Rodolfo R. Pou. Architect,
Politician & Businessman
In recent weeks, politicians, activists and commentators, residents of our Dominican nation, together with citizen megaphones, contradictory to the episodically natural, have made their capacity as authorized spokespersons, the responsible so-called alert, warning and advice, to the debt executive, legislative sanity and civic responsibility. A meritorious claim that unusually we stop to distinguish. There were congressmen, government officials and empowered citizens, whose work, participation and career, they have given them the right to own a social microphone, and in turn, be heard. But to them we will return later.
What happens is that, not every call or whistleblower, is legitimate. For decades, and why not, until today, the “enter all”, “shut up your mouth” and “threw it out of the drawer” have resonated more in our minds, than the sensible and responsible statements of any microphone. No less true has happened recently in American politics, where its main actor, is worth more of the astonishment of the message he projects, than the importance of it. And to feed that reality, accusations have arisen this week, warning about dismissal of Creole journalists, to be replaced by loudspeakers, capable of generating audience and project intentional and controlled propaganda, validating with it, that resonance. Do not believe that here in the diaspora that exercise has been less true.
Therefore, we must accept that not all spokespersons or causes are necessarily valid. Neither on the island nor in the diaspora. And more today, without subtracting the right that each person has to express themselves, where we have reached the point where the white noise and excess of information, paid or motivated, added to the technological tools that support it and we have in front, this stew, has made believe that the “I” has an innate privilege of having a microphone in front, just for the sake of it.
Or worse yet. To believe that individually we have something inestimable to contribute, for the single fact of having that microphone in front. This communicative everydayness prevents us from detecting inquiries that may seem trivial, but in reality are of great value. And it is in that order, that our human race and the societies in which it is grouped, regardless of culture, ethnicity or language, are living realities that can not be referenced with the past or with logic. Proactive warning if you will, that was proposed by valuable thinkers of the middle and end of the previous century, about the power of technology and communication.
What seemed unimaginable a handful of decades ago, in Toffler’s ads and his work “Future Shock” and “The Third Wave”, are real today. We live as the futurist author from New York put us. Under a communication revolution, where more and more, participatory and active humans, from developed or on-going countries, emerge in nexus, with a global civilization.
Complementing that vision, decades later, just before the dawn of the new century, James Gleick, the author of “Chaos” and “Faster: The Acceleration of Virtually Everything,” outlined a present, which could only be conferred with constant living and daily, in a time machine. Gates, for his part and for the same date, insinuated us that, with technology, computers and access to the Internet, our lives would enter a level of interconnectivity and instinctive collaboration, never seen. One that would become the most effective and profitable tools of and for humanity.
However, no advanced thinker of the last century predicted that,
each one of us, eventually we would have a microphone in front of us.
Let’s start from the non-traditional diffusers, taking the most used modern social communication platforms. Those minimally censored, composed of individual microphones. What are their concepts of existence and what is their global reach?
Take Twitter, for example. A network of “microblogging” that allows to share information through instant messaging. At present, more than 335 million users, use their services, monthly. The particular thing about the platform is that you only read who you want, and vise versa. He who has nothing important to communicate, will have few followers. However, he is not limited to listening to everyone he or she wants.
And less public, and more in the personal or group, more than 1,500 million people, communicate through WhatsApp. This application, serves as the valuable communication tool among diasporas of the United States with their relatives, friends or related, in their country of origin. The key of the tool is, the fact that it is free and of its ease of interconnection of groups or individuals, interested in keeping connected,
And less public, and more in the personal or group, more than 1,500 million people, communicate through WhatsApp. This application, serves as the valuable communication tool among diasporas of the United States with their relatives, friends or related, in their country of origin. The key to the tool is, the fact that it is free and its ease of interconnection of groups or individuals, interested in staying connected, via texts, images, videos and voice.
YouTube, for its part, began as a platform, where everyone could place instructional videos, thematic exhibitions, public positions, funny anecdotes and curiosities. Over time, some collaborators began to be so famous, that to describe its scope, the term “viral” arises. Being seen by millions of people, placed your transmission, as one of virulent character.
