ETHICS IN ENTERTAINMENT

THE CASE OF REALITY TV SHOWS

PRESENTED BY
NAME  - ANUJ
ROLL -76
 What are Reality TV Shows

• Reality television is a genre of television programming that

presents purportedly unscripted dramatic or humorous situations,
documents actual events, and usually features ordinary people
instead of professional actors, sometimes in a contest or other
situation where a prize is awarded.
• Reality television show debuted in 1948,by Allen Funt's Candid
Camera and exploded as a global phenomenon around 1999-2000,
via series such as Big Brother.
• It frequently portrays a modified and highly influenced form of
reality, utilizing sensationalism to attract viewers and so to
generate advertising profits.
 Contd.

• Participants are often placed in exotic

locations or abnormal situations, and
are sometimes coached to act in specific
scripted ways by off-screen "story
editors" inorder to create an illusion of
reality through editing and other post-
production techniques.
• Reality television breaks the monotony
of tv viewers and creates interesting
scripts and out-of the box ideas that
make them stand out from the run-of-
the-mill shows.
 Truth about Reality shows

• One of the attractions of reality television is the supposed

"reality" of it - unscripted and unplanned situations and
reactions. One of the ethical problems of reality television is
the fact that it isn't nearly as "real" as it pretends to be.

• In these shows the situations are heavily contrived, they are

altered in order to make things interesting, and large amounts
of footage are heavily edited into what the show's producers
think will result in the best entertainment value for viewers.
 Impact of Reality TV shows

• They give a false image of reality, since the people watching

them are under the impression that everything happening in
the show is real.
• A reality show stars a non-celebrity, this gives the audience a
connection with the show’s stars as they feel that they are
“real and normal” people representing them. This is the
reason why audience empathizes with the show’s stars and
this inturn affects them in a negative way.
• Reality TV often highlights fights or disagreements between a
group and even telecasts certain moments not suitable for
viewing for a family audience.
 Contd.

• Often, certain reality television

shows are based on topics that have
no thought process or concepts. The
audience thus gets hooked on to TV
shows, which do not really have any
intelligent concept.
 Moral Responsibilty

• If a production company creates a

show with the explicit intention of
trying to make money from the
humiliation and suffering, which
they themselves create for unsuspecting people, then that
seems to me to be immoral and unconscionable.
• What of the responsibility of the reality TV advertisers? Their
funding makes such programming possible, and therefore they
must shoulder part of the blame as well.
• What of the responsibility of contestants?