A Short Take on the Evolution of News Media in the Philippines
The rise of the “fifth estate”
News Media and Technology
In pre-colonial times, villages leaders (datu) would employ village criers (umalohokan) to announce to the community milestones, happenings, policies, laws. In Spanish colonial times, the invention of the printing press allows for current events to be presented in print media which allows for more audiences to read news at their own convenience. In American occupation times, radio brought about a new medium to air live updates and commentaries and reaching out to far more areas. After gaining independence from the American occupation, television became made people see for themselves the situation.
In modern times, with the advent of the internet and social media, news became way faster as it can be accessed directly and unfiltered from first-hand witnesses.
Traditional News Media
News media, or the Press, in the Philippines is generally controlled by private companies and the Philippine journalist union’s code of ethics maintains that news outlets should be balanced and fair. The Press acts as the spokesperson of the “fourth estate” where it is independent of the government, and acts as a medium for the voices of the people to be heard. However, with the high cost of running a news media entity means it would still rely on funding and sponsorships. Even though the Press is meant to be neutral, some have become obviously partisan. While this healthy and grants the right to freedom of speech and opinions, people have become wary.
The evolution of news media means the dissolution of the monopoly of information from the prominent and giving it to the ordinary people. We relied on word-of-mouth but we question the credibility if the message was unaltered or not. Radio lets us hear for ourselves “straight from the horse’s mouth” but we want to see for ourselves. Television lets us see the situation, but we view only snippets, and not the whole picture. We simply need more information.
This need for more information is fulfilled by social media.
Rise of Social News Media
Social media allows for direct witness accounts, as well as opinions and commentaries from different people that it has disrupted the business of traditional media. People can now peruse and dig deeper into the situation for relatively cheap. Traditional media has limits on what content it can present, but social media is virtually limitless. Traditional media curates a wide selection of topics it presents to the people in order to reach a wider audience, but social media allows people to spend time to study what news topics they are interested in. With traditional media, we are presented with entertainment news, sports news, political news, etc. but with social media, we can choose to just spend our time in sports news if we want to.
The media companies have also started to embrace social media, but they have lost the power of being the “fourth estate”. The people themselves, through social media can directly air their opinions and grievances, and no longer need traditional media as their spokesperson. The people themselves have given rise to the “fifth estate” comprising of citizen reporters, bloggers, and non-mainstream news outlets.
With the Philippines being ranked as the number one consumer of social media, and our Filipino culture of “kapwa” or togetherness, it has become fast, cheap, and easy to present unfiltered news as it happen. It will be inevitable for the future of the Philippines to be shaped by social media.
That is because from here onwards, the traditional news media companies will be facing tough competitors in their delivery and interpretation of news — the people.
