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International in scope and more comprehensive than existing collections, A Companion to Reality Television presents a complete guide to the study of reality, factual and nonfiction television entertainment, encompassing a wide range of formats and incorporating cutting-edge work in critical, social and political theory. Original in bringing cutting-edge work in critical, social and political theory into the conversation about reality TV Consolidates the latest, broadest range of scholarship on the politics of reality television and its vexed relationship to culture, society, identity, democracy, and \"ordinary people\" in the media Includes primetime reality entertainment as well as precursors such as daytime talk shows in the scope of discussion Contributions from a list of international, leading scholars in this field

In an era of Twitter and televised therapy, it may seem that classic theatre has little place in contemporary society. Accustomed to the indulgences of a celebrity-driven culture, how can modern audiences understand and interpret classic works of drama? In Tragedy in the Age of Oprah: Essays on Five Great Plays, Louis Fantasia provides a provocative examination of the relationship between popular culture and classical tragedy. Making a persuasive argument for the lessons tragedy has to offer today’s audiences, Fantasia examines five enduring works of theatre: Euripides’ Medea, William Shakespeare’s King Lear, Jean Racine’s Phèdre, Friedrich Schiller’s Mary Stuart, and Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night. Fantasia discusses in detail each of these plays, framing them in a contemporary context that explores the suffering, responsibility, and identity that tragedy advocates. Each play is presented as an engaging, powerful encounter for the reader, recreating as closely as possible the impact of a great performance. A unique look at the role classical theatre can and should play in contemporary society, these essays reveal the lessons great plays have to teach us about ourselves. Directed toward theatre professionals and students, Tragedy in the Age of Oprah will also resonate with anyone interested in theatre, literature, and cultural studies.

The purpose of this study was to clarify the relationship between viewing motivation for reality programs and the viewing experience (presence) during watching, viewing satisfaction after watching, and attitudes toward presented tourism destinations. While this study notes that the empirical verification of travel reality variety programs is insufficient, various discussions are presented with regard to the grip of reality variety program fever in Korea. Notably, viewers are interested in the emotional experience related to characters and tourism destinations in reality variety programs. Therefore, we asked the following questions: (1) What kind of motivation encourages viewers to watch reality variety programs? (2) How does motivation for viewing a reality variety program affect viewing satisfaction through a certain approach (presence)? (3) How does viewing satisfaction affect one’s attitude toward a program’s tourism destinations? To answer these questions, we conducted a survey of 358 viewers of travel reality variety programs. The results of this study are as follows: (1) viewing motivation for travel reality variety programs consists of five factors: vicarious gratification, entertainment, information-seeking, habitual time-spending, and socializing; (2) it was confirmed that the effect of these five factors on satisfaction was mediated by presence (viewing experience); and (3) viewing satisfaction through presence affected the subsequent attitude toward presented tourism destinations.

Drogowska discusses how streaming media services influence the structure of semantic reactions. She recognizes semantic reactions as the most suitable framing because, following Alfred Korzybski's orientations, she assumes that the way we evaluate and the consciousness of that process are the core components of \"reality,\" of the way they define objects on an unspeakable level, the way they abstract, the way we perceive, using Batesonian terms, pattern that connects and difference that makes a difference. Referring to \"reality,\" I use quotation marks to emphasize the inadequacy of the term, considering both its Aristotelian bias and its meaning in the context of the television genre. These shows are designed to attract a specific audience through their visual appeal, plot, and characters, who may be perceived as \"one of us.\" She is convinced that today's \"reality,\" as a multiordinal term, is more deeply rooted in the context we create by blending physical objects with stories told on demand via portable and TV screens.

The rise of high-definition television sets (1080p and, more recently, 4K resolution \"Ultra HD\" sets), as well as an overall rise in average television screen sizes and multiple-screen households, means that television performance can be scrutinized more closely and in more detail by audiences.\\n Social networking sites and applications such as Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr all showcase the fascination and pleasure that audiences have with television performances. In the case of The Americans, a quick search on Giphy reveals 19,515 animated images, often catching nuanced and memorable aspects of the actor's performances, especially facial expressions in close-up (see links in this article's notes for animated GIFs), revealing the audience's investment in the performers' nuances, idiolects, and idiosyncrasies.2 Conclusions In his 1974 Cambridge inaugural lecture \"Drama in a Dramatised Society,\" Raymond Williams- a Welshman, like Matthew Rhys, and also an acute observer of American television-argued, \"Drama is a special kind of use of quite general processes of presentation, representation, signification\" (qtd. in O'Connor 7).

