ATENEO DE DAVAO UNIVERSITY

Senior High School Department

Bangkal, Davao City

MEDIA AND INFORMATION LITERACY

Summative Written Work (SAMPLE)

NAME: Virgilind Palarca SECTION: 11-Isore

TITLE: “Critical Analysis of Rappler’s Infographic on Duterte’s Drug War”

Part 1: AUTHORSHIP
This news infographic was created by Rappler in August 2016 as a summary of
the article written by Paterno R. Esmaquel II. Duterte had only been in office for 3 months
at this point but his administration had already earned the irk of the Catholic church with
his controversial war against drugs. Rappler was, and still remains as, Duterte’s strongest
media critic.
Rappler is a Philippine online news website based in Manila. It started as a
Facebook page named MovePH in August 201 and later evolved into a complete website
on January 1, 2012. Along with web-based text news content, it was among the first news
websites in the Philippines to extensively use online multimedia including video, pictures,
text and audio. It also uses social media sites for news distribution. According to its

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 ATENEO DE DAVAO UNIVERSITY
Senior High School Department
Bangkal, Davao City

website, the name Rappler is a portmanteau of the words "rap" (to discuss) and "ripple"
(to make waves). True to its name, Rappler has been known to stir conversations on
politics earning its reputation to be one of the, if not the biggest, critic of the Duterte
Administration. Rappler claims that key tenet embedded in their DNA is the supremacy
of editorial independence.
Two of its 10 founders are veteran and award-winning journalists, Maria Ressa
and CheChe Lazaro. Ressa was a lead investigative reporter and anchor for CNN
Southeast Asia for many years. I was amused to learn that she also took up BA English
Studies, Theater, and Dance while in Princeton University. I never thought we’d have
some sort of similarities. She also studied Political Theater in UP Diliman. This explains
why she is passionate about political and social issues. She is also co-founder of the
independent media production company Probe. She started it with Lazaro, who was more
known to be the face of the award-winning investigative journalism program The Probe
Team. I remember being exposed to investigative journalism through this program being
aired on GMA 7 back in the ‘80s and ‘90s. It has produced some of the best investigative
journalists we have in the country today.
Given the background of Rappler’s founders, it’s quite understandable why the
agenda of their content would be mostly called Left-Wing or oppositionist. Many legal
cases have been filed by various government agencies against Rappler since 2011, a
year after the media company became more vocal against Duterte’s war on drugs and
alleged proliferation of fake news in favor of the administration. As of 2018, Rappler has
faced two hurdles: the cyber libel complaint lodged by the National Bureau of Investigation
(NBI) before the Department of Justice (DoJ) and the revocation of its Certificate of
Incorporation by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Part 2: FORMAT
In this news inforgraphic created by Rappler, we see an image of a woman crying
over the lifeless body of a loved one. On the right side is a compelling quote by a religious
leader. This is a good example of a story that used all Media Frames. There’s HUMAN
IMPACT because the characters in the story represent the poor, which is a big population

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 ATENEO DE DAVAO UNIVERSITY
Senior High School Department
Bangkal, Davao City

in the country. And being poor connects to issues of POWERLESSNESS and

ECONOMICS. The MORAL VALUES of a predominantly Catholic society are reflected
because the image reminds us of The Pieta, a popular marble statue by Michelangelo. It
means Pity or Compassion, and represents Mary sorrowfully contemplating the dead
body of her son which she holds on her lap. And finally, CONFLICT is used because this
media attempts to stir partisan politics of good versus evil. The framing techniques used
were METAPHOR (liking the image to The Pieta) matched with a CATCHY PHRASE
using parallelism. The Pieta is also an ARTIFACT reminiscent of a strong Catholic
TRADITION. The composition of combining a religious-looking image with a direct quote
by the highest religious leader of the land, who is Archbishop Villegas, completes the
moral tale.
The news values that are easily seen is NEGATIVITY because it’s homicide. Then
there’s THRESHOLD and MEANINGFULNESS because the alleged victim comes from
the poor sector of society and that is a huge population in our country. At that time, EJK-
related incidents were happening a lot, thus FREQUENCY. And transforming the news
article into an infographic which is more “snackable” in a way to the audience is a good
example of SIMFLICATION.

Part 3: AUDIENCE
Although most newspapers generally target EVERYONE as its audience,
Rappler’s writing style and editorial content has revealed itself to be have a more niche
market – that of the 20 year old and above liberal thinkers; usually university educated
middle to upper class intellectual elites. This can be proven with a video segment done
by Rappler itself when it interviewed artists Joey Ayala, Raymund Marasigan, Cherry Pie
Picache, Kai Honasan, and Eco del Rio and asked them why they turn to Rappler for their
news fix. I personally read Rappler because I liked the writing style especially in their early
years as a blog. It was fresh. And in the middle of a broadcasting duopoly, and
newspapers like Inquirer and Philippine Star losing its edge, Rappler had the gutsy indie-
blood that I was looking for at that time.

