media redux

In my last post, I made reference to an ever-shrinking world. Convergence has made it so. The speed with which technology has developed and continues to develop is astounding. We have gone from wired to wireless in just a few short years.

Thanks to these technological advances, we have 24-hour cable and satellite broadcasts, podcasts, and streaming video to inform us of global events. While the Vietnam War was brought into American living rooms via radio, the Iraq War was pretty much played out on cable TV and the Internet.

Convergence has redefined not only the media, but more importantly, the field of journalism and its practitioners.

globalization
Behind the phenomenon of convergence is another buzzword: globalization. As trade becomes increasingly liberalized, goods, services -- even manpower -- move more freely and more quickly among countries and regions. Most recently, the global economy has made business process outsourcing, whether it’s telemarketing or medical transcription, a lucrative venture.

The impact of globalization on the media goes beyond technology. Media regulations are less stringent now, allowing for more competition both locally and internationally. True to economic integration, media companies buy out or merge with each other. This gives rise to the question of control. With ownership limited to a few big players -- those who can afford to go high-tech and incorporate telephone, broadcast, and Internet services -- the media are in danger of becoming homogenized in content and commercialized in approach (i.e. if it doesn’t sell, it’s not news).

a convergent philippines
Convergence is already happening in the Philippines. Local print and broadcast media organizations have gone online. In some cases, blogs even serve as significant news sources, as with the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) blog, which gets more hits than its institutional site, as reported in its anniversary blog post.

Another indication of convergence is media ownership. Our Constitution does not allow foreigners to directly own and control media, but about a month ago, reports said that opening media ownership to foreign investors was being considered to put local media “at par” with international media agencies.

As with other Southeast Asian countries, the Philippines must continue to keep up and take advantage of the technology available. Otherwise, it will be counted as nothing more than a consumer of technology.

introductions and confessions

When the Internet was introduced in the Philippines in the early 1990s, our family eagerly got a modem and a dial-up subscription. I was the first among my friends with an email address. I joined a small community of chatters using mIRC, though I never attended EBs (“eyeballs”). I tried my hand at designing websites, starting with one for our design group during the early stages of HTML. (The site disappeared when we terminated our ISP subscription.) I had Geocities sites, frequented sites such as Salon.com (which had just started), and participated in newsgroups. I was hooked on the Internet.

My little love affair with cyberspace took a back seat to work and other concerns. During this time, I had short-lived careers as -- in no particular order -- a theater actress, an indie film art assistant, a researcher, and a freelance photographer. I finally took a job as a feature writer in a now-defunct business newspaper. I then went on to freelancing while designing, proofreading, and editing books. Now, I work as a writer/editor and editorial consultant for a communication and consultancy group. I hope to do more news writing and editing, too.

I didn’t start blogging until recently. My wait-and-see attitude to blogging stemmed from many things -- the demands of work, for one. Then there was caution: there’s a lot of hype out there, and one can easily get sucked in. Part of my caution was a reaction to consumerism and the “misuse” of the Internet. A big part of it was wanting to remain anonymous online.

Things have changed since my early traipses into cyberspace, but despite the bells and whistles, here's the bottom line: the Internet is still a tool for information and communication -- one that engages and empowers people. Hopefully, Convergent Journalism will help me adapt to the demands of an ever-shrinking world.