The Reality Of Reality Television

The reality TV fad that is not going anywhere anytime soon, no matter how much some of us wish it had never started. As seen through the functionalist, conflict, and interactionist perspectives, reality TV has become an integral part of society.

"Reality TV is set up to make people entertaining. A good person with values and principles is not good television" a quote by Ronda Rousey a mixed martial arts artist. Many people believe or want to believe that reality tv is true, but many other people avoid it for the fact that it is obviously fake. I personally don't watch reality tv but for the sake of this essay, I watched a few episodes of many television series to see and determine what I think about them. The point of this essay is to prove how fake reality tv is and I have succeeded in accomplishing that. Most of the reality shows have the camera crew all up in people's business or "secret" cameras placed in which people don’t know about them yet keep

Some of the most popular television shows in today’s society are The Biggest Looser, Jersey Shore, and Big Brother. These programs and many others are classified as reality television. Reality television’s main purpose is to attempt to portray ordinary people in unscripted situations. Recently, however, many of these shows have achieved in creating the complete opposite, and have earned an immense amount of criticism as a result. Reality television programs are detrimental to society because they influence bad behavior among teenagers, do not produce authentic real life situations, and they humiliate many of the characters.

In the midst of this generation, reality television has become very popular, it has begun to promote stereotypes. TV critics feel that reality television has been developed to entertain or cheer people up. Some reality shows can be good for individuals who like them, while some of them can be bad, depending on the show. As for opinion, television is the greatest invention that has been made because it helps people learn lessons about life, by educating and to experience new things. It helps to encourage people and can lead them to make important decisions about their futures.

In the media, reality TV stars like Snooki and Kim Kardashian are on the rise. Most channels on television have at least one reality show, from following housewives to remodeling homes of real life families. However, there are some reality programs that display bad examples, especially for young audiences that are keeping up with each episode. On MTV people see girls being drunk in public, addicts doing drugs, and young girls raising babies at young ages; these are situations seen on reality TV shows. Jeremy W. Peters’ “When Reality TV Gets Too Real” and James Poniewozik’s “Why Reality TV is Good for us” inform readers about what the general public can view on television and how it affects the minds of children. Reality TV shows such as

Today while watching a movie or television show on cable, there were four to five minute breaks of commercials. Most of these commercials consisted of new reality shows. If they were not new, then it was the dates for when they old shows would make a comeback and start another season. Reality television has been in our lives since the 1940s. Although, the shows that were on years ago were much less vulgar than they seem to be now. It appears reality television continues to go down the wrong road. It is seen in many popular reality shows where the characters are almost getting praised for the bad behavior that they show on camera. This is important to know because it is has become a very popular thing for many people to watch, especially young teens. This gives the people in the shows the opportunity to be a role model for teens who might be looking elsewhere other than parents or peers for someone to look up to. It has also been shown that more teens would be interested in signing up to be on a reality show for the chance to gain fame by just about living their life. Reality television has done more harm than good to our society. For the most part, the shows today are showing more things that effects our teens in a more negative way. This left me with the question on does reality television really affect us? There are positives and negative effects on its viewers as well as the effect is has had on the culture of today’s society.

Reality TV burst onto the television scene in the early 2000s’s. Shows such as, The Bachelor, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, and American Idol are just a few of the hundreds of reality TV shows that are capturing the hearts of Americans on a weekly basis. The effects go unnoticed by the viewers, but as these shows are watched, they begin to take over the personality of the audience and are changing the way people perceive the world today.

