Missing Video: India’s first reality show (Voice Recording of Award ceremony graced by Lata Mangeshkar)

Missing Video: India’s first reality show (Video of Meri Awaz Suno prize ceremony)

What are reality shows?

“Unabashedly commercial genre united less by aesthetic rules or certainties than by the fusion of popular entertainment with a self-conscious claim to the discourse of the real. This coupling . . . Is what has made reality TV an important generic forum for a range of institutional and cultural developments

(Murray & Ouellette, 2004, pp 22).

Growth of Reality TV

TYPES OF REALITY SHOWS

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INDIAN REALITY TV

Missing Video: Slideshow of India’s reality show names with Viva (first reality TV music band of girls) album’s first song recording playing in

background.

POPULARITY of

Reality TV

Producers

• Cost

• Revenue

• TRP ratings of channels

• Dishing out what customers want

Missing Video: Reality TV is a cash register – Money aspects

VIEWERS

• As spectacle of humiliation and grief?– Jade Goody

• Insights into human psychology?

Hear out Dr. John Paterson, Dean of Education

• Emotions?

issues

Non - Reality

Missing Video: Writers and editors of famous reality shows reveal the truth behind the so-called “unscripted shows”

So What is it really?

• Debra Seagal’s notes on American Detective

• John Langley, executive producer COPS calls it "recutting or refinessing“

• Dr. William Beard, University of Alberta professor of film and media studies

• The Dating Experiment – Adam Sandler

• Jeff Bartsch – Editor – Blind Date

BUT

VIEWERS AREN’T FOOLS

INSTANT CELEBRITY

Missing Video: Above is Ashutosh’s (First Roadies winner) application for the show. He reveals in this video what happens behind the scenes

RACISM

Missing Video: Jade Goody abusing Shilpa Shetty

IMPACT of

Reality TV

Missing Video: Shorts of MTV Indian Reality Show – Get Gorgeous 5

Missing Video: Big Boss scripted fighting by Rahul Mahajan

IMPACT

Cultural indicators and Cultivation– Ettema and Whitney 1994

Mean World Syndrome– Gerbner (1994)

Cultivation Analysis– Signorielli and Morgan 1990

Impact cont..

The more people watch television, and hence are exposed to these distortions of reality, the more they will come to view the real world as similar to the world portrayed on television and thus perceive a greater real-world incidence of the over-represented entities

So what do we do?

• Producers censor their own content

• Promote better breed of reality shows– But will these sell?

(Fountainhead)

Missing Video: CNN – IBN news caster talks about audience preferences: TRP ratings for a show where female stripper attempts to become a news anchor are

higher than Lead India

Reality TV – Why or Why Not?

• Escape reality or manifest destiny

• Orwell Vs Huxley