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A case against the "Cellphone Revolution"
By Sarah Raymundo

It seems that nowadays, social theorists, consciously or not, can no longer do without situating themselves on either side of a Great Divide. This discursive line organizes as a team those who argue that current ruptures in history are the logical conclusion of the spatio-temporal conditions of the 19th century and must therefore be confronted within that epoch’s historico-philosophical tradition. On the other side of the line are those who claim to have exorcised themselves of that tradition.  

TXT-ING SELVES by Prof. Raul Pertierra et. al. provides the much needed theoretical and empirical substance in mapping modernity and its current popular articulation in the Philippines: the ubiquitousness of cellphone use. The authors’ analyses, albeit ambivalent and inconsistent at times, situate them among those who insist, “the 19th century is not yet over.” Upon this claim, postmodern faddists have merely their fashionable eyebrows to raise.

Modern Connectivities & the Global Complex 
When local spaces are apprehended through the mediation of virtual global structures of time and space, the case for global modernity becomes arguable. To support this, the authors cite “the example of a Filipino worker assembling computer chips for export who watches Hollywood movies for entertainment, and uses the Nokia phone to ask money from relatives working abroad so that he can buy imported goods.” (39)
Like all anecdotes, this one can only validate its claim alone and not the pervasiveness of its incidence. Arguably, however, global modernity does impose a simulation of an aestheticizing middle class lifestyle to be consumed by individuals regardless of class position. It’s not surprising then that “the Philippines [has become] the texting capital of the world with 7.2 million cell subscribers and an average of 65.4 million messages sent per day.”(88)

The authors analyze this data with remarkable acumen, attributing the texting phenomenon to the capacity of “global economies to construct their own imaginative geographies to suit particular investment needs.” (39) After all, as the more astute cultural critics suggest, popular culture is, in the final analysis, created for profit. To ensure this, centers of capitalist modernity “depend on their virtual hinterlands.” (41)
The underdeveloped economic base of these hinterlands coupled with the misguided role of absorbing the surplus of capitalist production in global centers is the socio-economic base of a culture obsessed with commodities, as is the case of the Philippines. (It is important to note that this geographic partitioning of the world into global centers and virtual hinterlands does not take into account the internal class contradictions in their respective loci. After all, Ayala Center and Eastwood City are extended bastions of global capitalism’s surplus shops.)

The cellphone, being a commodity, is neither a symptom nor an indication of a growing information society. For Pertrierra et. al., this newest national sensation is, to begin with, a function of the “country’s inferior communication resources.” (126) Furthermore, the authors expound that “the possibility for its (cellphone) creation and development are in themselves the result of the culture of modernity.” (134) The authors refer to the political and economic conflict waged among superpowers, which gave birth to such high-tech modern inventions that have become signifiers of supremacy. This underscores the notion that the current use of cellphone technology has been brought about by a crisis in modernity and thus, continues to function as a symptom of such crises.

Cellphones & Social Movements
The authors also proffer arguments contrary to the usual euphoric, knee-jerk hallelujahs regarding the function of texting during EDSA 2. This position amplifies the “‘rhetoric of the technological sublime’ (Wagner) that embodies a naturalistic, teleological and utopian conceptions of technology.” (102) This posits that technology per se, as the engine of growth, will eventually lead to economic convergence with a capitalist world without regard to the conditions of underdeveloped countries like the Philippines – which is a dream, promise and fantasy fated.

The rhetoric of the sublime is concretized in the media’s glorification of the cellphone as a catalyst that sent droves of people to EDSA. To this, the authors point out that “EDSA 2 would have occurred without the existence of cellphones.” The mobile phone’s role in EDSA 2 was to “facilitate the virtual community of like-minded individuals who were able to express their solidarity through the transmission of text messages.” (123-124)
The event shows that new technologies are not in themselves transformative but rely on human operators whose social practices tend to either reproduce or challenge the status quo.

But a better argument against technologism would have been the authors’ earlier claim that cellphone technology is a symptom of the crisis of modernity. Since technological innovation is a product of modernity, to credit technology as the driving force of social change is obviously anti-historical.

