Reality television appears to have taken over our TV schedules! From the monstrous behemoth that is Big Brother the genre spawned many hybrids and sub-genres. Faced with a serious documentary on BBC4 or Wife Swap on Channel 4
"The relatively cheap production costs and high audience viewing figures ensure a steady stream of new and repeated formats of reality television on our screens. The ‘real’ drama of the programmes is added to by the interactivity, with the audience supposedly directly influencing events on screen."
Again, the reality genre is a cheap production: no actors, scripts or major setting creations (sometimes), making the genre abundant on TV! The more successful shows, the more they create.
"In his most famous allegory, Plato described a dark cave containing prisoners chained to the floor facing a blank wall. They know nothing other than the shadows they see on the wall, cast by objects and people moving in front of a fire. They have lived this way for their entire lives, and most of them are content to sit staring at the shadows."
The dark cave becomes the TV "shadow box"..."The voyeuristic scopophilia of watching reality TV is undeniable."
"As well as the chained people, there are other people in the cave. Plato calls them the puppet-handlers, the ones holding those in the cave captive". e.g. the institution or authority...possibly the voiceover who constructs meaning or makes "puppet show".
"If we think of the puppet handlers as the ‘elite’ or ruling class then this idea of a reality television-obsessed audience becomes controversial, drawing on the Media Studies concept of hegemony."
The hegemonic view
"Theories of hegemony are based around the idea that dominant classes persuade subordinate or lower ones to accept and adopt their values. In programmes like Britain’s Got Talent and The X Factor, a panel of so-called experts decide who has talent and who has not."
Supernanny: Jo could possibly be the elite one on the show: she makes strugging parents adopt her values of looking after their children.
Wife Swap: The instition picks a family that they most vaule and represent them as the right way to live, while the other family are subordinated.
"The programme makers and the television networks are the ultimate puppet handlers, with their manipulative editing and presentation of the judges to the viewing public. Channel 4 and ITV are the organisations that broadcast the most popular reality television formats."
"The allegory of Plato’s cave offers an interesting comment on reality television programming, particularly with the notion of celebrity, our obsession with confession and voyeurism, and the desire to get past the ‘puppet handlers’ and the fire to the rarefied celebrity lifestyle. The chained audience theory might be limited by the active social engagement that audiences bring to this viewing experience, as reality programmes clearly seem to serve a social function. "
The future of reality TV in the UK seems assured, as new series are continually commissioned.
Sean Richardson is Head of Media Studies at Penistone Grammar School, and an examiner for WJEC Media Studies A Level.
from MediaMagazine 22, December 2008.
Reality TV and Theory
Sean Richardson, MediaMagazine 22, December 2007, TV special, New online September 2008, Reality TV, accessed 6 Nov 2010
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