The Philippine Online Chronicles

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Aspirants to political office know that the key to electoral victory is to have their names on top of everyone's minds and favorably so, and in a manner not too different from selling haircare products and laundry detergent they must themselves be marketed in a positive light. However, the Philippines' laws and customs being what they are, unlike laundry detergent companies, rival politicians can and do find means to sling mud at each other as a means of reducing whatever gains each have had in marketing themselves.

Trimedia continues to be the best means available to candidates to market themselves, but with advertising always being a mere fraction of the content of a radio station's daily program, a television network's broadcast day, and a newspaper's printed content. Thus, ignoring cost as a factor, contemporary means of advertising are limited by the amount of time and space that can be used to put the candidates' message across. Broadcast ads are limited by the number of airtime minutes a candidate can play within a given broadcast day; in a similar manner, ads on print media are limited by the amount of column inches that can be allocated for such a purpose. Including cost in the equation would be to stagger ourselves over the going rates for broadcast and print media ads.

In this day and age, however, and despite the Philippine digital divide, the Internet is becoming more and more influential in marketing products and people. Not only can a candidate establish an online presence that can reach potential voters 24/7, the candidate can do so for a pittance; better news for the candidate is that he can target a specific audience with less effort and less cost than in broadcast communications. Without having to spend much, a candidate can build a website or several; increasing his budget, he can use online advertising that is even targeted to the audience he wants to capture. It is no surprise, therefore, that we have been spotting online advertisements promoting some candidate or other -- some even attacking some candidates, directly and otherwise.

Let's take a look at some of the cyberspace means that may be used by candidates to further their candidacies, and some relevant issues that come with them.

Websites and Blogs Perhaps the first method that a candidate needs to employ in establishing a presence online still remains the creation of a website or a blog. We can then classify such sites as either the candidate's own or established by a third party; classifying even further, we can split them into containing either promotional content or negative (that is, against the candidate's rivals) content.

Candidate's Own, Promotional. This is by far the most common -- and perhaps the best -- online real estate that a candidate can have, and will doubtless showcase whatever the candidate feels will help in marketing himself to the public. Likewise, this site will be that which other sites will link to, and such incoming links will further reinforce the candidate's popularity online.

Candidate's Own, Negative. While it is not unknown in the community of Filipino cyberdenizens to have created websites dedicated to the sole purpose of the defamation of other people -- a situation as yet untouched by the Philippine legal system -- I've yet to see a politician create a website with content dedicated solely to criticizing other politicians. Probably all local politicians' and political parties' do have some content criticizing their rivals, but these are content designed primarily to promote themselves. In contrast, Malaysian politician Mahathir Mohammed's personal blog (formerly http://www.chedet.com, created in 2008, moved to http://chedet.co.cc/chedetblog in 2009), established after his resignation in 2002, is quite possibly the best possible example of such a website, having been reported to have been created to publish content critical of others, while appearing to have little or no regard for self-promotion.

Third-Party Promotional. A whole new cat's-cradle of complications has been created by the third-party promotional website, specifically in the realm of campaign finance. In a perfect world, such websites would be created as unpaid promotion, as was Kevin Ray Chua's blog I'm with Mar Roxas (http://marroxas2010.blogspot.com/, formerly Mar Roxas for President in 2010), established by Chua in 2007 as a student looking forward to becoming old enough to vote, who was convinced of the politician's fitness for the presidency. However, with cash still fueling politics here and elsewhere, two other classes of these third-party promotional blogs and websites now exist: paid and disclosed promotionals (which are all well and good, as the disclosure more or less helps ensure that campaign finance laws are not violated), and the paid and undisclosed promotionals (whose nondisclosure of payment is -- to my way of thinking -- the site owner's and the politician's conspiracy to commit electoral fraud).

Third-Party Negative. If we are to break down the different classes of these websites, we would have this list:

1. Disclosed authorship and political affiliation, unpaid
2. Disclosed authorship and political affiliation, payment disclosed
3. Disclosed authorship and political affiliation, payment undisclosed
4. Disclosed authorship, undisclosed affiliation, unpaid
5. Disclosed authorship, undisclosed affiliation, payment disclosed
6. Disclosed authorship, undisclosed affiliation, payment undisclosed
7. Undisclosed authorship, undisclosed affiliation, unpaid
8. Undisclosed authorship, undisclosed affiliation, payment disclosed
9. Undisclosed authorship, undisclosed affiliation, payment undisclosed

Since such negative sites are likely to be the subject of the ire of the rivals being criticized, and with our legal system being what it is, it is far more likely that the more prevalent ones in cyberspace will be those whose authorship is not disclosed; however, it is not unlikely that such critical websites will disclose their affiliations, in hopes of swaying voters to their candidate. Of course, it is far less likely that payment will be disclosed -- few Filipino cyberdenizens have the cojones to admitting being a politician's hired gun, and many unscrupulous politicians are willing to conceal any campaign spending if they can get away with it. As a personal view, I find it doubtful that a private citizen can be found willing to risk his peace of mind by establishing the Type 1 third-party negative website, what with our laws and our politicians being the sort they are.

