Volume 1 Number 2

ABSTRACT: This paper explores how curation extends beyond the art world and is applied to various professional spheres like libraries, news production, and social media. My approach to historicizing the concept of curation is largely inspired by Van der Heijden’s concept of hybridization among media apparatuses. Rather than solely looking at the interrelation of media tools, I also looked into how the role of a curator transpires in offline and online spaces. Meanwhile, my understanding of curation is mainly drawn from Balzer’s (2014) book on curationism and Obrist’s (2008) discussions with other prominent figures in the art scene. My paper does not intend to discount the profession of a curator, but instead, I argue that users continuously embody the role of curators as they navigate and shape their external identities within the dynamic landscape of digital platforms. This paper posits that such practice not only involves users curating their online personas but also fuels the continued growth and influence of these platforms (Smythe, 1977).   Keywords: curation, digital media, social media, audience commodity  Every week, I receive a notification from my phone about my average screen time. For this week, my daily average was seven hours and nine minutes—with two hours of this spent scrolling through the bottomless pit of TikTok. This popular video-sharing app allows users to upload short-form videos of no more than 10 minutes. My friends mostly use the app to partake in the latest TikTok trends. However, as an introvert, I prefer to go incognito and mostly use TikTok as a search engine for food, travel destinations, and beauty must-haves.   TikTok is widely known for providing a virtual space where one can be their authentic selves (Schellewald, 2023). It’s been two years since I created my TikTok account, and throughout this period, I’ve seen how fellow users leverage the platform to create feel-good content via dance challenges, tutorials, and thrift finds. Popular influencers, personalities, and, to a certain extent, A-list Hollywood stars have also used the platform to present themselves as someone relatable or ordinary who experiences the same joys and struggles as the rest of us. At that time, I found it refreshing to see users and friends deviate from the aspirational and picture-perfect life we once lived on Instagram. However, looking back now—and having the opportunity to look into publications about TikTok—it seems that the authenticity that we enjoy watching on TikTok is just as curated and performative as uploading a photo on Instagram or a vlog on YouTube (Barta et al., 2023).   In scholarship, they attributed authenticity and relatability to what makes content on TikTok viral or popular among its users (Schellewald, 2023; Vizcaíno-Verdú & Abidin, 2022). This means that the videos that become famous on the platform are primarily determined by users who spend time watching and engaging with these videos. As a result, this becomes an invisible trigger for others who aspire to become famous on the platform, as they aim to create content that resonates with the platform’s users (Schellewald, 2023; Vizcaíno-Verdú & Abidin, 2022). This implies that, as users, we meticulously shape our online identities to align with the norms of each platform, thus assuming the role of curators for our online personas. I find it noteworthy that curation, a practice that has been historically and intricately linked with the organization of artwork in museums and galleries (Obrist, 2011), now extends to the curation of online personas on social media platforms alongside the prevalent documentation of our daily lives and milestones online.   My position to delve into curation on blogs and social media stems from my professional experience in public relations and corporate communications. In these fields, curation was consistently done to garner public favor and bolster brand reputation via press releases, interviews, social media content, and publicity stunts. Meanwhile, my interest in looking into LookBook, Instagram, and TikTok is driven by professional and personal motivations. LookBook and Instagram were once recognized as one of the leading platforms (Ewens, 2021; Iqbal, 2024) and subsequently held significant influence over my fashion preferences during my collegiate years in an exclusive girls’ school. As for TikTok, its rapid rise in popularity intrigues me, despite concerns surrounding data privacy (Samaniego, 2023). I am interested in examining how curation practices unfold on TikTok, especially given the platform’s emphasis on authenticity. Recent statistics also indicate that Filipinos lead in video consumption with 50.7% and rank the highest in terms of watching vlogs or influencer videos each week (Tan, 2024). Ergo, the country’s rich usage of online platforms, armed with the Filipinos’ continuous dependence on mobile phones to access and consume information from the Internet(Diaz, 2024), provides a favorable ground to explore the interconnectedness of the curated self and audience commodification within these virtual spaces.  