What is reality
TV?
Reality TV is an unscripted,
factual programming that does not involve professional actors (representation
of ordinary people) and mainly deals with footage of real events or situations,
using a variety of styles, for example, unscripted dialogue and hand-held
cameras. The genre has changed over a period of time. In the initial period of
reality TV, it largely focuses on 'on-scene footage of law and order, or
emergency services', for instance, the Cops and Americans Most Wanted,
emergency-service reality TV shows. Today, on the other hand, there are a
variety of reality TV shows and programs, associated with everything in
people's lives (Hill, 2005). The reality genre has been diversified with talk
shows, unscripted dramas, lifestyle-change shows, prize-winning shows and many
other competition shows. As far as I know, recent reality TV genre has their
shows in countless numbers. I think that viewers find the genre amusing because
it's about real-life people and it is literally a reality which might be closely
connected to the viewers.
According to Hill
(2005), there seems to be a number of definitions by television industry,
television scholars, and audiences for the genre. "The traditional
industry term for reality TV is 'factual entertainment'." (p.42) Also, there
are a lot of unprompted definitions by viewers. The similar view that the
audiences had on it was 'cameras following people around'. Most importantly,
however, "as viewers were left to their own devices as to how to define
reality programming, discussion often focused on when the programmes were on,
and the differences between reality programmes." (p.50) Here, Hill claims
that the scheduling of the popular factual program is a key point of how
audiences define the genre. There is no correct or right definition but there is
one common thing among the three groups of people. They all desire to
"differentiate between the rapidly expanding and somewhat bewildering
range of programming that comes under the category of reality TV" and Hill
finally suggests that "it is the capacity to let viewers see for
themselves." (p.55)
References
Factual
Television. (pp. 14 - 40).
Oxon: Routledge.
"What is reality tv?" is such a hard question to answer, and I think you did well in defining one aspect of the genre - the modern day reality TV.
ReplyDeleteMatthew! I know. I think it's hard to define because it has such a long history?? Probably, the old reality genre might be way different from the modern day ones. For example, there used to be a hand-held camera before whereas there is a huge set of cameras and staffs in modern reality TV shows with high technology. you see what I mean? And the sub-genres it has. We can see the genre has changed a lot from the various subjects that the reality TV is dealing with nowadays. How would you define the reality TV?
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