Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Challenges in Communicating Climate Change

Almost at the heels of the Adoption of the Paris Agreement on climate change in November 2015, I recall having addressed this issue in a keynote speech before the 3rd National Agriculture, Fisheries, and Natural Resources Extension Symposium of the Philippine Extension Network, Inc. held at the Heritage Hotel in Manila on October 13-14, 2009.

Without the contextual introduction of the speech, titled, "Challenges in Communicating Climate Change," I'm reprinting the body of that speech here because I find it still completely relevant today.



Challenges in Communicating Climate Change

By

Felix Librero, PhD
Professor of Devcom and Education
U.P. Open University

  
Challenge No. 1: 
Communicating Climate Change, a Scientific Phenomenon,
to a Largely Unscientific Audience


I did a very quick and crude survey among ordinary Filipinos and found some interesting data.  I have suspected this kind of data all along, but I still got surprised when I saw the numbers.   I shall compare these with data from the United States based on a poll conducted by Harris International from November 10-17, 2008. As you can see from Table 1, we do have an unscientific Filipino audience.

 Table 1.  What Filipinos believe in.

The Issue
Believe In
(%)
Don’t Believe
In (%)
Not Sure
(%)
God
100
0
0
Heaven
98
1
1
Angels
93
1
6
Jesus is God or the Son of God
92
2
6
The Resurrection of Jesus Christ
92
4
4
Miracles
90
1
9
Hell
89
5
6
The Devil
87
4
9
The Virgin Birth
85
7
8
Creationism
83
7
10
Survival of the Soul After Death
83
8
9
Ghosts
68
11
21
Witches
43
21
33
Astrology
38
41
27
Darwin’s Theory of Evolution
34
41
25
UFOs
26
26
48

In table 2, we also see an unscientific American audience.  However, it would be much easier to educate American audiences about climate change compared to their Filipino counterparts.   This is probably one time that we Filipinos should imitate the Americans.  Even so, it appears there would still be a long way to go.

Table 2.  What Americans believe in.

The Issue
Believe In
(%)
Don’t Believe In (%)
Not Sure
(%)
God
80
10
9
Miracles
75
14
12
Heaven
73
14
13
Jesus is God or The Son of God
71
17
12
Angels
71
17
12
The Resurrection of Jesus Christ
70
18
13
Survival of the Soul After Death
68
15
17
Hell
62
24
13
The Virgin Birth
61
24
15
The Devil
59
27
14
Darwin’s Theory of Evolution
47
32
22
Ghosts
44
39
17
Creationism
40
31
29
UFOs
36
39
25
Witches
31
54
14
Astrology
31
51
18
Source: Mooney & Kirshenbaum (2009), Unscientific America.


We have here in the Philippines a decidedly “unscientific” audience who ranked Darwin’s theory of evolution 15th out of 16, and prefer to believe in the presence of ghosts and witches. 

Interestingly, few also believe in astrology, and yet, there are hordes of people consulting the palm readers of Quiapo.  This could be taken to mean we have in our hands a confused audience, but an audience that probably has a strong belief system that is less than scientifically-oriented.  The question now is, how do we communicate scientific phenomena to an unscientific audience?  That our science communicators could do much to inform and educate the public about the ill-effects of climate change is a given, but they could also be overwhelmed by the very strong belief systems of their audiences.

Climatic change is a very sophisticated scientific phenomenon, and we must communicate this to a largely unscientific audience.  That is a challenge, indeed. 

Perhaps our pollsters should consider doing more surveys to find out the magnitude in which Filipinos appreciate scientific knowledge so we can at least try to figure out how we could communicate more effectively and efficiently the topic to the public, and perhaps bother less with who will win the presidency today since the elections would not be held today, anyway.

Let us try to recall past thinking on the topic of climate change.    Those of us who have been trying to communicate climate change know that we are dealing with a public that tends to reject the idea that change in climatic conditions is due to human activity.  Our public has always been of the belief that any changes in the climate has always been the handiwork of God.

This is hardly the time for a side comment, but I find this difficult to pass.  One can always  suggest, at least in jest, that those victims of Typhoon Ondoy who are claiming that  their insurance companies are not willing to underwrite the cost of repairing their cars damaged by Typhoon Ondoy, may probably have to line up in church for loan because in this country, as provided for by insurance rules, an act of God is not covered by insurance. 

In any case, to believe that climate change happens because of the activities of humans is absolutely a different pattern of thinking.  It is a major shift in paradigm.  And we all know that paradigm shifts always take a long time to gestate.

For example, it has been some 150 years after Darwin published his book, The Origin of the Species, and a large proportion of both the American and Philippine publics remain unable to grapple with the theory of evolution.  In America, less than half of the population believes in the theory of evolution, but that means that more than half of Americans do not really believe in it.  For Filipinos, the dividing line is also very clear.   Only 34% believes in it, while 66% does not.

Here is how Simon Donner, Professor of Geography, University of British Columbia, explains why it is a challenge, indeed, to communicate climate change in a largely “unscientific” world:

From Galileo to Darwin, science is full of examples where new discoveries challenged traditional beliefs.  If history is a guide, it can take decades or centuries for the new science to become the new orthodoxy.  The battle over public acceptance of natural selection is still being fought 150 years after the publication of  Darwin’s The Origin of Species.  The potential for human-induced climate change may not belong on a list of the most fundamental scientific discoveries of last 500 years.  Like those discoveries, however, it does challenge a belief held by virtually all religions and cultures worldwide for thousands of years.  This long view of history needs to be reflected in campaigns to educate the public, who do not have the benefit of years of graduate training in atmospheric science, about the science of climate change.





