Cross-clarity

agarcia@theguidon.com

What is the similarity between 17th century coffeehouses in England and the Internet?

Both are places that can be regarded as realms of social interaction where citizens come together to discuss and deliberate their thoughts on current issues. German social theorist Jürgen Habermas popularized the term “public sphere,” wherein public opinion in these spaces would legitimize a form of participatory democracy.

In these coffee houses, people back exchanged thoughts on current issues over cups of coffee and biscuits. Nowadays, the public sphere has evolved into the World Wide Web, where people can still exchange views anywhere, anytime—with or without the cloak of anonymity that comes along with it this time.

These opinion-forming associations have paved the way for public reasoning. The use of social media has escalated to immense proportions, prompting many users to read articles recommended and discussed by their peers on Facebook and Twitter. This is highly applicable to us, since the Philippines was recently named the social networking capital of the world.  This personalized process of our exposure to news have become somewhat of a popularity contest for such stories—the number of shares of news articles equates to the impact of controversy, amusement and, at some level, necessity that’s determined by its readers.

Recently, a statement from the University of Santo Thomas on a controversial article published by Rappler.com has been under a lot of fire. In response to the said Rappler article, UST questioned the legitimacy of online journalism nowadays. It was also stated that the university was at a loss on how to respond to an online news organization, and indirectly demanded that journalistic rules such as fact-checking and objectivity be met (as if these weren’t present in the first place).

I found this quite disappointing, because I think that a reputable academic institution such as the UST should have done prior research before expressing such sentiments. Rappler is an online independent news organization created by Maria Ressa, and is comprised of highly respected and accomplished veteran journalists in the country such as Cheche Lazaro and Chay Hofilena. Did they really think that they would compromise their reputations in the said industry over a shift to the digital space?

Yes, the Internet will always be regarded as a space susceptible to Chinese whispers, but that doesn’t necessarily translate to the impossibility of practicing journalism there. It is important to acknowledge that we are still currently undergoing a medium transition that is bound to happen. We are still in that process of establishing the proper ethical standards of cyber journalists and of articulating netiquette. In the meantime, however, do not underestimate a medium that holds an immense power of democracy—even if we ourselves may take advantage of it along the way.