Abstract:
The world has entered an era of post-truth politics, a rapidly observable phenomenon
in which appeals to emotion and personal beliefs have become “more influential” in shaping
public opinion and public policy relative to the objective fact (Mccormick et al., 2022). With
the proliferating streams of scholarship on disinformation, infodemic management in the
Global North and Global South, it is important to situate the characteristics and dynamics of
information ecosystems in the Philippine context beyond its conceptualization as patient zero
in the global disinformation epidemic.
The undergraduate thesis entitled “Perception is real: A Critical Discourse Analysis
of the Digital Influence Operations of Pro-Marcos and Anti-Marcos Propagandists”
expounds on the current body of knowledge on Philippine political communication.
Employing the discourse of suspicion through case studies and critical discourse analyses of
the discursive strategies and media messages embedded in user-generated content of Youtube
political vloggers, this research rejects the predominant notion that the broad support and the
political resurgence of the Marcoses can only be attributed to “bobotantes” and paid trolls.
Simultaneously, it also investigates the under-researched influence operations of alternative
media networks and digital museums, establishing these institutions’ indelible role and
relevance as grassroots intermediaries and open-access repositories, respectively.
