Surge in reality television affects stars, viewers, networks

By KAITLIN DOYLE 

DEC. 16-Four reality television shows are in the top five most popular regularly syndicated TV shows for 2009 according to the The Nielsen Company. 

Larry Juchartz, who holds a Ph.D in English and is a professor at Mott Community College (MCC) as well as a member of the Popular Culture Association (PCA), believes that high ratings support that an increase of reality TV in the past few years has been a good choice for networks.

"The one-hour drama is the most expensive type of show to make, while the 30-minute reality show is the least expensive," he said. "So networks have flocked to the latter."

While the ratings certainly do support that the decision to make more reality TV shows is a good one, they don't explain why the fascination for all things reality is taking place.

"With less 'creative' TV and more 'reality' to view, society sees itself reflected through a medium that edits--i.e. manipulates--the real to provide a perception of reality that the society accepts as being unaltered," Juchartz said. "But living in a house full of cameras and film crews isn't real life living in a real house."

Brenda Zicha, an associate professor of sociology at MCC believes reality television simply reflects our national culture and our obsession with our "15 minutes of fame."

"Andy Warhol said, 'In the future, everyone will be world famous for 15 minutes,'" she said. "Certainly, obsession with celebrity is a growing modern phenomenon. Shows like 'American Idol,' 'Design Star,' 'Food Star,' etc., play to our celebrity culture that even common people can do things as well as the 'stars.'"

This obsession with reality television and wanting "15 minutes of fame," can be detrimental to society and impact the lives of the viewers as well, according to Susan Edwards, a psychology professor at MCC.

She believes both adults and children can be affected negatively by reality television simply by imitating behavior they may see.

"Our tendency to imitate behavior depends on our belief that we are capable of that behavior," she said. "It depends on the person's perception of their own abilities."

Zicha agrees with Edwards and believes all mass media has the potential to impact behavior of adults and children alike.

"Certainly Albert Bandura's experiments with the Bobo dolls in the '60s demonstrated that children could learn behavior for television and that is why we see shows like 'Sesame Street' and 'Dora the Explorer,' etc. today," she said. "Adult behavior is also very clearly affected by Reality TV as that is what advertising is. We watch a demonstration of a product and go out and buy it. People are clearly using them and that is reality, which affects adults."


Albert Bandura believed television was a source for children to model behavior. In the "Bobo Doll" experiment, Bandura showed children a video of  a model hitting a doll, then put them in a room with toys that they could not play with. The children became frustrated and were then switched to a room with the same doll they recently saw get hit. Bandura found that 88 percent of the children imitated the behavior and eight months later, 40 percent of the same children imitated the aggressive behavior again.

Edwards also believes that children are especially at risk of being harmed mentally and developmentally by reality television, though all television may be real to some children as they cannot tell the difference.

"Violent or aggressive acts can be imitated by children, especially if the person is rewarded for their acts," she said. "Children can also become fearful that the world is a dangerous place. They can also become desensitized to others' pain."

But the impact reality television has on our culture isn't only reflected in the behavior and thoughts of its viewers. Television itself is directly affected by the surge of reality television.

"More trivial is the impact reality shows have had on dramas, which are quickly turning into true crime, true trauma, true tragedy being 'ripped from the headlines' and acted out in scripts, and by actors, that are more polished than the 're-enactors' and 're-enactments' on those cheesy cable-TV shows about ghosts and murders and 911 calls," Juchartz said.

Though many viewers may watch reality TV for different reasons, Reality TV viewer Cory Potter watches it to see a reflection of himself and others.

"I watch reality TV not just because it seems to be the only thing on TV nowadays to watch, but because it has its moments of allowing us to see ourselves and our lives on TV," he said. I love the drama of the backstabbers and the underdogs and the game-players and the down-trodden."

It may never be known exactly why so many people watch reality television or how many people are actually affected by it, but Juchartz does offer some theories.

"There are theories that people watch reality TV so that they can feel superior to what they're seeing on screen, and feel outraged by the outrageous actions and know that they're still morally and ethically better than the scumbags on TV," he said. "But if you're enticed to watch scumbags because they do mean things to each other, then you're enjoying that meanness, and what does that really make you?"

Larry Juchartz dicusses reality television theories.mp3

Click the link above to hear Larry Juchartz, English professor at Mott Community College and a member of the Popular Culture Association, discuss a reality television theory.