On Di BOBOto! (a reaction paper)

One of the things that make the Philippines stand out from any other nations is being a democratic state—and the right to vote is one of the facets of a democratic society, as this particular right is considered as a fundamental application of democracy. However, with all the controversies surrounding the political side of our government at present, a lot of people (especially voters) are now thinking twice if their votes are actually being counted. ‘Dagdag-bawas’ and vote buying are the most prominent issues surrounding our election process. The most recent, however, is the ‘Hello, Garci’ controversy which contains the president’s voice talking to the Comelec chairman while the ballots are still being casted.

Although the right of suffrage is practiced here in the Philippines, there are still a lot of Filipinos who seem to be unhappy with the way our politics is being run. And so, the focus of this article is about the perceptions of the voters regarding the country’s national elections—highlighting that of the first time voters. This article also aimed to find out how these first time voters view our electoral process and how or where they actually get this knowledge. And the result of the studies show that the youth voters rely on the television and their immediate associations—families, friends, or community—in their pursuit of knowledge about elections. Furthermore, it was revealed that the youth, in fact, view the elections negatively.

As a youth, and as a prospective voter, I must admit that I am one of those who actually have a negative perception about the elections here in the Philippines. I was actually a witness on how the country survived the series of impeachment trials, people power revolutions, politicians’ filing of cases after losing in the elections, and so on. And definitely, these events only leave a negative impact on the Filipinos, including myself.

Aside from this, I very much agree to the fact that the television and personal networks of a person affect his or her level of knowledge and his or her attitude towards election here in the Philippines. Personally, I also look up to the television as a source of information regarding the candidates aiming for a position. Because as a youth, I am not really that very familiar with Philippine politics, more so about the profile of each candidates. And so, I use the television in order to familiarize myself with them and their platforms, as well.

Personal networks are also one of the factors given which influences voters on whom to vote or who can make the greatest change in our country. As I have noted earlier, this may include ones family, friends, or the immediate community. True enough, they are the right persons who can provide us, first time voters, with information about the candidates. Moreover, they are the ones (especially the parents or the elderly) who have the previous experiences about elections and they are more knowledgeable about the right persons to occupy a certain position.

If I may quote Dr. Jose Rizal, “ang kabataan ang siyang pag-asa ng bayan”. With the challenges that our country face through the years, it is just right to place the responsibility on today’s youth because they are the ones who are most affected by the breakdown of our economy… and our country. A lot of young people, including myself, feel the responsibility to bring this country back to its stature that our grandparents experienced.

It’s not yet the end of the world. There are still a lot of things to be done, a lot of steps to make, and a lot of efforts to give for this country to continuously prosper. Maybe this is a call both for the candidates and for the youth.

For the candidates, they should be true to themselves. The Filipinos are intelligent enough to know who says the truth and who are only lying. They should not be self-centered and hungry for money and fame. It is time to change the Philippine government and to prove to the Filipinos that there’s still hope in building this country.

And for the youth, this is the chance to speak up and let their voices be heard. The future of the whole nation is in their very hands and they must take the courage to vote whomever they think is deserving of the position so as to achieve our much needed change. They should not waste the right to vote that was given to them. They should be very critical in choosing their bets and they must be mindful of the needs of the country so that they will only choose the one who best fits the criteria. Lastly, they should not take for granted their right to vote because it is their future that is at stake.

Let us all vote wisely and together watch this country grow into a more prosperous and better place to live in.

what kind of facebook user are you?

Facebook has now become one of Filipino’s most favorite social networking sites. And because of this, one can readily name different types of users by merely observing their status messages. Last Sunday, I happened to watch QTv’s “Ang Pinaka”, with the topic “Ang Pinaka Pasaway na Facebook user”. But then again, after seeing the list, I asked myself what kind of facebook user a person has to be so he/she won’t be included in the list of ‘pasaway’ users. And so, I changed the subject line while still retaining the list.

The top ten most famous type of facebook users are:

10. THE SYMPATHY BAITER

Sympathy baiters are those who post status messages like “I’m sad because I failed” or “my boyfriend cheated on me! Am I not worth loving?”. This type of facebook user basically wants his friends to feel sorry and empathize with him. Admittedly, sympathy baiters can get very irritating especially when they expect you to identify with their depression. But then, we can not blame them. Facebook may be the only avenue for them to express their sadness.

9. THE OBSCURIST

This kind of facebook user tends to post messages that are vague and hard to understand. They take pleasure in posting something that would make other people think hard and be amazed with him.