YouTube works as a video library, where every minute, 300 hours of content, are uploaded to the platform and 5 billion videos are watched, every day. From religious to singers, from educators to comedians, all have YouTube, to project themselves. And whoever is able to capture the most visits, I imagine we can say, that has the largest microphone.
Now, in terms of Facebook, that is, indisputably, the communicative monster on a global scale. In itself, it is the parallel world of which every scientist conceptualized. Its reach exceeds 2 billion users and its concept arises from the altruistic act of sharing among friends, the experiences that make our daily life, a sweet life of values and memories.
Although today, manipulations of external sectors have affected the credibility of Facebook,
This is still the most powerful platform and microphone of the global society.
Defined the new microphones, and before returning to the motivation and focus of this writing, which establishes that a valuable and good communicator should also be an authorized spokesperson for his work and career, let’s take a look at the traditional media. Those that are characterized more by emitting, than by the interaction they allow. Those regulars who still possess incredible control over the thoughts and opinions of the population of all countries. Radio, Television and Newspapers.
What seems like a technology from the past, our own still holds a great reach, which in turn is complemented by modern ones. Look how far your frequencies go. More than three quarters of households in developed or on-going countries have access to the Radio. That medium currently presents a global offer of more than 50,000 stations, with music and content programming, exhibiting 24 hours a day, with dozens of communicators and interests. However, the same happens with Television. There are more than 30,000 channels and their repeaters, which project original, informative, instructional and entertainment content.
This is the era of communication and public opinion. But it is one that also lends itself to propagate empty thoughts and contradictory movements to the progress of humanity. It is a constant white noise of ill-intentioned opinions, which only think in a contradictory way to the current, because it is the only way that your microphone can be heard. My position around this, is not to censor, but to provide the best of the messages, its just frequency and scope.
As an example I mention some events that happened these days. All, valuable scenes tied to our nation. The first of them, was the worrying claim of the Deputy Faride Raful, who in a viral tornado video, informed us all, of the vote on a bill, without first having read the alteration that had been provided. This triggered a repeated national discussion among voices, about the lack of cleanliness in these legislative processes. His message spread through modern social platforms, until reaching the traditional media, the trajectory of the message acted in reverse of what happened in previous decades.
But in equal and valuable way, Domingo Contreras, environmentalist and high government official, sounded the terrifying alarm of plastic debris that had reached our shores of the boardwalk. Faced with such a disturbing scene, he would also seize the microphone his career had given him. And more than making a call for immediate correction by guilty parties, he quickly organized a civic-official operation to confront and correct this shameful portrait. The process allowed him to present information and awareness. His microphone echoed the need for human action, rather than politics.
In the city of Miami, we listen to the architect Kalil Michel, dictate from the diplomatic microphone that he has, the parameters of the Para-Diplomacy. A tool that goes hand in hand with these new ones
In the city of Miami, we listen to the architect Kalil Michel, dictate from the diplomatic microphone that he has, the parameters of the Para-Diplomacy. A tool that goes hand in hand with these new media, making each national abroad, an ambassador of their nation, to leave the same.
To those and many other addresses, the Dominicans who reside in the country and those who like me, who reside abroad, we should facilitate its reproduction and due frequency. Not only as recipients, but also as interlocutors, issuing frank and less feigned opinions, on issues that, despite not directly affecting us, we feel entitled to value and issue them.
The microphone is a loudspeaker that allows those who are far away from you to hear you clearly. But the one that worries me is the silent microphone. The one that the distant Overseas Deputies have been carrying for six years. That they have never lit, despite being in front of his desk. The one they only use to cast votes for or against, in agreement with those who dictate guidelines, which I assure you is not the diaspora they represent.
I do not know what is worse, yes that these legislators who represent Dominicans abroad, have their microphones connected to say nothing or have them disconnected because they have nothing to say. And I warn you, it’s already late. If they have to turn them on, they will find that they only have one recipient as a single person. The one that pretends to emit through him, will find that he is only speaking to listen to himself; because its constituents, they turned off the microphone.
