That’s why I’m glad that the Ateneo Association of Communication Majors (ACOMM) is holding its first Social Media Summit, with Yahoo! Philippines as its online partner.

I’m one of the speakers, and I’m honored to be in the company of Maria Ressa, Pilar Pedrosa Pilar, Jim Paredes, Ivan Henares, Candice Montenegro, and Rowena Azada-Palacios.

Here’s ACOMM’s 2011 Social Media Summit video.

For more information, check out this article on Yahoo! Philippines.

See you there!

Should be an interesting event!

Here’s an excerpt from the article What Many Media Companies Don’t Get About Building An Audience.

Most firms believe that they are in the business of distributing content through discrete channels, and that mischaracterization often leads to poor strategy and execution. (Read on for some of the latest examples.)

If you make television shows, films or music, your business is actually the audience business. The same goes for books, magazines and newspapers. Michael J . Wolf, former President of MTV Networks, put it this way when I spoke with him. “Television companies are in the programming business and the brand business. When you look at a network like Syfy, or Cartoon Network, or Nickelodeon, they mean something.”

Let’s hope more media companies will quickly learn what kind of business they’re actually in — before they go out of business.

As someone who was a journalist for over a decade, I can certainly identify with the idealism of trying to change the world by uncovering the truth, only to come face to face with the reality that things are a lot more complicated.

Here’s an excerpt from Samuelson’s essay.

This was a common conceit among journalists of my generation. We would reveal what was hidden, muddled or distorted. The truth would set everyone free. It sustained good government. We were democracy’s watchdogs and clarifiers. One thing I learned is that these satisfying ideas are at best simplifications–and at worst illusions. Truth comes in infinite varieties; every story can have many narratives. There are always new facts, and sometimes today’s indisputable fact qualifies or rebuts yesterday’s.

I started with the naive notion that, by exposing and explaining how the world worked, I would in some small way contribute to better government and a saner society. What I discovered firsthand is what I already knew intuitively: Democracy is a messy, often shortsighted, unreasoned and selfish process. People have interests, beliefs and prejudices that, once firmly entrenched, are not easily dislodged–and certainly not by logic or evidence.

As for me, I believe in fighting for our ideals–no matter what reality might be.

Here’s an excerpt.

The editorial Let’s Abolish ‘Citizen Journalists’ on The Digital Journalist caught my attention, thanks to a tweet from @gangbadoy retweeting the link from @glossmania.

While I don’t agree with the article entirely, it does raise good points on the need to vet stories posted and spread through social networks, and the kind of dedication and courage it takes for journalists to actually cover news events.

Read the full story.

Here’s an excerpt.

I stumbled upon this brilliant presentation by David Gillespie, thanks to Misty Belardo’s tweet, and I just wanted to share it with you and give my own views about it.

Be warned, though, it has 263 slides, but it’s worth going through the whole presentation and digesting all this food for thought.

Read the full story.

I think this incident once again shows how social media is making the news a shared experience. This, of course, is also a double-edged sword, because on the one hand, it brings the news to people who might normally not be interested in watching the news or visiting news sites. On the other hand, some may point out that this might, pardon the pun, inflate the importance of certain news items. Not to downplay the importance of the news, because I’m personally hoping the boy is all right, but as some Twitter users have already pointed out, CNN seems to have given too much coverage to it, considering other important things happening in the world, like, you know, wars and natural disasters.

Read the full story.

It may have taken several years and elections, but citizen journalism is expected to play a key role in covering the Philippine presidential polls in 2010.

One sign of recognition for Filipino bloggers and citizen journalists is that the Philippine Commission on Elections is officially welcoming blog coverage of the polls.

Read the full story.

Here’s an excerpt.

With mainstream media over the weekend failing to satisfy the hunger for news on the protests against the Iran election results and subsequent government crackdown, it was New Media which once more came to the rescue.

Twitter has become a vital tool not only for people around the world to know what’s happening inside Iran–the hashtag #IranElection is the number one Trending Topic on Twitter as of this writing–but has been harnessed by the Iranian protesters themselves. Now Twitter users are lobbying via the hashtag #NoMaintenance to convince the microblogging site to postpone its scheduled maintenance.

Read the full story.

As Filipinos saw last night, the true test of digital tools is when they are used by citizens to defend democracy and keep information flowing.

Mainstream media was virtually prevented–or perhaps in some cases, unwilling–from doing a live coverage of the House of Representatives plenary debate on amending the Philippine Constitution that lasted deep into the stormy night. New Media, however, kept Filipino Netizens informed (search for #conass on Twitter and Plurk) as the pro-administration majority used their numbers to railroad the approval of House Resolution No. 1109, which would allow Congress to convene into a constitutional assembly (ConAss) and amend the Philippine Constitution.

Read the full story.