Week 12

Can reality tv still be thought of as a genre given the high level of hybridity that exists?

While the text talks states “divides reality TV into everyday dramas of
courage, talk about feelings and civic action” (Wood, 2004) they state the problem with the dividing of the genre is that it doesn’t distinguish with the hybridization among other television category’s. Hybridization is prevalent in many forms of television other than reality tv even given the high level of hybridization in reality tv it brings a unifying genre to the other wise divided category. “reality TV has proved difficult to define…many interpreters pose hybridity as if it were an
undifferentiated category”(Wood, 2004) It goes on to state that Hybridization as a hole has been treated as simple and not complex.

Hybridization has been on the rise it was lackluster in the 70s but has been on the rise ever since and has taken over fiction as of late i feel that Hybridity should become its own genre rather than take away reality tv, reality tv has its place as a genre that has plenty of room within its subgenres for hybriditity maybe the name should be changed from reality tv as reality tv “Kilborn (1994: 423) defines reality TV as ‘a hybrid mix of presenter talk, v´erit´e material, dramatic reconstruction and various forms of audience participation’.”(Wood, 2004) Which in my mind feels more like fiction than reality.

References:

Wood, B. (2004). A World in Retreat: The Reconfiguration of Hybridity in 20th-Century New Zealand Television. Media, Culture & Society, 26(1), 45–62. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443704039709

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