Al Jazeera Journalism Review

Philippines vloggers outside
MANILA, PHILIPPINES - A vlogger livestreams using multiple phones on a single rig during Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr's final campaign rally before the election on May 7, 2022 in Paranaque, Metro Manila [Ezra Acayan/Getty Images]

A masterclass in propaganda - political vloggers in the Philippines

‘Independent’ political vloggers and influencers are being expertly harnessed by the new Marcos Jr administration for its own ends

 

When video bloggers - or “vloggers” - were accredited as part of the presidential press corps in the Philippines, many journalists were concerned the move could jeopardise critical reporting about the administration of the newly elected President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr.

They have, sadly, been proved right.

Marcos, Jr took a calculated approach to controlling coverage of his presidential campaign. He declined to participate in presidential debates, refused interviews with the media and only distributed media advisories to select journalists. Some non-favoured journalists who followed him on the campaign trail reported literally being shoved aside by his security personnel at times.

Skilfully, Marcos surrounded himself with an army of propagandists composed of online content creators - each with enough followers to earn the status of social media “influencer” or in political communications parlance, “key opinion leader”.

“It became increasingly clear that Marcos, Jr benefited from the presence of these hyper-partisan content creators - not just in terms of the content they produced, but in that they were an alternative media that he could entertain while sidelining the more critical legacy press,” said Regine Cabato, reporter for the Washington Post.

“One could actually argue that pro-state propaganda is already normalised. I'd posit that what's happening now is further efforts to institutionalise it,” Cabato added. 

Institutionalising propaganda

Marcos, Jr’s presidential victory was the pinnacle of a stunning political comeback for the Marcos family. Marcos, Jr’s father and namesake was president of the Philippines for over 20 years - nearly half of which were under martial law. The Marcoses were overthrown in a peaceful people-power revolution in 1986 and fled to the US.

This recent political triumph also serves as a masterclass in historical revisionism. Various academic and news stories, including Cabato’s own report for the Washington Post revealed how the Marcoses perfected the use of social media as their political machinery. 

Away from censors and the need for citations and fact-checking, videos on You Tube, TikTok and Facebook used emojis and punchy music to filter and whitewash the horrors of the martial law period during which thousands of activists and journalists were detained, disappeared or killed.

It is not the first attempt to accredit pro-state online content creators to the official press corps. President Rodrigo Duterte - Marcos, Jr’s predecessor - had tried to officially accredit vloggers and bloggers who called themselves the DDS, or Die-Hard Duterte Supporters in 2017.  

Journalists pushed back.

“We sought an understanding with the presidential communications office to establish accreditation guidelines to clearly distinguish those who are reporting the news as opposed to those who are acting as extensions of the government's public relations team,” said Jason Gutierrez, president of the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (FOCAP).

The nuanced take of a subject expert is no match for the rabble-rousing tweet or TikTok of a clout-chasing pundit

Jonathan Ong, disinformation researcher, Harvard
 

 

However, in the online world, loose monitoring and weak regulations around campaign spending make it difficult to distinguish the government mouthpiece paid to disseminate propaganda from the online content creator putting out an opinion based on their own political beliefs.

Lax regulations when it comes to campaign finance monitoring further blurs these lines. The Philippine Commission on Elections does not compel candidates to declare costs for social media campaigns where YouTube channels, TikTok and Facebook pages amped by algorithms spread messages to millions of people.

Additionally, compensation does not only come in the form of monetary rewards. Incentives can be gadgets, giveaways or even government positions. Lorraine Badoy, was a pro-Duterte blogger who gushed about Duterte and called him “my labs” (my love) in her posts. Duterte appointed her undersecretary of the social welfare department.

Before she was appointed press secretary for Marcos, Jr, Trixie Cruz-Angeles was a lawyer who gained prominence as a pro-Duterte political blogger.

Cruz-Angeles announced that vloggers would have to first be accredited before they would be made part of the elite press corps and is currently reviewing accreditation guidelines. Meanwhile, around 30 vloggers and influencers with a combined subscriber base of over 2 million have formed the United Vloggers and Influencers of the Philippines (UVIP). They are currently drafting  a Code of Ethics to guard against sensationalised and partisan reporting.

Toxic political fandom

Jonathan Ong, a disinformation researcher at Harvard University and the University of Massachusetts studies the impact of political troll farms, influencers and bloggers on public perception and opinion.

“The best influencers are those with the ability to speak the vernaculars of their communities, reflect their fears and grievances right back at them, and deliver punchy and inspiring messages that do well with the algorithm,” said Ong.

