INSTRUCTIONAL MODULES IN PHILIPPINE POPULAR CULTURE

LESSON 5: POPULAR CULTURE AND THE RISE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN THE PHILIPPINES:
AN OVERVIEW (GACHITOIRENA, 2014)

Children in their formative years use technology as though it is a basic necessity for their
development. With this statement alone, it is undeniable that commercial advancements in technology and
the facility of the world-wide web creates a sort of transcendence (experience beyond normal) in a faster
and inclusive way that is not possible in the physical world.
According to the Yahoo-Nielsen Survey of 2013, the top three sources of media consumption in the
Philippines come from the television, the radio, and the continually rising internet usage. With these media
vehicles, the so-called the fourth estate of the government, one can actually deduce that watching favorite
shows on the television, listening to radio programs, or even surfing the world-wide web can have political,
social, and economic implications.

Popular Culture in the Philippines

"Building a culture has to start with a foundation, and that foundation must necessarily be the
culture of the Filipino people if this could be separated with the encrustations grown on it by colonial
rule."
Popular culture, according to National Artist for literature Bienvenido Lumbera in his book
Revaluation: Essays on Philippine Literature, Theatre and Popular Culture (1984), is highly different from
the folk culture and nationalist culture of the Filipinos. In a nutshell, folk culture is the way of living in a place
in a specific time and portrays the practices of a certain people, and on how they cope to survive with
nature. Nationalist culture is the culture created through colonial resistance with the collective of a people
on a given place and time. These two are different from popular culture which can be traced even in the
period of Hispanization of the Philippines.
According to Lumbera, popular culture in the Philippines was created and used by the Spaniards to
the native Filipinos or Indios via plays and literature to get the heart of the natives and win it. The colonial
origins of popular culture found in the Philippines can be traced by looking at salient developments in
Philippine literature. The first permanent Spanish settlement began replacing the native culture with a
Christian and European tradition. The children of the native elite under the tutelage of missionaries became
a core group of intelligentsia called 'ladinos', as they became instrumental "in bringing into the vernacular,
literary forms that were to be vehicles for the "pacification" of the natives".
Forms of popular theatre and literature such as "the pasyon, sinakulo, and korido ensured the
acceptance and spread of Christianity, and the komedya and awit did the same for the monarchy." Popular
culture as introduced by the Spanish was "popular" to the extent that it was a "watering-down of Spanish-
European culture for the purpose of winning the general populace over to the 'ideology' of the colonial
regime." Popular culture at the time was created by colonial authorities, with the aid of the local
intelligentsia, to promote the interests of the Church and the State.
However, once the native intelligentsia saw the effects of popular culture and knew how to work its
way as propaganda, they soon used the Spanish weapon against them. In the 19th century, through the
Propaganda movement, the native intelligentsia used the same forms of popular culture to "undermine the
power of the abusive friars and rally the populace (Indios; natives) to put an end to colonial rule" one
INSTRUCTIONAL MODULES IN PHILIPPINE POPULAR CULTURE

example is the work of Marcelo H. del Pilar when he soon used prayers such as the 'Aba, Ginoong Maria'
and 'Ama Namin' in a sort of parody to strike against the abusive Spanish Friars.
The advent of American colonialism brought the properly so-called, popular culture to the
Philippines. The liberal policy regarding the printing press, soon through radio, television and film,
increased the circulation of popular culture forms; not only through these forms but also in new media such
as films. Hollywood films had a near-monopoly in the Philippine market especially in the absence of
European movies due to World War I.
Early on, the local intelligentsia has the same apprehensions over mass media as they called it
commercialization, or vulgarization of art. According to Lumbera, the local intelligentsia noticed that
"Popular literature as a commodity intended for a mass market was seen to pose a threat to serious artistic
work, because the writers accommodated his art to the demands of the publishers and editors who were
more interested in sales rather than aesthetics." More so, "...popular culture is not created by the
populace... rather, it is culture created either by the ruling elite or by members of the intelligentsia in the
employ of that elite, for the consumption of the populace."; it is "....'packaged' entertainment or art intended
for the profit of rulers, be they colonial administrators or native bureaucrats and businessmen."
To see it in Lumbera's lens, "Popular culture is power, and whoever wields it to manipulate minds
is likely to find its literary and technological machinery turned against him when the minds it has
manipulated discover its potency as a political weapon."

