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"Reality-TV."
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The politics of reality television : global perspectives
While the industrial history of the global migrations of reality television is well established, there has been less consideration of the theoretical & methodological implications of this expansion. This book considers ways in which these migrations test our understanding of reality television across the globe.
Book
Reacting to Reality Television
The unremitting explosion of reality television across the schedules has become a sustainable global phenomenon generating considerable popular and political fervour.
The zeal with which television executives seize on the easily replicated formats is matched equally by the eagerness of audiences to offer themselves up as television participants for others to watch and criticise. But how do we react to so many people breaking down, fronting up, tearing apart, dominating, empathising, humiliating, and seemingly laying bare their raw emotion for our entertainment? Do we feel sad when others are sad? Or are we relieved by the knowledge that our circumstances might be better? As reality television extends into the experiences of the everyday, it makes dramatic and often shocking the mundane aspects of our intimate relations, inviting us as viewers into a volatile arena of mediated morality.
This book addresses the impact of this endless opening out of intimacy as an entertainment trend that erodes the traditional boundaries between spectator and performer demanding new tools for capturing television's relationships with audiences. Rather than asking how the reality television genre is interpreted as 'text' or representation the authors investigate the politics of viewer encounters as interventions, evocations, and more generally mediated social relations.
The authors show how different reactions can involve viewers in tournaments of value, as women viewers empathise and struggle to validate their own lives. The authors use these detailed responses to challenge theories of the self, governmentality and ideology.
A must read for both students and researchers in audience studies, television studies and media and communication studies.
eBook
Men’s Objectifying Media Consumption, Objectification of Women, and Attitudes Supportive of Violence Against Women
A recent White House Council Report on Women and Girls called attention to sexual assault on college campuses and encouraged continued research on this important public health problem. Media that sexually objectify women have been identified by feminist scholars as encouraging of sexual assault, but some researchers question why portrayals that do not feature sexual assault should affect men’s attitudes supportive of violence against women. Guided by the concepts of specific and abstract sexual scripting in Wright’s (Communication Yearbook 35:343–386,
2011
) sexual script acquisition, activation, application model of sexual media socialization, this study proposed that the more men are exposed to objectifying depictions, the more they will think of women as entities that exist for men’s sexual gratification (specific sexual scripting), and that this dehumanized perspective on women may then be used to inform attitudes regarding sexual violence against women (abstract sexual scripting). Data were gathered from collegiate men sexually attracted to women (
N
= 187). Consistent with expectations, associations between men’s exposure to objectifying media and attitudes supportive of violence against women were mediated by their notions of women as sex objects. Specifically, frequency of exposure to men’s lifestyle magazines that objectify women, reality TV programs that objectify women, and pornography predicted more objectified cognitions about women, which, in turn, predicted stronger attitudes supportive of violence against women.
Journal Article
Disagreeing without tears
Disagreement, while generally seen as an act threatening interlocutors’ face, is indispensable in particular contexts. Based on an in-depth linguistic and paralinguistic analysis of 12 cases of disagreement from a Chinese venture capital reality TV show We Are the Hero , we found that in this special context disagreement was a ‘dispreferred’ moment, but also an informative, educational, and amusing occurrence with multiple functions. While disagreements were frequently initiated (particularly by the investors), they were mostly indirect, carefully mitigated by participants with linguistic devices such as explanations, private verbs, questions, humor, as well as paralinguistic devices such as friendly facial expressions and movements. Furthermore, disagreements, especially aggravated ones, were often interactively mitigated by both on-stage participants (particularly the host) and the post-production team in an interestingly cooperative way. The interactive process of mitigating disagreements not only saved the interlocutors’ face, but also contributed to the multiple purposes of the show. Our findings suggest that politeness, as an invisible hand behind communicative acts, is still present despite the ‘conflict’ that characterizes this form of TV show.
Journal Article
Anything but Real: Body Idealization and Objectification of MTV Docusoap Characters
Women and men featured in U.S. based MTV docusoaps were analyzed to explore body ideal and body exposure norms in a television genre highly popular among young people. Results from a quantitative content analysis of five popular docusoaps from 2004 to 2011 demonstrated that, although these shows were labeled as reality-based, the bodies displayed in them were highly idealized. Close to half of women's bodies were coded as curvaceously thin and more than half of men's bodies were coded as muscularly lean. Over two-thirds of women's bodies and close to three-quarters of men's bodies were coded as low fat, demonstrating that thinness was the most common body characteristic. In addition, cast members on the programs commonly exposed their bodies, including widespread partial nudity and some full nudity. Women, compared to men, exhibited a higher level of body exposure. However, men tended to expose their bodies to a higher degree than women. Close to half of all men were shown partially nude, compared to one-quarter of women. Characters with the idealized body types also exhibited a higher level of body exposure than others. These findings support previous research that investigated cultural expectations and media representations of women and men's appearance in the U.S. The findings also demonstrate a growing focus on male body image and objectification. The potential psychological implications of self-objectification and modeling among adolescent audiences are discussed.
