Cruising Through Spaces: Exploring the Mediatization of Gay Cruising in the Philippines

The emergence of new communications technologies has provided a new space for initiating romantic and sexual relationships among gays who perceive social and physical places to be a traditional space that largely promotes connection among heterosexuals. Now, mobile networking applications like Grindr have made it easier for gay men to “cruise” and meet other men, and are seen to lead to the increasing number of sexual partners, being exposed to risks like sexually transmitted infections (STI), among others. Thus this study, framed within the theory of Mediatization – which critically analyzes the dialectic process in which both media and communications on one hand, and culture and society on the other, mutually shape and change each other in an interactional process – explores the question: How have gays’ way of cruising, or the initiation of romantic or sexual relations (among others), in the Philippines been mediatized across history?