The potency of digital media: group chats and mediated scandals in the Philippines

Abstract

With widespread use of digital media, public figures and ordinary people easily become involved in scandals. Social media leaks and mobs illustrate how digital media figure into scandals in the context of everyday politics. The occurrence of scandals on digital media prompts questions on emerging dynamics and potentials of digital communication. Using case studies from the Philippines, this study identifies and examines digital media affordances and how they enable mediated scandals. Findings indicate that digital media facilitate the process and intensify the impact of scandals, particularly the effects of public condemnation. However, under certain conditions, digital media enable parties to counter allegations and mobilise support. The article reflects on the possibilities and potency of digital media in everyday politics of reputation.

Introduction: the dynamics of digital communication in the Philippines: legacies and potentials

“…Indeed, as other papers also suggest (e.g. building new skills for a digital labour platform (Soriano, 2021), mastering the analytics of Twitter (Cao, 2021), countering narratives on social media (Lorenzana, 2021)), the integration of digital media in aspects of everyday life generates situations and structures that require new abilities and predispositions. Thus, our assessment of the experience of digital media in the Philippines still points to the accumulation of capitals and their conversion, processes which are consistent with capitalist modernity.…”