The Reality Of Reality Television Essay

While reading the journal Reality Bites: An Investigation of the Genre of Reality Television and Its Relationship to Viewers’ Body Image researchers utilized a unique methodological approach, this study investigated subtypes of reality television (RTV) to study the influence of exposure to RTV on body image (body dissatisfaction and drive for thinness) as compared a more traditional weekly report of RTV viewing. Young adults (N ¼ 472) completed online surveys measuring their exposure to Reality TV and perceptions of their own body image. Four types of RTV were uncovered. Regression analyses using these 4 factors demonstrated that exposure to competition-based RTV shows (e.g., Dancing with the Stars) predicted increased body dissatisfaction and drive for thinness. On the other hand, the weekly self-report of RTV viewing did not reveal any relationships between weekly exposure to RTV and body image. These findings underline the need for cultivation-based media studies that include program-based measures of genre-specific media exposure, especially when seeking to capture media effects related to RTV.

The stories in David Rensin’s book, The Mailroom: Hollywood History From the Bottom Up, are exciting, intriguing and perfectly suited for reality television. The book, which is comprised of interviews with over 200 mailroom graduates from some of the biggest Hollywood talent agencies, reveals the not-so-glamorous lives of mailroom assistants in the most glamorous industry in the world (Rensin). These mailroom clerks are young, motivated, and competitive individuals who aspire to be Hollywood agents making millions. Such driven and aggressive people would make for excellent reality stars. Due to the combination of business-oriented tasks and out-of-office drama, The Mailroom is the result of The Apprentice meeting Vanderpump Rules.

The average person spends over ninety thousand hours of their life at work, yet millions of people still watch a television show about an office after working their own nine-to-five shifts. Workplace sitcoms, such as The Office, have gained exceeding popularity over the past few years, but the irony is that the viewer’s “escape from reality” leads them right back to their own cubicle. So what would intrigue the audience to fictional paper companies? Audiences are able to relate to the show which is perhaps the foremost reason for The Office being first created in the United Kingdom. Soon after, American producers saw the potential of the show to be a success overseas, so they modified the BBC program for American culture. The American remake of The Office has many similarities and differences with its British counterpart such as archetypal characters and individual storylines; however, the two sitcoms exemplify the differing business cultures, diversity gaps, and the overall national identities of the U.K and the U.S.

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.

Needless to say, when the father was introduced as one of the main characters of the show, white

What pleasure do you get from watching a group of people humiliate themselves in the name of television? Media both in the UK and around the world seem to have "discovered" that so-called "reality" shows are very profitable, resulting in a growing string of such shows in recent years. Although not all are successful, many do achieve significant popularity and cultural prominence. That does not mean, however, that they are good for society or that they should be aired. Can you honestly say, that after absorbing the reality rubbish, you have learned something?

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

Keeping Up with the Kardashians is a reality television show that has aired on E! for the past seven years. It has filmed eight seasons focusing on the lives of the Kardashian and Jenner families. The reality show focuses on both the private and professional lives of the Kardashian sisters Kourtney, Kim, and Khloe, with additional emphasis on their brother Robert, mother Kris, stepfather Bruce (Robert Kardashian passed away before the show aired and Kris got remarried to Bruce), and half siblings Kendall and Kylie. As the seasons progressed their boyfriends, friends, and coworkers all became a big part of the show. This included people such as Kourtney’s boyfriend Scott Disick, her two kids Mason and Penelope, Khloe’s husband Lamar Odom,

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).

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.

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.

Reality television has always been a fun pastime for Americans but when Keeping Up with the Kardashians aired the media, fashion, and America would never be the same. The first episode was aired in October of 2007 and was based around Kim Kardashian (Tikkanen). Kim Kardashian was the face of the show because she had recently had a sex taped released, which was making her the “it” girl at the time and the sex tape helped her family land the reality show (Tikkanen). The show showcases Caitlyn Jenner formerly know as Bruce Jenner, Kris Jenner, Kourtney Kardashian, Kim Kardashian, Khloé Kardashian, Robert Kardashian, Kylie Jenner, Kendall Jenner, and Scott Disick. The entire family is attracted to drama and confrontations but Scott Disick and Robert Kardashian added a different dimension to the show because they openly talk about their struggles that they face internally.

Today’s audience grabs hold of reality TV now a day. Looking forward week to week to watch these unscripted real life situation shows. In a way it 's becoming increasingly hard to avoid not watching. Some viewers see the TV show and tend to be attention seekers, and reality TV allows them to fantasize about achieving status through instant fame. Too much reality TV may lead viewers to idealize real world situations, like romanticizing dating. Like when Truman saw the girl in the library who was an actress and a fan of the show. He wanted to take her out sometime later that week, but she said it couldn’t happen because she knows what’s going on, but she had true love for him and asked to go out with him right then on a little date to the beach. As they went to the beach she was going to spill the beans and tell him everything. Then a man of the show in a car drove there to stop her acting like her father to get her before she ruined the show. It’s like most reality TV love shows on today people who audition for a show and know it’s scripted, but end up actually having a real feeling for the person.

Can you believe that reality television has actually been around since 1948? Most of us may have thought that this idea of real television just came about in the last decade but actually it’s been around for quite some time. In 1948 Candid Camera was the first reality show to be broadcasted on television. Many considered this to be the “granddaddy” of the reality TV genre (History of reality TV). This show actually began in radio broadcasting. Allen Funt was the man in charge of this whole new production. He started by simply taping complaints of men in service and broadcasting them over the Armed Forces Radio. This is what later became known as the television show, Candid Camera. Candid Camera was known for