Third-Party Blog Posts. It is often more convenient for candidates to have blog posts dedicated to their promotion (or the detriment of their rivals) in popular blogs, which are not necessarily of a political bent. The same classifications above do apply; that is:

Third-Party Promotion

1. Unpaid promotion
2. Paid and disclosed promotion
3. Paid and undisclosed promotion

Third-Party Negative

1. Disclosed authorship and political affiliation, unpaid
2. Disclosed authorship and political affiliation, payment disclosed
3. Disclosed authorship and political affiliation, payment undisclosed
4. Disclosed authorship, undisclosed affiliation, unpaid
5. Disclosed authorship, undisclosed affiliation, payment disclosed
6. Disclosed authorship, undisclosed affiliation, payment undisclosed
7. Undisclosed authorship, undisclosed affiliation, unpaid
8. Undisclosed authorship, undisclosed affiliation, payment disclosed
9. Undisclosed authorship, undisclosed affiliation, payment undisclosed

Candidates may think that the Type 1 third-party promotional blog post written for his benefit is easy to have created, simply by setting up a meet-and-greet with bloggers whom they will somehow bring to their side, but it seems more of the blog posts written after such events are in the tone of amateur yet balanced reportage, giving these blogs' readers fair accounts of these meetings. As such, unless the candidate possesses some of the Barack Obama charm, candidates will probably find it easier to approach bloggers not unwilling to accept money to have blog posts written, for either promotion or criticism. Again, disclosure is far less likely when payment is involved, whether of the transaction or of the writer's political affiliation.

Forum Participation and Blog Commenting. In the months running up to elections -- as was seen in the 2007 elections and is going on now -- forums and BBSs will run rife with the question "Who will you vote for in the coming elections?" and such forums will be popular and followed by the forum denizens. Cyberspace-savvy candidates and their media handlers will find it useful to promote their candidates in such forums; conversely, with the nature of forums being more or less free and message moderation taking a bit of time before forum mods can get to such tasks, such forums are also venues to attack candidates. Also, moderating a message critical of a candidate runs the risk of planting the seed of doubt in the minds of the forum denizens, the thought that perhaps the negative message was true. Played well, participation in forums can become a win-win situation for a candidate; played well, the candidate can promote himself and attack his rivals simultaneously.

When it comes to blogs, especially blogs where comments are moderated, the situation is more difficult. While commenting positively -- thanking a blogger for his supportive words, for instance, or politely replying to a criticism -- reinforces the politician's good standing in the eyes of the writer or turns a bad standing into a good one, it is detrimental to the politician to put up a pithy reply in response to a blogger's criticism. Even more detrimental would be for the politician or his supporters or his media handlers to attack the writer anonymously; apart from adding credence to the blogger's criticism, the politician would appear to be without credibility and integrity enough to respond in a civilized manner.

While I cannot say that I've seen proof positive of the effectivity of these means to promote politicians, if the rumors are true that there was such a thing as the Luli Arroyo Internet Brigade back in the height of the "Hello, Garci" scandal, then there was definitely some backlash against those wanting to mitigate the noise of the scandal. A casual glance at comment threads during that time show that forum participants and blog followers made a point of zeroing in on commenters who blog-hopped and forum-hopped to defend the administration; their anonymity was weak and at times a surprisingly ineffective defense. With the Internet becoming more and more a widespread means of interaction with regard to issues of the day, such a backlash if one happened today would be viral to the point of entering mainstream media consciousness, an element that was missing in 2005.

Microblogging

Politicians on popular microblogging sites Twitter (http://www.twitter.com) and Plurk (http://www.plurk.com) will have an edge in swaying the public to their side; they can take a leaf from the successful election campaign of US president Barack Obama (http://twitter.com/barackobama) and have their staffers update their microblogging accounts regularly -- they don't have to do the tweeting themselves (Obama didn't). More to the point, the media will have their eyes on these accounts, and staying in the mainstream media is always good for a candidate if he says his piece in a way that persuades. The 140-character limit might be a tough restriction for loquacious candidates, however; conversely, it may seem too much for a candidate who has very little of value to say.

