UP CMC finalizes renaming plans, draws student concerns over consultation

The plan of the University of the Philippines College of Mass Communication (UP CMC) to change its name is now final, at least on the college level, UP CMC Dean Fernando Paragas said during the “renaming conversation” sessions on Friday and Saturday, Aug. 30 and 31.

Despite the final decision to change the college’s name to “University of the Philippines Diliman College of Media and Communication,” students expressed disappointment over the lack of genuine consultation.

An excerpt from CMC Student Council’s (SC) statement on the college’s 59th anniversary in June was included in the 20-page discussion paper published by the college, serving as the sole representation of students’ concerns about changing the institution’s name.

CMC SC chairperson Edelweiss Nazal, however, said it is not enough to be considered a “thorough” consultation with the students.

“We were not informed that they would include [the statement] in the discussion paper. And I also don’t think it’s enough to say that we were thoroughly consulted about the renaming,” she said in an interview with Tinig ng Plaridel.

Nazal confirmed that the previous and incumbent CMC SC officers were unaware that the plan to rename CMC was already in its “final stage,” meaning it would no longer be retracted.

The discussion paper was crafted by the college’s “Reimagination Committee,” chaired by professor Eulalio Guieb III of the Department of Broadcast Communication (DBC), to “synthesize” insights from the past renaming conversations and propose recommendations on the next steps in the college’s renaming.

Other members of the committee include associate professor Diosa Labiste of the Journalism Department, assistant professor Rogelio Garcia of the UP Film Institute and Communication Research professor Violeda Umali.

The resolution to rename CMC was unanimously approved by the college’s faculty and staff during their planning workshop in Baguio City from July 31 to Aug. 2.

“The term ‘mass communication’ has become limited and limiting,” the resolution reads.

READ: UP CMC releases resolution changing its name to “University of the Philippines Diliman College of Media and Communication”

It also said that the term has a “traditional conceptualization of a homogenous mass audience and focus on the legacy platforms of analogue print, TV and radio.”

From Maskom to “MediaComm”?

Paragas said that conversations on renaming the college are not new.

It was first brought up in 2002 during an overnight faculty workshop at the Development Academy of the Philippines in Tagaytay.

“There are changes happening in our discipline,” Paragas said during the online renaming conversation held Saturday. “The idea then was to problematize the emergence of what was then-new media or less digital online media.”

More than two decades after the 2002 Tagaytay faculty workshop, discussions about renaming CMC resurfaced just as the college approaches its 60th founding anniversary in 2025. 

In March 2023, the college’s faculty and staff, led by Professor Emeriti Elizabeth Enriquez of the DBC and Grace Javier-Alfonso of the UP Film Institute, “interrogated the concepts of ‘mass’ and ‘media.’”

No photo description available.

UP CMC faculty and staff held the “A Conversation with our Professor Emeriti” on March 27, 2023. Photo from the UP College of Mass Communication Facebook Page

As CMC moves to change its name due to changes in the discipline, concerns about the college retaining its mass orientation were raised during the renaming conversations.

Paragas, explaining the rationale behind the name change, read an excerpt from Labiste’s “Justification for the College of Media and Communication” quoting Welsh writer and academic Raymond Williams.

“Raymond Williams argues that there is a certain blindness in mass communication studies because it is assumed that ‘mass situations’ and ‘mass audience’ exist,” he read. 

“Mass communication was construed as persuasive, behavior-changing, conditioning and influential. It is also the pathway of power and control that is extended over swaths of populations and geographies.”

Although Nazal acknowledged the reasons behind the renaming, she also raised concerns about its timing.

“While we can address several issues at once, the college still needs to determine which ones to prioritize,” she said. “There have been recurring problems that remain unresolved, like the equipment for students in [Broadcast Media Arts and Studies] and Film, funding for Communication Research and the safety of Journalism students.”

In preparation for the first renaming discussion on Friday, the CMC SC asked students to share any concerns they had about the resolution.

“So far, regarding the actual name, the students don’t really have a problem with it. I don’t think there should be strong opposition to that,” Nazal said. “However, there definitely should be interrogation on the necessity of renaming the college.”

Beyond Renaming

To “realize its reinvigorated vision, mission and goals” with the college renaming, the Aug. 1 resolution outlined the college’s pursuit of several agendas, including instructional, research and creative work, public service and personnel and facilities development.

In a DZUP interview on Thursday, Paragas said the CMC community can expect these agendas to begin taking shape once the college’s name change gets approved by the university’s Board of Regents (BOR) — the highest governing body in the UP System.

Zeroing in on the instructional agenda, Paragas said a key part of this is the “revitalizing” of the 20-year-old common courses offered by the college.

The curricula of CMC’s 10 academic programs — four undergraduate and six in the graduate studies department — will also undergo updates and reviews, he said.

New degree and non-degree programs will also be introduced in the college’s current roster of program offerings. However, Paragas has yet to provide concrete details on such programs.

He said that the college is still coordinating with various university offices for the resolution to reach the BOR and for the name change to finally take effect.

“We are still figuring out if we will present [the resolution] to the Executive Committee, then to the University Council or the Office of the President, and finally to the BOR. That’s still being clarified,” Paragas said. “What matters right now is that there is a resolution from the [CMC] faculty and staff.”

Professor Alwin Aguirre of the DBC said the college’s renaming reshapes not only its pedagogy and scholarship but also its “spirit.”

“What comes after the change is the actual challenge because it involves a considerable amount of revision, rethinking and reflection so that we live up to the promise of a renamed institution,” he said in his speech, “Changing the Name is the Easy Part,” delivered in a forum in April 2023.

Since the college’s “way of learning” is rooted in foreign theories and resources, Nazal called on the CMC administration to embrace the nationalist movement for media as part of the renaming process.

“On the CMC SC’s end, we urge the administration to not just use ‘midyang malaya at mapagpalaya’ (free and liberating media) as buzzwords,” she said. “It’s important to ensure that the scholarship of the college remains mass-oriented.”