“Influence of 24 Oras Digital reports on the Vaccination Plan of the Philippines towards the IComm students of Letran”
3rd Year Broadcasting
Arce, Arom John B.
Pilar, Jackqueline A.
Trends
COVID-19 or formally known as The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 had its first eruption in China in December 2019 wherein multiple people in Wuhan, China have been infected by Pneumonia, but later was found out that it was a Novel CoronaVirus. The Philippines also had its first case of COVID-19 on January 30, 2020. It was a woman from Wuhan, China who arrived in the Philippines departed from Hong Kong. Currently, the country has now recorded a total of 500,000+ cases which includes 475,000+ recoveries and 10,000+ deaths. Due to the Pandemic, famous TV Media outlets including GMA restricted manpower within their vicinity to avoid the spread of the viral malady. With the help of Digital Technology, the network was able to adjust to the new standard of news reporting and entertainment. News, however, has now become a vital component in this pandemic to inform the public about the latest vaccination plan of the government towards its citizens. That is why not only 24 Oras go live on Television, but also on several digital platforms like Facebook and YouTube to name a few.
The government is a fundamental institution in society that always needs to plan and strategize on how to improve a country’s economy and ensure that the public’s interests are yet to be achieved. With that said, the government of all countries from the different parts of the continents has now prepared vaccination plans and it includes the Philippine government. The vaccines that are eyed by the Philippine government are AstraZeneca, PFizer, Moderna, Sinovac, Gamaleya, Johnson and Johnson, Clover, Sinopharm, Novavax, and 15 more while the master list was rolled out by the National Vaccination Program on February 1, 2021 and the first to get vaccinated are (these are in order): Frontline Healthcare Workers, Indigent Senior Citizens, remaining Senior Citizens, remaining Indigent, Uniformed Personnel (Police, Soldiers, Coast Guards, Firefighters), Teachers and School Workers, all government workers (National and Local), Essential Workers (Agricultural Sector, fishing sector, construction workers, food industries, manufacturers, tourism sector and etc.), Overseas Filipino Workers, and the remaining workforce. As of the second or third week of February, it is expected that PFizer Vaccine will be entering the country through the COVAX Facility of the World Health Organization while AstraZeneca is expected to arrive at the end of February or March, and Sinovac is expected, but the date of when it will arrive has not been issued yet. Approximately 63% or 70 million out of 110 million Filipinos will be vaccinated.
The pandemic has also paralyzed Colleges and Universities, and its students to perform face-to-face classes which include Colegio De San Juan De Letran. The only way for their students to learn and accumulate the lessons, and perform their assessments is through Online. In this way, it did not avoid students to get news reports about the strategic vaccination plan of the Philippine government on Social Media applications like Facebook to be specific. IComm students of Letran are the number one receptors of news reports because ideally it is their duty as communications students to learn the timely relevance of becoming a media practitioner at any crisis, event, or happening to inform and to comprise the general public. In this way, if they carefully and constructively master the ethical and responsible news reportage of 24 Oras digital, they would likely do the same practice that is aligned with the News program’s core values.
Issues
Approximately 73% of FIlipinos use Facebook as a platform to get news under the category of Top Social Media and Messaging from Digital Media Outlets. The most used digital media outlet that is ABS-CBN News Online with a score of 54, GMA News online falls second with an average of 47, and Yahoo! News falls on third place with 36, while the most trusted Digital Media outlet in the Philippines is GMA Network which scored a trust rating of 73 while TV5, Manila Bulletin, and Philippine Star fell on second place with an average of 68, and Philippine Daily Inquirer and DZMM Radyo Patrol scored a trust rating of 67 percent (Newman, Fletcher, Schulz, Andi, and Nielsen, 2020). With the personal Facebook accounts of each IComm students and their College-honored media organizations like Blank Canvas (Advertising), Media Works (Mass Communication), SCRIBE (Journalism), and Studio 1620 (Broadcasting) became a contributing factor why Facebook ranks number one.
