The Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) provides a significant case for examining women’s media representation because it emerged from a decades-long peace process and continues to undergo post-conflict autonomous governance, making it one of the few contemporary contexts where peacebuilding, state formation, and media narratives are unfolding simultaneously. Despite women’s recognized role in peacebuilding, their representation in BARMM peacebuilding news remains underexamined, particularly in a setting where media narratives can shape the legitimacy and inclusivity of a newly established autonomous government, reflecting a broader gap in studies on women’s representation in peacebuilding journalism. This study addresses this gap by examining how women are represented in peacebuilding news in BARMM.
Using feminist content analysis, textual analysis, and key informant interviews, the study examined 257 peacebuilding news articles from MindaNews and Mindanao Times published from 2019 to 2024. The analysis was guided by a liberal feminist analysis of journalism’s concern with women’s visibility, voice, and equal recognition in public discourse, and supplemented by peace journalism’s emphasis on inclusive sourcing and broader representation of peacebuilding actors.
Findings show that women remain marginal in selected BARMM peacebuilding news. Women were absent from approximately two-thirds of article images, appeared in only 5.06 percent of headlines, and accounted for less than one-fifth of quoted sources. In terms of framing, women were most often represented in support roles, while portrayals of women as agents or leaders appeared frequently. Interviews suggest that women participate in different forms of peacebuilding work, including governance, technical implementation, mediation, community organizing, and grassroots initiatives; however, this study does not measure the actual scope or impact of women’s peacebuilding work in BARMM. Rather, it examines how selected news texts represent women within peacebuilding narratives.
The study concludes that BARMM peacebuilding journalism includes women selectively and unevenly. My interpretation is that newsrooms need to adopt more inclusive sourcing and framing practices, because when women’s perspectives are minimized, public understanding of peacebuilding becomes narrower, potentially sidelining community-level processes and voices that are crucial to sustaining long-term peace.

Journalism in Pampanga has evolved alongside political and economic transitions, technological developments, and changing audience behaviors. Anchored in the narratives of Pampanga-based journalists, this study investigated how news was socially constructed across five historical periods: (a) Journalism Censorship and Suppression (1972-1986); (b) Democratic Press Reconstruction and Expansion (1986-1999); (c) Disaster Journalism during Mt. Pinatubo Eruption (1990-1991); (d) Digital Transition (2000-2010); and (e) Platform-based Journalism (2010-present). This study examined how Pampanga-based journalists described news construction across five historical periods and identified continuities and changes in journalistic practice.
Using a qualitative narrative inquiry approach, data were gathered through in-depth interviews, archival materials, and documentary analysis involving Pampanga-based journalists. Thematic analysis was employed to identify recurring patterns and transformations in journalism practices. Findings showed shifts in news production technologies, audience engagement, and reporting routines across periods, while core journalistic values remained consistent. The study concludes that journalism in Pampanga is continuously reconstructed through historical, political, economic, and technological forces while maintaining its essential role in informing and serving the public. This study contributes to Philippine journalism history by documenting the historical development of provincial journalism through the narratives of Pampanga-based journalists and highlighting the role of provincial media in adapting to social and technological change.

This study investigates the intersecting identities of Muslim women community journalists in Marawi City. Using an intersectionality framework, it examines how gender, religion, ethnicity, and the geopolitical landscape shape the lived experiences of journalists in a high-stakes environment. Data was gathered through photovoice with four practitioners and interviews with experts across gender, human rights, and Meranaw culture. The findings indicate that journalism in Marawi is a continuous negotiation of identities where gender, religion, profession, ethnicity, and geographical and political landscape and history are performed as a strategic means of survival. The study concludes that the realities of women journalists cannot be understood through gender alone; rather, they are shaped by overlapping layers of identities. By highlighting these complexities, the research advocates for more nuanced, intersectional approaches to media studies in marginalized or conflict-affected regions.

This study explores how men's skincare advertisements on TikTok construct meanings of masculinity and self-care through textual and visual design elements. Drawing from Roland Barthes' semiotic framework and Stuart Hall's encoding perspective, the research analyzed ten men's skincare advertisements targeted at Filipino audiences to examine how recurring signs generate connotative meanings and broader cultural myths. The findings revealed that the advertisements consistently associate skincare with self-improvement, discipline, confidence, expertise, and responsibility, positioning grooming as a legitimate masculine practice rather than a cosmetic activity. These representations produced dominant myths of the modern Filipino man as someone who continuously optimizes himself, maintains his appearance without compromising his masculinity, and attains confidence through successful self-management. The study demonstrates how TikTok advertising functions not only as a promotional tool but also as a cultural mechanism that shapes and normalizes contemporary understandings of Filipino masculinity.

This study examines how the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) discursively constructs political legitimacy within the GRP–NDFP peace process (2016–2022) amidst systematic state-led delegitimation. Integrating van Leeuwen’s legitimation framework, Wodak’s Discourse-Historical Approach, and Gramscian hegemony theory, the study treats legitimacy as a relational, communicative struggle over the meaning of peace. Utilizing a qualitative discourse-analytic design, the research examines a purposive corpus of 60 official NDFP digital texts across eight historical phases and five genres. Findings reveal that the NDFP utilizes four principal legitimation strategies—moral evaluation, rationalization, authorization, and mythopoesis—to frame armed conflict as a structural response to systemic injustice. Realized through recurring argumentative topoi, these strategies perform a counter-hegemonic war of position, resisting state criminalization by asserting belligerent parity. The study proposes the Recursive Model of Counter-Hegemonic Legitimation, illustrating how marginalized actors employ digital counter-archives and semantic inversion to navigate repression and establish political intelligibility. Ultimately, the findings demonstrate that the peace process functioned as an ideological battleground, where official digital communication served as a critical site for contesting state authority and constructing revolutionary legitimacy in protracted conflict.