Contextualizing Types of Filipino Collective Support during the #COVID19 Lockdown

Abstract

The lockdown as a countermeasure at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic gained diverse responses globally. Many turned to Social Media platforms such as Twitter to express their sentiments on health crisis-related concerns. This study magnified the collective support-related Twitter content posted by users within the Philippines at the beginning of the pandemic. Collective Support expressions were collected using the Twitter Python Library and examined using content analysis. The primary goal is to elicit insights to understand the Filipinos' social/collective behaviors and how they were manifested at the onset of the COVID-19 lockdown. Hofstede's and Triandis' Theory of Collectivism primarily guided the direction of the study towards the affirmation of the Philippines as a collectivistic nation as demonstrated in the Collective Support Tweets classified under the following identified themes: (1) Language of Appreciation, Tribute, Support, covering the most significant percentage with 38.96% of the collective support tweets; (2) Friendly Reminders with 28.91%; (3) Acts of Community Service comprising 20.31%; and (4) Encouraging Words forming 11.82%. Given the Filipino's traditional familial and community-oriented culture, their collectivistic behavior shall naturally be conveyed irrespective of location, technology, and other relevant settings. However, considering the Twitter dataset under study, the technology shaped cultural implications based on the shared Twitter content in the Philippines. Further, it has affirmed the Philippines' collectivistic culture in accordance with the indicators under Hofstede's and Triandis' Theory of Collectivism.