Abstract
Six years leading to the country’s 2022 presidential election, the pervading online discourse characterized populism –i.e., the thin ideology that pits “the pure people” against “the corrupt elite” (Mudde, 2004). The postcolonial Philippine society succumbed to the populist temptation. Following Zizek’s (2005) description, populism is not the site for emancipating the people as it refuses to confront but rather reduces the complex struggle into a pseudo-concrete enemy figure. The avid supporters of both the erstwhile Duterte regime and successor Marcos Jr. remain to be formidable in social media. Many actively participate and contend with dissenters in an emerging public sphere located online, via Reader Comments in news media posts. This ethnographic study focuses on capturing the ‘view from the bottom’ of the news enterprise: how the audiences express their stance and fight it out in that comment section. It derives from Pierre Bourdieu’s (1977) construct of habitus defined as “embodied history” and “durable, transposable dispositions” or, more cryptically, “structuring structures” to examine the texts. In particular, it aims to determine how populist discourses structured the reader-commenter’s expression of thoughts and, in turn, the ideological collective as a product of the past. The Filipino people are now witnessing this juncture of history, borne out of digital populist discourse, with the son of the late ousted dictator as newly-elected president.
Presenters
Eileen MenesesStudent, PhD Candidate in Filipino (Salin), University of the Philippines, Philippines
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Communications and Linguistic Studies
KEYWORDS
Populist Discourse, Social Media, Postcolonial PH
