PHILIPPINE TELEVISION: THE EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGE, EPISODE TREATMENT AND PROGRAM FORMAT OF PROBE FROM 19TH CENTURY TO 21ST CENTURY
Presented to
DAISY LASTRILLA QUIMPO
Professor
In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the subject
PRACTICAL RESEARCH 1
By:
Damian, Anna Moscelle Ynzzafianne Z.
Ariola, Mark Julius R.
Siton, Patricia Jane P.
Llanto, Jeremie U.
Mangaliag, Renzo G.
Media Arts-11D
MARCH 2017
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We as a researchers want to take this opportunity to thank the following for helping us to accomplish our requirements for our research:
First is our all mighty God for guiding us in every chapter of our research.
Mrs. Daisy L. Quimpo for teaching and motivating us when we are doing the research.
Mrs. Janet D. Dionio our very own principal.
The students and teachers of QCHS who participated just for us to gathered data.
And last, our beloved parents and friends.
ABSTRACT
This study walks through the development of probe from its first airing in ABS-CBN in 1987 to its final broadcast in GMA in 2010. Using interviews and content analysis as methods, the researcher focuses on the changes in the language, episode treatment and program format of probe. The study asserts that the profit-driven nature of media was one of the primary factors that caused these changes.
Probe has been consistent in its high journalistic methods and its independence from political influences. But public affairs programs like Probe were always given the least priority in terms of programming as they provide the most risk and list monetary return to the television network.
This study found out that probe had constantly reinvented itself to cater to the demands of the audiences and the broadcast industry and to keep up with the events in the local socio-political sphere.
The calls for more research of the history of ground-breaking programs on Philippine Television. Such endeavour is precious not only for contributing to knowledge but also for taking learnings from history and improving the quality of programs produced.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Title Page1
Acknowledgement 2
Abstract3
Table of Contents4
CHAPTER 1THE PROBLEM
The Problem and Its Background 5-16
Statement of the Problem
Theoretical Framework
Conceptual Framework
Scope and Limitation
Importance of the Study
Definition of Terms
CHAPTER 2
Review of Related Literature 17-18
CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH AND METHODOLOGY
Research Design19-21
Population and Sample Size
Research Instrument Used
Approved Permit to Gather Data22-27
Questionnaire
Curriculum Vitae
References/ Bibliography
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
What is public interest, really? Are these words to be taken literally as matters that catch people’s attention? Observing the programming of almost every network in the Philippines, entertainment rules the primetime. Soap operates and other entertainment programs dominate the air waves, leaving nothing but garbage for the public’s minds that is supposed to be fed with knowledge and to genuinely inculcated with values. What is left with the people after watching a certain program?
News programs are no exception. Even the television primetime news put prime to entertainment. Showbiz stories serve as hook to the news programs; the news are diminished to controversial one-liners; and conflict without context becomes the nature of the stories. Sadly, the definition of public interest as the general welfare of the public has been distorted because of competition for audiences.
Historically, the field of mass communication was strengthened by law because of its role as the fourth estate— as gatekeeper of information and as provider of checks and balances to the government.
Media was never ideally created purely for the purpose of entertainment. Media, specifically the press, was created under the premises of informing in the public, and not making them indifferent, uninformed, misinformed, or shallow towards issues.
Before discussing the historical analysis, the researcher would first like to describe the nature of television broadcast from its early years.
The Early Years of Television Broadcast
Philippine television broadcast has its political roots. As early as the 1950s, Antonio Quirino, brother of the president and the re-electionist candidate Elpidio Quirino, saw the potential for television to be used as political propaganda.
Elpidio was running for a re-election bid, Antonio thought that “television would be his brothers secret weapon” (Del Mundo, 2003, p.6). In 1953, Antonio’s Alto Broadcasting System had its first broadcast.
Unfortunately, Elpidion failed to be re-elected and lost against Ramon Magsaysay. ABS then focused on the commercial success of the station, and for the later part of the 1950s and the early 1960s, other television stations emerged, after seeing the success of television broadcast as a industry.
It must be important to note, that in 1951, in the United States and in England, documentaries previously shown in the theatres have begun to penetrate television broadcast.
Philippine Television in the Martial Law Era
The 1980’s was a critical period for the Philippines. Then President Ferdinand Marcos was re-elected after a four-year term, but many Filipinos were getting disappointed with his incumbency. The Philippine economy was plunging and different factors like corruption in the government and overspreading led to public demonstrations and student protests.
On September 21, 1972, Marcos declared martial law, a state of emergency in which military authorities are given extraordinary powers to maintain order. The proclamation was a huge blow to the freedom of speech. Marcos Shut criticisms through different presidential decrees.
