Beyond the Poverty Frame: Media Representations, Lived Realities, and the Struggle for Representational Justice in Tondo, Manila

Mainstream portrayals of Tondo, Manila, in Philippine media often depict the district as a site of danger, disorder, and decay, reducing a vibrant urban community to a symbol of poverty and criminality. This article interrogates the disjuncture between these dominant representations and the lived experiences of Tondo residents. Drawing on discourse analysis of documentaries, news reports, and vlogs, alongside in-depth interviews with 15 residents, the study reveals how media framings selectively amplify hardship while silencing everyday resilience, solidarity, and care. Based on Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding model, Vygotsky’s social constructionism, and Bourdieu’s theory of symbolic capital, the analysis highlights how residents actively challenge and reshape the stories told about them. The article advances the concept of representational justice as both an ethical imperative and an analytical lens, emphasizing that representation is not merely about visibility but about narrative power. The findings point to the need for more participatory, dignity-based storytelling about urban poverty in the Global South and greater accountability to the communities whose lives are often misrepresented.