Othering within the queer dating scene has become prevalent in recent years (Labor, et al., 2023), encapsulated by the phrase “pass sa halata,” which indicates one’s rejection of someone who is “obviously” gay. Yet the very definition of halata [obviously gay], and by extension kabaklaan [gayness], within the Philippine context is ever-changing. Through a symbolic interactionist lens, this study elucidates how the concept of the halata is being conceived and (re)defined in the Facebook group Samahan ng mga Halata [Association of the Obvious Gays], an online community which features gender-based content. From a textual analysis of 257 photos and videos posted from January to June 2024, the study’s results outline the halata’s core characteristics. The findings also indicate that while the age-old gay stereotypes of flamboyant behavior and preference for traditional masculinity persist, these become enmeshed with new and emerging definitions of queerness in the digital age, including tech-facilitated promiscuity and political awareness, thereby producing a novel image of gayness that is suspended between past and present notions of kabaklaan and is thus characterized by contradictory behavior.

This qualitative study sought to understand the context and process of the conversations and stories leading to electoral behavior and actions of families in Manila City during the 2022 Philippine presidential elections. The study explored their media exposure, the nature and process of political participation of those in their household, and the relationships outside their families that shaped their vote for Marcos Jr. We conducted focus group discussions with three families in Manila City who voted for Marcos Jr. Using Coordinated Management of Meaning of Pearce and Cronnen, the study found that participant families in Manila City coordinated meanings through the strong inside voices in the family, supplemented by the echo chambers of new media and distrust of traditional media, as well as the negative interactions in their community. These factors led several Manila voters further into their echo chambers and social enclaves. The campaign platform of “Unity” captured the unity among the families in voting for Marcos Jr. because of their shared mental scripts of his accomplishments, their perception of other candidates, and the perceived Marcos name and legacy. Select Manila voters supported Marcos Jr. hoping for the good of their families and the nation.

TikTok has been a site for increasing political activities. But what exactly constitutes political activity? I analyzed #corecore, a trend in the social media platform TikTok that portrays hopelessness in our present realities, and its localization through its combination with #pinoycore. I located the affective political performances of the trend’s creators. Employing thematic analysis to 37 videos, I firstly identified the themes of playful affordances that allowed for the (re)production of #corecore #pinoycore videos. I argued that sound bites, hashtags, and weaved short clips in a single short-form video allows for the constant production and reproduction of #corecore #pinoycore. Second, I identified three affective themes – (1) affective news, (2) tragic reality of social, political, and economic conditions, and (3) recollecting the past – that allow the trend to carry intense emotions in its political performances. The playful affordances and affective intensities that exist in #corecore #pinoycore allow politics of hope and playful resistances to be performed through the trend. Such is seen through a critique of Philippines’ present realities and a reimagination of future possibilities. These affective political performances unearth the role of emotions such as hope and hopelessness in shaping the political, along with its performances and possibilities.

Social media spaces have been used as platforms for gender representations and expressions. Therefore, it is essential to define and discuss what features of the platform allow queer individuals to showcase their identities and sensibilities. Moreso, current interest in TikTok has led to scholarly interrogations that define the platform’s potential and pitfalls. The paper, drawing from the constructs of social media affordances and the kapwa model, examined how queer individuals enact queer expressions through TikTok’s social media affordances. Online interviews of queer individuals from mostly urban settings were employed to elicit reflections and experiences of how they queer their social media presence. Moreover, content analysis of TikTok videos was used to understand better how platform affordances enable or restrict the production of queer social media presence. Finally, discussions and recommendations on the potentiality of online spaces to enable the formation of networked publics and communities through the creation of queer content on the social media platform are made.

This paper is an attempt to explain the cultural and political consequences of President Duterte’s misogynistic microassaults against women in his public speeches and personal behaviors that brazenly demean women. Employing critical discourse analysis on relevant material found in online sources covering the period from the precampaign to the year 2018 (the second year of Duterte’s presidency), this study will explore how Duterte’s microassaults against strong women who dare stand up against his hypermasculine power serve to further consolidate his fascist power while instilling among the population the traditional sex-roles assigned to women such as passivity, obedience, and docility.

