...selected Filipino Teenagers in Intramuros, Manila on their exposure to Pinoy Big Brother Robles, John Darel Catacutan1 Refugia, Jose Alberto Cabotaje1 Jonalou SJ. Labor2 1AB Communication Arts Seniors, Institute of Communication, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Colegio de San Juan de Letran 2 Faculty, Language Area, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Colegio de San Juan de Letran ABSTRACT Pinoy Big Brother of ABS-CBN Channel 2 is the Philippine version of the reality television show Big Brother. Television’s effects on viewers especially teenagers is a subject that has been extensively studied in the last twenty years and whose impact extends farther than most people realize. Many studies have focused on how television programs that appear to be “real” (such as new and daytime dramas) alter the viewers’ perception of reality (or social reality). However, there is a lack of qualitative data to either support or disprove this belief. This study thus aims to describe and discuss the pluses, minuses and interests (PMI) of the perception of Pinoy Big Brother to teenagers. Forty selected teenagers who are a fan of the show were the participants of this qualitative inquiry. Initially, the teenagers were made to fill out forms for purposes of profiling their baseline characteristics. The teenagers were asked individually to discuss both their positive and negative perceptions to Pinoy Big Brother. Data gathered were carefully gathered by a repertory grid, thematized...
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...What Reality Television Says About Modern Culture: Essay One The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines reality television as “programming that features videos of actual occurrences.” Reality television has become an increasingly favorable genre of television shows, but society often fails to recognize how unrealistic these superficial shows have become. Many people enjoy reality television due to its ability of making viewers laugh, and step back from their own lives for a period of time. This television craze proves that modern culture has an altered view of reality, and has become progressively superficial due to the lack of education on the topic. Society claims that these shows are realistic, however they are often a scripted dramatization thriving to imitate real scenarios. Reality television allows viewers to escape the reality of their own lives because it is a removed way to experience emotions, and these shows that are supposedly “reality-based” are never filmed in a realistic setting. When viewers watch reality television, it offers them time to escape from the reality of their own lives. Producers carefully choose cast members that are diverse and represent a large population of society, to avoid criticism, but to also allow viewers to relate to at least one specific cast member. The average Canadian watches a show such as “Survivor” (which offers a one million dollar grand prize to the winner) and envies the superficial status that is temporarily given to...
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...“Reality” television [738 words] Summary of When Reality TV Gets Too Real by Jeremy W. Peters [153 words] In When Reality TV Gets Too Real, Jeremy W. Peters debates the ethics of not stopping dangerous situations from happening on Reality Television. For this, several examples of such occurrences are cited, first when a participant took up drunk driving in the show Intervention, as well as similar episodes in Breaking Bonaduce, The Real World and Road Rules, and citing lawsuits against Big Brother, Kid Nation and Extreme Makeover, the last one getting sued for something else entirely. A number of occasions is also named where the producer of Intervention stops dangerous situations from developing, namely when to prevent suicide, drunk driving and to call paramedics in the event of an overdose. The article also states that the practise of simply filming while not stopping developing catastrophes are not technically illegal but somewhat unethical. The text ends with the comment “It's a very, very delicate balance”, leaving the issue open for interpretation. Outline of text 2 through 4 [252 words] In When Reality TV Gets Too Real, it is debated that Reality TV has a habit of creating dangerous or traumatic situations for viewers, simply because doing so is legal and gives higher rating. At times, some producers might draw the line though, and try to stop some situations from spiralling out of control, but those a more often the exception than the rule...
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...The government largely ignores the proles and they are not indoctrinated in the same way as Party members. They are kept in control through rumors spread by the ThoughtPolice and easy access to Party produced entertainment. However party members controlled through different methods as stated on pages 13-18, everyday they have to watch a two-minute hate film as a form brainwashing in which the face of Goldstein, the Enemy of the People, is a principle figure. The Party uses Goldstein and the films as a catharsis for releasing feelings of angst and hatred from leading a life that they have no control over. Moreover by showing Goldstein as the enemy, the Party illustrates Big Brother as their only...
