Summary Of Getting Real With Reality TV By Cynthia Frisby

The evolution of television content is currently steadily moving towards reality television shows. The shift from interest in fiction drama series to reality shows has turned the regular television viewers into addicted voyeurs. There have been diverse views on the effect of reality television shows ranging from support to criticism.

Reality TV burst onto the television scene in the early 2000s’s. Shows such as, The Bachelor, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, and American Idol are just a few of the hundreds of reality TV shows that are capturing the hearts of Americans on a weekly basis. The effects go unnoticed by the viewers, but as these shows are watched, they begin to take over the personality of the audience and are changing the way people perceive the world today.

“ Reality TV is sleazy, it is manipulative. It is as momentary as anything in popular culture,” according to Morley Safer. Reality TV makes us think that we need luxurious materials to be happy. It also makes us, as a society, behave in a bad manner because that is what we see on tv. (“Is Reality TV making You stupid?”) Believe it or not what we see on tv is not always true, it is sometimes fake ( "Reality TV's Growing Pains: It Can't Be ChildProofed.").

Lastly, reality television programs are detrimental to society because they humiliate many of the characters. This is detrimental to the characters because of obvious reasons such as suicide. The effects of this on society are even greater. Many people watch shows such as American Idol because they find it humorous when some of the characters have awful singing abilities, and therefore humiliate themselves. In my opinion, this makes many viewers bullies inside. If an individual watches the misfortune of others to make them feel better about themself, they are a bully. Therefore, reality television indirectly causes people to be bullies. Studies show that if a person has negative thoughts as a result of watching people humiliated on television; they may begin to

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.

2.0 Body of content 2.1 First Argument: Social Degrading 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

Reality TV allows audiences to laugh, cry and to live vicariously through so called everyday ordinary people who have opportunities to experience things that, until the moment they are broadcast, most individuals only dream about. (Frisby,

In Cassie Heidecker’s paper, The Real, the Bad, and the Ugly, she exposes that reality television’s charm is the characters have real, normal lives like the audience’s lives. While the producers’ editing causes regular episodes of reality TV shows to differ from a viewer's normal life, it also generates larger audiences with every episode and the ratings continue to rise. Moreover, the shows follow a predictable formula so that even Heidecker, who regularly watches reality TV, realizes the shows are predictable; yet Heidecker continues to laugh, cry, and enjoy the predictable moves the shows make. Since the ratings of reality TV continue to rise, more people than just Heidecker still enjoy the shows, even though they are predictable. Though the shows are

Primarily, Reality TV is Reality shows differ from classical documentaries in regard to their main intention: instead of stressing journalistic inquiry or intended in stimulating political debates, they are primarily made for entertainment and diversion (Corner 48-50). Since this is true, Reality shows have gone to extreme, unrealistic measures to entertain the audiences. For example: Survivor creates tasks and games for the contestants to perform, some being difficult and ultimately dangerous, but the contestants are more than willing because of their rising fame from the show and the audiences are more drawn into watching people in dangerous situations. These tasks are made purposely for the show and controlled environments exist that would never be found in the real world. Even though all this defeats the purpose of reality, its still considered a huge part of the

Throughout this analysis, is a discussion of the real ethics of reality TV and how the current gender, media and popular culture depict a fusion between reality and reality on TV. The writing is based upon the "Real Appeal: The Ethics of Reality TV", Catehrine Lumby and Elspeth Probyn. The idea that anyone can become famous is not fairly evident upon most TV viewers; however it is clear that TV makes the viewer believe that what they are viewing is true and it is for this reason that it becomes reality TV. TV exposes the public to a rather promiscuous vision of reality and this tends to be the apex of reality TV. Quite clearly, as Lumby states, Reality television, as its name suggests, is a genre which attempts to trade off its

Reality TV is an abstract American dream; it adopts the willing and the desperate and transforms them into stars, whether famous or infamous. (Thousands of sub-genres captivate the world, and the idea that an ordinary citizen can become a celebrity seemingly overnight attracts thousands of eager participants, each with a unique and different perspective. Because of the lifestyles and character of the superstars, millions find themselves addicted to watching and obsessing over the shows that claim to be basic reality. The dramatic interpretations of everyday life are fed to an absorbed audience, and the often wild behaviors of reality television stars are emulated and urged into American culture.) Therefore, reality television pushes a distorted image of success and failure on American society.

Against Reality TV For close to a decade, the ethics behind the existence of reality TV have been questioned. While there are ardent viewers of reality TV, researchers and other scholars disapprove them, and claim that the world would have been in a better place. Reality TV shows, especially in America, are extremely profitable to media owners, and this has increased their popularity in the recent years. The main target audience for these shows are teenagers and women, who spend a lot of time discussing about them, even hours after the shows. Most of the reality shows in America and other parts of the world have common ideas. The most fundamental aspect of most reality TV shows is that they display people who go through embarrassing, painful and humiliating ordeals. This is what the reality shows expect their audiences to be entertained, and presumably laugh at the situations the people go through. For this reason and many more, it has been found that they are more detrimental than entertaining to the society, and therefore, the world would be in a better place without them (Pozner 89-91).

From here on, Frisby insists that Reality TV gives people inspiration and the chance to experience positions in which dream of being in. She continues to state that comparison is not avoidable, viewers are loyal to Reality TV. She adds that surveys were done to determine the comparison of the effect on people from Reality TV. The data identifies the gratification of the media, so that they could get a broad idea of the viewings of the programming. Then viewers’ thoughts had to be analyzed to see what kind of comparison the participants had during the shows. Lastly the researched showed that no matter the gender there was not much of a difference in the response gotten from the participants regular and non-viewers experience a notable mood

How television is making people smarted. People all over the world turn on their television each night and watch a few moments to a few hours of television and it is hard to miss a reality show which on almost any channel. If they were to pause on one

Why Do People Watch Reality Television? There has been a huge increase in “reality” based television over the last few years. From Survivor to Big Brother it seems that we are constantly being bombarded with a new type of reality television program. But why do people watch these shows? What makes these shows so interesting? One theory brought up in an article in Psychology Today by Steven Reiss Ph.D. and James Wiltz, a Ph.D. candidate at Ohio State University, is that, “reality television allows Americans to fantasize about gaining status through automatic fame” (Reiss and Wiltz, 2001). This is the American dream, acquiring fame with little to no work at all. And what better way to do it than on television?