Challenge No. 2: 
Climate Change is not a Breaking News but an Oozing Phenomenon


Science communicators, particularly science journalists, have found it very difficult to report on climate change because it is a phenomenon that is incrementally unfolding and the evidences are only trickling in.  In other words, from the point of view of mass media news parlance, the story is not breaking (except in the case of Typhoon Ondoy and other similar cases), it is simply oozing or very slowly flowing.  Such was how it was described by Boyce Rensberger, director of the Knight Science Journalism Fellowships at the MIT (Chandler, 2008) during a panel discussion on “disruptive environments” held last year. 

Panellists were tackling the theme “communicating climate change: science, advocacy and the media.”  Perhaps it is not only a question of how the phenomenon unfolds that is making it difficult for journalists to cover; it is probably partly because the scientists also are finding it difficult to explain why climate change is happening the way it does – oozing, instead of breaking.

An important concept that is always hammered into the heads of aspiring reporters in college is the concept of “breaking news,” which means “it is happening now.”  Climate change is happening now, all right, but why does it not carry the same urgency as, say, breaking news about an ongoing bank heist?  The big difference is that the bank heist happens in just a few minutes if not seconds, while climate change happens anywhere from decades to millions of years.   From the point of view of the public, climate change, unless it translates itself into catastrophic typhoons and floods like Typhoon Ondoy was, appears to be a long, long way into the future and so the urgency is not even perceptively felt.  Scientists, however, feel it is an issue that is absolutely urgent and something must be done now.  Looking at the long-term trend based on data collected over so many years, experts are seeing a quickening of the rate at which climatic conditions are changing.  What they are seeing, based on scientific models and means, is making them more scared.  But the public, not knowing the workings of science, does not appreciate this situation and, therefore, does not feel the same level of urgency so it is not significant information that warrants action right away.  In other words, as it is considered to be act of God, so shall it be.

Do we have a choice in this situation?  It appears we do not have much choice for now.  We will have to continue with efforts at informing and educating the public about the significance of our changing climatic conditions.  There are ways of doing this, such as focusing on the public’s experience with, say, the El Niño and La Niña phenomena because these are events directly affecting the daily lives of people.       

One of the panellists in last year’s discussion at MIT was MIT’s Kerry Emanuel, professor of atmospheric science who attracted worldwide attention when, just a few weeks before Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans last year, he published a paper predicting the increased intensity of hurricanes due to global warming.   Emanuel’s comment in the panel discussion rings loud and clear when he said, “when it comes to explaining complex scientific work to the media and the public, scientists are ‘not very well trained’.”  Still, Emanuel said, it should be pointed out quite clearly that science, indeed, is built on incremental progress and could be explained only in terms of simplified metaphors, which also invites criticisms from other scientists because metaphors are not exact (Chandler, 2008).

The message is rather clear: climate change is an unfolding phenomenon, and communicating it to the public is always work in progress.  Given such a situation, therefore, the communication expert would now have to devise ways and means of making such a content much more understandable to the public and invite appropriate action to mitigate the phenomenon.  This is a process of informing and educating people, and everybody knows how slow and painstaking it is to educate people, especially when they refuse to be educated.


Challenge No. 3:
Reframing Climate Change as Communication Message


Framing is a concept focusing on building a storyline that sets “specific stream of thought in motion, communicating why an issue might be a problem, who or what might be responsible for it, and what should be done about it” (Nisbet, 2009).  Framing is a technique of focusing the message, and audiences usually rely on frames of messages to make sense of an issue.  Journalists use frames to create interesting stories and reports.  Framing also means making systematic and critical choices of the nature of information to be communicated giving greater weight to certain considerations and other elements over others.

In the last two decades, research in political communication and sociology has added more knowledge about the communication phenomenon of framing.  Research has helped explain how media portrayals of events and issues interact with cultural forces to shape public views of complex policy debates on significant topics like climate change.

With proper framing, climate change could be made highly relevant to public needs and concerns than it otherwise could be under normal situations.  For example, there was great opportunity during the Metro-Manila flash floods that accompanied Typhoon Ondoy on September 26, 2009 to explain that there was flood because the rainfall that normally would have fallen in 30 days was poured in six hours.  This was a result of global warming, of climate change.  Of course, explaining this situation in more understandable ways would mean we need more information to include in our explanation.

According to Nisbet (2009), it should be pointed out that not every individual cares about the environment or would defer to the authority of science.   However, if the message about climate change is framed according to certain beliefs without necessarily changing its scientific foundations, then perhaps the public might have another view of it. 

Nisbet (2009) suggests that we look at possible frames for the subject matter “climate change.”   These frames could include the “economic development frame” which would essentially mean recasting climate change as an opportunity to grow economically.  Hence, we could use phrases like “innovative energy technology” or “sustainable economic prosperity.”  We could talk about conditions where our agricultural production system was devastated by the typhoon and all rice fields were flattened by wind and water, and all the grains buried under water or mud.  Destruction of property was of a magnitude we could hardly describe. 

Another frame would be the “morality and ethics” frame which was used in Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth.    Why is it, for example, that the developing countries that contribute less than one percent of the gas emissions that cause global warming, have to suffer the brunt of climate change catastrophes?  Not only that, they are also expected to spend as much in mitigating climate change.

Another frame has recently emerged.  This is called the “public health” frame, which focuses on health implications of climate change.  This frame was very clearly present in the aftermath of Typhoon Ondoy, and all other natural catastrophes.  The other way of looking at it is that changing climatic conditions affect adversely our biological conditions and cause health disruptions that could range from mild to serious and fatal.

Through appropriate framing of the message, it is possible to create interpretive storylines that can be used to “bring diverse audiences together on common ground, shape personal behaviour, or mobilize collective action” (Nisbet, 2009).



