Text messaging: the new tool for democracy?

People power ousted Estrada in the Philippines, and popular protests in China that the government has a hard time controlling how they are organized both share one thing in common: they were organized by text messaging on mobile phones.

As of 2005, 27% of China were the owners of mobile phones, which allows for far more expression than e-mails that are censored or blocked by a regime that closely monitors its critics, who are usually viewed as synonymous with dissenters. As of 2006, the Philippines, a country with only 2 million Internet users and 3 million land phone users, had over 30 million mobile phone users, many of whom can multi-task anything they do while text messaging in one hand without even looking at the screen.

It is this extreme familiarity with the technology that helps people overcome the censorship of the news media, even in places like North Korea where some 20,000 mobile phones are smuggled in and used as a primary source of news about the outside world that the DPRK wants none of its citizens to be familiar with in order to protect its regime. Even the most outspoken blogger cannot compete with international text messaging when his or her blog is subject to being blocked or even shut down with heavy Internet censorship.

But development is not what causes people to resort to text messaging to spread information or organize protests: South Korea, which has over half of its population connected to high-speed Internet connections, still has an obvious divide between the people and the information. According to Cathy Hong of the online edition of Christian Science Monitor:

In South Korea, for example, many experts agree that current President Roh Moo Hyun would not have been elected without the help of the Internet and SMS. Back in December 2002, conservative mainstream media favored his rival Lee Hoi Chang to win the election, especially when a former rival who had endorsed Mr. Roh unexpectedly withdrew his support on the eve of Election Day. But Roh's core supporters, who were of the younger "information technology" generation, launched a massive last-minute campaign. They fired off e-mails and text messages to 800,000 voters on the morning of election day, urging them to go to the polls. Source: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2005-06-30-politics-text-tool_x.htm?csp=34

So even with greater access to technology, text messaging is now in of itself a necessary tool for the spread of information, especially with technology like the Apple iPhone which grants Internet access for direct access to news articles online that are complementary to people who have configured their mobile phones to receive news via long or multiple text messages. The mobile phone is an important tool in Africa as it is the one piece of technology that links everyone together, especially when farmers in the rural countryside get actual prices from friends or relatives in the city via text messages so that they do not get cheated out of their earnings from the agents who come to pick up their goods to sell to the city and give their own daily prices.

The downside to people text messaging is the limitations on characters each text message. People do not necessarily utilize the dictionary tool, but their abbreviations sometimes habitually end up in written form, including people occasionally writing words such as "2gthr" under the strains of in-class writing assignments, such as in the Philippines.

Beyond text messaging, mobile phone technology has had its own fair share of scandals, from the Tammy Nyp scandal in Singapore of February 2006 when a student's phone was stolen and erotic movies of her and her boyfriend saved on the phone were sent to multiple people and even uploaded to the Internet, despite Singapore's strict controls and censorship. Furthermore, some debates are going on about having mobile phones with cameras being allowed in places such as locker rooms, and security measures need to be taken into consideration amidst the advent of mobile technology, as it is much easier to snap a photo or record a movie of classified information and send it long before being caught.

Not to totally dismiss the use of the video and camera function of mobile phones however is the video below uploaded to youtube of one of many instances in which students have taken video recordings of abuses by teachers. One case in Taiwan caused an uproar and debates on the subject of corporal punishment in Taiwan, available in BBC's archive at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4378412.stm.



Mobile phones have already penetrated popular culture as much as the Internet has, possibly even deeper considering their ease of use and wider user base. Movies such as Japanese horror film One Missed Call show creative interpretations of mobile phone use, such as its plot about a ring tone that plays and leaves a prophetic message of the listener's own voice and approaching death by supernatural means.

Perhaps in the near-future, there may be stricter controls over the content of mobile technology and capability as governments are wary of their people's creative use of the technology, especially when terrorists potentially use text messaging to organize or plan attacks. There is also the potential for governments to take a page from the Israeli government, who in 1996 planted a bomb in the mobile phone of Palestinian suicide bombing mastermind Yahya Ayyash which resulted in his assassination.

So in the age of information and misinformation, we see a new field that is still in its developmental stages in the form of mobile technology, especially having seen what its potential can already do. Just don't go expecting your phone to explode in your face

More articles about the text messaging phenomenon

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2005-06-30-politics-text-tool_x.htm?csp=34

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/04/25/news/internet.php

http://www.textually.org/textually/archives/2005/11/010591.htm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/24/AR2006082401379.html

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,1176738,00.html

http://www.bulatlat.com/news/4-25/4-25-texters.html

http://www.time.com/time/asia/asiabuzz/2001/01/23/

http://www.smh.com.au/news/Technology/Mobile-rings-changes-for-worlds-poor/2005/04/21/1114028473872.html

When you're a jet, you're a jet all the way-- or are you?

“When you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet all the way from your first cigarette to your last dying day” go the lyrics of the famous song from the classic American musical, Westside Story. That seems to be akin to the popular attitude with westerners towards religion. If you are Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, you subscribe exclusively to that faith, any taint of belief in similar concepts such as Karma is to Buddhism as Providence is to Christianity results in conservative religious fundamentalists denouncing those who believe in false scripture, in spite of existing similarities.

