Research Topics: Reality Television

The Notion of Postmodernism as Applied to the Understanding of Reality Television

Communication process occur everyday at every given point in time. From our homes up to our workplaces, people engaged with this inescapable process. Effective communication is a necessity in the workplace. Researchers and practitioners have long recognized communication skills are serious to job performance, career advancement, and organizational success (Aranoff, 1989; Eckert and Allen, 1986; Harper, 1987). People speak through face-to-face conversations, telephone, mail, and other vehicles of communication. Though, communication is not always verbally done, communication is also present through signs, gestures, body movements, facial expressions, and codes.   Communication may be defined as the transmission of meaning and information from one person to another (Donatelle and Davis, 1998). Effective communication must always be practiced as it is significant to individual health as well as for the creation of positive relationships. Specifically, the ability to communicate directly affects an individual’s stress levels, self-esteem and relationship quality (Donatelle and Davis, 1998; Fetro, 1992). While the transmission itself may appear to be a simple task, the interpretation of the message being relayed through communication poses a challenge, particularly on the establishment of human relations. In general, communication becomes effective when both parties involved are honest and open to share information and have the ability to decipher the meaning of their messages.   But the technological advancements that the modern society is characterized at present makes the people living today to experience and two things in the most efficient and effective way. The world has changed since the introduction of the computer technology and other communication innovations that time and space barriers have long been overcome in the need for individuals to get connected. In regard to discourse about new technologies, we need to consider what claims are credible, what evidence is accurate, and which spokespersons are truly acting in the public interest. We also should recognize explicitly how advocates and writers use narratives, myths, forms of language, and visual images to tell their stories. Through critical examination of these features, we can begin to see what ideologies are at work and whose interests are being served by the discourse.   All these issues are interconnected with the claims and arguments of postmodernism and its implications to the communication media and the very consumers of communicated information, that is, the masses. This is an important step to a thorough understanding of the issues at stake in the formation of technology policy and of how decisions on these issues may affect us and our lives. Althusser (1972) and Butler (1997) recognize the effect of the assumptions held by authors regarding the ‘passive’ position of their readers on the content of the messages that could either contribute to or detract from the credibility of the source. Similar to the claims of rhetorical criticism, critical literacy “complements media literacy in particular as it offers a way to examine how media messages are designed for certain groups, why some media texts might be more effective than others, what issues are raised by media coverage, and whose interests are served by media content’ (Warnick, 2002).   Hence, the shared values and lifestyle dictated by the way of presenting particular ideologies to the society could either be beneficial or harmful to the way the general public will decide the fate of their communities especially in the democratic social structure and policy governance. According to Smart (1992) contemporary channels of communication are problematic when it comes to exchange of information as evident in the fabricated non-communication factors that are present in the public’s utilization of the current media in which response can only be determined in the transmission-reception process. As argued, response from the audiences is only limited in the simulation process of the information interchange and dynamics highlighting the characteristics of the medium being used to channel communication messages.   