The Phenomenon Of Reality Television

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. George Will, in his article “Reality television: oxymoron” believes that reality television is making ordinary people degenerate morally and act stupid in the effort to please a disinterested audience. Reality TV shows are relying heavily on building extraordinary characters or events out of the norm and attract the attention of the audience. Kellner argues that the audience is enticed by “media constructs

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.

Reality shows – the present of mass media on entertainment which make the big influence to American society. Everybody watched the same stuff, the same old movies, or the same reruns before the cable TV or Internet appeared. For example, the Simpson was a successful sitcom became an institution as important as the cult classic. They poured their shared pop culture experienced into the show. However, the character

There are many different opinions when the subject of reality television is discussed. Although reality television shows are thought to be negative they really are just mindless entertainment. Many can argue that these shows are misleading and disturbing. On the other side of this, people merely use these shows for entertainment and allow people to forget about stress in their lives. The cause of these different opinions is a result of different age, gender, religion, and race. The main purpose of these shows is simply to allow people to live vicariously through the characters. This excitement of being in other people’s lives is what makes reality television so addicting to people.

This leads me to my last question, why is America so consumed in this concept of reality TV?

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.

The media creates television shows that appear to be reality however they are not and when looked at, it is easy to see. I will be discussing the relationships between reality and reality TV, satire, and documentary.

"Reality TV is set up to make people entertaining. A good person with values and principles is not good television" a quote by Ronda Rousey a mixed martial arts artist. Many people believe or want to believe that reality tv is true, but many other people avoid it for the fact that it is obviously fake. I personally don't watch reality tv but for the sake of this essay, I watched a few episodes of many television series to see and determine what I think about them. The point of this essay is to prove how fake reality tv is and I have succeeded in accomplishing that. Most of the reality shows have the camera crew all up in people's business or "secret" cameras placed in which people don’t know about them yet keep

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

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

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.

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).

The audience today can relate so well to this because we all are like the audience in this show. We are because when we turn on our TV and tune in to see what our favorite movie star, singer, sports player is up on TMZ. When paparazzi is hiding behind a tree taking pictures or videos, taping their every move. Sometimes without them knowing they’re getting hunted. Even tailing

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?