Big brother show - Research Paper Example

?Big brother show Introduction: Every media content just as any other artistic product is a representation of the cultural features of a society. The media content must always have relevance to the audience group in order to sell; the media is a business and relies on the appropriateness of their product to the audience to survive. The relevance of a media product encompasses political, social, technological, and cultural features. With urbanization and globalization, societies integrated resulting in cultural and contextual fusions. Because of the integration, social and cultural features became common as the media became an integral influencer of cultures (Kopp and Max 25). The increased human interaction broke the previously existing definitive cultures resulting in independent families with relative lifestyles. In such societies, the consumption of media content thus becomes relative as some of the features of television shows require social advisories and have relative relevance to the contemporary social and cultural structures as presented in the analysis of the Big brother show below. The Big brother show is one of the most watched television programs globally; the program is a reality show measuring the adaptability of housemates to different environments. It is a personality evaluation program. The multibillion-dollar program selects participants from all over Africa and converges them in a single institution for a duration of two months a period within which the moderators evaluate their personality traits and their ability to adapt to the new metropolitan environment. While at the facility, the contestants face numerous challenges and evaluated on their ability to overcome the different social, cultural, and political challenges. The program has massive viewership and the organizers continue to market the show through the social media such as Facebook and twitter thus creating a big international viewership for their show. Just as with any other media product in the contemporary society, the show presents a number of both disadvantages and disadvantages thereby imploring relative consumption and assimilation of the ideas it represents. Africa is a multi-ethnic society with hundreds of smaller societies each speaking different dialects. The different societies thus exhibited diverse cultural practices effectively communicated through their different native languages. However, with colonization the different African states further adopted different European languages such as English, French, and German among others, which thus became their official languages. The Big Brother show draws participants from these societies indiscriminately creating a virtual society with several smaller cultures. The Big Brother show is a typical representation of a modern social setup, the show seeks to integrate the countries in Africa by uniting the people in their differences. Most of the participants and their fans align their likeness or hatred of the different countries depending on the nature of the relationship among them while at the house. The show’s main objective is to unite Africa thereby developing a cohesive society that share cultural and social values despite their differences (Andrejevic 33). Different African countries have previously had civil wars and political conflicts thus disintegrating the societies further. Such a social television program as the Big Brother provides an effective social platform for uniting the disintegrated countries. Citizens of a country unite and rally behind contestants from their countries a feature that effectively unites the diverse ethnic groups in the countries. The fans interact extensively on the social media such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter among others. In the normal political context, such societies fight and antagonize each other for presenting conflicting political and social ideologies. However, during their patronage of the Big Brother show, they all unite thereby presenting similar views and support about the different social and cultural issues that the show portray depending on the performance of the contestant from their country. However, while the show provides effective platform for the development of patriotism for the different countries among the fans, it also provides an enabling platform for the escalation of social and cultural conflict among the numerous countries that take part in the show. As discussed earlier, the contestants develop attitudes that may hamper their relationships with contestants from other countries; their fans on the other hand take such personal differences personally thereby beginning social conflicts on the social media. Fans from different countries have often exchanged abusive words negatively criticizing the differences exhibited in the different countries. Such pages as Someone tell Nigerians and Someone tell Kenyans on Facebook have provided effective platforms for fans from the two countries to continually negatively criticize the social structure and level of economic development in the different societies a trend that derails diplomatic relations among the numerous African countries thereby inhibiting development (Murray and Laurie 102). The big brother show tries to provide the contestants with equal opportunities, the organizers of the program provide the contestants with all the basic amenities necessary for their competitions. They create a virtual society in which everyone has an equal access to the necessary features to sustain their performance in the personality evaluation program. This develops an effective personality assessment forum. However, the organizers fail to consider the differences in the numerous African societies. Most African societies are poor and underdeveloped, soliciting contestants from such societies and placing them in a developed context where they access every social amenity results in some of the contestants suffering social shocks features that affect their subsequent performance while at the house. Additionally, this denies the show relevance among the primary audience of the program who do are not familiar with the views the show exhibit. The show loses its primary relevance among its primary audience since it does not address similar contextual issues. The consumption of the show requires relativity and effective considerations of the ideas that the show portray, adaptability to the environment does not rely on the provision of the basic needs and a clean serene environment for the anticipants as the show portrays since most African societies are not as such. The environment is artificial imploring similar traits from the contestants. This results in partial representation of the cultural and social values since the environment provides a western context. The creation of such a context motivates the contestants to acquire different personalities in the attempt of fitting the virtual reality. The show therefore becomes relevant to a group of very few elite and economically secure Africans alienating the millions who are poor yet the show claims both originality and Africanism. The trend substantiate the claim that media is typically a business and therefore develops products that target specific markets regardless of their effects on the society. The big brother show for example has identified its specific market to whom it seeks to sell its products. The market is rife and capable of sustaining the cost of production. It thus overlooks the social context in which it creates the products and strives to earn relevance to its specific market most of who exhibit western features (Karen 55). In the process of determining and sustaining the market, the organizers present social situations that attract their market the most. Every television program portrays sex, market researchers determined that sex sell in the contemporary society. Most program developers thus infuse the context even in contexts that do not require such. The big brother show also exhibits this; the show portrays sex and sexuality as a tool of maintaining its large market. Unlike most of the television programs, the big brother is a reality show and has more impact on the viewers. The open portrayal of sex and sexuality thus affects the viewers of the show and their subsequent interactions with the contestants. Most of the native African cultures were conservative and the portrayal of sex regarded very private and confidential. The public portrayal of sex and sexual emotions is entirely a western concept that does not uphold the spirit of Africanism. Additionally open portrayal of sex especially in reality shows is not moral regardless of the context. In retrospect, media contents in the modern society are portrayal of the cultural and social features of the society. They best represent the developments of the two and the relative lifestyles in the contemporary society. Additionally, the show recruits youthful contestants thus representing the future of the African societies. The show just like with any other media content in the modern society thus requires relative consumption with the effective personal consideration of the moral and ethical features it exhibits in order to uphold responsive viewership. Works cited Andrejevic, Mark. Reality Tv: The Work of Being Watched. Lanham [u.a.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004. Print. Murray, Susan, and Laurie Ouellette. Reality Tv: Remaking Television Culture. New York: New York University Press, 2009. Print. Karen, Dill. How Fantasy Becomes Reality: Seeing Through Media Influence. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Print. Kopp, Megan, and Max Dawson. Reality Television. Minneapolis, MN: Core Library, 2013. Print. Read More