Freedom to Write and Be Heard

Ruby Ann Kagaoan – Calo

Ideas shape destiny. Ideas change nations. What Mahatma Gandhi said is tested and true: “The pen is mightier than the sword.”

The written word has the power to transform. It carries the feature of being binding, as with a contract, and being transcendent, as with a published work read across nations and by generations yet to come.

From the cuneiform of the Sumerians to blogging, 3000 years of writing has made humans more human.

What makes us human after all? Isn’t it the ability to imagine and remember? Isn’t is the capacity to reflect? Writing has given avenue for these human capacities to be developed.

Now, writing has taken a quatum leap through the global phenomenon of blogging.

What is blogging?

Simply defined, blogging is writing unlimited, publishing immediate. It is giving a writer and thinker the absolute freedom to write and be read and be written back to right away.

Blogging is the ultimate experience of “expressing yourself” without the danger of other self-expressions, like in extreme sports. It is the best avenue so far to influence the thinking of other people. It sets you completely free to tell others what you think. It is uncensored global publication.

How about podcasting?

Within a blog, you can also podcast, which is an audible program distributed through the Internet.

Unlike radio and television programs, podcasts can be heard anytime and anywhere. Podcasts have intensified the power of the spoken word and music.

Together, blogging and podcasting are bringing humanity closer to its aspiration of full freedom for the human spirit.

Hands-On Workshop on Blogging and Podcasting

From July 4 to 6, 2006, the Manila office of the Friedrich Nuamann Foundation (FNF) conducted a blogging and podcasting workshop called Express Yourself! Reloaded. The workshop transformed 18 communicators selected by FNF from various sectors and three Asian nations (Philippines, Indonesia, and Korea) into adept bloggers and podcasters.

Top bloggers Manuel Quezon III, Abe Olandres, and Angelo Racoma share their valuable skills and insights into the most phenomenal new media thus far to unleash the full power of the written and spoken word – blogging and podcasting.

Spearheading the workshop is Dr. Ronald Meinardus, who is the FNF country representative. FNF is a German-sponsored political organization dedicated to the promotion of liberalism.

To know more about “Express Yourself! Reloaded” and FNF, visit www.fnf.org.ph

Workshop Outputs

This post “Freedom to Write and Be Heard” is my output in the blogging session held on Day One of the workshop. Here I applied blogging techniques and styles which I did not know before. For example, I learned how to improve the scanability of my posts and blog by using breaks, pictures, captions, and subheadings with boldfaced fonts.

On Day Two, we learned how to podcast. If you want to listen to my group’s podcast, click here. The material that we used for the podcast was based on my article “A Government Under God,” which you can find in this blog that I created during the workshop, pinay@heart.

Day Three was spent listening to and critiquing the podcasts created by our class. Listen to another interesting podcast produced during our workshop, and take note of the identity of my male classmate who was interviewed in that podcast (a former senior government official). I find his views very enlightening and informative.

In the final session of Day Three, Abe and Angelo talked about how to increase the marketability of your blogs and podcasts.

If you want to experience the well-produced podcasts of FNF, click here.