As Baudrillard (1983) claimed, the attempts to democratize the content as well as, to some extent, the control of the communication process in the public sphere through available media channels has little or no effect at all since the channel highly influence how the messages are delivered and how they will be interpreted by the audiences. In effect, despite the concern and means to provide unprecedented types of information for the public as demonstrated in the current communicated messages available, the interplay of power in the form of stakeholders, interest groups, and gatekeepers who can either directly or indirectly dictate the approach of message delivery cease such democratic access to information. Moreover, the very media channels that the general public uses today are utilized as means not just to connect to the masses but to likewise assert control over them particularly on matters that are politically motivated (Smart, 1992).                According to Baudrillard (1983) ‘the medium and the real are now in a single nebulous state whose truth is undecipherable’ (p. 103). Furthermore, it is television that that most accurately delivers such political use of media channels in the era of postmodern communication cradled by the current social, political and economic environment.  Television, as the most popular and ever reliable media channel to directly connect and influence the behavior of the audience has the ability to merge its characteristics to the messages or information being provided for public consumption. This has something to do with the television’s appeal to the almost all basic human senses which the audiences use when turning it on (visual and audio) (Baudrillard, 1983).    At present, the modern media “produce and circulate meaning in the society” (Jensen, 2002) within the context of nationality and cultural heritage, religion, regional identities, societal classes, ethnic and minority rituals, family values and self-actualization.  Such reality brings about endless debate of what is right or wrong, just or unfair, even real or unreal. McQuial (1995) notes that the audience seeks the media either for surveillance (to find out what’s going on around us), personal identity (reaffirming who we are and how we appear to others), personal relationships (judging ourselves by the way others live), or diversion (generally what we term as entertainment). Having wide variety of meanings in the society is a fact that maintains these debates, but to include the modernization of media simply aggravates the inherent confusion.   In which case it is up to the media to have available the things which its audience might need, lest the audience walks away unfulfilled. Take for example instrumental and ritualistic reality TV watching; the former is when the audience uses the TV purposely to look for something they need, and the latter is when they seek to be fulfilled either by being humored or roused to some other such emotion. This highlights Baudrillard’s observation of ‘the dissolution of TV into life, the dissolution of life into TV’ in which the media in general regulate the ‘mutation of the real into the hyperreal’ (1983a, p. 55) and the simultaneous decline of the social and the political analysis of the entirety of the communication discourse. Hence, it is no longer reliable to view reality in its representations since they exist in different levels of consciousness as dictated by the contemporary power struggle and interplay in the practical applications of the mass media discipline.      References: Althusser, L 1972, Ideology and ideological state apparatuses (Notes towards an investigation). In B. Brewster (Trans.), Lenin and philosophy, and other essays (pp. 127–186). New York Monthly Review Press.   Aranoff, S 1989, “Teaching Business Communication Skills at Community, Colleges.” Journal of Education for Business, Vol. 65, No.2; pp. 53-55.   Baudrillard, J 1983, Simulations, New York, Semiotext(e).   Butler, J 1997, The psychic life of power: Theories in subjection. Stanford University Press.   Donatelle, RJ & Davis, LG 1998, Access to Health. Allyn and Bacon.   Eckert, SW & Allen, TR Jr. 1986, What Should be Taught in Business Communication as Perceived by the Business World. (Report Number HE            021 773). Boone, North Carolina: Center for Instructional Development.   Fetro, J 1992, Personal and Social Skills: Understanding and Integrating Competencies across Health Content. Santa Cruz, Calif: ETR Associates.   Harper, SC 1987, “Business Education: A View from the Top.” Business Education Forum, Vol. 12, No.3; pp.24-27.   Jensen, K (ed.) 2002, A Handbook of Media and Communication Research: Qualitative and Quantitative Methodologies, Routledge, London.   McQuail, D 1995, Mass Communication Theory, Sage Publications.   Smart, B 1992, Modern Conditions: Postmodern Controversies. Routledge. New York, p. 123.   Warnick, B 2002, Critical Literacy in a Digital Era: Technology, Rhetoric, and the Public Interest. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.     Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