The Theory of the Netizen and Democratization of Media

The word netizen, though it has been used popularly in current times, is actually a word from the
theory of Michael Hauben (1996) is a corrupted term from the phrase "Net Citizen". According to Hauben,
as netizens, geographical separation in the actual reality is replaced by existence in the same virtual space
called the internet. More so, along with the power of using the internet is the power of the reporter given to
the netizen for a netizen could actually be a source of primary information regarding certain topics or
issues. Hauben profoundly cautions that the internet can; nevertheless, be a "source of opinion" though he
said that a netizen can train him/her self to discern real from fabricated information.
This prophecy will soon be reflected in Graeme Turner's book called the Demotic Turn (2010) but
in a certain extreme way for even news reports are often bent to suit the "infotainment" genre favored by
the general audience. According to Turner, there is a rise of opinionated news as reporters tend to bend the
news to the stories they often favor. A concrete example of this is tabloidization, or sensationalizing small
news items and making a big deal out of such.

The Agenda-Setting Theory

The Agenda-Setting theory of McCombs and Shaw can be simplified by saying that the media
influences people to focus its attention on something under a certain agenda. It can make people think that
something is actually happening when something is not, or give special attention or focus on certain
subjects or topics and hype it to make an impression that something big is going on. To give an example,
the agenda-setting theory can be seen in a newspaper wherein the headline is supposed to be the biggest
news there is, and the other items, decreasing in font size and the farther its location from the front page,
the lesser priority it has. Similarly, in news program, wherein the reporter or news anchor gives too much
INSTRUCTIONAL MODULES IN PHILIPPINE POPULAR CULTURE

air time to certain news, or depending on the arrangement of the news items, the more pressing issue it is.
This theory can also be applied in the radio, or on new media such as the internet.

The Political-economy of Media

According to Hermann and Chomsky's Propaganda Model, a model they have used to check the
various political-economic implications of mass media, there are several filters to use in relation with the
topic to check the propaganda machine of mass media.
These filters are the following:
a. The size, concentrated ownership, owner wealth, profit orientation of the different mass media
firms
b. Advertising as the primary income source of mass media
c. The reliance of the media on the information provided by the government, business, and these
"experts" funded and approved by such sources and agents of power
Note that there are also two more filters such "Flak" as means of disciplining the media, and “anti-
communism” as a national religion and control mechanism.

Analysis:
Gachitorena looked at three tiers on how media spreads popular culture, and how it affects the aspects of
Filipino life such as the political, economic, and the social.

Political- Economic Aspect

The easier to figure out among the three is the economic. According to Lumbera, popular culture in
the rise of technologies like the television and the radio, soon deteriorated the notion of art and made it
appear that it is consumable and a commodity. He called it, as he said, according to other artists of the
time, vulgarization of art. He meant that art forms were popularized by the use of technology and were
tailor-fit to exactly serve the taste of the greater audience, sacrificing its quality in the process. This
phenomena or grievance, if one may call it, can also be seen in Turner's argument regarding the rise of
“infotainment”. Infotainment is the trend of making an issue seemingly pressing enough to give an ample or
little new information, but more so, entertainment to the public.
According to the Yahoo-Nielsen 2013 Survey, infotainment is one of the most searched content
and sites most visited in the Philippines. This meant a lot of irrelevant news we see on the television or
internet that can be dismissed as a fad but were given the limelight to amuse people, and people seem to
buy it. Just look at websites like Yahoo, itself, for it offers a lot of interesting articles which may seem to
catch the interest of the public but also to cross-promote.
Cross-promotion is a term referring to the promotion of an advertisement in a very subtle way
inside another program, or the like. Aside from acknowledging that the reason why there is this so-called
"vulgarization of the art" and the "rise of infotainment" to attract advertisers to advertise in commercial
breaks during television or radio shows, or popping-up in the websites, cross-promotion has been a wide
practice and people can actually sense it but not look it straight in the eye. Imagine watching a movie and
seeing a product endorsement of the main protagonist being used in it, say coffee, and he or she prepares
and drinks the coffee in one of the scenes - that is cross-promotion. It is the latent or subtle manifestation of
endorsing products. Even in the internet, there are a lot of articles planted just to make an advertisement
INSTRUCTIONAL MODULES IN PHILIPPINE POPULAR CULTURE

and these are often the infotainment ones. Even video games have cross-promoting activities, or even
radio jockeys do it in a very conversational and suave manner. For lots of years, cross promotion has been
commonly practiced, but the problem does not end there.
Cross-promoting activities in various media platforms cannot always be subtle, for there many now
with explicit exercise of such, and in connection with Lumbera's sacrificing the art grievance, it can already
be seen that media does not proliferate art, or material with high value but sacrifices all these, even the
content, form, and quality of popular culture just to use it as an advertisement as an example, a whole
dialogue of story plot can be twisted, to bend, bow and scrape to the demands of the main benefactor -
product endorsements.

