Consuming Digital Disinformation: How Filipinos Engage with Racist and Historically Distorted Online Political Content

Many current counter-disinformation initiatives focus on addressing the production or "supply side" of digital disinformation. Less attention tends to be paid to the consumption or the intended audiences of disinformation campaigns.A central concept in understanding people's consumption of and vulnerability to digital disinformation is its imaginative dimension as a communication act. Key to the power of disinformation campaigns is their ability to connect to people's shared imaginaries. Consequently, counter-disinformation initiatives also need to attend to these imaginaries.This report examines why the precarious middle class in the Philippines has been particularly susceptible to digital disinformation. It focuses on two key imaginaries that disinformation producers weaponized in the year leading up to the 2022 national elections