A major plus -- but a tightrope of one -- would be if the candidate himself does the tweeting and plurking, what with the interaction with the online community. A savvy candidate can muster up a whole fleet of online supporters with a single tweet or plurk, in support of an issue or against a rival, if done correctly and in a timely fashion. For instance, it would be a brilliant move to call the public to condemn the Maguindanao massacre allegedly perpetrated by Clan Ampatuan by tweeting or plurking as soon as the news broke out, but it would look as if the candidate is joining the bandwagon if he calls for condemnation three days later.

Online Advertising

Growing with the popularity of Internet use is the prevalence of advertising online, and candidates will be at the forefront of this medium during these days running up to the elections. Two kinds of online advertising are worth taking a look at.

Ads in popular websites (e.g., news websites) and blog ads are probably the best kind of ads for a candidate to employ to targeted niches in cyberspace, simply because the appearance of such advertisements can be controlled by the site's webmaster or the blog author. As such, readers can be swayed into believing that the news organization or blogger is a supporter of a certain candidate, or is vehemently opposed to another, as the website visitor or blog reader can get such an impression by the mere appearance of the advertisement. If the reader is sufficiently intrigued, he can then click on the advertisement and be directed to the candidate's website, reinforcing the candidate's message. For instance, seeing a Google Ad as these below could lead the casual observer to believe that the news organizations are not opposed to such a point of view espoused by the website the ads link to.

Image from Inquirer.Net, screencapped December 17, 2009.

Image from Spot.PH, screencapped December 18, 2009.

Such can be viewed as a danger to the website's credibility -- but favorable to the candidate's credibility, generally -- if the webmaster or blogger is not particularly careful.

On the other hand, ads on social networking sites (e.g., Facebook, Multiply, and Friendster, which are popular among local cyberdenizens) are often out of the control of the the user; the user has little or no control over what ads appear on his profile page. As such, a candidate can use ads on social networking sites as a hard-sell means of getting attention from the online public; if done well, such ads would spark curiousity over the candidate, visits to his website -- and potentially pulling in a vote or two. Such as this one below:

Image from Facebook, screencapped December 18, 2009.

This online ads business is something that COMELEC probably never thought about, or at least thought about in time to matter for the 2010 elections. Pity. We'll see why later.

Standard Fare: Viral Marketing Attempts

With online presence being directly related to how much of one is being talked about or how often one's content is being bandied about in cyberspace, media handlers know that viral marketing attempts are a necessary part of an online campaign. YouTube videos, flash games, downloadable content, and whatnot are standards in any online campaign's lineup.

However, this method is not without its pitfalls. A candidate's videos might result in him looking foolish; the candidate becoming the butt of jokes becomes the viral message, not the candidate's message. Offering prizes for flash games in an attempt to attract traffic could very well be violative of election laws and campaign finance laws; of course, there have been no cases filed before the COMELEC if any such occurrences have happened. Despite the pitfalls, viral marketing is still a good strategy; unless the Google searches about the candidate do not result in his website being the top pick, and the websites of detractors are not more viral than his online real estate, the candidate still is in good shape.

Old Tricks, New Dog

Yes, some of the old ways work better in the digital age.

Politicians have more reason to love the media and to strive for media attention. Saying something that puts him on the top fold of the next day's newspaper used to be good news for the candidate -- of course, if what he said flatters him -- and today is no different, except for a bigger plus: the websites of news organizations will have the quote not five minutes after he's said it. With such speed, and the speed at which it will be picked up by the online public, the candidate can expect to be top of mind from the moment he makes his statement up until maybe a week, even longer. From the moment his statement is posted on the news website, shared via Twitter and Facebook minutes after, and discussed in blog posts and forums, he has the limelight on him for that long; if his media people handle it well enough, the spread of the news in cyberspace can become newsworthy enough for the mainstream media to report it, in a cycle that adds more luster to the candidate's shine.

Of course, if the candidate made a boo-boo, he could reap the digital whirlwind.

Other methods, such as the text blast, the mail blast, and others do similar work to some extent, especially if the recipient is a knowing and willing subscriber, and as such will forward the text or email. If, however, the recipient considers the text or email as spam, it is often not the sender who looks bad, but the candidate.

Some Unresolved Issues in Online Campaigning

There are two unresolved issues in online campaigning: defamation issues being the first, often bandied about but not seriously pursued; and campaign finance being the second, which could pose a potential pit of snakes.

The defamation laws of the Philippines being what they are, it is no difficult task for a politician to retaliate against a private citizen for criticism, a situation that is not true in reverse. Any person can truthfully claim that something written about him has caused him mental anguish and so forth, and thus have justification to sue for libel; however, few private citizens have the resources -- or the willingness -- to pursue such a case, something that politicians are known not to lack. Such laws are part of the reason why harsh criticism -- whether justified or not -- are often cloaked in anonymity, with the writers unwilling to disclose their political affiliations or acceptance of payment. As such, mudslinging, innuendo, and generally boorish behavior of a scale greater than that in real life have become part and parcel of the online political campaign landscape, a direct offshoot of the current nasty behavioral patterns that exist online side-by-side with the sober thinkers.

