Gameplan

Bencyrus Ellorin . 

I HAVE a grudging respect for this politician. He should be an envy of campaigners and even public relations professionals.

His message on discipline is so strict. An astute student of Goebbels and expert in Machiavelli.

He succeeded for decades, and then became a local kingpin. And now, he has adapted to the digital platform, even enlisting as puppet head who is a self-proclaimed social media expert.

Their communication strategy may look like this:

Core Message: Si kuan kawatan.

Message channels

Mass Media and social media

– lawyers and minions to file cases.

From Day 1 after his loss in 2013, he has made it his mantra that “si kuan kawatan.” I was told that he even required his minions to repeat it a hundred times before breakfast. In fact, he gave them beads to they will be guided as they recite the mantra.

He has mustered his men, women and trolls to master his messaging. A stickler for discipline, he cracks his whip so that his minions stick to the message until they themselves become confused as to the truth, and believing that the lie they have propagated is the truth. And would even go kamikaze for that truth, er lie.

There’s no point arguing with them. They do not have logic nor do they stick to rules on argumentation. They have no morals.

The media is a platform of communication. It can be a stage for awesome performances and could also be for the mediocre performances, painful to bear, making comedy a tragedy.

As the media/ medium modernizes from its primitive origins — cave walls, stones to digital: The speed, volume of information exchange has vastly increased. Symbols from crude lines and curves of what looked like animals and humans to alpha numeric symbols or textual literature have evolved into multi-media.

The social media revolution has democratized publication of ideas. There are serious limitations though that is cause for concern. Unlike newsrooms where gatekeeping and curation systems are in place, there is none is social media.

Platforms like Facebook have community standards, but these are just reminders and cannot really function as a gatekeeper. Even our libel laws, which had expanded jurisdiction to digital media with cyber libel law has been limited in application.

But we have to live with this. Campaigners are always challenged how to have optimal use of modern media platforms and tools.

One of things taken for granted in this frenzy of social media revolution is that content is still essential. Content is still king.

For awhile, fake news was a major concern. For me though, fake news is overrated. If you look at the print, broadcast and online news content, fake news has not really taken up space. There may be inaccurate reports, but that is an ocean apart from fake news.

Now going back to this Goebbels – Machiavelli mix politician, he may have realized this. After two election of employing trolls, he failed, he thought of using legit media platforms. Although he has been using the media all along, like through his favorite broadcasters and/or writers.

Now he is levelling up. Through this self-proclaimed social media expert, he is now using legitimate and dominant news media platform to provide content to their propaganda. Of course, they spin and twist a simple court reportage, for example into something in their favor which they thought could destroy their opponent.

They use this to create an impression, and hopefully a public pressure of sort to decision makers up there in Manila.

One thing though, their narrative, as I have written last week, is tired.

Knowing full well they cannot win in a fair and square election, they are now escalating the trumpeting of the trumped up cases against the incumbent politician.

Losers!

Some trolls and troll-like socmed netizens have been accusing me of heading the so-called “trolls” of Mayor Oscar S. Moreno. While I admit I am an unabashed fan of the mayor, so are around a hundred thousand Cagayanons who elected him twice, and presumably to a third term. Maybe half of them have social media presence. Now, if your #epicfail campaign in social media gets flak, why look at me?

(The author is a former journalist with experience in managing and editing online news portals here and abroad. He is now a public relations consultant and political campaigner. One of the social media groups he co-administered was a finalist in Globe’s Tatt award in 2012.)