Reality television: Difference between revisions

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	==Analysis and criticism==		==Analysis and criticism==

			REALITY HAS BECOME A COMMODITY
	Part of reality television's appeal is due to its ability to place ordinary people in extraordinary situations. For example, on the ABC show, '']'', an eligible male dates a dozen women simultaneously, traveling on extraordinary dates to scenic locales. Reality television also has the potential to turn its participants into national celebrities, outwardly in talent and performance programs such as ''Pop Idol'', though frequently ''Survivor'' and ''Big Brother'' participants also reach some degree of celebrity.

	===Is "reality" a misnomer?===		===Is "reality" a misnomer?===

			REALITY HAS BECOME A COMMODITY
	Some commentators have said that the name "reality television" is an inaccurate description for several styles of program included in the genre. In competition-based programs such as ''Big Brother'' and ''Survivor'', and other special-living-environment shows like ''The Real World'', the producers design the format of the show and control the day-to-day activities and the environment, creating a completely fabricated world in which the competition plays out. Producers specifically select the participants, and use carefully designed scenarios, challenges, events, and settings to encourage particular behaviors and conflicts. ], creator of ''Survivor'' and other reality shows, has agreed with this assessment, and avoids the word "reality" to describe his shows; he has said, "I tell good stories. It really is not reality TV. It really is unscripted drama."

	Even in docusoap series following people in their daily life, producers may be highly deliberate in their editing strategies, able to portray certain participants as heroes or villains, and may guide the drama through altered chronology and selective presentation of events. Some participants have stated afterwards that they altered their behavior to appear more crazy or emotional in order to get more camera time.

	Several former reality show participants have spoken publicly about their experiences and the strategies used on reality shows. ] from '']'' has done public speaking tours about the negative and misleading aspects of reality TV. In 2004, ] aired a program called ''"Reality TV Secrets Revealed"'' that detailed various misleading tricks of reality TV producers. It was revealed that programs '']'' and '']'' had at times recreated incidents that had actually occurred but were not properly recorded by cameras to the required technical standard, or had not been recorded at all. In order to get the footage, the event was restaged for the cameras. Other shows (most notably '']'') combined audio and video from different times, or different sets of footage, to make it look like participants were doing something they were not.

	Some shows have faced speculation that the participants themselves are involved in fakery, acting out storylines that were planned in advance by producers. The show '']'' is one notable example; one TV critic wrote that the show's "situations and dialogue come straight from a page." On the show '']'', it has been speculated that the customers eating meals prepared by the contestants are in fact paid actors. Nevertheless, there has been no direct evidence presented yet that any such program has been scripted or "rigged," as with the 1950s television ].

	===Political impact===		===Political impact===

			REALITY HAS BECOME A COMMODITY===Other===
	Reality television's global success has been, in the eyes of some analysts, an important political phenomenon. In some ] countries, reality television voting represents the first time many citizens have voted in any free and fair wide-scale elections. In addition, the frankness of the settings on some reality shows present situations that were formerly taboo in certain orthodox cultures, like the ] version of '']'', which shows men and women living together. Matt Labash of '']'', noting both of these issues, wrote that "the best hope of little Americas developing in the Middle East could be Arab-produced reality TV." Similarly, in ], after the finale of the 2005 season of '']'' (the local version of '']'') drew an audience of around 400 million people, and 8 million ] votes, the state-run English-language newspaper '']'' ran the front-page headline "Is Super Girl a Force for Democracy?" The government has threatened to censor the show, citing both its democratic nature and its excessive vulgarity, or "worldliness". .
			REALITY HAS BECOME A COMMODITY

	===Other===
	In Australia, following an ] shown live on the web streamed version of '']'', there was a political and media backlash that prompted the Australian Government to commission a report on the incident.

	==Popularity and ratings==		==Popularity and ratings==

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This article is about the genre of TV shows. For the channel, see Zone Reality.

Reality television is a genre of television programming which presents supposedly unscripted dramatic or humorous situations, documents actual events, and features ordinary people instead of professional actors. Although the genre has existed in some form or another since the early years of television, the current explosion of popularity dates from around 2000. Documentaries, and nonfictional programming such as the news and sports shows are usually not classified as reality shows.

Many of the older secret-based shows, which derived much of their entertainment value from debate over how real they were or what the trick was, have been demystified. For instance, numerous magic tricks have been exposed. Professional Wrestling has left the kayfabe era, and the majority of Harlem Globetrotter games are known fakes . Reality television serves as a replacement in many ways to those types of entertainment.

Reality television covers a wide range of television programming formats, from game or quiz shows which resemble the frantic, often demeaning shows produced in Japan in the 1980s and 1990s (a modern example is Gaki no tsukai), to surveillance- or voyeurism-focused productions such as Big Brother.

Critics say that the term "reality television" is somewhat of a misnomer. Such shows frequently portray a modified and highly influenced form of reality, with participants put in exotic locations or abnormal situations, sometimes coached to act in certain ways by off-screen handlers, and with events on screen manipulated through editing and other post-production techniques.