The power of words
I wield words for a living—words flow through me like blood through my veins. They are my lifeline, my connection to the world, and when I sit in front of my laptop to eke out sentences and bleed myself dry, my soul feels truly alive.
But that wasn’t always the case. In 1997, while I was watching morning cartoons, a construction worker entered our house, unzipped his pants, and pulled out his genitals. Witnessing an act I had no words to describe, I was silenced. How could I explain an unwanted sexual behavior to an adult when I didn’t even know the words for the male reproductive organ? How could a 7-year-old verbalize masturbation, exhibition, and voyeurism—words that would only enter my vocabulary later on? During that period of ignorance, I lived with discomfort and trauma that I couldn’t explain and turned that anger inward.
This is how I acquainted myself with the power of words. Words allow us to identify, report, and denounce abuse and injustice. But at the same time, words can also be weaponized for interests that are less pure.
This is why I pursued journalism and communications as a career, and why I started the Instagram page Miss Chief Editor: While I can never undo the harassment I experienced during my childhood, I can use words to call out injustice, raise issues on a public forum, and inspire other people to do the same.
Language, whose basic element is words, reveals power in society. Hence, I read between the lines of press releases, advertisements, and other sources to reveal subtexts where power lies. I take cues from the proponents of critical discourse analysis, a field in linguistics that studies how power in society is expressed through language. In the words of one of them, Teun A. van Dijk: “Abuse, dominance, and inequality are enacted, reproduced, and resisted by text and talk in social and political contexts.”
Take disinformation. Despite numerous fact-checking efforts, fake news continues to flourish as gospel truth on social media sites: because the propagandists’ success stems not only from the appeal of their lies but from the way they package their tirades. Their choice of words is strategic. Their language is colloquial and accessible, but also often offensive.
How can we enact true systemic change? By telling important stories to champion the public good.
For example, recently, a media outlet eported on the suspicions of a “demolition job” against Vice Ganda. It could be remembered that Vice Ganda previously endorsed frontrunners in the last two Philippine elections: former President Rodrigo Duterte in 2016, and former Vice President Leni Robredo in 2022. Her words hold power, and now, ahead of the next elections, words—through disinformation—are also being used to reduce that power. This is reinforced by the sexist and offensive language added in the comments to mock her.
Offensive speech is one of four properties that underlie the current practices of media manipulation. Observing anonymous alt-right discussion board 4chan/b/, Alice Marwick and Rebecca Lewis wrote in a 2017 report that “hate speech is directed towards racial and sexual minorities and women as a way to maintain boundaries: People offended by such speech will stay away from spaces that use it, as intended.”
If 4chan presumes that everyone is white and male until proven otherwise, fake news peddlers from the Philippines address an audience that is Filipino, male, but also conservative—basically the predominant demographic of Filipino politicians, just poorer.
This kind of language, which not only carries lies but also principles, serves to promote both the capitalist and patriarchal systems that dominate Filipino society. Women and LGBTQIA+ people are thus easy targets of disinformation.
How can we enact true systemic change? By telling important stories to champion the public good. Use inclusive plain language and write to be understood. In a country where there are over 100 languages (yes, “languages,” not “dialects” as we had been wrongly taught in school), it is more challenging for people from far-flung communities to access information. Use your position, wherever you are and whatever role you play in society, to promote clarity and truth.
Roy Peter Clark of The Poynter Institute coined the term “public writer” to refer to people outside the journalism profession who bring the same skills and values to other important institutions. Whether in government or the private sector, public writers “write purposefully for particular audiences.” They “gather important information, decide what is most important or interesting, report it out, (and) (a)long the way they tell compelling stories.” As a public writer, you can advocate important causes such as better education policies. We are in the middle of a literacy crisis. People need to learn how to evaluate information and opinions. We need to combat our literacy crisis to help the next generation develop critical thinking skills.
As ordinary citizens, we may not have the resources to counter the massive disinformation machinery. But words hold power, and we can wield that power to promote social justice and change.