This relatability earns influencers the permission to issue political analysis and informed opinion once reserved for subject matter experts and journalists.

During the last election, Ong studied the content coming from the camps of Marcos. Jr. and his closest opponent, former Vice President Leni Robredo. Ong saw that the most viral messages were the most extreme and incendiary, often spreading conspiracy theories and attacking journalists and activists.

Pro-Marcos vlogger John Anthony Jaboya - known as “Sangkay Janjan” - has more than one million subscribers to his YouTube channel. After an investigation revealed his conspiracy theories and disparaging posts about Marcos’s political rivals, Jaboya took down 167 videos, some of which violated YouTube’s policies on harassment and COVID-19 disinformation. Jaboya, who is also Vice President of the UVIP, is estimated to have lost a combined 20 million views by taking down the videos, which gives some idea of the numbers of people these videos were reaching.

“Influencer culture has dramatically transformed our information environment,” said Ong. “The nuanced take of a subject matter expert is no match for the rabble-rousing tweet or TikTok of a clout-chasing pundit who seeks to affirm the identity and belief system of their political camp of choice.”

Reimagining journalism and regaining public trust

When credibility is measured by the number of followers and authenticity and trust are based on a relatable online persona, influencers edge out journalists of the news and information space.

The 2022 Digital News Report by the Reuters Institute includes a focus on Filipinos’ Trust In Mainstream Media. It showed that interest in the news across all age groups has fallen. About 31 percent of Filipinos said they avoid mainstream media because they perceive journalists to be biased. Another 32 percent avoid the news because it has a negative effect on their mood.

The surveys in the Philippines reflect global trends. According to the 2022 Reuters Institute Digital News Report, news outlets are in stiff competition with influencers for the public’s attention - and trust.

Communications firm Edelman, which monitors public trust in major institutions, ranked the media as having the lowest level of public trust when compared to other organisations like governments and businesses.

“Giving audiences what looks like traditional journalism that I was trained to do 25 years ago is not working,” said former journalist Joy Mayer.

“Most people want credible information, and journalists spend much too little time understanding what that would look like to them and how to reach them. We assume that they will come to us in traditional ways and are frustrated when they don't and blame it all on them,” said Mayer.

the most viral messages were the most extreme and incendiary, often spreading conspiracy theories and attacking journalists and activists.

 

As director of US-based think tank Trusting News, Mayer trains journalists and newsrooms on how to incorporate audience engagement and transparency into their reporting models.

Rambo Talabong, a journalist for the Philippines-based investigative news outlet, Rappler, produced a documentary about pro-Marcos content creators and studied their relationship with their followers. He found one main difference between online content creators and reporters: vloggers have communities they engage with, journalists have audiences they deliver the news to.

“Influencer culture is an indictment of media institutions all over the world. When it comes to building relationships with our readers, we have been left behind,” he said.

An investigative journalist who previously covered the police beat and now covers disinformation, Talabong shed his initial discomfort with making news commentaries on camera and experimented with translating his lengthy in-depth coverage into snappy explainer videos on TikTok and Instagram.

People have come to recognise him in public as the reporter-fact-checker who shares his insights on Facebook and TikTok. “A lot of them say we should produce more of the videos I’ve been making so they can share them with friends and relatives who would rather watch than read,” said Talabong.

The results are encouraging and support the need to parse and simplify straightforward news to smaller nuggets of information that are easier for the public to digest.

“We can’t keep doing the same thing. We can push our boundaries and innovate while still maintaining our editorial standards,” said Talabong.

Ana P Santos is an independent journalist who reports on the intersections of gender, sexuality and labour migration

 

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera Journalism Review’s editorial stance

 

 

 

More Articles

What happened when I asked ChatGPT to write my article

It got quite a lot right, and quite a lot very, very wrong

Anam Hussain
Anam Hussain Published on: 22 May, 2023
Shireen Abu Akleh’s forgotten murder

Over the past year, many in the media profession in the US have deliberately chosen to forget the assassination of their colleague

Mitrovica
Andrew Mitrovica Published on: 11 May, 2023
The correspondent's job: Ask people, don't tell them

Should foreign correspondents and their media organisations ever take a stand on another country’s political divisions?

Ilya
Ilya U Topper Published on: 8 May, 2023
Why won’t Zimbabwe’s media report truthfully on the Gold Mafia?

When it comes to government corruption, mainstream media only reports what the government tells it to - as can be seen by their response to a damning Al Jazeera documentary

Derick M
Derick Matsengarwodzi Published on: 16 Apr, 2023
A ‘culture of fear’ - the scourge of racism in UK newsrooms

Always ready to expose prejudice and hypocrisy within political and social elites, the bosses of Britain’s newsrooms have completely failed to address their own

Aidan
Aidan White Published on: 9 Apr, 2023
Is the media responsible for the Auckland violence?

