MatangHari Blog

Posted on May 3, 2013

Philippines as a developing country in the South East Asia is still on its process of urbanization and industrialization, were life became more complicated. As the population expanded, the job of communicationINg in a massive scale became more complex. A system of delivering infromation to many people at the same time became necessary and so mass communication was born. (Maslog,2007)

Mass communication as a field of study has now become intergrated into the curriculum of institutions of higher learning. As the mass media in this country endeavor to realize quality standards, it is therefore expected that they would also be needing special skills and competence, The Fourth estate , as well as the other media of mass communication, must prepare for this, and youth may also start to consider the mass media now as a possible are for their talent and social role.(Feliciano-Icban,1967)

Students entering the tertiary level became attracted to study the course in mass communication or communication arts because of the growing demand of public and private instritutions not only in this country but also in abroad.

Since its inception the problem with the supply of suitable local reference book in the course subject introduction to mass communication became numb and because of the availabilty of foreign educational materials, dependence on foreign intro to mass communication text book reaches now its maturity and it become more institutionalize.

Mass communication school materials authored by the Americans are irrelevant to the Philippine setting. From this comes a mind-set that things learned in school most of them not related to real life.

Helping students understand media will be the foremost consideration of the study. For this reason, attention to pedagogical techniques will be evident to even the casual reader.

The researcher shared the same predicament with the rest of Philippine communicatiors both in the academe and media industry including Proffesor Alito Molino in his book “ Journalism for Filipinos”, but only in the wider scope of mass media. Most of the books in Introduction to mass communication until now are used in universities and colleges written by American authors that quite naturally espouse the American points of view, most of them, if not all, irrelevant to Philippine situation.

Although the basic writing techiniques are there, the examples and illustrations given in these books are based on American experiences and practices.(Molino,2007)

The foreword of former Senator Orly Mercado on the book of Dr. Crispin Maslog’s Philippine Communication Today, the senator said,

“ So over the years have been seeing western books in our schools. Even our mass communicators have been reading mostly American or English books in communication. And so western cultrual imperialism has extended even to our mass media.As a member of the board directors of the Philippine Association of Communication Educators (PACE) many years ago. I remember how we talked fervently about the need for Filipino textbooks in communication and I remember how no one did anything about it, until now”.

After seminars, workshops and conferences attended by Philippine communication educators, talk would enevitably wander into the are of locally authored textbooks in communication. Everyone would wax eloquent over the need for indigenous instructional materials, which are not only more relevant but less expensive for our Filipino Students.(Maslog,2007)

Only one, a book of readings has, been put together since the arrival of the books of Filipino communication educators such as Gloria d. Feliciano and Crispulo Icban with their Philippine Mass Media in Perspective was probably the first comprehensive attempt at a scholarly evaluation of the status of mass communication in the country dated November,1967 was almost a decade old and getting outdated. (Maslog,1988)

In 1980-81, the grant was given to some faculty members of Silliman’s School of Communication, headed by Dr. Crispin Maslog to do the research “ A Brief History of Philippine Mass Communication”,Introduction to Communication during 1988 to his latest book Philippine Communication Today (2007) intended for the situation of Philippine Communication in its broader aspect.

Thus, the researcher limits the study specifically about the inputs of stakeholders in developing reference book for subject course Introduction to Mass Communication—in the Philippine Setting, of second year students in mass communication or communication arts who even until now is being fed by Western Ideologies, ideas and concepts on mass communication in our colleges and universities.