Week 11/12 Reality Television

What signifiers of reality have emerged from the documentary genre?

The documentary genre in relation to reality is revealed through capturing the actuality and truth of the lives of ordinary people in an everyday situation. This reality in documentaries “becomes measured through the subject matter being reconstructed and that realism depends on notions of suffering, raw experience and personal struggle as emblems of the real.” (Hill, 2005) It is, in other words, another way to represent the social world and its values of “embracing flaws in a spontaneous style of filming.” Filming in documentaries show the ‘ground-breaking’ turn in ordinary people’s lives and therefore has a sense of accessibility and intimacy for the audience viewing like that in reality tv. “We shoot everything with one camera. You as the viewer., become one camera.” (Hill, 2005)

Hill, A. (2005) The reality genre. In A. Hill, Reality TV: Audiences and Popular Factual Television. (pp. 14 – 40). Oxon: Routledge.

How has the documentary genre influenced reality TV and how it presents the ‘real’?

The rise of reality TV came at a time when networks were looking for a quick fix solution to economic problems within the cultural industries. Its increased costs in the production of drama, sitcom and comedy ensured unscripted, popular factual programming became a viable economic option during the 1990’s. The deregulation and marketisation of media industries, especially in America also contributed to the rise of reality TV.

The documentary genre influenced reality television  in a positive way, as it revolutionised television. Themes of documentaray genre have been attributed to reality TV by creating drama spontaneously with static camera having its major role in capturing the unscripted drama that unfolds. Reality TV has adapted the documentary’s presentation of objective facts that shows political, social and historical issues. Moreover, reality TV has adapted the hand held cameras, with voice over narration and close ups that zooms and captures raw emotions. Every documentary has to have a story that is based on the good guys, the bad guys and the struggle and reality TV implies that indirectly.

Furthermore, unprofessional actors are recruited to demonstrate the ‘real’. Also, these unprofressional actors viewers can famillarise with more o than huge A-list celebrities. These differentiate from the fictional characters as being untrue and it shows the audiences that it is ‘real’. Moreover, the influence of the documentary to a reality TV is the theme of awareness and it is as real as it appears, or it happens as you watch it.The audiences were then left to believe that some scripted reality TV is real, and now the viewers are bewildered as to what to believe. Such likes are ‘Big Brother”.