Socio- Political Aspect

It was a common saying that whoever has command of the economic power also wields the
political. In the study of pop culture and Philippine media, one can already see that the economic and
political aspects were highly mutual conditions that are beneficial to each other. This statement is logical
for, according to Herman and Chomsky, media really gets all the income from advertisements and whoever
has the bigger sponsorship gets the media attention, or programs will be bent according to how their
product endorsement vis-a-vis cross-promotion would fit.
It is important to notice; however, that media's power does not only reside on the economic, but
also to the monopoly of sources, as cited also by Herman and Chomsky. There are limited sources by
which media can get information, and with it, they control -- government, businesses, and the like -
whatever is going in and out of the information tube.
Moreover, one must also check the relation of media to its audience. Because of popular culture,
media is actually used to create a certain agenda on its viewers, and the resulting relationship is a political
one wherein the one controlling here is the media company or institution. According to McCombs and
Shaw's Agenda-Setting Theory, media can make us think about something by conditioning our minds in a
very latent manner, most especially through salience. It means that if ever the media company wants you to
think about a political stand or buying that special perfume, they will do it in repetition and via cross-
promotion using several advertising techniques. Surveys such as Nielsen give the media companies an
idea what formula would work on a sellable television show, or the like.
This can be equivocal with the idea that the "naked" news in several western news companies are
created not because they need people to watch news, but also to make them watch and earn their share in
the advertising arena. One can argue that some news articles can be imaginary or bloated to be
sensationalized and news-worthy. Thus, media, through its influences, indirectly commands the people to
behave the way that is favorable to them.
This argument, however, is rapidly changing through leverage, for there is a thing called media
democratization (control) and that is connected with the rise of social media.
To break the monopoly of media conglomerates on the information flow, it can be attributed with
the democratization of media via the internet. Michael Hauben's theory of the Netizen, when he coined the
term in the late 1990's imagined the world's physical limits collapsed via the faster streaming of information
and communication via the internet, and true enough, the effect is limitless and transcendental - quite a
benchmark of a 21st century high technology. Hauben also imagined the democratizing power of media, for
everyone can voice out their ideas via the internet, but this can only be achieved if everyone in the society,
even those in the margins, can be given the chance to voice out their ideas.
INSTRUCTIONAL MODULES IN PHILIPPINE POPULAR CULTURE

In the Philippines, the internet usage penetration is more than thirty per cent as of 2012, and is
continuously rising (Yahoo-Nielsen, 2013). According to the same survey, more Filipinos use tablets and
mobile phones to access the internet, and with the rise of smart phones in the country, we can assume that
the projected number can be rising exponentially. However, the democratization of media, even if away
from Hauben's ideal 100% penetration in the society, is still evident in the society, and this is via social
networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and the like. Among the three, Facebook, is the
widely-used platform (Yahoo-Nielsen, 2013).
Public opinion rises from these sites, proliferation of liberal ideas happen especially in the
Philippines for the government never censors the content though there was attempt in the Cyber-crime law.
The agenda and capability seemed to prove its political worth in the Philippines last September 2013 when,
as though an Arab or Persian Spring that were so-called Twitter or Facebook Revolution, through the
facilitation of social media, many Filipinos all around the Philippines and the world joined a simultaneous
protest they called the "Million People March" (Garchitorena, 2013).
In everyday life, one can see the leverage done by media conglomerates in the social media scene
by making an account for famous reporters and television or radio channels so that they can also make
real-time broadcasting simultaneous with the real-time updates of social media information dissemination
(Garchitorena, 2013). This is soon proved to be beneficial when media companies make news out of public
opinion often found in tweets or posts in social media sites, as predicted earlier on through the rise of talk
radios (Turner, 2010). There are even portions wherein mere viewers, through mobile devices, are made to
report on a first-hand account of a storm surge or anything, and send the clip via internet instead of sending
a real and trained reporter to check out the situation. This phenomenon, will, nevertheless, prove to be
beneficial if Hauben's theory of a democratized society, via the internet wherein all people are given
access, plus the required training to voice their selves out as Netizens, would materialize.

