how close we have become with technology, daily life routines have shaped around technology.

This ever growing appetite, of the public towards technology and in particular, cellphones, has pushed the innovation buttons of software developers to go into over drive in trying to find more intuitive ways and means of exposing services and products on surfaces than never before. By surfaces, am talking about the 3 targeted surfaces that software or application developers and marketers want you stuck in; these are the television screen surface, the laptop computer surface and the mobile phone surface.

Smartphones have become very common to any ordinary man across the globe, including Malawi. These smartphones have packed computer power that has turned them into content creating and delivery machines. Any holder of a smartphone, now has within his hands, the ability to create new content, edit and choose a delivery platform with which to use to spread that content.

The most common platforms that are widely used in disseminating this content are the social networks, which includes Facebook, twitter, google, WhatsApp and other related micro-blogging websites. These platforms have become so common that it often difficult to find a person who owns a cellphone but does not participate in any one of these new media platforms. Mostly, you will find people are cross users of the platforms and continuously take content from one platform and introduce it on another platform, in the process losing control of how far and wide that piece of content spreads on the platforms.

The platforms have become so clever in their design to the extent that the hold they have on its users has been likened to addictions of alcohol and cigarettes. Actually, a clinically proven condition exists which is called “nomophobia”, a developed psychological attachment to one’s mobile phone.  The symptoms of this condition includes panic when one is separated from their smart phone, not able to focus on work or even conversations due much attention to a smart phone. That persistent checking on your phone for new alerts or notifications for new messages; is also part of the symptoms that you have caught nomophobia!

If the platforms have become this addictive, scientist claim that nomophobia involves the a dysregulation of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that regulates your brains reward system which motivates you to do things you are likely to get rewarded for; should we look to governments for possible regulation? Just like in the same manner that alcohol and cigarettes are controlled, should we start asking Malawi government to start framing regulatory framework that should protect the consumers of new media?

The United States of America presidency is under serious scrutiny due to the ever growing allegations that Russia, through the use of new media, manipulated the results of the presidential vote. The extent to which Russian agents, as its rumored, forced the vote into Donald Trumps’ favor is relatively unknown as we speak, but the fact that their usage of new media influenced the vote, is common knowledge.

Through the use of paid adverts on ne media, the Russian agents were able to spread wrong information, also known as fake news, to hundreds of million American voters with an aim of planting hostility amongst them. It appears this was successful and the American government was not aware of the scheme when it was rolling out.

If new media influenced the outcome of the presidential vote in a world super power, what about the rest of the world?

Regulation of new media is becoming a global debate which has attracted equal number of proponents just as much opponents. On one hand, new media websites are viewed as public service utilities that must fall within some sort of regulation to ensure that consumers are protected. On the other hand, new media outlets are private owned computer systems that actually do not generate content, but rather they host content that has been generated by other sources, typically the members. Due to the decentralization mode of how content is being produced and generated, the public is at the mercy of the generator whose opinion or information could tilt towards hate speech or fake content or agendas that are anti-government. This is the angle which threatens national security and social harmony.

It is about time that frameworks should be developed that start laying the landscape for future new media regulation in a manner that preserves the openness and neutrality of the “internet spirit” and it does not come in as censorship of content.

While regulation is not in place, it worth noting that each uploader or generator of content on new media platforms does that with some liability attached to them, as such, it necessary to take caution before you send, retweet, post, share, or broadcast any item on new media platforms. The law in Malawi can still pounce on your careless usage of new media.