Concluding Statement


So, to review the challenges now, we have to do better in informing and educating our publics about a scientific phenomenon even if such publics may not be scientific in their thinking and actions.  We have to seek ways and means of explaining to people that climate change is not a one-time phenomenon that does not come back once it has happened but  a continuing phenomenon.  Also, we have to make sure that our angles of interpretation,  information, as well as education fit into the mind sets of people so that the message sinks in right away and people act immediately accordingly.

Let me conclude with a Chinese saying that has been made gender-sensitive.  It runs like this.  To be a dignified human, one has to sire an off-spring , write a book, and plant a tree.

My friends, siring an off-spring is probably not a mandatory requirement to stay alive.  Many have survived without off-springs, and the world has survived as well.  Much less write a book.  Most of us, in fact, wouldn’t bother to even think of it and the world will not perish.  Planting a tree would perhaps have the most lasting effect on this earth and on mankind.  So, isn’t it about time you started celebrating your being alive by planting a tree on your birthdays?

Thank you.

###

  
References


Donner, Simon.  (2009).  Communicating climate change in an unscientific world.   Retrieved from http://simondonner.blogspot.com/2009/09/communicating-climate-change

Chandler, David.  (2008).  News that oozes: panellists tackle challenges of communicating climate change.  Retrieved from http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/climate-media-tt0416.html

Climate change in Asia: perspective on the future climate regime.  Retrieved from http://www.unu.edu/unupress/2008/climateChangeinAsia.html

Carvalho, Anabela.  (2008).  The challenges of communicating climate change.  Retrieved from http://www.lasics.uminho.pt/ojs/index.php/climate_change

Climate change.  Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change

Retallack, Simon.  (2006).  Ankelohe and beyond: communicating climate change.  Retrieved from http://www.opendemocracy.net

Ward, Bud.  (2009).  Communicating on climate change.  Retrieved from http://www.metcalfinstitute.org/Communicating_ClimateChange.html

Nisbet, Matthew C.  (2009).  Communicating climate change: why frames matter for public engagement.  Retrieved from http://www.environmentmagazine.org/Archives/Back%201Issues/March-April2009/Niwsbet-full.html

Doster, Stephanie.  (2009).  Meeting the challenges of climatic change head on.  Retrieved from http://www.environment.arizona.edu/news/fws_report


Fabusoro, Enjola and F Hoi-Yee.  (2009).  Challenges of climatic change to pastoral system in rainforest zone of Southwest Nigeria.  In Climate Change: Global Risks, Challenges and Decisions.   IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science 6.  Tokyo: IOP Publishing Ltd.

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Devcom Journey

FROM AGRICULTURAL COMMUNICATIONS
TO DEVELOPMENT COMMUNICATION:
A PARTICIPANT-OBSERVER ACCOUNT

By

Felix Librero, PhD
Professor Emeritus, UPOU



I joined DAIC as a major student in 1965 when I enrolled in my first course, AgCom 10.  Then I was employed as DAIC student assistant, collating mimeographed farm news releases, in 1966.  I 1967, I was DZLB student assistant, serving as student radio announcer and news writer, and then as Station Supervisor in June 1968, after I graduated from UPCA.

DZLB’s history deserves a separate treatment, but for this account it must be put in context.  In 1962, Radio DZLB was conceptualized as an experimental rural broadcasting station for the UP College of Agriculture with the help of Visiting Professor William Ward and Bob Rounsavell, both from Cornell University.  To establish the radio station, UPCA was given a grant of US$2,700 from the Agricultural Development Council, Inc., which was then being funded by the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations.  DZLB went on its maiden broadcast on 2 August 1964, and the first voice heard over DZLB was that of Thor Orig, an undergraduate student of agricultural communications who was then active in stage plays and other cultural presentations of student fraternities.  At that time, Thor Orig was Student Assistant working with DZLB.  He had a very good radio voice. 

Some of the UPCA graduates who worked full-time with DZLB from 1964 onwards included Filipino pioneers in rural educational broadcasting like Romeo Gecolea, Ponciano de la :Paz, Sabina Fajardo, and Maximo Pabale (from 1964 to 1966),  Milagros Tetangco, Alicia Agudo, Antonio Frio, and Pedro Bueno (from 1967-1968), and myself from 1968 onwards.

How I started working full-time at DZLB was a strange story by itself.  When I finished my thesis in the Summer of 1968, DZLB’s Station Supervisor, Emma Henry, was planning to resign to pursue her interest in police work.  I waited for her to resign so I could apply for the vacated position.  When she finally resigned in April that year, the department couldn’t immediately hire her replacement because Emma had taken all her leave credits in cash, which meant the vacant position would be frozen until middle of June 1968.  So I decided to work with DZLB on full time basis without compensation from April to June 1968, and I got hired toward end of that year.  As I had been student announcer of DZLB earlier, I didn’t require much time to settle down with the chores at DZLB, and I became the one responsible for two regular programs in terms of researching, writing, and announcing said programs.   I wrote and delivered the daily news program and hosted a regular thirty-minute program titled Samut-Samot, Inc., which was a music-and-information program.  Then, of course, I had to coordinate and assist in the production and broadcast of other radio programs which were being aired in collaboration with other units of the College of Agriculture.  For three months, I was doing pretty much standard work in DZLB, although I was also dabbling as some kind of general assistant in the other activities of the Department such as in the production and circulation of the Radio Farm News, a farm and home news service provided by the department to media outlets like radio stations and newspapers in the country.

At the department level, while the department was still operating from the basement of the old library building it had began producing a news service called the Radio Farm News which was distributed to media outlets all over the Philippines.  When the department participated in the then special project of the UPCA called Rice Information Cooperative Effort (RICE) in 1965, it co-published with IRRI and the Department of Agriculture the Rice Production Manual, which became the “bible” of farm technicians of the Philippine agricultural extension service.
  