8. THE PAPPARAZO

Paparazzos are people who are fond of posting photos/videos of their friends as their status message—and they’re doing it without the person’s consent. They do this every time they use facebook, and they take pleasure in doing this.

7. THE BAD GRAMMARIAN

Text lingo, gay lingo, and the combination of big and small letters—these are the characteristics of a bad grammarian. Although a lot of people are used to this kind of communicating or expressing their thoughts, it is sometimes very annoying because not a lot of people are used to reading words typed in ‘tHis MaNNeR’. It looks hard to read, and inappropriate for an online site like facebook where a lot of people can read it. But more than that, this type of status messaging has a bad effect on the person in such a way that it can affect a person’s communicating skills. When a person gets used to this kind of writing, there is a high possibility that he or she would use this in his or her work.

6. THE CHRONIC INVITER

Chronic inviters are those who keep on bombarding people with invites to join their games, causes, quizzes, applications, and so on. Inviting people once in a while is okay. But doing it every single day is a different thing. Besides, one has an option to skip inviting friends.

5. THE CRANK

“I WANNA KILL THE GIRL WHO STOLE MY BOYFRIEND!!”, “I HATE THE TRAFFIC IN MANILA!!”

These are some examples of a crank’s posts. Cranks are fond of complaining, ranting, and whining about everything.

4. THE SELF PROMOTER

Self promoters tend to promote their blogs, videos, events, and businesses in facebook. They do this by providing links that would connect friends to the actual site. Promoting personal sites is okay. But there should always be a limit to it. People have to keep in mind that facebook is an avenue to communicate with friends. One must not transform facebook into an online billboard.

3. THE FRIEND PADDER

The more friends, the merrier—this is the motto of a friend padder. He keeps on adding friends, and even people he does not know. Friend padders made networking a game. Some even brag about the number of friends they have in facebook! Facebook is a site where we can reconnect with our friends and loved ones, and constantly communicate with them. Because at the end of the day, real life friends are far better than virtual ones.

2. THE TMI-er (too much information)

“OMG! I have a huge pimple on my butt!”

TMI-ers consider their life as an open book and do not care if they’re already sharing too much information about their personal lives—their sex life, diseases, etc. This is very inappropriate since a lot of people are able to read their posts and may get irritated by their transparency. Discreetness and the right choice of message must always be on top of the mind of facebook users. If it’s very private, just keep it to yourself.

1.THE “LET ME TELL YOU EVERY DETAIL OF MY DAY” USER

“Just ate sinangag and tuyo for breakfast!”, “currently eating puto!”, “will use the bathroom in a while..”

These are examples of status messages of this kind of user. It’s also very irritating because who cares if you’re going to the bathroom or you’re eating puto? One must remember to always post something that is relevant or interesting to the readers.

** True enough, there are people in facebook who are like these. And personally, I can relate to every type of user since I believe I have been like them in one way or another. I have been a sympathy baiter, an obscurist, a crank, and so on. But I am most guilty of being a self promoter since I’ve been promoting my blog site, events, and videos for months now. And I must say that facebook is really an effective avenue for promotions.

There’s nothing wrong with expressing your thoughts on your facebook accounts. But we must all keep in mind that there are people who may not be able to think in the same way as we do. And there are people who may not get to jive with our interests.

After learning the different types of facebook users, I can only leave this pointer: YOU CAN STILL BE YOURSELF EVEN WHEN YOU’RE KEEPING EVERYTHING IN MODERATION. 

when privacy meets publicity

Social Networking Sites are very famous among young people, especially here in the Philippines. Almost majority of the youth have their own accounts in various SNS. Some say that it is through these sites that they get to meet a lot of new friends, while others say that their sole reason is to reconnect with their loved ones abroad, or their ‘long-lost friends’.

While it is true that SNS provide an avenue for people to actually create a new connection and at the same time rebuild an old connection, I believe there’s this one more thing that caused people to join these sites—and that is, to have their own space wherein they could just have their own piece of privacy.

Personally, I have the same mindset the first time I had my personal site. I always want to have the privacy I can’t get from my own room, or by writing a diary (which can be read by anyone whenever you’re not around). For me, privacy in the web starts with choosing your own email address, securing your site with a password, and basically having the freedom to write whatever you want to say with an option of having it published or keeping it private.