Television after Martial Law
Different media outfits regained ownership after Corazon Aquino Succeeded Marcos. For the media’s part, they felt that the grip on them was loosened. Television broadcast had pioneering programs now concentrating on political and social issues.
Statement of the Problem and Objectives
This study aims to answer the following questions:
What are the changes language, episode treatment, and format of probe?
What factors have caused these changes?
How does the political economy framework apply to these changes?
This study aims to:
Determine the changes in language used in Probe
Determine the experimentations in episode treatments
Determine the changes in format of Probe
Contextualize the changes in the Philippine economic, social and political sphere
Show how the commercial nature of Philippine broadcast industry affects the production of programs, specifically public affairs shows like Probe.
Significance of the Study
This study contributes to a written history of one of the most revolutionary programs in Philippine television broadcast. Probe is the pioneering news magazine in the Philippines and has been the longest-running show of its genre, airing from 1987 to 2010. Besides creating a roster of noted broadcast journalist, the show has also achieved numerous awards from both local and international award-giving bodies. Many public affairs shows have also taken inspiration from Probe like I-Witness, The Correspondents, and Reporter’s Notebook, among others.
History gives individuals who have a thorough grasp of it a wider perspective and the benefit of advice. Though Probe came to a close, media practitioners and mass communication students can learn from its methods and the constraints it experienced in order to produce bold and critical (if not bolder and more critical) media texts in the future.
Through this study, future media researchers are also given the wake-up call to preserve and put into writing the history of other notable programs in television broadcast.
There is a limited amount and circulation of publications about broadcast history. Sadly, more often that not, the written materials lack in depth and critically because it is the stations published the book themselves. History is seen through their eyes and the propaganda swamps the material.
As for this study, the researcher attempts a balance by telling Probe’s history through her eyes through the use of content analysis, and at the same time, provide the program producer’s perspective through the use of interviews.
The study also sets itself apart from the various publications and video productions about Probe in a way that it focuses on the language, episode treatment and program format. These three elements, the researcher believed, greatly changed how the program looked and were clear indicators of the program’s audience thrust.
On another note, this study is significant because it challenges the profit-driven media that has always constrained the productions in the broadcast medium. Network executives always prioritize ratings that would in turn earn them advertising revenues. Consciously or subconsciously, program producers adapt certain production conventions or purse certain topics in order to keep up with the demands of the industry.
Scope and Limitations
The research looks into the language, episode treatment and program format of Probe from 1987-2010. These elements are the ones that will be given emphasis because they are the most observable characteristics given the show’s long time frame and big number of episodes. Because of the same reason, the researcher felt that themes must be studied without giving an in-depth explanation. The researcher felt that more samples have to be used in studying themes.
Attempting to narrate an extensive history of Probe, for the content analysis, the researcher aimed to get the most representative video population possible. Though able to view the samples for the study, the researcher was not able to obtain copies of the all the video samples because many were in Betamax format and they could not be produced due to the limited staff of Unlimited Productions, Inc. (UPI). For the more recent episodes, the researcher was able to download copies from UPI’s website.
There is also a limitation of inconsistency in the population sample, some being anniversary specials, and others, being regular episodes of Probe, The Probe Team, The Probe Team Documentaries and Probe Profiles.
The production of anniversary specials only started in TPT’s 3rd year. The researcher was not also able to retrieve all anniversary specials that was why she chose to fill the population samples with regular episodes mentioned in Probe: Ang Aming Kwento (2003) and Probe: Ang Ating Kwento (2010).
On the other hand, with interview another method, the researcher realized in her data organization phase that the interviewees were giving information based on memory, which is inherently selective and introspective.
How does this affect the study? A large time frame is condensed to a number of statements, and the impact of the history is watered down. There may have been several events that may been left out because the interviewees may have forgotten to bring them up or may have deemed not so important.
This study is however exploratory in nature, and the researcher believes that more can be written about Probe’s history. There could be added information regarding the development of the program, and future researcher could delve deeper into the topic and use varying methods or samples for study. Further, the researcher could look into different program elements other that the language, episode treatment and program format.
A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
PHILIPPINE TELEVISION: THE EVOLUTION FROM 19TH CENTURY UNTIL THE 21ST CENTURY
INPUT
Independent Variables
The factors that have caused of the changes are:
Ratings
Audience
Interest and sales
Advertising technique
Commercialism
Dependent Variables
Changes in Philippine Television in terms of:
Language used in probe
Format of probe
Commercial in probe
Show how commercial nature of Philippine broadcast industry affects the production of programs, especially public affairs shows.
