research to preserve PH communication – Crispin Maslog

By Logan Kal-El M. Zapanta JOURNALISM and communication

scholar Crispin Maslog encouraged Filipino academics to preserve and rediscover Filipino culture by “rethinking and reinventing” their research interests.

In his lecture during the Faculty of Arts and Letters' (AB) thesis colloquia on Dec. 10, Maslog said Filipinos must incorporate more concepts and theories from Asia.

"Most Philippine scholarship in the early years of mass communication have been inspired by white American scholars. And in the process, Filipinos have lost their ties to the past," Maslog said.

"My challenge is to rediscover our culture in our historical past and our traditional cultural values."

Maslog, a journalism alumnus and former Varsitarian news editor, said Western ideas had heavily influenced science and communication research in the Philippines since the colonial era.

But it is time to reinvent the country’s communication studies programs as there are more Eastern communication theories and models being forwarded now, unlike in the 1950s when they had to learn and study communication from the Western point of view, he said.

"Kasi ang inis ko noon, when I was teaching graduate school, I always hear our fellow teachers say, 'Okay, think about the research that you can do…Number one, you should have a model, a Western model,'" he added.

The communication scholar clarified that introducing non-Western ideas to research could complement Western concepts.

"When you develop a theory or a concept, it does not mean that you are attacking a particular Western concept… That's the way communication should be," Maslog said.

Maslog's lecture closed the weeklong thesis colloquia of AB students from Dec. 3 to 10, in which 495 research papers from 13 programs of the faculty were presented.

► Communications scholar Crispin Maslog (third from left) poses for a photo with Department of Communication and Media Studies faculty members after his lecture.

PHOTO BY MATTHEW VINCENT V. VITAL