The Impact of Reality Shows on our Perception of Reality - Research Paper Example

?How Do Reality Shows Affect our Perception of Reality Television has been known to have a mind altering effect on the way that people view life and its realities. It has the power to influence our psyche into creating an opinion that is based solely upon the slanted and bias claims that they make about life and how it should be led. Gone are the days when television was being used as a tool to simply educate people in order to allow them to form their own influences. These days, television not only educates people, but it also alters the perception of the viewers into either accepting what is presented before them with either a positive or negative spin. The effect of television on the way that people perceive reality can be seen in its full clarity through the influence of reality shows in the daily loves of people. The Kardashians, The Beverly Hills Wives, Guiliana and Bill, these are all scripted programs that “depict” the “real life” of a celebrity in such a manner that what they are doing on-screen becomes gospel truth to the voyeuristic viewer. This paper will focus on how television, through reality shows, has managed to changed the way that people perceive the reality of their own lives. Using facts and other verifiable information from various websites, articles,books , and/or journals, this paper will do its best to explain the phenomenon of the reality show and how it manages to change the way people view how they should conduct their lives based upon the television images and “real life” situations that they see. Towards the end, this paper will make mention of “The Hunger Games” and how that particular movie helps to depict the evils of reality shows and how people sometimes, can no longer tell the truth between fiction and real life because of what television shows them. In order to best explain the phenomenon that has been created by the reality shows, one must first understand what a reality show is and what comprises the format. It is important for people to know that to call a reality show “unscripted” is a fallacy. According to David Rupel of the Writer's Guild of America reality shows do not have scripts but there are writers who “create formats, cast people based on character traits and edit scenes to tell a powerful, intriguing tale” (“How Reality TV works”). There are actually two types of reality shows, it either has (1) very little structure like The Kardashians, which means that the producer needs to sift through days worth of footage in order to develop a story line that the viewers will find intriguing and stick to watching. Or (2) it is a reality show that is heavy on the formatting side such as The Amazing Race wherein the situations are pre-determined and thus includes a sense of drama that is more engaging for the audience (Rupel, David “How Reality TV Works”). Because reality shows have nothing real happening within them, one cannot help but wonder as to how the producers of such shows manage to alter the perception of people about the reality of what they are watching and influence them into illiciting an emotion that connects them to the show. Rupel, gives us a perfect example of how television and reality shows manages to alter the viewers perception of reality. He explains: When I worked on Bug Juice(a show for Disney Channel about kids at summer camp), we faced a major problem with our big boy-girl love story. After weaving this storyline through nine episodes, we were caught flat-footed when our boy Connor had the nerve to dump his girl, Stephanie, off-camera! We had enough interview bites to explain what happened, but we needed a good visual to make it work... If you catch a rerun of the show, you will see a happy Stephanie obliviously bounce up to Connor, who solemnly takes her hand and leads her off, as his interview bite explains he needs to end things. With the help of a tender music cue, it turned out to be a touching and bittersweet end to our summer romance. The reality: Steph walked up to Connor, gushed about his Adidas t-shirt and they headed off to have lunch. We used the interview bites and music cue to shape the otherwise innocuous scene to approximate the reality that we failed to shoot (Rupel, David “How Reality TV Works”). Reality television show writers are some of the brightest people in the field. They manage to weave a story that does not exist from pre-existing and unrelated footage. Which in turn is edited to affect a viewer's perception of what he sees on screen. This means that people cannot trust television to always be telling the truth when it comes to the stories that are dished out to the viewers. All the writers and producers are after at this point, is making sure that the reaction that they want to have is extracted from the viewers, even if it means altering their perception of reality. Over the past 20 years, television has seen a growth in its impact upon the perception of reality by its viewers. The impact of these television shows actually goes far beyond a simple misconception about reality. While reality shows were first considered to be a fad, the television networks have been constantly proving to the viewers that the genre is here to stay. As such, the concept of reality television will continue to alter the minds of people with “distorted pictures of reality, leaving behind an even bigger effect