N.B. – This is an advance copy of a press release dated September 6 regarding the launch of the refereed journal I supervise as director of the UP CMC Office of Research and Publication (ORP).

The University of the Philippines College of Mass Communication (UP CMC) will launch the eighth issue of Plaridel: A Journal of Philippine Communciation, Media, and Society on September 7 (Friday), 3 p.m. at the CMC Auditorium.

Edited by Dr. Florinda D.F. Mateo and Dr. Fernando D. Paragas of the Department of Communication Research, the latest issue (August 2007) carries the theme “New Media.” The articles in this issue are “Call Centers and the Modern Individual” (Princess Diane H. Dagohoy); “So Close: Measuring Social Distance in Virtual Relationships” (Ritta Dianne G. Ramos and Dolorosa C. Pasia); “Connecting Indigenous Peoples: Mobile Phone Experiences of Three Indigenous Peoples Groups in the Philippines” (Lourdes M. Portus); “The Word to the World: An Analysis of the Websites of Five Philippine-based Catholic Communities” (Ma. Criselda G. Gatchalian-Badilla); and “A Critical Review of Philippine Copyright System vis-à-vis Access to Information and New Media Technology” (Christine S. Leones and Myra S. Lorredo).

These studies, according to the issue editors, “discuss how specific forms of new communication and media technologies related to how people identify themselves in reconfigured workplaces, define their personal distances in the virtual realm, link themselves to larger society, establish religious communities, and negotiate new conceptions of intellectual property.”

This issue also has Almond Pilar N. Aguila’s interview with Paolo Pineda of ABS-CBN’s Interactive, Violeda Umali’s compilation of 2004 theses and dissertation abstracts, and the lectures of UP Gawad Plaridel recipients Fidela M. Magpayo (2006) and Cecilia L. Lazaro (2007). Reviews of Raul Pertierra’s Transforming Technologies: Altered Selves – Mobile Phone and Internet Use in the Philippines (Sakari Taipale) and Andres G. Sevilla’s Mass Communication Ethics: A Primer (Fernando A. Austria, Jr.) are also included.

Copies of the latest and back issues of Plaridel are available at the Office of Research and Publication (ORP) of the UP CMC. For details, please call Prof. Danilo A. Arao, director of the ORP, at 920-6864 or email him at [email protected].