Show for the Intelligent or Unintelligent Audience - Essay Example

Reality Television: Show for the Intelligent or Unintelligent Audience The media have proved to be so vital inpeople’s life in that with the current generation, many people have proved that they can not do without it. Currently, it is an influential social system that plays a role of creating a person`s sense of reality with his environment. A lot of inventions have been mad to help relay messages to the audience or the public at large. Televisions and radios are some of the inventions that have been made to act as channels of communication. With the advent of television, entertainment programs have taken a change in their appeal to the audience. This has created two different audience that watch shows on televisions. We have one with high intellectual appeal, and the other one with low intellectual appeal. With these two groups, Scripted Television Shows and unscripted Television Shows are created to make each group with the shows they watch. With Scripted shows, shows are penned script handed to performer only to perform according to the commands of the show-runner or the director. This is different with the unscripted shows that are broadcasted with the news reporters improvising the information to make it more appealing over the scripted one. Now, the basic point of the argument is whether or not, unscripted television or reality based television shows are the type of programs that have their appeal for the unintelligent masses or not? The answer to the above argument is not a simple yes or no, but rather it depends upon the geographical location, social context and religious perspective of the viewers of the respective shows. Shows like Survivor, American Idol and Real housewives of New Jersey can help us in expounding the argument. All of these shows are reality based shows, but their targeted audience differs. For the Survivor, the audience is a group of people that have an adventurous, out-going and a courageous state of mind. For the American idol, the demographic market is varied with mixed audience watching this program. College students, high school kids, sub-urban housewives and teenage girls have their share in making American idol a success. The Real Housewives of New Jersey are kind of shows that appeals to both sub-urban and rural house wives by incorporating issues such as gossips, divorce and infidelity as their character (Neil 1). With the three shows mentioned above, we can not conclude that their audience is slow on the uptake because there is no evidence for that. The 2nd biggest media industry in the world is India. In terms of revenue, it is the chief competitor to the Hollywood. In 2003, India had the first performance of its first reality television series Roadies. The ground of the show was to bring contestants from all over India together. Sixteen contestants from the four cities were selected in the audition for the journey in all over India. In the journey, they were to perform one contestant to be eliminated from each round. The premise of the show was essentially an Indian version of the American hit series “Survivor”, but the controversy rested in its content. India is one of the most conservative countries in the world at the moment. It is safe to assume that cursing and swearing in Indian shows is frowned upon and is an act of indecency (Branscombe, Baron and Byrne 149). Contestants in India are usually humiliated with abusive language and curses and sometimes forced to do weird and thwarting tasks. These odd tasks are dancing and talking about their personal lives and embarrassing situations in their lives. They do it in front of the camera. This is popular and creates a lot of controversial with the Indian shows. The Host of the show “Raghu” when asked to comment on the content of the show and language utilized with it, Raghu’s response was, “if someone does not like the show, he or she should change the channel” (Branscombe, Baron and Byrne 227). It is a convincing reply, but in another conservative talk show, host said “disagreement creates hard cash”. Moreover, one cannot anticipate ignoring porn when it is uncensored on TV. This is because the generation gap in India is enormous than in other parts of the world. Middle aged people consider a woman in bathing suit vulgar while youngsters consider it acceptable and fun” (Branscombe, Baron and Byrne 229). The argument that, Reality television is for the intelligent masses also does not have any strong supporting evidence to it. People will watch anything with a conflicting topic. It does not matter whether its scripted program or unscripted program. Desperate Housewives have an appeal to female audiences regardless of their intellectual taste. Same is seen in the program of The Real housewives of New Jersey. The interesting part of this program is how the issue of ‘gossip’ is brought to light and how the real housewives interact with each other. This flavors the show (Neil 1). Media analyst, Tom Alderman said, "There is a sub-set of Reality TV that can only be described as a Shame TV because it uses humiliation as its core appeal” ("MDIA1001 – MEDIA LITERACIES"). These ideas are correct. Making such assessment gives the whole thought of any reality in a program. Characters eating worms and cockroaches in a Fear-Factor, contestants and participants, are used to insults and curses in the Indian version of survivor, Roadies. Women in many versions of Real Housewives ridicules themselves by exposing the upsetting moments of their life such as abortion, infidelity and pre-marital sex. With the same mind set, there is some good part of reality television that appeals the educated masses. A myth buster is an immensely popular program on the discovery channel in which even the President of United States of America, president Barrack Obama starred in it. This show is about the popular myths such as Astrology, Yeti, and Voodoo. The myths are scrutinized in the show in details; to assume that this reality based television is watched by intelligent masses is wrong. This is because Myth-Busters are made for people of more than average mental power. Conclusion It is evidence that assuming that a reality based television is made for unintelligent audiences is wrong. Because even though Real Housewives of New Jersey is watched by audiences who are predominantly female, statistics suggest that they belong to un-intellectual segment of the society. Real-Housewives of New-Jersey are for unintelligent masses can also be countered with the argument that Myth Busters is for the intelligent audiences. Both arguments are misleading based on the assumption that there is such a thing known as ‘level of intelligence’ in television. People watch television due to the intensity of conflict on an unscripted show regardless of the content of the show. Works Cited Branscombe, R. Nyla, et al. Social Psychology. New Delhi: Pearson Education India Ltd., 2009. Paperback. "Are you fans of shamefulness?" Media1001 – media literacies. Word press, 15, September. 2010. Web. 30 Nov 2012. Neil, Genzlinger. "Housewives, Sure, but What Makes Them Real?" New York Times 15 May 2011. Web. 30 Nov. 2012. Read More