Peñafrancia

Communication

Communication is defined as the sharing of ideas it may be as oral or written form that involves two or more people exchanging ideas or thoughts. According to a website source the term “Communication” has been derived from the Latin word communis which means “common”. Thus “to communicate” means “to make common” or “to make known.”  

In the Philippine context, Communication is essentially used in bringing the issues in the society, thus communication plays a big role in the Philippine media. Over time, the means of communication evolves and expanded from primitive times, cave paintings were used in transmitting information. Oral stories and traditions were also passed down through generations.

Today the means of communication evolves from telegrams to emails. Television allows messages to communicate quickly to millions of viewers worldwide and viewers can watch political elections in real time.

Television and radio provides one-way communication while the Internet allows for the two-way exchange of information that let people send data instantly with almost no cost. The use of Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites is very famous and rampant now a days to us Filipinos regardless of our social status in life.

Aside from those social networking sites, blogs are being used as a form of communication.  Blog is a website that has a chronological arrangement, wherein personal thoughts, website links, pictures, videos are being posted that may contain stories of their own, reactions to a certain issues and other sides of the story. Blogs are alternative source of information wherein it is more accessible to public and it is cheaper.

A line quoted from an article entitled Freedom in Malaysian Cyberspace: The drawing power of blogs by Derrick Vinesh Visvanathan he said that “ Not all blog owners have the time or the desire to present all sides of a story, and so they end up posting lopsided reports. For some, the main aim was to tell a story that would entice readers-the more captivating, the better.” Derrick also mentioned from his article  that, people visited blogs because it provides alternative news and current issues, blogs carried interesting informations that is not present in the mainstream media, truthfulness and balance. According to his conducted survey presented in his article, Majority said that blogs were a form of journalism wherein society are involved.

Local Media Networks here in the Philippines provide new technologies to their employees a real attest to that is with the use of 3G- based coverage. The launch of mobile phones with built in cameras where being tested and commonly used by the reporters. Michael Josh Villanueva Assistant Manager for Multimedia of GMA Network mentioned from his article entitled Equip. Expand. Empower that “Changing technology has resulted in a changing audience, one that views and responds to content differently and that has become part of the newsgathering process.” Josh also quoted from Sarah Aguinaldo, a journalist from the GMA Network said that “it’s made the job more difficult because you have to learn new technologies.”

But because of this new technologies, Filipinos became more vigilant of the country’s condition. Marie Antonette T. Pacheco a journalist and works a correspondent for The Filipino Channel (TFC) at ABS-CBN’s global office in North America mentioned the story of  Bobzen Borgantino a twenty-one-year old man  who became a witness of vote buying while he was in a jeep on his way home from work he saw cases of alcoholic beverages being loaded on trucks along the national highway with bottles of Ginebra San Miguel (Popular brand of beer in the Philippines) had stickers of the running governor of Batangas in her article entitled Empowering Citizens: Broadcast giants inspires audiences to watchdog the election.

The launched of the program “Boto Mo, I-Patrol Mo or Your Vote, Your Lookout” was a big help for the Filipino people wherein text messages, SMS, videos were send by the community concerned over irregularities, vote buying’s and even election frauds.

There are three forms of communication were present in the Pinoy culture today. The Verbal or the face to face, The Written or known as the editorials and The Other Non-Verbal that uses gestures, expressions and rituals.

In the Philippines, gender factor is a big issue.  The difference between males and females. In fact in the mainstream media it is said that men are more capable of being a host in shows and  being a news anchor. They said that men are more appealing in terms of their audiences and viewers that is evident in Philippine game shows.  Majority of the hosts are men.  But that belief is not true to all maybe because we Filipinos adopt the patriarchal culture wherein men controlled everything as all the power is vested in them.

According to Atty. Ramon A. Tagle, Jr. General Manager of CFA, 1980-84 (Abridged from the book “Communication and Development”, published by the Communication Foundation for Asia: Manila, 1978) “Communication is never a one-way street. True communication occurs when two people (or more people) are simultaneously senders and receivers of a certain message or messages via a certain media channel or channels. In its broadest meaning, communication is what holds human society together. Where communication breaks down, society begins to disintegrate. Dr. Paul Hartmann of Leicester University, England  says that this is not so. Some communication, he maintains, seeks to maintain the status quo, not change it. The first batch of communicators advocated the so-called transportation model of communication. Dr. Hartmann speaks of the ritualistic model of communications. Both are important for us to consider.”

There are Cultural determinants of Communication practices that is present in Pinoy culture. Class factor wherein people that  belong to the high class society  has more access to technologies as to those who belong  in the middle class. Variations among different ethnic groups and  religious groups  is merely seen in the Philippine society today good example of ethnic groups that is still present in Philippine time are Igorot from cordillera region.

Communication is everywhere, whether you like it or not communication will find its way to communicate with us.

-shai-