The sentiments of political actors on social media are “carefully manufactured” and affect our sense of nationalism

The sentiments peddled by political actors on social media are not coincidental. Rather, they are carefully manufactured texts that convey a set of interconnected messages that largely shape our sense of nationalism. The article looks at ways exclusionary nationalism is deployed on Facebook and shows that we are mistaken to believe that nationalism can instantly promote individual and collective freedoms. Instead, we are seeing how exclusionary nationalism is hinged on the communicative might of Facebook which forms part of the bigger project of mediatization of politics in Rodrigo Duterte’s Philippines. A reading of Duterte pages on Facebook and interviews with Filipino journalists uncover the narratives of ‘pro-Duterte’ versus ‘anti-critics  divide. The former is characterized by pro-masses icon, infrastructure programs of the government, and police-military forces while the latter by anti-indigenous hate, homogenization of the political opposition, and red-tagging of critics. These narratives have implications to ways we understand nationalism in an age of communicative abundance.

The article is important to our understanding of the role of social media in changing political landscape. It shows that the rhetorical sentiments deployed by political actors on Facebook are carefully manufactured texts that impact our sense of nationalism.

Read the full article: https://doi.org/10.1080/01292986.2021.1993943