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10th anniversary of the Department of Media and Communication (DMC)
The Department of Media and Communication (DMC) established in 2001. Today marks the 10th anniversary of the department, and we celebrated the event at the Cambodiana hotel.
The event was separated into two parts: the conference session in the afternoon and the dinner party in the evening.
In the afternoon event, there is also a debate session on “new media are the most effective platform for social and political participation”. This is the first time in my life that I became one of the debaters in the oppose group.
Please find some photos below from the event:
By: Dara Saoyuth 21/10/2011Join Internet Talk at CTN
29/06/2011 By: Dara Saoyuth Footage recorded on 23/06/2011Last Thursday, Tivea Koam and I were invited to share experiences after working as Cambodian news reporters for more than a year. At the same time, we got a chance to briefly talked about some of our school projects we have completed since year 1 to year 3. The projects include the establishing of KON magazine, and 9 video documentaries we just produced. Below is the interview clip I just got from the station. Cheers,
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- KON appears on WEEKEND issue of The Cambodia Daily (saoyuth.wordpress.com)
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Virtual friends, digital discussions & real worries
Dara Saoyuth steps away from his own Facebook page long enough to talk to anyone in the country who would know about what consequences Cambodian stand to face if they are overly critical online.
My Facebook profile
It went public in 2006, and since then Facebook has become the world’s largest social networking site with more than 500 million active users worldwide. Facebook has increasingly become integrated into Cambodian internet users’ daily experience as more than half of the users surveyed used Facebook at least once a day and another one-third used several times a week, according to an online survey of 468 Cambodian Facebook users published by the Department of Media and Communication.
There are 255,660 total Facebook users in Cambodia now as reported by socialbakers.com, one of the biggest Facebook statistics portals in the world. Users know that Facebook is an effective tool for networking, communicating or advertising, while tending to ignore or simply not knowing about some important aspects that might lead to legal action, especially involving privacy.
For example, Cambodia is no different from the outside world, where a person can be accused of defamation and face legal action if they post something on asocial networking site that is considered a public place. However, no such case has happened in Cambodia, so far.
“So far, there is no point mentioned in Cambodian laws related to Facebook privacy,” said Sok Samoeun, an executive director at Cambodian Defenders Project, who suggested the possibility that a page might not be a private place anymore if everyone can see its contents or that page has hundreds of friends or members.
Pen Samitthy, the president of the Club of Cambodian Journalists and editor-in-chief of the Rasmey Kampuchea newspaper, said that social networking sites are very good because they create a new form of broadcasting news that he called citizen journalism.
“Now everyone can work like a journalist because they can provide information whenever there is computer and internet connection,” said Pen Samitthy, who acknowledged that there were some negative points with this kind of citizen journalism. He said people who use social networking sites as a tool to disseminate information normally don’t have a professional background, so they cannot balance a story and they just write what they see and put what they think with doing proper research.
Posting, commenting and uploading photos or videos are normally what people do on these sites, to share their experiences and emotions towards daily life. Facebook also allows users to create groups, invite other people to join and make discussions on their topic of interest.
Among the numerous groups created by Cambodians, Khmer Motherland (Meatophum Khmer) is supported by its 1,350 members and Khmer People Network (Bondanh Polrot Khmer) is supported by its 294 members. These are two groups that get updated very often. Most of the topics being discussed by these groups is related to politics and social issues.
A 24-year-old university student who asked to be callled by his nickname of Roumket Roumsomrech Roumtver is a member of the two Facebook groups. He said that normally someone puts up a posting and that leads to a discussion which sometimes turns into an argument.
“Since members try to reflect their personal views, especially on politics and the fact that not all of them have the same tendency, some of them have attacked each other in the form of comments back and forth instead of trying to understand one another,” said Roumket Roumsomrech Roumtver, who explained that by not using his real name on Facebook he felt more confident commenting on politics.
Pen Samitty said it will not cause any problems if a person creates a group to discuss things with a few of his or her friends, but it might lead to problems when putting in links for everyone to see. He added that although there is no law on internet use yet, it may violate another law like defamation if someone went too far.
Facebook is an international website that attracts all nationalities, but AngkorOne.com is the international website that attracts Cambodians living all over the world. To help its members get around any legal problems, AngkorOne.com, a Khmer social networking site with nearly 14,000 members, have created some policies for posting things.
Steven Path, the founder and chief executive officer of AngkorOne.com, said he has staff and members to review all the content to make sure that members are respectful to one another and not get involved in political discussions. “When it comes to political attacks, we see on other websites that they attack very violently and we don’t want this to appear on AngkorOne.com,” he said.
“It’s not about quantity, it’s about quality. We are not concerned about having thousands of posts every day, but we do get about 300 to 400 posts per day that are quality ones.”
