UP Tacloban’s COMM 10 (Critical Perspectives in Communication) students attended Boogsh! Bawal ang Shiminet: A Symposium on Digital Literacy hosted by the Division of HUmanities on 13 November 2024 at the AS Conference Hall. Part of the GE(n) Z Ideas Festival, a series intended to enrich students experience of and engagement with the General Education (GE), the symposium featured talks by digital communication scholar Michelle Gay Nidoy and filmmaker Michael Lacanilao.
Nidoy delivered a remote talk on the emergence of YouTube content creators as political actors in the 2022 presidential elections in the Philippines, particularly their role as “brand influencers” to control narratives, rebrand Marcos, and attack opponents, creating an alternative information source. Nidoy, who is a lecturer at UP Tacloban College, has an Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree in Digital Communication Leadership (DCLead) from the Faculty of Social Sciences of Paris London University of Salzburg, Austria and the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences and Solvay Business School of Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Belgium.
Lacanilao presented and discussed his thought-provoking film “A Brief History of the Escherian Stairwell” (2024), which chronicles the creation and viral spread of the myth of the Escherian Stairwell, a non-existent architectural marvel that captivated millions. Themes examined in this work include the nature of belief and knowledge and the complexities of discerning truth from falsity in our increasingly digital world. Lacanilao, who is Bacolod-based, holds degrees in Philosophy and Film. His feature-length editing credits include “Hinabing Pakpak” (2018) and “12 Weeks” (2022). He consulted on Tuhon for the 2024 Montañosa Film Festival and he is working on his feature film “Future X Future”, which was included in the 2023 Cinemalaya Film Lab.
