Performing “digital labor bayanihan”: strategies of influence and survival in the platform economy

Drawing from experience of platform labor in one of the largest labor supplying countries, the Philippines, the paper demonstrates the role of an emerging labor category – that of digital labor influencers – who promote the viability of platform labor locally amid its precarious and ambiguous conditions. Through participant observation in Facebook groups, analysis of YouTube channels and videos, and interviews with digital labor influencers and workers, we present insights into the interventions that these influencers use, anchoring their strategies on what we call performing “digital labor bayanihan”: (a) coaching workers on the “possibilities” of the platform economy and on how to navigate its structural ambiguities, (b) by acting as “agencies”, they aid workers to span boundaries and fluidly move across platforms and job types to mitigate labor arbitrage and labor seasonality; and (c) bridging geographically dispersed workers, which allow them to form a supportive space where opportunities for labor are exchanged and debated. We argue that these affective strategies attend to Filipino workers’ labor aspirations through a community-oriented strategy encapsulated in a distinct Filipino cultural value bayanihan, which then shapes the collective “anchoring” of platform workers to navigate a precarious market. We explore the transactional nature underlying this “producer-audience” relationship, the activation of trust and influence through personalized practices and mediated encounters, and the power dynamic underlying these engagements. The paper shows that these strategies also set norms and standards in this largely unregulated sector, playing a role in how labor mobility or precarity are organized locally amid “planetary labor markets”

Open Science, Closed Doors?:Countering Marginalization through an Agenda for Ethical, Inclusive Research in Communication

The open science (OS) movement has advocated for increased transparency in certain aspects of research. Communication is taking its first steps toward OS as some journals have adopted OS guidelines codified by another discipline. We find this pursuit troubling as OS prioritizes openness while insufficiently addressing essential ethical principles: respect for persons, beneficence, and justice. Some recommended open science practices increase the potential for harm for marginalized participants, communities, and researchers. We elaborate how OS can serve a marginalizing force within academia and the research community, as it overlooks the needs of marginalized scholars and excludes some forms of scholarship. We challenge the current instantiation of OS and propose a divergent agenda for the future of Communication research centered on ethical, inclusive research practices.</p

Transmedia mobilization: Agency and literacy in minority productions in the age of spreadable media

This article analyzes the transmedia strategies of three ethnic minority activist organizations in the Philippines: Cordillera Peoples Alliance, Tebtebba, and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. The fieldwork entailed interviews with leaders of these organizations and their media teams, scholars who study these movements, and social commentators. The analysis shows the complexities of identity construction in the age of spreadable media and the importance of transmedia literacy for activists who have to navigate these complexities to effectively advance their cause. © 2016, Published with license by Taylor & Francis

\u27Free(lancing) but everywhere in chains’: Technologies of control in ‘on-demand’ gig work

De La Salle University Department of Communication Invited the Lasallian community to the Professorial Chair Lecture of Cheryll Ruth R. Soriano, PhD, Holder of the Angel and Celerina Reyes and Br. Marcian James Professorial Chair in the Humanities entitled ‘Free(lancing) but everywhere in chains’: Technologies of control in ‘on-demand’ gig work

Mobile technologies and gender rituals

© 2015, IGI Global. This chapter explores the implications of mobile technologies on gender through the lens of gender rituals. While maintaining social order and social roles, rituals also legitimate key category differences, ideologies, and inequalities. The increasing convergence of media and content in mobile devices, and the blurring of the spaces for work, family, and leisure amidst the landscape of globalization and mobility have important implications for the enactment of rituals, and in the performance of gender. The chapter discusses this mutual shaping of gender rituals and mobile technologies through a case study of the Philippines, with some broad implications for other contexts. The study finds that the personalization, mobility, and multitude of applications afforded by mobile devices offer many opportunities for the exploration of new possibilities for subjectivity that challenge particular gender stereotypes and restrictions while simultaneously affirming particular gender rituals. While exploring the implications of the mobile device on gender in a developing society, the chapter in turn highlights the importance of culturally embedded rituals in shaping and understanding the mobile device\u27s place in society

‘Hey, I like ur videos. Super relate!’ Locating sisterhood in a postcolonial intimate public on YouTube

This paper re-examines YouTube as a site of feminine, networked, and intimate sociality among Filipino women online. We unpack this by identifying how commenters on YouTube engage with the performativity of an intimate relationship between a Filipina and her foreign husband on YouTube. Extending Mina Roces’ concept of ‘local sisterhood’ in the digital context, we coin the term ‘online sisterhood’ to articulate the diverse ways through which Filipino women engage with interracial intimacies in the realm of online communication. By conducting a thematic analysis of comments on a popular YouTube channel of a Filipina married to a Caucasian man, we uncover the dimensions of an unfolding online sisterhood as aspirational, relatable, regulatory, and defensive modalities. We argue that these frames are informed by gendered, racialized and even class-based aspirations and contestations tied to Philippine postcolonial history and society. Ultimately, as a site for feminine sociality and intimacy, YouTube also becomes an avenue for constructing, reinforcing and countering the stereotypical representations of Filipino women in a networked and postcolonial space. © 2020, © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

Special Issue: The Dynamics of Digital Media in the Philippines - Legacies and Potentials

This special issue brings together six research articles that speak to the dynamics of digital communication in the Philippines; a country firmly located in the global geography of the digital economy and an early adopter and innovator in mobile communication. Increasingly; the rise of digital platforms is spurring on new business models and applications that find a wide range of appropriations in a developing economy with a high level of communication skills and a high level of inequality. These dynamics have; in turn; fuelled the popularity of social media and the populism that has gained international attention and; more critically; taken the country into uncharted political terrain. We introduce this Special Issue by taking stock of the legacies and potentials of digital communication in the country and highlighting how the articles sustain and extend past conversations. Drawing from the articles that cover a range of topics (entertainment; intimacy; labour; journalism and politics; scandals and pornography); we identify three overlapping themes that capture the socio-technical dynamics of digital communication in the Philippines: (1) how digital communication is emplaced in material; social and structural conditions; (2) the potentials of networked publics and communication; and (3) the convertibility of capitals and emergence of new competencies. These dynamics and potentials point to the contradictions; continuities and changes that relate to Philippine modernity in the context of global digital capitalism