THE University of the Philippines Cebu (UP Cebu) will establish a Center for Media Literacy (CML) to house print, audiovisual and online research materials produced by faculty and students of its Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communication program.
Rep. Rachel Marguerite del Mar of Cebu City’s north district will fund the project with a P500,000 grant approved last October and taken from her priority development assistance fund.
The CML will be in the old photography darkroom on the second floor of the undergraduate building near the classrooms of mass communication students, the faculty said in the project proposal.
It will be a bank for undergraduate theses, information, education and communication materials submitted as course requirements and teachers’ research.
The center will be equipped with new laptops and other technology to facilitate research, instruction and small-group discussions about radio, TV and print journalism, online media, development communication, corporate communication or public relations, advertising communication research and related fields.
It will also complement the proposal of program coordinator, Dr. Belinda Espiritu for the university to offer a general education course on media literacy to non-mass communication students. The course will enable a class of 15 to 20 to evaluate the information they receive from the media and be responsible media consumers.
Some UP Cebu Mass Communications alumni and faculty have also expressed interest to donate books once the center is established.
“Our Mass Com students together with undergraduates from the college’s different programs will benefit from the center. We would also be able to keep up with more updated technology in video processing and editing through our new Macintosh laptops in the CML,” said Espiritu.
Espiritu added that in the future, the Masscom faculty will conduct media literacy seminars for students in other schools and members of civil society.
Lawyer Pachico Seares, Sun.Star Cebu publics and standards editor, said he would help lobby for the funds, initially proposing the creation of a “reading room” for its students.
Starting last November until March 2012, the CML has been working with the Development Communication 142 (Community Newspaper) class of UP Cebu’s third year mass com students.
They will partner with a public school or organization and share basic journalism skills and ethics. At the end of the semester, the partner organizations will release pilot issues of publications or improvements of their community medium in print or online formats.
The partner groups are Cre8tive Thespians Club Inc., Don Carlos A. Gothong Memorial National High School, UP Cebu Lifebox, Mabolo National High School and UP Cebu Youth for Christ.
For inquiries about the CML, call the mass communication faculty at 233-8202. /CONTRIBUTOR PETER L. ROMANILLOS