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6 - Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2023

Cheryll Ruth Soriano  and
Earvin Charles Cabalquinto
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Summary

Abstract

This Chapter focuses on the brokering of Philippine politics on YouTube. We zoom in on how political influencers, well-versed with platform vernaculars, affordances, and porous governance structures, create content that convey hyper-partisan political narratives advancing a historical revisionist and political agenda. The chapter showcases how Filipino YouTubers mobilise affective aspirations on the nostalgia of a progressive state during the regime of the late dictator and former President Ferdinand Marcos, while dismissing the documented violent atrocities surrounding that political regime thereby facilitating political discourses in favor of the reinstatement of another Marcos to the Presidency. By purporting to be the “voices from the margins” and facilitating “illusions of discovery,” the parasocial relationships developed by YouTubers along with the platform's participatory and “epistemic cultures” gives them the legitimacy to construct their version of political history while brokering a connection between YouTube voter publics and political actors.

Keywords: Philippine politics, political brokerage, historical revisionism, Martial Law, Marcos, YouTube, disinformation

Our interest in the role of YouTube for politics began with a Grab ride around the city of Manila in 2019. Unlike cab drivers of the past who would be tuned in to AM or FM radio stations while they drove for passengers for the day, this Grab driver, Kuya Armand (not his real name), is one of the increasing group of drivers who tune in to YouTube as their ambient source of news, entertainment, and political commentary. With free data connection accompanying his Grab service, Armand told one of the authors, Cheryll, that YouTube has become a valuable source of information for him. He tunes in to YouTube regularly, and in particular, to channels that discuss politics. During the trip, the driver would consistently echo the words of a YouTuber, as if to convince his passenger – “Di ba, si Marcos talaga ang pinakamahusay na Pangulo ng Pilipinas” (See, Marcos really is the best President the country ever had). While waiting for a green light on Gil Puyat Street, he expressed, “Ma’am, kung hindi po sana napaalis si Marcos, siguro po mayaman na bansa na tayo ngayon ano?” (Ma’am, if only Marcos was not ousted from power, maybe we would have been a progressive nation, right?).

Type
Chapter
Information
Philippine Digital Cultures
Brokerage Dynamics on YouTube
 , pp. 163 - 194
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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