than that of regular television” (Pontius, Erica “Reality Television and Perception of Reality”). According to Gerbner's cultivation theory; 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. (qtd. in Pontius) The aforementioned explanation helps one to understand exactly how reality shows rely heavily on distorting reality in order to make their television concept work. Normally, the outcome of the reality of the show does not result on the same effects for the actual world practice of those not involved in the show as cast members. It is believed that an average American watches at least 4 hours of television everyday. With the reality shows growing popularity, it would be safe to assume that television watching and “reality” television will somehow alter the viewer's perception of reality. It is explained that; Those who viewed the soap opera were more likely to accommodate their perceptions of reality to include more deception and lack of trust in others when faced with hypothetical situations as opposed to weighing the situations and using critical thinking skills to discern the truth (Pontius. Erica “Reality Television and Perception of Reality”). The aforementioned explanation further gives credence to the growing belief that most people can no longer tell the difference between reality and a “reality show”. Everyone seems to view each other's lives as soap opera rather than as a real life situation occurring for a person. Olivia Brown terms this problem of altered realities in the minds of the television viewers as “Hyperreality”. Explained in a more professional manner, Hyperreality is a term that sociologists use to describe; ... the inability of people to distinguish between their own reality and the simulation of reality. Many theorists, including Jean Baudrillard, Albert Borgmann, Daniel Boorstin, and Umberto Eco, have studied this idea. It is also theorized that hyperreality tricks us into detaching from our everyday surroundings, and opting for artificial simulations such as those offered on television (“Television: Does it Have an Affect on Our Perception of Reality?: Healthy Student, Happy Student”). It is believed that by making it impossible for people to distinguish between reality and hyperreality, television has become the perfect vehicle by which people enter into altered states of perception about reality. Since people tend to get emotionally involved with their beloved television characters, it becomes impossible for them to distinguish between the two already. Reality television has become an important part of the American social television phenomena. It is a cultural phenomenon that influences our cognitive processes (Kupeli, Halil “How Mass Media Affect Our perception of Reality”). Along with the belief in the reality of “reality shows”, people also tend to believe that television manages to promote materialism and a sense of dissatisfaction about the status in life of a person. This is explained by; Two possible explanations may account for the findings. One is that the effect of television viewership on life satisfaction is a unique phenomenon that is applicable only to the United States. Given the disparity of viewership levels between the U.S. and other countries, that explanation has some face validity. The other is that the effects were less evident in non-U.S. samples because of methodological limitations of the cross-cultural research. Overall, the results show that television viewership, at least in the U.S., may play a significant role in making people unhappy with their lives. Much of television advertising reinforces material consumption and possession with images of the “good life.” Thus, television advertising contributes to terminal materialism—materialism for the sake of materialism. In one viewing of an episode of “Keeping Up With the Kardashians”, we see how the family promotes materialism and influences those viewing the show to buy the products that they are subliminally endorsing. This can be through a casual mention in a conversation between the family members, a direct approach for advertising within the show that is paid for by the sponsor, or, the fact that one of the family members has been signed on to a contract to promote the product. Whatever the reason, the people watching are influenced into trying the latest fad in living as promoted by the show (Sirgy, Joseph, Lee, Dong-Jin, et. al.) Television is practically the first baby sitter that a child can have in life. Most mothers would prefer to plop the child down in a baby chair and let it watch mindless television for hours on end just so the mother can perform the way she needs to in life. By exposing the child early on to various television programs, advertisements, and news programs, society has managed to create a world wherein these predispositions and preferences for the things that the child begins to develop a liking for later on, is influenced by the “primary sources” of influence over the young minds (Bryant, Jennings & Zillman Dolf “Media Effects: Advances in Theory and Research”). As such, television seems to be meant to perform a specific task in relation to its ability to influence the mindset of its televiewers. In order for this kind of influence to succeed, a person watching television at least 7 hours a day must be exposed to an overall pattern of regular “programming that exposes the viewers to the overall pattern of programming