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In the midst of everything that was taking place were the media. Before the historical clashes and movements, television and radio were only good for entertainment. These media were relatively new technologies then. People started taking the media seriously when it brought news of war casualties and of activists taking to the streets. The demand for information was something well-structured and scheduled public addresses could not keep up with; it was a challenge easily met by immediate impromptu accounts aired over tv channels and radio dials.
So it came to pass that communication research became the "in" thing: academicians, in one way or the other, took interest in it and concocted their own set of theories and models. So much so, that it came to a point where there were too many models and theories, and hardly any unity among the scientists within the field; it was high time for one grand, unifying theory that would ultimately give communication research the academic respectability it has sought for so long.
That big bang of a theory has not come up to this day. In the mean time, communication research remains useful; we may even go as far as to say that it has become an essential sub-field in most enterprises, extending into advertising, business, etc.
Here in the Philippines, communication researchers may not be as popular as their cousins in journalism or broadcasting. After all, the very nature of the field--research, research, and more research-- almost always requires behind-the-scene work.
Another issue is the lack of original theories, or at least those which take the Asian culture into account. Even the most prestigious universities offering communication research in the curriculum use Western textbooks, theories, and concepts, which make it hard to apply in our own context.
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All rights reserved. December 2001 |
