Wednesday 6 December 2017

Topic: Careers in New Media


In a short time, new media has taken over the dissemination of news and information-gathering process as a whole. This transition has led to certain jobs dying due to the lack of need for it. For example, gatekeepers are the ones that hold the main brunt of the change; as social media is not as closely monitored as traditional media. Printers are another party that is no longer needed in the publishing of news, as writers can now post their content directly on the page. As much as it is changing the job scene, it has opened up doors for new opportunities as well: Social media managers and Digital Content Marketers are now highly sought after.
This article touches on potential jobs that might overtake 2017 and in the coming future. As we human beings are already so dependant on the Internet for information, career tools, data processing and analysing, it is inevitable that any career prospects in the future would be technology-oriented.
And so it is listed in the article: from AI Developers to Data Scientists and Cyber-Security Engineers, this further goes to show that technology will play a very big role of success in our future—and jobs might even have to evolve to keep up.
Chane is imminent, and there is no preventing it. In fact, something that we thought we had no control over and would last forever—like the most tedious of jobs—will be dead soon. Therefore, to be relevant in this world I believe it is necessary to polish your skills that are related to anything online. Video editing, software editing, app developer or even a social marketer strategist. It never hurts to learn about social media terminologies and algorithms.
An article by fastcompany.com shares on the future of jobs that will be extinct by 2025 and those that have strong career growth. Here are the ones that will be defunct by then and the ones that will prosper.
In 50 years from now, much of our jobs will be lost to higher-functioning robots taking charge—especially the ones that don’t require high mental strain—administrative, manufacturing, even law. With the robots taking over, much of our job opportunities will be reduced significantly. However, not all is lost, because there are still come skillsets you can polish to bring value to yourself in the future.
Technology and computational thinking, caregiving, educational mentors and social media literacy are necessities that are important skills for you to build.
10 years ago, we would have wondered what cloud-computing or driverless cars even meant—are those even achievable? Today, not only are we fast-forwarding into a reckless pursuit of the Internet’s bottomless potential to reach for more technological endeavours, but we are creating more jobs in the process. Jobs, which we would have laughed at 10 years ago because they just seemed too far away to be real.
But they are real today. This article here predicted what jobs would give us our future, to prepare for the onslaught of change. It is no surprise that Data Scientist and Analyst top the list. With the multitude of information that makes the Internet, it makes sense that people who can interpret and organise the data accurately would be high in demand.
Others are not so predictable, like YouTube content creators—who would’ve thought that streaming yourself online could make millions? I mean, look at Pewdiepie. Not only is the guy a millionaire himself, he’s got millions of followers, and each click earns him a substantial amount. His views average up to a few thousand per day, and he uploads one video every 2 days. How much do you think that would make him?
Adding a local twist, this article focuses on Malaysia’s own job trends that will take over the year. Most of the local sectors included technology, banking services, finance, and digital.
Once again, it comes as no surprise that digital and technology is a big factor contributing to the market’s growth—and businesses are forced to keep up with it. With investments in big data and content marketing on social media platforms, there is demand for influencer marketers, data scientists, and social media marketers.
While Malaysia recognises the need for these platforms, they still run short on getting the experts to run it due to a lack of returning Malaysians. The case would have local talents travelling overseas for studies; before returning to their homeland for a short 2-3 years for the sake of passport renewals before taking off again.
The country’s capital indeed has the potential to be a business-friendly hub in terms of providing marketing and digital services, but they first need to draw back the people needed to do it.
In a jobs survey in November from online job platform Monster’s Employment Index, it was noted that Malaysia has continued to sow growth in the hiring of tech and IT talents this year.
The country’s spike in recruitment has somewhat increased thanks to hardware and software sectors, which has had a 60% year on year growth. In 2015, Computerworld Malaysia noted that general economic uncertainty was behind the drop of online hiring in Malaysia. This was due to the negative perception of Malaysians of the local job sectors, either believing they were not good enough or that there were better opportunities overseas.  
Since Malaysians are notorious for their perceptions that ‘the grass is always greener on the other side’, they close themselves off to chances that are in front of them and try to reach for something that is further instead. However, with the growing need that is data experts and digital marketers, their mindsets have opened to accept that local sectors are worth giving it a try too.

Thanks to that, we now have the needed experts to expand our Internet reach and continue to develop and manage data that will help us reach our own goals in this data-driven world.