Philippine E-Journals

Beyond Words: Threat Messages of Filipinos in Facebook Messenger

Alain Razalan

Discipline: Education

 

Abstract:

The paper's goal was to investigate how Filipino Facebook users in general and chat users in particular create threat chat messages. The research aimed to address the threat protocols and themes that were clear from the threat chat postings. In specifically, content analysis was used to examine the textual chat messages on Facebook for the study on threat messages in chat. 15 threat communications in all were recorded between January and March 2019. According to the study's findings, the threatener's last line of action was to send threat chat messages, and he or she chose social media as the most practical or affordable means of doing so. However, without threats, the interlocutors would be powerless. For example, the legal wife over the illegitimate wife, which is often used as a catalyst for adultery and extramarital affairs, as well as the debtor and debtee, where themes of friendship and betrayed trust may be present. The threat plays a significant role in the inversion of power together with their places and abilities. Social media became a platform for the Filipino people to quickly and easily communicate their threats as they learned how to use it a convenient setting for conflict and location where crime may be committed.