The media is failing to adhere to well-founded principles of journalism in its coverage of transgender issues. Violence is the result

Nina Montagu-Smith
Nina Montagu-Smith Published on: 27 Mar, 2023
How do we decolonise journalism?

It is our place as journalists to lead the way in challenging oppressive social and political structures - here’s how to do it

Haroon Khalid
Haroon Khalid Published on: 14 Mar, 2023
Turkish media is trapped under the rubble

Turkey has suffered one of the gravest humanitarian disasters in its history, but still the media cannot seem to disengage from political polarisation

Yusuf Göktaş Published on: 2 Mar, 2023
Climate journalism is growing up

Environmental coverage is moving on from panic-inducing warnings about global warming to the more constructive, solutions-based approach of climate journalism

Abeer Khan Published on: 27 Feb, 2023
Why are British police arresting journalists?

UK police forces increasingly regard criticism from the media as a ‘war on policing’. Journalists are being harassed, accused of crimes and arrested as a result

Rebecca
Rebecca Tidy Published on: 23 Feb, 2023
Covering a natural disaster - a time for credible and useful journalism

How should journalists set about covering the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria without adding to the trauma of victims? 

Aidan
Aidan White Published on: 7 Feb, 2023
When will this epidemic of dead and dying journalists come to an end?

Journalists are being targeted and killed in greater numbers than ever before. What will it take to get our leaders to act?

Nina Montagu-Smith
Nina Montagu-Smith Published on: 25 Jan, 2023
Has the media enabled a new age of scientific misinformation?

Social media and complex AI newsroom tools have produced a toxic environment in which dangerous misinformation is flourishing

Safina
Safina Nabi Published on: 23 Jan, 2023
‘Border jumpers’ and ‘spreaders of disease’ - how South African media incites racial hatred

The evidence that mass violence and vigilante killings have been sparked by the media in South Africa is undeniable

Danmore
Danmore Chuma Published on: 16 Jan, 2023
Julian Assange is no hero among journalists

A record number of journalists are languishing in prisons around the world, yet Assange is constantly held up as a poster boy for this type of injustice. There are far more deserving candidates

Nina Montagu-Smith
Nina Montagu-Smith Published on: 10 Jan, 2023
Is it time to ditch the word ‘fixer’?

A large part of the work associated with foreign correspondents is actually carried out by local journalists who are rarely credited - they work in the shadows

Ana
Ana P Santos Published on: 22 Dec, 2022
Morocco was the World Cup feel-good story we needed

Scenes of players frolicking on the pitch with their mothers were more than enough for me

Soraya Salam
Soraya Salam Published on: 19 Dec, 2022
In appreciation of sports journalists

The common perception of sports journalists as mere entertainment reporters is far from the full story

Nina Montagu-Smith
Nina Montagu-Smith Published on: 15 Dec, 2022
Sexual harassment in African newsrooms is a scourge on journalism

Well over half of women journalists in Africa have been subjected to sexual harassment, abuse or victimisation in news rooms. It’s time to crack down

Philip Obaji Jr
Philip Obaji Jr Published on: 12 Dec, 2022
Drone wars have removed our ability to report the horrors of conflict

What is the future for journalism in the ‘third drone age’? Full of manipulated news, most likely

Pauline Canham
Pauline Canham Published on: 8 Dec, 2022
America and Israel are partners in denial of justice for journalists 

Both countries have a disgraceful history of disregard for the rights of media staff who are the victims of violence, particularly in conflict zones

Aidan
Aidan White Published on: 27 Nov, 2022
On Zimbabwean journalists and American democracy

A Zimbabwean journalist invited by the US embassy in Harare to ‘monitor’ the US Midterms has been labelled a ‘Western spy’ by some people at home

Derick M
Derick Matsengarwodzi Published on: 14 Nov, 2022
Why Western media makes this football fan so uneasy

Criticism of Qatar in the lead up to the World Cup was always a given. But some of the hypocrisy on display is something else

Nina Montagu-Smith
Nina Montagu-Smith Published on: 27 Oct, 2022
The problem with foreign correspondents - wherever they may hail from

It’s good that the BBC recognises the value of not just sending white, British journalists to cover the internal affairs of other countries. But why send an Africa reporter to cover Pakistan?

Anam Hussain
Anam Hussain Published on: 25 Oct, 2022