In the field of communications much is still to be known about Filipino vlogs. And yet vlogs are subject to much public discourse. Anchored in Jessica De Boeck’s (2015) work, this study determines the purposes that vlogs serve in this computer-mediated communication by examining the opening and closing strategies in 10 Filipino YouTube vlogs. Generally, the results of the study are constitutive of De Boeck’s findings. However, Filipino vlogs have interesting additions to these identified strategies. For the opening strategies, some Filipino vloggers identify their viewers by denoting names to their fan base. They also include short clips or video previews, which I argue as “digital markers.” And as for the closing strategies, some Filipino vloggers operate the discourse marker “so” as a final closing strategy. Lastly, the topic shading forecasts vloggers’ arrangement and framing. By and large, the vlogs’ employed strategies are deemed to provide a profound sense of involvement, engagement, and belongingness.

This study explores how the democratization of media in Indonesia enhanced the role of television stations in raising voters’ political awareness about the 2014 legislative election. For this qualitative study, we interviewed two media experts and the chief editors of six television stations. We find that there are three general factors negatively affect TV’s role as a free public sphere, namely, production constraints, owners` political interests, and commercial aspects of the television industry. Concentration of ownership and commercialization have increased television’s orientation toward profit, minimizing its educative role, and minimizing its neutrality. However, television still increased voters’ awareness regarding the election technicalities but failed to reflect the visions of the competing candidates. The establishment of innovative community television could be an alternative for commercial TV in Indonesia. However, the performance of community TVs in Indonesia is hindered by the restricted access to frequency spectrum and low financial capabilities.

In November 2020, in a now-deleted tweet, twelve queer Filipino influencers on Twitter were branded as “baklang kanal,” for their noted expressions of dissent against the Rodrigo Duterte regime. Soon after, an online debate ensued: among these twelve influencers, who are the most rightful to be considered as baklang kanal ? While the term as commonly used now in Twitter is understood to refer to “gay individuals who are unapologetically outspoken about their views” (Vilog, 2020a), this paper intuits baklang kanal as a means to symbolically negotiate with the audience, toward construction of a seeming authenticity that is crucial for the establishment, maintenance, and expansion of their influencer status—what can be nominated as subversive frivolity, or the “generative power…arising from (populist) discursive framing as marginal, inconsequential, and unproductive” (Abidin, 2016, p. 2). We explore such harnessing of baklang kanal as generative power through a case study of two social media influencers, namely Pipay (@pipaykipayy) and Sassa Gurl (@Itssassagurl), exemplary not only for their large followings, but as well as their inclusion in the inaugural Bardy’s, a parodic people’s choice award facilitated over Twitter, for the Cannes’al (i.e., “kanal”) category.

This paper rests on a premise that women ad-makers’ experience in the act of making advertisements (ads) of beauty products places them in a complex situation of ‘encoding’ ad content. They are not just making any other advertisement, but ads of products that have them as target consumers by virtue of them being women. Using Sandra Harding’s Standpoint Theory and employing an interpretivist paradigm, this article answers the question: How do Filipino women ad-makers perceive their environment’s regard of women as workers and of women characters in the ads they make? Using maximum variation sampling, twelve (12) women advertisement makers were included in in-depth semi-structured interviews; and another twelve (12) were included in two (2) focus group discussions (FGDs). Qualitative analysis reveals that the ad-makers have a strong situated procedural knowledge on how the professional standard of the advertising industry either impedes on or facilitates how women maneuver through their work life.

Philippine independent or "indie" cinema as we understand it today is often traced back to Kidlat Tahimik's 1977 avant-garde film Mababangong Bangungot [Perfumed Nightmare]. Written, directed, and produced by Kidlat on a miniscule budget, the film won the FIPRESCI Prize at the 1977 Berlin Film Festival and was a critical success. Its triumph at the Berlin Film Festival led to its becoming the first Filipino film to be released commercially in Germany while its international distribution rights were eventually bought by American Zoetrope, the film company founded by Francis Ford Coppola (Sorilla, 2020). While much has indeed been written about the film's achievements in Europe and the United States, few seem to highlight the fact that Mababangong Bangungot, a Filipino film, never had an actual theatrical run in the Philippines. Local critics, cineastes, and aspiring filmmakers who wished to see the film had no choice but to wait for the occasional special screening at film festivals or college campuses.