Journal Article
Taking responsibility for the tooth: A semiotic and thematic analysis of oral health and disease in the TV show ‘Embarrassing Bodies’
Oral health and dentistry are seldom the subject of medical reality TV. This study investigates whether the dental segments within the British medical reality show, ‘Embarrassing Bodies’, may contribute to the anthropological understanding of oral health and social status, through semiotic and thematic analysis. This methodology involves close examination of both the visual and narrative themes within the programme. The show presents mouths afflicted by oral disease as traumascapes, the framing of which provides voyeuristic appeal. The portrayal of dental disease as negatively affecting human flourishing through shame and the inhibition of intimacy was common across the analysed cases. The key themes of intimacy and social distance; discipline, blame and personal responsibility; carnography; disciplining gaze and authority; and redemption and rebirth were identified through analysis. The cases also present a strong correlation between a lack of personal responsibility and the development of dental disease within the wider context of social class, with the dentist as a disciplining authority, enforcing professional and societal norms.
Journal Article
Ordinary television : analyzing popular TV
Other books on Television tend to ignore ′ordinary′ television - lifestyle programmes and ′reality TV′, just the sort of programmes which increasing dominate the schedules. Bonner provides a distinctive angle on the content of television and the relations between television genres and audiences.
eBook
Between Fact and Fiction: Documentary Telenovela, or Docusoap Polish Style
The article deals with documentary soap operas, or the Polish version of docusoaps. This is a television genre that is a hybrid of observational documentary and elements typical of soap operas. In the introduction the author presents up to date research on docusoaps: she defines, following Margaret Lünenborg, the conditions that had to be met, in order for the genre to come into the existence, and she shows the circumstances in which it first appeared. She refers to the work of Richard Kilborn in order to present characteristic features of docusoap, and she uses the staging strategies for reality TV described by Elisabeth Klaus and Stephanie Lücke, in order to show staging strategies in docusoaps. In the main part of the article Kosińska-Krippner presents a short history of documentary soap operas, classification of its various types and the analysis of its components. She then defines this genre and describes its features. In the conclusion the author compares docusoaps and documentary soap operas, and shows the similarities and differences between the two genres, she also comments upon the value and usefulness of this genre. [originally published in Polish in Kwartalnik Filmowy 2011, no. 75-76, pp. 273-294]
Journal Article
Water Tower Home transformation: bottom-up urban regeneration through a reality TV show
The article examines Wutopia Lab’s transformation of the Water Tower Home (
shuita zhijia
, also know as ‘House on the House’), a top-floor unit of a residential building converted from a water tower located in a Bulinli
lilong
neighbourhood in Shanghai. In 2015, the top-floor unit was transformed into a three-bedroom apartment, which was featured in a popular reality TV show
Dream Home
. Using the concept of ‘
raumplan
’ as the primary design strategy, the design deploys various heights and platforms to re-organise the internal space while largely maintaining the exterior appearance of the building. It deliberately avoided homogeneous visual control and accommodated the residents’ complex functional requirements within a highly restricted space. The research scrutinises various actors’ involvement during the production of the reality TV show and the transformation process. It highlights how the design team navigated the stakeholders’ complex needs and the rigid yet ambiguous policy related to the regeneration of Shanghai’s unofficial urban heritage. By reflecting upon the various formal and informal design practices in this structure and its eventual demolition, the article illustrates the dilemmas in bottom-up regeneration of the historic urban environment in contemporary China.
Journal Article
Verbal Harassment in Selected British Reality TV Shows: A Sociolinguistic Study
This study conducts a sociolinguistic analysis of verbal harassment in British reality television. It focuses on the reality show Big Brother (first aired in 2000). Through the examination of selected episodes, the study investigates the construction, perception, and representation of verbal harassment within the competitive and unscripted context of reality TV. The study aims to: (1) identify the sociolinguistic structure of verbal harassment in reality TV shows, (2) determine the primary factors that contribute to verbal harassment in Big Brother, and (3) uncover the triggers employed by harassers in these shows. Utilizing a qualitative methodology, the analysis reveals humiliation, insults, and mockery as core structures of verbal harassment, driven by sociolinguistic variables such as power and ethnicity. Findings indicate that power imbalances and lack of empathy are the dominant triggers that result in consequences such as stress, depression, and reduced productivity among victims. This study enhances understanding of the linguistic and social dynamics of harassment in media contexts to highlight the role of reality TV in reflecting and amplifying societal power structures.
Journal Article