Given these contexts, I argue that users continuously embody the role of curators as they navigate and shape their external identities within the dynamic landscape of digital platforms. This paper posits that such practice not only involves users curating their online personas but also fuels the continued growth and influence of these platforms. My paper is inspired mainly by Van der Heijden’s (2018) approach to historicizing media apparatuses based on hybridization. I illustrate how curation is applied in various professional spheres and online media. Meanwhile, my understanding of curation and its application outside the art world is mainly drawn from Balzer’s (2015) discussion on curationism. Although his book discusses the evolution of curated works over time (Balzer, 2015), I mainly apply the fundamental principles of curation in offline and online spaces like the library, blogs, and social media. I also want to make it clear that my paper does not, in any way, intend to discount the profession of an art curator, especially the works of Hans Ulrich Obrist and Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev or the likes of Roberto Chabet and Patrick Flores, who are recognized as some of the most influential personalities in the local art scene. Instead, I aim to illustrate how the fundamental concepts of “arranging and editing of things”

ABSTRACT: This essay explores the application of the rhizome concept in analyzing Philippine cinema, particularly its alternative and marginalized forms. Rooted in the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari, the rhizome represents a decentralized, multiplicitous structure, contrasting with hierarchical models. In the context of cinema, alternative forms such as short narratives, documentaries, and TikTok videos embody this rhizomatic nature, diverging from mainstream commercial norms. Despite digital technology’s democratization of film production and distribution, alternative cinema remains on the fringes due to the dominance of industrial capitalist structures. However, its resilience and diversity reflect a people’s cinema, shaped by historical, theoretical, and cultural forces. As TikTok gains popularity, it echoes cinema’s origins as short, accessible spectacles, challenging the dominance of feature-length films. This proliferation of alternative cinematic forms heralds an “Age of Alternative Cinema”, symbolizing the triumph of the rhizome and reshaping cinematic culture.  Keywords: Philippine cinema, alternative cinema, Philippine film history, rhizome, digital transformation  Introduction  Introducing the concept of the rhizome in the study of Philippine cinema, this essay applies its significance to a marginalized cinema, the alternative cinema that has grown outside the confines of the country’s dominant commercial movie industry. A rhizome is one informed by multiplicity referring to an acentered body, say that of a ginger or a potato, which grows in nomadic fashion underground. This is unlike the arborescent body, which takes hierarchical growth with its assigned parts from roots and trunks to the leaves and flowers of trees. This concept of organization was developed by two French philosophers, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, referring to a heterogeneous growth, opposing everything that signifies singularity as it is seen as controlling and totalitarian.i Applied to cinema, the concept of the rhizome takes various cinematic forms that differ from popular full-length movies due to its diverse expressions. They come in the forms of short narrative films and videos, documentaries, experimental, animation, installation art, video art, TikTok, and many more. This cinema initially lived a subterranean life and took nomadic journeys in its early beginnings. Although it has presently become ubiquitous with the emergence of digital technology through popular short-duration videos seen on YouTube and TikTok, alternative cinematic forms have redefined their meanings by maintaining their position outside of what is considered as the traditional industrial cinema (i.e., the movie industry and its feature-length format). Despite their popularity, such as that offered by the short video format and enjoyed by countless users and viewers, it is by no means an assurance that alternative