In one instance, the authors do seem to have disregarded their claims for a continuing modernity —

“The Philippines is persistently undergoing its third major conversion. The first was the rapid Christianization of the islands by Spanish friars during the 16th century; the second was its assimilation of Yankee values as thought by enthusiastic American teachers; and the third has been the cellphone revolution. However, as the French say, plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose: things remain much the same in the face of radical change.” (125)

The first two major conversions they talk about are functions of colonialism and imperialist con`solidation. The so-called “cellphone revolution” is only part of the ongoing process of imperialist globalization and, in this sense, is not different from a McDonalds, Coke or MTV “revolution.” Are we then supposed to acknowledge that a historical break happens every time a new commodity floods the market? Things remain the same not because the French say so but because we still live in qualitatively unchanged times.

The argument further affirms that focusing on the pervasiveness of a specific cultural practice (in this case, the use of cellphones) where an uncritical consensus of its functions is likely to be found is a brand of culturalism — a critique of the culture industry that becomes, in itself, its own advertisement. (Adorno)

Nation, Identities & Communications Technology 
While Filipinos tend to welcome and embrace technology, they often attempt, as the book claims, “to indigenize their effects.” This argument further suggests that despite global economies’ homogenizing effects, “it also provides local communities with opportunities to define themselves and protect their culture.” (14) Just how this is done and to what extent remain unexplored.

But, even assuming, for the sake of argument, that modifications of that sort occur, the logic of late capitalist modernity creates a consumer society where identities are manufactured and sold by the market. These new identities may include post-corporeal, sexualized and other transgressive subjects as developed features of time-space compression. (52) Even national identities and national cultures are commodities to be manufactured, advertised, sold and consumed. Therefore, an argument that celebrates the proliferation of various identities could very well be any billboard ad along South Superhighway.

The authors avoid this by problematizing the possibilities these new identities embody in pursuing the Promethean challenge of razing the hierarchies of a globalized economy.They also deny that users of hi-tech gadgets are certified post-corporeal subjects. “Our informants are well aware that the medium (cellphone) encourages deception and subterfuge. It is a way to have fun and only postmodernists, it seems, take it seriously.” (130) Moreover, findings show that their participants are aware of the uses of texting in the transmission of useful information. In other words, subjects in this research are not confused; they know when to use the cellphone for fun and when to apply it for practical gains. The authors add that “[m]ost informants can tell the difference between these two modes and take appropriate steps not to confuse them. To prevent this confusion, some even use two SIM cards, one for each mode.” (133)

Pertriera et. al. also explore the connection between national consciousness and constructed identities in the light of cellphone use. The authors suggest: “One might say that many contemporary problems are due to the difficulty Filipinos have in imagining and hence creating a society in which its members enjoy equal opportunities.” (50)
Given this, the authors examine whether new communication technologies, like the cellphone, enhance collective participation or result in the further “privatization of the world.” (50) From this they conclude that “texting has limitations as a channel for communication. It is mainly employed to convey affect rather than cognition. Texting may involve phatic-communication and lead to communities of intimacy, but it is unlikely to generate structures of knowledge. For this reason, some have argued that it contributes mainly to the solidification of the private world.” (141)

While this is indeed a sound conclusion, the authors fail to bring up an important point. The circulation of hi-technology is, at present, tied to the interest of capital accumulation. Their consequences could be transgressive but ultimately, they pose no threat to the establishment. Thus, the solidification of the private where consumer identities hold sway.  

Following this, the suggestion that contemporary problems might be solved by a certain quality of imagination is a slack analysis of capitalist totality that elides the structural impediments to The Good Life. Poverty, in this light, is seen as a function of perspective rather than a result of material social conditions.

Cellphones & Commodity Fetishism
“The cellphone revolution has begun.” So concludes the book. This echoes a common riff on many ads that deploy haphazardly words like “revolution” and trivializes it. The concept of revolution involves a large-scale overhauling of society through a decisive and strategic mobilization of human agency. But in the lingo of advertising, you get sound bytes that announce the arrival of these “revolutionary” detergents, appliances, apparel and other consumer products. Along these lines, commodities feign a human-like capacity. Talk about commodity fetishism!

TXT-ING SELVES is arguably an important contribution to the still-limited literature on Philippine popular culture. It makes for interesting reading (those quaint, funny, sad and disturbing anecdotes are by themselves, engaging).
Still, as any expert texter knows, it takes some time to master the art of pressing the right buttons while crossing the street.  

The same, the reader should be reminded, holds true for histories.

The author is an instructor at the Department of Sociology, UP Diliman. She is the secretary-general of the Congress of Teachers and Educators for Nationalism and Democracy (CONTEND-UP).

Related Article: The nature of modern imperialism