Reality Television

Paper Summary:

This paper examines the reality of reality television according to Annette Hill, a leading expert on the rise of reality television, in her full length book, "Reality TV: Audiences and Popular Factual Television." The paper explains how reality television is a hybrid of factual television (documentary and news) and scripted popular television that creates a program that makes money and that viewers enjoy watching.

From the Paper:

"As Hill points out early in her work "reality television" is not mean to be real and such a controversy is relatively mute as it does not bode well with the viewer, who would rather just watch it and accept what they wish to be true and the producers who would rather just keep making it and making money off it. Though some are concerned about the effects such television might have on children, who might be predisposed to believe it over other types of television because it is labeled "reality." (Davies 1) The overall response by the public is positive as more and more programs percolate through the whole of the television media and viewership continues to increase."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Davies, Maire Messenger. Fake, Fact, and Fantasy: Children's Interpretations of Television Reality. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1997.
• Hill, Annette. Reality TV: Audiences and Popular Factual Television. New York: Routledge, 2005.
• Leone, Ron, Wendy Chapman Peek, and Kimberly L. Bissell. "Reality Television and Third-Person Perception." Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 50.2 (2006): 253.
• Papacharissi, Zizi, and Andrew L. Mendelson. "An Exploratory Study of Reality Appeal: Uses and Gratifications of Reality TV Shows." Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 51.2 (2007): 355.

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