cinema has become mainstream. What remains to be mainstream are those more popular forms that are produced by a vast system of entertainment business complex that is supported by an industrial capitalist enterprise. This is composed of an infrastructure made up not only of producers (Hollywood and its national movie industry clones are examples) but also of the global chains of movie theaters, which assure economic stability by providing a viable market for films. Attached to this main industry are subsidiary markets, like television and print industries, advertising, online streaming platforms, fashion, cosmetics, and other ancillary sectors that provide jobs to sustain the gargantuan appetite for movie entertainment. None of these can be claimed even by the phenomenal TikTok platform as providing similar sustainable income-generating benefits. The dominant mainstream has an incalculable network of business enterprises that could hardly be matched by any other rivals, thus forcing them to remain on the fringes of the film landscape. However, what alternative cinema lacks in terms of mainstream dominance, it compensates by covering a wide swathe of cinematic practices, from newsreels in the celluloid past to short video formats in the digital present. The unique properties of these film forms embody the immanent nature of motion pictures as a form of multiplicity. This principle has a significant implication on the conception of a Philippine national cinema.  In this essay, I take the occasion to promote alternative cinema as a form of a people’s cinema. The history of this form of cinema bore its resiliency in the past, surviving through the crucibles of wars, technological obsolescence, economic collapse, political repression, public apathy, a pandemic, and other forms of disruptions. I cover the historical, theoretical, technological, and cultural issues surrounding the rise of these filmic forms. The epic sweep I discuss in my historical narrative captures the travails of a cinematic form emerging through a century of a troubled past. Alternative cinema’s significance to Filipino culture is yet to be fully understood and appreciated. With TikTok as a popular form of moving pictures taking the attention of millions, one may want to think that cinema has surprisingly returned to where it first started: as short images that are as much a spectacle as when the first films were made by the Lumiere brothers in 1895. TikTok reminds us of how cinema first began. It reminds us that feature-length films are not the only forms of cinema and cannot dominate our cinematic culture. With many other alternative cinematic forms, mainstream cinema is challenged. Most notably in the digital age, cinema is reinvented anew. With the pervasive presence of alternative film forms whose numbers defy any inventory, one may think that what is happening now is the Age of Alternative Cinema, the triumph of Rhizome. This is the history that will be told.         The claim of a thousand cinemas to be found in alternative cinema is an audacious one. This goes against the prevalent notion of a monogamous, monolithic, mono-crop object called the Philippine cinema, conveniently referring to the Filipino commercial movie industry. Many times, it is the only cinema Filipinos know. Challenging this popular notion, what is suggested is a plural cinema born in multiplicity. It is a cinema that is not one but many, and because of its plurality, this form of cinema travels along nomadic paths. Banished from Eden—or that paradise called the movie industry—alternative films become vagabonds roaming the country’s cinematic landscape but hardly finding a home of their own. A sanctuary is offered in schools where

ABSTRACT:  The discourse on Philippine cinema has been predominantly shaped by a masculine perspective, with critical acclaim and scholarly focus primarily directed toward male filmmakers associated with Philippine cinema’s so-called “Golden Ages.” Such tendencies have overshadowed the contributions of women on and off-screen. This essay highlights a previously unacknowledged feminine film tradition in Philippine cinema. Using Luce Irigaray’s concept of a “female imaginary and a female symbolic” as a framework, I focus on three influential female producers—Narcisa “Doña Sisang” de Leon, “Mother” Lily Monteverde, and Charo Santos—who significantly influenced the artistic development of mainstream Filipino cinema by dictating the kinds of movies their respective studios produce and shaping the representation of the “Dalagang Filipina” (Filipino Maiden) on screen that mirrored the gender politics of the time. By examining their contributions, I seek to establish a “maternal genealogy” within Philippine cinema, recognizing these women’s impactful yet historically overlooked roles in fostering a feminine-oriented filmic tradition.  