Gossip in the Age of Digital Production: Revisiting the practice of tsismis in online media

Abstract

In recent years, the popularity of new media has largely shaped how Filipinos with access to technology interact and exchange information. It has provided us a means of production and distribution, and has also challenged the traditional structure of mass media as one-way and topdown. Further, Pertierra (2010) asserted that without the new communication technologies, the sociality of Filipinos would have remained undeveloped. This paper revisits the existing concepts and
practices related to tsismis as applied to new media by looking at the important role that language plays, the functions of tsismis, and the differences and similarities it might have with the traditional practice of tsismis in mass media. While this paper pointed out the possibilities for a more liberative practice of gossip in new media, tsismis in Fashion Pulis has remained in the level of a communicative event, only serving as a form of entertainment for netizens with time to spare online and as a vehicle for maintaining existing structures of power, behavior and values imposed and deemed acceptable by society’s standards. To this end, the commenters are just disembodied voices with no clear and collective goals that may help elevate the act of gossiping into a more political and discursive practice.