Reflections and Representations
Featured The Rise of Positive LGBT-themed Advertisements in the Philippines Is a Good Thing... or Is It? View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Tracy Mae Ildefonso
The stereotypical representations of Filipino LGBT people in Philippine media, like comic relief and sexual deviants, have existed for years, somehow enabling it to be the dominant perception of Filipinos towards LGBT people. Adding to the problem is the absence of the anti-discrimination law that legally protects them, sending a message that they remain unrepresented and non-recognized in the country. Very few media projects showed efforts to showcase them positively through recent advertisements. However, some garnered backlash and censorship. Bench/ commercial in 2018 called "How long can you keep a secret?" successfully caught the Filipino's attention and gained positive responses and support. A few similar LGBT-themed ads followed, making this study interested in people's perceptions. Thus, this research aims to determine the reactions of Filipinos to the recent LGBT-themed advertisements with non-stereotypical messages. The answers were gathered from non-LGBT individuals, through surveys (158 respondents) and LGBT members (25 participants), through focus groups to encapsulate the different perceptions. The study is guided by George Gerbner's Cultivation theory, saying that the more people watch TV, the more they think that their reality and the television world are the same, and David Morley's Relevance Theory, stating that audiences in the same socio-economic group can read media texts differently than those who do not belong to the said group. The study has discovered that while the LGBT community celebrates this, albeit small, good change, the Filipino public remains neutral about the issue.
Work in Progress : Women in Sports Media View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Shireen Ahmed
In 2021, Dr. Cheryl Cooky’s research reported that women’s sport only get 4% of televised mainstream coverage. The popularity of women’s sport has been steadily on the rise in the last few years. Arenas and stadiums have been filling up for tournaments and even pre-season games. In May 2023, the WNBA held a pre-season game in Toronto, Ontario and on March 8 (International Women’s Day) a pre-sale release of lower bowl tickets sold out in less than 10 minutes. As the Women’s World Cup quickly approaches what methodologies will be employed to ensure that proper coverage is offered to supporters around the world, while discussions about race, gender expansiveness and sexual identity are included in conversations by media? Moreover, what is the role of sports media personnel in this space? Should journalists be sports activists or advocates? How can they maintain their objectivity? The author is a practicing multiplatform journalist who has researched women in sports media and will interrogate how sports media can report accurately and fairly while levelling the playing field for women’s sports. This paper offers an opportunity for academics to understand how anti-oppression models of journalism are impactful in the current media landscape when traditional social media platforms used for information dissemination are disrupted.
