FICS Theses and Dissertations

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https://repository.upou.edu.ph/handle/20.500.13073/2
Theses and dissertations by graduate students from the Faculty of Information and Communication Studies.

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    Celebrity Endorsements of Online Gambling in the Philippines: A Discursive Study
    ( 2026) Tagalicod, Reyna Grace A.
    This study examined how Reddit users constructed meanings around celebrity endorsements of online gambling in the Philippines. Using a social constructionist discourse-analytic approach, it analyzed 407 comments from one selected Reddit thread as a discursive episode in which users debated celebrity influence, gambling-related harm, personal choice, commercial work, and institutional responsibility. The analysis focused on discursive strategies, broader Discourses, subject positions, micro-outcomes, discursive constellations, and the episode-level outcome produced through their interaction. The findings show that celebrity-endorsed online gambling was constructed as a contested object of public meaning-making. Commenters used seven discursive strategy groups to assign, resist, soften, or redirect responsibility. These strategies drew on broader Discourses of Public Moral Responsibility, Social Protection, Self-Governance, Market Rationality, Institutionalized Gambling, and Institutional Responsibility. The Discourses aligned into two competing constellations. The Civic Responsibility Constellation connected celebrity influence with ethical obligation, public welfare, and protection from harm, while the Neoliberal Constellation made endorsement and gambling understandable through paid work, personal choice, legal market participation, and regulatory recognition. Although civic criticism kept harm, vulnerability, celebrity influence, and public responsibility visible, it did not displace the stronger Neoliberal Constellation, whose assumptions were supported by existing legal, commercial, and government-recognized institutional practices. The episode-level outcome was therefore the continued normalization of celebrity-endorsed online gambling despite sustained civic criticism. From a Development Communication perspective, the findings show that communicative resistance may remain limited without institutional support capable of sustaining alternative Discourses.
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    Digital Farmers' Produce System: A Cloud-based Platform for Optimizing Crop Management and Market Linkages
    ( 2026) Malinao, Bryan N.
    Farming is the main livelihoods in Municipality of sinacaban, Misamis Occidental. Most farmers are crop producers as indicated by interview surveys with farmers and verified by the Municipal Agriculture Office. Common issues mentioned by farmers include lack of access to real time pricing information, connections to potential buyers, timing of buying transactions, and awareness of produce currently available at the barangay level. These result in smaller than desired profit margins for farmers and occasionally lost crops. This project aims to develop and deploy the Digital Farmers’ Produce System, a cloud- a cloud-based platform that allows farmers to post their available crops by season, request aid from their municipal agriculture office, and connect with buyers interested in their crops. The system allows farmers to post details of their produce availability and schedules, buyers can search for and view crop postings by region and crop category, and DA/MAO officers can view crops stock and request statuses per barangay. The system was built using PHP 8 and the Flight microframework, HTML, CSS, Javascript, Bootstrap, and MySQL it is using RAD development framework. Security and reliability measures included role-based permissions, HTTPS encryption, input validation, prepared queries, password hashing, and a backup strategy. User acceptance was gathered via survey from 12 participants, consisting of 5 farmers, 4 buyers, and 3 DA/MAO officers. With a positive user acceptance was observed, with mean ratings of 4.60 from farmers, 4.83 from buyers, and 4.69 from DA/ORO officers. While the results of this study are limited by the scope and available resources, they show promise that a localized, farmer-driven agricultural system can help improve market visibility as well as coordination between farmers and government agricultural institutions. More work would have to be done to ensure appropriate training is provided, all stakeholders can consistently connect to the system, and all security risks are mitigated before rollout.
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    Public Involvement in Media Accountability in the Philippines: Examining Citizen Participation in the Iloilo Media-Citizen Council
    ( 2026) Mateo, Jan Victor R.
    This study examined citizen participation in the Iloilo Media-Citizen Council (IMCC), one of several recently established by the Philippine Press Institute. While citizen or non-media members are integral to press councils globally, little research has explored their actual roles in media self- or co-regulation bodies. Anchored in the Social Responsibility Theory (Hutchins Commission, 1947; McQuail, 2010; Bertrand, 2000), the study utilized the Civic Voluntarism Model or CVM (Verba et al., 1995), Role Theory (Katz & Kahn, 1978; Biddle, 1979), and the Ladder of Citizen Participation (Arnstein, 1969) to examine why and how citizens participate in the council’s processes. Using a qualitative case study approach, data were collected through interviews, document reviews, and observations of council activities and events. Findings identified five key roles – public representation, ethical oversight, capacity-building, providing expertise, and public engagement – through which citizen members were regarded as partners in promoting ethical journalism. Drivers of participation reflected the three CVM dimensions: recruitment through professional and personal networks; resources such as skills, expertise, and institutional support; and psychological engagement grounded in personal values and a sense of civic duty. Participation among core non-media members demonstrated genuine engagement, particularly through leadership roles and contributions to internal decision-making. However, interaction with the broader public, especially those outside formally represented sectors, remains limited and underdeveloped.
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    Community Nutrition Information System of Barangay San Andres, Cainta, Rizal
    ( 2026) Malubay, Roel Pillas
    Barangay San Andres operates various health center satellites in Cainta, Rizal, which use a manual system for child nutrition record management across the satellite centers. The manual process causes data inconsistencies, leading to redundant record encoding and other errors, such as duplicate, incomplete, and outdated entries. The manual approach is also inefficient for searching and retrieving information, especially when individuals move between satellite centers or when records are lost due to damage or destruction of physical documentation. From this analysis of existing issues, a Community Nutrition Information System (CNIS), a progress web application, was created to aid in the efficient management of nutritional status monitoring. The CNIS was developed using PHP and a MySQL database and included functions such as nutritional profiling, record management, and food and supplement recommendations. Evaluations were carried out using the ISO/IEC 25010 software quality model, in which participants, including barangay health workers, parents, and IT/IS professionals, completed Likert-scale questionnaires to evaluate the software. Results indicated that the indicators considered “strongly agree” were followed by general favorable ratings of “agree.” Performance, load, and security testing further demonstrated efficient resource utilization, stable operation with up to 50 concurrent users, and protection against common web vulnerabilities. Overall, the CNIS is efficient, reliable, and suitable for deployment to enhance the accuracy, efficiency, and security of community nutrition records in the said barangay.
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    CADENCE: An AI-Powered Operations Platform for Greenrock Agrifarms SG Trading Inc.
    ( 2026) Sevilla, Vincent Carlo R.
    GreenRock Agrifarms SG Trading Inc. currently operates on a file based system to track sales and inventory. Staff spend hours manually preparing reports that may lead to operational incidents due to the risk of human errors during data processing. This project aims to design, develop, and build CADENCE, an AI-powered operations platform that will provide insights on poultry operations like inventory and sales. The solution will run on AWS, will be integrated with Claude AI for operational insights, display dashboard KPIs, improve data entry & processing accuracy, and allow immediate reports generation. Ultimately, allowing GreenRock executives and shareholders to make data driven tactical and strategic plans.