diverse and dynamic

The annual conference of the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC), held at the Manila Hotel this year, was an eye opener.

The list of topics and names on the program was certainly exhaustive enough to overwhelm. But to actually be there and see researchers and practitioners sharing their experiences and talking about future directions made one feel how diverse and dynamic the region and the field are.

The session on alternative media was an interesting mix of old and new: Sanskrit writings and their relationship to journalism principles, and a survey of community-based approaches to broadcasting as practised by Church-owned radio stations in the Philippines on the one hand; and citizen journalism as practised by a news organization in Malaysia, and a uses and gratifications analysis of Facebook uses at the University of Singapore, on the other.

It was an interesting session, not only because the presentations were interesting in themselves, but also for the selection of these presentations under the classification of alternative media. Indeed, the term "alternative" is broad enough to apply to old and new -- the traditional and the cutting-edge -- as represented by these topics from the societies of India, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore.

During the conference, AMIC launched six new publications, including the Asian Communication Handbook 2008, Media and Conflict Reporting in Asia, and Media and Development in Asia: Regional Perspectives.