On October 30, 1968, at the Department level, the term “Information” in the original name of the department, Department of Agricultural Information and Communication (DAIC), was “edited” out and it became Department of Agricultural Communications (DAC).  The term “information” was deemed superfluous (Cadiz, 1979).  From the cramped basement of the old library building, where most of the initial work in agricultural communications were undertaken by the Los Baños-based pioneers in agricultural journalism, audiovisual communication, and extension publications,  DAC transferred (on November 3, 1969) to its new building (where it still stays today) near the main gate, across from the main UPLB Administration Building.  DAC shared the building with the Farm and Home Development Office (FHDO), then the extension arm of the UPCA.  At the time that DAC transferred to its new building, Dr. Nora Quebral was the department chair (1968-1970).  Then Dr. Juan F. Jamias became department chair in 1970-1971, and Dr. Thomas G. Flores, again, in 1971-1972 until he left for the University of Wisconsin to serve as Visiting Professor.  During that time, there were only the three of them that had PhDs and practically took turns in heading the department, although Ely Gomez had returned in 1969 from Michigan State University with a PhD in educational media.

Dr. Quebral again became department chair from 1972-1976, during which time many changes in the department occurred.  For one, DAC reorganized into three sections, namely: audio-visual communication section, broadcast communication section, and print communication section.

Earlier on in 1969, Glenn Paje came in as student assistant, and the following year Lolita Vega joined the station (from the Department of Entomology where she was Research Assistant) first as research assistant and later as program host, taking over the chores of Alysh Arejola when she left DZLB.  Many people joined DZLB for some time when they were starting their professional lives or in the process of enriching their professional lives.  Those who did creative work at DZLB included Felimon Barral, Lynn Malilin, Paul Manalo, Epitacia Calatrava, Milagros Sandoval, Noel Cartas, and Myra Beltran, who all joined DZLB during the 1970-1974 period. 

On December 9-10, 1971, a symposium with the theme “In Search of Breakthroughs in Agricultural Development” was held at UPLB in honor of Dr. Dioscoro L. Umali, who was then the Deputy Director-General for the Far East of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.  In that symposium, Nora Quebral presented her seminal paper titled “Development communication in the agricultural context” wherein she introduced to the public for the first time the term “development communication” (Quebral 1971; 1988).  Quebral made it clear in that paper that to her development communication was to be treated as science, so all the tasks associated with communicating development-oriented issues were based on rigorous scientific inquiry.  This was a strong argument for undertaking rigorous research in the field of communication even if it was, at that time, limited to agricultural and rural development efforts.  It would be safe to assume that Quebral’s enunciation of development communication may have greatly contributed to the intellectual transformation of  DAC staffers from a bridled focus on rural and agricultural development efforts to a wider development horizon that “makes possible greater social equality and the larger fulfillment of the human potential.”   

It should be borne in mind, however, that when Quebral introduced development communication, initially as a marriage between the twin concepts of development and communication, she did it at a time when the concept of development was pervasive in both the developed and developing world.  Dudley Seers’ article titled “The Meaning of Development” which became one of the “bibles” of graduate students at UPLB and the staff of DAC, was published in 1969.  Around that time, too, the Club of Rome published its book titled “The Limits to Growth.”  There was also Gunnar Myrdal’s “Asian Drama” that came off the press in the middle-sixties.  During the second half of the sixties, UPCA was host to visiting professors from Cornell University under the UP-Cornell Program, who became active, together with UPCA professors, in promoting the concept of national development, particularly through socio-economic development programs.  It was under this academic ambiance at Los Baños that Quebral introduced the concept of development communication, which fitted perfectly in the efforts of government, the academe, and international aid agencies.  It was, so to speak, an idea that has come of age.  From the point of view of this writer, that was perfect timing for a perfect idea.

In 1972, the Radio Farm News (RFN) was reconceptualized and split into two services: Development News Service (DNS), and the Development News Digest (DND).  The DNS continued to carry crisp news items about research results and other new modern farming developments from UPCA, while the DND, which began circulating in April 1973, carried feature articles about how research results were influencing the farming practices in the Philippine country sides.  These news services, including the Rice Production Manual, continued to be published by the department, but such function was transferred in 1980 to the Philippine Council for Agricultural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD).

In the same year, 1972, the Master of Science (agricultural communications) program, which was first offered in 1965, was upgraded to  MS (development communication).  With this program, a number of graduate students began flocking to Los Baños.  The first batch of graduate students in development communication who were from outside of UPCA came in as graduate assistants with teaching functions starting in 1973 included: Patricia Sto. Tomas, Esther Manigque, Rosita Valencia, Madeline Mag-uyon, and Antonio Moran.  Having completed their master’s degrees, they ultimately left the department for their respective professional calling (in 1976 Sto. Tomas transferred to the Department of Labor to join the staff of then Secretary Blas Ople; Manigque withdrew in 1978 from the academe to care for her ailing mother and she ultimately in the early 80’s succumb to cancer; Valencia went for her PhD in 1979 and ultimately migrated to the US; Moran joined the UP Mindanao in the mid-80s; and only Mag-uyon (now Suva) has stayed with the department (now College) until today.    