Keywords:  Philippine cinema, gender dynamics, female representation, feminist theory, female imaginary, female symbolic  Introduction: A Historical Elision  In her celebrated 1971 polemical essay, the distinguished art historian Linda Nochlin (2010) raised a provocative question: “Well, if women really are equal to men, why have there been no great women artists?” (p. 264). Nochlin’s ostensibly straightforward interrogation marked one of the initial articulations addressing the conspicuous dearth of women within the artistic canon. She contemplates whether this absence substantiates the pervasive belief in the universal inferiority of women’s art or serves as evidence that prevailing standards for evaluating artistic works were fundamentally devised by men for men. Nochlin’s essay brings to light the inner workings of canon formation, exposing the unconscious acceptance of the male viewpoint as the default, thereby establishing an overtly masculine aesthetic paradigm in art that resulted in the marginalization and trivialization of women’s and, more broadly, feminine artistic practices. Her question has led to the realization that women’s engagement in art is not an unfettered, autonomous endeavor. On the contrary, artistic creation unfolds within a social context and remains substantially mediated and influenced by specific male-dominated institutions.  Similarly, much of the discourse on cinema in the Philippines is informed by a masculine frame of reference. The corpus of scholarly literature on the history of Philippine cinema primarily concentrates on pivotal historical junctures, identified as “Golden Ages” (e.g., Lumbera, 1992, 2011; Sotto, 1992; Francia, 2002; J. David, 2018; Deocampo, 2023a). Each golden age is marked by a surge in artistic and creative works spearheaded by a cadre of predominantly male directors who emerged in each period. Lamberto Avellana and Gerardo de Leon are hailed as among the foremost auteurs of the First Golden Age in the 1950s. The Second Golden Age, from the mid-1970s to the 80s, is marked by the groundbreaking oeuvres of directors like Lino Brocka and Ishmael Bernal. Lastly, the rise of independent filmmakers such as Brillante Mendoza and Lav Diaz defined the Third Golden Age, which began in 2005 and lasted until the 2010s. This prevalence of a male-centric perspective can be attributed to the establishment of the Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino (Critics of Philippine Cinema), the first and foremost film critics group in the country. Founded by a group of ten young men in 1976, the Manunuri has forged a framework for film assessment deeply rooted in Aristotelian realism, filtered through the lens of Soviet-era socialist realism and post-World War II Italian neorealism (see: Tiongson, 1983, 2001, 2010, 2013). Therefore, it is not surprising that the Filipino film canon is brimming with realist dramas about the everyday struggles of the working class, which are mostly made by male directors. Since it was established in 1976, the Manunuri releases at the end of each decade a list of ten films they acclaim as “Mga Natatanging Pelikula ng Dekada” (The Outstanding Films of the Decade). From the 1970s to the 2010s, there were only two female directors―Marilou Diaz-Abaya and newcomer Rae Red―whose films made the list. Furthermore, more than half of the fifty films on the list are realist dramas that explore themes of poverty and social injustices. Today, this seemingly masculine-oriented approach to film evaluation is not only practiced by the members of the Manunuri but has become the standard by which Filipino films are appraised by critics and studied by scholars and academics (e.g., Chua et al., 2014; Tolentino, 2014, 2016; Campos, 2016; Deocampo, 2022; Capino, 2023).   The hegemony of realism and the masculine viewpoint has marginalized the study and critical examination of women both in front and behind the camera. Marilou Diaz-Abaya remains the only female filmmaker given serious attention by critics even though there has been a significant rise in the number of accomplished women directors in the past twenty years, e.g., Olivia Lamasan, Rory Quintos, Joyce Bernal, Cathy Garcia-Sampana, Antoinette Jadaone, and Irene Villamor1. On the other hand, the study of women onscreen has been mostly limited to the character stereotypes in countless melodramas, such as the girl next door, the submissive wife, the suffering mother, or the object of male sexual desire (e.g., E. Reyes, 1989, pp. 43-49; Tolentino, 2000; Gutierrez, 2009; J. J. David, 2015; Sanchez, 2015; Deocampo, 2023b, 2023c). As such, there is an obvious lack of female figures for film scholars and artists to study, read, engage with, or regard as role models or innovators. It was Luce Irigaray (1993) who suggested that a “fully realized alterity” for womanhood and femininity can be achieved through the conceptualization of “a female imaginary and a female symbolic” including the recognition of a “maternal genealogy” (p. 71). This translates to a disengagement from the dominant discourse and the construction of a maternal genealogy, i.e., a matriline or “mother line” in Philippine cinema.   