THE FAMILY THAT RULES TOGETHER, STAYS IN POWER: REPRESENTATION OF MEDIATED LOCAL POLITICAL FAMILIES IN FILIPINO TELESERYES

Recuya, A.P (2017). THE FAMILY THAT RULES TOGETHER, STAYS IN POWER, Unpublished Undergraduate Thesis, University of the Philippines College of Mass Communication.

This research examines the dynamics of mediated local political families. It asks how the media represents mediated local political families in Filipino teleseryes. Philippine local politics has long been dominated by provincial elites. Several teleseryes with political themes exhibit this reality by developing fictional characters governing fictional municipalities and provinces. By employing the theory of representation by Stuart Hall, the researcher adapted two levels of signification by Roland Barthes, the realistic theory of characters by John Fiske, and self-reflexivity by Frederick Steier. The study conducted textual analysis to study the media representation of political families through the Hidalgos and Buenavistas of Ikaw Lamang (Book 1) and Pangako Sa’Yo (remake). The researcher defined how the members of a political family are characterized in the teleseryes based on the gathered expected characteristics of a Filipino family and Filipino political families through the elements of authority, power-structure, gender norms, and behaviors, identified the involvement of the family in the mediated local governance, compared the characterization of the characters with the same family position from each teleserye, analyzed the underlying cultural and social myths embedded in the representation, and examined the similarities and differences of the characters with real Filipino local political families.

Keywords: media representation, teleserye, political family, semiotics

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