Catch Me If You Can

For this season of “Catch Me If You Can,” Jonathan Ong and Kat Ventura are having conversations with people across the political aisle. In their recent study entitled Parallel Public Spheres, they diagnosed how Philippine society is so divided that it seems like we’re living in separate political universes. Can we still rebuild our public sphere, where people can have real conversations, maybe have disagreements — but at the end of the day still treat each other as fellow citizens, rather than enemies?Sass Sasot rose to fame during the Duterte administration, becoming one of the top 3 mega-influencers supporting former President Rodrigo Duterte. Many academic papers have been written about Sass since then, critiquing her for spreading misinformation.

For this season of “Catch Me If You Can,” Jonathan Ong and Kat Ventura are having conversations with people across the political aisle. In their recent study entitled Parallel Public Spheres, they diagnosed how Philippine society is so divided that it seems like we’re living in separate political universes. Can we still rebuild our public sphere, where people can have real conversations, maybe have disagreements — but at the end of the day still treat each other as fellow citizens, rather than enemies?Sass Sasot rose to fame during the Duterte administration, becoming one of the top 3 mega-influencers supporting former President Rodrigo Duterte. Many academic papers have been written about Sass since then, critiquing her for spreading misinformation.

For this season of “Catch Me If You Can,” Jonathan Ong and Kat Ventura are having conversations with people across the political aisle. In their recent study entitled Parallel Public Spheres, they diagnosed how Philippine society is so divided that it seems like we’re living in separate political universes. Can we still rebuild our public sphere, where people can have real conversations, maybe have disagreements — but at the end of the day still treat each other as fellow citizens, rather than enemies?In this episode Kat talks to a political content creator and supporter of President Bongbong Marcos, known on Facebook and YouTube as Tap Wan.

Jonathan Ong and Kat Ventura experiment with a few episodes where they have a conversation with personalities across the political aisle. They go over controversial social issues and discuss solutions to bridge parallel public spheres.

This is a tale of two online influencers. One is a closeted-gay bachelor who posts headless naked selfies, and the other is a crossfit coach who fills his wall with seductive thirst-straps. Both have made names for themselves for their racy content, but in the last election cycle they turned…political.

Mob behaviors meant to silent, shame, and punish political opponents became common practices on social media during the elections. Meanwhile, legacy media networks failed to gather all political camps to a national debate. But now that the elections are over, how do we move forward together after so much fighting?Download the English report here. For the Filipino version of the report, access it here.

Online influence operations have found new ways to skirt around fact-checking initiatives and social media policies to influence voters. In this episode, we talk about the new personalities in the study Parallel Public Spheres: Influence Operations in the 2022 Philippine Elections by Jonathan Ong, Nicole Curato, Rossine Fallorina, Jose Mari Lanuza, and Ferdinand Sanchez II.Download the English report here. For the Filipino version of the report, access it here.

Queer culture took center stage in the 2022 elections. Campaign rallies resembled pride marches with the presence of rainbow flags, queer hosts and free hugs. While other members of the LGBTQIA community took hold of the conversation online with their star-studded video campaigns and witty comebacks. In this episode, we highlight the role of queer people in the elections with sociologist Andoy Evangelista and Direk Rod Singh.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.