According to a Digital Report on Philippines that was issued in 2020 by Simon Kemp, Facebook is the most used social media platform with a percentage of 96, and that’s around 70 million users (that number is based on the marketers that can reach using advertisements on Facebook), and the age group are between 16 to 64 years old. Also, according to the report, around 97.8% used Facebook for any kind of mobile phone, then users who access the platform via laptop or desktop computer is around 2.2%, while users who use both mediums are around 25.2 percent, and users who access the platform only through mobile phones are 72.5 percent. In addition, around 4.10% of Filipinos engage page posts of any kind; then approximately 9.26% engage with page video posts; while on page image posts gathered a percentage of 4.39; then 3.23% engage on page link posts; and last, around 2.12 % engage with page status posts. 24 Oras digital has garnered 6.3 million likes from Facebook Users. It is believed that this digital news program became one of the contributing factors of 9.26% user’s page video posts engagement on Kemp’s Report.
24 Oras digital serves as one of the sources in getting info about Vaccines and the Vaccination plan of the Philippine government because the country is facing a pandemic and the general public needs to know the further initiatives and progress to secure the public’s trust and safety, and drastically influence their opinion. With the available data gathered from Simon Kemp, it is no doubt that Digital technology could take over the traditional comforts of mankind. From just simply newspapers, pamphlets, books, radio, and television, these can all be replaced by desktop computers, tablets, mobile phones and etc. Whenever time forges closer to the unknown, digital technology/internet gradually could replace all traditional media and take over everything. With all of that being said, it is important to note that it clearly strengthens the objectives and the cause of researchers in conducting this study.
Objectives
The general objective of the study is to know how 24 Oras digital contributes to the opinion of IComm Students about the government’s Vaccination Plan. More specifically, it seeks to answer the following: First, what is the demographic profile of the students? (Age, Gender, Year Level, Course); Second, how often do IComm students engage in Digital news programs particularly 24 Oras?; Third, is there a significance to 24 Oras digital’s technique of reportage?; Fourth and last, based on the findings of the study, how did the technique of reportage invigorate the response of the IComm students towards the Vaccination Plan?
Contribution
The study focused on the effect of 24 Oras Digital News about the vaccination plan of the government to the IComm students of Colegio de San Juan de Letran. More over this study will be beneficial to the following:
IComm Students. They will have an awareness about their engagement with social issues and how the media contributes in developing their opinion.
Employees of the Institution. This research aims to help the employees in understanding that engagement of students in Social media can contribute in developing their awareness is a vital component in achieving the Institution’s ideals.
Media. The study aims to help the media, especially the news industry to understand more of its audience and to have awareness of their duties and responsibilities as major contributors of information.
Future researchers. This study will serve as a reference material and a guide for related studies.
Theoretical Framework, Background
The engagement of social media users increases when the case of COVID-19 arises, this is according to the study of Simon Kemp (2020). Social Media especially Facebook became the source of information for the public especially about the response of Philippine government to the pandemic and the current issue about the vaccination plan. Digital News sites like 24 Oras served as one of the most followed news pages on facebook. In which they gathered more engagement from the public. Setting the agenda leads to negative and positive responses of the people to a certain topic or news.
According to the research made by Bryant and Miron (2004), agenda setting theory serves as one of the most fertile concepts in communication research. It emphasizes the connection of the news or information to the public agenda. People tend to engage in the most trending news as a belief that it is also the most important information that they can get. Agenda-setting theory explains the connection between the mass media’s emphasis on a particular topic and its effect on the public’s agenda (McCombs and Shaw, 1972). Another definition was made by Brosius and Kepplinger (1990) saying that agenda setting is a dynamic process that changes the problem awareness on the issue. This also explains why mass media priorities cover topics and how that topic became more important in the eyes of the public.
This theoretical framework can be applied to the thesis to know how Digital News of 24 Oras influences the IComm students and their response about the vaccination plan of the government. 24 Oras Facebook page is one of the most trusted digital news sources in facebook according to surveys. News about the vaccination plan of the government led to a big hype for the netizens. Digital media particularly 24 Oras sets to deliver information about the response made by the government in this time of Pandemic. The Media shows the positive and negative feedback of Filipinos towards the vaccination plan as a response of the current situation. In connection to Agenda theory, netizens like IComm students tend to give feedback to news articles about the said plan through comments and shared posts. Using the Agenda theory we can determine how 24 Oras writers use news angles to gain the netizens’ opinions about the particular topic or plan.