2022 Year in Review

ACHIEVING STATUS AND
AUTHENTICITY
Marcos had a high political status before
entering YouTube—he was the son of the
longest-ruling Philippine president found
guilty of corruption, a former senator,
and a vice presidential candidate who
almost won during the 2016 elections.
Nonetheless, Marcos’s status was
achieved, with YouTube as a rebranding
tool, transforming his corruption-tainted
image into an authentic, humble, and
approachable public servant. The content
category “family” was mainly about the
YouTube comments on his parents’
legacies, such as the infrastructures used
during the pandemic, the “nutribun”
symbolizing the Marcos family’s
commitment to ending hunger, and
agrarian reform. From another
perspective, Marcos’s political status was
relatively low; even the popular former
President Duterte described him as “a
weak leader relying on dad’s name”.
Interestingly, Duterte’s daughter initially
topped the presidential survey before
deciding to run as Marcos’s vice
president. It was crucial to project unity.
Marcos and Duterte’s televised shift in
their relationship made their tandem
authentic and answered prospective
questions, such as how candidates from
the far north and south developed
political alliances.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The Philippine Media Monitoring
Laboratory and Rappler argues that
Marcos aims to spread disinformation
and propaganda through YouTube by
detaching its channel from the
professional media - to isolate audiences
from mainstream news reports.
Audiences moving away from
mainstream news media are more likely
to receive videos supporting Marcos,
some of which are disinformation,
because of YouTube’s personalized
algorithm. Removing advertisements also
served to reduce distractions, thereby
focusing the audience on consuming the
vlog messages, a continuous spoonfeeding,
elaborated with feel-good
elements audiences will not get from
toxic typical journalistic commentaries
and reports.
Experts and journalists argued that the
disinformation network of Bongbong
Marcos enabled his electoral victory.
Marcos created a humble, intelligent, and
caring public persona by sharing
personal information about his family,
experiences as a presidential son, and
alliance with the popular Dutertes’.
Marcos acknowledged audiences as
Loyalists, reaching out by mobilizing
prospective voters to ask questions for
his YouTube vlogs - thus audiences
construct his vlogs, making them
relatable.
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