Name: Agaceta, M. & Robles, A.

Crse&Sec: BCS12

Subject: G-SOSC001

Professor/Instructor: Jumel G. Estrañero

University: De La Salle University | Dasmariñas

"Effectiveness of Social Media towards the Eradication of Philippines’ Political Dynasties"

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background
1.2 Significance of the Study
1.3 Scopes and Limitations
1.4 Objectives

II. BODY

2.1 Social media in Politics

III. ANALYSIS

3.1 Effectiveness of social media in eradicating political dynasties

IV. RECOMMENDATION

V. CONCLUSION

VI. REFERENCES

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 INTRODUCTION

Social Media is important for an individual’s connection towards society, fitting users with a change
in physical and mental behavior (Clark, Algoe, & Green, 2017). Social Media apps are considered a
revolutionary invention in the 21st century. With over billions of users around the globe, it’s no wonder for
the success due to large factors. Factors in terms of ease of access and communication, apps such as
Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have intuitive guides for individuals to create content for others. It’s also
dedicated for communication towards others that have similar attributes such as personality, attraction, and
more. Another factor of social media apps is the ability to disseminate information from certified
professionals for research. According to Rogers (2019), social media is present for opportunities to carry
out new information and content towards a massive audience to engage with. Madhumathi et al. (2021)
support the advantages of using social media as if it’s utilized properly, it could implement strategies to
help combat infections, prevent further spread, and control the environment for the issues. There are more
uses of social media in every sector of the country. Healthcare, education, politics, organizations,
companies, and more provided discussions to implement social media platforms into their products.
Although, the general perception of social media apps is mixed due to controversial updates which are the
inclusion of paid advertisements, prominent content circulating fake news, and discrimination of opinions
between countrymen. The Philippines, governed or soon to be governed by political dynasties, utilize social
media as a strategy for their candidates to produce contributions on their campaign for the upcoming
elections. An article from Murse (2019) stated that social media apps, with data analysis, changed
dramatically on how candidates should act and interact with their audience for a higher chance to win
elections.

With alarming rates of political trolls Filipinos face, the aim of the thesis would focus on the effectiveness
of social media on the eradication of the political dynasties in the Philippines. The researchers took
inspiration from factors such as manipulation and lack of focus for upcoming election topics. Controversies
surrounding political families, the candidates, and contributions. The significance of the thesis would be
provided as a reference for future research articles.

The scope of the thesis is focused on the provided summarized articles. Articles from the literature section
would be compared and contrasted, in addition to data analyzed surveys from articles to strengthen the
thesis validation. The limitation of the thesis was that only articles would be analyzed as this is a case study.
Participants aren’t included as it has never been part of the objectives of the researchers.

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OBJECTIVES

1. Cite articles on the correlation between political dynasty and social media
2. Analyze and discern more information relating political dynasty and social media
3. Conclude the effectiveness of the eradication of political dynasties using social media

BACKGROUND

Social Media in Politics

Social media apps are prominent in our daily lives. According to Olaniran & Williams (2020),
Network apps have evolved from communication and interactions into a voice of empowerment that
influenced how individuals think and feel about politics ranging from democracy up to individuals’
engagement in civil debates. In a covered article, the Philippines is referred to as “The Social Nation of the
world” due to millions of active users that utilize social media apps to express their opinions. However, it
also created a divided perception between users that encountered issues such as prejudice and
discrimination of their beliefs, ad-hominem attacks, etc. (Buenaobra, 2016). A prominent issue social media
still needed to resolve are publications of “fake news”. Disinformation is still at large due to the
dissemination of fake news and trolls. However, the utilization of narratives and social critiques by creative
workers help intervene in the rampant state of disinformation (Ong & Cabanes, 2019). also affects civilized
engagements between two parties.

Social Media proved not just for communication but also as a tool for trolls. As this led to a futile opposition
between individuals on proving who’s the better troll on network apps. Social Media is the driving force of
disseminating lies and may tear countries if not regulated properly (Hannan, 2018).

Regarding the upcoming election, there are mixed opinions regarding the candidates and the utilization of
social media to provide an edge to their competitors. With recent political advertisements, a number of
news outlets such as Rappler and Philstar criticize the Philippine government for press freedom. Rappler’s
reputation was ordered from the government for termination due to false treatment of the truth. Other media
outlets discussed the President’s orders and compared his actions from the Martial era (Meyers, 2018).