The Notion of Postmodernism as Applied to the Understanding of Reality Television

Communication process occur everyday at every given point in time. From our homes up to our workplaces, people engaged with this in...

Postmodernism and Reality TV

The Notion of Postmodernism as Applied to the Understanding of Reality Television   Communication process occur everyday at every given point in time. From our homes up to our workplaces, people engaged with this inescapable process. Effective communication is a necessity in the workplace. Researchers and practitioners have long recognized communication skills are serious to job performance, career advancement, and organizational success (Runoff, 1989; Eckert and Allen, 1986; Harper, 1987). People speak through face-to-face conversations, telephone, mail, and other vehicles of communication. Though, communication is not always verbally done, communication is also present through signs, gestures, body movements, facial expressions, and codes.   Communication may be defined as the transmission of meaning and information from one person to another (Donatella and Davis, 1998). Effective communication must always be practiced as it is significant to individual health as well as for the creation of positive relationships. Specifically, the ability to communicate directly affects an individual’s stress levels, self-esteem and relationship quality (Donatella and Davis, 1998; Fetor, 1992). While the transmission itself may appear to be a simple task, the interpretation of the message being relayed through communication poses a challenge, particularly on the establishment of human relations. In general, communication becomes effective when both parties involved are honest and open to share information and have the ability to decipher the meaning of their messages.   But the technological advancements that the modern society is characterized at present makes the people living today to experience and two things in the most efficient and effective way. The world has changed since the introduction of the computer technology and other communication innovations that time and space barriers have long been overcome in the need for individuals to get connected. In regard to discourse about new technologies, we need to consider what claims are credible, what evidence is accurate, and which spokespersons are truly acting in the public interest. We also should recognize explicitly how advocates and writers use narratives, myths, forms of language, and visual images to tell their stories. Through critical examination of these features, we can begin to see what ideologies are at work and whose interests are being served by the discourse.   All these issues are interconnected with the claims and arguments of postmodernism and its implications to the communication media and the very consumers of communicated information, that is, the masses. This is an important step to a thorough understanding of the issues at stake in the formation of technology policy and of how decisions on these issues may affect us and our lives. Alehouse (1972) and Butler (1997) recognize the effect of the assumptions held by authors regarding the ‘passive’ position of their readers on the content of the messages that could either contribute to or detract from the credibility of the source. Similar to the claims of rhetorical criticism, critical literacy “complements media literacy in particular as it offers a way to examine how media messages are designed for certain groups, why some media texts might be more effective than others, what issues are raised by media coverage, and whose interests are served by media content’ (Warnock, 2002).   Hence, the shared values and lifestyle dictated by the way of presenting particular ideologies to the society could either be beneficial or harmful to the way the general public will decide the fate of their communities especially in the democratic social structure and policy governance. According to Smart (1992) contemporary channels of communication are problematic when it comes to exchange of information as evident in the fabricated non-communication factors that are present in the public’s utilization of the current media in which response can only be determined in the transmission-reception process. As argued, response from the audiences is only limited in the simulation process of the information interchange and dynamics highlighting the characteristics of the medium being used to channel communication messages.   As Baudrillard (1983) claimed, the attempts to democratize the content as well as, to some extent, the control of the communication process in the public sphere through available media channels has little or no effect at all since the channel highly influence how the messages are delivered and how they will be interpreted by the audiences. In effect, despite the concern and means to provide unprecedented types of information for the public as demonstrated in the current communicated messages available, the interplay of power in the form of stakeholders, interest groups, and gatekeepers who can either directly or indirectly dictate the approach of message delivery cease such democratic access to information. Moreover, the very media channels that the general public uses today are utilized as means not just to connect to the masses but to likewise assert control over them particularly on matters that are politically motivated (Smart, 1992).                According to Baudrillard (1983) ‘the medium and the real are now in a single nebulous state whose truth is undecipherable’ (p. 103). Furthermore, it is television that that most accurately delivers such political use of media channels in the era of postmodern communication cradled by the current social, political and economic environment.  Television, as the most popular and ever reliable media channel to directly connect and influence the behavior of the audience has the ability to merge its characteristics to the messages or information being provided for public consumption. This has something to do with the television’s appeal to the almost all basic human senses which the audiences use when turning it on (visual and audio) (Baudrillard, 1983).    At present, the modern media “produce and circulate meaning in the society” (Jensen, 2002) within the context of nationality and cultural heritage, religion, regional identities, societal classes, ethnic and minority rituals, family values and self-actualization.  Such reality brings about endless debate of what is right or wrong, just or unfair, even real or unreal. McQueen (1995) notes that the audience seeks the media either for surveillance (to find out what’s going on around us), personal identity (reaffirming who we are and how we appear to others), personal relationships (judging ourselves by the way others live), or diversion (generally what we term as entertainment). Having wide variety of meanings in the society is a fact that maintains these debates, but to include the modernization of media simply aggravates the inherent confusion.   In which case it is up to the media to have available the things which its audience might need, lest the audience walks away unfulfilled. Take for example instrumental and ritualistic reality TV watching; the former is when the audience uses the TV purposely to look for something they need, and the latter is when they seek to be fulfilled either by being humored or roused to some other such emotion. This highlights Baudrillard observation of ‘the dissolution of TV into life, the dissolution of life into TV’ in which the media in general regulate the ‘mutation of the real into the hyper real’ (1983a, p. 55) and the simultaneous decline of the social and the political analysis of the entirety of the communication discourse. Hence, it is no longer reliable to view reality in its representations since they exist in different levels of consciousness as dictated by the contemporary power struggle and interplay in the practical applications of the mass media discipline.  Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

Postmodernism and Reality TV

The Notion of Postmodernism as Applied to the Understanding of Reality Television Communication process occur everyday at every given...

If surveillance is simply an issue of privacy, then why are surveillance-based reality television programs so popular? Discuss your answer in relation to theories of surveillance and its modes of public consumption.