In this essay, I address Linda Nochlin’s question by shedding light on the existence of a feminine film tradition that has operated alongside and, in many ways, affected the dominant masculine narrative. Adopting Luce Irigaray’s philosophy as a framework, my essay aims to establish the groundwork for recognizing a “female imaginary and

ABSTRACT: The essay examines the transformative power of cinema in narrating and inspiring revolutionary movements, focusing on the Filipinos’ struggle against various colonial and authoritarian regimes. Utilizing Getino and Solanas’ notion of “Third Cinema,” the essay explores how film transcends mere entertainment to become a potent tool for social change and political enlightenment. By surveying key cinematic works that depict the Philippine revolutions against Spanish, American, and Japanese colonization, as well as the resistance against martial law, the essay highlights the unique capacity of cinema to educate, mobilize, and galvanize oppressed communities. It underscores the enduring relevance of revolutionary storytelling in film as a catalyst for awareness and action, fostering a deeper understanding of historical and contemporary struggles for freedom and justice.  Keywords: Philippine cinema, Third cinema, postcolonialism, film genres, martial law    May kasabihang nagsasaad na ang kasaysayan ay sinusulat ng nagwagi sa digmaan. Sa larangan ng pelikula, ang kasaysayan ay nasa kamay ng may hawak ng kamera. Gayon nga ang nangyari sa ating kasaysayan ng pelikula. Nang lumabas sa New York Times ang balitang sinakop ng Estados Unidos ang Pilipinas at nagkaroon ng sagupaan sa iba’t ibang sulok ng bayan, agad gumawa ng kanilang istorya ang mga alagad ng Edison Films. Gumawa agad ang Edison Films ng kanilang mga pelikula ng mga engkwentro sa pagitan ng mga Amerikano at Pilipino, mga pelikulang hango sa kanilang imahinasyon. Kailangang ipalabas agad sa mga manonood ang tagumpay ng Amerika sa ibayong dagat, kaya di na hinintay na makarating sa Pilipinas ang mga cameraman ng Edison Films. Ginawa ang maiikling pelikulang ito sa New Jersey.  Sa mga pelikulang ito, matagumpay na iwinawagayway ang bandila ng Estados Unidos. At ang mga sundalong Pilipino ay laging talunan. Bagsak ang kanilang bandila na isang kapirasong tela lamang na mahirap uriin dahil hindi pa alam ng mga Amerikano kung ano ang itsura ng bandila ng bayang sinasakop nila. Ang ganitong istorya ang karaniwang takbo ng mga maiikling pelikulang Edison, gaya ng Advance of Kansas Volunteers at Caloocan (White, 1899), U.S. Troops and Red Cross in the Trenches at Caloocan (White, 1899), Filipinos Retreat from Trenches (White, 1899), at Capture of Trenches at Candaba (White 1899).  May istorya ring nilangoy ng isang Col. Funston ang ilog sa Bagbag, isang maliwanag na pagmamalaki ng kagitingan ng sundalong Amerikano (White, “Col. Funstan [sic] Swimming the Baglag [sic] River,” 1899). Kinunan din ang mga sundalong Amerikano na lulan sa malalaking bapor patungong Pilipinas – at ang tinaguriang “navy” ni Emilio Aguinaldo na lulan sa maliliit na bangka (White, “Troop Ships for the Philippines,” 1898; “Aguinaldo’s Navy,” 1900). Minaliit ang Pilipino, pinalabas na talunan sa kathang pelikula.  Nang matutunan ng Pilipino ang kamera at paggawa ng pelikula, nagkaroon ng pagkakataon ang Pilipino na ilahad ang kanyang istorya. Isa sa mga pangunahing direktor na Pilipino noong dekada 1920 ay si Julian Manansala. Kung titingnan ang mga titulo ng kanyang mga pelikula, mukhang tinalakay niya ang mga isyung mahalaga sa bayan noong panahong iyon. Ang kanyang unang pelikula na pinamagatang Patria Amore (1929) ay naging kontrobersyal sapagkat tinalakay nito ang mga pang-aabusong naranasan ng mga Pilipino sa kamay ng mga Kastila. Nabahala diumano ang komunidad ng mga Kastila at sinubukan nilang ipatigil ang pagpapalabas nito ngunit hindi sila pinagbigyan ng korte (Salumbides, 1952, p. 15) Sa kasamaang-palad ay walang kopya ng pelikulang ito, kaya walang masasabi tungkol sa nilalaman ng pelikula at ng kalidad nito.  