Abstract:

With the observation that a potential for accidents is invented simultaneously with the coming to being of any new technology, it may be considered that scandals are an integral risk of ICT and of the sudden shift in speed and scale of communication and use of information introduced by these technologies. This chapter focuses on how Filipinos more than any other people in the world seem to be particularly interested in 'scandal' and at the forefront of exploring the potential of this facet of cybertechnologies. This is a phenomenon that is readily apparent when one looks up the statistics on GoogleTrends over the last five years or so for the single search term 'scandal'. The term 'scandal' in fact has come to have a new meaning for Pinoys, who are astute to its value and potential 'social life' both as a digital object and as a picture or story that is animated by resonance with other images and social narratives. This chapter explores ethnographically the apparent social fascination of Pinoys with 'scandal' as a creative product, and a digital object/commodity, gendered dimensions of 'scandal'making, and 'scandal'mongering as an emergent process of shaping values and opinions and of acting through cybertechnologies. The material discusses the production of 'scandal' as an inherent potential of the interactive new media, and how (paired with 'piracy' in a Third World setting), the movement of digitized 'scandals' from the participation, both playful and serious, in Filipino pop-cyberculture may impact on society.