In the US, according to queerty.com in The Gay Revolution Will Be Twittered, while social networks site “Twitter was originally designed to allow people to give short status update, essentially answering the question: ‘What are you doing now?’, in practice, the service has become much more, especially when it comes to news. The immediacy of Twitter, coupled with its ability to deliver messages to a phone or Web-client, means that breaking news is even more, to coin a Colbert-ism, ‘breakier.’”
The Metropolitan Community Church – Quezon City (MCCQC) organized a gathering, dubbed Affirming Party, slated on April 8 for GLBTQIA activists who were at (and driven away from) the fourth regional conference of the Asia chapter of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex Association (ILGA) in Indonesia.
Earlier, on March 26 in Surabaya, Indonesia, an estimated 50 to 60 members of hardline Indonesian Islamic groups staked out not just the hotel where the participants were staying at, but also the conference venue (Mercure Hotel) to force the participants to leave their accommodation and, thereby, cancel the event. To what is shameful for Indonesia, conservative intolerance triumphed over respect for diversity – ILGA’s gathering was cancelled, and not without drama, with the participants literally chased out of the country.
The April 8 gathering was, in MCCQC’s Rev. Ceejay Agbayani’s words, an “affirmation of our fellow GLBTQIA Filipino activists on their quest for equality and justice.”
To drum up participation, for MCCQC, aside from word-of-mouth, a main mode of information dissemination was through the Internet. Even sans the availability of disposable budget, “the Internet (allows) us to tap (as wide a market as possible),” Agbayani says. The effort boosted by “coordination through SMS messages” made the gathering a “success, exceeding our expectations (as over 60 people attended – in Facebook, only 50 people confirmed attendance).”
That, then, stresses the power of New Media.
And so the GLBTQIA advocacy gets an upgrade.
CHANGING WORLD
Outrage Magazine, as the only Web-based publication catering to GLBTQIAs in the Philippines, may well be an ideal study on the utilization of New Media – dominated by the Internet – in reaching target (in this case, i.e. GLBTQIA) markets. According to publisher cum “editor on the loose” Michael David C. Tan, getting an A4-sized magazine of from 60 or more pages printed could easily cost well over P100,000 just for a thousand or so copies – and this does not yet include the money to be allocated for the salary of people involved in the publication (e.g. editors, writer, graphics, administrative staff, et cetera), costs to run the office (e.g. space rental, allotments for utilities, et cetera), and other costs associated with the production of traditional media.
Going online made the move realistic, Tan says – something he stresses is “great because, in the Philippines, GLBTQIAs remain under-represented, (and) we only actually make the (mainstream) news when something (bad) can be said about the group, e.g. when gays are found dead, supposedly killed by sex workers who were not paid properly; when there are raids of cinemas, supposedly because of the ‘immoral’ acts of its gay patrons; et cetera.”
Tan adds: “Outrage Magazine in this sense is a media by and for GLBTQIAs,” he said, adding that “other markets on top of these are, of course, just as welcome.”
It helps, too, that this representation is immediate.
On this, the experience of Sass Rogando Sasot of the Society of Transsexual Women of the Philippines (STRAP) on May 24, 2008 is worth a mention. Visiting Ice Vodka Bar in Greenbelt 3 in Ayala Center, Makati City, she (with other members of STRAP) was refused entry because – put succinctly – she’s a transgender (TGs are often described as “dressed inappropriately”).
In a letter that went viral virtually starting 6.04 A.M. of the next day, May 25, Sasot made the world knew what happened to her – she wrote: “This may not be the proper forum to raise this concern. But is there any reliable legal forum to address this issue? Reality check: There is no antidiscrimination law in this country. And if you’re discriminated, there seems to be a notion that you’re supposed to blame yourself for bringing such an unfortunate event to yourself. So, I’d just stand up through this open letter.”
With other advocates picking up the story, the responses soon followed – first, from Ice Vodka Bar itself, which apologized to Sasot; from Dennis Galimba, operations engineer of Ayala Property Management Corporation, who raised the issue to the Ayala Group of Companies; et cetera.
