Essay on Reality TV

Motive of Author: To analyze the evolution of reality television as a genre. To discuss the various methods that reality TV invokes in order to entertain its audiences. To discover the definition of reality TV through examining several generations of reality TV over the years.

"Fist-pumping beachgoers. Singers competing for millions. Survivors outwitting, outlasting and outplaying. Turn on the television and chances are you’ll see all of these things. Whether you’re watching MTV, OWN or a main broadcast network, nearly every channel is home to reality television," USA Today reports. In the early 2000's, Reality TV began to come into play. It has become one of the most popular genres on television today. Although, for more than a decade, Reality TV has increased in popularity among Americans, the relative effects it has on

With many opinions about reality television to understand the truth one has to look at the roots of these shows. Most people try to say that reality television started with MTV and there inappropriate shows but these shows really began with shows like, Candid Camera, which was shown in the 1940’s. This show involved people who were put in funny situations and pranked. This show was only meant to entertain, nothing more nothing less. Although some of today’s reality television shows are more complicated than this earlier show, they provide the same mindless entertainment.

Reality television is not just television. It is a form of entertainment that for the most part has no informative aspect to it. It does however offer it’s viewers a chance to escape from reality and real problems for just a brief period. The popularity of reality television all over the world has made reality TV a major player when it comes to real life drama, social conflicts, how to, and competitions. Reality television brings the experiences of the actors into the living rooms of the viewers and allows them to relate the experiences they are seeing on the television to their actual lives and experiences. Reality Television has helped to change culture and society by allowing the viewers to interact and accept the behaviors of the people they are watching and allows the viewers to

The reality TV fad that is not going anywhere anytime soon, no matter how much some of us wish it had never started. As seen through the functionalist, conflict, and interactionist perspectives, reality TV has become an integral part of society.

Also, in many cases, the characters used in these shows are not ordinary individuals, but highly paid actors that simply recite scripts. Clearly, these shows are inaccurately labeled as “reality television,” and many individual’s time is wasted as a result. Time for many is very valuable. Wasting a person’s time because of an inaccurate description could be just as detrimental as wasting a person’s money because of an inaccurate description. Many people watch these shows to view real life situations, but what they are really viewing is the complete opposite. This cultivates confusion about what is real and what is fake.

Reality TV shows will continue to thrive as they fill up TV screens in homes all across the nation. The people that watch reality television will go through their daily routine waiting anxiously for their favorite part of the day when they can take a seat on the couch, kick their feet back, and catch up on the latest gossip

In Cynthia Frisby’s "Getting Real with Reality TV" she claims that many people revolve their lives around reality TV. I agree with Frisby because of her idea that viewers are using social comparison to find gratification within their own lives. Frisby also explains how reality TV is a big part of how people live and it’s getting harder and harder to get away from it.

Reality TV is known as exciting entertainment because the audience never knew what will happen next as it is with no strings attached and even have the freedom of speech. Despite the entertainment it can bring, the content of reality shows are actually degrading the society. Our pop culture and civilization have been affected by the reality programs in a bad way. Indeed, reality TV is promoting bad social value to the

I truly believe that reality TV needs a different name. At first reality TV was created with the aim to depict reality, but over time different interests and actions have resulted in doing the opposite of this. I would even go so far to say that reality TV has become just as fictional as fiction based television. “Reality” is defined as “the world or the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them”. However, Reality TV in no way represents this definition, but rather represents the idealistic and notional ideas as to what reality should be.

Since then, television has become a reflection of society’s cultural values and interests. Therefore, it is no surprise that our values have continued to be the driving force in shaping the popular reality television programs throughout the decades. All through the 1990s and 2000s, broadcasters began to narrow their focus to further trigger the interests of their target audiences. Cable networks developed reality television series devoted to cooking (Food Network), conflict drama (VH1, MTV), courtroom drama (Judge Judy), family-oriented programs (FOX), and even subculture specific interests such as BET. This gave viewers a choice of what type of program they want to watch within the scope of reality television. Many reality shows target a narrow audience, yet one that is incredibly valuable to television ratings. For instance, Bravo produces a variety of reality shows that cater to a narrow demographic of 20-50-year old women, such as The Real Housewives series. The series documents a group of wealthy housewives from a particular area in the United States. The show is cheap to make as it’s merely the day to day lives of melodramatic stay at home divas. The majority of episodes consist of these wealthy housewives’ social drama and extravagant lifestyles. Due to the narrow viewership of reality shows like this,

The concept of reality television has been around since the late 1990’s, starting with the first of it’s kind, Survivor, premiering on CBS in 1999. Viewers loved the “authenticity” that the show provided, and as a result, reality TV (RTV) became a mainstay of prime-time television. Currently, there are more than 320 contemporary RTV shows that occupy the television screens of thousands of individuals.

To quote Matt Philbin, managing editor of the MRC Culture & Media Institute, “the problem with much of reality TV is that it isn’t about real people or reality at all. These are highly scripted, performed shows, ‘written’ like a piece of fiction and as such they need the classic conflict-driven characters and soap opera melodrama.”

It seems that you can’t turn on a television set anymore without a reality show being on. All networks have recently started to pump out reality shows left and right. And why wouldn’t they? Reality shows are highly rated, with three of them being in the top ten on the Nielsen ratings chart. In fact, these shows are becoming more popular than the sitcoms and dramas aired. New sitcoms and dramas struggle to get attention of the public when going against a reality show. Programs such as The Beast and Go Fish, which critics loved and raved about, are victims of the wrath of reality shows. These shows are now cancelled.

After reading article one, Why Reality TV Doesn’t suck, and May Even Make Us Smarter, I can say I fully agree with this article. The writer of this article is Grant McCracken, an anthropologist who has studied American culture and business for over two decades. “Reality TV is often perceived as a “vast wasteland.” Society say it’s uncouth, desperate, and lawless.” (McCracken 1). The start of Reality TV started when regular television just became dull, writers wanted to make a story for viewers to watch that was unpredictable. Reality TV can be manipulated by producers and still no one quite knows where things will end up. This makes Reality shows fascinating and sometimes even maybe uncomfortable for some viewers. Grant McCracken states, once people believe what is true about themselves, we can begin to figure out what is really going on in this culture. In this case, the surface says, “Reality TV is a dumbing down.” But the secret says “not always.” Sometimes, Reality TV contributes to smartening up (2). I can relate to this statement because whenever I watch Reality TV shows like, Keeping Up with the Kardashians,