New Media

After reading the articles, i feel that new media threat to stability.
According to the first article, today we are fighting the first war in the era of e-mail, blogs, blackberries, instant messaging, digital cameras, the Internet, mobile phones, talk radio, and 24-hour news. The new media has allow terrorists skillfully adapting to fighting wars in today’s media age. The terrorists know that communications transcend borders, and that a single news story, handled skillfully, can be as damaging to our cause and can be as helpful as any military attack. Thus, they are able to act quickly with relatively few people, and with modest resources compared to the vast, expensive bureaucracies of democratic governments.
Media outlets in many parts of the world often serve only to inflame and distort, rather than to explain and inform. For example, al-Qaeda and extremist movements have used their forum for many years, further poisoning the Muslim public’s view of the West.
Not only that, media often produced false allegations For example, the false allegations of the desecration of a Koran last year. First published in a weekly news magazine, the story was then posted on Web sites, sent in e-mails, and repeated on satellite television and radio stations for days before the facts could be discovered. That false story incited deadly anti-American riots in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
While the second article focusses on blogs. Blogging has exploded in popularity to the point where there are now more than 20 million blogs being tracked around the world. Bolgs allow people to post theur comments ans share their point of views with people all around the world. Blogging do help people to voice out their comments, but it also teaches people to be less sensitive over certain issues, for example the religous issues. Many people in different countries have been jailed for criticizing official corruption, posting material deemed offensive to Islam and etc.
Hence, i feel that new media is a threat to the stability.