PROCESS
Utilize the Qualitative Research design with the satisfaction of Historical Analysis.
Use appropriate tool:
A non-probability sampling
Purposive or judgmental sampling
Data gathering process
Observation
Participant
Interview
Semi-structured Interview
Questionnaires
OUTPUT
Determined the experimentation in episode treatment in probe.
Determined the factors have caused of these changes.
Determined the changes in language of probe.
FEEDBACK
The networks give in to what sells to the audience. Rating well was become the name of the game, and this becomes one of the most vital factors that dictate the survival of program on televisions.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
THEORIES EXPLANATION OF THEORIES
Magic Bullet Theory by Nazi (1964) The theory of suggesting that intended message is directly received and wholly accepted by the receiver.
Libertarian Theory by John Milton (1983) Theory of freedom to publish anything at any time and acts as a watchdog.
Social Responsibility Theory by Lao Tzu and Thomas Jefferson (2001) Theory of obligation for the benefit of society at large.
Uses and Gratification Theory by John Locke (2011) Theory of an approach to understanding why and how people actively seek out specific media to satisfy specific needs.
DEFINITION OF TERMS
EVOLUTION
A theory that the differences between one of a set of prescribed movements. A process of change in a certain direction.
CENTURY
A Mexican agave (Agave Americana) that takes many years to mature. A period of 100 years counted from the beginning of the Christian era.
TELEVISION
An electronic system of sending images and sounds by a wire or through space. A piece of equipment with screen that receives images and sounds sent by televisions.
CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
In so many instances on various platforms, the profit-seeking interests of media corporations have taken toll on the quality and type of media texts produced.
Melba Estonilo (1995) provided an extensive history of radio stations DRZH and DZBB, focusing on the changes in the productions process of these stations. In Estonilo’s study, she primarily attributed these changes to the need of programs to rate well. She used her experience as a practitioner in DZBB as an advantage to illustrate how the production are determined. Estonilo knew the ropes of the radio broadcast industry, which was why she also found it easy to get the real situation of radio from her interviewees, who are executives of the aforementioned AM radio station.
Clodualdo del Mundo’s essay Telebisyon (2003) had assertions similar to Estonilo’s, but this time, the platforms was different and the history was not limited to a case study.
Written as a pamphlet for the Cultural Centre of the Philippines, the researcher felt though that del Mundo’s essay, was to far too simplistic. In a few dozen pages, the essay briefly described popular television programs that have made a mark in Philippines broadcast history.
There are several salient points and concretizations in the essay, though, which was what made Del Mundo’s essay a key literature for this study. Del Mundo started his essay with the first broadcast of ABS in the 1950’s and took note of how both programs and programming have changed through the years.
Del Mundo pointed out a drastic change in programming after the success of the Mexican telenovela Marimar. It was unimaginable that a foreign drama dubbed in the local language would become a hit to Filipinos. It was also then that programs were given the regular daily slot s to accommodate to the wants of the audiences—Marimar, five days a week, at a primetime slot. The essay then concluded with the rise of Asianovelas in the Philippines by the start of the 21st century, which was just very similar from the Marimar phenomenon.
The networks give in to what sells to the audience. Rating well has become the name of the game, and this becomes one of the most vital factors that dictate the survival of program on televisions.
From the literature above, it can concluded that network owners protect their interest by producing materials favouring themselves and their businesses. As an industry, television broadcast media produces material that are sure to capture the widest audience reach possible, while following of safety to attract and keep advertisers.
What the researcher wants to look is deeper into, though, are the constraints of commercialism that can be seen in the changes in language, episode treatment and show episodes. The researcher, though, this study wants to prove that more than anything else, it was a battle for ratings and intense commercialism in media that affected probe in many aspects.
CHAPTER III
METHODOLOGY
Research Design and Methods
The study aims to lay out the changes experienced by Probe in terms of language, episode treatment and program format. The critical points of the study, lie in the frame work. The study specifically determines how commercialism in media, among several factors, affected the changes in the program.
The study used a qualitative, cross-sectional approach. The content analysis was used to note the changes in language, episode treatment, and format from the researcher’s observation. The interviews, on the other hand, were used to aid the researcher’s analysis on the chosen population sample.
Population and Sample Size
Our data sample and size focuses more on the people involved in the field of media, therefore, our researchers will use purposive sampling and will concentrate on the persons who have a connection with media, which are the mentor or TV Appreciation, the other Media Professors and lastly are the students.
Data Collection Technique
The researchers will use a semi-structured interview from select students and mentors of Media Field as a method of qualitative research to gather data regarding factors that have been caused of the changes, the items in the interview were carefully selected by our researchers to implicitly extract pivotal information.
