Line of Inquiry 1: The Blurring of Lines between Entertainment and News
Problem
In various forms of media, there is a pressure for news providers to attract the attention of their target audience. Relevant and objective reporting can suffer from sensationalism and selective emphasis. On the other hand, traditional entertainment media are increasingly making use of news as input for entertainment.
Explanation
The research will focus on the recent political news and entertainment shows in the US. Examples will be shown of how news reports are trivialized by insignificant yet diverting details. Another set of examples will be about entertainment shows that have significant political content.
Line of Inquiry 2: Commercial Success vs. Social Relevance in the Filipino Movie Industry
Problem
There has been a long-standing challenge of growing the Philippine movie industry to be both profitable and socially relevant. It has been the experience of the industry that the more critically acclaimed or socially relevant films have not always performed well at the box office. On the other hand, movie goers continue to favor slapstick comedies, predictable love stories, and watered-down horror movies.
Explanation
The research will focus on the box offices performance versus the reviews of locally produced films in the past few years. There will be an attempt to classify the films as either purely commercial or socially relevant. There may even be some films that would straddle both classifications, indicating how the movie industry may surmount the identified challenge.
Line of Inquiry 3: “Finding Forrester” – Are we gaining writers but losing authors?
Problem
The popularity of the internet has given rise to a new breed of writers who are turning out vast amounts of works in an incredible pace. A number who have attracted a significant following have even been published. Does being published in such a manner qualify them to be called “authors”?
Explanation
The research will attempt to define and differentiate between the traditional concept of what an author is and the growing breed of popular internet writers. Acclaimed authors and their works will be juxtaposed against published internet writers.
MinkaMouse 
1. Why shows in the US? I think there’s a lot of local examples that would eerily cross this world of entertainment and journalism. For example, if you take into account even such subtleties as the way of speaking in local news versus international news, you can already trace the notions of entertainment being used there. If you can investigate this, I think you’d be able to mine a well of insights.
2. I think more than looking at it as an issue of classification, there is a bigger potential in trying to find out why these movies are defined this particular way anyway. For example, why the divide between “socially relevant” and “commercially successful” when the two talk about different things (one focuses on content, and the other with regards to commodification)? This might be too easy a generalization, so I will need more investigation with regard to the core of the problem first. Try and ask yourself: why are /you/ concerned about this?
3. What defines a writer anyway? I think this is potentially exciting, because in the academic world, I am sure that there is a glaring disavowal of writers who do not follow the same literary path that has been set as the standard for “academic” writers. There is always the divide between “high” literature and “popular” literature. Is it time to break this divide? What causes this divide anyway? I think you should at least choose one or two writers who you want to use as case studies, and then build from there.
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