Exposure of Ilonggo viewers to "My husband's lover" and "Dading" and their attitude towards homosexual parenthood

Abstract

This study explores the relationship between the level of exposure of Ilonggo viewers to gay themed dramas “My Husband’s Lover” and “Dading” and their attitude towards homosexual parenthood in terms of condemnation and tolerance, contact, morality, and stereotypes. The socio-demographic profile (gender, age, marital status, occupation, socio-economic, religion, and educational attainment) and social contact with homosexual parents of the viewers were also measured and correlated to their attitude towards homosexual parenthood.

Joseph Klapper’s Reinforcement Theory and Robert Zajonc’s Mere Exposure Theory were employed to construct the theoretical framework of this study. A one shot survey was then administered among 400 respondents for this study as identified employing the Slovin’s Formula at 5% margin of error with 95% confidence level interval based on 2010 Census of Population and Housing Data. The sampling methodology used was Probability to Proportional to Size Sampling design, and to determine the barangays Cumulative Sum was utilized.

Results showed that attitude scores towards homosexual parenthood significantly differs across level of exposure to gay themed dramas based on ANOVA result (p-value<0.001). Pairwise comparison further indicates that viewers with low exposure to gay themed dramas also have significantly lower attitude scores as compared to viewers with medium exposure and high exposure. However, no significant difference was found in attitude score between viewers with medium exposure and high exposure.

In terms of the socio-demographics, age, gender, educational attainment and social contact to homosexual parents of the viewers also have significant relationship to their attitude towards homosexual parenthood. However, religious affiliations, marital status, and occupation were found statistically insignificant. Results are discussed in the context of Philippine culture.