"From a positive perspective, certain reality TV programmes can encourage viewers to apply an ethics of care in their everyday lives...an ethics of care presented in lifestyle programming is primarly about the care and responsibilities of individual households."
Reality TV adopts elements from documentary:
Different types of documentary:
Observational
Reflexive/performative
Docu-drama
Mock documentaries
Staging the real: factual TV programming in the age of Big Brother
The decrease in popularity of documentary in "Factual/documentary programming is now seen as having to fight for its place in the chedule alongside other genres." page 8
The shift from documentary to reality genres: "They see these developments as a more or less systematic attempt to replace the more serious and challegening forms of documentary with so much lightweight, undemanding pap"
Histrical example of the documentary and its values:
Civilisation (BBC 2, 1969)"When first transmitted it was generally considered to have enhanced the status of documentary by the way in which it brought a difficult high culture topic to the attention of a mass TV audience" page 9
"Though some of the new formats carry echoes of more serious catagories of work (the observational documentary, the investigative report), the feature that is common to all these newly devised formats is their entertainment orientation. Manifestly designed to appeal to a prime-time audience, the new formats have frequently imported structures and components from other TV genres to enhance their attractiveness" page 9
This shows how reality TV adopts elements of other TV show
Selection process of reality shows: "First in their choice and deployment of real-life performers, programme makers are well aware that they are looking for a special kind of performance ability." page 13
Audience appeal: "checking out how well subjects are able to maintain this level of performance"
Audience appeal: "mirror the manner in which all of us, in our everyday lives, are called on to produce a not dissimilar kind of performance" page 14
Audience appeal: "the pleasures that audiences take in measuring the subject's ability to generate an appropriate performance as a reflection of that real-life role-playing in which all of us are required to indulge on a daily basis." page 15
"It seems to me that all this inclusion and democratization fosters a culture which values participaton over ablity and popularity over excellence: the karaoke culture" page 15
Docu-soaps dumbing down- could reality tv be doing the same? "there's a danger that in the ruch to deliver more and more, quality will slip and standards will not be maintained" page
The decrease of docu-soap- could this suggest how post-2000 reality might end up?
"The unexpected popularity of series such as Airport, Driving School and Vets in Practice has, as suggested, led to a veritable feeding frenzy among programme makers, as rival channels sought to come up with their own docu-soap offerings."
Suzan Murray, Laurie Ouellette, Reality TV: remaking television culture
http://books.google.com/books?id=4_W19oHGzZQC&pg=PA179&dq=channel+4+and+reality+tv&hl=en#v=onepage&q=channel%204%20and%20reality%20tv&f=false
"Producer Craig Gilbert described the above nonfiction program, An American Family, as a "real-life soap opera" in regard to its narrative structure." page 65
"it is now alternately discussed as an observational documentary and an early form of reality television" page 66
This is one of my historical examples and shows how the genre is not clear cut like my contemporary shows Wife Swap and Supernanny
"The types of reality programs that share the most textual and aesthetic characteristics with documentaries tend to focs on the everyday lives of their subjects in somewhat "natural" settings without a game set up...or the promise of prizes"
This shows how my two case studies can be considered as taking from documentary because there is the natural element
Television: critical methods and applications By Jeremy G. Butler http://books.google.com/books?id=9ZtBYbEGhi8C&pg=PA80&dq=reality+and+narrative+structure&hl=en&ei=DigTTZy0BKGShAfoxOm2Dg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=reality%20and%20narrative%20structure&f=false
"they should have structure and conflict, problem and denouement, rising and falling action, a begining, a middle and an end" page 80
narrative structure of my case studies
"the media manipulate and process those events that they have selected for us... it is also mediates according to ideological, institutionalised parameters" page 81
the link between mediation and the institution that does it
An ordinary person in a reality show is called as "social actor" as they represent themselves in the show- though it is still somewhat a performance. Page 84
The feeling of personal audience interaction: "The characters interact as if there were no one watching...there are millions watching" Page 85
The tube has spoken: reality TV & history By Julie Anne Taddeo, Ken Dvorak
http://books.google.com/books?id=NBHXVBEHVzEC&printsec=frontcover&dq=wife+swap+reality+TV&hl=en&ei=eikTTeDkLYabhQfO8qy3Dg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&sqi=2&ved=0CDoQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=wife%20swap%20reality%20TV&f=false
Tele-vison: An introduction to studying television
"It is interesting how the recent discussion of reality television has heightended general awareness of fakery here, although it is not clear just what impact this has had on public perception of other, more serious, kinds of documentary work" page 62
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