100ARAW.com

By Tonyo Cruz

(Photo grabbed from RebelReports)

Is the rising use of new media in electoral politics a sign that profound change is coming to the Philippines, a la Obama 2008?

Citizens’ initiatives that use new media to setup and maintain virtual news media outlets (such as Blogwatch.ph, Vote Report Philippines 2010 and 100ARAW.com) are truly a positive development. This and the rising use of blogs and social networking sites as platforms for sharing news and views can only be bad news for those who seek to monopolize the presentation and transmission of information. Indeed, this monopoly is no longer total or complete.

Bigger challenges lie ahead for citizens’ initiatives when the formal campaign actually starts next month. The barons who wish to cash in on the lucrative election season may not take citizens’ initiatives sitting down, especially in areas far from Manila. In the provinces, it is an open secret that airtime and print space is openly sold to the highest bidders. The hope is that citizen-initiated new media projects would remain true to their original public-service mission and resist the temptations.

Legacy or mainstream media meanwhile are adeptly using new media to solicit user-generated content and to mobilize citizens. The stated objective is to include citizens in their coverage. The jury is still out on how far citizens can affect mainstream media coverage of the elections because the industry is fettered by its commercial motives. They have to choose daily between expanding news coverage on their own or with the help of citizens, and with accepting as many advertising placements from agencies and political candidates.

While I have stated that the mainstream media monopoly is no longer total or complete, they still determine their own agenda and even what the government and political players have to react to each day. Corporations that own television and radio networks and newspaper and magazine chains remain the country’s taste-makers, for good or bad.

It is thus imperative for citizens to continue tapping new media for gathering and sharing information and analysis of political developments. The citizens’ best friends in this regard are the alternative, non-commercial media outlets like MindaNews, Northern Luzon Dispatch, Bulatlat and Pinoy Weekly, and the more conscientious and more progressive members of the mainstream media. Citizen-initiated new media projects should also tap the best and positive practices of legacy or mainstream media to build up its credibility. Ethical standards are a mainstay in all fields of human endeavor to raise up the good and to weed out the bad.

More importantly, change-seekers who use new media should provide as much space and take affirmative action for the marginalized and underrepresented majority of farmers, workers and the middle class. These sectors are those that are most interested in change since time immemorial. They want to overturn the rotten status quo in media, politics, economy and culture.

Perhaps the best example to show the potentials of the greatness and nobility that citizen-initiated media efforts may aspire for was our response to the adverse effects of supertyphoon Ondoy. If we can muster the strength to daily and unceasingly champion the interests of others and those who are most in need and use new technology in serving them, we would gain relevance beyond the reach of the internet and show the futility of mainstream media keeping a monopoly that serves only themselves.

Now, this is only one side of the equation on new media – the freer and more expanded exercise of the rights to free speech, free expression and to free access to information, especially those relevant in making an informed choice on May 10.

[Next: The right to form associations]