Development Journalism and SANDIWA

Agricultural journalism was a popular field of study in the Land Grant colleges of the US in the 60s.  It came as no surprise that agricultural journalism was to be one of the focuses of extension education and agricultural communication in Los Baños.   In fact, it was agricultural reporting and feature writing that became the first skills undergraduate students in agricultural communications learned with some level of mastery, both for radio and the newspapers.  Agricultural journalism was part of print communication which was one of the three major areas in agricultural communications, the two others being community broadcasting and audiovisual communication.  Naturally, with the introduction of development communication in the early 70s as the main area of study, agricultural journalism became development journalism.  During that time, too, the field of development journalism was also a new area of professional practice being espoused by the Press Foundation of Asia through its news service, DEPthnews, highlighting the areas of development, economics, and population as the new beats in news reporting.  DEPthnews was also part of the international network of news services focusing on developmental issues that was being sponsored by UNESCO at that time, which included the Tanjug News Service of Yugoslavia, the Bernama News Service of Malaysia, among others.

A few years earlier in 1967, Elinora Moral, already with a Master of Arts degree in journalism, was recruited Instructor, and Carmencita Navarro,  English major graduate from UP, Diliman was recruited as editor.  The following year, Navarro transferred to the International Rice Research Institute.  Moral became active in agricultural journalism and then development journalism.  When the Department of Agricultural Communications transferred to its new building in 1970, the young faculty of the department began conceptualizing a community newspaper that could demonstrate the principles and skills being learned by development journalism students,  working seriously to be able to demonstrate their expertise in the media triumvirate of the newspaper, radio, and audiovisual media. 

About October of 1971, five faculty and staff (comprised of Elinora Moral, Ponciano dela Paz, Pedro Bueno, Antonio Frio, and Felix Librero) of agricultural journalism and farm broadcasting brainstormed on the possibility of starting a weekly community newspaper as an outlet for farm information in tandem with DZLB.  Picking up from the philosophical orientation of development communication, the group decided  to coin the name Sandiwa, from the Tagalog terms isang diwa (one soul).  Moral became the Editor and I became an active columnist, writing the print version of my Balitang Pambukid (Farm News) radio program.  Sandiwa came out with its maiden issue in January 1972.   Through the efforts of the young faculty of development communication, SANDIWA’s readership spread to the provinces of Laguna, Batangas, Cavite, and Rizal. 

The following  year 1973, the PhD in development communication program was approved by the UP Board of Regents.  Then, on March 11, 1974, the Bachelor of Science in Development Communication (BSDC) was also approved, thereby completing the three-tiered formal education in development communication in Los Baños, the first such set of programs in development communication worldwide (Cadiz, 1979; Quebral, 1988).  Finally, the inevitable had to follow.  On March 28, 1974, UP’s Board of Regents approved the renaming of DAC to Department of Development Communication (DDC).  Cadiz (1979), reviewing the department’s history, said, “The transformation signified the culmination of the department’s almost 20 years of experience in extension-communication, an experience that brought about a widened understanding of the meaning of development and the crucial role of communication in advancing development” (p. 84).  For a young professional who was just introduced to the concept of social development in a Third World setting, the transformations of the 70s were of profound significance. 

When Martial Law was declared on September 21, 1972, Radio DZLB voluntarily went off the air.  As Radio Station Supervisor, I had to personally supervise the silencing of the radio station to avoid physical closure by the Philippine Constabulary.  I personally had to demagnetize all our canned programs on that day (Sunday) and told the technician not to turn on the transmitter anymore.  Our Station Manager, then, was Ponciano de la Paz, and he was stranded in Marikina, Rizal.  The only radio stations allowed to operate then were the stations belonging to the government network.  However, we continued to publish Sandiwa, and, in the Summer of 1973, a huge regional development journalism conference was held in Los Baños in collaboration with the Region IV Office of the Ministry of Public Information.  During that conference, the MPI-Region IV made an offer that the Department of Development Communication could not refuse, to take over the publication of Sandiwa.  As usual, we of Sandiwa were operating as academics with only the  good intensions of development journalism as an academic field of study in mind, so the Department turned over publication of Sandiwa at the start of 1974.  We of Sandiwa had our own doubts about this transaction, but we probably silently agreed that if we wanted Sandiwa to continue publishing then it must have some sure funding, which was something UPCA could not provide.   Unfortunately, it folded up after only two quarterly issues.  In each of those two issues, it was clear that about 70% of content was in direct support of the Martial Law government but was passed as developmental issues, while about 30% was focused on real developmental issues such as those about population, economic development in the country sides, and health and nutrition. 

Sandiwa was a very good concept, but it came out when the Martial Law regime was scouting for an appropriate media project to help legitimize its existence.  Development journalism, through Sandiwa, was a good promotional strategy for the Martial Law government and became a powerful argument for the critics of development communication who had been claiming that devcom was nothing but government propaganda of the Martial Law government of the Philippines. 


Development As Focus for Communication Studies

In the past, informal categorization of areas of specialization in development communication was expressed in terms of the research one undertook for a thesis.  In the absence of a better parameter, this may be used as a yardstick to provide a general idea of where graduates of development communication believed they had critical advantage over their peers in mainstream communication.

From 1963 to 1974, the graduates were agricultural communications major and their respective theses would show that they studied mostly the use of extension media and their variations.  From 1975 onwards, however, when the BSDC was already offered and the three major areas of community broadcasting, development journalism, and audiovisual communication, the nature of undergraduate theses being undertaken by students started to spread out to concerns not purely agricultural, such as community nutrition, sanitation, family planning, deforestation, and the like (Maslog, 1988).  As the graduate program in development communication strengthened, so did efforts in the analysis of the role of communication in the development process.  Development models became popular frameworks for the in-depth study and analysis of the role of communication in the planning and implementation of development programs in the country.



Communication as Art/Science: The Debate

Development communication was clearly defined by Quebral (1971) as the “art and science of human communication applied to the speedy transformation of a country and the masses of its people from poverty to a dynamic state of economic growth that makes possible greater social equality and the larger fulfillment of the human potential.”  This formal definition has been taken both literally and figuratively by experts in the twin areas of development and communication, sometimes in combination with one another, and frequently independently. 

