How Does Reality Tv Affect American Culture

Television during this time greatly shaped American culture. Televisions were affordable and middle class America began to invest in them. The technology developed which allowed the networks- NBC, CBS and ABC, to broadcast TV in real time. The moment was realized during the 1952 presidential election. Broadcasters were able to show the Democratic and Republican conventions live. This was important because rural America was able to see in real time Dwight Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson running against each other.

The sexualization of women in many of today’s reality shows leads to a negative effect on young girls. How girls learn about their value and worth can be greatly impacted by the degrading roles many of these “reality” stars portray. It sets high unrealistic expectations of the way young girls are supposed to act. Women are

In order to fit in to society, some people may modify their own actions based on the perceived reality of the TV show. It is easy to reality TV programs and the way they are perceived, could affect society as a whole.

Some of the most popular television shows in today’s society are The Biggest Looser, Jersey Shore, and Big Brother. These programs and many others are classified as reality television. Reality television’s main purpose is to attempt to portray ordinary people in unscripted situations. Recently, however, many of these shows have achieved in creating the complete opposite, and have earned an immense amount of criticism as a result. Reality television programs are detrimental to society because they influence bad behavior among teenagers, do not produce authentic real life situations, and they humiliate many of the characters.

In the midst of this generation, reality television has become very popular, it has begun to promote stereotypes. TV critics feel that reality television has been developed to entertain or cheer people up. Some reality shows can be good for individuals who like them, while some of them can be bad, depending on the show. As for opinion, television is the greatest invention that has been made because it helps people learn lessons about life, by educating and to experience new things. It helps to encourage people and can lead them to make important decisions about their futures.

The Girl Scouts Institute did a study in 2011 entitled “Real to Me: Girls and Reality TV” in which they gave many statistics to support the way in which reality TV affects young women. In this study, they collected data from over 1,100 girls around the country and what they found was astonishing. Many of the girls, 50 percent of them to be exact, believed that real-life reality shows are “mainly real and unscripted” (Girl Scouts Institute 1). Their study showed that girls who consumed reality TV are more likely to be focused on their physical appearance. Seventy-two percent say they spend a lot of time on their appearance versus 42 percent of non-viewers. Thirty-eight percent of

Today while watching a movie or television show on cable, there were four to five minute breaks of commercials. Most of these commercials consisted of new reality shows. If they were not new, then it was the dates for when they old shows would make a comeback and start another season. Reality television has been in our lives since the 1940s. Although, the shows that were on years ago were much less vulgar than they seem to be now. It appears reality television continues to go down the wrong road. It is seen in many popular reality shows where the characters are almost getting praised for the bad behavior that they show on camera. This is important to know because it is has become a very popular thing for many people to watch, especially young teens. This gives the people in the shows the opportunity to be a role model for teens who might be looking elsewhere other than parents or peers for someone to look up to. It has also been shown that more teens would be interested in signing up to be on a reality show for the chance to gain fame by just about living their life. Reality television has done more harm than good to our society. For the most part, the shows today are showing more things that effects our teens in a more negative way. This left me with the question on does reality television really affect us? There are positives and negative effects on its viewers as well as the effect is has had on the culture of today’s society.

According to Lori Gottlieb, cultural critic and family therapist tells us that “Teens are naturally curious about other people’s lives and want to know how their own lives compare,” I agree with this statement from personal experience. When I was a pre-teen my thoughts always circled around “ when will this end, I tired of it, and do other girls have to go through what I go through on a day to day basis” and resulting in curiousity of others lives and if they were going through the same thing I was at the time. There are also some points where reality can help girls for example inside the article “What Reality TV Teaches Teen Girls” by Meredith Melnick states that “ 65% say such shows introduce new ideas and perspectives, 62% say the shows have raised their awareness of social issues and causes” honestly I agree with this cause it could help adults understand anothers situation, but it can also help the young children by putting themselves in anothers situation and change their perception on veiwing life . I have done this many times and each time it was for the better. I also grew up in a situation where my mothers family were very close minded while my dads family were very open minded and no matter the situation they will listen to both sides of a story and tries to understand and analyze their