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 ATENEO DE DAVAO UNIVERSITY
Senior High School Department
Bangkal, Davao City

One of the pioneering features of Rappler among other news websites is their
Mood Meter. It is a web widget embedded on each of Rappler's blogs and articles. It
appears as colored bubbles showing the way people react to Rappler's stories. Readers
are prompted to choose their response from eight different emotional reactions. The ten
stories that received the most reactions in the last 48-hour period would appear on the
Mood Navigator. The Rappler Mood Meter, which is similar with Facebook Reactions,
won the Bronze Medal for Brand Experience at the 2012 Boomerang Awards sponsored
by the Internet Media Marketing Association of the Philippines (IMMAP).
The infographic drew divisive reactions of course. The Philippines is a
predominantly Catholic country and Duterte has proven himself to be the most popular
president having won through mere social media promotion. The Liberal Party followers
nicknamed as “Dilawan” used this as a tool to propagate their agenda while right-wing
fanatics called “DDS” or Diehard Duterte Supporters mocked this infographic. As a result,
the Catholic churchgoers became divided. Religious Catholics who are also Duterte
supporters started criticizing and disowning their church. The article form which this news
infographic came from earned 100% ANGRY responses from the Mood Meter. Perhaps,
the anger can be interpreted in two ways: leftists were angry about the alleged immoral
drug war and right-wing supporters were angry at the church for criticizing the
government. Either way, it resulted to a 100% ANGRY response.

Part 4: CONTENT
The message is an editorial piece about Duterte’s war on drugs with Catholic
morality being used as a lens. It is apparent that it is an attack against the government’s
way of eradicating the drug problem in the country. Though not yet proven in courts, but
primary sources have shared stories on how Operating TokHang is flawed and in fact
does not really solve the source of the problem – the drug lords. As a result, we have
extrajudicial killings that are clear violations of basic human rights. Critics have said the
Operation TokHang only preys on the bottom-feeders of this drug food chain when the
government should really go after those at the top. The failure to do so casts a shadow

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 ATENEO DE DAVAO UNIVERSITY
Senior High School Department
Bangkal, Davao City

on this policy, accusing it to be covering up a bigger issue – government’s alleged

complex entanglements with some of the bigwigs.
The infographic is clearly one-sided which brings to question the omitted parts.
When we touched on Conflict Sensitive Journalism in class, we learned that when media
trivialize their obligation and duty by giving and framing stories that entertain or in this
case cause strong divisive emotions rather than to inform, or producing stories that
leverage existing prejudices to satisfy the curiosities of a paying audience, then they will
definitely have a negative impact on conflict and can destroy the very condition that make
de-escalation and resolution possible. This is the exact effect of this infographic’s content.
Because of this one-sidedness, the infographic has omitted to present the other
side of the story. Questions like, what was the shootout encounter like? Was the victim
caught red-handed? Was he just a suspect? Was he on a list? Who is he? The nameless
person’s personal background has been removed from the story. He was used as an
example – a cautionary tale. He has been turned into a symbol. What is not present in
the story is the real circumstance of the event. And emotional humans as we are, we all
gravitate towards this kind of drama and literary metaphors.

Part 5: PURPOSE
Profit and power are equally present as intentions of this infographic. By coming
up with an uber-dramatic morality play of sorts, the news website can sell the story more
because of the negative and divisive headline. This is based on the age-old mantra “If It
Bleeds, It Leads” which means that news media uses fear and despondency to keep
viewers tuned in and coming back, and to sell advertising. The news uses a three-prong
attack pattern in fear and despondency-based programming.
First, they reach out to grab the viewer's attention using fear. This is called the
teaser. In this case, this is the infographic at hand. Second, they want the viewer to think
that the solution for reducing the identified fear will be in the news story. Third, they leave
the viewer wanting more information to relieve their sense of despondency since the story
did not reduce the fear but enhanced it.

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 ATENEO DE DAVAO UNIVERSITY
Senior High School Department
Bangkal, Davao City

So, while it successfully sells, it even enhances their power over their audience as
they push their agenda deeper and wider into their subconscious resulting into what could
be biased perception.
This infographic was entertaining because of the dramatic elements; evoking the
human emotions they need to fuel and perpetuate their agenda. In that sense, it has also
successfully persuaded the leftist and right-wing supporters to remain in their confirmation
biases. However, the infographic has failed to inform the audience the full story because
it has left out other primary sources’ angles. Perhaps, it has enlightened some people to
fight EJK even more. On the flipside, it has moved people to form independent coalitions
to support their cause. Overall, the infographic is effective in carrying out its main agenda.

Total words: 1,658 (excluding references)

References:
• About Rappler. Retrieved from https://rappler.com/section/about
• Aldama, Z. (2018). How Philippines war on drugs has become a war on the poor. Retrieved from
https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2129538/how-philippines-
war-drugs-has-become-war-poor
• Esmaquel, P II. (2016). Bishop: Shall we become a generation of murderers? Retrieved from
https://rappler.com/nation/archbishop-villegas-drug-killings-duterte-statement
• Media Ownership of Rappler.com. Retrieved from http://philippines.mom-
rsf.org/en/media/detail/outlet/rapplercom/
• Serani, D. (2011). If It Bleeds, It Leads: Understanding Fear-Based Media. Retrieved from
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/two-takes-depression/201106/if-it-bleeds-it-leads-
understanding-fear-based-media
• Soroka, S. (2015) Why do we pay more attention to negative news than to positive news? Retrieved
from https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2015/05/27/why-do-we-pay-more-attention-to-negative-
news-than-to-positive-news/
• Why do you read Rappler? Retrieved from https://rappler.com/voices/why-do-you-read-rappler

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