The Ombudsman cometh

Without a doubt when Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales opens her mouth, concerned citizens sit up and listen. For this is a woman who fears no man or beast, who fiercely defends her constitutional rights, who minces no words to refute critics of her decisions. This is the person we need in our uncertain time.

Thus her speech at the 25th annual conference of the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre Inc. (AMIC) held local and foreign communicators from several countries spellbound. AMIC is the premier communication center for information, research and promotion of mass communication in the Asia-Pacific region. Established in 1971 with the support of the government of Singapore and Friedrich Ebert-Stiftung and now currently based in Manila, it is actively engaged in communication documentation, research, training, publishing and media development.

Ombudsman Carpio-Morales’ inaugural speech was on “Rethinking Communication in Times of Advertising” – an intriguing topic, she said, replying to former AMIC chair Prof. Arun Mahizhnan of the National University of Singapore’s description of Asian communicators’ “far too long, submitting themselves to western theories, and validating nascent attempts to create anything Asian.” But she offered some “non-theoretical” bases on why there may be a need to rethink communication in the Philippines, and even in the entire Asia-Pacific region.

“First, our society has entered the so-called ‘post-truth’ era where truth does not really matter anymore. Posttruth – named by Oxford dictionaries as the word of the year for 2016 – means ‘relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.’”

“What happens in a post-truth era when truth becomes irrelevant and elusive,” she asked. “The answer is simple: rational discussions become irrelevant.”

She continued her unflinching observation: “The advent of social media in the country, and elsewhere in the world, saw the birth of post-truth discourse where emotional impact rather than truth is what matters. There is a lack of demand for truthful and honest discourse. Facebook and Twitter have become searing battlegrounds for propagandists, apologists and, more alarming, trolls and bots, who foment discord among a vulnerable, ill-informed (and perhaps also overentertained) population that acknowledges Google as the sole and primary source of information for just about everything. Worse, new communication tools are being used to stir up hate towards individuals and groups who are different politically or culturally. There is little room for tolerance as pride, prejudice, and bigotry prevail.

“It seems that a big part of the population would rather believe, like, and share fake news sites and echo the baseless assertions of dubious (albeit popular) bloggers. They no longer care to verify the authenticity of information fed to them, unmindful that bloggers, unlike journalists, are not sworn to observe the basic journalism tenets of accuracy and verification.

“Given this alarming trend, rethinking communication should mean making your audiences, to use your term, media literate – empowering them to discern, distinguish and detect false narratives, especially the products of systematic efforts to rewrite history.”

Carpio-Morales’ second point is that communicators need to fully understand how to make an impact in today’s information-loaded society. Perhaps, she said, communication scholars and strategists should carefully study the rhetoric and semiotic of so-called populist leaders around the world. Does falsehood rather than truth resonate? Do people listen only to what they want to hear and believe? Does the public want to hear something different?

Crafting messages that resonate with the public is very important for the Office of the Ombudsman, which is a constitutional body in the Philippines mandated to fight corruption, she said.

With less than a year to complete her six-year term, she confessed that she has yet “to discover the magic formula on how to make the evils of corruption resonate especially among the marginalized. My theory is that the average citizen still does not fully realize that he or she is the one being robbed by corrupt public officials, by the millions if not billions of pesos, and not the government.”

But is it also possible, she wonders, that the economically marginalized are fully aware of the impact of corruption, but they are not able to cry and protest because they are simply too busy (and dead tired) eking out a living, fighting to survive, especially for their children?

“Many others remain apathetic to corruption and human rights violations, untouched, as they live comfortably anyway – until the next tragedy hits home, a loved one becomes the next victim. For this, I am reminded of the controversial quotation many attribute to Dante Alighieri’s poem, Inferno. “The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in time of moral crisis preserve their neutrality.”

“Corruption is an insidious plaque that has a wide range of corrosive effects on societies. It undermines democracy and the rule of law, leads to violations of human rights. This evil phenomenon is found in all countries – big and small, rich and poor – but it is in the developing world that its effects are most destructive. Corruption hurt the poor disproportionately by diverting funds intended for development, undermining a government’s ability to provide basic services, feeding inequality and injustice, and discouraging foreign aid and investment.”

A recent study concluded that when corruption thrives, human rights are denied, and correlatively, when denial of human rights continues, corruption persists. This is one stark reality many countries must now face.”

Ombudsman Carpio-Morales’ third point is that we need to rethink communication because our media audience is now dominated by millennials.

“They are digital natives who do not only ‘consume’ media but prefer creating their own content. Their major fear is FOLO – Fear of Life Offline. Erstwhile, their fear was FOMO – Fear of Missing Out.

“Preserving the status quo or being a mere passive spectator is out of the question, as their lifestyle and work style is ruled by engagement, creativity, innovation, and change.

“Perhaps it is about time to let the millennials take the driver’s seat in communicating to various stakeholders. It is time to review your existing theories and paradigms if only to check if they still fit the communication behaviors of our young publics.”

Rethinking communication has become inevitable as many countries in Asia and elsewhere now live in perpetual VUCA.

VUCA what? VUCA stands for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity.

“We simply have to read the front pages of our favorite broadsheet to realize how perplexing our world has become: volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. These four elements do not always happen independently. They can happen simultaneously and, worse, can be self-inflicted because of misgovernance.”

The Ombudsman’s parting shot: “The challenge to communicators is to create communication strategies than can deliver effective messages especially in the worst of times, and craft messages which only reflect the truth and inspire and rekindle hope for the future amidst adversities.”