The Construct

Finally! A bit of time to blog. For the past month, I’ve been splitting my time between work and thesis writing. And boy that wasn’t a pleasant experience at all on so many levels. I remember the pressures of writing my undergraduate thesis (gaining 20 lbs in the process) and I now realize how easy that was compare to this one. How I loath not having the resources to be a full time student.

My topic’s not really that alien to me since it’s basically a continuation of my analysis of representations of identities in discourse. Back in 2005, for my BA thesis, I examined representations of Fernando Poe Jr. in the editorials of the PDI. For my MA thesis, I examined the representations of GMA in the 2001-2009 SONAs.

I enjoyed writing my BA thesis. I enjoyed going over PDI editorials and examining the representations of FPJ. And even though I personally agree with PDI’s ideologies, it wasn’t too tough to keep the discussion objective.

(more…)

It really is a hard thing to come up with something original these days. That proverbial bucket in the sea of knowledge is a constant bitching reminder that no matter how much you read and learn, you won’t be able to match the billions of Google’s indexed pages.

Makes you wonder how difficult it really is to write a dissertation these days. I consider myself pretty well-read given my age for my field locally. And yet there’s still a lot of material that I am aware of and have not read, and material that that I haven’t even thought existed despite the thousands of bibliographic entries I’ve browsed. I hate to admit it but I’ve just recently come across Steven Pinker who is, by specialization a psychologist, but anchors many of his arguments on language.

And boy, how I hate myself for only reading about him just now. Quite a lot of my interests in language studies are actually dealt by his works – game theory, pragmatics, and even physics in language. Yes, physics! (Check this video of his talk at Google where he discusses ideas from his book The Stuff of Thought.)

That had me thinking about that joke I had in our graduate class in Semantics about establishing a field on “quantum linguistics.” I argued that deixis and tense can be related to the concepts of space and time. When I was joking about it, I wondered if that was an original idea. Turns out, it isn’t. According to Pinker there’s “space in our prepositions, matter in nouns, time tenses, and causality in verbs.” Humble pie for me.

Still, this has me thinking. How much original and world-changing thought can be conjured up by an ordinary mind? Perhaps that’s the reason why God only sends a genius like Einstein once a century. Maybe the world won’t just be able to deal with such revolutionary ideas if they come plenty and quick in between. The rest of us are just plain bound for mental mediocrity.

Quite a lot of students are working on blogs for their term papers and even undergraduate thesis. Those would include me, since I’m working on a critical discourse analysis of the Philippine blogosphere (particularly the discourse of the de la Paz-Pangandaman issue).

Two studies to which I’m paying close attention two are 1) Raymund Vitorio’s thesis (from the BAES program of UP Diliman) and 2) Brian Ong’s term paper on politics and blogging. I’ll be sitting as critic in Vitorio’s panel while Bong has been gracious enough to consult with me regarding his Socio paper.

While the former’s a linguistic study and the other, a sociological study, both studies have shaped up to miss what I think as one important about blogging – its discourse practice or the process of how the blog is produced and consumed by the blogger and his/her readers.

(more…)

I remember back in iBlog 3 when journalist Alecks Pabico mentioned “Sana wala na tayong away dun,” pertaining to the rift between mainstream journalism and blogging. It forced me to reassess my position on this whole citizen journalism issue. Prior to iBlog 3, I was a staunch advocate of Vincent Maher’s position on how blogging resides on a different plane of credibility compared to mainstream media.

Initially, I found the blogosphere just a tad too informal and unmediated for my taste. Eventually, I got to encounter many bright minds who openly voiced out their opinions on politics and society. If there’s one thing that the Filipino blogosphere has taught me, it’s that no one needs fancy academic degrees to churn out gems of thought. Now that the Filipino blogosphere has shown (in various cases) how the voices, varied as they are, create a very rich discourse, the impact of which on our lives, cannot be questioned. Take the golf mauling incident for example.

Now, I revisit the issue particularly because of mainstream media’s nitpicking on blogging as a source of news and a soapbox for opinion. Some mainstream media pundits have been critical on the role of blogging plays in the dissemination of information. Some criticisms even make one think whether MSM is feeling threatened at how blogs have become even beating them to the punch in reporting the golf mauling incident. The potshots have been consistent. That blogging lacks focus. That blogging is too unmediated to be credible. That citizen journalism isn’t journalism at all.

(more…)

This post is an offshoot to a Plurk I posted to which only Jester was gracious enough to oblige with comments and I’m following it up with this post.

Today’s the day many Filipino bloggers have been waiting for – the 2008 Philippine Blog Awards night. I wish every nominee the best of luck. I do think that the PBA is a great effort in acknowledging the effort and talent that Filipino bloggers poured into their blogs.

Still, I’d like to bring up a key issue regarding this effort. The PBA has so much at stake for one not be critical about it. Every blog nominated and every winner will be elevated to an elite status that virtually raises the credibility and authority of the blog as far as the Pinoy blogosphere is concerned. Whenever we have an institution doing this, we are subscribing to the idea that these awardees, are indeed, the best of what the Philippine blogosphere has to offer.

The important question – How do we decide which blog is “the best”?

(more…)