October 3, 2003
Politics and the new media
Calixto V. Chikiamco for the The Manila Times has an interesting piece on the effects of new media on politics, and how they are pretty much hard to tell beforehand, especially if the medium is new.
"Television's impact on electoral politics, for example, wasn't recognized until the famous Nixon-Kennedy debates in the United States in 1960.
Satellite television helped former Moscow Mayor and Russian President Boris Yeltsin defeat an attempted military coup by helping him quickly mobilize international support.
And the Philipinos have also made media and political history by using SMS technology in helping bring down former President Estrada".
The article continues that the Philippines may make media and political history again with the coming presidential election in 2004 and that the mobile phone rather than the Internet, would again probably be at the center of any significant impact on electoral politics in 2004. Less than than a million Filipinos have Internet connections whereas there are at close to 25 million Filipinos who have mobile phones".
Some conjecture on how cell phones could be used in the next elections:
- A candidate could send his/her picture, which would be like an electronic campaign poster, via MMS to all those MMS-enabled phones.
- A candidate could have his campaign jingle formatted into a ringtone to be downloaded free by his/her followers.
- A candidate could have his own wapsite and let users download pictures, ringtones and data about him/her.
For insight into how powerful SMS can be in shaping public opinion (particularly in the Philippines - dubbed the texting capital of the world) and mobilizing people, read reference article on how «TECHNOLOGY CHANGING POLITICAL DYNAMICS » written by Helen S. Andrade-Jimenez, for which she was awarded the 2001 Citi Journalistic Excellence Award (CJEA).
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