In partnership with the Asia Pacific Public Relations Research and Education Network (APPRREN), the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) conducted the two-day international research symposium entitled, “7th International APPRREN Conference,” on February 8 to 9, via Zoom.
Bringing the theme “Mediating Power and Influence Through Communication: Toward Peaceable Communities,” APPRREN Conference was designed to provide communication and public relations (PR) scholars and practitioners a chance to reflect and mediate in today’s current status quo.
The conference presented fundamental research and discussions from communication and PR scholars and invited speakers, panelists, and discussants across the Asia-Pacific Region and around the globe.
Kickstarting the international event, PUP president Dr. Manuel Muhi delivered an opening speech seeking the help of various sectors to unite against the threat of the pandemic on peacebuilding. He also highlighted how international communities should ensure that what they do on the macro scale should reach the communities on the ground level.
Moreover, The PUP College of Communication (COC) dean Dr. Hemmady S. Mora left a short speech congratulating the researchers for participating in the conference, stating that they are the cornerstones of peace as the world undergoes a “season of testing” due to several ongoing global crises.
The researchers in the symposium covered different topics including:
Engaging with diverse, isolated, and marginalized communities;
Sustainable development and social responsibility;
The Role of Communication Technologies, Formats and Language in Peace Building and Conflict Resolution;
Communication, Human Rights, and International Humanitarian Law and Documentation and Representation of War, Conflict, and Peace;
Dynamics of Miscommunication, Propaganda, and Persuasion; and
Government Communication
𝗡𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗣𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗲
Under the context of the Mindanao crisis, Ms. Myla Leguro of the Mindanao Peacebuilding Institute (MPI) stressed the importance of communication to foster peace on conflict lines.
She emphasized the need for people to interact with and strive to create a safe space for people from conflict lines, like the Muslims in Mindanao, in order to help in the process of healing and conflict transformation.
Leguro also called for recentralizing communication in achieving peace, citing reasons why peace talks, as well as other forms of peaceful interactions in conflicts, can help in avoiding fatal situations.
On the other hand, former United Nations (UN) Technical Director and University of the Philippines (UP) Mass Communication dean Dr. Delia Barcelona expounded peace through national development by focusing on sustainable development goal #16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions.
She recounted her experience as a UN agent in the poorest sectors around the world, recalling the sight of children without food and water, while the threat of bombs dropping from the skies kept them awake at night.
“You know, when I remember some of those experiences I’ve had with the poorest of the poor communities in the world. You know my response to that big question is really, “Should we start with development or should we start with peace?” She posed to the participants.
The former UN technical officer answered the question through her experience during Typhoon Yolanda, exemplifying the difficulty of obtaining education and other vital necessities for development when the victims already struggle to find sufficient food and water to survive.
“So, I am really torn because you know, you could look at developed countries, like even America, supposedly, and Europe. You know, a lot of developed countries have their own share of homelessness and poverty, out-of-school [youth], teen pregnancy.
So I think, maybe there is a better chance to deal with [a] crisis if you have a larger context of development rather than the other way around, but still, they have to be hand-in-hand; You can’t, it’s like you can’t have one without the other, that’s all I can say. They cannot run in parallel, they have to be intertwined and interconnected, and interlaced so they have [a] better impact,” she elaborated when asked about her thoughts about peace and development.
To that note, Dr. Elena Dolea, deputy head of Department in Humanities and Law at Bournemouth University, ended the event, as the final key speaker, by tackling the aftermaths of war, calamities, and other crises in communities—displacement.
Emphasizing the depth of emotion and psychological trauma displacement brings to its victims, she pressed on the need for more interdisciplinary studies on the effect of displacement on the psyche of people.
In times when peace isn’t easily attained, Dolea firmly stated that scholars should put more attention to the stories of migrants, expatriates, and refugees and study how they could better integrate into other communities despite the differences and emotional baggage they carry—all for building an inclusive, sustainable, and peaceful community.
𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗧𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗣𝗮𝗻𝗲𝗹 𝗦𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻
Dr. Sean Chaidaroon of the National University of Singapore, Dr. Jenny Hou of the Queensland University of Technology, and Prof. Maureen Taylor of the University of Technology Sydney spearheaded the special teaching panel session on “Teaching Strategic Communication for PeaceBuilding.”
In the teaching panel session, the three panel-speakers shared their insights on the reasons to teach and convince students, administrators, and institutions to study strategic communication for peacebuilding, as well as the ways other countries teach this field.
Hou highlighted that communication and public relation (PR) professionals need to speak about the core functions or core impacts of PR on their students.
“When we talk about [the] harmonious relationship of peacebuilding, we always focus on the organizational level, so it is important to extend beyond organizational focus to the social level,” Hou said.
Meanwhile, Taylor seconded Hou’s assertion that professionals should need to help their students to understand the role of PR in fostering international-level and global citizenship.
On the other hand, Chaidaroon shared his experience as he witnessed the students in his hometown achieving peacebuilding through theater to start social change.
“The students love that [theater] because you know, they love taking things in action, and you know try to use theater for peacebuilding [for] resolving conflict,” he argued.
The special teaching panel session is a tradition in the APPRREN research symposium every year to give emphasis on the concept of teaching, as it is an integral part of what the professionals are doing. Moreover, APPRREN believes that this session helps to translate research and encourages the next generation of strategic communication and public relations students to conduct more research that is pertinent to their lives and society.
APPRREN Conference was attended by delegates from 43 universities across 10 countries in the Asia-Pacific region and around the world.
APPRREN was created to bring academic scholars together in the region, enhance their scholarly endeavors, and foster research partnerships. Additionally, the network is designed to promote communication on ways to study and teach public relations in all of its forms in different individual contexts.
Article: Joseph Villena and Marc Nathaniel Servo
Graphics: Criselda Lizada
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