The Centre for South East Asia, in collaboration with the Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions, the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, and the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, is excited to host a talk by Pia Ranada, Marshall McLuhan Fellow and head of community for Rappler.
This talk will centre around the following question: “How building journalism around community can help it survive: with the rise of AI, the unreliability of big tech as platforms for news distribution, and increasing polarization, can a focus on community building help save journalism?”
Pia will discuss efforts in her newsroom to bring the work of journalism to readers and citizens in new, impactful ways. From a membership program, to AI-driven public consultations, to a social media platform run by journalists, these initiatives in the Philippines aim to build trust between journalists and the public they serve, while helping newsrooms sustain their operations and weather economic and political pressures. All are welcome and a light dinner provided.
About the Speaker:
Pia Ranada is the incumbent Marshall McLuhan Fellow and head of community for Rappler. Previously, she was an investigative journalist and senior reporter for Rappler best known for her coverage of the Duterte administration when she was assigned to cover the presidential beat. As Community Lead, she is now responsible for linking journalism with communities for impact and action. As Community Lead, she is now responsible for linking journalism with communities for impact and action. The Embassy of Canada in the Philippines awarded her the Marshall McLuhan Fellowship in November for her “exceptional commitment to journalism, using the craft to build citizens with critical information that can impact societal change” and her commitment to inform, “to enable meaningful public engagement on issues in service of the public, and illustrate how investigations, facts, and transparency can ensure meaningful democratic accountability.”
About the Fellowship:
The Marshall McLuhan Fellowship is the Embassy of Canada’s flagship public diplomacy initiative in the Philippines. Launched in 1997, it is part of our advocacy to encourage responsible journalism in the Philippines with the belief that a strong media is essential to a strong democratic society.
Every year, the Manila-based Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) assists the Embassy in choosing a Filipino journalist whose work has contributed to positive changes in the social arena or at least has raised the level of public discourse in a relevant issue usually concerning governance and human rights.
The program provides the winner with a two-week speaking and familiarization tour of Canada. This will be an opportunity for the Fellow to interact with media counterparts, and to discuss significant current issues on governance with Canadian government officials, academic interlocutors and members of civil society. The Fellow will also have the chance to speak at the McLuhan Salons at the University of Toronto. Upon returning to the Philippines, a series of forums is organized by the Embassy to be held in five key cities around the country to enable the journalist to share experiences in Canada with students of communication and members of the local and community media.
Aside from contributing to good governance by raising transparency in the public arena, the McLuhan Fellowship also aims to create in the long-term a critical group of influential media personalities with good knowledge and interest in Canadian issues or at least the values Canada stands for: democracy, good governance, and human rights.
