Media and Neoliberalism in the Time of Duterte
Conference Contribution ResearchOnline@JCUAbstract
This paper explores current Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s seeming opposition against the mainstream media. It aims to further analyse the relationship between the media and the Duterte government using Neoliberalism as its theoretical lens. President Duterte often labels the media as an unreliable and biased platform. Moreover, some of these platforms are labeled as “neoliberal” by Duterte’s supporters; in their context the term “neoliberal” is often construed as “anti-duterte” or “dilawan” (yellow follower) (i.e. a supporter of the past Aquino administration which yellow is the campaign colour of President Aquino). Historically, the Philippines has long been exposed to Neoliberalism; and many politicians and academics have claimed that the country has suffered some economic repercussions because of it. Neoliberalism paved way for foreign direct investments, large entries of imported goods, laissez-faire economics, and globalization. Further, one of the key features of Neoliberalism is its high regard on the privatization and commercialization of public utilities (e.g. mass transportation, healthcare, education). Neoliberalism aims to limit the state’s role and ownership to these types of enterprises – among these is the Media. Because of the state’s limitations under this framework, it is not rare to find liberated and opinionated insights circulating freely alongside the news in Philippine Media. This resulted to the unregulated dissemination of contrasting views from different news outlets. From this phenomenon arose the criticisms put forward by President Duterte. Thus, we analyse the basis of his criticisms and look on to the reasons why many scholars claim that he is against neo-liberalism, and to some extent, a populist president akin to the likes of President Donald Trump of the US and Chancellor Xi of China
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MENTION2017: 17th Biennial International Conference on Media and Communication
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10
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Putrajaya, Malaysia
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Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
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Putrajaya, Malaysia
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