What the Constitution states (equality for all) but the law enforcers fail to implement, the Internet (somehow) helped to (at least) stress, thereby press for actions to be taken. IMMEDIATELY.
In the US, according to queerty.com in The Gay Revolution Will Be Twittered, while social networks site “Twitter was originally designed to allow people to give short status update, essentially answering the question: ‘What are you doing now?’, in practice, the service has become much more, especially when it comes to news. The immediacy of Twitter, coupled with its ability to deliver messages to a phone or Web-client, means that breaking news is even more, to coin a Colbert-ism, ‘breakier.’”
That people now actively participate in breaking the news adds to the empowerment, as Sasot shows.
FORMING CONNECTIONS
For GLBTQIAs, nonetheless, with Twitter (and the Net, as a whole) becoming integrated into daily lives, or at least the lives of the hyper-wired, such social networks have become “not only a source of news, but a way for communities to connect,” states queerty.com. And this way, too – this “community aspect” – has special significance for GLBTQIAs.
During the Holy Week of 2010 – nowadays often seen as a season for decadent holidaying, NOT necessarily church-going – Jethro Cuenca Patalinghug organized the Take the Test, a campaign that wanted to trigger MSMs in Puerto Galera (a popular venue frequented by MSMs from Metro Manila, among others) to get themselves tested for STIs, including HIV and/or AIDS.
It was a “very personal endeavor (for me),” Patalinghug says, considering that “I have lived with HIV positive individuals for years and I saw the kind of emotional struggle that they had to face on a day-to-day basis – I have friends who have either died or are still alive, and yet are suffering from the stigma of HIV and AIDS.”
Due to “our promotion in the Net, there were a lot who expressed (their intent) to partake of the activity/test – in fact, we were able to educate around 200 participants during our activity, 30% of (that number taking) the test.”
Patalinghug believes that “the Net should play a primary role in pushing for GLBTQIA issues. It is the medium that people choose to rely on because participation can be personal and easy; (and) information dissemination is clearly fastest on the Net and I think GLBTQIAs (can do so much with) these potentials. We should definitely exhaust it (the Net).”
Again in the US, Ruth Schneider, writing How Social media is Changing Gay Activism for 365.com, tells the story of Greg Porter, who, as a reaction to one Ricky Joaquin, who tweeted “because we don’t want your fag blood,” wrote in a blog his stance on the “circle of bigotry.” That blog entry was, subsequently, re-tweeted, so that Porter himself has lost count the number of times his views have been accessed and, yes, shared by (generally) like-minded people, people within the GLBTQIA community.
“Between blogs, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, activists are using the power of social media to increase the reach of their advocacy messages,” Schneider states, adding, this time quoting Sree Sreenivasan, a dean at Columbia University’s School of Journalism, that “social media has had a tremendous impact on all advocacy, for better or worse.”
“Between blogs, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, activists are using the power of social media to increase the reach of their advocacy messages,” Ruth Schneider states.
Outrage Magazine’s Tan agrees. “We knew – and subsequently interviewed – Jude Bacalso of Cebu City because of (our social network) connections, giving the GLBTQIA community in the Queen City of the South some voice somehow. Through trails found online, we have been able to develop stories, therefore give information on existing GLBTQIA groups in the Philippines (e.g. Batangas-based Beavers, photography enthusiast KonZepto Productions) – a veritable guide for GLBTQIA Filipinos looking for groups to belong to. Our establishing of contacts, too, is helping existing networks get in touch with each other (to, hopefully, build) a stronger presence (as a unified entity),” Tan says. “The world has, indeed, become smaller.”
Hired by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in the US, Sarah Kennedy, as the interactive media coordinator, is responsible for exchanging tweets daily (with the more than 3,000 followers of the task force’s Twitter account), as well as upload content on the group’s Facebook account (with more than 8,000 Facebook friends). “I believe that is the number one key to social media. That it is social,” she was quoted as saying by queerty.com. After all, if, in the past, “organizations have sent out newsletters to inform them about their work, now there are tweets, posts, blogs and videos to spread the message. And before GLBTQIA groups had social media, there wasn’t always that level of information.”
