The Philippine Blogosphere and Political Thought 101: The Blogosphere as a Medium for Political Discourse, Part 2

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(Part 1 here.)
(Part 2 here.)
(Part 3 here.)
(Part 4 here.)
(Part 5 here.)

Continuing on answering RMBG's questionnaire, we go now to his first question:

What are the benefits, as well as disadvantages, of the blogosphere as a new medium for conveying the diverse political thoughts in Philippine politics?

I think that the benefits of the blogosphere as a means to convey political thought can be distilled into three: global reach, real-time feedback, and the equality of opinion, while the disadvantages would be the limited local reach and the deluge of information.

Our going into details will take quite a while.

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Let's first speak of global reach and real-time feedback vis-a-vis limited local reach.

Quite obviously, given the nature of the internet, one's readership is not limited by geographical space. When one decides to post an opinion on a blog, the viewing of this opinion is not limited by geographical distance, and this opinion is available for viewing as long as a reader has the means to connect to the internet. With the increasing number of means to connect to the internet via computer (dial-up, RF packet switching, satellite radio, cable TV, DSL, Wi/Fi, connection via cellphone, and so on) and especially due to the growing availability of devices designed to connect to the internet as a secondary function (internet via cable TV, video game consoles, and cellphones, RSS readers on handheld gaming consoles, and so on), we can hypothesize with increasing accuracy that an opinion posted in the blogosphere will reach a reader.

Such accessibility also brings about real-time feedback, wherein a reader can express his agreement or disagreement as soon as he has read the posted opinion. Such real-time feedback would be beneficial for proponents of participative governance (the G2C/C2G feedback loop that is slowly gaining adherents even here in the Philippines -- G2C/C2G means "government to citizen/ citizen to government" communication and feedback), discussion and debate on current events and issues, and (perhaps to some degree) a form of the right to peaceably assemble for the redress of grievances, the right to dissent to others' points of view, even the right to protest against injustice.

A concrete example would be that of the overseas Filipino worker. In the nineteen-seventies, or even the eighties, the OFW would not have been able to raise a timely protest against government measures person might view as oppressive (such as, say, the POEA memorandum circular MC 07-04), while in this day and age, despite the geographical distance between the OFW and Manila, the OFW can raise a protest and even gather his peers to join him in protes.

Here, now, comes the disadvantage -- the limited local reach.

The internet penetration in the Philippines is still very low, and the "digital divide" between those with and those without access to the internet is still very wide. That said, the reach of a political expression posted on a blog will have very limited reach within the Philippines, quite possibly limited to major urban and suburban centers while practically nil in the rural areas. Corollary to that, the impact of such a post may hold currency only in the cities and be of completely no consequence to those in the provinces, having not been heard (bar any action on the part of the blogger or other readers to bring across the message offline, of course).

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Let's now talk about the equality of opinion in the blogosphere vis-a-vis information overload.

My use of the phrase "equality of opinion" means simply this: any Juan, Pedro, or Jun can start a blog and express his opinion on any issue, and the likelihood of his new blog being stumbled upon is the same as that of another Tom, Dick, or Harry who starts a blog at the same time and expresses a contrary opinion. It will matter little if these two bloggers are of different socioeconomic strata; whether Tom goes to Ateneo de Manila while Jun goes to Mataas na Paaralan ng Antamok, or whether Dick and Pedro live in communities as disparate as Ayala Alabang and Alabang Gillage ("gilid ng village"), or whether Harry drives a BMW X5 while Jun gets around by BMX tricycle -- these will matter little in terms of how viral each of their opinions will be in the blogosphere. Generally speaking, a blog posts visibility is dependent on factors that are independent of those mentioned; conversely, the continuing popularity of a blogger is generally dependent on the quality of his online conversation, measurable via links to his posts, Google searches, Technorati references, and so on, and not on his credit rating.

That said, with the relative ease in starting a blog and given the number of new blogs being started each day, it is very easy for an opinion to get lost in the deluge of information available in cyberspace. A post from a new blogger may not be as readily visible as that of a blogger who has had an established online presence and a solid readership.

To illustrate: it will be fairly difficult for a newbie tech blogger to be as searchable as Yuga, and the opinion of the newbie will be given less credence than this established tech blogger, who has already spent several years cultivating his niche. Similarly, it will likewise be fairly difficult for a newbie political blogger to be as popular, notorious, or at least as commonly visited as those of MLQ3, DJB, or Ellen Tordesillas (bar any action that will give the newbie blogger popularity or notoriety, and thus make the blogger the subject of Google searches and backlinks, of course).

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I'll continue answering RMBG's questions in succeeding posts. I need some food. Heh heh.