[Picture]
Taken during my academic visit at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, 2022
Karl Patrick Regala Mendoza (b. 1993) is a Filipino communication scholar whose work bridges communication, sociology, and political science to understand how trust, legitimacy, and care are mediated in contemporary public life. He was born and raised in Santa Maria, Bulacan, Philippines, to Clarinda R. Mendoza, an elementary school teacher in a private Catholic school, and Edgardo S. Mendoza, a marine engineer whose work often took him overseas. Growing up largely in the company and guidance of his mother—whom he regards as a devout Catholic, an intellectual, a friend, and a mentor—Karl encountered teaching, reflection, and inquiry as part of ordinary life. She was his first teacher and the person who most deeply inspired him not only to teach, but to ask questions about how people live together.
Because his mother worked in Catholic education, Karl was also formed within that environment. He completed his elementary schooling at St. Paul School of Sta. Maria and his secondary education at St. Paul College of Bocaue. An only child in a working-class community, he learned early what it meant to initiate relationships — often seeking out neighbors’ children simply to find someone to play with. In school, he gravitated toward the social sciences, consistently excelling in social studies and history while struggling significantly with mathematics, often needing tutoring just to pass. These experiences quietly shaped his later sensitivity to uneven learning conditions and the pressures students carry. Outside the classroom, he took swimming lessons, played table tennis, and developed an early love for cooking — preparing his first Filipino dish independently at the age of seven.
In high school, Karl served as a Citizenship Advancement Training (CAT) officer with the rank of Major and the designation of 1st Battalion Commander, leading all male fourth-year students in his cohort. Despite this leadership role, he looks back on his academic standing as modest, and he made a quiet promise to himself to do better in college. A dramatic incident during a cooking class in his third year — when an oven exploded in front of him after a gas leak — left him unharmed apart from singed arm hair. He remembers this event with humility, as one of several moments when life reminded him of its precarity.
Karl later pursued a Bachelor of Arts, Major in Consular and Diplomatic Affairs, at De La Salle–College of Saint Benilde in 2009. Encouraged by his mother, who was drawn to the program’s multidisciplinary orientation, and not having taken the entrance examinations of the Philippines’ “big four” universities, Benilde became the path that opened for him. In retrospect, he considers it a gift. There, he came to recognize both his academic strengths and the reality that success is shaped not only by hard work, but also by timing, luck, and privilege.
After graduating in 2012, Karl immediately began a Master of Arts in Political Science. Balancing part-time work with postgraduate study meant progress was uneven, and he often felt he lacked a clear sense of direction. That uncertainty shifted when he was awarded a doctoral scholarship at the University of Canterbury in Aotearoa New Zealand, where he completed his PhD from 2019 to 2023. His time there was intellectually and personally formative, deepening his commitment to reflexive scholarship, ethical responsibility, and care-centered pedagogy.
Karl is now an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Research at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP), an Airlangga Postdoctoral (APD) Fellow at the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Airlangga in Indonesia, and Vice-Chair of the Emerging Scholars Network of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR). He is also the Founding Convener of the Trust, Culture & Publics Network (TCPN), a national and regional collective advancing interdisciplinary inquiry on trust, legitimacy, and democratic life across the Global South.
His scholarship advances the concept of trust cultures — the moral and cultural frameworks through which publics interpret sincerity, authority, and belonging — and extends this toward broader theorization of relational sovereignty, moral order, and recognition in postcolonial societies. Drawing from qualitative and interpretive traditions, he situates trust not simply as an attitude but as a lived social practice shaped by history, power, vulnerability, and expectation.
In 2025, Karl led TCPN’s inaugural national roundtable, “Reclaiming the Public: Trust, Culture & Democracy in the Global South,” which brought together regional scholars and practitioners in an effort to deepen dialogue across academic, journalistic, and civic communities.
Karl completed his PhD at the University of Canterbury under the UC Doctoral Scholarship for Students with Disabilities and received the Judith Ensor Prize for Students with a Specific Learning Difficulty. His doctoral work reinterpreted Piotr Sztompka’s notion of trust cultures through an analysis of the Dengvaxia vaccine scandal in the Philippines, forming the basis of his book Navigating Trust, Journalism, and Health in the Age of Populism (Taylor & Francis, 2025).
Diagnosed with ADHD – Inattentive Type in 2014, Karl’s neurodivergence shapes both his scholarship and his pedagogy. He draws from lived experience to cultivate inclusive, reflexive, care-based learning environments grounded in relational ethics and dignity. For him, scholarship is not only the work of analysis but also the moral labour of building spaces where people feel safe to think, question, and belong.
