Theoretical Framework

John Fiskes Codes of Television (from his book, Television Culture) states that an

event to be televised is already encoded by social codes that are categorized into

three levels: reality, representation, and ideology. The first level of social codes

represents reality. This level includes appearance, clothing, make-up, environment,

behavior, speech, gesture, expression, sound, etc. These are encoded through

technical codes like the camera, lighting, editing, music, and sound- all of which are

part of the second level: representation. These help the conventional

representational codes to get transmitted which help construct the representation

of the narrative, conflict, character, action, dialogue, setting, casting, etc. Level

three is called the ideology which is organized into coherence and social

acceptability by the ideological codes. These levels work in a complex

hierarchical structure that oversimplifies for the sake of clarity (Fiske, 1987).

The study adapted the television social codes to be used for analyzing chosen

Philippine television shows and films.

Conceptual Framework

Meanings are constantly produced and exchanged through our everyday social

interaction with each other. Some perceived realities are products of what we see

on television. Editors frame meaning like that in a certain way. They have an

intended meaning and dominant ideology to be delivered to the readers.

Fiske stated that there is a always a reality encoded by media. The dominant

ideology/reality which becomes the focus of the study is the racial stereotyping

exhibited in selected Philippine T.V shows, therefore racism was the sole
ideological code being analyzed. In this study, Philippine T.V shows that are

reported to have racial stereotyping was the venue for the meaningful discourse.

The framing of media involves the use of social codes which can be classified in

three levels: reality, representation, and ideology. With these, racism becomes

transmittable technologically and becomes an appropriate cultural text. The

codes are used to generate and circulate meanings in and for the future. The

study analyzed racism embedded in such coverage through the social codes.

Racism here may not or may be synonymous to the Filipinos perceived reality of

the word racism.