Philippine E-Journals

Vlogger na ba ang tanan?: Investigating the Lived Experience of Becoming One among Emerging Filipino Vloggers in Algorithmic Spaces

Reymark Malinda | Astred Jill Catolpos | Maria Efrelij Cuadra

Discipline: media studies

 

Abstract:

Background: Vlogging has become a dominant form of digital expression. However, the meaning of becoming a vlogger, particularly how identity is constructed and negotiated within algorithmic spaces, remains underexplored among emerging Filipino content creators in Southern Philippines. Methods: This study employed an interpretative phenomenological approach to examine the experiences of 10 emerging vloggers from diverse occupational and content backgrounds. Data were gathered through multimodal interviews and online form responses, based on a common interview guide, and analyzed using idiographic engagement and thematic integration. A theme-excerpt matrix supported analytic transparency. Results: Three interrelated themes emerged. First, motivations included emotional coping, recognition and social validation, financial aspirations to help others, and self-rediscovery. Second, challenges involved platform constraints, role conflict, burnout, technological barriers, and public criticism. Third, identity construction reflected negotiations of authenticity, performance for visibility, and adaptation to algorithmic demands. Conclusion: Becoming a vlogger signifies inhabiting a layered identity – sincere yet staged, personal yet continually reshaped by platform demands. Through dramaturgical and uses and gratifications lenses, vlogging emerged as identity work and meaning-making that fulfill emotional, social, and economic needs. The study theorizes vlogging as dramaturgical identity work embedded in platform economies, enriching scholarship on digital labor, identity, and authenticity.