Secretary-General of ASEAN
at the
15th Asian Media Information and Communication Centre Annual Conference
Penang, Malaysia, 17 July 2006

The theme of this year’s AMIC conference is “Media in Asia: Aspirations, Choices and Realities.”  I believe that the transformation of media happens in Asia as well as where else in the world. Since I don’t want to be presumptuous to know the media’s aspirations and choices, let me contribute to your deliberations by sharing with you my take on the realities in our region and their implications for the media.

Reality one: many emerging issues are transnational in nature.

• Economic issues have increasingly become interrelated as a result of globalisation and regionalisation.  The trend towards greater economic openness has paved the way towards freer flow of capital, goods and services across nations.  Whatever happens in the world’s major financial districts affect all other industrialised and emerging markets.
• The reality is that intra-East Asian trade is growing rapidly even without government intervention.  In 1980, intra-East Asian trade was one-third of the total East Asian trade. In 1990, it was over 40 percent.  Today, it is more than half.  This trend is expected to continue as we make progress in our bilateral FTAs and with the prospect of an East Asia FTA in the future.
• ASEAN’s trade with China grew significantly, reaching over US$100 billion in 2005.
• Economic interdependence has also facilitated the phenomenon of large-scale labour migration among countries, including the challenges of integration and reintegration.  These challenges have oftentimes obscured the positive picture of migration’s important contribution to their host societies in the fields of business, science, academia, health care and even sports.
• At the same time, our porous borders have been taken advantaged of by international elements committing crimes involving two or more countries.  Multinational criminal syndicates continue to broaden their range of operations from drug and arms trafficking to money laundering and trafficking in human beings.
• What are the implications for the media?  As emerging issues and developing stories take place in two or more countries, sometimes simultaneously, so too are coverage and analysis gathered through joint reporting among media organisations.  Collaboration has gone beyond national bureaus of the same international media organisations, but even among different domestic media outlets as demonstrated by the Asia News Network’s regional media pool.

Reality two: the ICT revolution has reached and spread in the region.

• The spread of Internet usage in the world has resulted in faster, cheaper and easier flow of information.  This application of digital equipment to transmission and retrieval of information has allowed global interpersonal exchange on a scale unprecedented in human history.
• According to the website of the Internet World Stats, at the end of 2005, Internet users in Asia have reached 364 million accounting for 10 percent of the region’s population and 36 percent of the total world’s usage.  This figure represents an increase of almost 220 percent over the last five years.  (The rest of the world’s usage grew only by 165 percent during the same period.)
• The reality is that this trend is expected to continue.  The U.N. Plan of Action, based on the World Summit in Information Society, aims to bring 50 percent of the world's population online by 2015.  ASEAN is also doing its share by including ICT trade and services in the 11 priority sectors for regional economic integration.   Greater access to information is expected to bring about a more discerning if not educated public.    
• Implications: The Internet users’ access to the primary sources of information, through company websites and portals, could eventually pose a serious challenge to news organizations.  This could mean that the mainstream media should continuously strive to add greater value in reporting and presenting their contents.

Reality three: information exchange contributes to regional identity and community building.

• In the fourth quarter of 2005, the Asian News Network conducted a survey, which revealed that 60 percent of people in the ASEAN region identified with each other and wanted the pace of integration speeded up.
• This is not to be taken for granted considering that structured regional cooperation, embodied by ASEAN for instance, is a fairly modern phenomenon in our region.
• Most of our history was told from colonial perspectives. History books tell us of our nations referred to as East India, Netherlands India, British Malaya, French Indochina, and others.
• Even after the establishment of ASEAN, historians continue to debate the notion of our common identity.  As late as 1971, a group of scholars lead by David Joel Steinberg published a book wittingly entitled In Search of Southeast Asia.  Within three decades, he would, of course, co-author a more contemporary book this time entitled The Emergence of Modern Southeast Asia published in February 2005.
• While historically challenged, our leaders are unperturbed.  They have set their eyes on identity building that is now a work in progress.  In fact, efforts at community building have gone beyond Southeast Asia and have included the rest of East Asia.      
• Properly directed, the increasing self-identification with each other should increase public support for our respective countries’ international engagements and commitments.
• Implications: Intended or not, the media could contribute positively or negatively to this trend by the way information is gathered, analysed, interpreted and presented.  The mainstream media are among the most powerful tools in promoting international understanding and solidarity.  They could also upset it.

