Reality TV Shows and Media Effect

Reality TV Shows and Media Effect

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  -- Benjamin Franklin REALITYOF REALITY TELEVISION GOVERNING BODIES (GARETH PALMER) REACTING TO REALITY TV (HELEN WOOD AND BEVERLEY SKEGGS) Bhanu B. Acharya University of Ottawa 6761131
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  AGENDAS 10/12/2012  Overview  RTV: Conceptual framework  Synopsis of both chapters  Methodology used  Theories used  Comparative understanding  Redefining the audience  RTV in Canadian context  My impressions  Further reading 2
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  OVERVIEW 10/12/2012 Two chapters: Chapter 5: Governing bodies By: Gareth Palmer Chapter 7: Reacting to reality TV By: Helen Wood and Beverley Skeggs Presenting vignettes of:  Ten Years Younger http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_TWknQNabE&feature=rel mfu  Honey We're killing the kids http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JksgsJVhqrQ 3
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  REALITY TV: CONCEPTOUTLINE 10/12/2012  Evolved from documentaries and during the 80s and destabilized docu. (66/67)  Synonymous to lifestyle programming, Margaret Mores says RTV as „fiction of presence‟ (93)  Immediacy or sense of presentness (93), focuses on self-transformation, (70)  Real/ordinary people as social actors (67), connected to urban environment (68)  Continuous surveillance to participants, who are enthusiastic to re-defining the identity or the „real-self‟ (72)  Emphasis on light entertainment, emphasis on prizes (67)  Instructive/suggestive approach, but impractical solutions (74) 4
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  SYNOPSIS OF “GOVERNINGBODIES” 10/12/2012  Beings with the best impressions of documentary and negative connotation with reality TV, began from 80s, Evolution of Docu to RTV, which emphasizes on light entertainment, prizes, ordinary people, vulgar lg., ritual elements (67)  Class related factors (women, ethnic minorities and working class), all have willingness to change (71), Talks about responsible citizen and consumer-self (65)  Highlights on diets, attire, cosmetics and manners, (73), RTV as consent manufacturer (71)  Role of surveillance in the new models of the self; constant vigilance will produce a useful citizenship (76)  Acceptance: whatever methods techniques and procedures offered, the ideal response is to accept them……. (76) 5
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  SYNOPSIS OF “REACTINGTO REALITY TV” 10/12/2012  Empirical research. interviewing, text-in-action, and FGD methods used; Target audience: 40 working class (W/B/SA) women  RTV shows observed by the researchers:Wife Swap, What not to wear, Faking It (C4, UK)  Discusses the experimental aspects of being involved in reality television and explore how identity is evoked in the dynamic responses of the audiences. (93)  Researched audience's affective (emotional) relation with television (104) :  TV enters into sociality through reactive moments;  Emotion works as a form of capital.  RTV enables/ engages audiences in talking moral positions. (104) 6
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  METHODOLOGY USED 10/12/2012 Governing bodies Reacting to reality TV • Theoretical  Empirical • Comparison of the two  Interviewing, watching TV channels of UK: BBC and ITV RTV shows with • Observation participants and FGD • Qualitative approach  40 women (middle and • Critical analysis working class), Black, White and S. Asian  Text-in-action method, recording immediate reaction 7
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  THEORIES USED 10/12/2012  Theory of Criticism  Consumption Theory  Cultivation Theory  Marxist Theory  Medium Theory  Sadharanikaran Theory (Communication Theory of Simplification)  Uses and Gratifications Theory 8
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  SIMILARITIES (GOVERNING BODIES &REACTING TO REALITY TV) 10/12/2012  Both portraits the background of UK mid-class perspective to working class (67)  Different chapters from the same book (The Politics of Reality Television: Global Perspectives, 2011)  Complementary chapters (Theoretical vs Empirical perspectives); surveillance is common in both.  Quest for identity or the „self‟ of the (middle and lower) class people.  Over representation of the working classes on many shows,  Reality formats encourage viewers to judge good and bad conduct by themselves. 9
