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1. -- Benjamin Franklin
REALITY OF REALITY TELEVISION
GOVERNING BODIES (GARETH PALMER)
REACTING TO REALITY TV (HELEN WOOD AND BEVERLEY
SKEGGS)
Bhanu B. Acharya
University of Ottawa
6761131

2. AGENDAS
10/12/2012
 Overview
 RTV: Conceptual framework
 Synopsis of both chapters
 Methodology used
 Theories used
 Comparative understanding
 Redefining the audience
 RTV in Canadian context
 My impressions
 Further reading
2

3. OVERVIEW
10/12/2012
Two chapters:
Chapter 5: Governing bodies
By: Gareth Palmer
Chapter 7: Reacting to reality TV
By: Helen Wood and Beverley Skeggs
Presenting vignettes of:
 Ten Years Younger
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_TWknQNabE&feature=rel
mfu
 Honey We're killing the kids
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JksgsJVhqrQ
3

4. REALITY TV: CONCEPT OUTLINE
10/12/2012
 Evolved from documentaries and during the 80s and
destabilized docu. (66/67)
 Synonymous to lifestyle programming, Margaret Mores
says RTV as „fiction of presence‟ (93)
 Immediacy or sense of presentness (93), focuses on
self-transformation, (70)
 Real/ordinary people as social actors (67), connected to
urban environment (68)
 Continuous surveillance to participants, who are
enthusiastic to re-defining the identity or the „real-self‟
(72)
 Emphasis on light entertainment, emphasis on prizes
(67)
 Instructive/suggestive approach, but impractical
solutions (74) 4

5. SYNOPSIS OF “GOVERNING BODIES”
10/12/2012
 Beings with the best impressions of documentary
and negative connotation with reality TV, began from
80s, Evolution of Docu to RTV, which emphasizes on
light entertainment, prizes, ordinary people, vulgar
lg., ritual elements (67)
 Class related factors (women, ethnic minorities and
working class), all have willingness to change (71),
Talks about responsible citizen and consumer-self
(65)
 Highlights on diets, attire, cosmetics and manners,
(73), RTV as consent manufacturer (71)
 Role of surveillance in the new models of the self;
constant vigilance will produce a useful citizenship
(76)
 Acceptance: whatever methods techniques and
procedures offered, the ideal response is to accept
them……. (76) 5

6. SYNOPSIS OF “REACTING TO REALITY TV”
10/12/2012
 Empirical research. interviewing, text-in-action, and FGD
methods used; Target audience: 40 working class
(W/B/SA) women
 RTV shows observed by the researchers:Wife Swap,
What not to wear, Faking It (C4, UK)
 Discusses the experimental aspects of being involved in
reality television and explore how identity is evoked in
the dynamic responses of the audiences. (93)
 Researched audience's affective (emotional) relation
with television (104) :
 TV enters into sociality through reactive moments;
 Emotion works as a form of capital.
 RTV enables/ engages audiences in talking moral
positions. (104)
6

7. METHODOLOGY USED
10/12/2012
Governing bodies Reacting to reality TV
• Theoretical  Empirical
• Comparison of the two  Interviewing, watching
TV channels of UK:
BBC and ITV RTV shows with
• Observation participants and FGD
• Qualitative approach  40 women (middle and
• Critical analysis working class), Black,
White and S. Asian
 Text-in-action method,
recording immediate
reaction
7

8. THEORIES USED
10/12/2012
 Theory of Criticism
 Consumption Theory
 Cultivation Theory
 Marxist Theory
 Medium Theory
 Sadharanikaran Theory
(Communication Theory of
Simplification)
 Uses and Gratifications Theory
8

9. SIMILARITIES
(GOVERNING BODIES & REACTING TO REALITY TV)
10/12/2012
 Both portraits the background of UK mid-class
perspective to working class (67)
 Different chapters from the same book (The Politics of
Reality Television: Global Perspectives, 2011)
 Complementary chapters (Theoretical vs Empirical
perspectives); surveillance is common in both.
 Quest for identity or the „self‟ of the (middle and lower)
class people.
 Over representation of the working classes on many
shows,
 Reality formats encourage viewers to judge good and
bad conduct by themselves. 9

