Blogosphere: Where are the GMA Forces?
Why is the administration silent in the blogosphere? Don’t they realized that a campaign is being waged here just as feisty as it is in the mainstream media and no soul brave enough from the administration is countering all the blog blitzes here?
With only one’s wit and prose and without editorial control other than oneself to restrict the language, and coupled with ready-to-made blogging templates and instant transmission of blogs through cyberspace within seconds, a blogger can just as easily advance any policy advocacy, critique any action and even frame flaming issues of the day with impunity.
A slew of political blogs in the internet would seem to suggest that anti-GMA forces have taken hold of the blogosphere and that its advocates have seen fit to harness its pervasiveness to spread their leanings. Opinion writers from the mainstream media have taken this new forum to further advance their ideas, drawing strength, compliments or criticism from other bloggers and even expounding their hostile views on GMA and the administration.
On the other hand, journalists and media reporters who cannot not appear to be objective have poured their inner thoughts, and personal onus on their own blogs, and discovering for themselves the liberating experience of candidly sharing their daily confrontations with the powers-that-be.
Which brings me to the question: Where are the defenders of GMA in the blogosphere? It is as though (1) the GMA defenders are so reticent with the deluge of anti-GMA rhetoric that there is no sense in advancing her cause; (2) the blogosphere is still a limited and budding medium that language and costs have prevented the hoi polloi from attaining critical mass and so there is no need to worry; or (3) only the elite have access to the internet and their loyalties are a foregone conclusion.
There may be other reasons for staying out of this sphere but if the absence is unintentional, it shows despite its avowals of coping with new technology, the administration is still the same crawling leviathan that lags behind the private sector. However, if its absence is by choice, it shows the unwillingness of pro-GMA forces to engage the bloggers on an intellectual level. Perhaps, because the blogosphere is unwieldy, confronting all the issues in the blogosphere would require a full time personnel to rebut all arguments.
But most intriguing as well is the absence of pro-GMA private bloggers. They seem to have left the building. In all likelihood, they see that evidences confronting GMA’s culpability are overwhelming that defending her on a purely legal basis such as admissibility of the Garci tapes is best left for lawyers to debate.
Likewise, defending GMA’s continued stay in office on the basis of the lesser of two evils or who can best lead the country are not exactly strong arguments vis-à-vis the moral fitness of the president and the continued and pervasive influence of jueteng money in the highest levels of the Executive Branch.
While these arguments appear to be insurmountable, the pro-GMA bloggers need not be stymied by how anti-GMA bloggers frame the issues. There is no shortage of spin anyway in media. The same spin can be applied with greater efficacy in the blogosphere because of the natural chaos that abounds in the medium and its lack of cohesive unity other than links and comments. Divide and conquer is another strategy that one can use. At the very least, some measure of defense must be advanced, otherwise, the opposition can claim to the entire lay of the land.
Sadly, we find no credible defense of the president in the blogs. We can rail against some obnoxious figures in the opposition but the thrust of the political blogs have been pretty solid against GMA. Even journalists-bloggers who tread a thin line often come out with blogs seemingly anti-GMA.
Like it or not, the blogosphere is the next agora where the war of ideas will be waged, battled and tested. And unless some giant can advance an intellectual and spirited defense of the president, from an IQ viewpoint, her administration will be remembered where intellectual orcs roamed free and where the talents like reasoned and enlightened thinking were all hidden in a bushel.
Unless someone comes to the rescue, the House of Arroyo will not be the House set on the hill.
With only one’s wit and prose and without editorial control other than oneself to restrict the language, and coupled with ready-to-made blogging templates and instant transmission of blogs through cyberspace within seconds, a blogger can just as easily advance any policy advocacy, critique any action and even frame flaming issues of the day with impunity.
A slew of political blogs in the internet would seem to suggest that anti-GMA forces have taken hold of the blogosphere and that its advocates have seen fit to harness its pervasiveness to spread their leanings. Opinion writers from the mainstream media have taken this new forum to further advance their ideas, drawing strength, compliments or criticism from other bloggers and even expounding their hostile views on GMA and the administration.
On the other hand, journalists and media reporters who cannot not appear to be objective have poured their inner thoughts, and personal onus on their own blogs, and discovering for themselves the liberating experience of candidly sharing their daily confrontations with the powers-that-be.
Which brings me to the question: Where are the defenders of GMA in the blogosphere? It is as though (1) the GMA defenders are so reticent with the deluge of anti-GMA rhetoric that there is no sense in advancing her cause; (2) the blogosphere is still a limited and budding medium that language and costs have prevented the hoi polloi from attaining critical mass and so there is no need to worry; or (3) only the elite have access to the internet and their loyalties are a foregone conclusion.
There may be other reasons for staying out of this sphere but if the absence is unintentional, it shows despite its avowals of coping with new technology, the administration is still the same crawling leviathan that lags behind the private sector. However, if its absence is by choice, it shows the unwillingness of pro-GMA forces to engage the bloggers on an intellectual level. Perhaps, because the blogosphere is unwieldy, confronting all the issues in the blogosphere would require a full time personnel to rebut all arguments.
But most intriguing as well is the absence of pro-GMA private bloggers. They seem to have left the building. In all likelihood, they see that evidences confronting GMA’s culpability are overwhelming that defending her on a purely legal basis such as admissibility of the Garci tapes is best left for lawyers to debate.
Likewise, defending GMA’s continued stay in office on the basis of the lesser of two evils or who can best lead the country are not exactly strong arguments vis-à-vis the moral fitness of the president and the continued and pervasive influence of jueteng money in the highest levels of the Executive Branch.
While these arguments appear to be insurmountable, the pro-GMA bloggers need not be stymied by how anti-GMA bloggers frame the issues. There is no shortage of spin anyway in media. The same spin can be applied with greater efficacy in the blogosphere because of the natural chaos that abounds in the medium and its lack of cohesive unity other than links and comments. Divide and conquer is another strategy that one can use. At the very least, some measure of defense must be advanced, otherwise, the opposition can claim to the entire lay of the land.
Sadly, we find no credible defense of the president in the blogs. We can rail against some obnoxious figures in the opposition but the thrust of the political blogs have been pretty solid against GMA. Even journalists-bloggers who tread a thin line often come out with blogs seemingly anti-GMA.
Like it or not, the blogosphere is the next agora where the war of ideas will be waged, battled and tested. And unless some giant can advance an intellectual and spirited defense of the president, from an IQ viewpoint, her administration will be remembered where intellectual orcs roamed free and where the talents like reasoned and enlightened thinking were all hidden in a bushel.
Unless someone comes to the rescue, the House of Arroyo will not be the House set on the hill.
posted by Edwin Lacierda | 10:07 PM
3 Comments:
hawkeye,
That's a nice quip. Adding pun to that, anybody who tries to may turn out to be a hillbilly.
The administration I think will choose to ignore the blogosphere simply because it will take too much effort to reply with so little to show for it in return. The potential audience is either too small (I can hear them sneer, how many Filipinos actually go online) or too far away to be of much consequence.
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