Ok, this has been bugging me for a while...

Ok, this has been bugging me for a while…

As much as I appreciate an organization such as Rappler and what it is attempting to achieve, its focus on breaking stories down according to ‘mood meters’ is kind of misguided. It actually also acts as another pointed commentary on public discourse in the Philippines.

This ‘crowd-sourcing’ of emotional responses does little to further discussion, it has the unfortunate by-product of reducing discourse to almost unimportant binary considerations. Is everyone happy? Is everyone saaaad? How many are happy? How many are saaaaad? How are we feeling today?

Look, how people feel should be far less important than what they think about an issue, or a story. Yet it is the emotions that our media loves to exploit, it is their baser feelings on which they thrive. Feelings drive clicks, reblogs, comments, views, and subscriptions. Tony Judt, in his book Ill Fares the Land, commented on this global degeneration of public discourse: “Demagogues tell the crowd what to think; when their phrases are echoed back to them, they boldly announce that they are merely relaying popular sentiment…professional politicians now claim to listen to vox populi in the form of instant phone-in votes and popularity polls on everything from immigration policy to pedophilia. Twittering back to their audiences its own fears and prejudices, they are relieved of the burden of leadership or initiative.”

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Now people, this is how you rant about the Philippine media.

I do also like what Rappler is trying to be. But I hope they would reflect more of the kind of journalism their partners from Newsbreak are known for - hard-hitting, well-researched, and fearless investigations on social issues. I hope they would not become what most of the broadcast media outfits we have nowadays, who, as @iwriteaswrite said, are more focused on the emotions of a select group of people in the Capital.

I do know that Rappler is supposed to explore the potentials of new media being a tool for social change in the country. But I think it is important to remember that Internet penetration in the country is still limited. Some may argue that the Philippines is among the fastest growing countries in the use of social media networks and all, but it’s not the mere numbers which people should take account of, it should be the reach of Internet and social media usage.

Most in the urban environment would like to believe that social media networks matter. And to some extent they do, in the urban setting. But out in the rural areas, people still depend on transistor radios. You may have TV sets, yes, but only in areas where there is electricity and the road conditions are good. And yes, believe it or not, there are still areas in the country which have never had electricity and good roads.

Of course, the surveys would tell you another thing. It would speak of the glowing increase in the use of Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr in the country. But where were these surveys taken? Who were involved? And how were these surveys conducted? More often than not, they are conducted in Metro Manila, Cebu and Davao. And usually, it only covers only around 1000-2000 households. How then can these urbanites speak for over 90 million Filipinos?

And that is why surveys, while sometimes helpful in sensing public sentiment in the cities, should always be taken with a grain of salt. They are as random as the manner in which they were conducted. And the answers of these individuals vary depending on the education they have accumulated, the environment they grew up to and even the mood they were in when the survey as taken. Yes, the mood.

For a country with a slowly building problem on illiteracy, the media should be able to supplement what public education seems to lack. It should promote healthy and meaningful discussions on public issues. And these should be based on intelligent discourses not merely on mood swings.