10. DIFFERENCES
10/12/2012
Governing bodies Reacting to reality TV
 PURPOSE: To consider  PURPOSE: To address
reality TV‟s role in the the social character of
formation of 'consumer- reality television as it
self' and 'responsible meets its audience (93)
citizen„ (65)  METHODS: Empirical,
observational and
 METHODS: Theoretical experimental
approach, interpretive and
 Focuses on the RTV
analytical shows between 2004-
 Examination of 2007 (94)
and reality shows  Compares RTV with 'talk
 Compares RTV with shows' (94)
'documentary',
10

11. RE-DEFINING THE “AUDIENCE”
10/12/2012
 Audience involve themselves, agree for
constant vigilance, and ready for
metamorphosis,
 S. Asian women watch RTV shows to get tips
on fashion and parenting (98) and learn British
culture ("Supernanny" and "What Not To
Wear"),
 Critical questioning audience (69) due to the
difference of culture, geography and sociality
from the RTV shows producers.
 Mostly participants from working class, women
and ethnic minorities (70-72),
 Audience can challenge the knowledge of TV
experts (96),
 Program anchors use "you" to directly address
the audience to clearly refer "presentness" (97).
11

12. RTV IN CANADIAN CONTEXT
10/12/2012
 Impact of RTV of UK is very much
contextual in Canadian context
 Canada, as commonwealth nation and still
Queen is the national supremo.
 Some franchised TV shows in Canada are :
Canadian Idol (now stopped), Canada Got
Talent, Big Brother, etc.
 Ethnographic audience volume is high here;
 Overweight, studying Canadian culture, physical
transformation, etc. are common here.
12

13. MY IMPRESSIONS
10/12/2012
 RTV = mixture of audience as role-players, display, social
issue, entertainment, competitiveness, market relationship,
desire culture, interactivity
 Gareth Palmer is more supportive to documentary tradition
and more critical to reality TVshows,
 RTV shows are promoting market-relationship and consumer
culture, they are not just „reality shows‟
 Both articles are complementary to each other and best
contextual in Canadian context
 The chapters authors are working as the brand ambassadors,
agents of RTV shows
 Whatever methods, techniques and procedures offered, the ideal
response is to accept them (76p)
 Health is achieved through a combination of your knowledge,
regulated autonomy and the helpful gestures of the market (75p)
 Watching reality TV engages us in taking moral positions (104) 13

14. KEY TERMINOLOGIES USED
10/12/2012
Real-self (72) Quest of identity, personality, self-esteem, celebrification, confident
and respect of others,
Anxiety-industry (76) Extreme wish to do something, search of real-self, correct shape of
body, hunt for branded choices, consumerism, etc.
Discourses of sobriety, SOBRIETY (Seriousness), and GRAVITAS (having weight or
considerable gravitas gravity). The film genre of documentary has great importance for
(66p) society
Insight into the world A depth model, prepared after investigation,
"beyond" (66p) To place a documentary in widest possible context
Reality genre (69) All sorts of programs related to the representation of reality, whether
on TV, in cinema or in YouTube.
Extended social/public People experience that kind of show in a manner that is not like the
realm (104) private, enclosed space of text-reading, but a more open, shared
activity.
Affective textual encounter Relationship of investment in the TV program by the observed
(104) viewers.
14
Affective economy (100) A phrase used by Sara Ahmed to insist that emotions are distributed
across social as well as psychic fields.

15. FURTHER READINGS…
10/12/2012
 George Orwell, 1984 (1949) Thought Police
concept, constant vigilance after 9/11 in western
countries
 Foucault, M (1976) The History of Sexuality,
Vol 1. New York: Pantheon Books, (Identity is
closely linked up to sexuality)
 Corner, John (2002) Performing the real,
Documentary Diversions, Television and
New Media, Vol 3, No 3, Pp. 255-269
 McLuhan, M. (1964) Understanding Media:
The Extension of Man. McGraw Hill. (RTV
shows are “extended social/public realm”)
 Misha Kavka (2008) Reality Television,
Affect and Intimacy: Reality Matters (TV
shifting from info tool to emotional gadget)
15

16. RTV‟S QUEST OF “REAL-SELF” AND
MASLOW‟S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS
10/12/2012
16

17. ANY QUERIES,
PLEASE…
Thank You !