The Reality TV Controversies

TABLE II
ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF REALITY TV

Advantages:
• Offers an opportunity to gain instant exposure, fame or money.
• Gives a chance to narrate a story or promote a cause.
• Helps in increasing one's confidence level and self-awareness.
• Enhances the analytical abilities of the viewer.
• Gives high levels of entertainment and thrill.
Disadvantages:
• Invasion of Privacy.
• Generates social, moral and ethical conflicts in the viewer.
• Embarrassment, Humiliation and Loss of Reputation of participants.
• Invokes legal action for libel, slander, trespass, fraud and negligence resulting in bodily harm or damage to property.

Source: www.pbs.org

REALITY TV – THE DEBATE

According to experts, TV has a great influence over morality of viewers, as they tend to match their own judgments of what is good and bad with the value system created by TV programs. This could create moral and ethical conflicts in the viewer. As reality TV programs were perceived to be more ‘real'than other TV programs, their effect on the viewers'attitudes and values was stronger.

A majority of reality TV shows during the late 1990s and early 2000 were criticized for portraying criminality and abnormality as normal day-to-day occurrences. Analysts remarked that realism in TV programs increased the aggression and involvement of the viewer. They claimed that the high violence shown in reality TV programs adversely influenced viewers'perceptions; such programs made viewers regard the real world to be violent as that shown on TV. A media critic said, “The greatest flavoring of life that comes from these shows is a kind of knowing cynicism, an embrace of the idea that everything is staged, that feelings are shallow, that the difference between life and simulation is insignificant.”

Reality TV was also criticized by critics and psychologists for fueling voyeurism and exhibitionism in society. Dr Edward Spence, Lecturer in Media Ethics at Charles Sturt University, pointed that it is the intrinsic tendency of human beings to revel in other people's miseries and misfortunes. Voyeurism is the darker side of human nature, buried deep in every person. According to experts, every person has a tendency to take pleasure from the embarrassment, humiliation and discomfort of others.

Interviews with many viewers revealed that they enjoyed seeing participants and contestants, indulging in inter-group fights and eliminate each other from the game. According to analysts, viewers actually waited in anticipation to see the embarrassment and misery caused to contestants during the course of the program. To quote Brian Reeney, an employee of Channel Nine (a media center) Program Department, “I think there is more opportunity for it (voyeurism) possible and we're feeding it as well. The success of one program sprouts the creation of similar programs and similar formats in that genre.”
Critics of such shows claimed that the ‘reality'in reality TV programs was often modified or customized by TV networks to make a more powerful impact on the viewers. TV networks, they argued, re-created ‘reality'to promote their channels.

The fact that such shows were being made at the cost of what analysts called good programming (news, entertainment, education and information-oriented shows, motivational and counseling shows) added to the resentment against them. However, TV networks across the globe seemed to be unperturbed by these developments. Not only was the number of reality TV shows going up, they were increasingly featuring violence, crime, profanity, helplessness and violation of privacy. TV networks argued that they had created a new genre, which demonstrated that the common man could be as interesting as any film or TV character. The networks claimed that they had ‘ignited a spirit to participate and achieve'in the people through their reality based programs.