How real is Reality TV?
According to Hill(2005), “Reality TV is a catch-all category that includes a wide range of entertainment programmes about real people.” Reality TV also became a mainstream genre of broadcasting programs located on the border between information, entertainment, documentaries and dramas, as it was called factual television. Moreover, it features real people participating in real-life events opposed to virtual creation by telling stories about everything from health care to beauty, from people to pets. Hill(2005) generally creates the question of how real reality television is by assuming that viewers can’t distinguish fiction from reality on television.
In general, reality TV is closely linked to the form of documentary television. Among many types of documentaries, observation documentaries, in particular, tend to deal with current events unfolding in front of cameras, relying on the use of light, portable cameras, although claims of observing real life are not much included in the game show format, even traces of observational documentaries remain in reality game shows such as Big Brother. Big Brother is a setting in which participants live together for 24 hours under camera surveillance in a space cut off from the outside world and regularly vote for each other and the last of the cohabitants to win the prize. The people who produced the broadcast were entertaining, satisfying our desire to be curious about the behavior of the other person and to watch the other secretly. “Reality TV does not just represent individuals and character types. It shows us social interaction, group dynamics, interpersonal struggles, the process of voting, and even, perhaps, the workings of power itself”(Escoffery,2014).
So it blurts the line, making us connect with our reality, whether it is real or fake. In addition, extreme places and prize money expand interactions to make attractive television sets, but we learn human interactions as “truths.”
t is also an entertainment factor that plays an important role in Reality TV. Reality TV mainly involves a wide range of human activities, with broadcasters aiming to draw their attention by associating the subject with viewers’ lives or experiences, no matter what subject they deal with. So they add a lot of entertainment elements to gain popularity and don’t let them know that they have been manipulated dominantly. What’s important for broadcasters is to make the audience feel mentally or socially and culturally connected to what they see on TV. Such entertainment elements can attract people’s attention or popularity, but they can be reduced to reality by extreme exaggeration or portrayal.
References
Escoffery, D. S. (Ed.). (2014). How real is reality TV?: Essays on representation and truth. McFarland.
Hill, A. (2005). Reality TV: Audiences and popular factual television. Psychology Press.
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