The representation of the Maltese family on Maltese television

Abstract

The family is the fulcrum of society and its role is to structure our private and public identity. The family is the basic unit of society because it is the institution on which everything is built. The family for the Maltese was always the most valuable institution and the Maltese did everything to preserve it even till this day and age where secularisation has changed family values considerably. This study has sought to investigate how well the media is representing the Maltese family in its production by testing the relationship between the Maltese family and its representation on two particular television series. For this purpose a semiotic analysis was conducted following Chandler's list for semiotic analysis. This was followed by a structured analysis of 5 minutes interval of the productions chosen. Than the studies regarding the family of: Fr Charles Tabone, Anthony M. Abela and Angela Abele were used to test if the productions represent the Maltese family.