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Social Media and its Role in the Eradication of Political Bias

Nowadays, most news publications have gone online which made access to news a lot easier
compared to when people only relied on newspapers to get updated on the latest happenings in the world.
There are a lot of news outlets in the Philippines such as Rappler, Philippine Daily Inquirer, The Daily
Tribune, Philstar Global, and many more. It can’t be denied that these news outlets provide a lot of valuable
information especially when it comes to political news and current events. However, one of the biggest
problems with the current state of news media in the country is the presence of bias in most news outlets.
For example, Rappler is famous for opposing the current Duterte administration as well as the Marcoses.
On the other hand, news outlets like The Daily Tribune support the current administration and are against
the opposition.

Therefore, as consumers of information online, who do we believe? How can we know which news outlet
is truly reliable? The only way is through intensive research and interconnecting every piece of information
present in each news outlet so you can compare articles and reach a conclusion that is less biased and more
constructive. Unfortunately, many Filipinos are still unable to conduct thorough research either due to a
lack of knowledge to do so or because of the slow internet connection or the lack thereof. This pushes them
to rely solely on the things they see and read on social media. Why? Social media is one of the easiest things
we Filipinos can access, which explains why almost 78.5 million or 72% of the Philippines’ population use
social media (Statista, 2021). Additionally, data shows that Filipinos spend most of their time on social
media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter with a daily average of 4 hours and 15 minutes (Statista,
2021). In fact, telecom providers such as Globe and Smart have data/load offers such as GoSurf50 and Giga
Stories which promote the usage of social media sites. Additionally, a survey conducted on digital news in
the Philippines in 2021 showed that 73% of the 2,029 respondents in the Philippines use Facebook as a
source of news.

These statistics show how powerful and relevant social media is to the lives of the Filipinos. However, it
turns out that being the most users of social media has its negative effects. Some of the examples are the
prevalence of disinformation, hate speech, and a generally toxic online environment. This is mostly brought
about by trolls and people who are strongly biased towards a certain person, party, or ideology. Trolls are
always present in social media; however, their presence escalates during the time of election because they
either want to spread false news and destroy the reputation of their opposed candidate for their own
satisfaction, or they are paid by political candidates to mass-produce a group of people who will praise and
dignify that certain politician and make the opposition less worthy.

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In fact, according to Rappler, less than a year before the 2022 presidential elections in the Philippines, social
media platforms have been used negatively such as to spread disinformation and promote hate speech
towards other people. What’s worse is that some of these accounts are not even handled by real people
because they’re fake accounts that are managed by someone who might be just an individual or an entire
community.

Therefore, how can these giant social media platforms address the issues of disinformation, political
advertisements, data breach, and hate speech in an increasingly toxic environment that are widespread in
the social media sites in the Philippines now that the 2022 elections are coming close?

Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic began back in 2020, there have been major holes in the upcoming
election since people became more active online due to the numerous lockdowns imposed by our
government in an effort to combat the spread of the virus. According to Rappler, there have been an
additional 4.2 million internet users in the Philippines since March 2020, living up to its moniker as the
world’s social media capital. Now that there are more internet users in the Philippines than ever, it’s only a
matter of time before another political campaign takes advantage of social media platforms. Just like what
happened during the campaigning period of the current President Duterte where according to Facebook’s
statement, they have taken down 200 pages, groups, and accounts linked to a network organized by Nic
Gabunada, the social media campaign manager of President Rodrigo Duterte during his 2016 presidential
run, for engaging in "coordinated inauthentic behavior."

These past events pushed social media platforms to further strengthen their systems when it comes to fact-
checking posts. However, Facebook stated that their fact-checking program only applies to publicly
available posts but doesn’t include posts from politicians and candidates because they believe that tech
companies should not be the ones to censor politicians, but it’s the people who hold that responsibility.
Contrary to this statement, Twitter performed censorship actions towards the tweets of Donald Trump back
in 2020 and even went to the extent of permanently blocking Trump’s Twitter account. Although this
feature was only implemented in the United States, it shows a promising future for social media in terms of
their fact-checking programs and efforts to limit the political bias and disinformation that are circulating on
the Internet. Monrawee Ampolpittayanant, head of Twitter’s public policy and philanthropy for Southeast
Asia, even stated that their teams are currently “working round the clock” to become a reliable social media
platform in times of civic events where the integrity of every post matter, which includes the 2022
Philippine elections.

