Communication Variables Favoring Celebrity Candidates in Becoming Politicians:

A Case Study of the 1998 and 2004 Elections in the Philippines

抄録

What conditions have made it possible for television celebrities to enter politics? Why are there many Filipino celebrities who are elected as national government officials? Most political analysts and media critics devoted time in analyzing public approval ratings and ad spending during the campaign period to understand voting behavior and political choice. While those studies may also be helpful, they do not cover the overall set-up that contributes to the rising trend of celebrity politicians. This article offers to fill a gap in current scholarship on celebrity politician phenomenon by identifying factors that affect the communication process between the celebrity candidate and voters even BEFORE the official campaign starts. For this reason, I chose to loosely base my framework on DavidBerlo's Source-Message-Channel-Receiver (SMCR) communication model. I found out that 1) the socio-cultural and political backgrounds of Source and Receiver; 2) the social role and spectatorship in relation to Message; and, 3) the television's nature as a Channel and its socio-economic background were critical communication factors in paving the way for Philippines to have 11 celebrity politicians as president, vice president and, senators during the 1998 and 2004 elections combined.