If surveillance is simply an issue of privacy, then why are surveillance-based reality television programs so popular? Discuss your answer in relation to theories of surveillance and its modes of public consumption.    2003, Theoretical Frameworks The intrinsic properties of TV also favour emotion and spectacle over reason and argument. TV news incorporates footage designed to trigger emotional responses: sorrow, fear amusement. Reality TV raises the ‘act of exposure’ to the level of mass entertainment. P.15   Reality TV is the ‘pornography of everyday life’ beamed back at us. P.16   2004, Loving Big Brother In these competing surveillances we undoubtedly see a battle over meaning – illegality versus persecution versus entertainment.   In his book Voyeur Nation,  (2000) critique what he describes as a culture of ‘mediated voyeurism’, in which, for reasons largely to do with media company profits, our worst voyeuristic instincts are being sanctioned and fed. P.203   Reality shows is not simply a prostration before the consumerist logic of media exposure-as-value. Peter Weibel suggests that shows such as Big Brother are simply a way of immunizing the viewer to the surveillance future. Observation is not a menace. Observation is entertaining. We live in a surveillance-saturated society. Calvert is appalled by the extremity of much of what is revealed on ‘voyeur television’, Baudrillard is appalled by the banality. But perhaps televisual performance skills are not what either participants or audience want form reality shows. Perhaps the very qualities of grotesquerie and banality that so dismay. By inserting ordinary life in all its unpeparedness into the televisual field, reality show participants are revealing to us, the monitor watchers, the system within which we watch – so easy to forget in the bombardment of highly produced tele-fare. And part of what we watch is television’s complete inability to represent life. P.204   The banality of reality television reveals to us that… The superficial nature of Big Brother is, contrary to Baudrillard’s argument, its triumph for us. P.205   As counter-surveillances, reality television and talk shows provide a space – albeit a commercially exploited and distorted space – in which the mass-surveyed public can enjoy the gap between the surveyed world in which most of us lived and the narrativized, morally resolved world of film and television production, which might seem initially to provide a language by which to understand out captured imagery. Big brother and its relations allow us to fantasize the multiplicity of selves we may unlash into the surveillance world, while also reminding us of the uncontrollable ways in which those selves will be distorted and exploited by the consumer-corporate system. P.206   Surveillance culture is emerging and transitional. The framing ideology of crime prevention, which has, by and large, enabled the mass installation of surveillance systems in western societies with an engrained attachment to privacy traditions, is no longer able to contain the innumerable manifestations of surveillance practice. Despite its exhaustion, however, crime prevention continues to dominate public understanding of surveillance, alongside a nostalgia for privacy. P.216    2002, Big brother Big brother is watching you, but who is watching Big Brother, and why? Since 1999 the show has aired in more than 40 series in 20 countries, with three million viewing the final episode in Australia. In the US, more people voted for contestants than voted in the general election. What created the program’s phenomenal mass appeal, and why do the media stir up such a ‘big brother’ whenever the program goes to air?   Big brother has created television history. The first show aired in the Netherlands in 1999 and was so successful that production company Endemol was able to sell the show to more than twenty countries; two years later 40 series have aired. At the beginning of 2002 big brother programs were in Sweden, Brazil and Mexico.   Big bother is one of the many ‘copy-cat’ television formats, like Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, The Weakest Link and Survivor. When a television station pays for the rights to copyrighted programs, they receive a ‘bible’ which contains instructions on how to run the show, a logo, backdrops, computer graphics and information about screening times and so on. Sometimes phrases and suggestions for prizes are included. Occasionally an executive from Endemol will come out and help supervise. Despite the formulaic nature of the show, each country has slight variations: Australian ran for 85 days, the UK 64 days, Portugal 120 days; sometimes the show is aired once a night, as in Australia, and sometimes only three times a week (US). The richest Big Brother is the US’ version (million) and the poorest is the Russian copycat Behind the Glass (Za Steklom) at A,000. The houses have resembled penitentiaries (UK) and palaces (US). There have been sexy Big Brother (Switzerland) and violent ones (Portugal). Often the contestants have been odd to say the least.  (Introduction)   Big brother simply reinforced what Shakespeare had already told us: All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts. As you like it, Act II, Scene VII   Big Brother has been watched by over two billion people. In Italy 69 per cent of the population claimed to have watched it, in America 52 per cent tuned in and in Germany 64 percent watched it. But the shows have a much broader audience than television viewers; on the internet, viewers around the world can see the live feeds. P.2   ‘Reality tv’ is an umbrella tem encompassing a host of television programs: from the news to talk shows. News and current affairs shows are perceived as unmediated by direction and scripting in the way other ‘reality’ shows are – and are generally bracketed out of ‘reality tv’. In the broadest definition, reality-tv shows are unscripted and their participants are non-professional actors. But