The discussion as to whether Devcom was art or science, even if it was clearly enunciated in the Quebral definition, did not stop.  The debate even became more lively with the administrative developments on the Los Baños campus in the early 1970s when Proclamation No. 53 was issued by Malacañng on March 5, 1972 creating the University of the Philippines System, with UPCA becoming the first autonomous campus of the UP System.  UPCA became known as the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB).  Immediately, the then UPCA was reorganized and many of its departments were elevated into colleges.  One of these was the Department of Humanities, which became the College of Arts and Sciences. 

Immediately after the reorganization of the UPCA to the UPLB, the then Department of Agricultural Communications, which was still part of the College of Agriculture, submitted its curricular proposal for a four-year BSDC, which was approved in March the following year.  It is difficult to pin down on individuals certain events that transpired during the interim period because there are no existing documentary evidences.  Suffice it to say, however, that there was a proposal for an AB in Devcom (privately believed by many to have been formulated by two faculty members of the Department of Agricultural Communications) which was being considered by the newly set-up Department of Humanities in the new CAS. 

It was not as if there was completely no basis for the idea of offering an AB program in development communication.  It should be noted that at UPCA, student organizations (fraternities and sororities) were very active promoters of cultural life through regular and frequent theatrical productions of both Shakespearian and Filipino stage plays.  In other words, many students already studying at UPCA were arts-oriented, and their number was steadily increasing.  Private conversations with those believed to be  proponents of the AB in development communication proposal would point out to this trend as one of the more important bases for proposing to offer an arts-oriented development communication program in Los Baños. 

The idea of an AB in Development Communication curriculum, however, was earlier vetoed by the DAC with the belief that devcom should remain as science-oriented curriculum in communication based on the fact that it (devcom) was being developed as a social science rather than plainly arts program.  This generated lengthy and passionate debates. 

From a dispassionate point of view, however, we have raised the issue that devcom, whether or not it was art or science, was beside the point.  The more significant point that was being offered for discussion was the issue of why the need for two separate communication curricula in a small campus like UPLB which was known to be a campus for life sciences rather than social sciences or the arts.  This issue reached the discussions in the Social Science Commission created by then UPLB Chancellor Emil Javier to discuss the role of social science in the life of the UPLB as an academic institution.  The Commission did not deal squarely with the issue of the two communication curricula at UPLB, but it declared that the social sciences in Los Baños were treated as second class citizen.

The original proposal of an AB in Devcom was renamed AB Communication Arts, which became a banner program of the Department of Humanities in the new CAS.  The AB Comarts initially had two major areas: public speaking and expository writing.   In the mid-1970s, due to persistent requests from ComArts students, the Department of Development Communication decided to permit Comarts students to cross-enroll in the first four basic courses in devcom: introduction to development communication, fundamentals of development journalism, fundamentals of community broadcasting, and fundamentals of educational communication.  This raised the issue of how different these two programs were, which may be viewed from two points: vertical difference in terms of depth, and horizontal difference in terms of breadth.  Development communication runs deep in its commitment to development.   Here is what Quebral (1988) said in her foreword of her book in 1988:

Development communication has gone by some other tag in the past and may be called differently in the future.  Its present name could go out of fashion after a while.  Not likely to disappear, though, is the idea that underlies it: that the art of communication, infused by social science principles, can be consciously directed towards improving people’s lives.  This is the essence of development communication, regardless of how it is labeled or what else may be imputed to it.

While there may have been some sort of moratorium in the debates as to whether or not devcom was art or science from the late 80s to the present, one still feels the silent disagreements as well as commonality in concern among both the faculty and students of these two curricular programs.  Some of the faculty members of the Comarts Program were graduates of devcom in both the bachelor’s and master’s degree levels.  Some have even pursued their PhDs in devcom.  There is still wisdom in reviewing dispassionately the relationship between the two curricular programs.


The Growth Years of Devcom at Los Banos

The 1970s and the 1980s could easily be considered the growth years of devcom in Los Baños.  One must recall that Quebral introduced the term “development communication” for the first time in December 1971.  In a succession of events after that, the then department of Agricultural Communications was renamed Department of Development Communication in 1973, then the Bachelor of Science in Development Communication and the existing MS in agricultural communications was renamed MS in development communication both in 1974.  The PhD in development communication was first offered in 1977 (Librero, 1991).

The BSDC was designed to provide the students the opportunity to (BSDC Brochure as cited by Librero, 1991):

1.     acquire a theoretical base in the sciences and applied arts that underlie the study of human communication;

2.     learn practical skills in mediated and interpersonal communication;

3.     gain a basic grasp of the issues and problems of development in general and of the subject of development area in particular; and

4.     apply the concepts, principles and skills of communication to the solution of problems in a developing society.

On the other hand, the MS in development communication program “offers the students advanced training in the principles and practice of purposive communication for development,” while the PhD program “explores in depth and breadth the synergistic relationship between communication and development”  (MS in Development Communication and PhD in Development Communication brochures, respectively, as cited by Librero, 1991).

From 1982-1986, the then DDC implemented the first and so far only national R&D program in development communication titled A National Development Communication Research and Research-Based Information Utilization Program of the Philippines with funding from the Philippine Council of Agricultural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD) of which Dr. Felix Librero was Program Leader.   Participants in this national program were UPLB, Central Luzon State University (CLSU), Central Mindanao University (CMU), and the Visayas State College of Agriculture (ViSCA), now Leyte State University (LSU).  Under this program, the department also initiated and published a low-cost journal called the Devcom Quarterly, which published articles, research reports, and essays from local and foreign authors.  Without institutional funding after 1986, however, Devcom Quarterly was ultimately turned over to the Philippine Association of Communication Educators (PACE) to become its official journal following the recommendations in 1987 of a review committee comprised of Drs. Quebral. Jamias, and Crispin Maslog, all senior faculty of the then Institute of Development Communication.  As following events proved later, the PACE published only two issues (1988 and 1989) under a different publication name before the publication went out of circulation due to lack of financial resources.

