WATCHING TELLY : LOCAL ENGLISH TELEVISION PRODUCTIONS AND SINGAPOREAN IDENTITY

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyze the discourses surrounding the textual representations of the local English television productions. Based on the premise that an entertainment program always implicitly carries messages about society, Growing Up, Under One Roof and Phua Chu Kang Pte Ltd are conceptualized as television texts communicating, not only their manifest content, but also latent assumptions about life in Singapore and the meanings attached to being a ‘Singaporean’. In the process of this study, we attempt to understand how these three programs help to express and evoke certain beliefs or values that are pertinent to the social context in which they are produced, distributed and received. By investigating the encoding and decoding practices of the programs, this study will consequentially shed some light on the type of social meanings interweaved within the texts. More significantly, how the ‘Singaporean’ identity is discursively defined and re-defined by the State, media professionals and viewers will be henceforth uncovered.