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One of the recent developments related to documentary and portrayal
of “reality” is the rise of “reality television” programs, beginning
with programs such as
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Survivor
The
Osbournes
Big
Brother
The
Amazing Race
The
Mole
The
Real World
Extreme
Survival
American
Idol
The
Bachelor
PBS:
In the Mix: Reality TV for Teens
PBS:
American High
PBS historical reenactment programs:
The
1900 House
Frontier
House
Warrior
Challenge
Manor
House
One explanation for the increasing popularity of reality
TV is that it is relatively inexpensive to produce compared
to prime-time drama programs. The networks can therefore reap
large profits, something that, given their corporate ownership
business orientation, is a high priority in terms of program
selection.
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Reality TV, given its popularity with adolescents, can serve
as the basis for analysis of the basic issues of “reality” and
documentary discussed in this module, as well as some of approaches
in the other modules.
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Editing and selectivity. One of
the basic aspects of traditional documentary is the use of editing
to selectively portray one’s particular version of reality.
Reality TV producers can select those aspects of participant’s
behavior that are the most dramatic or sensational to include
in an episode, while at the same time, give the impression that
what they are showing is an authentic representation of the
“actual” events. Audiences may then assume that what they are
viewing constitutes an authentic or actual portrayal of “reality,”
when in fact, it is only a highly selective, edited version
of “reality.” Audiences may also perceive their own everyday
lives as lacking the highly dramatic content of these shows,
enhancing their appeal an entertaining escape.
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Students could analyze the editing employed in an episode
relative to their guesses as to the original, real-time experience
to discern the degree to which they are viewing a selected version
of “reality.” They may also speculate about why certain material
was included and why certain material may have been excluded.
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Rhetorical analysis. Reality TV
appeals to large numbers of viewers because it positions them
to adopt a voyeuristic stance of the surveillance audience witnessing
behavior and conflicts that would previously be assumed to be
“private” or too sensational to be shown on prime-time commercial
television. In a security-conscious society in which people
are continually under surveillance, the tables are turned, and
the audience is now the ones who are watching from behind the
camera, creating a sense of status superiority. The earlier
version of the current reality TV involved hidden camera programs
such as Candid Camera or blooper/home video shots of
bizarre, unusual behavior, still evident in programs such as
America’s Funniest Videos.
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In the past, the people on Candid Camera were not
aware of the fact that they were being filmed and were surprised
to discover that they were caught in embarrassing moments. Reality
TV participants are very much aware of the fact that they are
being filmed. This raises the basic question of documentary
asked about the behavior of The Loud family on An American
Family, as to whether participants are “playing to the
camera” — behaving in a manner that they assume if consistent
with the drama, roles, language, and norms of a television show,
assumptions based on their knowledge of the drama. Students
could examine the degree to which participants are simply participating
in a “fictional” drama based on predetermined scripts/roles
and whether this drama can be equated with “reality.”
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Students could also discuss the extent to which these programs
are “fiction,” when, they are portraying people engaged in “actual”
situations. In a comparison of The Truman Show with
reality TV shows, Maria-Laure Ryan (2002) notes that The
Truman Show deliberately examines the relationship between
fiction and reality in terms of differences in the characters’
perspectives:
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From Truman’s point of view, the show is as
clearly “life,” as it is “fiction” from the point of view of
the actors who play roles. The reason for this discrepancy is
that fictionality requires a duplicity of actor/character in
dramatic media, and of author/narrator in strictly narrative
works. The actors are duplicitous, since they are playing roles,
but Truman has only one identity. The fact that Truman life’s
is staged is not sufficient to make it fiction, because in real
life also, we find many scripted events that count as genuine
performance.
Truman has no off-camera life, and except
for his inner thoughts, he cannot hide anything from the
audience. This sense of authenticity is strengthened by
the already mentioned impossibility to edit live broadcasting
and to tamper with its narrative sequence. Christof, the
producer of the show, woos the audience with the promise:
“Live and unedited, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.” If the
show is unedited, this means that it must go on even in
the narratively barren moments of Truman’s life, for instance
when he is asleep. The scriptwriters of the show make up
for these barren moments by filling the daytime with the
kind of events that one might expect from a soap. These
events introduce a “tellability” into Truman’s life that
rescues it from the tediousness of normal life. In his broadcast
about the show, Christof titillates the audience with a
preview of the excitement to come: “Meryl will soon leave
Truman. A new romantic interest will develop. And watch
for the first live conception on TV.”
Ryan notes that, in contrast to the highly controlled
24-hours–a-day world of Truman’s life, the world of
the reality TV show only includes relatively small segments
of selected time base don selective editing to build
narrative conflict and suspense — often around who will
be “voted off.” And, in contrasts to the producer’s
minute control and staging of every detail of Truman’s
life, many of the reality TV shows deliberately do not
attempt to manipulate participants in they hopes that
they will actually violate expectations and norms, much
to the entertainment of the audience, who are watching
voyeuristically how the participants may resist the
strictures imposed on them by the show’s presuppositions.