But as time goes on, I realized that I was wrong because today, we get super exposed in the internet. Our personal information are out in the open and are available for everyone to see. Here are some proofs:

• We can be searched in the web by just merely typing our names.
• Tagging makes it easier for other people to locate our whereabouts in the web. Results will show the different sites we’re in, our blog posts (even the personal ones), our photos, and so on.
• People are fond of posting bulletin posts in Friendster which sometimes contain surveys asking very personal questions,
• Everyone will know whatever we are doing through our posts/updates in facebook, twitter, and plurk.
• Our replies in other persons’ posts are also visible even to people not on our contacts (particularly in Facebook and Friendster)
• Our personal videos in YouTube may be accessible to people and may use it without our consent.
• Photos can be easily grabbed and downloaded.
• Most of all, hackers are already surrounding the web, making our personal sites susceptible to hacking and from manipulation of information by these hackers.

All these and more only prove how we can be a ‘public figure’ in our quest for having a more private space. It is not wrong to write some things about ourselves in our personal sites. All we have to do is to be more careful and mindful of what we write and what we post. Because at the end of the day, it is still our ‘privacy’ and ‘personal lives’ that are at risk.

Shift Happens!

In our world that is always in a state of flux, we cannot expect a thing to remain the same for a long time—be it in our love lives, jobs, hobbies, and even in technology particularly in the world wide web.

While it is true that sh*t happens, we must also consider the fact that in this world… Shift Happens! Here’s a video presenting the various shifts in technology, our use of the internet, and life as a whole.. which are actually happening, yet, not a lot of people are aware of. Enjoy!!

Kimmy Dora and the New Social Media

Billboards, television, radio, and print advertisements, posters, and so on—these are what typical movie productions have in common in terms of promoting their movies. Effective, yes… but affordable? A big NO.

As we all know, movies here in the Philippines are under the same production teams like Star Cinema, GMA Films, etc. They have been in the business for quite a long time now and have already earned the money needed for a movie’s promotion and advertisements. But how about those who are only starting in the business? How are they going to cope with the financial demands of movie promotions?

SPRING FILMS is one of the newest production teams here in the Philippines headed by Bb. Joyce Bernal and Mr. Piolo Pascual. They are also the ones who are behind the success of their latest movie offering—Kimmy Dora.

Spring films was very successful in promoting/advertising Kimmy Dora as reflected by the movie turn out. But not a lot of people realize that the movie did not have much television, radio, and print advertisements. So how do they go about this promotion stage? Of course, through the use of New Social Media.

Let’s start off with the movie trailer. Spring Films used YouTube in making their trailer reach the public.

Using YouTube is a very good way for them to publish the trailer because as we all know, a lot of people online are in Youtube and there’s no way for them to miss the video. Also, in this way, they were also able to make it viral. Meaning, once a person get to watch the trailer and liked it, he/she can recommend it to his/her friends, and let it reach a wider audience.

But a movie trailer in YouTube is not enough. Spring Films made it a point that more people will get higher interest in their movie. And they did this through Friendster, Facebook, and Twitter accounts. In this Social Networking sites, they used the two main characters—Kimmy Godong Hae and Dora Godong Hae—as owners of the accounts.

These two accounts are evidences of how the people accepted and embraced not only the characters, but most especially, the movie as a whole.

Kimmy Dora’s success has already proven not only how great the movie is, but also how the New Social Media can be of great help in the promotion of the movie. For new organizations like the Spring Films production, their use of social media is very brilliant because it is the cheapest way of advertising, not to mention, effective in terms of reaching a wider audience.

social media press release

From companies to media people—this is the practice companies are used to when it comes to publishing their press releases.

Having been exposed to the world of public relations during my internship last summer, I was kind of used to this kind of activity. Writing of press releases, press rounds (that is, distributing the press release from one publication to another and having a small talk with the editors), and monitoring. Although traditional, a lot of companies are still using this kind of PR.

But not known to a lot of people, there’s a new way of writing press releases.  And this is through the use of social media.

Here’s some comparison of the old and new ways of public relations.

Traditional Public Relations

The media is the only option for companies to get published Only reporters and journalists can see the press releases Press releases are mostly about what a product does Companies focus on 4P’s—product, price, place, and promotion Today’s Public Relations Internet can now be used for press releases Press releases are now open for public to see (online presence) Press releases focus on what can make your products stand out and how it can solve consumer problems Additional focus on PEOPLE

This only shows that in the new form of writing and publishing a press release, a company’s presence on television, radio, and print is not anymore given much importance; instead, public relations is about buyers/customers buying your product. It’s not about your boss seeing your company on TV and print, and hearing your company on radios. It’s all about your customers seeing your company.

