How real is RTV?

How real is Reality TV?

Some people love it other people love to hate it. You don’t have to watch reality TV to have an opinion of it, it’s a conversation starter and it is often more talked about then watched (Hill, 2015). RTV has the ability to address a huge audience in original ways and it is able to retain the audience’s attention for a long period of time (Biressi & Nunn, 2005). Slade (2014) points out “As a television viewing culture, we have become more obsessed with instant gratification and the bigger and weirder, the better.”
 According to Hill (2015) minor reality soap series can attract more Twitter followers then actual viewers and big TV shows are considered to have failed if they don’t make the headlines. Hill (2015) writes that “Reality TV is caught up in what is happening now. Individual shows, news headlines, social media trends and even big events date very quickly.”
As most of us know there are several different types of reality TV shows, but all of them evolve around ‘real people’. According to Escoffery (2006) RTV doesn’t just represent people and types of characters, but also “social interaction, group dynamics, interpersonal struggles, the process of voting, and even, perhaps, the workings of power itself.” Reality TV is now one of the most obvious cultural grounds for debating the status of modern fame. The fame culture is centred around the “famous for being famous” concept, and it now rules over the concept of talent and hard work (Escoffery, 2006).

Let’s have a look at how the reality TV producers tailor their shows to engage the biggest audience possible. As Escoffery (2006) points out it is important to look at how power and social interaction is represented in RTV, how they are depicted and how the are perceived by the audience. Wyatt & Burton (2012) talks about how we need to ask questions and make distinctions between the ethics of RTV and in RTV, are the shows made honestly, do they treat their participants in a morally responsible manner? They point out that we have to look at “whether they communicate a sense of ethics in their narratives and whether they assume, or even prompt, an ethical response from their audience.” (Wyatt & Bunton, 2012).
Wyatt & Bunton (2012) mentions that there are several examples of deception in reality TV such as misleading editing to create drama or to piece together quotes from different contexts, basically forcing the contestant to say what the producer needs them to say. According to Deery (2015), editing is often used to build characters and to make them seem shady or more innocent. Clips can be shown out of sequence or the editor can choose when to release certain information to maximize the dramatic effect (Deery, 2015).

This combined with the evidence and information provided in Philippa Smith’s lecture (Reality Television, Popular Genres week 11, 2020) where we looked at comments from people who had taken part in reality TV shows, makes me conclude that we have to be critical. Knowing that producers edit the narrative, cast people who are bound to create conflict, retake shots for maximal dramatic effects etc, makes me conclude that RTV probably is real to some extent but, like my mother once told me; you can’t believe everything you see on TV.

Sources:

Biressi, A., & Nunn, H. (2005). Reality tv : Realism and revelation. ProQuest Ebook Central https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

Deery, J. (2015). Reality tv. ProQuest Ebook Central https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

Escoffery, D. S. (Ed.). (2006). How real is reality tv? : Essays on representation and truth. ProQuest Ebook Central https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

Hill, A. (2014). Reality tv. ProQuest Ebook Central https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

Slade, A. F., Narro, A. J., & Buchanan, B. P. (Eds.). (2014). Reality television : Oddities of culture. ProQuest Ebook Central https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

Smith, P. (2020). REALITY TELEVISION, Popular Genres (ENGL602) Week 11. Powerpoint.

Wyatt, W. N., & Bunton, K. (Eds.). (2012). The ethics of reality tv : A philosophical examination. ProQuest Ebook Central https://ebookcentral.proquest.com