Reality show authenticity and construction

Reality Telivision leading expert of the rise of reality television, Annette Hill, in her full length book about the subject contends that reality television is a hybrid of factual television (documentary and news) and scripted popular television. The subject and context is decided by viewer preferences and supplemented with elements of factual television. There is no sense, anywhere down the line that the subject, context or situation is purported to be completely and totally factual from beginning to end and people are aware of this distinction, just like they are aware that the programs are edited and partly scripted for dramatic effect. Hill in fact gives "reality television" a completely different name, "popular factual television," as according to her it is again a hybrid of fact and popular media.

The genealogy of popular factual television is convoluted, as the type of hybrid programming we have come to associate with reality TV is difficult to categorise, and has developed within historically and culturally specific media environments. There are three main strands to the development of popular factual television, and these relate to three areas of distinct, and yet overlapping, areas of media production: tabloid journalism, documentary television, and popular entertainment.

Hill 15)

Reality television," then would not exist if there was not a created context that placed "real" people into artificial contexts derived from popular ideas about people and how they act and interact. There are few exceptions to this rule in the "reality" genre. The few I can think of are much more documentary driven than the more popular, prime time "reality" shows. Yet, it must also be made clear that these documentary like programs are in the minority, especially with regard to wide popular viewership, while those programs that place real people into a popular but false context have a wider viewership than those that do not.

Hill 2) it must also be remembered that even the more documentary style reality programs are produced and edited for effect, which changes the "reality" of their occurrence.

To understand the distinctive difference between these two very different types of programs one must use examples. In the context created category one would find programs like Big Brother, American Idol, Survivor, the Amazing Race and Apprentice. While in the documentary category one must look at programs like Ghost Hunters, First 48, John and Kate+8, Little People Big World, Crime 360, Deadliest Catch and in between these two categories, are programs such as those created for public television, like Regency House, Elizabethan House, and Pioneer Quest, in which the context is historical but the people are modern. The actual list could go on for a very long stretch, as the programming has expanded exponentially over the last 15 years and many believe it was spurned on by the recent writers strike.

There is clearly a wide variety of programming offered in the reality programming genre, something for every taste and interest all driven by the desire of the individual to see how others might act and react in any given situation or how certain professionals actually act and react in a real life situation (with inclusive editing). Public appeal drives the development of programming and companies have come up with creative ways to develop programs that people will watch, the most logical of which is through ratings of programming that is similar, either dramatic or otherwise. From the ratings on traditional fiction programming companies and producers can glean a greater understanding of what interest people and who and what they will watch at any given time on any given network. Papacharissi, and Mendelson argue that reality television is simply an extension of participatory media, which ahs been around far longer than television.

A participatory media date back to the appearance of periodicals relying on contributions from the readers in late 19th century American and British popular journalism, leading to confessional women's magazines gaining popularity in the United States...in the early 20th century, mass marketing strategies of women's magazines in the interwar years, the growth of talk and daytime radio, and eventually the emergence of the TV talk show, game show, and other reality genres.

Papacharissi, and Mendelson 355) www.questiaschool.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5022713977

Papacharissi, and Mendelson go further to give some reasons why participatory television has become so popular. The two biggest reasons given are the domestication of technology and the satisfaction of overt and subliminal desires for voyeurism. (Papacharissi, and Mendelson 355)

Direct involvement has then also become an aspect of the genre that keeps it moving forward. The creative ways in which the varied direct involvement aspect has been included by producers in the genre also has to do with technology. Programs where the audience participates in decision making, like when the audience chooses a winner in a program via voting on site or by cell phone text messages are common, as are other audience participation tactics, like on new themed game shows when the audience gives a hint to the contestant and the contestant can then view the percentages of answers. These are just a few examples of how the industry has answered the audience participation draw of the reality genre, though the same research derived study also found that voyeurism is a secondary and limited aspect of the draw to reality TV.

Papacharissi, and Mendelson 355)

Viewers valued the entertainment and habitual pass time motives over that of voyeurism, which was fairly surprising, considering that popular folklore frequently describes vicarious living through reality characters as one of the top appeals of reality TV. Still, this does not imply that voyeurism is not present as a motive and possible gratification obtained from watching reality TV; it is present, but not the most important motive. This is consistent with the findings of Nabi et al. (2003), who found that curiosity was not a significant motive for studying reality television, and Reiss and Wiltz (2004), who perceived voyeurism as only a means to attaining fundamental motives. Either voyeurism is not the most popular motive for watching reality TV, or respondents are reluctant to report voyeuristic tendencies on a self-report measure like a survey, for fear that it might be perceived as socially undesirable.

Papacharissi, and Mendelson 355)

Reality television is a way for the public to interact with one of their favorite media pastimes, television. It is in fact investment that keeps people watching, rather than the desire to see how others live in a private setting.

The cooperation between reality and drama is clearly evidence in the genre, and most adults can discern that given the venue of the program it is more or less driven by the context creation and the editing process. One aspect of the genre that has yet to be discussed in the literature, that have found is how individual characters within the programs support or contradict individual behaviors. In other words are people more drawn to programming where individuals within it can be perceived to be more or less like themselves? What is true and can be easily evidenced is that reality television is exceedingly popular.