A comparative study of the framing approaches of the two newspaper columnists in the Philippines

• Main Author: Lim, Aaron D.P.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2011
• Subjects: Frames (Sociology)—Philippines; Press and politics—Philippines; Elections—Philippines; Political Science
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_masteral/6694; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/context/etd_masteral/article/12744/viewcontent/CDTG005016_P.pdf
• Institution: De La Salle University

The objective of this thesis is to explain how the newspaper columnists framed the electoral issues of 2007. Twenty three newspaper articles of Alex Magno of the Philippine Star and thirty seven of Conrado de Quiros of Philippine Daily Inquirer in February 11- June 11, 2007 were compared and contrasted according to the frames they use, the way they elevate the electoral issues to public consciousness, and the way they selected, emphasized, elaborated and excluded electoral issues during this electoral year. The five frames of Semetko and Valkenburg were applied in a content analysis of the columns of Magno and de Quiros, during the Philippine electoral event of 2007. Employing qualitative and quantitative methods, this study finds that responsibility frame was found to be the most frequently employed across variety of issues that comprises the conduct of elections, the candidates and then the incumbent officials. The use of critical form was found most dominant in Alex Magno’s approach of elevating electoral issues to the public. He criticize various lapses of the government and the opposition in doing the right system on the party-list form, in choosing party based candidates, using Erap’s influence in the opposition, the official name of the opposition, the borrowing of the government instead of taxing the people, the impeachment of President Arroyo, and the bad governance of Pampanga of the past administration. He also gave favorable commentaries on Team Unity’s “unity ticket” in the senatorial race against the opposition, the LAKAS CMD’s influence on the local and congressional districts, the ruling of the Supreme Court against the leftists groups on the party-lists issues, Ed Panlilio in restoring morality in Pampanga, and De Venecia’s speakership to continue legislation and block the impeachment case. In terms of the journalistic dimension commentaries used by Alex Magno, argumentative category ranked first place. These argumentative topics include reliability of surveys as election approaches, the execution of command votes among politicians and religious leaders, Erap as “man of the masses”, party-list system weakening the role of political party system, the impressive 6.9% growth of the economy as of 2007, and the jockeying for positions by the senators for 2010. Magno also advocated in the pursuance of the VAT implementation, the formation of the party based system and party building, the party-lists representation, sustainable economic policy, voters education, advocating for new party-lists such as ANAD, BANTAY and BANAT and PEP, instead of leftist/communists groups, and TEAM UNITY in setting programs for the country. To alert his readers on relevant issues, Magno warned law makers to educate the voters on the need to re-engineer the process of representation of each party or candidate for the enrichment of culture. He educated his readers about command votes, party affiliation, and party building. Cynical and humorous commentaries were only used a few time in some of Magno’s articles. Like with Magno, critical form was also the most dominant evaluative commentary in elevating electoral issues to the public. He criticize the Arroyo administration for the unresolved election related problems such as political killings, vote buying, stealing and cheating, including the legitimacy of the presidency of President Arroyo. De Quiros also gave favorable statement for the KAPATIRAN candidates, on Panlilio’s candidacy, on Kiko Pangilinan's candidacy, among the brave journalists, activists, and teachers for sacrificing their lives in order to ensure clean and peaceful elections. On the other hand, de Quiros used offensive words such as “Tanga” in describing President Arroyo’s lapes “Hello Garci’s scandal.” He called Abalos, Puno, Esperon, and Ebdane as the four horsemen of the Apocalypse for the massive cheating in the 2007 election. He selected and emphasized and elaborated on these topics to show his emotion against the Arroyo administration.