Unveiling the Indigenous: Representations Around the Word Indigenous in Philippine Media

In today’s generation, the media is crucial to educate the masses about current affairs. Yet, it does not only tell, but has also acquired the ability to control how its audience creates realities interpreted as reality. A large number of national minorities or tribal groups residing in the Philippines has been the subject of news and feature stories, including film and television portrayals. The goal of this study was to examine the representations made by the media, specifically the print media, about the word indigenous. Collocational trends and intertextual approach were used to accomplish the purpose of this research using corpus linguistics and critical discourse analysis. This research further attempted to show how language is used in media to manipulate. The analysis revealed that the most common collocate of indigenous is people/s and the print media represents them as victims of violence, underprivileged, vulnerable, and separate or different. These results can potentially contribute to a more positive portrayal or representation of indigenous in the Philippines.