Mula noon, hindi na napigil ang pagsasapelikula ng mga istorya, damdamin, at pangarap ng Pilipino. Sa listahan ng mga pelikula ng iba’t ibang kompanya sa ating bayan na ginawa ng Society of Filipino Archivists for Film (SOFIA) para malaman ang kalagayan ng mga pelikulang Pilipino, umabot sa mahigit 3,000 pelikula ang filmograpiya. Iba’t ibang uri ng pelikula ang nasa listahan, iba’t ibang genre. May mga kopyang mapapanood pa; ngunit ang kalagayan ng ibang pelikula ay nakalulungkot. Ang iba’y hindi na kumpleto; ang iba’y masama na ang kondisyon at amoy suka na (ang tinatawag na “vinegar syndrome”); ang iba’y wala na.   Bukod sa listahan ng SOFIA, tiningnan ko rin ang URIAN, ang antolohiya ng Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino, na may filmograpiya ng mga pelikulang ginawa sa bawat dekada, mula dekada ’70 hanggang ’90.   Kung pag-aaralan ang pelikula at ang pakikipaghamok ng Pilipino para sa kalayaan at pagbubuo ng isang bayan, marami-rami ring halimbawa ang magagamit. Maaaring ikategorya ang mga pelikulang ito sa sumusunod: 1) panahon ng kolonisasyon sa ilalim ng Espanya hanggang sa pumasok ang Estados Unidos at pinamahalaan ang bayan; 2) panahon ng Pangalawang Digmaang Pandaigdig at mga sumunod na dekada; 3) panahon ng diktadurya sa ilalim ni Marcos; at 4) mga pelikulang tinatalakay sa kasalukuyang panahon ang isyu ng kalayaan, bayan, di pagkakaisa, at kawalan ng katarungan.   Unang Kategorya  Ang unang kategorya ay may kinalaman sa panahon ng kolonisasyon sa ilalim ng Espanya, at patuloy na paghahari ng Estados Unidos. Mula sa mga pelikulang LVN, kabilang sa kategoryang ito ang Dagohoy (1953), sa direksyon ni Gregorio Fernandez, at Lapu-Lapu (1955), sa direksyon ni Lamberto Avellana. Noong dekada ’60, ginawa naman ni Gerardo de Leon ang Noli Me Tangere (1961) at El Filibusterismo (1962), ang kanyang pagsasapelikula ng dalawang nobela ni Jose Rizal. Mula sa dekada ’70, maaring isama ang Ganito Kami Noon, Paano Kayo Ngayon? (1976), sa direksyon ni Eddie Romero. Noong sentenyal ng kamatayan ni Rizal ay ginawa ang Rizal sa Dapitan (1997), sa direksyon ni Tikoy Aguiluz; Jose Rizal (1998), sa direksyon ni Marilou Diaz-Abaya; Bayaning 3rd World (1999), sa direksyon ni Mike de Leon. Sa mga pelikulang mula sa bagong milenyo, mabibilang ang Heneral Luna (2015) at Goyo: Ang Batang Heneral (2018), kapwa sa direksyon ni Jerrold Tarog.  Pangalawang Kategorya  Pagkatapos ng Pangalawang Digmaang Pandaigdig, di kataka-takang ilang pelikula ang ginawa na tumatalakay sa panahong iyon. Ilan sa mga pelikulang ito ay ginawa ng LVN. Tinatag ang LVN noong taong 1938, ngunit natigil ang produksyon nang mag-umpisa ang digmaan. Bumangon ang LVN at ilan pang kompanya ng pelikula mula sa abo ng giyera noong kalagitnaan ng dekada ’40. Ilan sa mga pelikulang ginawa ng LVN

ABSTRACT: This paper tackles the role and contribution of the agenda for new humanities research in light of current initiatives to redefine the research agenda in Philippine universities. Specifically, it answers the following questions: What constitutes the new humanities? What is their rationale as domains of knowledge and as modes of inquiry? How do the new humanities contribute to redefining the university research agenda in the Philippine context? Lastly, how can communication studies and related fields insert themselves in the supposed updated typologies and definitions? Therefore, this paper explores the possibilities for the new humanities to balance the depersonalizing influence of the new technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and how these may be relevant to mapping new prospects for communication and media research.   Keywords: new humanities, research agenda, communication studies, domains of knowledge, modes of inquiry  Introduction In June 2019, the Asian Media Information Centre (AMIC) convened a conference entitled “Communication, Technology and New Humanism.” Held a few months before the COVID-19 pandemic started, the prevailing concern of researchers and practitioners of communication and media at that time was the widespread impact of the Fourth Industrial Revolution – particularly, the technologies of communication and information that it spawned – upon human society. There had been since a proposal to promote discussions on the New Humanism that could assist scholars in navigating the contours of research in the discipline. Additionally, the conference brought to light the pressing need for a new world communication order that will revitalize traditional or classical humanism if a new one is not yet at hand.   