The Philippine Blogosphere and Political Thought 101: The Blogosphere as a Medium for Political Discourse, Part 3

Send an email to The Jester-in-Exile!

(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 second question:

How diversified are the political thoughts which are highlighted and conveyed through the words of different Filipino political bloggers?

Short answer? Very diversified.

However, the devil is in the details.

Given, as mentioned in the previous post, that anyone can start a blog and express one's views on current events and issues if one so chooses, it will be fair for anyone to believe that the blogosphere is a marketplace of ideas and opinions so diverse that Divisoria's fame for its variety of goods will suffer in comparison.

However, there is reason to believe that the Philippine niche of the blogosphere may not have a political spectrum as wide as one may believe.

Fairly recently, blogger CVJ made a survey that was designed to determine the political leanings of some of the Filipino bloggers whose posts are generally of a political bent. Here are the results thus far (image grabbed from CVJ's post, click to enlarge):



(FAQ to the Political Compass survey here.)

Some additional mathematical analysis of the scores may be appropriate (data as of February 4, 2008):

Economic Left/Right (X-axis):

Mean: -3.56
Median: -3.62
Mode: -3.25

Political Authoritarian/ Social Libertarian (Y-axis):

Mean: -2.81
Median: -2.72
Mode: -2.72

Quoting CVJ (additional punctuation mine) on the test:

The quiz plots a person's ideology across two dimensions. The vertical axis represents the (top-to-bottom) authoritarian vs. anarchist scale while the horizontal axis represents the (left-to-right) state intervention vs. "let the market decide" scale.

Although this survey (I hope that CVJ will bear this out) is only a cursory glance at the political leanings of a fairly small number of bloggers (39 bloggers as of February 4, 2008) and will very likely not reflect the overall political landscape of the Philippine blogosphere (given the small sample size vis-a-vis the large number of Filipinos in the blogosphere, not to mention Filipions who maintain an online presence via Friendster, Facebook, and other social networks and may be expressing their opinions via these online services).

However, if we can agree that the results are an accurate reflection of the politics of the Philippine blogosphere, we can derive a few conclusions, which may or may not be accurate.

CVJ says:

My take on the quadrants is on how one feels about how effective the market or the people is as mechanisms for organizing and coordinating the activities of society.

My understanding is that those in the right side (whether top or bottom quadrant) believe in the market (i.e. price mechanisms) as an effective way of signalling and coordinating activities to a greater degree than those on the left. Although I'm on the left, I'm a believer in the market but I also believe in the possibility of market failure.

Those on the bottom side (whether left or right), believe in the ability of people to work together for the benefit of society. Those on the top side (whether left or right) see the need for a vanguard (whether individual or group) to direct the activities of society.

With the majority of the data points on the lower left quadrant I would also presume to interpret the graph (in relation to the survey questions) as follows:

Even while the Filipino blogosphere is generally in favor of more state control of the marketplace and less deregulation (perhaps generally in the area of price fixing of basic goods and other such matters), the average Filipino political blogger looks askance at the limiting of civil and political rights.

The average Filipino political blogger may generally be liberal (or at the very least, neutral) with regard to controversial issues such as divorce, gay marriage, reproductive health and population management, abortion and the woman's "right to choose", conscientious objection to military service, affirmative action, women's, children's, and indigenous peoples' rights and others similar, the environment vis-a-vis the exploitation of natural resources, and other such issues being hotly contested by various sectors of society, but will strongly and vociferously oppose any efforts to stifle discussion and debate on such matters.

The average Filipino political blogger may generally support participative governance and progressive politics over the possibility of the "strong leader" vis-a-vis "faithful followers" paradigm, despite the Filipino political blogger generally being an advocate of law and order. There is also a general distrust of traditional politics and politicians, and while there is a presence of those posting apologia the demand for transparency and accountability in government is by far much more strident.

Among other things, of course, but I think we need not belabor the obvious.

***
I think that we can move on to why the Philippine blogosphere has such a landscape. At the risk of sounding simplistic, my take on why the Filipino blogosphere is of such a persuasion is simply this: I believe that the Filipino blogger puts a high premium on the right to free expression, and by extension the gamut of civil and political rights.

Consider: blogging is a form of expression whose limits in terms of loquacity or brevity are set by the individual blogger. Unlike "old media", where a limited amount of column inches or airtime can be allotted for the readers' or listener's reactions, a blog has very few limitations on the volume of expression a blogger (or a commenter, even) can post, and thus a blogger can harp on at length over some issue or other without fear of his post being redacted.

Consider likewise that blogging is a form of expression where the blogger has no editors, and thus any opinion he expresses is completely his and in his language of choice. Such a blogger may have a sense of empowerment with this ability to express his own opinion in his chosen language without his thoughts or language being subject to criticism or even censorship prior to his post being published.

With these said, it will be difficult to picture a Filipino blogger to take a stand supporting the curtailment of individual freedoms, especially the right to free expression, no matter how hardline his political stance is. Corollary to that, the Filipino political blogger will quite likely adopt a live-and-let-live stance in terms of other bloggers, especially other bloggers whose opinions may be diametrically opposite to theirs. At most, the blogger in question will engage the blogger in debate; else, the blogger could simply ignore these others, trusting his readership to determine for themselves which arguments have more weight.

***
RMBG's third question coming up in the next post. Stay tuned... maybe later this evening or afternoon. I have work to do.

(Speaking of work, I'm rather disappointed with one or two outfits who have recently come a-calling... if you've changed your mind about your need for my skills, would it be too much to ask to let me know? Thanks.)

Oh, and Smart is acting up again. Surprising? Naaaaah. Smart is notoriously unreliable -- quote me on that, sure.

Later, all.