Fourteen student delegates from the UST Faculty of Arts and Letters participated in the 15th d’CATCH Video Exchange Program hosted by the Faculty of Communication of the Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand held from January 21 to 25, 2018. This is the first time that the Philippine delegation to the prestigious annual video exchange program was exclusively composed of students under the Communication Arts program. The students were accompanied by UST EdTech Center Communication and Media Broadcast Unit Head Asst. Prof. Faye Martel Abugan and Asst. Prof. Gwenetha Pusta, who both teach at the Faculty of Arts and Letters.
The workshop, held at Chulalongkorn University, was participated in by 68 student delegates and nine faculty members from Thailand, Indonesia, China, Philippines and Japan. The intercultural groups met for the first time and screened their videos followed by discussions about each country’s video.
The next days were then spent on conceptualizing and producing a
collaborative video made up of each of the country’s video. The event culminated with the Video Screening and symposium on January 25, 2018.
The theme for this year’s program was “Next” which actually means the manifestation of ‘What’s next for media, relationships, alternative, food and lifestyle.’ The participants, who represented the Universitas Pembangunan Nasional Veteran, Yogyakarta, Indonesia; Communication University of China, Nanjing, China; Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand; and the University of Santo Tomas, Manila, Philippines, were divided into groups of five with four members each.
For the UST participants, the Arts and Letters students worked on their videos on a three-month production and a two-week post-production schedule.
UST’s entries were: Media (Double Check), Relationship (Balikbayan), Alternative (Indie go), Food (#Foodstagram), and Lifestyle (Pasahero). The entries delved on topics such as fake news, the use of technology to connect families of OFWs, the message of indie films to their viewers, how social media changes the way restaurateurs sell their food, and the hectic life of the Filipino commuter.
The UST student participants were: Third Year students Ysobela Abugan, Antoine Kyle Balo, Eunice Batanes, Stephanie Laine Bendero, Danah Famela Narrido, Larissa Rose Olimpo, Rico Immanuel Pineda, Jhudiel Clare Sosa, and Candace Umbay. The Fourth Year students were: Jasmine Culianan, Danica Fernando, Patricia Mendoza, and Ayla-Rhey Salapera.
D’CATCH, which stands for deCentralized Asian Transnational Challenges, is a practical international media literacy project among the students of the participating countries.
The first phase is done in the country of the participating group, as project proponents recruit participants and produce videos following the prescribed theme and topics for the year.