In November 1987, the then Department of Development Communication was elevated to the Institute of Development Communication, still under the UPLB College of Agriculture.  During that time, DDC was acknowledged, at least informally, by the Philippine Association of Communication Educators (PACE) as having the strongest faculty of communication in the Philippines, one reason the UP Board of Regents approved its elevation to the IDC.  There were 23 members of the DDC/IDC faculty with almost a 50-50 gender distribution and the following proportion in terms of graduate training: 11 in-residence with PhD degrees, 10 in-residence and two affiliate faculty with PhD degrees (Maslog, 1988).  All members of the non-teaching staff of IDC at that time have earned at least a master’s degree. 

In 1988, the IDC, conceptualized and implemented a summer internship program for its graduating students majoring in community broadcasting.   Through the efforts of Felix Librero, then IDC Director, the German Foundation, Freiderick Ebert Stiftung (FES), became involved in this program by providing IDC with partial funding for 1989 to open up the broadcasting internship program to graduating communication students, particularly those majoring in broadcast communication, from other educational institutions in the Philippines. 

This was a highly successful program, judging from the number of interns (a total of 15) from other educational institutions (10 schools) all over the Philippines that enrolled, however the Institute could not sustain the financial resources required after the two-year FES funding assistance was completed.   The internship program was comprised of 120 hours of guided training in the entire process of community broadcasting with the following components:

1.     Review of Concept and History of Radio Broadcasting
2.     Overview of Community Broadcasting
3.     Radio Program Conceptualization
3.1.                  Generating a program idea
3.2.                  Designing various radio program formats

4.     Program Production
4.1.                 Script writing
4.2.                 Program construction
4.3.                 Actual program broadcast

5.     Program Monitoring and Evaluation
5.1.                 Conducting a listenership campaign
5.2.                 Formative evaluation of radio program broadcasts
5.3.                 Content adjustment based on feedback information
5.4.                 Summative evaluation of radio program

During the same period, IDC also conceptualized and implemented another program, the publication of the IDC Monograph Series and the IDC Faculty Papers Series, also with initial FES funding.  Again, when the funding assistance was completed, these programs could not be sustained given the available budget of IDC at that time.  Two issues of the IDC Monograph Series were:

Barroga, Serlie and Ely D. Gomez.  The Agenda-Setting Function of Selected Philippine Newspapers in a rural Setting (MS Thesis of Barroga).

Casal, Ma. Stella L.; Centurion, Diosnel, Fr.; and Gomez, Ely D.  Communication Roles of the Catholic Church (MS thesis of Casal and Centurion).

The lone issue published under the IDC Faculty Papers Series was:

            Jamias, Juan F.  Understanding Development Communication Today.

In 1999, the Institute of Development Communication was finally elevated to its current status, the College of Development Communication, with the following objectives (proposal submitted to the BOR, 1998):

1.     Provide higher education for students who will pursue careers in development communication practice, teaching and research;

2.     Investigate the interrelationships between human development and the processes and structures of communication with emphasis on research that promotes equity, empowerment, environmental sustainability, peace, and human rights; and

3.     Undertake training, advisory and action programs that help build up the resources and communication capabilities of people, communities, institutions and other participants in the development process.

It should be noted that when the UP Board of Regents approved the elevation of the IDC to the College of Development Communication (CDC), it had the following academic staff complement: 23 full-time, in-residence (12 with PhDs, 9 with MA/MS, and 2 with BS degree); 9 part-time or Affiliate faculty (7 with PhDs and 2 with MA/MS degrees).  The new College also had seven (7) individuals who were considered “under study” as potential teaching staff.  Over-all, in 1998, CDC had in its faculty 19 with PhDs, 11 with MA/MS degrees, and 2 with Bachelor’s degrees, for a total of 32 warm bodies that were performing teaching functions, still considered the strongest faculty of communication in any educational institution in the Philippines then. 

 Perhaps one of the most significant milestones in the life of the CDC so far was when it was designated in 1999 by the Commission on Higher Education of the Philippines as one of two Centers of Excellence in Communication in the Philippines.  On top of this, the BSDC is the model curriculum in development communication that is being copied in other tertiary educational institutions throughout the country as well as in other developing countries (CDC Brochure, 2008).  Besides, in 2008, the CDC published the maiden issue of the Philippine Journal of Development Communication, becoming effectively a continuation of the research publication efforts of the previous departments starting with the Devcom Quarterly, then to the IDC Monograph and Faculty Papers Series, and finally to the Philippine Journal of Development Communication.  Indeed, this publication pattern might be likened to the institutional-structural development pattern of devcom beginning with the OEP, DAIC, DAC, DDC, IDC, and finally to the CDC.  In other words, none among the major and minor events in the history of development communication in Los Baños could be treated independently of other events.  All are chronologically interrelated when put in appropriate context.


Enrollment Trend in Devcom

Enrollment trend on a decade-basis, from the 1960s to the last decade shows a continuing climb even if there may be slight shifts within the decade.  The decade’s enrollment peak was during the school year 2003-2004, when there was the largest undergraduate enrollment of 1,685 during the decade.  Graduate enrollment peaked at 136 during the school year 2005-2006.  The enrollment trend for the last decade is shown in Table .

