1 Electoral Introspection:

2 The Rise and Fall of Social Media in the Philippine Elections

3 In 2022, the National Election is approaching and by that time, Filipinos are expected to

4elect leaders in the office. There are numerous ways for a politician to campaign their selves, it

5can be through traditional machineries but in this particular era, social media is making waves as

6a new form of campaign strategy. In line with that idea, this paper is established from the theory

7that a politician’s social media visibility and popularity do not always translate to victory in the

8election.

10The rise of social media in elections

11 Social media visibility has been a crucial aspect that strengthens and manifests a brand’s

12standing which has been a common strategy in marketing. It is a determining factor that builds

13up and introduce your name once executed in a practical, strategic, and interactive method, it will

14guarantee and certify the credibility of your brand (Kampen, 2017). However, this particular

15technique is not only applicable in the aforementioned as it was also being used in the field of

16politics. (Safiullah et al., 2017) referred to it as “political marketing” by which it incorporates the

17principles of marketing and advertising in political campaigns, which eventually lead to the

18modern media as its main arena.

19 With that, politicians are now turning into social media, creating their own accounts,

20building their trademark, and actively participating in the platform (Narasimhamurthy, 2014).

21Certainly, the Philippines is not being forsaken from this trend. The country alone is a record

22holder of having the highest quantity of social media users, about 76.2 million of the population

23to be exact (Sanchez, 2020). From that volume, it is not surprising that politicians will take
24advantage of those number and they in fact made use of it in the 2016 National Elections in the

25Philippines. Presidential candidates utilized this technique to make people feel their presence,

26broadcast what they are doing regardless if it was political related, or as a way for them to be

27reached out by the community (Bajar, 2017).

28 Even so, there was only one spot for presidency, and the victory was claimed by Rodrigo

29Duterte of Davao City. Among all the other presidential candidates, (Bajar, 2017) noted that

30Duterte is the least engaging on social media who posted only twice a day in his official account

31as oppose to Miriam Defensor-Santiago who maximized it for campaigning, active in 10

32different mediums in a span of month, and has a solid social media presence. Nonetheless,

33Duterte still emerged and proclaimed as a “social media president” by (Bueno, 2017). This was

34because of his strong fan base despite having a weak campaign, Duterte was equipped with a

35huge support on social media powered by capitalized or even unpaid supporters, and fake and

36real accounts who are continuously praising and uplifting him on the platform (Etter, 2017).

37Evidently, this has been an indication of how advantageous and powerful social media is. This

38has been supported by (Boynton & Richardson Jr, 2016; Contractor et al., 2015; Kreiss et al.,

392017; Sahly et al., 2019 ) as they claim that it is as influential as traditional machineries and it is

40now a prevalent campaign medium—composed of large scale of voters, and a two-way

41communication platform.

42

43The fall of social media in elections

44 However, in spite of the prior success of social media in the 2016 National Elections, its

45effectivity has gone a long way. Numerous researchers stand by their findings that there is no

46direct causal relationship between social media visibility and electoral win. (Bright et al., 2019)
47supported this claim as they found out that social media visibility, particularly on Twitter, only

48has a subtle impact, which was about 1-2% vote shares, than those who did not have that much

49presence on the platform. In addition to that, (Vepsäläinen et al., 2017) also laid out the

50connection of engagement such as like and shares, particularly on Facebook to votes, which

51garnered 5.3% error than the traditional ones, thus implying it as a weak indicator.

52 These studies proved its point as it was ultimately unveiled in the 2019 Philippine

53elections, where social media visibility and popularity fluctuates and did not do much to the

54candidates. Take Doctor Willie Ong as an example, who has over 10 million followers on his

55official Facebook page alone, numerous social media groups under his name with thousands of

56members, and millions of subscribers on his YouTube channel (Castro & Castro, 2019). Despite

57of that advantage, Ong did not make it to the senate, he only gathered 7.6 million votes, not

58enough to grab a seat from the Magic 12. The aspiring senator is famous in his own right on

59social media and that is without a doubt but his influence, subscribers, followers, likes, and

60shares did not brought victory as it did not turn into an actual solid votes.

61

62Its unreliability as a threat

63 Indeed, social media has played and is continuously playing an important role in electoral

64campaigns. It is now part of the ever evolving process therefore it is inevitable to utilize it as a

65weapon and tool. Social media can really be effective at some point but it is not dependable on

66its own as it has its own rise and fall, and a fair share of advantages and disadvantages, given that

67it does not always forecast what was being visualized in the platform. However, this particular

68issue is not just exclusive to its relevant stakeholders because it can also directly affect the lives

69of the people. If the matter of things will be right, social media can be a growth as (Hossain et
70al., 2018; Ogola, 2015) have shown that it can amplify an individual’s involvement, awareness,

71and engagement to politics. But then again, this can also be the citizen’s downfall especially if it

72serves as a way and instrument to electing pseudo-leaders who are not prioritizing people first,

73and will just put the country in a much more burden.

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