MODULE 3 Philippine Popular Culture

OVERVIEW Philippine culture scope with a wide range of variety which reflected
where they lived. The Filipino culture comprises a blend of traditional Filipino
and Spanish Catholic traditions, with influences from America and other parts
of Asia. The Filipinos are family oriented and often religious with an
appreciation for art, fashion, music and food. This culture makes the Filipino
unique from the other culture. However, culture is evolving and continuous and
there are rising new culture of the Filipino that needs to understand this new
existing Philippine culture.
In this module, you will learn the basic popular culture in the Philippines
and also the theories of Philippine popular culture that to be applied in order to
understand the existing culture in the Philippines. Also you will analyze the
existing popular culture in your place to be able to understand how culture
works in your community.
LEARNING At the end of the lesson you are expected to:
OBJECTIVES: • Describe the popular culture in the Philippines
• Explain the categories and importance of popular culture in the
Philippines.
• Identify the theories of Philippine pop culture.

Brainstorming/Mind map
In two minutes, write down/type that comes to mind when you hear the “Pop
Culture”.
What do you Answer the following question:
1. Are there words that are related? If yes, how are they related?
already know? 2. What culture at the present do you considered as popular practice among
the Filipinos?
3. How do you define Philippine Pop Culture?
Philippine Pop Culture
Popular culture, according to National Artist for literature Bienvenido Lumbera
in his book Revaluation: Essays on Philippine Literature, Theatre and Popular Culture
(1984), is highly different from the folk culture and nationalist culture of the Filipinos.
In a nutshell, folk culture is the way of living in a place in a specific time and portrays
the practices of a certain people, and on how they cope to survive with nature.
Nationalist culture is the culture created through colonial resistance with the collective
of a people on a given place and time.
Let’s get to know
What is Pop Culture?
more The entertainment produced through and by commercial media (television, film,
the music industry, etc.) that have the economics and technological capacity to reach
large, demographically diverse and geographically dispersed audiences. Popularity is
measured, in this case by patterns of consumption: it refes to the things we buy (or
watch to, listen to, etc.).
A somewhat different use of “popular culture” defines it in terms not of
consumption but production: popular culture is what “the people” make, or do, for
themselves. This definition fits closely with the anthropological definition of culture as
“the practices of everyday life”. Popular culture is like “communicative practices of
everyday life”. It comprises all those activities concerned with the production of
meaning that are shared among many members of a society.

To further support to this lesson refer to this link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VvWGHHHmZY&t=212s

Categories of Philippine Pop Culture

There are so many culture exist in the Philippines some are differentiated
because of the geographical environment which the people practice differentiated
from the others. However, Philippine popular culture is categories based on what is
most visible to see among the people or in the society practice and this are the
following; entertainment, sports, politics, fashion, language.

Entertainment
Philippine entertainment culture is just as vibrant as the culture and identity of
Filipinos, memorial of Filipino talents in the field of the performing arts and the
Philippine entertainment are rare and momentary, awareness and ways to nurture the
talents of aspiring Filipinos are sometimes inaccessible, love for our own
entertainment such as the television shows, films, and original Pilipino Music. Under
entertain the example are also popular in the Philippines:
 Movies
 Television
 Music
 Video games

Sport
Philippine sport is very much popular for the Filipinos and somehow this are
where all the Filipinos united because of the single dream to be popular from the other
and known around the world. Over time, basketball was able to captivate every
Filipino’s heart. It is the most played and the most popular sport for the Filipinos. But
Philippine pop culture also pointed out the;
 Popular sport
 Indigenous sport
 SEA games

Politics
Politics is also a popular culture in the Philippines because so many controversy
that discuss and argue under our government and beside also politics is a way of
understanding of the Filipino official way of governance in such a way on the handling
the situation and being efficient agency of government. Under this Philippine pop
culture includes:
 Political Agenda
 Role of the Media
 Watchdogs of the Society
Fashion
Pop culture generally describe media created for mass consumption; fashion,
music, film, and art. Since a lot of people enjoy all-things pop-culture on their spare
time, it has undoubtedly inspired different trends for lifestyle including fashion. Filipino
look fashion as they live to day to day live, because for them they will recognize if you
design looks different and very trending. Fashion also includes the:
 Ukay-ukay
 World-class Filipino designers
 Traditional attires-modernized
 SONA

Language
Filipino (based on tagalogs) is the national language, although it is the native
tongue of less than a quarter of the population. English is widely spoken, Spanish
much less so. There are around 170 indigenous languages in total, with hundreds
more dialects. Aside of these the Philippine language also includes:
 Oral and Written Communication
 Reginal Defect vs Reginal Accent
 Jejemon, Gay Lingo,Use of Emojis
 Carabao English
 Philippine English and World Englishes

TAKEWAYS
 Culture is Dynamic
 Culture is Encompassing
 Culture is Symbolic
 Culture is a Country Identity

