Blazing a new trail

The Good Life with Eli F.J. Tajanlangit

The word of course, is netizen, not netizem as I had erroneously written in the title of yesterday’s column. Netizen, meaning citizens of the Net, cyberspace residents who are proving to be such an active demographic,  capable of acting as one despite their differences in age, gender, and geography.

Netizens have activated and banded together recently and zeroed in on the sad state of the Bacolod-Silay Airport of international standards—with results to show. Recent posts on their Facebook page “Bacolod-Silay Airport…just our opinion” say the toilets in that place are now clean and the airconditioning system will be fixed soon.

The toilets and the poor airconditioning were the first concerns that brought these netizens together and seek action from those concerned. There are other issues that have surfaced, such as the flies in the area, security and  personal hygiene lapses of some employees there. How those issues are handled in the coming days will say a lot about the airport administration…and the direction of  netizen journalism and how it will develop.

But however this will grow, I guess it is safe to say journalism will never be the same again. I mean, there are on-line newspapers and magazines, cyber television and all,  all forms of traditional media having been replicated on the Net.

But this case of people in the social network setting up a simple page and using it to force action from their government is relatively new, especially hereabouts. Nobody can question the power of the web to transmit ideas and inspire action, but here you have an example of people publicly stating what’s on their minds about a common concern and getting official action on it.

We’ve had examples of causes and concerns galvanizing people into action on a global scale, but locally, the Bacolod Silay airport marks its arrival locally.  Sure we had the Jan-jan/Willie Revillame issue, the death of the anti-plastics ordinance in Bacolod and the uncollected garbage recently.

But the airport case is the first spontaneous, truly people-based mass movement that’s happening mostly in cyberspace, in fact on an FB page almost exclusively. There is really no structure there and I don’t think they have meetings and discussion groups and stuff like that.

From what I know, they simply log on to the page, and speak their minds, sometimes in very colorful language, sometimes congratulatory, sometimes exasperated.

It is people power, exercising freedom of expression at its highest and journalism at its rawest but clearest.

While this has  plenty of positives going  for it, netizen journalism, of course, opens up a lot of questions and fears. Who, in the end, is responsible?  No one has asked that yet because thus far, the netizens, at least those concerned  about the airport, have been responsible, keeping their posts within the parameters of  good taste and decency.

What happens when it is abused? What happens when it becomes libelous? Can a case be filed against entries in an FB page or on Twitter? I guess, things will fall into place as we go along. In the meantime, those of us in the traditional media have a thing or two to learn from these citizen journalists, among them their love for country and community. *

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