Issue around the world: Censorship

As recently as yesterday,i heard over the BBC that China has decided not to renew the license of Melissa Chan which has in this case forced the closure of Al-Jazeera's english bureau in China.

Censorship
It is not something new as the most recent case for this was back in 1998. From this i felt that China is trying to show that even in this day and age, the Chinese politburo is still wielding its power and strength in trying to scare the foreign media sources to adhere with its ruling.  It is believed the Beijing allows journalist to report freely in China and that the only restriction placed would be on Tibet however the actual truth is not as what it is believed as when sensitive issues are raised, it is possible to see journalists being hauled in and given warning. They would then threaten to revoke their visas and try to control what they report in the country itself. This itself is censorship and that it has always worked in the traditional media.

However a new form of media has been challenging this sort of censorship and that i will discuss it in the next paragraph.


The power of new media 


To me personally, i feel that even though journalist do play a significant role in getting news across traditional media, they are also fast becoming crucial in the new media as well. With the advent of Twitter and Facebook and even with Weibo in China, news that were once suppressed are now becoming available to the those using this media and thus censorship is not as effective as it used to be. The other factors are that more and more youths and young adults are now found on these site more often and that with news corporation taking advantage of this new media such as the BBC, it is now giving voices to people who were once not able to get their point across using the traditional media.

Chen Guangcheng use of Youtube


As also seen recently was human rights lawyer Chen Guangcheng with his plead to Wen Jiabao through Youtube showing that it is now possible for news to filter past the traditional media and with it the video from Chen Guangcheng going viral almost led to a crisis between the Americans and their Chinese counterpart who were due to meet for a summit that was to cover something else but Chen Guangcheng.

Final Thoughts


As we can see from both example is that censorship is not a one size fit all approach to stopping news from spreading as it only works in the traditional media but if the country decides to take an extreme step to stop all internet connections like what the North Koreans do then they would become a "hermit" country. However if they don't then news other than from the tradition media would be here a the long haul.

Issue Around the world: Youth Violence/Juvenile crimes

Today I came across a really interesting letter on Today Online titled: "A new code for youth crime". Juvenile crime as we know in general is on the up and up and that when we read the news these days, we will probably read about a couple of news a day about it.

Is this new?

The historian Geoffrey Pearson quotes a 60-year-old named Charlotte Kirkman, who lamented that, “I think morals are getting much worse... There were no such girls in my time as there are now. When I was four or five and twenty my mother would have knocked me down if I had spoken improperly to her”. Kirkman was speaking in 1843, as part of an investigation into the bad behaviour of contemporary youth. Lord Ashley, speaking in the House of Commons in the same year, argued that “the morals of the children are tenfold worse than formerly”.

Past generations, then, have been just as convinced as we are that the “youth of today” were misbehaving more than ever before. Pearson has suggested that such fears about youth are a way of expressing more general uncertainties about social change and recur with each generation. (Wills, n.d)

So what is the Issue?

Why out of the sudden we are seeing so much crime in the last decade alone?

According to a United Nations report, Statistical data in many countries show that delinquency is largely a group phenomenon; between two-thirds and three-quarters of all juvenile offences are committed by members of various groups. Even those juveniles who commit offences alone are likely to be associated with groups. According to data from the Russian Federation, the rate of criminal activity among juveniles in groups is about three to four times higher than that of adult offenders. Juvenile group crime is most prevalent among 14-yearolds and least prevalent among 17-year-olds. The rates are higher for theft, robbery and rape, and lower for premeditated murder and grievous bodily harm. (UN, 2003)

The issue in my opinion seems to be the influence from the peers around us. As we grow up, we would be easily influenced by the people around us and these make it even more important to mix around with the right choices of people.

However, I am also wondering if it goes deeper than just the mixing of friends or does it even come down to whether a moral degradation.

Now back to the letter that I mentioned above, it states that current system in Singapore is too soft and that it is sending a signal which is wrong and that the true lesson will not be learnt. He also further added that with a harsher approach, such as sending juveniles to a special rehab home.

I feel that if we have to come to such a state then we are literally pouring ‘kerosene into fire’. I feel that we need to nip this issue at the bud and not let them commit their first crime so that we can implement such measure to counter act them. I believe that parents play a vital important role in the upbringing and development of a child and that the child will mimic the behaviour of the parent.

In my next blog post, I will look into the other factors that could affect juvenile crimes and what in my opinion can be done to counter those other issues.

Works Cited

UN. (2003). Juvenile Delinquency. World Youth Report, 191.

Wills, A. (n.d). Youth culture and crime: what can we learn from History. Retrieved from BBC History Magazine: http://www.historyextra.com/feature/youth-culture-and-crime-what-can-we-learn-history