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  DIFFERENCES 10/12/2012 Governing bodies Reacting to reality TV  PURPOSE: To consider  PURPOSE: To address reality TV‟s role in the the social character of formation of 'consumer- reality television as it self' and 'responsible meets its audience (93) citizen„ (65)  METHODS: Empirical, observational and  METHODS: Theoretical experimental approach, interpretive and  Focuses on the RTV analytical shows between 2004-  Examination of 2007 (94) and reality shows  Compares RTV with 'talk  Compares RTV with shows' (94) 'documentary', 10
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  RE-DEFINING THE “AUDIENCE” 10/12/2012  Audience involve themselves, agree for constant vigilance, and ready for metamorphosis,  S. Asian women watch RTV shows to get tips on fashion and parenting (98) and learn British culture ("Supernanny" and "What Not To Wear"),  Critical questioning audience (69) due to the difference of culture, geography and sociality from the RTV shows producers.  Mostly participants from working class, women and ethnic minorities (70-72),  Audience can challenge the knowledge of TV experts (96),  Program anchors use "you" to directly address the audience to clearly refer "presentness" (97). 11
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  RTV IN CANADIANCONTEXT 10/12/2012  Impact of RTV of UK is very much contextual in Canadian context  Canada, as commonwealth nation and still Queen is the national supremo.  Some franchised TV shows in Canada are : Canadian Idol (now stopped), Canada Got Talent, Big Brother, etc.  Ethnographic audience volume is high here;  Overweight, studying Canadian culture, physical transformation, etc. are common here. 12
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  MY IMPRESSIONS 10/12/2012  RTV = mixture of audience as role-players, display, social issue, entertainment, competitiveness, market relationship, desire culture, interactivity  Gareth Palmer is more supportive to documentary tradition and more critical to reality TVshows,  RTV shows are promoting market-relationship and consumer culture, they are not just „reality shows‟  Both articles are complementary to each other and best contextual in Canadian context  The chapters authors are working as the brand ambassadors, agents of RTV shows  Whatever methods, techniques and procedures offered, the ideal response is to accept them (76p)  Health is achieved through a combination of your knowledge, regulated autonomy and the helpful gestures of the market (75p)  Watching reality TV engages us in taking moral positions (104) 13
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  KEY TERMINOLOGIES USED 10/12/2012 Real-self (72) Quest of identity, personality, self-esteem, celebrification, confident and respect of others, Anxiety-industry (76) Extreme wish to do something, search of real-self, correct shape of body, hunt for branded choices, consumerism, etc. Discourses of sobriety, SOBRIETY (Seriousness), and GRAVITAS (having weight or considerable gravitas gravity). The film genre of documentary has great importance for (66p) society Insight into the world A depth model, prepared after investigation, "beyond" (66p) To place a documentary in widest possible context Reality genre (69) All sorts of programs related to the representation of reality, whether on TV, in cinema or in YouTube. Extended social/public People experience that kind of show in a manner that is not like the realm (104) private, enclosed space of text-reading, but a more open, shared activity. Affective textual encounter Relationship of investment in the TV program by the observed (104) viewers. 14 Affective economy (100) A phrase used by Sara Ahmed to insist that emotions are distributed across social as well as psychic fields.
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  FURTHER READINGS… 10/12/2012  George Orwell, 1984 (1949) Thought Police concept, constant vigilance after 9/11 in western countries  Foucault, M (1976) The History of Sexuality, Vol 1. New York: Pantheon Books, (Identity is closely linked up to sexuality)  Corner, John (2002) Performing the real, Documentary Diversions, Television and New Media, Vol 3, No 3, Pp. 255-269  McLuhan, M. (1964) Understanding Media: The Extension of Man. McGraw Hill. (RTV shows are “extended social/public realm”)  Misha Kavka (2008) Reality Television, Affect and Intimacy: Reality Matters (TV shifting from info tool to emotional gadget) 15
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  RTV‟S QUEST OF“REAL-SELF” AND MASLOW‟S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS 10/12/2012 16
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  ANY QUERIES, PLEASE… Thank You !