This advancement in public relations has given us a new form of publicizing companies. Here is an example of a social media news release:

The New Social Media Press Release Template

From the sample, we can see the various features of social media that is of great help in contributing content to the story. Features include tagging, bookmarking, and linking to relevant contents. Also this social media press release connects various platforms. There’s interconnectivity among different websites, podcasts, blogs, and so on. Most importantly, this form of press release gives bloggers and journalists enough space for them to use the story on their own. They can use the links, photos, videos, and podcasts for additional information that they can use for their articles. And as I have noted earlier, PEOPLE is now added to the focus of companies. In this way, they are not only doing the broadcast way of promoting their products and services. Instead, products and services are co-created by companies and their consumers.

True enough, sticking to the conventional way of writing press releases may not be effective all the time. Although not a lot of companies in the Philippines have done social media release yet, I can say that it is still worth a try.

Enjoy the ‘Trip’!

Ever wonder how sex is like in other cultures?

Here’s a video about how sex is perceived across various countries around the world.

How about you, how do you spell SEX?

the evolution of communication

Video blogging is a fast rising trend in the use of the internet. Video blogs are similar to traditional and micro blogs in such a way that all of these contains stories that the author tells, they all have themes, and they all have their various purposes—to inform, entertain, or simply just to tell stories.

Here’s a sample of a Vlog. This vlog is about the evolution of communication created by our group: Cosio, De Asis, Gatmaitan, Natividad, Sacdalan,and Villanueva.

Creating a vlog is really hard and it requires a lot of time and effort. But when one puts passion in this kind of craft, it will surely transform into a more enjoyable and fulfilling activity. hope you’ll learn a lot from this video. enjoy watching!!

on corporate blogging

Corporate blogging is another way of writing blogs. But this time, this kind of blog focuses on organizations and companies. Being a relatively new trend in blogging, corporate blogging is not yet embraced by every organization.

Here are some factors:

First, companies admit that they are not yet ready for this kind of advancement in technology. Some companies are still operating in the traditional way and are not yet that open to changes especially in terms of technology.

Second, companies do not have time to devote on this kind of activity—that it’s just a waste of time on their part. Companies think that corporate blogging will take a large chunk of their precious time which they can fully devote on more productive tasks.

Third, companies think that they do not have anything to say. Most companies think that their company’s intranet is enough to get people’s attention and to actually rely on their products and services.

On the contrary, corporate blogging can be beneficial for them in some ways:

First, aside from the intranet, blogging can be a form of advertising/promotion of a company. It is in blogging that they can make their companies known especially for those people who rely on the internet for information about companies.

Second, blogging is not a waste of time because one can write entries during his/her spare time. And blogging can be considered as a productive task since you are doing it for the sake of the company. In fact, the CEO or the president of the company may be the one to write and maintain their corporate blogs. In this way, the entries will be more credible and the structure will be cohesive and parallel.

Third, it is not true that companies do not have anything to say. In fact, they can use corporate blogging to promote their products or services. It is another avenue that companies can take in promoting their services, aside from the traditional means. They can also use blogging to answer their clients’ or customers’ concerns about their products and services because blogging provides space for the company to actually explain to their customers the things that they want to know.

These only goes to show how corporate blogging can help companies in their businesses. It may be new to them.. it may sound too technical.. but it’s up to them to maximize its use and make it work for their advantage.

micro blogging

Blogging has been going on for quite some time now, and a lot of people now enjoy blogging more than anything else.

We are very used to the fact that blogging consists of very long entries about a person’s life—may it be personal, professional, etc. But as time passes by, there are also developments and new trends in blogging. Most prominent is the emergence of Twitter and Plurk where people can now blog using limited characters only—and that is what we now call micro blogging.

twitter

plurk

Micro blogging is a very interesting form of blogging since a person is given limited number of characters. This is a good practice for copyrighting because a person is challenged to say what he/she wants to say in the shortest way possible. And it’s not just about saying things. It’s about making those words matter in order to catch people’s attention.

This new trend in blogging also addresses people’s short attention span when it comes to writing and reading blog entries. Micro blogging makes it easier and is more convenient for people should they intend to build continuous conversations with their followers (readers).

However, the challenge for those bloggers who are still using the traditional way of blogging is to make their blog entries more interesting and ‘attention-catching’ so as to make their readers stick to their sites and read their entire entries.

As for me, I’m still attached to this kind of blogging—the traditional one. I still find it hard to convey my message using limited characters. Also, I enjoy the freedom I get from traditional blogging in terms of the length of my entries. Maybe the right time will come for me to finally embrace micro blogging.

But as for now, I’d stick with this one.