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Another rising social media platform is TikTok, which is a video-focused social networking service much
like YouTube but focuses more on short-length videos. TikTok has since been one of the most used social
media platforms in the world with over 689 million monthly active users worldwide as of January 2021
according to DataReportal. Given that TikTok is currently the sixth most used social media platform in the
country, it has also become an avenue for trolls and fanatics to spread disinformation. Despite these
unfortunate activities, the head of TikTok’s public policy, Kristoffer Rada, has stated that TikTok does not
tolerate any kind of misinformation, which includes misleading posts about elections. This is further backed
up by TikTok’s partnership with Agence France-Presse (AFP), a newswire agency, for fact-checking posts
in the Philippines. According to Rada, if the content is confirmed to be false, TikTok will automatically
remove the video. However, if the fact-checked content was not confirmed to be false, the users will instead
see a banner “informing them that the content has been reviewed but cannot be conclusively validated.”

Almost all the giant social media platforms are taking action to fight against political bias and the spread
of disinformation on their respective platforms. However, despite their efforts to do so, trolls still find ways
to disseminate false information on these platforms. On Facebook, even though it’s more difficult to post
fake news, that doesn’t prevent trolls from messaging other people privately because private messages sent
on Facebook Messenger cannot be checked by Facebook or any other agencies since that would be a breach
of privacy on the users’ ends. That’s why trolls can still pass on chain messages that spread false information
about a certain candidate and/or promote their preferred politician using sugar-coated words to entice other
people to vote for that certain politician.

Political Dynasties

Political Dynasty is referred to a generational family that was or would be involved in politics.
Political dynasties, with their influence, help each other prevail on government candidacy mainly due to:
power, absence of opposing competition, and irregulated laws. These reasons enable dynasties to control
established properties and rise up to power (Purdey et al., 2016). According to McCarthy (2021), Political
dynasties are considered normal in the Philippines and other countries. A study conducted by Heydarian, a
political expert in the Philippines, stated that ½ of the elected officials came or supported influential families
and the requirement to win over the audience is communication.

Mendoza (2019) also stated that candidates elect other relatives to increase the number of candidates in the
country over time. These phenomena slow the progress of a country’s qualities. Punongbayan (2018)
summarized that the lack of basic necessities such as education and awareness correlates to rampant
increases in costs such as taxes, infrastructures, and more. Without a clue, politicians exploit these causes

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to leverage their chances of triumph. Also, the decision-makers that want to help the country are tied to
these dynasties.

Ardivilla (2020) also supports the article by adding additional information that Filipinos must be mindful
of which President, one that must be capable of showing grit and change, should they vote for.

Eradication of Political Dynasties in the Philippines using social media

The Philippines suffers from political supporters that attack with devoted prejudice towards
individuals that do not share their beliefs. The prominent groups, particularly the famous group nicknamed
“DDS”, spread alternative information without credibility and attack professional journalists for fame and
narcissism (Tapsell, 2020). For the elections, social media proved to be a critical position to inspire political
participation, which has transformed political agendas. The success of the president’s popular ratings
depends on the existing group of supporters, some that were considered to be alleged trolls, which helped
maintain his high approval ratings throughout their term (Eusebio, 2021). In fact, President Duterte`s
victory in the 2016 elections was largely driven by his powerful campaign, including a cohort of trawlers
and influencers on social media apps. These allowed his contributors/supporters to spread the story to
influence the election results (Domino, 2021). Political misinformation prevailing on TikTok and YouTube
prior to the 2022 election shows that the problem persists across platforms. Social media is accessible and
conveniently important in the Philippines society due to its easy-to-use features. However, behind the apps
are a number of problems such as biased influencers, a divided community, misinformation, and the troll
moments from oppositions (Quitzon, 2021).

ANALYSIS

The articles were gathered from prominent digital media websites such as Rappler or Philstar and studies
published in local/prestigious universities from the country or around the globe. Although some pieces are
biased upon interpretation, the researchers disregarded any form of political opinions expressed by the
author/s and gathered viable information for the study. After the collection of articles, the thesis would
utilize a case study analysis. The two terms “social media” and “political dynasties” were used extensively
to provide articles published from the last decade. The researchers would discern the correlation between
the two terms, phrase important findings in the thesis, and conclude whether social media has a chance to
topple political dynasties.

