Reality TV Programs: 'How Real is Real?'

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Reality Television Programs: “How Real is Reality?”
Lights flashing, cameras clicking, and lavish lifestyle – all equal reality television shows? Wrong. Imagine your walk out to your mail box: pajamas, slippers, and a mug of coffee. You grab your newspaper and T.V. Guide to head inside to start your daily routine. This is a real-life situation that would fit within the boundaries of the definition of the word “reality”. No one would click record or devote time in their day to watch someone do something they could personally experience themselves. Yet, chances are the guide you just grabbed somehow contains lists upon lists of differing reality T.V. shows. How is this possible? Reality television stretches the title “reality” just a bit too far as they have been accused of providing scripts, staging and editing “real” life situations, dramatizing and influencing how cast members behave, and promoting unethical values for a monetary gain. Any group or organization, no matter the size or amount of money they wield would be able to take down this multi-billion dollar genre, yet if viewers and producers around the programs would take the shows for what they are, entertainment programs, then it would reduce the amount of deceitfulness surrounding it .
All you have to do is Google the definition of “Reality Television” to find what makes a television program fit into the vague genre of Reality T.V. Wikipedia defines the genre as being “…a genre of television programming that documents unscripted situations and actual occurrences, and often features a previously unknown cast…”(Wikipedia). Bing, Google, and Yahoo dictionaries all referenced the words to a similar definition. This means that anything that lies outside the boundaries of...

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...otest the very next day. Record numbers tune into the numerous channels that air Reality Television shows, so isn’t it hypocritical to bash them at the same time that their DVR is already pre-set to record them? Yes; even I, myself, am subject to doing the very same thing. Reality television may cause serious problems, but it just needs to be seen and viewed for what is actually is; fictional entertainment (TIMES). The differences between a fictional movie found in theaters and “The Simple Life with Paris Hilton” are actually slim to none. Maybe instead of being deemed evil and immoral Reality Television needs to be better categorized because after being accused of providing scripts, staging and editing “real” life situations, dramatizing and influencing how cast members behave, and promoting unethical values for a monetary gain it is hardly reality at all.

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