essay continued.....

What makes the Reality TV genre interesting is the blurring of the boundaries by creating a new hybrid genre out of documentary, drama, soap and entertainment. This particular genre is also sometimes called factual television because of this. A Reality TV program can be about almost anything or everything hence why theres shows such as ‘How Clean is Your House’ to talent shows such as ‘Britain's Got Talent’. But what interests me about Reality TV is what makes us an audience actually want to watch it, especially as we cannot always be sure that what were watching is in fact real. Also is it that Reality TV can rot your brain? Therefore I will further discuss Reality TV in relationship to representation and audience exploring what interests the audience in the lives of others.

Ray Richmond a critic and entertainment columnist says "The editors have grown to become the new storytellers, altering sequences and the course of events and contextual elements to weave together a story that's radically different from what went down," here Ray notes that editors create shows through the manipulation of truth by flicking and selecting through certain scenes of raw footage then forming and combining these to manufacture an intriguing episode, at the same time these scene are arranged into a particular order which gradually manipulates and forms a narrative.

The most common types of manipulation occur in the Reality TV programming where there is unscripted series and the producers create / force certain situations on main characters, this is also done through providing topics of discussions or lines with directions for the characters to act in a certain way exciting the narrative. The perfect example of this would be The Only Way is Essex because the show is filmed just in a few days in advanced.

As an audience / viewer some believe these shows to be real and would be shocked if they knew about the manipulation. Regardless of whether we know were being lied to about the authenticity of each shows we do not seem to care whether it is real, its as if we enjoy being lied to and have fun watching it. At the same time keeping the ratings high.

.......(JUST HOW REAL ARE REALITY TV SHOWS?

(HISTORY.....)

How much of an influence does reality TV have on the audience and people in society? Interestingly, Robert Thompson has gone as far to say the reason for its popularity is down to that fact that its moronic and stupid. Through the integration of fact and fiction has in a way given a negative effect on modern society. How? simply because reality TV is fast, cheap and incredibly addictive! its a ‘weapon of mass destruction...causing us to become dumber, fatter and more disengaged from ourselves and society’ this is mainly evident in reality TV fans where there is a desire for status. The biggest distinguishable characteristic we can pick out from the differences between reality TV fans in comparison to fans from other shows is ‘a desire for prestige’, meaning that reality TV fans are more focused on statements which evolve around designer clothing, overall appearance and gaining status. It gives some sort of false consciousness in terms individuals believing they could gain status through automatic fame and by being an ordinary person it seems possible that by relating themselves to a celebrity on their favorite show could become them. This boils down to the fact the we are live in such a celebrity-obsessed culture. However, this can be criticised to an extent because this view fails to cover the formats of different reality TV shows. For example ‘Infotainment’ which are shows such as Top Gear or Doomsday Preppers, which provide the audience with information combined with entertainment, for example Top Gear is almost documentary because it provides information and details about cars but then has the value of.................... . Then theres shows such as The Only Way Is Essex or the show called Airport which largely consists of ‘fly on the wall’ type of footage creating a ‘docusoap’ genre. These shows feature background/behind the scenes footage of peoples everyday lives giving the audience a better understanding of their lives.

Lifestyle formats etc....

As expected before any media text is planned or produced, the most important question that

producers need to answer and consider is ‘Does it have an audience’ because without an an audience in mind then there is not point in continuing with the planning. In order to retrieve a target audience producers will look into the consumption habits of a possible audience.

demographic chart? ‘ psychographics? what divides up the target audience?

audience reactions or engagement with reality tv?

So, what is it about reality programs that makes the audiences so engaged? there has been several perspective who have looked into this. Scholars considered the appeal by looking into the values and personality traits within the audience (Crook et al., 2004; Oliver, 1996). For a show such as Big Brother, because of the nature of the show allowing audiences to watch members in the house dealing with conflict were found to be the most popular aspects of the show. Nabi et al. (2003) investigated the motivations and gratifications of watch reality tv by sampling U.S Viewers. Her findings were that respondents preferred and enjoyed watching real people over actors, the idea of an unscripted nature makes the show a whole lot more exciting. Reports also show that viewers watch these shows because ‘they like to watch interpersonal interactions and because they are curious about other people’s lives’ which basically proves that us as an audience are nosy and get enjoyment out of it.

Further on we can go on discuss the ‘Hyperdermic needle theory’ which is a theory that suggests how mass media has a direct influence on audiences by ‘injecting’ them with knowledge that they are oblivious too causing changes in their behavior towards the knowledge. This particular theory explains that television programs do cause certain viewers to act or feel in a certain way, when in certain circumstances. The audience are passive and have no control over how they feel. However, this is where Blumler and Klatz use the idea of ‘Uses and Gratifications’ to explain why TV is so popular and the many ways in which an audience use a media text.

TV is so popular because of the large amounts of distraction and relaxation it can give to an audience easily and cheaply. The purpose of TV is to provide entertainment and diversion, enabling an audience to seek personal pleasure and enjoyment at the same time gaining an emotional release from the everyday goings on for example, those who live alone may watch to avoid the feeling alienated or lonely additionally some seek a positive pleasure in being able to share the experience with others. Similarly someone who may watch the X-Factor would benefit through being able to develop a relationship with contestants and follow their journey also by seeing their problems so they can feel less bad about themselves. This also goes for personal relationships that can be gained both on and offscreen as people can find companionship or meet people through the use of technology such as social networking or chat-rooms specific to the show or through the similarities between characters or contestants that individuals can relate to. Television conveys information becoming an ‘educator’, ‘to keep in touch with whats going on in the world’ this is not directed specifically at new programs, this however does not provide the explanation as to why an audience would give it so much of their free time when the main purpose of TV is to entertain. It also has effect on personal identity in the sense that individuals fine support and reinforcement in their values and beliefs that may help to understand or explore more into ones own identity. 

 HOW FAR MIGHT THESE EXPLAIN THE POPULARITY OF REALITY TV WITH AUDIENCES?

We can go on to discuss Stuart Hall’s (1973) idea of an encoding/decoding model. This model basically suggests how an audience can encode/ decode/ interpret a media text into different ways. This can be based on a certain social context and understanding different to the intention that the media producer had encoded originally. The benefit of this model was the fact that it highlighted the importance of understanding the meanings and interpretations of significant actors in both media production and media reception (being the audience) as well as including those intermediaries in media distribution such as executives, marketers, broadcasters and distributers. Hall had sophisticated and clear ideas on the ideology on how particular political positions could become meaningful and popular when people could identify with them, this would have been communicated through mass media. However, Hall’s approach reflected well with Antonio Gramsci (1891-19370) idea of ‘hegemony’ (the dominance of one social class over another, presenting political and economic control) the people would be able to make ‘their policies appear to be common sense’. This is where we can bring in Halls other idea of ‘Thatcherism’ which concerned ‘ordinary people’ making solutions seem sensible and obvious. This approach can most certainly be used to study how media might make certain formations of masculinity, femininity and sexuality to seem more ‘natural, inevitable and sexy’.

Similarly Hall’s work can also be linked with a Marxist thinker Louis Althusser (1918-1990) who came up with the concept of ‘interpellation’ which can be used in three different ways, but in terms of media this would be a philosophical movement to showing how an individuals identity or sense of self being is ‘absorbed’ and produced by the ‘dominant ideologies’ within a society. It is used as a type ‘call’ as a way of being addressed by someone of authority and the subject responding by turning around and recognising that they are being called. At this time, the person becomes a subject who recognises their structure within the ideology. When an individual becomes connected with a media text; and they become engaged and are enjoying a TV show Interpellation occurs.