Why Media is More Powerful than Governments.

This partly explains why the deposed President Estrada as well as his family got voted into office, Noli De Castro got the Vice Presidency, Loren Legarda, GO Spokesperson Chiz Escudero - those who can harness and master the power of media in the Philippines can tweak themselves into projecting something else they are not and earn sympathies from people who doesnt know anything. Media can make or break anyone, it is not uncommon that the Philippine Press, although one of the freest in Asia is also one of the most irresponsible. After the years of the Marcos dictatorship, mass media has been widely abused to confuse the people, divert the attention, promote personal and political agenda, and sometimes intentionally subverting authorities.

Big media giants like ABS-CBN (whose two major former broadcasters are de Castro (Vice President) and Legarda (currently the number 1 in the recently held Senatorial Elections) who is part of the Lopez Group of Companies (including utilities). Stories about last year's deadly Ultra Stampede, the Hundreds of Millions of pesos stolen by Meralco (another Lopez company) from its consumers, barely makes headlines. ABS-CBN has been identified with the Estrada camp after one of the Lopezes married an Estrada daughter- reason, why its newscast has been extremely biased against the sitting administration.

Anyway, here is the news article about Filipinos and media:

FILIPINOS MOST EXPOSED TO MEDIA


Business World (Philippines) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Filipinos, in spending the most time watching television, surfing the Web, and accessing other media, are a prime advertising audience, a global survey of 10 countries showed.

The survey, conducted by media communications company OMD in partnership with Internet giant Yahoo!, found that Filipinos spent an average of 10.9 hours per day exposed to various forms of media.

This was more than twice the 5.3 hours per day spent by South Koreans, who were at the bottom of the survey, and higher than the global average of 8.7 hours daily.

Ador A. Perez, OMD Philippines executive vice-president, said "In this age of multi-tasking, it seems that Filipinos are the most exposed to various media forms, [and are] thus more accessible to various media messages."

The survey, conducted starting June last year with a random sample of 300 Internet users per country, said Filipinos spent an average of 4.8 hours per day using the Internet, and 2.7 hours daily watching television.

Filipinos also spent an average of 1.5 hours a day listening to the radio, one hour browsing magazines, and 0.9 hours each day reading the newspaper.

Americans, meanwhile, spent 9.5 hours each day exposed to various media, followed by Mexicans and British with 8.8 hours daily, and the Russians and Australians with 8.7 hours each.

Indians spent an average of 8.4 hours daily with various media, while the Chinese spent an average of 7.6 hours. The French, meanwhile, used up seven hours per day.

Filipinos also spent the most time using various technologies, and gadgets, the study showed.

It said the Philippines led the other countries in terms of the number of hours spent using mobile phones and portable digital audio players. Filipinos averaged as much as 14 hours daily using various technologies, including sending text messages, chatting, blogging, web surfing, and playing on-line games.

This is not a solid block of 14 hours, but short, intermittent periods of exposure to technology each day, Mr. Perez said.

"Without us knowing it, we could be sending a text message while we are chatting on-line, or we could be listing to our iPod while surfing the web," he said.


Following the Filipinos were the Russians, who spent an average of 10.5 hours per day. Mexicans spent 10 hours each day, while Indians spent an average of 8.3 hours daily.

Completing the list were the French (8.1 hours), Americans (7.8 hours), Chinese (7.6 hours), Britons (6.1 hours), Australians (5.5 hours), and South Koreans (5.2 hours).

"A Filipino family owns an average of 10.6 technological devices, with at least 2.1 computers, and 2.4 television sets. The Philippines is not far from the averages in countries such as South Korea, China, France and the United States," Mr. Perez said.

He said the Filipino household was still the most regular user of mobile phones compared to the other countries.

"We at OMD Philippines believe that technology has opened a lot of new windows for disseminating information. Alongside traditional media, [technology] created new and even better ways of interacting and getting messages across," he said.

Copyright 2007 Business World Publishing Corporation, Source: The Financial Times Limited