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...I would characterize Harrison Bergeron on the line of cognition because he is evoking the active shadow magician, the manipulator. I think that Harrison was a healthy warrior because he is smart and independent. However, when the government arrested him for illustrating those traits that do not represent equality he shifted to the manipulator due to the suppression. In Tuttle’s adaption it demonstrates Harrison’s archetype of the manipulator because he wants to have godlike control over the society. He has important information, which reveals the truth of the government who is brainwashing its citizens. In comparison, Pittman’s adaption starts with Harrison as passive shadow warrior, the masochist because he is upset that he cannot fit in with...
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...Korea wrote out Shin's destiny for him from the moment oppressors forced Shin's parents to mate. Not only did his life consist of “beatings, hunger, and labor” (Hiatt 5), but he had to “snitch on fellow inmates” (Hiatt 5) to survive. Miraculously, beating all odds Shin was able to escape Camp 14, and after many attempts, he was able to work his way into the United States. Upbringing in this environment can have many tolls on the emotions of the individual; the case for Shin is no exception. Constant torture and agony stripped away all understanding of “concepts such as love, trust or kindness,” (Hiatt 5). For any child witnessing a murder can have tremendous effect on their mental stability. However, when 14-year-old Shin saw his mother and brother executed in front of his very eyes he felt no “no pity or regret" (Hiatt 5). After everything Shin has been through, it comes as no surprise that he believes he embeds a hallow soul with little to no emotions. Setting out to remake himself morally will be the toughest task he is going to face.Although he has “‘escaped physically’”, he believes to have not “‘escaped psychologically.’” (Hiatt 19). Dystopian authors, such as Orwell and Gilliam, provide current day societies a warning for the future that has slowly become the world we live in today. The writers illustrate the degrading effects of emotion within citizens of a manipulative and controlling government. The political powers, in 1984, oppress and corrupt its citizen through bureaucracy...
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...received. Another example is when he states, “… his nerves were in rags after hours of questioning…” He compares his nerves to rags to describe how he felt after intense questioning. He was so nervous and torn apart like rags of clothing. Finally, he states, “ He became simply a mouth that uttered…” He compares himself to simply just a mouth that said whatever had to be said. He was so broken; he did not have a mind of his own. Overall, Orwell uses parallel structure and metaphor to describe how he was broken down after the torture sessions. He was so broken that he’d say anything just to make the torture stop. His body was invaded, he was beaten like an animal, and he was questioned until he didn’t have any of his own thoughts anymore. Big Brother got the best of...
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...Montag saves multitudes of books even though his job is to destroy the books not issued by the government. Winston does not forget things even after the Party switches or changes history and always, in his thoughts, questions the proof and ideals of both Big Brother and the Party. Both of these men hold on to the thoughts with help from others. However their differences stand out. Montag was able to escape from the other firefighters and joins the group with the memorized literary text. Winston trusts the wrong person leading to his arrest and torture. In both Fahrenheit 451, written by ray bradbury, and 1984, which was written by George orwell, the antagonists are very similar in cause and actions. However, Montag, is the stronger of the two. Winston allows his trust to put him in danger while Montag trusts only one person and that was after quite solid proof that the old man had his own books. Winston's mistake brought him to torture and to rejoining the party after...
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...against the totalitarianism government ran by the Inner Party and Big Brother. Orwell gave a dramatic utopian and dystopian fiction book that is also political and social science fiction because Orwell often wrote about going against totalitarianism. Utopia is defined as ‘an imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect.’ which is exactly how George Orwell portrayed Oceania to be for a majority of the citizens or Party members. Oceania’s government or Big Brother can do no wrong, especially in the eyes...
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...George Orwell’s dystopian novel, “1984”, depicts a society of which the fictional symbol, Big Brother, is the totalitarian leader, and the single party controls everything. Big Brother and the party have instilled the idea that, “Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past”, meaning that the past can be altered to one's desire, in this case to Big Brother’s. Winston, the protagonist of the novel, works at the Ministry of truth in the records department, where he, with many others, has to alter information from the past, in magazines and newspapers, so it always supports the party line, as Big Brother and the party must never be wrong. Unlike everyone else, brainwashed by the party, Winston realises...
