Digital media in the Philippines

A number of Singapore Management University students interviewed me recently via Skype for their research project on social media in the Philippines, and I am very happy to share the fruits of their hard work, a wiki full of useful data and information on digital media in the so-called social media capital of the world.

I don’t know how they did it but Shichang Chen, Chee Ning Lim, Janice Chua and Gloria Yeo were able to compile a treasure trove of information about social media-crazy Philippines from various sources. I am honored to join Rob Angeles as their interviewees for this research.

To view the awesome Digital Media in the Philippines Wiki Page, click the infographic below:

Methinks, the Philippines is bound to achieve new milestones in the near future, provided that budding Filipino online entrepreneurs get much-needed capital, and if Philippines-based business go all-out with digital and social media tools.

We of course wish success to Filipino app developers, website developers and other professionals. We hope wealthy Filipinos and foreign venture capitalists see the promise of Filipino inventors and help finance their projects and initiatives.

The internet and social media are changing advertising, marketing and public relations, and it would be the young and upcoming professionals who will put digital in its proper place and give it the appropriate role.

Social media also has a promise and potential of propelling the cause of good government, making government more transparent and more accountable, and providing so-called marginalized and underrepresented sectors space and voice to articulate their positions and views and champion their causes and welfare. At the very least, social media should enable government to reach out to citizens, and vice versa. Mass movements now have social media and the internet as new tools in their arsenal and as new arenas where they could arouse, organize and mobilize people towards causes.

Of course, social media and the internet are not a paradise. There are pitfalls and limitations. Social media and the internet are not perfect, and it would only be as good and as useful dependent solely on their user/s. We also have to consider the challenge of expanding access to the two-thirds of the Philippines which still do not have internet access, and see to it that not only a few dominate the social media spheres but try to include the broadest array of voices. We also have the challenge of attaining #betterinternet, our campaign for improved internet services for the Philippines in the face of the emergence of a duopoly and the lack of meaningful and common-sense government regulation.

More in the next few days and weeks as we take stock of what being a social media capital means to the Philippines.

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