Karl moved to Pasay City in 2016, where he now resides with his mother, while his father remains mostly in Santa Maria, which they regularly visit. His publications appear in the International Journal of Communication, Media, Culture & Society, Communication Teacher, and other venues. He continues to build critical and caring intellectual communities through TCPN and across Southeast Asia, mentoring emerging researchers working at the intersections of media, marginality, and democratic life.
Beyond formal academic work, Karl remains grounded in the simple practices that formed him — cooking, conversation, friendship, and the ongoing effort to understand how people build and sustain trust in imperfect worlds.
Because his mother worked in Catholic education, Karl was also formed within that environment. He completed his elementary schooling at St. Paul School of Sta. Maria and his secondary education at St. Paul College of Bocaue. An only child in a working-class community, he learned early what it meant to initiate relationships — often seeking out neighbors’ children simply to find someone to play with. In school, he gravitated toward the social sciences, consistently excelling in social studies and history while struggling significantly with mathematics, often needing tutoring just to pass. These experiences quietly shaped his later sensitivity to uneven learning conditions and the pressures students carry. Outside the classroom, he took swimming lessons, played table tennis, and developed an early love for cooking — preparing his first Filipino dish independently at the age of seven.
In high school, Karl served as a Citizenship Advancement Training (CAT) officer with the rank of Major and the designation of 1st Battalion Commander, leading all male fourth-year students in his cohort. Despite this leadership role, he looks back on his academic standing as modest, and he made a quiet promise to himself to do better in college. A dramatic incident during a cooking class in his third year — when an oven exploded in front of him after a gas leak — left him unharmed apart from singed arm hair. He remembers this event with humility, as one of several moments when life reminded him of its precarity.
Karl later pursued a Bachelor of Arts, Major in Consular and Diplomatic Affairs, at De La Salle–College of Saint Benilde in 2009. Encouraged by his mother, who was drawn to the program’s multidisciplinary orientation, and not having taken the entrance examinations of the Philippines’ “big four” universities, Benilde became the path that opened for him. In retrospect, he considers it a gift. There, he came to recognize both his academic strengths and the reality that success is shaped not only by hard work, but also by timing, luck, and privilege.
After graduating in 2012, Karl immediately began a Master of Arts in Political Science. Balancing part-time work with postgraduate study meant progress was uneven, and he often felt he lacked a clear sense of direction. That uncertainty shifted when he was awarded a doctoral scholarship at the University of Canterbury in Aotearoa New Zealand, where he completed his PhD from 2019 to 2023. His time there was intellectually and personally formative, deepening his commitment to reflexive scholarship, ethical responsibility, and care-centered pedagogy.
Karl is now an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Research at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP), an Airlangga Postdoctoral (APD) Fellow at the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Airlangga in Indonesia, and Vice-Chair of the Emerging Scholars Network of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR). He is also the Founding Convener of the Trust, Culture & Publics Network (TCPN), a national and regional collective advancing interdisciplinary inquiry on trust, legitimacy, and democratic life across the Global South.
His scholarship advances the concept of trust cultures — the moral and cultural frameworks through which publics interpret sincerity, authority, and belonging — and extends this toward broader theorization of relational sovereignty, moral order, and recognition in postcolonial societies. Drawing from qualitative and interpretive traditions, he situates trust not simply as an attitude but as a lived social practice shaped by history, power, vulnerability, and expectation.
In 2025, Karl led TCPN’s inaugural national roundtable, “Reclaiming the Public: Trust, Culture & Democracy in the Global South,” which brought together regional scholars and practitioners in an effort to deepen dialogue across academic, journalistic, and civic communities.
Karl completed his PhD at the University of Canterbury under the UC Doctoral Scholarship for Students with Disabilities and received the Judith Ensor Prize for Students with a Specific Learning Difficulty. His doctoral work reinterpreted Piotr Sztompka’s notion of trust cultures through an analysis of the Dengvaxia vaccine scandal in the Philippines, forming the basis of his book Navigating Trust, Journalism, and Health in the Age of Populism (Taylor & Francis, 2025).
Diagnosed with ADHD – Inattentive Type in 2014, Karl’s neurodivergence shapes both his scholarship and his pedagogy. He draws from lived experience to cultivate inclusive, reflexive, care-based learning environments grounded in relational ethics and dignity. For him, scholarship is not only the work of analysis but also the moral labour of building spaces where people feel safe to think, question, and belong.
Karl moved to Pasay City in 2016, where he now resides with his mother, while his father remains mostly in Santa Maria, which they regularly visit. His publications appear in the International Journal of Communication, Media, Culture & Society, Communication Teacher, and other venues. He continues to build critical and caring intellectual communities through TCPN and across Southeast Asia, mentoring emerging researchers working at the intersections of media, marginality, and democratic life.
Beyond formal academic work, Karl remains grounded in the simple practices that formed him — cooking, conversation, friendship, and the ongoing effort to understand how people build and sustain trust in imperfect worlds.