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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    Embodying Inclusion: A Plus-size Woman's Critical Autoethnography of Ethically and Equitably Responsive Communication
    ( 2026) Sajonia, Kethelle I.
    Public space is organized around a standard body that is rarely announced and seldom examined. This autoethnographic study examines how I, a plus-size Filipino woman, experience inclusion and exclusion across public, civic, safety, transportation, and consumption spaces, and theorizes a critical body proxemics from those experiences. Drawing on reflexive journals, photovoice images read through the SHOWED protocol, and a body map titled Spaces That (Do Not) Fit, the study analyzes eight encounters: a polling precinct chair during the 2025 Philippine midterm elections, life jackets aboard an inter-island vessel, the purchase of a higher-class airline seat, a grocery errand read as a single communicative event, refusal of carriage on ordinary public transport, a licensure examination administered in elementary-school armchairs, a plus-size retail district observed in Bangkok, and a clinical consultation in which the available blood pressure cuff did not fit. A personal history of the vocabularies applied to my body situates these encounters and shows that the meanings attached to body size are historically produced rather than natural. The findings show that inclusion and exclusion are relational and simultaneous rather than binary. I participated in every activity attempted, yet participation carried material, communicative, affective, and economic burdens traceable to the relation between my body and standardized infrastructure. Three analytic categories organize these encounters, namely invisibilization, structural exclusion, and accommodation with residue, from which the subtypes costed accommodation, anticipatory self-exclusion, capacity-denominated exclusion, adjudicated accommodation, and nominal accommodation emerged. Repeated misfitting produced embodied spatial vigilance, an anticipatory labor of measuring space before entering it. The study advances critical body proxemics as an extension of proxemic theory, holding that spatial meaning remains indeterminate until the occupying body is specified, and articulates it through eight propositions. It concludes that ethically and equitably responsive communication requires congruence between institutional discourse and material practice, and recommends anticipatory inclusion in public procurement, transport regulation, design standards, and institutional communication.
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    Crisis Communication and Response in an Island Municipality in the Philippines
    ( 2026) Mondoñedo, Laureen R.
    Small island municipalities are generally vulnerable to disasters due to their geographical location, size, and limited resources. How they survive calamities, however, remains less studied, prompting this research on disaster risk communication and response in San Antonio, a fifth-class, typhoon- and storm-surge-prone island municipality in Northern Samar, Philippines. Anchored in the Social Amplification of Risk Framework (SARF), the study employed a one-shot survey research design supported by key informant interviews to examine how disaster risk information is communicated and how amplification or attenuation processes shape residents’ risk perception and response. Descriptive and inferential analyses revealed a structured and centralized multi-channel communication system coordinated by the Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office, which achieved 100 percent exposure to life-saving warnings and evacuation notices. Traditional channels, particularly public address systems and house-to- house visits, remained the most effective communication modes due to infrastructural and connectivity limitations in the island municipality. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) showed that trust in disaster risk information significantly influenced both risk perception (β = 0.35, p < .001) and compliance (β = 0.17, p = .001), highlighting the role of credible information sources and the local government unit as institutional amplifiers of disaster response. Communication barriers significantly increased risk perception (β = 0.19, p = .010), suggesting that limited connectivity and information constraints heightened residents’ sense of vulnerability. Risk perception also significantly influenced compliance with preparedness measures (β = 0.16, p = .003). Meanwhile, message quality negatively influenced risk perception (β = –0.09, p = .044), implying that clearer and more accurate communication reduced uncertainty and exaggerated fear. However, message quality did not directly influence compliance (β = –0.01, p = .906), indicating that behavioral response is shaped not only by information clarity but also by social and structural factors. Demographic variables such as age, education, and technological confidence showed no significant effects on either risk perception or compliance. The findings emphasize that disaster risk communication in small island communities is fundamentally relational and community-centered, where trust, local leadership, and traditional communication systems strongly shape public response. To strengthen resilience, the study recommends increased connectivity, capacity building, inter-agency coordination, and the establishment of a centralized two-way handheld radio network linking all barangays to the municipal base.
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    Mapping Neighborhood Storytelling Networks as a Foundation for Integrating Community Radio
    ( 2026) Gutierrez, Dennis V.