Reality four: Despite economic progress, poverty remains prevalent in Asia.

• Over the last 30 years, real GNP has multiplied 12 times in the NIEs, 11 times in Japan, and six times in China and in ASEAN. By comparison, the US economy expanded 2.5 times and the world economy three times.
• Despite this rapid growth, more than 900 million people in Asia remain poor, such as those who survive on less than $1 a day, according to Asian Development Bank (ADB). Nearly one in three Asians is poor.  For many people, a feeling of insecurity arises more from worries about daily life, such as job security, income security, health security and communicable diseases, environmental security and security from crime. 
• In our region, it is not difficult to imagine that a considerable portion of individual income is spent on basic needs for survival.  In other words, many still consider subscribing to newspapers, cable TV and broadband Internet a luxury.
• Implications: The role of development journalism remains an important preoccupation.  Efforts in this field are mostly done by development agencies - which have limited reach.  The mainstream media should devote attention to this important challenge of keeping development issues on the agenda of the governments and the international community.

Reality five:  The use of English language, while a popular medium, is not  without challenges.

• The language barrier remains considerable.  One study estimates that only about 30 percent of the combined population of East Asia and India uses English in their daily lives. 
• Worldwide, the proportion of Internet users for whom English is a first language has been decreasing fast. This is also true of web content.  English language web pages have been decreasing from 85 percent in 1998 to 72 percent in 1999 and 68 percent in 2000.  National languages and local dialects are taking over fast. 
• In broadcast media, the rise of Al Jazeera (since 1996) and Al Arabiya (since 2003) has made Arabic an important language to receive news about the Middle East.
• Implications: There is a need for versatile media to break the language barrier and promote universal access to news and information.  Indeed, the future of multimedia will surely be multilingual.

Reality six: Dominant media conglomerates remain profit-driven and therefore have a stake in the region’s prosperity and stability.

• Consolidation of transnational and western media continues.  The biggest of the top five is TimeWarner with a total revenue of US$44 billion in 2005 (Source: TimeWarner 2005 Annual Report).  Time Warner has global reach with over 200 subsidiaries worldwide and owns CNN, Warner Bros. Pictures, twenty-four magazines, including Time, People and Sports Illustrated, among others. 
• TimeWarner is followed by Disney (owns Disney Channel, ESPN, etc.); Bertelsmann (owns 19 European TV channels and 23 radio stations, etc.); Viacom (owns MTV, etc.); and News Corporation (owns Fox TV and some 132 newspapers worldwide, including the London Times and the New York Post). 
• Implications: For the Asian media, this consolidation and transnationalisation of media means tough competition.  The challenge, therefore, is to find niche and add value in providing news, information and entertainment to targeted audiences.  But beyond competition, both Asian and global media companies have a stake in the continued economic progress of countries in the region which translates into greater and sustained purchasing power of the people.  Temptations to sensationalize and exaggerate issues or even demonize some countries must be mitigated with some sense of responsibility, if not moderation, for the common good.

Conclusion

We are witnessing fast changing environment, but the traditional dilemmas for the media are fundamentally the same including:

• Media as agents of change versus neutral reporting;
• Balancing between the public interest and profit motive;
• Servicing between high-end and low-end markets;
• Observing greater sensitivity versus freedom of expression;
• Exercising self policing versus government regulations; and
• Balancing between international perspectives and national perspectives.

We live in a world of interdependence and interconnections.  It is only right for the public to know decisions and actions that affect their lives and their future.  Decision makers from the public and private sectors should learn to turn around this situation and enlist the public support for their decisions.  Decisions and opinions which merit public support have immeasurable multiplier effect on the ground.  The media plays a very important role in today’s world where public diplomacy is almost as important as the traditional diplomacy among nations.