At the end of a long day, relaxing in front of a television, watching a favorite show will hit the spot just right. Comparisons between the audience and the reality stars will take place whether it is noticeable or not. And finally, reality TV will continue to attract an abundant audience do to the constant changing of topics and

Reality TV is known as exciting entertainment because the audience never knew what will happen next as it is with no strings attached and even have the freedom of speech. Despite the entertainment it can bring, the content of reality shows are actually degrading the society. Our pop culture and civilization have been affected by the reality programs in a bad way. Indeed, reality TV is promoting bad social value to the

With a sense of voyeurism millions of Americans tune into reality television every night without much thought of the negative message these show project. Since 1948 with the inception of Candid Camera viewers have been able to select between scripted television and reality television changing the nature of at home entertainment. The Millennium marked a change with the Academy of Arts and Science adding the reality genre to the Emmy Awards, celebrating ordinary people in unscripted situations. However with more and more of theses shows glamorizing negative behavior and social situations as well as taking away from scripted television and rewarding bad behavior it is no wonder the Millennial and next generations are said to be doomed.

For close to a decade, the ethics behind the existence of reality TV have been questioned. While there are ardent viewers of reality TV, researchers and other scholars disapprove them, and claim that the world would have been in a better place. Reality TV shows, especially in America, are extremely profitable to media owners, and this has increased their popularity in the recent years. The main target audience for these shows are teenagers and women, who spend a lot of time discussing about them, even hours after the shows. Most of the reality shows in America and other parts of the world have common ideas. The most fundamental aspect of most reality TV shows is that they display people who go through embarrassing, painful and humiliating ordeals. This is what the reality shows expect their audiences to be entertained, and presumably laugh at the situations the people go through. For this reason and many more, it has been found that they are more detrimental than entertaining to the society, and therefore, the world would be in a better place without them (Pozner 89-91).

I propose that today’s ‘reality’ shows are classed as drama. Without taking this step, the line between what is acceptable and what’s not will become blurred beyond hope of recovery.

The cultural phenomenon ‘Reality Television (TV)’ has become an increasingly popular genre of television since its paroxysm onto the airwaves in 1945. The term ‘Reality Television’ can be defined as the genre of entertainment that documents the lives of ‘ordinary’ individuals through the exhibition of allegedly unscripted real-life scenarios, despite inquisitive inquiries disclosing Reality TV to entail facets of script. The primary objective of Reality TV is purely to entertain the audience. This genre of television is appealing to viewers due to its entertainment principle/value, the audience’s competency to correlate to the characters and their situations, and the contingency it presents for escapism and voyeurism. We can capitalise the Australian appropriation of the American popular dating Reality TV show ‘The Bachelor’ as a tool to further comprehend the purpose and appeal of Reality television. The postulations of media’s obligations to society in contrast to their current actions and media as a mirror to society - the normative theory, can also be utilised as an implement to apprehend Reality TV. Through the strict analysis of ‘ The Bachelor’ and the employment of the normative theory, the purpose and appealing factor of Reality TV can be deeply examined.

Today’s audience grabs hold of reality TV now a day. Looking forward week to week to watch these unscripted real life situation shows. In a way it 's becoming increasingly hard to avoid not watching. Some viewers see the TV show and tend to be attention seekers, and reality TV allows them to fantasize about achieving status through instant fame. Too much reality TV may lead viewers to idealize real world situations, like romanticizing dating. Like when Truman saw the girl in the library who was an actress and a fan of the show. He wanted to take her out sometime later that week, but she said it couldn’t happen because she knows what’s going on, but she had true love for him and asked to go out with him right then on a little date to the beach. As they went to the beach she was going to spill the beans and tell him everything. Then a man of the show in a car drove there to stop her acting like her father to get her before she ruined the show. It’s like most reality TV love shows on today people who audition for a show and know it’s scripted, but end up actually having a real feeling for the person.

There has been a huge increase in “reality” based television over the last few years. From Survivor to Big Brother it seems that we are constantly being bombarded with a new type of reality television program. But why do people watch these shows? What makes these shows so interesting? One theory brought up in an article in Psychology Today by Steven Reiss Ph.D. and James Wiltz, a Ph.D. candidate at Ohio State University, is that, “reality television allows Americans to fantasize about gaining status through automatic fame” (Reiss and Wiltz, 2001). This is the American dream, acquiring fame with little to no work at all. And what better way to do it than on television?