The Internet vs. the Television: Which Is the Primary Source of Media Entertainment?

The Internet vs. The Television:
Which is the Primary Source of Media Entertainment?

Submitted by
Anna Bettina Bautista
Mico Cortez
John Nathaniel Laxamana
Erlaine Vanessa Lumanog
Niko Lorenzo Peralta
Daryll Santillan

March 28, 2008

Introduction
In the year 1953, the television was introduced to the Philippines. The primary broadcasting network then was ABS-CBN (which was formerly known as Bolinao), pioneering color television service, programs and films. Programs being telecast at the time were mostly borrowed films from the foreign embassies, imported cowboy movies and actual coverage of a variety of events (Anastacio, 2000).

The internet on the other hand was brought to the Philippines in March 1994 by the Philippine Network Foundation (PHNET), a consortium of private and government institutions enabled the Filipinos to be connected live via a 64kbps link to sprint in the United States then considered to be the country’s public gateway to the Internet (Austin, 20007). Since then, it has rapidly gained popularity as a media source of entertainment.

Yet before the internet’s emergence, people turned to the television for entertainment. The television was able to meet the entertainment needs of the people by fusing the entertainment mediums of the time – the audio and visual interfaces of radio and print.

However, the internet as a cybernetic space fuses all these traditional forms of entertainment media: the television, the radio and print media, with a click of the mouse. We are in the age where the development of the information society is being encountered; therefore, this paper will examine if this kind of impact is trickling down to the lifestyle of the Filipino youth today.
With the entertainment habits of this generation becoming more dynamic and interactive, and with the numerous accessible technologies available, it is likely that their preference for the medium by which entertainment is transmitted has changed. Thus, this paper aims to

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