Adult Filipinos are relying less on Facebook and other legacy social media platforms for news, increasingly turning to video-centric TikTok amid changing news consumption habits.
The Philippine media landscape remains largely grim despite the change in the country’s leadership in mid-2022. Attacks on journalists, which escalated during the six-year presidency of Rodrigo Duterte, have not let up since Ferdinand Marcos Jr. took office.
More than half of Filipinos (54%) have been tuning out news by checking it less often, including disabling notifications. Half avoid certain sources, scrolling past news or changing channels when news comes on. More than a fourth (28%) shun specific news topics like those that dampen their mood or increase anxiety.
The proportion of Filipinos who say they “can trust most news most of the time” has gone up to 37% this year amid a surge of COVID-19 cases around the time the survey was conducted.
The COVID-19 health crisis has spurred an increased overall trust in news among Filipinos but has led to waning interest in news products.
Interest in news and belief in the importance of independent journalism run high in the Philippines but are accompanied by a low trust in news and high levels of concern over misinformation.
