Discuss the reasons for the success/appeal of the reality television genre and the moral implications the genre raises.

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Discuss the reasons for the success/appeal

of the reality television genre and the

moral implications the genre raises

    What is reality television? Well reality television started in the 1990’s and from there onwards it has become the most rapidly growing programme format. Reality television has been mixed together to make other subjects such as game shows (Big Brother), soaps (Eastenders) and documentaries. These programmes mainly Big Brother are always under surveillance in the house. All together there are 31+cameras, 26+ microphones and it is on 24 hours a day, every day.

     Reality television is a programme/series where the viewers watch other people in their environment or in another environment and you see them acting in their life style on live television. Reality television comes in many different forms, but the most seen one is a fly on the wall documentary; this is where you see people in their or another environment all the time with no escape; it’s like they are trapped and cannot get out until the programme has totally finished (Big Brother or I’m a celebrity get me out of here)

     Today’s reality television programmes are different from the first ones in 1990. Today’s ones are stricter, like in Big Brother, they are restricted from doing many things in the house. They make sure they don’t do this by putting 31+cameras in the environment so Big Brother is able to get every bit of detail from the house hold, and they have 26+ microphones so Big Brother is able to listen to every conversation and make sure the contestants are not talking about issues they are not allowed to talk about such as evictions. To make more people watch the show, Big Brother always give the contestants alcohol to make the viewing much better. I think that to make sure the contestants are not doing anything they shouldn’t be doing is good because it keeps the house hold under control and gives it it’s game show approach. I think there should be alcohol in the house so it gives the viewers an exciting and unpredictable programme at the time.

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      Reality programmes like Big Brother have lots of positive and negative responses. It has positive responses like “dramatic viewing, with moments of real conflict” and “a good mix of different types of people.” But with the positive responses comes the negative responses like “it is an edited view of an artificial situation” and “it has boring people trying to become celebrities,” like in the third Big Brother Jade Goodey was a nobody and now she is on most of the magazines and newspapers and is regularly talked about. But when you come out of Big Brother it ...

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