Multiple transcripts as political strategy: social media and conflicting identities of the Moro liberation movement in the Philippines

Abstract

This article explores the engagement of online new media for political mobilization by movements of dissent from the margins based on a case study of a Muslim minority revolutionary organization in the Philippines. We find that, enabled by hybrid features of online media outlets, minorities use multiple transcripts that target diverse audiences and oscillate across multiple, fleeting representations, narratives and articulations. Our article supports the view that ‘infrapolitics’ (the politics of disguise and concealment that lies between public and hidden transcripts of subordinate groups) is crucial in understanding online dissent. The article argues that new strategies of political discourse foregrounding infrapolitics help minority groups to circumvent traditional barriers of political communication and alter the quality of debate between minorities, state and the international community, and challenge national limits and boundaries.