Week 11 - Reality TV

Hey guys, the two questions up for this week are as follows;

How does Hill define reality TV?

First up Hill states straight off "The category of reality TV is commonly used to describe a range of popular factual programming. There are a variety of styles and techniques associated with reality TV, such as non professional actors, unscripted dialogue, surveillance footage, hand held cameras, seeing events unfold as they are happening in front of camera" (Hills, 2005).

So from these is that as cited in Hill 2005 that with a given variety of categories for reality TV, that it really is no surprise that the TV audiences have several different ideas for what reality programmes like for an example of this is British television viewers, definition of reality programmes; "people programmes, documentaries of the real life", a 26 year old real estate agent summed up the way viewers perceived content of factual programmes as " real life doco's like things which have happened to people, eg getting evicted, so from this is viewers equated reality TV ' with camera's following people around', so this means that an issue to overcome was to find a neutral category for reality programmes. cited Hall 2005.


Hill also states that Reality TV is “perhaps the most traditional industry term for Reality TV is factual entertainment.” (Hills, 2005), which he then goes on to state six categories they are; “documentaries and contemporary factual; specialist factual; current affairs and investigations; arts and culture; life skills; and new media,” (Hills, 2005) Reality TV is everywhere like for example the shows we watch on TV like Survivor, road cops, highway petrol and things on sky like MTV, kardashians are examples of reality TV.


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

In the Biressi, A. & Nunn (2005) they state that the documentary genre has influenced the reality TV from the time since “Direct Cinema, and Free Cinema”.


To start off, documentaries was the ' original' reality TV. Some things that documentaries and reality TV have in common is 1) The fly on the wall camera technique, 2)

Documentaries influences reality TV in a sense of 'copies' from say wild animal shows, why i say this is because the animals get followed around with a camera crew, watching every move, and now that's what made reality TV as shows like Kendra and the Kardashians were made, as they are followed around all day, with a camera crew.

As noted in Biressi and Nunn (2005) they state "how the documentary genre exposed the everyday lives of the ordinary working class citizens and presented them in their raw and natural state while also letting the viewer see their struggles and pain as they go about their everyday lives"
An example of how reality TV and how it presents the 'real' is say Police Ten seven, this show isn't staged it shows what exactly goes on in a cops life and what happens on our streets, this is 'real' as you cannot stage something like someone being for the possession of drugs, i mean even it even shows the camera crew sometimes getting some grief, this is whats real, unlike say a show like Big brother where there is hidden cameras and it does seem 'real', but in saying that a lot of it would be scripted!.



REFERENCES

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

Biressi, A and Nunn, N. (2005). Real Lives, documentary approaches. In Reality TV: Realism and Revelation. (pp. 35-38) London: Wallflower.