Theories of Philippine Pop Culture

The word netizen, though it has been used popularly in current times, is
actually a word from the theory of Michael Hauben (1996) is a corrupted term from the
phrase "Net Citizen". According to Hauben, as netizens, geographical separation in
the actual reality is replaced by existence in the same virtual space called the internet.
More so, along with the power of using the internet is the power of the reporter given
to the netizen for a netizen could actually be a source of primary information regarding
certain topics or issues. Hauben profoundly cautions that the internet can,
nevertheless, be a "source of opinion" though he said that a netizen can train
him/herself to discern real from fabricated information.
This prophecy will soon be reflected in Graeme Turner's book called the
Demotic Turn (2010) but in a certain extreme way for even news reports are often
bent to suit the "infotainment" genre favored by the general audience. According to
Turner, there is a rise of opinionated news as reporters tend to bend the news to the
stories they often favor. A concrete example of this is tabloidization, or
sensationalising small news items and making a big deal out of such.
 The Agenda-Setting Theory

The Agenda-Setting theory of McCombs and Shaw can simplified by saying

that he media influences people to focus its attention on something under a certain
agenda. It can make people think that something is actually happening when
something is not, or give special attention or focus on certain subjects or topics and
hype it to make an impression that something big is going on. To give an example,
the agenda-setting theory can be seen in a newspaper wherein the headline is
supposed to be the biggest news there is, and the other items, decreasing in font size
and the farther its location from the front page, the lesser priority it has. Similarly, in a
news programme, wherein the reporter or news anchor gives too much air time to a
certain news, or depending on the arrangement of the news items, the more pressing
issue it is. This theory can also be applied in the radio, or on new media such as the
internet.

The political-economy of media

According to Hermann and Chomsky's Propaganda Model, a model they have

used to check the various political-economic implications of mass media, there are
several filters to use in relation with the topic to check the propaganda machine of
mass media.

These filters are the following:

1. The size, concentrated ownership, owner wealth, profit orientation of the different
mass media firms
2. Adverising as the primary income source of mass media
3. The reliance of the media on the information provided by the government, business,
and these "experts" funded and approved by such sources and agents of power.

To further support to this lesson refer to this link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnwPA57nfmM&t=1468s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnwPA57nfmM&t=2415s

Let’s do and What you have read is a glimpse of the idea of Philippine pop culture.
Let us learn more about the Philippine popular culture in a practical way of
discover understanding in such a way we understand and learn the dynamic of culture.
Using the table below, explain and describe the categories of Philippine
popular culture based on the present situation.
Categories of Phil. Pop Explanation
Culture
Entertainment
 Sports

Politics

Language

Accomplished the Worksheet No.1 Philippine Popular Culture The activity will
evaluate if you will understood the lesson.

The following criteria may be considered in checking the output:

How much you
1. Content of the answers
have learned? 2. Relatedness of the example to the topic
3. Timeliness of the submission
4. Technicalities (spelling, punctuation mark etc...)

Popular culture was first introduced and given flesh and bone through the
study of Lumbera. It will be the foundation of the media we see today, and it fleshed
out reasons why media commands economic, political, and social power in the
Philippines. Through several theories, it was shown that in media's main goal via the
Summary
proliferation of pop culture creates a commercialized world as it generated income
through advertisements, and whoever command economic power commands the
political, as well. Pop culture to make their audience behave the way they would be
favorable to them, also because they monopolize the information stream. This can
also be countered with the democratization of media through the facilitation of social
networking sites and by projecting ideas as a netizen on the internet.
 Aj G. (2013). Pop Culture and the Rise of Social Media in the Philippines.
Retrieved on http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/ronda2014/Culture-
Required Philippines.pdf on April 21, 2021.
 J. 1996. “The Future of the State.” Development and Change 27(2): 267–
Readings 278.
  FERNANDEZ. D, G. (2011). Philippine Popular Culture: Dimensions and
Directions the State of Research in Philippine Popular Culture. Vol. 29,
No. 1 (First Quarter 1981), pp. 26-44 (19 pages)
Steger, Manfred B., Paul Battersby, and Joseph M. Siracusa, eds. 2014.The
SAGE Handbook of Globalization. Two volumes. Thousand Oaks: SAGE
Publications.
 Zulueta, F. M. (2005). Sociology. Mandaluyong City: National Book Store,
Inc.
 https://werdsmith.com/p/ARutG2rFJ
References  https://www.worldtravelguide.net/guides/asia/philippines/history-language-
culture/
 https://tutumshop.com/blog/pop-culture-influence-fashion/
 http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/ronda2014/Culture-Philippines.pdf
 https://researchguides.smu.edu.sg/c.php?g=857736&p=6145221

Feedback
 Philippine Popular Culture

1. In 500 words give your comment or interpretation about the given two picture.

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