The researchers first made a letter to ask if it is possible to have an interview with the mentors and some students of QCHS and to have a few documents for the said research.
A SEMI-STRUCTURED INTERVIEW QUESTIONAIRE
“PHILIPPINE TELEVISION: THE EVOLUTION FROM 19TH CENTURY UNTIL THE 21ST CENTURY”
PART 1: The changes observed the Philippine Television in terms of language, episode treatment, and format of probe.
For the students:
What do you think are the language or how they used language in our Philippine Television before?
How they improve episode treatment on our Philippine Television as the time pass by?
Kindly enumerate the changes that you observed on format of our probe on our Philippine Television before and now?
PART 2: Factors that caused the changes.
For the Mentors:
As a mentor in this field, what are the changes that you encountered in our Philippine Television?
What do you think are the possible cause of these changes? (check the box)
ratings
interest
audience
others:
And why they become the reason of the changes?
PART 3: The differences of Philippine Television now and then.
For the oldies:
You as an experientially enhance, how do you differentiate the old television to the modern television?
CURRICULUM VITAE:
DAMIAN, ANNA MOSCELLE YNZZAFIANNE Z.
171-J 22nd Avenue. East Rembo, Makati City
Cellphone Number: 09121400338
Email Address: moscelle [email protected]
-95250225425PERSONAL INFORMATION:
PERSONAL INFORMATION:
_______________________
NICKNAME:Anna/Mocel
BIRTHDAY:September 23, 1998
BIRTHPLACE:Lucena City
AGE:18
NATIONALITY:Filipino
RELIGION:Roman Catholic
CIVIL STATUS:Single
FATHER’S NAME:Joel P. Damian
MOTHER’S NAME:Marife Z. Damian
-123825212090EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND:
EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND:
________________________
SECONDARY LEVEL
Senior HighEugenio Lopez Jr. Center for Media Arts Senior High School
Academic Track – Media Arts
Quezon City
SY 2016 – Present
Junior HighBenigno “NInoy” S. Aquino High School
Makati City
SY 2011 – 2015
MARK JULIUS REMOLIN ARIOLA
#15 Clemente St. Dulongbayan II San Mateo, Rizal
Cellphone Number: 0916 210 1571
Email Address: [email protected]
-95250225425PERSONAL INFORMATION:
PERSONAL INFORMATION:
________________________
NICKNAME:Jhules
BIRTHDAY:March 15, 1998
BIRTHPLACE:Sta. Cruz, Manila
AGE:19
NATIONALITY:Filipino
RELIGION:Roman Catholic
CIVIL STATUS:Single
FATHER’S NAME:Cipriano F. Ariola
MOTHER’S NAME:Natalia R. Ariola
-123825212090EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND:
EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND:
________________________
SECONDARY LEVEL
Senior HighEugenio Lopez Jr. Center for Media Arts Senior High School
Academic Track – Media Arts
San Mateo, Rizal
SY 2016 – Present
Junior HighSan Mateo National High School
San Mateo, Rizal
SY 2010 – 2014
JEREMIE U. LLANTO
#289 Libis Canumay East Valenzuela City
09772726970
18 yrs old
January 2 1999
__________________________________________________________________
EDUCATIONAL BACKROUND
Canumay East Elementary School 2010-2011
Canumay East National High School 2014-2015
St. Peter Ville Technical Training Center 2016
__________________________________________________________________
EDUCATION OBJECTIVE
To build education to an organization and to prove my abilities to do the responsibility of being a student. Fulfilling the organizational goal through continuous learning, commitment and to improve my skills.
__________________________________________________________________
FATHER’S NAME
ROLANDO SOCOREN LLANTO Occupation: Househusband
MOTHER’S NAME
MARILYN UALAT LLANTO Occupation: OFW
REFERENCES:
https://tl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionhttps://www.google.com.ph/#q=evolutionoftelevision;*https://www.google.com.ph/#q=theuniversityfiles ;*https://tl.wikipedia.org/wiki/nationalfiles346907*ABS-CBN Data
GMA NewsTV Files
The University of the Philippines- Journal for the Changes of Television as the time pass by
work of Raychel Nepomuceno Mass Communication Students
Uses and Gratification Theory by John Locke (2011)
Magic Bullet Theory by Nazi (1964)
Libertarian Theory by John Milton (1983)
Social Responsibility Theory by Lao Tzu and Thomas Jefferson (2001)
Clodualdo del Mundo’s essay Telebisyon (2003)
Melba Estonilo (1995)
Documentaries and Probe Profiles.
