Asian Tale of Two Technologies

By Ronald Meinardus

Manila — Media developments influence not only our private lives, but also affect the way our societies and politics are organized. Before coming to the Philippines two years ago, I spent nearly six years in South Korea. In both countries, I observed the impact of media on political and social developments.

The differences between the Philippines and South Korea are striking in many ways, particularly regarding the use of modern means of communication. While the Philippines prides itself on being the "text-messaging" capital of the world, South Korea is the global leader in Internet broadband connectivity.

The ascendancy of the Internet in South Korea is the result of a joint effort by the private sector and the government to get every household and public building wired. I am not aware of any other country in the world where this objective has been pursued so systematically and successfully as in South Korea.

In the Philippines, on the other hand, a lack of resources and the geographic conditions of an archipelagic nation with thousands of islands have prevented the proliferation of digital technology. To this day, many Filipinos have no access to ordinary telephone services, and merely 5 percent of the population uses the Internet.

To a large extent, cost and availability of a given technology determine their usage and popularity. In South Korea, personal computers today are considered standard appliances in almost every household. In addition, South Koreans spend many hours in the ubiquitous Internet cafes.

On the other hand, Filipinos spend a great amount of time on their cell phones, in large part sending and receiving text messages. In a way, this mode of communication has become a way of life in the Philippines. Here, everybody seems to send text messages -- bankers, policemen, nurses, maids, Cabinet members and even the president.

According to a recent lifestyle survey commissioned by a leading European cell-phone supplier, 77 percent of the Philippines' tens of millions of cell-phone subscribers check their phones constantly if they don't receive any messages for about an hour. Users also send an average of 150 text messages a day. According to the same survey, nearly two out of three Filipinos would rather spend a day without computer access than without their cell phones.

While modern media has affected our personal lifestyles, it also has wider implications for the societies we live in and the respective politics. In democracies, this observation becomes particularly apparent during election times, when politicians are out to mobilize the votes of the people.

Important elections will be held in the near future in both South Korea and the Philippines, allowing us to compare the usage of communications technologies in the two countries.

Nowhere else in the world has the Internet such a substantial political impact as in South Korea. "In a country where 73 percent of homes enjoy high-speed Internet access, the battle for National Assembly seats will likely be won in cyberspace," a correspondent in Seoul recently reported.

Political analysts agree that Roh Moo Hyun would probably not be president of South Korea today had it not been for a countrywide campaign of "Netizens" supporting him in the runup to the elections in 2002.

Importantly, the rise of what is often termed "digital politics" or "e-politics" in South Korea has not only changed the way the candidates conduct their campaigns. Some observers argue that the technological developments also have substantial societal implications: Lee Eun Jeung, in a recent volume titled "Asian Cyberactivism," writes, "Quite apart from parties and political organizations, citizens have learned to use the Internet as a new forum for political participation." In Lee's eyes, this has even led to a "certain renewal of Korean political culture."

A renewal of their political culture is something many disenchanted Filipinos are still waiting for. Unfortunately, it is doubtful whether mobile phones will ever have the same beneficial political effects on Philippine politics as the Internet has had in South Korea.

No doubt, cell phones have played a significant role in political mobilizations in recent Philippine history.

"The notoriety of cell phones as devices with the capacity to cause a 'coup d'text' is most closely associated with the downfall of President (Joseph) Estrada," writes Raul Pertierra and his associates in a book titled "Txt-ing Selves: Cellphones and Philippine Modernity."

But the authors, who highlight the mobilizing power of cell phones in the mass protests that led to the ouster of a disgraced president, hasten to add that texting is used mainly for personal and private communications, and has no significant positive impact on "the public sphere and public life."

While cell phones are potentially an exceptionally effective channel for mass communication in a country like the Philippines, none of the major political candidates in the ongoing electoral campaign appear to be utilizing it.

Unlike the Internet, cell phones are generally not considered to belong to the public sphere. "Many people treat their mobile phones as private space," says Ramon Isberto, head of corporate communications at Smart, the leading mobile phone company in the Philippines. "You don't invite just anybody into your bedroom," says Isberto, who argues that sending unsolicited messages to mobile phones usually provokes a negative response from the recipients.

A comparison of South Korea and the Philippines regarding the usage and the political impact of modern communication technologies reflects what is commonly known as the digital divide. There are indications that the gap between countries that are advanced and others that are less developed regarding the usage of such technologies is growing.

The ongoing merger of Internet technology with cell-phone technology may help close this gap. According to the industry, it is merely a matter of time before mobile phones that let users surf the Internet and use e-mail become widely available at an affordable price.

I would argue that for the Philippines, the eventual proliferation of this integrated technology will have greater societal and political impact than text-messaging has had thus far.

Dr. Ronald Meinardus was the former Resident Representative of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation in the Philippines and will leave Manila late September for a new posting in the Middle East. He writes a blog at www.myliberaltimes.com