(This is particularly the case with the PBS historical
programs in which the participants often simply break
down under the challenges of daily drudgery of life
in 1883 or 1900, creating the suspense as to whether
they will simply abandon the program itself.):
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To the idea of a gullible audience thrown
into mental arrest by the mystifying power of the media,
I prefer the thesis advanced by Cynthia Freeland with
regard to other types of Reality TV, such as Rescue
911 or When Animals Attack: these programs
are so badly acted and so amateurishly produced that
they have “gotten to the point of parodying themselves.”
Survivor achieves the same effect through the opposite
route of overproduced, technically perfect images. According
to Freeland, audiences watch these caricatures “in a
subversive, ironic spirit,” deriving their pleasure
from the thought that this is not reality but rather
its made-for-TV version.
At the same time, Ryan argues for the need to
recognize that he participants , producers, and
audiences are aware of the fact that a reality TV
show such as Survivor is an artificial world, but,
at the same time, through their interaction with
that world, the are engaged in some genuine behaviors:
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The claim that what happened in
the fishbowl does not capture reality because participants
were selected by the producers, were aware of the
presence of the camera, and were placed in an artificial
situation presupposes an essentialist interpretation
of human reality. In this view, the real equals
the normal, the everyday, the private and the intimate.
We are only truly ourselves in the familiar circumstances
of our daily life, and preferably behind closed
doors, when we no longer play the game of social
behavior. The “false,” controlled self of public
life is thus opposed to the “true,” impulsive self
of privacy, which the Reality show can only hope
to capture when the participants forget the camera
and let raw feelings speak out . . .
human reality is something continuously produced
and presented to others, something that arises from
the interaction between a subject and an environment.
Human reality, if it could be mapped, would be the
sum of all the possible selves that we create in
all possible situations. This reality can emerge
no less from the confrontation of individuals with
a made-up environment than from their insertion
in a naturally occurring one . . . These shows make
no secret of being artificially designed environments,
but they are designed in such a way as to encourage
emergent behaviors. In Truman, life becomes a spectacle
that oppresses life. In Survivor, by contrast,
as in Artificial Life programs, the spectacle breeds
life. Without putting the two on the same pedestal,
couldn’t we say that in its best moments, the maligned,
low-brow genre of Reality TV shares at least this
one feature with art?
Ryan’s defense of reality TV shows as actually
portraying the “reality” of people engaged with
an artificial world suggests the need to focus
on the ways in which the participants respond
to the contrived nature of their situation with
different degrees of genuine or authentic behavior.
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Genre analysis.
Given the conventions of a drama program, reality
TV draws on a number of different genres. Because
many programs such as Survivor are set in exotic
or challenging contexts, they draw on the action/adventure
film in which participants are engaged in dramatic
narrative attempts to achieve a quest or escape
danger. In emphasizing the conflicts between
people based on having to “vote off” participants
and share reasons for one’s votes, the programs
also draw on soap opera programs in which emotional,
interpersonal conflict is dramatized . And,
reality TV draws on quiz shows and sports broadcasting
by having certain participants emerge as “winners”
after having successfully opposed various opponents
(Howley, 2000). Students could examine the particular
types of roles, language, storylines, and value
assumptions operating in a particular episode
that reflect intertextual links to these various
genres.
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Discourse analysis.
Reality TV portrays participants engaged in
highly competitive events in which they must
employ whatever means it takes to “win” or “survive”
in order to achieve individual popularity and
prizes. Rather than working together to address
a social issue, the participants adopt a highly
competitive stance reflecting a discourse of
competition consistent with traditional patriarchy
(Howley, 2000). All of this may reflect a larger
American cultural context in which a discourse
of individualism is valued over a discourse
of community social action. At the same time,
the slight decline in the popularity and number
of these programs in 2003 compared with 2000,
may reflect a post 9/11 value orientation towards
the need for shared community stances. Students
could examine the underlying discourses operating
in a particular episode, noting how decisions
and attitudes expressed reflect participants’
adherence to the larger ideological values operating
in the episode.
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Media ethnography.
Students could examine audience responses to
specific episodes of Reality TV, determining
reason for their appeal. Audiences may become
engaged with particular participants or situations
because they can readily identify with the seemingly
“everyday,” down-to-earth nature of the participants.
They can also actively participate, as is the
case with many television series, on chat discussion
sites, enhancing their sense of being a member
of a fan community.
Unit:
The Reality of Reality TV
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For further reading: |
Andrejevic, M. (2003). Reality TV: The work
of being watched. Lanham, MD: Rowan and Littlefield.
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Balkin, K. (Ed.). (2004). Reality TV.
New York: Greenhaven Press.
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Brenton, S., & Cohen, R. (2003). Shooting
people: Adventures in reality TV. London: Verso Books.
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Burnett, M. (2004). Live your dream on reality
TV. New York: Plume.
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Calvert, C. (2000). Voyeur nation: Media,
privacy, and peering in modern culture. New York: Westview
Press.
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Friedman, J. (Ed.). (2002). Reality squared:
Televisual discourse on the real. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers
University Press.
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Murray, S., & Ouellette, L. (Eds.). (2004).
Reality TV: Remaking television culture. New York: New
York University Press.
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Smith, M., & Wood, A. (Eds.). (2003). Survivor
lessons: Essays on communication and reality television. New
York: McFarland & Co. | | | | | | |
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