“Dainty hands do useful work”: Depicting Filipino women in Japanese wartime propaganda
Article
This article analyzes the visual depiction of women in the Tribune, the main propaganda newspaper of Japan in the Philippines during the Pacific War. Japanese wartime propaganda painted an image of a productive and cooperative Filipina, respectable and modest like her Japanese counterpart. The analysis reveals three motivations for depicting women in said light: to show a semblance of normalcy despite the turbulent war, to entice women to serve Japan’s aims, and to disprove the Japanese women’s image as subservient wives or entertainers while asserting the connection between the two countries. Analyzing the depiction of women in Japanese propaganda contributes to the understanding of war as a gendered phenomenon. Beyond seeing women as symbols of the private obligations for which men fight or as surrogate objects of sexual desire, the image of women was perceived to be instrumental in showcasing Japan’s New Order.
Cruising Through Spaces: Exploring the Mediatization of Gay Cruising in the Philippines
Article
The emergence of new communications technologies has provided a new space for initiating romantic and sexual relationships among gays who perceive social and physical places to be a traditional space that largely promotes connection among heterosexuals. Now, mobile networking applications like Grindr have made it easier for gay men to “cruise” and meet other men, and are seen to lead to the increasing number of sexual partners, being exposed to risks like sexually transmitted infections (STI), among others. Thus this study, framed within the theory of Mediatization – which critically analyzes the dialectic process in which both media and communications on one hand, and culture and society on the other, mutually shape and change each other in an interactional process – explores the question: How have gays’ way of cruising, or the initiation of romantic or sexual relations (among others), in the Philippines been mediatized across history?
Electoral Disinformation: Looking Through the Lens of Tsek.ph Fact Checks
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Elections are fertile ground for disinformation. The 2019 midterm elections, like the 2016 presidential election, buttress this observation. This ugly side of electoral contests is documented by Tsek.ph, a pioneering collaborative fact-checking initiative launched by three universities and eleven newsrooms specifically for the midterms. Its repository of fact checks provides valuable insights into the nature of electoral disinformation before, during and after the elections. Clearly, electoral disinformation emanates from candidates and supporters alike, on conventional (e.g., speeches and sorties) and digital (e.g., social media) platforms. Its wide range of victims includes the media no less.
Apat na Taong Pagsikat ng Nakapapasong Araw: Musika sa Filipinas sa Panahon ng Hapon, 1942–1945
Article
World War II in the Philippines was as much a treacherous mind game as it was physical. While it brought almost total devastation to the cultural heritage bequeathed by the country’s colonial past, it sought to create, albeit in the spiritual-emotional realm, a template of Asian-ism that the Filipinos were to live by as a supposed member of the Imperial Japan-colonized Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Songs, organizations, programs, speeches, religion and many other activities and things that could be used to sway the Americanized Filipino psyche were employed in this devastating “game of thrones”.
This study questions how music and related propaganda materials were used to pacify and control the conquered Filipino nation. Music, to a degree, was symptomatic of the progress of the occupation, from the initial settling down of the Japanese soldiers to the seemingly quiet acceptance of many locals in occupied areas. In these stages of the war, imposed music crept into the consciousness of the conquered—from Japanese children’s songs at the basic education level to the concert platforms with music composed by Filipino musicians heralding the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity theme.
The Philippines as an International Transit Site for North Korean Refugees
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During the severe famine that struck North Korea in the 1990s, refugees started flowing out of the country and into neighboring China. The Chinese government, with few exceptions, adheres to a policy that refuses North Korean defectors transit through Chinese territory and deports any found within its borders. Although many stay in China, some refugees, fearing deportation, elect to make the lengthy and perilous journey to South Korea. Through an analysis of primary news accounts as well as other sources, this paper examines one route taken, in which refugees transit from China to South Korea through the Philippines. For years, the Philippines have quietly been assisting North Korean refugees to reach the relative safety of South Korea. In this, they have followed a tradition of helping refugees and other displaced persons unwanted in other countries.
In Other News: Negotiating a Shifting Notion of Newsworthiness Through Amateur Web Video
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This paper attempts to open the discussion on the changing notion of news among Filipino broadcast audiences and the broadcast media gatekeepers through the use of user-generated content. Several versions of singular events are allowed to be told, thus subverting the news media’s monopoly of the telling of events. This paper looks at some of the web videos that made the jump from sites like YouTube and Facebook, and assesses their newsworthiness according to those set by the mass media. Are audiences and producers influencing a change in the criteria of newsworthiness? Through a rhetorical analysis, this paper proposes a switch to the “little narratives” often regarded as novelty by corporate media, and argues for the quotidian that exist as story fragments; the private lives of individuals contribute to the conceptualization of news from the others’ perspective.
