Political Blogs, Language and the Filipino Elite
For more than one reason, it has been a rewarding day. I joined the Second Philippine Blogging Summit at the University of the Philippines on Tuesday, where I held a talk on “Blogs and Podcasts as Tools for Political Education.”
More importantly, I also met numerous interesting people, most of them fellow-bloggers, and listened to various instructive presentations. The line-up of speakers was so long, that the conference had to be subdivided into breakup sessions. In a way, that was a pity, as it became impossible to hear all talks. This is one more good reason for our decision to document excerpts of the speeches and interviews with the speakers in special episodes of The Liberal Times Manila Podcast.
Fascinating discussions followed the presentations by Manuel L. Quezon III (“Manolo”) and Peter Lavina in the Political Blogging Panel. One participant noted that “about 99 % of the Philippine blogosphere is in English,” and wanted to know what Manolo made of this. “The choice of any other language than English is for many Filipinos a political issue,” he said, and added another point: “Many Filipino bloggers don’t want only a local but an international audience.”
How important the international audience is, became apparent, when Peter Lavina, Coucilor from Davao City, said that most of his readers are outside the country. Peter, who is a successful participant of a recent blogging workshop I had the pleasure to co-facilitate, may be called a rising star of the political blogosphere in the Philippines. From what we were told, he is the only elected public official who blogs regularly. Hard work and regular updates have made this highly motivated local politician a point of reference in Philippine blogging circles.
“Bloggers are often shy to admit they are leaders’” said Manolo. It was obvious that he was not speaking of political, but intellectual leadership. Earlier that day, visiting global blogger Rebecca Mackinnon stated that in the United States blogging remained the domain of the elite. She added that sociologically the U.S. blogosphere was far more elitist than the main stream media (MSM). I mentioned this point of the elitist character of (political) blogging in a discussion cum interview with Erwin Lemuel Oliva, who reports for inq7.net. He subsequently filed a story entitled “Blogging in RP still seen as an ‘elitist’ activity – blogger.”
It is interesting, but not necessarily surprising, that these days all Filipino political bloggers seem to have one common denominator: a rather intense dislike for the incumbent president. I asked one Filipino blogger whether he was aware of any pro-GMA blogs; his answer was negative.
In this regard also, MSM and the political blogs are miles apart in the Philippines
Technorati Tags: philippines, blogs, language, elite