Conclusion
Popular culture was first introduced and given flesh and bone through the study of Lumbera. It will
be the foundation of the media we see today, and it fleshed out reasons why media commands economic,
political, and social power in the Philippines. Through several media theories, it was shown that in media's
main goal via the proliferation of pop culture creates a commercialized world as it generated income
through advertisements, and whoever command economic power commands the political, as well. Media
companies can also facilitate pop culture to make their audience behave the way they would be favorable
to them, also because they monopolize the information stream. This can also be countered with the
democratization of media through the facilitation of social networking sites and by projecting ideas as a
netizen on the internet. This may cause leverage but may not completely achieve its full potential for full
democratization can be done if all people in the society can gain full access with the said technology. It may
also have down effects for media companies can use Netizens as primary sources of information, as
though "empowering" them.
This can also be countered with education if the public on how to use social media that would
benefit them. "Popular culture is power, and whoever wields it to manipulate minds is likely to find its literary
and technological machinery turned against him when the minds it has manipulated discover its potency as
a political weapon." (Lumbera, 1984).
INSTRUCTIONAL MODULES IN PHILIPPINE POPULAR CULTURE

The future of social media's political, economic, and social facility as a tool, or a weapon, against
media conglomerates and the advertising machinery, or the government of any institutional agenda may
still be achieved if the general public, especially those in the margins who were always victimized by the
false images shown through media, should discover and use its full potential.

ASSIGNMENT NO. 1

Instruction: Write T if the statement is True; write F if it is not.

1. Commercial advancements in technology and the facility of the world-wide web create a sort of
transcendence in a faster and inclusive way.
2. Watching favorite shows on the television, listening to radio programs, or even surfing the world-
wide web cannot have political, social, and economic implications.
3. Nationalist culture is the way of living in a place in a specific time and portrays the practices of a
certain people, and on how they cope to survive with nature.
4. Folk culture is the culture created through colonial resistance with the collective of a people on a
given place and time.
5. Popular culture in the Philippines was created and used by the Spaniards to the native Filipinos or
Indios via plays and literature to get the heart of the natives and win it.
6. As created by the Spanish colonial authorities, popular culture in the Philippines was created, with
the aid of the Indios, to promote the interests of the Church and the State.
7. Through the Propaganda movement, the native intelligentsia used the same forms of popular
culture to undermine the power of the abusive friars and rally the populace to continue colonial
rule.
8. Through American colonialism, there were liberal policies to media and increased the circulation of
popular culture forms like Hollywood films that local intelligentsia called it commercialization or
vulgarization of art.
9. For Lumbera, popular culture is 'packaged' entertainment or art intended for the profit of rulers, be
they colonial administrators or native bureaucrats and businessmen.
10. The internet cannot be a "source of opinion" for the netizen that he can train him/her self to discern
real from fabricated information.
11. Sensationalizing small news is an example of “infotainment” bending news to the stories they often
favor.
12. The Propaganda Model means that media can make people think that something is actually
happening when something is not.
13. The Agenda-Setting Theory is used to check the various political-economic implications of mass
media that filters are used to check the machine of mass media.
14. For Lumbera, popular culture in the rise of technologies improved the notion of art and made it
appear that it is consumable and a commodity.
INSTRUCTIONAL MODULES IN PHILIPPINE POPULAR CULTURE

15. Seeing a product endorsement of the main protagonist in a movie is an example of a

Crosspromotion.
16. Hence, cross-promotion does proliferate art or material with high value but sacrifices it for the
demands of the main benefactor – product endorsements.
17. In socio-political aspect, media's power does not only reside on the economic, but also to the
monopoly of sources that whoever has command of the economic power has command of the
political.
18. Democratization of media by the netizens can be seen in the rise of social media where everyone
can voice out their ideas via the internet.
19. In contrast, media conglomerates’ leverage to its democratization in the social media was seen by
making an account of famous reporters so they can make real-time updates.
20. As seen, media cannot proliferate and facilitate pop culture in creating a commercialized world.