| 27
June 2002
Mega media
BACK in the 1980s
and 1990s, I edited a newsletter called "Health Alert for an
NGO." I was quite proud of the newsletter's content, and
circulation, which reached all of 1,000 copies.
Our NGO stopped producing Health Alert in 1995 and people still ask if
I've thought about reviving it. Frankly, it's low in my priorities,
mainly because I'm not sure I want to pour in time and energy for a
publication that runs only a thousand copies. I still help to produce
another newsletter, AIDS Action, which runs 30,000 copies and goes out
to more than 40 countries in Asia, but even that number is tiny in this
age when mass media have been transformed into mega media.
You get a picture of this mega media in the "4A's Media Factbook",
the 4A's referring to the Association of Accredited Advertising Agencies
of the Philippines. It's a pocket-sized book packed with useful
information, some of which I thought I should share with readers,
together with my views on how the mass media are developing.
Let's start off with a bit of historical trivia. Did you know the first
newspaper in the Philippines, Del Superior Govierno, was established in
1811 by Peninsulares or Spaniards born in the Philippines? It lasted all
of 15 issues.
The media factbook names Liwayway as the first magazine in the
Philippines, set up in 1925. In 1929, Liwayway featured our first comic
strip, "Kenkoy," which was so successful that its creator,
Tony Velasquez, eventually teamed up with the Roces family to set up
Pilipino Komiks.
Broadcast media started in the 1920s when American businessmen put up
radio stations with temporary permits, but it was not until 1930 that we
had our first regular commercial radio broadcast. Television followed in
1953, the first TV station being dzAQ, Channel 3, owned by Alto
Broadcasting System or ABS, which later became part of the ABS-CBN
empire.
From the very beginning, mass media have played vital roles in our
lives. Newspapers weren't limited to news. Another book I've been
reading, "A History of Philippine Medicine," says that an
early 19th century newspaper, La Filantrofia, published articles on
sanitation and household remedies.
Newspapers didn't just function to disseminate information from the
government. From the beginning, too, our newspapers were seen as venues
for reform and revolution. La Opinion, a newspaper established in 1827,
already had articles criticizing the Spanish friars.
Throughout the Spanish and American colonial periods, newspapers and
magazines challenged those in power. After we regained independence in
1946, a free-wheeling press spoke out whenever needed. The press was
temporarily muzzled during the Marcos dictatorship, to be challenged
slowly by a mosquito press which eventually led to the establishment of
the Inquirer.
Broadcast media were also powerful for questioning the status quo; in
fact, radio probably had and still has a greater influence on most
Filipinos than newspapers. During the turbulent 1970s the term "bomba"
or bomb came to refer to pornographic movies as well as to no-holds
barred political radio commentaries.
Mass media today are marked by a rather sharp class divide. Broadsheets
cater mainly to the upper class. Business World, which mainly caters to
business people and professionals, has a daily print run of only 65,000.
The largest broadsheet, a great paper called the Inquirer, runs 250,000
copies but this still pales in comparison with the tabloids, which cater
to CDE audiences. The largest tabloid, Abante, claims a daily print run
of more than 400,000 while People's Tonight runs 365,000 copies.
Similar patterns are found with the magazines. The glossies like Metro
and Cosmopolitan have a print run of between 50,000 and 70,000 per issue
while magazines like Intrigue and Kislap run between 150,000 and 180,000
copies. These figures are still low compared to weekly publications
using a comics format. The most popular ones are True Horoscope with a
claimed circulation of 345,000, Lovelife Komiks with 315,000 and Golden
Drama with 296,000.
It's depressing when you think of what most Filipinos are reading. But
this "dumbing down" of the Filipino isn't something limited to
CDE audiences. Glossy publications, English talk shows and FM radio also
dish out their fare of horoscopes and psychics, romance stories and
advice for the lovesick, and gossip about celebrities. Generally, there
is a trend toward a tabloidizing of all of mass media, a focus on the
sensational and the macabre.
As for the activist function of mass media, I'm afraid that mass media
commentaries often end up fanning more controversies rather than
educating the public on current issues. In fact, the bombastic AM radio
programs, for all the fire and fury of its commentators, probably
function more as safety valves, allowing people an outlet for their
frustrations much like the programs for the lovesick. Other programs end
up as brokers, helping to facilitate applications lost in the
bureaucratic maze. The radio stations (as well as charity TV programs)
actually end up reinforcing the patron-client relationships. It's not
surprising that media celebrities end up in politics, voted into office
with a large following built from among their listeners and viewers.
The media factbook tells us we now have something like 700 radio
stations, 700 cable TV operators, seven national broadsheets, six
national tabloids and dozens of magazines and local papers. On the
horizon is the Internet, now estimated to have 4 million users in the
Philippines. Mega media are growing by leaps and bounds but I wonder, as
we talk more are we perhaps communicating less?
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