over a long period of time” (Bryant, Jennings & Zillman, Dolf” Media Effects: Advances in Theory and Research). In order to truly and fully understand how reality shows and its producers have the ability to alter the viewer's perception of reality, one only need to look towards the dystopian reality that is presented the book and now the movie series “The Hunger Games”. In it, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark, two youths from outcast villages of Panem are placed in an arena where, along with other Tributes, they are to fight to the death. All in the name of entertainment for those in The Capitol. Clearly the games are a form of reality show for the fictional country and the unwilling participants in the game, are merely characters chosen by the writers and producers. Their life and death in the arena has practically been pre-determined by the producers and game makers in such a manner that each death will illicit the correct type of emotion for the televiewers in The Capitol. We see how Haymitch constantly advises Katniss and Peeta to form alliances with other Tributes in order to make their lives easier in the arena. For the game makers are in charge of what will eventually happen to them and without proper sponsorship from The Capitol viewers, the lives of the Tributes will be cut short. In other words, if the character does not know how to write a compelling story, then one will be created for him in order to ensure that The Capitol will remain in control of the remaining districts. The Hunger Games is by far, the most perfect example of how a reality show manages to alter one's perception of reality. From Katniss being made to believe that her sister was being tortured in the clock shaped arena in the recently shown “Catching Fire” version of the book and movies, all the way to how we : ... see how the games are set up in the control room and in the dialogue between President Snow and Seneca Crane. This focus on the set up of the games and its insidious manipulation of the contestants feeds into the overall theme of control in a dystopian future (Phua, Michael “The Hunger Games”). The movie shows us how the Capitol residents are lapping up the stories being created by the producers of the show and how they fell, hook, line, and sinker for the story about a fake wedding and a pregnancy that Peeta made up to protect Katniss. The audience lapped it up and considered the situation of Peeta and Katnis as a reality. Mass media such as television is supposed to be a pervasive and positive influence on the people. Influencing the life of many and giving meaning to their hum-drum lives. Sadly, ordinary people are not trained to realize when their perception of reality is one that is so unrealistic that it would take a whole team of Hollywood experts to pull it off for an ordinary person ala The Hunger Games. According the author of Can't But My love, Jean KIlbourne; “The most effective kind of propaganda is that which is not recognized as propaganda” (qtd. in Dill. ) That is exactly why reality television has achieved so much success in altering the viewer's perception of reality. All the messages delivered are subliminal. The people who are watching and commenting on the shows do not even realize that there is an ulterior motive in the way that reality shows depict their stories. This form of indirect advertising comes across simply as something that occurs in the daily life of the reality show star. There is nothing real about it because the star was prepped for the meeting and given some talking points to use. Without such form of direction or scriptwriting, these reality shows would cease to exist. The main point that exists in this discussion is the fact that the televiewers are incapable of determining that viewing habits also determine the ability of a person to become susceptible to suggestions. Thus making the person quite easy to target with a suggestion for an altered reality. It is because of these aforementioned reasons that reality shows affect a person's perception of reality. Works Cited “A Very Merry Christmas”. Keeping Up With The Kardashians. E!. E! Entertainment Television Channel. 1 Dec. 2013. Television. Brown, Olivia. “Television: Does it Have an Affect on our Perception of Reality?: Healthy Student, Happy Student”. The Muse. themuse.ca. n.d. Web. 9 Dec. 2013. Bryant, Jennings. & Zillman, Dolf. Media Effects: Advances in Theory and Research. New York : Taylor and Francis, 2002. Print. Dill, Karen E. How Fantasy Becomes Reality: Seeing Through Media Influence. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Print. The Hunger Games. Dir. Gary Ross. Perf. Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson. Lionsgate, 2012. Film Kupeli, Halil. “How Mass Media Affect Our Perception of Reality”. n.d. Web. quora.com. quora.com. n.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2013. Phua, Michael. “The Hunger Games”. calvin.edu. calvin.edu. 2013. Web. 6 Dec, 2013. Pontius, Erika. “The Impact of Reality Television on Viewers' Perception of Reality”. missouriwestern.edu. missouriwester.edu. 24 Apr. 2003. Web. 8 Dec. 2013. Rupel, David. “How Reality TV Works”. wga.org. wga.org. 2013. Web. 7 Dec. 2013. Sirgy, M. Joseph., Lee, Dong - Jin., et. al. “Does Television Viewership Play a Role in the Perception of the Quality of Life?”. Journal of Advertising. 27.1. 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