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...In the book Nineteen-Eighty Four by George Orwell he talks about how the government watches them. How they doesn’t have privacy to do anything they want. Winston is the main character of the book, then there is big brother he is like the government. Big brother is always watching everyone, they have something that's like a television, which is called a telescreen where they can see you, however you can't see them and you also can't turn it off only turn down the volume. The privacy of American citizens is being violated similar to the privacy violations in 1984 now that big brother is always watching everyone with the telescreen, they don’t freedom and they also have thought police. In Nineteen-Eighty Four Winston talks about how BIg Brother...
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...“At the Twilight's last gleaming…For the land of the free,” these are lyrics, written by Francis Scott Key when he was overcome by the feeling of freedom. Though in society now, that is just the opposite. Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. show exactly that, with putting handicaps on everyone to try to make everyone equal. Harrison Bergeron, and fourteen year old, breaks out of jail to show everyone who he really is on live television. A possible theme for Harrison Bergeron is, everyone is beautiful in their own ways, and should be allowed to express them, however, another possible theme may be, life is not fair, deal with it. Harrison Bergeron’s society is broken. The government makes everyone think and act as though everyone is equal....
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...In the novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, he shows us how false portrayal of peace is acquired by controlling the masses and the use of propaganda. As soon they are born through Bokanovsky’s process they are already being fed information to act a certain way and learn their part in society. The government controls all aspects of the society in order to attain what they consider peace. They have thrown out the way of our civilization and views and inputted their own views to attain stability. This creates one of the significant themes of the book Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, is how this society creates its own way of peace and stability by control of the masses. The new society in the novel controls the masses before they are even born. The people are already predestined to be in a certain class and are brought up according to the skills and wants of only that class: “The bottles come in here to be predestined in detail…community, identity, stability” (Huxley 7). Each human is selected to be a part of certain cast and is grown up only to like his position and never have the want or need to become something more or something less. They are specifically engineered to only fit in there cast, “They don’t know what it’s like being anything else...they’ve been…conditioned (Huxley 74). The humans in this society are mind controlled since they are born to only be a part of their caste and dislike the other castes. This helps prevent war and fight of the need for higher positions...
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...Media’s Affect on Youths Youths today are constantly watching television shows. Some spend the majority of their free time sitting down on the couch and watching reality sitcoms such as “Jersey Shore” or “Big Brother”. This impacts today’s young greatly by teaching them negative behavior and language, making them insecure about their physical appearance and making sexuality more essential. Reality sitcoms have a greater impact on today’s youths then we would like to believe. The negative language and behavior of youths is mostly being learned from these reality shows. Six major professional societies in the United States- the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, and the American Psychiatric Association-… concluded [in 2000] that “the data point overwhelmingly to a casual connection between media violence and aggressive behavior in some children” (Anderson, Craig and Bushman, Brad 11-12). This comes from the fact that male and female equality has gotten much worse; most women are being viewed as something they are not when they are referred to as “bitches” or “sluts”. When this sort of name calling escalates it can lead to greater things such as a verbal or even physical fight, “Recent large-scale longitudinal studies provide converging evidence linking frequent exposure to violent media in childhood with...
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...sectarianism or to incite violence. Reality TV is debasing and should be strictly controlled, if not banned altogether. Statistics: According to Medical Procedure News, reality television is attributing to cosmetic surgery procedures with more than 9.2 million procedures performed as result of people watching these shows Reality TV episodes have increased to 57% of all television shows that can be found on your screens Americans spend 1/3 of their free time watching television and of that 67% are reality shows Humiliation as entertainment: It is often cruel, exposing the participants to gross humiliation for our amusement. This makes it the modern equivalent of going to laugh at the lunatics in Bedlam. The present row over racism on Big Brother shows how nasty it can be. It exploits the vulnerable, and has been condemned by the Mental Health Foundation for doing so. Personal experiences: Friend of...
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