Nowadays, the influence of the advertisements of the candidates are so strong that they really show the extremities of the country's condition. Here's the article I've seen about the influence of Social Media to the Elections.
Will social media be a game changer in the May polls?
By Joey Alarilla, Yahoo! Southeast Asia
Sure, many Filipinos are flocking to social networks, seemingly obsessed with posting real-time status updates and interacting with each other online. But will this virtual beehive of activity translate to meaningful participation in the May national elections?
The role that social media will play in the upcoming Philippine elections was tackled at the Yahoo!-initiated Purple Thumb social media forum held on February 16 at the Hotel Inter-Continental Manila in Makati City. While some speakers disagreed on just how big a factor social media will be in determining who will win, they unanimously acknowledged that social media is useful for generating buzz and influencing mainstream media.
Howie Severino, editor in chief of GMANews.TV, and Arlene Burgos, head of social media of ABS-CBNNews.com, talked about how social media is transforming the newsroom and enhancing their coverage of the elections.
Severino cited the real-time updates that the GMANews.TV team is posting on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook.
“We call it rapid reporting," Severino said. "We don't want to call it microblogging, because this is journalism," he explained, saying that editors vet the social media posts, just as they would any news story that they publish on their site.
Meanwhile, Burgos talked about the passion of the citizen journalists, whom she referred to as citjourns. She cited the 62,994 citjourns who have played a vital role in the news organization’s coverage of historic events such as the death and funeral of former Philippine president Corazon Aquino.
Burgos said the Boto Mo, Ipatrol Mo project, which is mobilizing citizens for the electoral coverage, is at the heart of ABS-CBN's social media initiatives. “The heart of social media is that it allows the people's voices to be heard, in ways they were never heard before.”
Blogger, columnist and TV host Manuel L. Quezon III, however, cautioned against assuming that the politically engaged Filipino users of social media are representative of the majority of Filipino voters.
He pointed out that only a small minority of the electorate is active on social media, and that it remains to be seen whether a candidate’s online popularity will translate to actually influencing people to vote for them.
“Social media is just one more base for the candidates to cover,” Quezon said, explaining that they do not yet see it as a major factor in the elections. He described social media as a “political petri dish” which is useful for testing different strategies before they are implemented on other aspects of the campaign.
Quezon said the commitment of Filipinos to online causes is “fleeting, reactive and non-deliberative,” but while it might not sway the opinion of undecided voters, social media can influence the perception of mainstream media. At the end of the day, traditional media is still what will shape the political opinions of the majority of Filipinos, with television being the chief influencer. The results of the survey Quezon was citing are posted on his Tumblr.
For her part, Janette Toral of DigitalFilipino.com talked about how candidates are promoting their personal brand on social media and creating their own tribes.
“In everything you have to be a purple cow,” Toral said, using the phrase from Seth Godin’s book, referring to the need to be remarkable in what you do.
She noted how public opinion is being shaped not only by the social media campaigns of the candidates, but also by user-generated content, such as the “80 variations” of the popular campaign jingle of presidential candidate Manny Villar.
“I’m biased to be an optimist,” Toral quipped, saying she believes social media will play a significant role in the upcoming polls, particularly if the election will be a closely fought one.
From the other side of the fence, blogger and lawmaker Mong Palatino said that social media is good for activism, as he shared his own experiences during his talk.
Palatino, however, pointed out that many politicians rely on their staff to update their social networks, adding that some lawmakers have a low opinion of bloggers and citizen journalists.
“They’re prepared for attacks from journalists, but not from anonymous bloggers,” he shared. Palatino added that local politicians do not care that much about social media as most of their constituents are still offline.
Interestingly, however, Margaux Salcedo, the official spokesperson of former president Joseph Estrada, who is again running for the presidency, said they see the value of a social media presence even though most of Estrada’s supporters come from the C, D and E sectors who are offline.
“Erap is not a Tweep,” Salcedo quipped, candidly admitting that Estrada does not post the updates on the @PresidentErap Twitter account. This account is managed by his staff, including Salcedo.
She said, however, that the Estrada campaign team decided to incorporate social media to reach out to overseas Filipinos, and to gather feedback from voters who are online.
Game changer or not, the forum showcased the fact that social media is making its presence felt in Philippine politics, and this is a development that the candidates cannot completely ignore.
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Source: http://ph.beta.promo.yahoo.com/purple-thumb/editors-log-article?blogid=editors_log&postid=75&viewPost=1
Enjoy!
-Agbayani, James Edward C.-
February 18, 2010
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