Before and after the pandemic, it was established that the massive shifts in human consciousness today have been due to the major, if not the sole, contribution of technology and communication in our lives. What we once considered mere tools or media of communication became the driving force of contemporary life. They have become the major instruments of social interaction. And as they have re-ordered our way of apprehending (or even operating within this world), they have created a new episteme, a new way of knowing the world. We are at this juncture of history partly because communication and media have become so greatly revolutionized by technological advances that possess the capacity to create a new communication culture.  Perhaps the oldest program of learning that came down to us from the early days of Western civilization is what is now collectively called the Humanities. We traditionally associate it with the old program of studies offered when the first universities were established in Medieval Europe. Universities such as the University of Bologna, University of Paris, University of Oxford, and University of Salamanca were the first to offer what was called the Classical A.B. or Bachelor of Arts, which was designed to educate those who would like to pursue higher studies of theology and the wealthy class who would like to attain higher learning during the Middle Ages. The medieval university curriculum consisted initially of the curriculum called the trivium, which consisted of grammar, rhetoric, and logic. If we examine trivium closely, we can say that the subjects are ordered for teaching competence in communication. This curriculum constituted the core components of what we refer to today as the communication discipline. Eventually, the trivium expanded to become quadrivium or the subjects pertaining to music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy, which, like the trivium, are actually “languages” that were utilized in the Middle Ages to acquire higher forms of knowledge. The core of Medieval university education was learning the “languages” needed for higher learning. This early emphasis on languages will be foundational to the communication discipline.  The traditional or classical humanities are, true to their name, consisting of foundational knowledge that allows the learner to understand the complexities of personal life and social and political institutions around him/her. Ellie Chambers (2001) further describes traditional/classical humanism as follows:  Traditionally, the avowed aim of humanities study has been to prepare people to participate in social and political life as knowledgeable, impartial, and tolerant individuals …They encouraged all forms of expression, especially the arts, and also the development of what were regarded as the quintessentially human attributes of reason, imagination, and aesthetic sensibility – by their very nature, ‘goods’ for society no less than for (elite) individuals. Such ideas still inform traditional quality-of-life justifications for the study of a broad arts/humanities curriculum, embracing art, classical studies, culture (including forms of social and political life), drama, history, languages, law, literature, music, philosophy, and religion. (p. 3)  Traditional or classical humanism, as intuited in the Chambers passage, is centered on reason, imagination, and aesthetics and is deeply interiorized in approach. The individual is invited to come to a self-understanding to navigate the expectations of the social world. However, it cannot be denied that classical humanism has been an individual means to social ends; it aims to examine society and its values through the lens of individual worldviews.   Communication and Humanities In so far as classical humanism is about language and expression, the earliest conception of communication as a field of study had been humanistic in emphasis. The oldest communication theory, Aristotle’s Rhetoric, concerned how an individual could produce excellent public speeches in ancient Greece. The rhetorical methods of logos (logical design), pathos (audience impact), and ethos (source credibility) are as relevant today as they were during the classical antiquity of the Greek civilization. These confer on the speaker and listener the ethical responsibility of sifting through public speeches and how they deploy argumentation and reasoning.  Through the centuries, rhetoric never really went out of fashion. In fact, recently, it has been extended into a new approach to understanding persuasive communication. Rhetoric was adopted as a core subject in the early mass communication programs and became part of the early curricula of journalism and broadcasting. Rhetoric is usually “theorized,” according to Robert Craig (1999), as a “practical art of discourse” (p. 135). He adds that Rhetoric “is useful for explaining why our participation in discourse, especially public discourse, is