Seventh International Conference on Communication & Media Studies

Abstract

Journalists in the Philippines reporting under Rodrigo Duterte’s populist regime weather threats and online harassment which dissuade them from performing critical news roles. However, much of the research that examines this chilling effect on press freedom is limited to journalists’ perceptions or focuses on traditional news organizations. This paper evaluates news items published on Instagram by the news organization Rappler. I use the journalistic role performance framework to understand the functions of journalists’ reporting on social media—such as the watchdog role or disseminator role—based on the discursive styles and types of news they report. More so, this research looks at how Instagram’s affordances influenced the performance of these roles within a political crackdown on the press. I conducted a content analysis of 554 Instagram posts following the conviction of Rappler’s Executive Editor Maria Ressa in June 2020. The results show that journalists performed hybrid news roles such as the adversarial, advocate and mobilising roles in their news towards the Duterte administration. I argue that these roles arise due to the societal needs of the time, and are shaped by Instagram’s structure, rhetorical practices, and interactive mechanisms.