By: Dara Saoyuth
This article was publish on LIFT, Issue 66 published on April 13, 2011Related Articles
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DMC to host a party for Khmer new year
Department of Media and Communication (DMC) is celebrating a party, which is participated by all year level students, former students of DMC, foreign and Cambodian lecturers. The event covers a lot of activities including praying ceremony, Khmer traditional game, singing, dancing of new style and nice dinner. DMC always hold the party annually in order to celebrate for upcoming Khmer New Year.
02/04/2011 Text by: Sun Narin & Dara Saoyuth
Pine Plantation Area in Mondulkiri
Dear all Student Blog visitors,
As mentioned in previous post, our trip to Mondulkiri 3 weeks earlier is not only a fun but also a study tour. We were assigned to do a project under Eco-tourism theme. My group has done a short video clip on Pine Plantation Area in the province. Let’s see what we have for you! Cheers,
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Reflections on a different of the Kingdom
Sunset in Mondulkiri / by: Dara Saoyuth
The eight-hour trip on the bus to Mondulkiri was the longest journey of my life. To reach the final destination of our class trip to one of Cambodia’s most beautiful places we passed through Kandal, Kampong Cham and Kratie provinces. It wasn’t going to all fun on the trip, as my classmates at the Department of Media and Communication at RUPP and I were divided into groups to do class projects about eco-tourism, however, we were sure to find plenty of time for fun on the trip.
Being used to watching never ending traffic and looking at buildings that reach high into the sky, I really enjoyed the view along the way to Mondulkiri, filled with various types of trees, expansive fields and rolling mountains. Once the long trip was finally over we were dropped off at the city centre, where we checked out the central market and surrounding parks. The market was small and unimpressive and the park was filled with dust instead of flowers, so we weren’t anxious to stick around.
Since 80 percent of the population was comprised of ethnic minorities, making me think it would be rural and lack a lot of modern influence, I was surprised to see there were plenty of guesthouses and karaoke bars nearby. It seemed there were very few differences between life out here and back in Phnom Penh.
But, after talking to some of the native people I began to notice a gap between Cambodians in the city and ethnic minorities in the country side. The indigenous people often live alongside nature and make a living by farming and growing vegetables. Among other things, living deep in the forest or far away from civilization makes it harder for ethnic minorities to get to school and receive a proper education.
Development in Mondulkiri / by: Dara Saoyuth
Now that industry is beginning to get started in the province, people are able to move about more and even start their own businesses in the area. We saw an example of this two nights during a party at Angkor Forest Guesthouse, where we were staying, when people were invited to dance to Khmer music and indigenous music from local minority population.
The hardest part of staying in the northern forest of Cambodia was the cold weather in the evening and especially in the morning. I had to cover myself with two blankets just to sleep, and wear a sweater whenever I left my room. Beyond that, I liked everything in Mondulkiri, especially the natural tourism sites. I certainly wouldn’t hesitate to say yes if anyone asked me to go there again.
By: Dara SaoyuthThis article was published on Lift, Issue 50 published on December 22, 2010 You can also read the article on Phnom Penh Post website by CLICKING HERE
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Study Tour to Mondulkiri
I joined a 3-day trip last week to the northeast part of Cambodia to visit Mondulkiri province. Around 90 students, teachers, and DMC staffs also participated in this study tour. They took with them plenty of digital cameras, video cameras, sound recorders and some other equipment for finishing their project along the way so as a result I have to drop some of my unused files reserving for thousands of photos as well as other media files.
Have you ever been there? If not, I’d like to bring you along with some of my selected photos from my personal cameras. Cheers,
Dara Saoyuth 16/12/2010 Trip to Mondulkiri: Fri-Sun/10-12/2010 Related Story What’s New about Guest House in Mondulkiri (http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/LIFT/)DMC Night Film Screening
Nine movies, shot by students at Department of Media and Communication (DMC), were screened on the wide white clothe in the evening of Saturday, the 28 of February, 2010 from 7 pm to 9 pm. Those films were created by DMC year 3 and year 4 students for their assignments and theses. This was the first time for those films to be shown in public, and that attracted a lot of audiences both Cambodians and foreigners. This event was organized by Dr. Tilman, DMC lecturer, and assisted by Mr. Mony, DMC stuff, and hosted by Meta house organization.
Of those 9 documentaries, five were short which took around 5 minutes each because they had been done for class assignment. However, the last four films, the final thesis for year 4 students of DMC, had around 15 minutes length for each.
Audiences enjoyed watching those film very much, and the sound of hand clapping was generally heard at the end of each film.
After the shows finished, the representative of each films stood in front of audiences to answer the questions and also to recall both their experiences and difficulties in making those documentary films.
With the success in the first show, DMC will show documentary films by DMC students like this again every last Saturday of the month. The topics range from controversial political subjects to the general life in Cambodia.
Encouraged by the success of this event, DMC decided to conduct DMC student-made documentary films show every last Saturday of each month.
Written by: Dara Saoyuth
Written date: 28/02/2010
For META HOUSE website click here
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