Queer identities continue to be marginalized in online video gaming spaces due in part to their lack of visibility in online gaming communities and representation in video games. The rise of OhMyV33nus, a popular queer professional esports player and video game content creator, and her performance of her gender through her video game content could shed light on how queer people queer online gaming spaces and their play. The study explores the connection between online self-presentation, particularly the performance of gender, and the affordances of video games and social media platforms. Specifically, it examines how queerness is performed and negotiated in the case of OhMyV33nus’s YouTube channel. The study employs a methodology of single case study and multimodal textual analysis guided by the concepts of Online Self-Presentation (Goffman, 1956), Gender Performativity (Butler, 1999), and Affordances (Gibson, 1979). Findings show that OhMyV33nus utilizes various strategies and the different dimensions of her YouTube content to perform and negotiate her queerness. The study reflected how gender performance could be observed on YouTube in varying degrees based on the genre of the game, genre of the video, and the type of media content.

Cornelio, C.J.M. (2022). A Preliminary Review of the Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication (CERC) Strategies of the Philippine Department of Health (DOH) during the First Six Months of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Unpublished Bachelor’s Thesis,
University of the Philippines College of Mass Communication.

This study aimed to describe how the Philippine Department of Health (DOH) communicated COVID-19 risks and the government’s response during the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Through the Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication (CERC) framework of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the study surfaced the different themes in the press briefings of the DOH, and the role of the spokesperson in communicating risk and government response strategies. A sample of 19 press briefings, across the three stages of Preparation, Initial Event, and Maintenance, were collated and analyzed to accomplish the different objectives. The findings of the study have shown that discussions of crisis magnitude (active cases, recoveries, and deaths), presentations of government response, and personal and community response activities were dominant themes in these press briefings. Spokesperson behavior and communication approaches have also been found to make quantitative and qualitative differences in the communication of risk and government response. This study has also shown the potential for the use of government press briefings as a unit of analysis in understanding government as a mediator of information.

Sakaling Malimutan Kita is a drama centered on Angelo as he undergoes a journey of healing by returning for the last time to see his estranged father, Mando, who recently passed away. Through this passage, the film places the main character in an emotional turmoil of also going back to the memories that he last shared with his father as he finally moves forward from the pain caused by the unexplained absence of Mando in his life. Utilizing a fragmented structure and the theory of ‘Reconstructive memory’, the film places the audience in the unreliability of memories and how the perceived truth based on a memory created through pain, clashes with the truth that is supported by a tangible proof.

The film explores the unreliability of memories but also takes a deeper look on how it can be important for a person’s process of healing.

Artificial intelligence is a relatively new form of technology that aims to automate tasks, effectively making work easier to do. This is very much apparent in the field of sports journalism, wherein numerous types of artificial intelligence have risen as a supposed aide to the work of a sports journalist. But with this unfamiliar territory looming for sports media, there then exists a need to find out how sports journalists feel about it.

As such, this study focused on the perception of Filipino sports journalists on the use of artificial intelligence and its many forms in their work. Guided by both the Diffusion of Innovation theory and the Uses and Gratifications theory, it reviewed and analyzed interview answers from seven sports journalists currently in the industry, all about their opinions on AI, its role in their work, and their thoughts on its future in the field.

The findings revealed that Filipino sports journalists generally accept and see the role of AI in the industry, but it has to stay in an assistive role rather than an overtaking one. It helps out in huge chunks of work such as transcription and translation, but journalists say that they draw the line at AI actually doing their work for them.

This study has implications for media organizations looking to integrate artificial intelligence into their work. With this study, they may better analyze the media’s state of knowledge and implement their guidelines on AI in a more appropriate way.

Anchored in three theories: Sellors’ (2007) collective authorship in film, Heath & Isbell’s (2021) principled collaboration, and De Ridder, Dhaenens, and Van Beuwel’s (2011) representational strategies of queer resistance, this study investigated collective authorship within the independent queer films productions of Cinemalaya 2023: Huling Palabas, Iti Mapukpukaw, and Rookie, as facilitated by collaboration and communication toward the manifestation of representational strategies of queer resistance. Through a qualitative case study design with 16 key informant interviews and three textual/film analyses, the study was able to surface that the filmmakers’ motivations, successes, and the challenges they experienced were observed to align with their intentions both at the individual and the collective level, paving the way for the collective authorship of their respective films. Within the process of collective authorship, the filmmakers were also found to collaborate toward goodness as facilitated by communication which were oriented through either dialogue, interests, conflict, consensus, and solutions. Such communications within the collaboration toward collective authorship were observed to inform the manifestation of queer resistance strategies within the scenes and sequences of the films. The findings highlight grounded perspectives about the role collective authorship plays in the production of independent queer films in the Philippines.