From legal thrills to thrills of Internet chase

2009/09/16

From Zaharah Othman in London

YANG-May Ooi, author of legal thrillers Mindgame and The Flame Tree, has taken a break from writing novels to observe how the emergence of online communication tools such as Facebook, Twittering, podcasting and blogging have dramatically changed the way people digestpeople digest and consume information.

Working with co-author Sylvia Cambié, a cross-cultural communicator and a journalist, Malaysian-born Ooi documented their observations in cross-cultural communications, public relations and social media, in a new book entitled International Communications Strategy.

The book, published by Kogan Page and launched recently at the Chicago Booth University in London, looks at real-life best practices and hands-on cases taken from around the world and gives communications practitioners essential information enabling them to offer strategic guidance.

Ooi, a solicitor turned writer on cross-cultural issues and social media, is also an active blogger and podcaster.

From the moment of conception, the book took 18 months to complete.
“I had fun and a fascinating time researching how businesses and communities have been using social media to develop their communication strategies.

“I spoke and emailed to a range of people around the world, including a journalist in Burkina Faso, the chief executive officer of a health focused social network in Texas, litbloggers in Malaysia, and learning about how social media is being used by animal welfare groups in China,” she said.

Sylvia Cambié and Yang-May Ooi during the launching of their book entitled International Communications Strategy at the Chicago Booth University in London recently.

“The research gave me an opportunity to be nosey, to ask them why they started blogging and what they blogged about. “You find people through blogging and you interact with them.

“It is a very Malaysian thing and you interact with others online without having to know their age, race or religion.
“I find that blogging comes naturally to Malaysians.”

On the Malaysian blogging scene, Ooi and Cambié observed the competition faced by mainstream media especially during the 2008 elections and how the voice of the ordinary people was heard through their interaction online, bringing about a new level of playing field.

Ooi and Cambié talked about the emergence of citizen journalism where housewives, men and women on the streets became reporters with real-life stories to tell.

“Citizen journalism is bringing back personalisation to content creation,” says Ooi, citing intriguing and personal stories from war-torn Baghdad and The Tsunami Blog, which made more interesting reading than watching and reading the mainstream media.

“There are a lot of books about social media and blogging written by Americans.
“They are focused on western models partly because the technology evolved in the Silicon Valley and blogger.com is American.

“So, I am quite pleased that Sylvia and I had the opportunity to showcase international readership, innovative and interesting uses of the social media in Malaysia and other Asian countries.”

The authors noted that this phenomenon in the way communication had changed has come at a time when mobile phones are becoming more web-friendly in terms of functionality and cost.

“Social media may be the biggest, most influential trend right now.

“However, developers are already creating applications for mobile communications, converging online with mobile users even as we write,” she said.