Whose words count?

Monday night on Channel U Crossfire. Discussion on the impact of digital technology on human relationships.

An invited guest – a middle-aged secondary school teacher commented on the lack of emotive expression and artistry in the mobile or internet lingo. This has attracted an almost instantaneous retort from another invited guest – a younger man in his mid twenties, who argues for the use of emoticons as the emotive make-up of mobile lingo.

To a certain extent, such interchange is a visible proof of digital and generation divide between the technologically savvy and inclined youth and the more skeptical (cynical?) and cautious middle-aged Singaporeans.

I would have left it at that if not for my earlier conversation with an aspiring Gen-Y photographer. We had a(n) (almost heated) argument over the impact and value of blogs as alternative media and source of information.

To sum it up in brief, this promising photographer – though not quite shy of exploiting network media as a platform to promote his works – remains highly critical of the quality of cyber-texts. A prolific reader, he quoted a recent publication of a well-known and -respected blogger as an example, arguing that this blogger has thrived on churning good anecdotes online but has obviously failed to produce coherent texts worthy of literary acclaim.

On reflection, I think this really begs the question as to:

(1) how far we could/should transfer texts from one medium to another

(2) how far we should judge the quality of texts produced for network media based on standards for traditional media, and this leads naturally to the following question,

(3) should we be exploring alternative reading of network media if indeed, the traditional way is no longer relevant?

Put it another way, have we also reached a juncture where we would need to re-examine traditional norms that are clearly challenged by new forms of social conduct, which have evolved alongside the developments in communication technology?

Similarly, I would think it’s an irrelevant exercise to prejudge Reality TV based on traditional TV production values.

That much said, I do have to qualify here that I’m not for the idea of trashing all our historical literary treasures.

So in short my answer would be, to each of his/her own. It’s ultimately your own word that counts (or the romantic in me would like to think so) in cyberspace.