    Guided by Communication Infrastructure Theory and Social Network Analysis, this study examined the storytelling network of a university community to identify the multilevel actors of its storytelling system, describe the forms, functions, and themes of stories shared, examine the pathways and mechanisms that influenced the storytelling flow, analyze the contextual factors that shaped its network structure. The study found that the neighborhood storytelling network can be reinterpreted in an academic setting. The study also uncovered the multiple roles of micro-, meso-, and macro-level storytellers rooted in their primary roles as students, faculty, staff who interact with each other on common themes about people’s stories, professional development, and policies and processes through conversations, feature stories, anecdotes, and digital content for the purposes of information dissemination and community building. Moreover, the study also found that within the university storytelling network, hubs form outside the main network. This study hopes to provide university community radio programmers and communicators the opportunity to produce well-informed program innovations that bridge actors across storytelling levels. This study demonstrates a process of collecting and analyzing data through meaningful conversations that respect the community and better informs the type of program content and programming based on stakeholders’ insights and community needs.
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    Advocacy Influencing: An Exploratory Study on Social Media Influencing for Social Change in the Philippines
    ( 2025) Pascua, Katrina Marie S.
    This study explores the role and effectiveness of social media influencer marketing in advancing children’s rights advocacy in the Philippines. As digital platforms become increasingly central to non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the strategic use of influencers—both celebrities and community-based advocates—has emerged as a key component of development communication. Anchored in behavior change communication theories and social influence frameworks, this research examined how three major NGOs—Save the Children Philippines, Plan International Pilipinas, and World Vision Philippines—utilize influencer-driven campaigns to promote child rights, increase public awareness, and mobilize support. Using a qualitative approach that included desktop research and key informant interviews, the study found that organizations select influencers based on alignment with advocacy values, authenticity, and community relevance. Influencer engagement extend beyond visibility and awareness raising into policy advocacy, field immersion, and audience-specific content creation. Popular platforms included Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and livestreaming tools like Kumu, with storytelling, co-created messaging, and interactive formats used to sustain audience engagement. While influencer marketing has demonstrated value in outreach and community resonance, the findings also underscore the challenge of impact measurement and tracking long-term behavior change. The study findings also reveal the emergence of other influencing factors and types of influencers. Recommendations include further study into a more deliberate use of baseline data to enhance the effectiveness of influencer strategies in the development sector. By bridging digital reach with participatory communication, direct correlations may be made in using social media as a transformative tool in promoting social development goals.
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    "Sabi ni Inay": Voices of Selected Mothers and Adolescent Daughters on Reproductive Health in Urban and Rural Settings in the Philippines
    ( 2025) Duldulao, Princess Grachelle M.
    This qualitative narrative study explored reproductive health (RH) communication between Filipino mothers and their adolescent daughters in both urban and rural settings. Twelve participants (six mother-daughter pairs) were selected through purposive sampling from one urban barangay in Manila and one rural barangay in Nueva Ecija. Underpinned by the sociocultural tradition of communication theories, I conducted storytelling interviews in Tagalog-English (Taglish) from August to September 2023, allowing participants to share experiences in their own words. Narrative analysis was employed to identify key themes and stages of RH communication. Results revealed that menstruation often serves as the initial gateway to RH discussions, overshadowing broader topics of RH that promote total well-being related to sexuality and the reproductive system. Conversations frequently began reactively, triggered by life events, and were often one-way in nature, framed in moral or cautionary tones. Facilitators of RH dialogue included personal relevance, supportive mother-daughter relationships, and external influences such as schools, religious institutions, and media. Conversely, constraints stemmed from personal limitations like mothers’ limited knowledge, relational discomforts like generational differences, and societal influences of cultural taboos that discouraged open discussions. Effective RH communication requires emotionally safe spaces, culturally sensitive support, and active collaboration between families, schools, health services, and community institutions. By highlighting the relational and contextual nature of dialogues, the study contributes to the understanding of RH education as a gradual, relationship-based process that nurtures trust, empathy, cultural sensitivity. These insights can inform programs and policies designed to strengthen family-centered RH communication in the Philippine context.