Reality TV shows has affected our society in several ways. As an example is that what happens in the gay-marriage issue. The majority of reality TV shows somehow support the decision. When people watch those kinds of shows for a long time and from different channels they become more persuaded about this topic and can accept the gay marriage idea. not only the reality TV shows may affect the U.S. culture, but also the movies can change the society. Movies affect people's way of thinking, especially children. When a child see a cop in a movie who has a power to control the people who did something wrong, in real life the kid will respect the police officer and feel safe because he knows there is someone who take care of criminal people. Whether from the reality shows or movies, TV shows do affect the U.S. culture and

This research will focus on the negative impact of reality TV and analyse facts and examples of influence from reality TV shows. The information provided and studies are referred from year 2000 till present hence it will be based on most recent popular reality TV shows.

As you can see reality tv is dominating our lives. Just as we say goodbye to “The Biggest Loser”, we say hello to Masterchef, but why is reality tv so popular? What tips and tricks go down behind the scenes to influence the way we view the characters? Reality TV programs claim to be showing us a true glimpse of life as it happens, but what we truly see isn't “real”. Reality television is not a reflection of reality, because there are many techniques that producer use, such as adding music/ sound effects, variety of camera shots and angles, little things like editing and voice overs, which create a biased view of situations and people.

How has reality TV affected the way people view other forms of entertainment? A very popular network called VH1, is one of the various networks that have transformed the true meaning of entertainment by its presentations of reality shows.VH1 has contributed in the decline of music perceptions by switching from music to a strictly reality TV basis. Reality TV is the lowest form of entertainment; it idolizes ignorance, depicts peoples’ misfortune, and encourages stereotypes. The reputation of televised music has been damaged by VH1’s newfound reality TV show fame.

Reality television has become increasingly more prevalent throughout the society over the past decades. In fact, reality television has been often portrayed as an utmost claim to realism (Coyne, Robinson, and Nelson 283), in which its portrayals have impacted the culture and the behaviour of its viewers (Barton 460). However, the influence of reality television also bring with it a more troubling issue. The influences of reality television have become a growing problem because of its negative effects that have resulted in a serious ramifications on the culture and the behaviour of the adolescents. A careful examination of the literature of this topic will show this to be the case.

1. Most girls will do whatever it takes to be skinny and look like the stars that weigh 100 pounds "...the media influence on the cultural phenomenon of dieting and the perfect body. “Commercials and reality TV shows make you feel bad about yourself so you buy into the fad," Cohn said. The diet industry earns $50 billion each year on diet pills, and $8.4 billion is spent every year on cosmetic surgery. Women -- and men, Cohn stressed -- want to be thin, because large men and women are ridiculed" (Demmel). Eating disorders continues to be problem among young girls because of their role models. Girls on reality TV shows have that 'perfect' body and girls what to be everything like them.

The cultural phenomenon ‘Reality Television (TV)’ has become an increasingly popular genre of television since its paroxysm onto the airwaves in 1945. The term ‘Reality Television’ can be defined as the genre of entertainment that documents the lives of ‘ordinary’ individuals through the exhibition of allegedly unscripted real-life scenarios, despite inquisitive inquiries disclosing Reality TV to entail facets of script. The primary objective of Reality TV is purely to entertain the audience. This genre of television is appealing to viewers due to its entertainment principle/value, the audience’s competency to correlate to the characters and their situations, and the contingency it presents for escapism and voyeurism. We can capitalise the Australian appropriation of the American popular dating Reality TV show ‘The Bachelor’ as a tool to further comprehend the purpose and appeal of Reality television. The postulations of media’s obligations to society in contrast to their current actions and media as a mirror to society - the normative theory, can also be utilised as an implement to apprehend Reality TV. Through the strict analysis of ‘ The Bachelor’ and the employment of the normative theory, the purpose and appealing factor of Reality TV can be deeply examined.