When the printed newspaper is dead, the mainstream news is read only by subscribers–mostly subscribing organisations. The mainstream online media is for everyone for free. However, news reports are highly commoditised and they are an addition to the information glut. Online media like the age.com.au or news.com.au, for example, flashes reports of crimes, celebrities, sports, and petty government scandals. In a multicultural society like Australia, it is doubtful if readers ever know who these people in the spotlight are. News of general interests are hardly found. There are tonnes of alternative media (as Saba El-Ghul noted), but who read and listen to them? All these segregate the society even further. Each community and individual has its own media to look into. This shows the lack of cohesion that eludes a sense of unified nationalism. It’s like living in one territory without knowing each other.
Well, the Victorian Multicultural Commission has sponsored the event, “Walk in Harmony” months ago. Can anyone sponsor a drive like “Talk in Harmony” where a mainstream media can be a venue where all voices are heard?
Walt Disney knows better:
In Harmony, harmony!
You’re you I’m me,
together we should sing in Harmony!
But then again, power play and media enterprise define the mediascape.
