When everything goes 100% online…

In this digital age everything from education to journalism and the events across the world are at our fingertips

My work as a researcher now focuses on how to equip journalists to deal with the multiple dangers they face online. From abuse to threats to others not so clear cut like the impact of time spent online, time spent online mostly working alone with minimum in-person interactions 

I remember how excited we were when we got our first home computer. It was bulky IMB that needed two people to carry the monitor. There was no Wi-fi, I don’t think we had heard of that. A friend who was interning at a electricity service provider and dabbling with phones on the sideline drew a long wire from the telephone connection to the machine. 

Before we got on the net, half the neighbourhood probably heard the dial-up sound. When some was on the net, the phone line was gone. But to us, who had grown up on a street where only two houses had land phones and running to the neighbour’s house to tell them that they had a call was quite normal, this was all magic. 
It seems like a lifetime away, but it was not. Why I am writing this, because I found it very hard to explain to a teenager recently that there was a time when there was no SMS and only voice calls. He looked bemused and thought of me as someone from a prehistoric age. 

Online education companies are now veering heavily on to micro learning, 10 min bites or less. This is the formula that would work for news as well. 

Digital natives arrived 

They don’t want to sit in front of a TV to watch anything. They’d rather watch it on their phone and it would be best it was on YouTube Shorts or TikTok. 
The attention spans are getting shorter. Online education companies are now veering heavily on to micro learning, 10 min bites or less. This is the formula that would work for news as well. 

Think of a time, when the Sri Lankan government will not have a chance to muzzle the media by controlling the channel licences. Well, it may not be too far ahead. The BBC is already imagining a time when there is no broadcast, when the radio and TV transmissions are passe. 
“Imagine a world that is internet-only, where broadcast TV and radio are being switched off and choice is infinite. A switch-off of broadcast will and should happen over time, and we should be active in planning for it,” BBC Director General Tim Davie said last year. He added that the difficult bit was not this switch over, but engaging in that transfer without losing millions of customers. 

Think of a time, when the Sri Lankan government will not have a chance to muzzle the media by controlling the channel licences. Well, it may not be too far ahead. The BBC is already imagining a time when there is no broadcast, when the radio and TV transmissions are passe. 

That is probably the test for most media professionals. How do you make professional journalism standout and be profitable when the choices offered online are in the millions. When the slapstick commands more attention than how much bread would cost. This transition also throws up new dangers, newer versions of old dangers to be exact. 
My work as a researcher now focuses on how to equip journalists to deal with the multiple dangers they face online. From abuse to threats to others not so clear cut like the impact of time spent online, time spent online mostly working alone with minimum in-person interactions. 

Recently while talking to some students, I compared my years reporting the war in Sri Lanka to working in the online space. I told them that sometimes I felt it was easy to identify the escalation of dangers when in a physical conflict zone. You got the clear signs – the armed combatants, their facial and other expressions and the lack of anyone other than the armed or the former’s inclination to move in the opposite direction. In most cases the person sitting next to me on these reporting gigs was a fellow journalist. 

That is probably the test for most media professionals. How do you make professional journalism standout and be profitable when the choices offered online are in the millions. When the slapstick commands more attention than how much bread would cost. This transition also throws up new dangers, newer versions of old dangers to be exact.

Most of the times now when I walk into the digital conflict zone, my virtual window is in my living room, or I am in the train. The person next to me is listening to music on ear-phones or texting. We may be seated inches from each other, but we inhabit completely different ‘virtual’ realities. 
There are no manic stares, strategically pointed weapons or even that rare skull and bone signs to warn me of the dangers ahead. And I find that space extremely dangerous. 

The writer is a journalism researcher and the Project Lead at the Dart Centre Asia Pacific. He can be contacted on 
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