Online presence

A youth forum held in Cebu City over the weekend floated the idea of requiring candidates in next month’s election to keep in touch with concerns of the country’s youth by going online to interact with them, since most digital natives are under 25 years old.

Candidates know the demographics – the median age of the country is between 21 and 24 – and keep Facebook and Twitter accounts that are maintained daily by their staff.

Social media has been a handy medium for candidates like Sen. Francis Escudero and Loren Legarda not only to raise their profile but to sustain the interest and curiosity of supporters and the voting public in general.

In Cebu, Twitter and Facebook was an effective medium for suspended Cebu Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia to rant and denounce political rivals and the Aquino administration when she was holed up in the Capitol for over a month. It remains a handy tool to campaign for support for herself and her One Cebu party.

Sadly, this affinity for online media and gadgets has been exploited by candidates desperate enough to engage in any gimmick to win votes.

One example is that Valenzuela candidate in Metro Manila who distributed cell phones in a campaign sortie, a gimmick that diehard patrons of afternoon variety shows know only too well.

And who can forget senatorial candidate Jamby Madrigal’s Facebook promotion that got her entangled with allegations of vote-buying and early campaigning by the Commission on Elections (Comelec)?

Thankfully, the election agency has been stepping up its online campaign as well and has a rich website of election statistics, relevant laws, policies and updates.

There are gimmicks which have escaped or largely skirted the Comelec’s campaign rules like that softdrink promotion featuring the faces of senatorial candidates by one convenience store chain.

Readers, listeners and viewers have the choice to tune out what they don’t know or like in a candidate in their exposure to newspapers, radio, TV and the Internet.

Since the online world is a fairly recent development in mass communication, both the audience whose largest growing segment is the youth and the candidates have yet to come to terms with how this medium can best serve their purposes and interests.

You need a good dose of common sense, the guidance of family, friends and others in one’s social and professional circle to figure out what content is really useful or worth following.

The public needs to be exposed to these candidates in whatever forum is open to them in order to arrive at their best judgment in selecting the next batch of leaders on May 13.