Table   .  Aggregate enrollment, UPLB-CDC, 2001-2010*.
School, Year
Undergraduate
Graduate
Total
2000-2001
1,259
67
1,326
2001-2002
1,467
67
1,534
2002-2003
1,607
91
1,698
2003-2004
1,685
117
1,802
2004-2005
1,644
133
1,777
2005-2006
1,601
136
1,737
2006-2007
1,463
114
1,577
2007-2008
1,350
117
1,467
2008-2009
1,454
99
1,553
2009-2010
1,512
82
1,594
*SOURCE: UPLB-CDC Secretary’s Office.

It may be noted that while the enrollment figures are certainly encouraging, historically there has not been any active student recruitment undertaken by the College of Development Communication.  Therefore, one might surmise that promotion of devcom as a field of study has been mainly through word of mouth.

As of 2010, the full-time and part-time faculty complement of the CDC has the following profile:

Table   .  Full-time faculty members, UPLB-CDC as of 2010 (actual head count).

Name
Academic Rank

Degree

Field

Institution
1.     Albia, Joclarise E.
Instructor 6
BS
Devcom
UP Los Baños
2.     Balinos, Aiza M.
Instructor 2
BS
Devcom
UP Los Baños
3.     Cabrera, Liza A.
Asst. Prof. 1
MS
Devcom
UP Los Baños
4.     Canubas, Aletheia G.
Instructor 2
BS
Devcom
UP Los Baños
5.     Carpio, Lynette B.
Asst. Prof. 1
MS
Devcom
UP Los Baños
6.     Castillo, Hermilea Marie C.
Asst. Prof. 1
MS
Devcom
UP Los Baños
7.     Centeno, Edmund G.
Asst. Prof. 2
MS
Devcom
UP Los Baños
8.     Chico, Mark Lester D.
Instructor 2
BS
Devcom
UP Los Baños
9.     Custodio, Pamela A.
Asst. Prof. 5
PhD
Devcom
UP Los Baños
10. Custodio, Rhodora Ramonette D.
Asst. Prof. 2
MA
Masscom
UP Diliman
11. Dagli, Winifredo B.
Instructor 3
BS
Devcom
UP Los Baños
12. Daya, Rommel A.
Asst. prof. 1
MS
Devcom
UP Los Baños
13. Francisco, Rosa Pilipinas F.
Asst. Prof. 1
MS
Devcom
UP Los Baños
14. Flor, Benjamina Paula G.
Asst. Prof. 6
PhD
Devcom
UP Los Baños
15. Jamias, Serlie B.
Assoc. Prof. 4
PhD
Devcom
Macquarie Univ.
16. Lim, Aldo Gavril T.
Instructor 7
BS
Devcom
UP Los Baños
17. Maligalig, Jon Paul F.
Asst. Prof. 1
MS
Devcom
UP Los Baños
18. Montemayor, Garry Jay S.
Instructor 5
BS
Devcom
UP Los Baños
19. Osalla, Ma. Teresita B.
Asst. Prof. 3
MS
Devcom
UP Los Baños
20. Suva, Madeline M.
Assoc. Prof. 7
PhD
Comm.
U. of Wisconsin
21. Tatlongthari, Rosario V.
Asst. Prof. 1
MS
Devcom
UP Los Baños
22. Tirol, Ma. Stella C.
Assoc. Prof. 2
MS
Devcom
UP Los Baños
23. Torres, Cleofe S.
Professor 2
PhD
Ext. Com.
UP Los Baños
24. Velasco, Ma. Theresa H.
Professor 8
PhD
Devcom
UP Los Baños
25. Villar, Ricarda B.
Instructor 3
BS
Devcom
UP Los Baños

 
Table 2.   Part-time faculty members of UPLB-CDC as of 2010 (actual head count).

Name
Academic Rank
Highest Degree

Field

Institution
1.     Cadiz, Ma. Celeste H.
Assoc. Prof.
PhD
Ed. Tech.
Australian National Univ.
2.     Campilan, Dindo M.

PhD
Devcom
UP Los Baños
3.     Flor, Alexander G.
Professor
PhD
Devcom
UP Los Baños
4.     Lapitan, Julian A.




5.     Lumanta, Melinda F.
Professor
PhD
Comm
Michigan State University
6.     Magor, Noel P.




7.     Quebral, Nora C.
Prof. Emeritus
PhD
Comm
University of Illinois




References

Cadiz, Na. Celeste H. (1979).  Department of Development Communication.  Philippine Agriculturist, Vol. 62, Special Issue, pp. 78-85.

College of Development Communication Brochure.  (2008).  College, Laguna, Philippines: UPLB College of Development Communication. 

Librero, Felix.  (1991).  Contemporary thinking in development communication as expressed in the academic program: the case of Los Baños.  Proceedings of the Seminar on development Communication: Application and Prospects for the Asia-Pacific Region, Asia-Pacific Development Communication Center, Dhurakijpundit University, Bangkok, Thailand, December 16-18, pp. 9-14.

Maslog, Crispin C.  (1988).  The Institute of Development Communication, University of the Philippines at Los Baños.  Paper presented in the 2nd Meeting of the Research Committee, Press Foundation of Asia Survey of Mass Communication and Journalism Education in Asia, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, August 21-27.

Quebral, Nora C.  (1971).  Development communication in the agricultural context.  Paper presented at the Symposium on the theme :In Search of Breakthroughs in Agricultural Development” held in honor of Dr. Dioscoro L. Umali, December 9-10.

Quebral, Nora C.  (1988).  Development Communication.  College, Laguna, Philippines: UPLB College of Agriculture.

Sison, Obdulia F.  (1979).  The UPLB College of Agriculture turns seventy: some historical milestones.  Philippine Agriculturist, Vol. 62, Special Issue, pp. 1-56.