A repeal of the defamation laws or a relaxation of the standards will work towards helping online writers stand behind their posts. Such freedom would allow the wheat to be sifted from the chaff; no matter how nasty attacks can get, they will eventually fail as constant and continual attacks will be sufficient to demonstrate the attackers' malice, which the courts (who may or may not have the wit to recognize this at present) and the online community (which does) can deal with in their fashion. In the political campaign sense, a candidate who receives constant attacks without basis except malice will reap several benefits: it allows the candidate to portray himself as a persecuted crusader, it allows him to rise above his opponents, and as such will doubtless elicit praise from those in a position to influence the public (such as Op-Ed writers in mainstream media) among other things, a factor that may have resulted in the successful online campaign and eventual election of currently-detained senator Antonio Trillanes III.

The campaign finance issue is even thornier. As yet, there are yet no established means clear to the general public for tracking the spending of candidates for their online campaigns. While it is possible that the COMELEC can perhaps request receipts and ledgers from Facebook and Google AdSense, it is not yet known if the poll body has a process to address this issue. As such, it is not unlikely that this will escape public notice; while Filipino cyberdenizens know how much one can make from online ads, it is not likely that the general public would realize the amount of money spent in putting up an ad that appears on their Friendster profile.

Worse yet, the potential for unreceipted spending -- which is illegal -- is potentially even greater than it was before. Cash transactions between candidates and purveyors of online content are likely to be rife; just as there are journalists who accept payoffs, something detailed in the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism book News for Sale: The Corruption & Commercialization of the Philippine Media, it will not be unknown for a blogger or two to receive money on the sly in return for a blog post or a dedicated website. While PR work by online writers is nothing bad in and of itself, the nondisclosure of payment to the blogger -- whether by the candidate or the blogger -- makes such a thing violative or election laws. Similarly, unreceipted spending on people dedicated to troll forums, websites, and blogs towards candidate promotion or defense is no less illegal.

At present, there is little to combat such excesses. There is some hope, however.

Best Current Practices Seen

The local online community seems to view favorably the need for disclosure, at least. Blog posts paid for by product marketers often bear disclosures of the fact that payment was made; conversely, disclaimers are often used by local bloggers to ensure that the public is clear that no payment was made. In a similar manner, local bloggers often make clear their politicial affiliations, and whether or not they support the candidate they are writing about; however, it is not yet prevalent for bloggers, if any, to disclose that they have been paid to write in support of a candidate.

A further caveat: many do, perhaps even most, but there are apparently a number who do not.

Being an informal community, there is unfortunately little that can be done that can be said to be concrete steps in addressing the issue of unreceipted spending for bloggers. That said, it is heartening to note that the community is not turning a blind eye to this; there has been some talk by some bloggers about dissociating themselves from bloggers who are known to have been or are suspected to be recipients of payola. While this is little in the view of the legal system and its need for evidence, the long-term effects of such dissociation will be highly detrimental to such bloggers, as their online presence will eventually suffer. Offline, such bloggers may and can lose valuable contacts; popular bloggers simpatico to them previously would no longer be interested in any interaction, a situation that will result in the payola blogger eventually turning out to be of little or no use to his patron.

Perhaps it is a useful idea for PR firms to hire bloggers openly, as a means of combating unreceipted spending; that is, until we have politicians willing to do the same. Instead of under-the-table transactions, bloggers can become part and parcel of an aboveboard online campaign and earn an honest wage for their trouble.

The Horizon

Adding more uncertainties in an already tenuous situation are knee-jerk reactions made by people whose first reaction towards navigating the world wide web is to attempt to control it. As recently as a few months ago, we have had a congressman making statements about wanting regulation for bloggers and social networking sites; not too long ago, bills and administrative orders have been drafted regarding the regulation of content providers. In the context of political campaigning online, such moves could drive the online community underground, in that instead of the community becoming an ally of COMELEC and clean elections, such moves could result in more excesses and abuses.

Fortunately, it has been reported that Commissioner James Jimenez is a COMELEC official who has a fair understanding of the Filipino online community. It remains to be seen what COMELEC resolutions will appear in the coming days with regard to online campaigning and the myriad issues involved. Personally, I hold on to the hope that the online community -- especially this niche of cyberspace that is interested in current events and national issues -- does not get the same kind of retromingent understanding Ang Ladlad had in its appeal to join the 2010 electoral exercise.

It is, after all, already the digital age.

 

Photo from Anton Sheker. Image screencaps by author. Some Rights Reserved.