Philippine tabloids play an important role in reporting on public interest issues to its readers.

This medium, which sometimes surpasses the circulation of major broadsheets nationwide, contributes in the shaping of public opinion, according to a recent study on three Philippine tabloids that looked into the factors which influenced how they framed their stories during the 2007 national elections coverage.

Chay Hofileña with Joson Lorenzana and Estelle Marie Ladrido, authors of “Tabloids, Elections and Democracy: Tabloid Coverage of a National Election” presented their findings Thursday at the Institute of Philippine Culture at the Ateneo de Manila University in Quezon City.

“We sought to establish whether this medium with its wide reach and potential to influence voters provided information and framed election issues in such a way that voters were equipped to vote wisely in the 2007 elections,” Hofileña, who teaches communication courses at the Ateneo University, stated.

The authors wanted to find out if tabloids can be regarded as instruments for democracy during elections.

Their answer: “Yes, when they are financially secure and stable as in the case of Bulgar. And if in the case of all three there is recognition of their responsibility to educate voters about candidates and issues during elections,” Hofilena said.

“When tabloids are on survival mode and need to maintain political and personal relations to survive, then it’s a no.” Hofileña added.

Independence vs vested interests

The authors explained the implications of their findings.

First, newspapers and tabloids cannot be as independent as they ought to be if they are constrained by political, economic and personal interests.

Second, tabloids appear to have mastered the art of hooking their audience thus they hold tremendous potential to raise the level of discussion of socio-political issues through in-depth reports and commentary.

Third, there are lessons to be learned from the experience of tabloids--the importance of upholding journalistic values, respecting the audience and having a good business sense, among others.

Lastly, when combined with technology such as the Internet, tabloids hold promise as a medium for initiating discourse for relevant issues of the day.

Top three selling tabloids

The group decided to do a study on mass circulated tabloids, a sector which according to them has been largely neglected but holds “tremendous potential to influence public opinion and educate voters.”

For their study, they focused on the top three selling tabloids: Bulgar, a non-partisan tabloid; Abante, tagged as opposition and ranks second to Bulgar on weekdays; and administration-friendly People’s Tonight, the only English tabloid included in the study.

In analyzing the contents, they randomly selected 156 editions of the three tabloids to see dominant frames used and got the following results: 160 election-related stories for Abante; 251 for People’s Tonight; and 84 for Bulgar. Twelve journalists composed of two reporters, one editor or publisher per tabloid and one former publisher were interviewed.

Headline, story frame

Framing, the group said, gives news media the ability to direct how their readers should think about the issues.

“Our research focuses on the constructions of frames and not on how frames influence audiences,” Hofileña said.

“We looked at organizational pressure, ideology, attitude, etc and the resulting frames that emerged. We acknowledged the links between the inputs and the frames but it was beyond the scope of this study to determine the process how inputs influence the choice of frames,” she said.

Their findings yielded the following results:

• Abante: headlines used mostly the straight news frame followed by exposing the wrong doing and the cockfight frame. Its stories were mostly of the finger-pointing frame, followed by the horse-race and the expose-the-wrong doing frames.
• People's Tonight: Its headlines used the issues frame, followed by the horse-race and strategy frames. Its stories used mostly the horse-race frame followed by the issues and strategy frames.
• Bulgar: Headlines used the cockfight frame along with the horse-race and straight news frames applied equally, and the finger-pointing frame. Its stories used mostly the straight- news frames followed by the finger-pointing, reaction and the cockfight frames.

Actors given prominent coverage in all three tabloids were also examined as well as the frames used for their headlines.

Meanwhile, eight factors also emerged from interviews of 12 journalists that actually influence how headlines and stories are framed during elections. These factors include the political position or orientation of tabloids, journalistic norms or practices, journalistic values, news values, institutional values, ownership and personal ties of journalists, economics, and individual biases or personal values.

Coverage of the 2007 elections

As a sequestered newspaper, coverage of People’s Tonight was influenced by its ownership, journalistic values and individual biases of journalists. For out-of-town coverage, it relied on sponsored trips from candidates due to its limited funds. 

People’s Tonight tried to maintain a balanced coverage by providing a special page to the candidates regardless of political affiliations and fielded reporters to cover both Team Unity and the Genuine Opposition. The study also found out that press releases were heavily used as accommodations to personal friendship.

“For editors, friendship made it difficult to turn down requests for exposure. These connections also facilitated access to breaking news stories,” said Ladrido.

Lorenzana, meanwhile, said that for the opposition paper Abante, its coverage of the election was influenced by political position, journalistic practices and values.

“The opposition was the most covered political actor. Tabloid stories including those related to the election were written using street language for better rapport with readers,” said Lorenzana.

Lorenzana added that journalistic values of fairness and balance were upheld by assigning reporters to cover both political parties and giving space for comments on issues and allegations.

“This conscious attempt to inform or caution readers indicated how Abante reporters regarded their audience as voters or participants in a democratic exercise,” he said.

Bulgar: most neutral

Of the three tabloids studied, Hofileña stressed that Bulgar was the most neutral, “favored no political party, favoring neither the administration nor the opposition. Institutional values, economics and political orientation were three major factors that affected the way its stories were framed.

“Bulgar prides itself for being a tabloid whose news room is clean, having turned away politicians and candidates who offered bribes in exchange for coverage,” Hofileña said.

Stories usually carried by the tabloid during elections were about celebrity candidates like senatorial bets Cesar Montano and Richard Gomez.

“As the editor in chief explained, they need to hook readers first before they can be educated. It is Bulgar's commercial success that actually allowed it to maintain a non- partisan stance in its election coverage,” Hofileña said.

Hofileña further said that tabloids cannot be stereotyped as scandal driven papers that peddle only sex, crimes and entertainment.

“In reporting election related events, tabloid editors and reporters alike regard their audience as voters who deserve and need information to make intelligent choices,” Hofileña pointed out.

Recommendations

Given the results of the study, the group mentioned seven recommendations to further expand their research.

• Closer examination of the frame-building process by studying how inputs influence frames.
• A further study of the audience looking at consumption and reception of tabloids, focusing on how they interpret news and information from tabloids during elections.
• A semiotic study of tabloids focusing on photographs and layouts.
• Beyond elections: An examination of tabloid coverage of political crisis.
• A study of ownership and business models for newspapers and tabloids.
• A further study on the use of language mirroring rapport with the audience and tracking changes in the tabloid market such as a shift to online media.
• Expand study to include local elections.