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Effectiveness of social media in eradicating political dynasties

The limited articles located in the introduction/background of the thesis proved that political
dynasties utilize social media to: attract newcomers and supporters, succession in place, strict compliance
of data privacy, publication of misinformation towards competitors, and polarized views among the
audience. According to an article covered by Mateo (2019) stated that a survey conducted in 2019 conveyed
that four out of 10 Filipinos blocked one another due to contrasting opinions on politics. Another reason is
due to misinformation manipulated by political fanatics. Social media has the ability to influence the
viewer’s perspective to change depending on the published reputed sources. An article from the Statistics
Research Department (2021). Out of 4 regions, NCR respondents (58%) never changed their political views
and were followed by Mindanao (56%), Luzon (48%), and Visayas (29%). The respondents that shifted
their political views came from Visayas (78%) and followed by Luzon (52%), Mindanao (44%), and NCR
(42%). Overall, social media is more prone to influence change in Visayas than NCR. Among app
popularity, YouTube came top due to 97.2% of users accessing the platform (Statista Research Department,
2021). There are no studies to conclude whether social media could effectively eradicate political dynasties
as there are organizations that support the clans for profit. If the country is still governed by generational
dynasties, it cannot progress to stability and there would be limited economic growth. To conclude, there
are no solutions to eradicate political dynasties due to the power behind the families.

Importance of social media in providing a political-friendly network.

Social media acts as an engagement towards friendly remarks towards others. The young users
publish their thoughts towards political matters and encourage others to take action, promote, and follow
prominent officials in the country (Raine et al., 2012). To enable a friendly digital environment for network
apps, However, the online social media environment presents new challenges. Similarly, political debates
can invade users` lives as the flow of comments on topics that are otherwise irrelevant degenerates into a
flaming war or quarrel between parties. Political debates and debates are actually a regular part of the digital
life of many social media users, with some politically active users, according to a new Pew Research Center
survey of adults in the United States. However, a greater proportion expresses irritation and irritation in
the tone and content of the political interactions observed on these platforms.

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RECOMMENDATION

Social Media has a huge impact on how the political dynasty fiasco would be dismissed to a
minimum. Although powerful organizations support the clans, the youth and old generation will prevail
and help control misinformation from misguided individuals to a minimum damage in all platforms. Elemia
(2021) stated that social media apps are still exploitable, yet can be controlled. The necessary solution for
the eradication of political dynasties is to vote for a candidate that has potential and no ties to controversial
political clans. Although there are times when these individuals never win during elections, it is important
to note that they tried and that’s all that mattered. As for social media, fact-check every information
politicians post on the platform and research their works before, and plan for improvements in the elections.
Make sure to maximize the use of social media as a medium to disseminate useful and relevant information
especially during election season wherein fake news and laudatory posts are widespread. As citizens of the
Philippines, it is everyone’s responsibility to ensure the authenticity and reliability of everything we see on
the Internet before sharing it with other people in order to prevent misinformation. Trolls are all around the
internet and some might be paid by these political families to spread positive information and encourage
the public to vote for their running candidates. Remember that although social media has the power to
eradicate political dynasties and their wrongdoings, it also has the capability to further empower the same
prevailing dynasties. That’s why proper utilization of social media is crucial especially during these times
when elections are coming close because as a digital nation and one of the top users of social media in the
world, we can make a difference and end the regime of political dynasties in the Philippines.

CONCLUSION

Based on the analysis of the researchers and the data they’ve gathered throughout the research procedure,
the researchers have discovered that the world of politics is changing and is now becoming more reliant on
the power of digitalization, especially in the capabilities of social media. The world has seen how effective
social media can be in terms of spreading news, both true and fake, and how it can change the tides of the
election, which is why social media platforms became the perfect target of political families who want to
stay relevant and have the odds in their favor. Furthermore, the researchers have also concluded that
although there are currently no studies to prove whether social media could effectively eradicate political
dynasties, the influence brought about by social media cannot be denied as when used properly and
judiciously, social media has the potential to disseminate valuable information and bring awareness to the
wrongdoings of certain political families, which can lead to the discouragement of the people to vote those
candidates, which will eventually cause the eradication of political dynasties.

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 Messages to Sir Jumel Estrañero

To Sir Jumel Estrañero

Good day sir, I’m glad to take active participation to your classes. Every meeting consists of memorable
lessons, engaging topics about the history of our country, and fun conversations with the class. I wish you
the best of luck and willpower to accomplish your master’s program in NTU. Thank you for everything and
see you soon with the class when the pandemic is lifted.

- Avin Robles

To Sir Jumel Estrañero,

You might be Sir Stranger, but you will never be a stranger to me, to us, and the whole BCS12. We truly
appreciate you, Sir. And despite the short time of you being our professor, I believe that you will always
have a special place in my heart as one of the best professors I had in college. Thank you for the lessons
you’ve taught us, and we’ll make sure to always remember the wisdom you’ve shared with us. I wish you
good in your upcoming endeavors, Sir. I hope we’ll meet again in the future.

Thank you.

- Marc Agaceta

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