other than  such general guidelines, the term ‘reality’ can describe a wide range of television programs, from Popstars to Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Because it is such a broad (and misleading) term, it is easier to subdivide reality- tv programs into genres such as lifestyle shows, talent shows, documentaries, talk shows and quiz/game shows. P.52   Big Brother rated well. It occupied six of the ‘top twenty programs’ for 2001; the two ‘final’ shows ranked in the top three. Throughout the 11 weeks of the show’s run, it rated in the ‘top twenty’ thirteen times. Generally, big brother is regarded as putting Channel 10 back into the free-to-air competition. But Big Brother was more than just a ratings winner; it became part of Australian culture for a while – it filled columns in the press, people who didn’t watch it talked about it, and friends would gather to watch episodes.   The data indicates that the majority of viewers were under the age of 30: 76 per cent were in the 15-29 age group; 17% were in the 29-39 age group; and 6% were old than 39. But they weren’t necessarily teenagers: the average age (of those who gave an exact age) was 22. Internet viewers were older; their average age was 33. The majority (68%) were female and 31 % were male. Internet viewers demonstrated the same gender break down. P.181   One Canadian fan summarised her reasons for watching: Once I started to watch the live feeds I really enjoyed getting to know each of the houseguests. Loved the interaction and different relationships between the houseguests, especially Peter and Christina. It made me laugh and cry. P.190   I liked watching the close friendship/bonds that were formed and displayed during the last five weeks. From that point on evictions were especially hard and Big Brother became almost compulsive viewing. The overall theme I took from Big Brother is a story of mateship. At the start they were strangers who had to get along for the sake of the game. As they got to know each other better they began to genuinely care. The level of tolerance and understanding displayed by most members of the household was astounding, given that many of these individuals wouldn’t choose to say g’day to each other in the street. P.195     2003, Monitored Mobility in the Era of Mass Customization   Finally, I draw on the example of a popular culture artifact—a reality TV show called The Amazing Race—to illustrate some of the characteristics of the mode of subjectivity associated with the evolving promise of m-commerce. Although reality TV is frequently written off as one more contrived artifact of the culture industry, it can perhaps shed some light on the contrived character of reality in an administered world. P.136   Reality TV provides an intriguing example of the contemporary trajectory of dedifferentiation because it enacts the role of surveillance in transforming leisure time and domestic activities into a form of value-generating labor. Thanks to the pervasive and intrusive role of the camera, people going about their daily lives, socializing, fighting, and flirting, become round-the-clock workers: low-paid workers generating relatively inexpensive but commercially lucrative television programming. Consider, for example, the case of a relatively popular reality series in the United States called The Amazing Race that documents the travels of 10 two-person teams engaged in a race around the world that typically covers more than 50,000 miles in a 30-day period: In other words, more miles in a single day than the average U.S. resident traveled in a lifetime 100 years ago). P.142   Indeed, the example of reality TV suggests one more front for dedifferentiation: the border between content and advertising. Mark Burnett, the producer of the phenomenally successful reality show Survivor, has made a point of using the format to help merge advertising and content by allowing sponsor products to be woven into the show’s narrative. In an era when digital technology allows users to skip ads, this kind of product placement is, as he put it, “the future of television” ( 2001). If orientation is one of the problems featured in the content of the show, it is also one of the preoccupations of the advertising. P.143   However, the logic of The Amazing Race gives the lie to the promise of democratization and empowerment associated with customization and with the “customer-isin- control” publicity of m-commerce. Reality TV caters to what De Certeau describes as the erotics of this kind of knowledge:“this lust to be a viewpoint and nothing more” (). The viewer is invited to gain that distance, which, paradoxically, enables an intimate and omniscient viewpoint. The viewer/voyeur is invited to take a step outside of reality, which is separated from the viewers and projected onto the screen, where it can be viewed as a legible text. The parallel between reality TV and m-commerce is the attempt to realize the ce-lestial gaze that makes the complexity of spatial practice legible (recordable) in order to exploit the productive, creative character of what De Certeau described as “the chorus of idle footsteps,” practices that inscribe unique uses of space across the landscape. The Vindigo map of Manhattan similarly materializes the perspective of the celestial eye, providing a fluid counterpart to the synchrony of the static map whose limits De Certeau traces. P.144     2002 “The Future of Reality…Television” Exquisite Corpse, Cyber Issue 11, Spring/Summer 2002, A Journal of Letters and Life   Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

If surveillance is simply an issue of privacy, then why are surveillance-based reality television programs so popular? Discuss your answer in relation to theories of surveillance and its modes of public consumption.

If surveillance is simply an issue of privacy, then why are surveillance-based reality television programs so popular? Discuss your answe...

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