BackgroundExpectations of the healthcare experience may be influenced by television dramas set in the hospital workplace. It is our perception that the fictional television portrayal of hospitalization after injury in such dramas is misrepresentative. The purpose of this study was to compare trauma outcomes on television dramas versus reality.MethodsWe screened 269 episodes of Grey’s Anatomy, a popular medical drama. A television (TV) registry was constructed by collecting data for each fictional trauma portrayed in the television series. Comparison data for a genuine patient cohort were obtained from the 2012 National Trauma Databank (NTDB) National Program Sample.Results290 patients composed of the TV registry versus 4812 patients from NTDB. Mortality was higher on TV (22% vs 7%, P<0.0001). Most TV patients went straight from emergency department (ED) to operating room (OR) (71% vs 25%, P<0.0001). Among TV survivors, a relative minority were transferred to long-term care (6% vs 22%, P<0.0001). For severely injured (Injury Severity Score ≥25) survivors, hospital length of stay was less than 1 week for 50% of TV patients versus 20% in NTDB (P<0.0001).ConclusionsTrauma patients as depicted on television dramas typically go from ED to OR, and survivors usually return home. Television portrayal of rapid functional recovery after major injury may cultivate false expectations among patients and their families.Level of evidenceLevel III.

The eighth season of the American medical drama series Chicago Med ( 2015 –) represented the application of artificial intelligence (AI) in a hospital environment with multiple storylines. Born in the 1950s, medical dramas are among the most popular forms of serial television. Traditionally, the genre aims for a certain amount of accuracy and has educational goals. Former studies investigated the entertainment education and cultivation effects of these series, concluding that these dramas have the potential to contribute information and shape viewers’ opinions on various health-related topics. Chicago Med is a long-running broadcast production with a worldwide audience and considerable viewership. This paper analyzes the series’ representation of medical AI and discusses how this portrayal potentially shapes the audience’s opinion. The research started by identifying artificial intelligence-related storylines in the 22 episodes of the season. The analysis focused on the reasons and outcomes of AI applications, the character’s attitudes, and the ethical issues, including transparency, selective adherence, automation bias, responsibility gap, hallucination, unequal access, and political dimensions. The storyline analysis concluded that Chicago Med provided thought-provoking positive and negative scenarios about applying different types of AI in the surgical and emergency departments. The complex portrayal included groundbreaking opportunities, challenges, dangers, and ethical considerations. The main characters’ attitudes varied, from strong support or opposition to more nuanced, shifting opinions. The educative and engaging content has a potential for knowledge transfer and encourages critical thinking about medical AI.

This article argues that cringe humour in British television had begun at least by the early 1960s and derived from a theatre history in which conventions of Naturalism were modified by emergent British writers working with European avant-garde motifs. The article makes the case by analysing the importance of cringe to the BBC sitcom Steptoe and Son, tracing its form and themes back to the ‘comedy of menace’ and ‘Theatre of the Absurd’ emblematised by the early work of playwright Harold Pinter. The article links the play that made Pinter’s reputation, The Birthday Party, to dramatic tropes and social commentary identified in Steptoe and Son and in other British sitcoms with cringe elements. The analysis not only discusses relationships between the different dramatic works on stage and screen but also pursues some of the other connections between sitcom and Pinter’s drama via networks of actors and contemporaneous discourses of critical commentary. It assesses the political stakes of cringe as a comic form, particularly the failure of cringe to impel political activism, and places this in the context of the repeated broadcast of Pinter’s plays and episodes of Steptoe and Son over an extended period.

We focus on the relationships among three types of television viewing (news, police reality, and crime drama) and attitudes toward capital punishment and handguns, as well as the likelihood of actually owning a handgun. A host of exogenous variables are treated as predictors of television use, support for police authority, fear of crime, and our criterion variables. A series of direct and indirect relationships are assessed. Analysis suggests that viewing police reality shows is both directly and indirectly related to the endorsement of capital punishment and handgun ownership, while also directly predicting a greater likelihood of actual handgun ownership. In addition, TV news viewing predicts fear of crime in audience members, and this fear contributes to the endorsement of capital punishment and handgun ownership. Crime drama viewing is positively related to support for the death penalty.