GROWING, GROWING…
Tan, though, is first to acknowledge that “we have yet to fully tapped the benefits of New Media – in fact, we have barely scratched the surface, as the cliché goes,” he says.
On January 12, Haiti was ravaged by a 7.0 Mw earthquake on January 12 – and it took relief organizations only five days to collect $11 million through SMS-sent donations (the donations grew further, so that since then, the American Red Cross alone had collected more than $25 million through $10 text donations). And while “the Philippines may have been dubbed as the ‘Texting Capital of the World,’ texting has, thus far, been largely limited to the personal in the country,” Tan says.
Tan believes that, outside of text votes that cost texters from P2.50 per text in support of wannabe celebrities in popularity competitions, “if we could instead raise the money for worthy causes – noting that there are an estimated 400 million text messages sent in the country per day – we can change this country’s direction.”
At least Patalinghug has already somehow tapped this potential.
It took Patalinghug, who also spearheaded the I AM NOT IMMORAL video campaign in response to the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) branding GLBTQIAs as immoral (its ground for non-inclusion of GLBTQIA group Ang Ladlad in the partylist system), “less than a month to organize everything,” he says. “We had to gather all the resources and information needed to conduct a (proper) HIV rapid screening, equipped with all the necessary pre- and post test counseling (as required by the law). In other words we had to tap government institutions, such as the National Epidemiology Center or NEC from Department of Health (DOH), Social Hygiene Clinic Manila, Positive Action Foundation Philippines Inc. (PAFPI), and the Global Fund (in a short period of time).”
While the DOH provided some funding, “we had to turn to our friends in the Net, specifically Facebook, and we were able to gather enough funds that covered our (expenses) in Puerto Galera.”
Everything is, obviously, getting integrated – Google Chrome, as an example, attempts to unify all the applications needed online, from email to chatlines to Facebook-like functionalities to YouTube-like tasks. Technology is far from perfect – yet – but “perfectly functional or not, it can already be used for advocacies in ways never done before,” Tan says.
Outrage Magazine, as the only Web-based publication catering to GLBTQIAs in the Philippines, may well be an ideal study on the utilization of New Media – dominated by the Internet – in reaching target (in this case, i.e. GLBTQIA) markets.
But whether it’s through high-tech strategies or low-tech tools, Sreenivasan is (for now) somewhat cautious. “It’s all about having a plan about new technology rather than jumping down rabbit holes,” he says. “You have to do everything you did before. This is something you need to add into the mix.”
ADAPT, ELSE…
MCCQC’s April 8 Affirming Party was not the first – nor will it be the last – event that the group will mainly promote through New Media. Says Agbayani: “We have been using the Internet even before Facebook,” citing, specifically, the now defunct Guys4Men.com, a social networking site geared towards MSMs, which allowed the group to “pagpapalaganap ng (widely spread) information and invitations (of our events).”
Agbayani, nonetheless, believes that any of the New Media follows much of the same “given” of old practices. “First, (dapat) maganda ang event mo. Malaking add-on ‘yan (First, you should have a worthy event. That’s a big plus),” he says.
“Pangalawa, dapat matiyaga ka talagang mag-promote sa iyong event – mag-message sa inbox nila, mag-personal message sa lahat na nag-confirm, et cetera (Secondly, you should be persistent in promoting your event – send messages to everyone, follow-up those who confirmed, et cetera).”
And thirdly, “make sure sa event, hindi gutom ang tao – may laps dapat lagi [make sure participants do not go hungry – there should always be food (to ensure you look after your guests)].”
All the same, the game, in a manner of speaking, has changed. “Malaki ang role ng New Media (in pushing advocacies to the fore) – maramihan kasi ang naabot niya; lahat na kasi yata ng tao ay involved sa New Media (The role of New Media in pushing advocacies to the fore is substantial – it has wider reach; just about everyone is in it),” Agbayani says.
And with this understanding, MCCQC, among others, enters a braver new world.
The future has truly started.