But come over to the Asia Pacific region, especially in Southeast Asia and Japan, it is a different story altogether. Historically, many traditions reveal that the understanding of the world in both Southeast Asia and Japan did not distinguish between the sacred and the profane, as spirituality was part of their everyday life. Such spiritual traditions are varied and diverse.

One example shows how shamans and ancestral worship are important, such as going to shamans to communicate with ancestral spirits in order to find out what makes grandma so angry that she takes it out on the family by preventing a young couple from bearing any children. Another important example are rites and rituals such as mamemaki in Japan that is celebrated on the day of setsubun, setsubun referring to the day just before the beginning of each new season, and mamemaki performed by throwing soybeans out the door to cast away evil spirits from the previous season and prevent new ones from coming into the next. Most noticeably even today is the penchant for spiritual protection in the form of amulets and other lucky charms which people carry around for good luck or protection. But what happened to these when the advent of exclusive religions such as Christianity came when Europeans did, as well as the attitudes of little or no tolerance for traditional beliefs and superstitions?

Some current arguments show that in these cultures, there is no separation of culture and religion, because religion is part of their culture; it was what defined their outlook on life and was the basis of all their activities, from music in sacred rituals to government structure, such as the way Cambodia’s Angkor Wat temple was built to replicate the cosmic home of the Gods. So even when you have a high concentration of Islam in Indonesia or Christianity in the Philippines (yet some superstitions still remain especially in the form of amulets for good luck), how does this work out?

Here’s the thing: those beliefs never left with the arrival of the religions of the west. There is a western misconception that these traditional belief systems worship a wide pantheon of gods and do not respect the authority of a supreme deity above all, which is actually far from it.

The issue is not really a matter of inconsistent spiritual practices and religious beliefs, but a matter of definition and level of involvement. In the West, people tend to view religion as synonymous with the institutions that represent it and thus can eliminate it from their daily lives since they can separate themselves from it due to separation of the sacred and profane, especially with people feeling a greater attachment and more relief from the Almighty Dollar or science as a way of explaining how things work or even manipulating nature. Coupled with the fact people don’t feel too happy about church on Sundays asking for donations and thus taking away money, their source of comfort and society’s life blood, we can see why the spiritual realm of the gods has a limited role in society, even though the dollar says, “In God We Trust.”

Back East, however it is another story. An interesting discovery pointed out by UCLA history professor Herman Ooms shows that in a consensus of religions in Japan, 140% of the population are listed as Buddhist. Where does the other 40% come from if 100% is supposed to be the entire population? The answer is quite interesting: people checked off more than one box identifying which religion they felt they were, and the majority felt sympathetic towards Buddhism, practiced Shinto rituals, and got married in western-style Christian weddings. So interestingly enough, a person who checked off these three choice can theoretically be practicing three religions, which is difficult for a westerner to fathom if he believes that religion is a set path to meeting the Supreme Being, and we can only walk one path, not multiple.

In the value system back East however, this is not what religion is, since there is a very thin line between religion and culture as noted earlier. Though difficult to convey, essentially there are categories of importance in terms of spirituality that all fall under the overall belief system of these societies. Fellow history professor at UCLA Geoffrey Robinson on a visit to Indonesia wondered how a Muslim family in Indonesia was able to practice a ritual that could essentially be classified as ancestor worship in spite of the popular understanding that Islam was a strict religion with no tolerance like its brother Christianity. To the family who explained this to him, they felt that it had no conflict with Islam at all, that it was simply a part of their tradition to honor their ancestors. The key word here is “tradition.” Much like the Chinese in Hong Kong who use Feng Shui to make use of the sacred geometry of the universe for luck and prosperity who find nothing wrong with their conscience on the way to church Sundays, these practices would best be understood as traditions or superstitions in western eyes. Professor Herman Ooms, on a trip to Japan before, once asked a lady if they actually believed in the rituals they practiced, in going to graveyards for people to pay respect to ancestors, or in the good luck charms that people buy. Her response said it all about religion and culture: “Do you believe in Santa Claus?”

In a sense, people become too attached to tradition that it loses meaning, much like going to church becomes routine and it is no longer a spiritual day that reminded people of the powers that be. Why is Sunday in the United States a day when banks are closed and people somehow feel lazier than any other day of the week? Why does it seem weird to open up a drawer in a motel or hotel and not find a Bible placed by the Gideons? It is when the religion becomes so enmeshed in the culture that the culture takes it in without needing the religion to justify or explain it, since it becomes the norm.

Pay attention the next time you go to Borders bookstore and look by the cashier to see such novelties such as Buddha-in-a-box or a miniature Zen garden and more to decorate your desktops as well as offer a little more enlightenment. Why be a Jet when you can be whomever you want to be and reap the benefits of it all, just like the Japanese and most people in Southeast Asia do?