The other day I gave a talk at a forum hosted by a nearby university’s Mass Communications department. It was about social news, and how it’s changing the media landscape. At the start of the talk, I was asking who had been using social news sites such as DIGG and the like. I was a bit surprised to learn that out of the dozens who attended, only a couple were familiar with DIGG. Of course, most were familiar with social networking sites such as Friendster (which was part of the discussion, actually).

So this gets me thinking. Is social news ever going to become popular here in my country? I would say there are structural and cultural reasons that keep social media from being popular here. For one, the strong presence of the mainstream media would probably be one big hindrance to that. We are a country with two dominant players in the broadcast industry, and they span various media—from television, to cable, to radio. And we are a country with a relatively low Internet penetration rate. Most of those who have Internet access usually have to do so using public terminals, at ‘net cafes and libraries.

So how could people give a damn about social news, if they don’t feel the need to be part of the new media landscape? Social news is about the users being prosumers of information, after all (that is Toffler-speak for being a producer and consumer at the same time). But without the infrastructure, how could people contribute, then? And if you cannot expect your audience to be able to access your contributions to the big picture, then what’s the point?

I would not lose hope, though. Social news, after all, is only beginning to transform how information is shared and consumed around the world. And while I will probably be unable to influence my compatriots to suddenly adopt social media rather than stick to the old media, I would say we can still consider social news very useful. Our audience, after all, transcends geography and even culture. While social news is about the society, the Web has broken down the barriers set by geographic distance. My contributions can be consumed from faraway lands. My audience is not limited to whom I am physically close.

Is social news meant for the masses? Perhaps not today. But that’s not really a problem, is it?

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