1. A deep case study analysis of how YouTube, a global digital media platform, is appropriated and made sense of in the global South, which is still a largely understudied population within this thematic interest. 2. An examination of the intertwined factors of class and coloniality as shaping the aspirations that drive the specific nature of social transactions emerging in YouTube. 3. An examination of "digital brokerage" as manifested in YouTube engagements across multiple and intertwined dimensions of: 1) subjectivity; 2) multicultural romantic relationships; 3) labour; and 4) political communication. Social media platforms have been pivotal in redefining the conduct of contemporary society. Amid the proliferation of a range of new and ubiquitous online platforms, YouTube, a video-based platform, remains a key driver in the democratisation of creative, playful, vernacular, intimate, as well as political expressions. As a critical node of contemporary communication and digital cultures, its steady uptake and appropriation in a social media-savvy nation such as the Philippines requires a critical examination of its role in the continued reconstruction of identities, communities, and broader social institutions. This book closely analyses the diverse content and practices of amateur Filipino YouTubers, exposing and problematising the dynamics of brokering the contested aspirational logics of beauty and selfhood, interracial relationships, world-class labour, and progressive governance in a digital sphere. Ultimately, Philippine Digital Cultures: Brokerage Dynamics on YouTube offers a fresh, compelling, and nuanced account of YouTube as an important site for the mediation of culture, economy, and politics in Philippine postcolonial modernity amid rapid economic globalisation and digitalisation.
