From local to global: Plaridel to focus on media and communications research in the global south

In 2024, Plaridel journal will celebrate its 20th year as the country’s only media and communications journal. In celebration of this milestone and as a reflection of its growing role in international communication and media studies, the UP College of Mass Communication has renamed the journal:

Plaridel Journal of Communication, Media, and Society.

The change in Plaridel’s title reflects its forward movement to become the leading media and communications journal in the global south, particularly from Asia and the Philippines.

Plaridel was first published in 2004 as an academic journal focused on publishing faculty research. Later, it began accepting articles on media and communication studies from within and outside the university. As early as 2011, Plaridel acknowledged its emerging status as a venue for international scholars to publish their research. It noted the severe underrepresentation of published communication and media research from Southeast Asia and the broader Asian region. Thus, the journal’s goal shifted to becoming a significant venue for publishing original communication and media research in Asia.

To realize this objective, Plaridel established its International Advisory Board (IAB) in 2012. The IAB is composed of leading academicians and researchers from international academic institutions. Matched with its migration to the digital platform in the same year and consistent with UP’s mission of making knowledge reasonably accessible to the public, Plaridel has attracted and published original research from Asia and other continents.

Scholars from other countries have contributed either as authors or issue editors. Around 35% of all refereed articles published in Plaridel since 2014 were by non-Filipinos. The journal receives 32% of its submissions via ScholarOne from foreign scholars investigating media and related political and social issues in their country. In addition, Plaridel’s website shows that an average of 20% of users in the past three years are researchers from 134 countries, mostly scholars from the US, Indonesia, China, Canada, Germany, India, Thailand, UK, Australia, Singapore, Mexico, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, Hong Kong.

Plaridel Journal is indexed in Scopus and EBSCO Information Services beginning with its 2018 Issue.  In 2016, it was included in the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) of Clarivate Analytics.  A year later, in 2017, the journal was accepted for indexing by the ASEAN Citation Index (ACI).