1. Development of reality TV

"In 1992, a new era was born. Cable channel producers of Music Television (better known as MTV) gave birth to a show about pre-assigned complete strangers moving in together in different parts of the United States and overseas. The brainchild became none other than the Real World. Continuous drinking and bickering enabled this show to hold a timeslot for over 15 seasons. This show planted the seeds that eventually bloomed into the phenomenon that we know and endure best as reality television."

During the first years of the twenty-first century, millions of viewers were watching participants argue, struggle, eat bugs and rats, and reveal the most intimate details of their lives. From time to time Reality TV had changed again—this time into a contest where participants competed against each other to win love or money.

Reality TV in the twenty-first century became a "new way of telling a story which [is] half fiction—the producers and creators set up a universe, they give it rules, they make a setting, they cast it according to specific guidelines as to who they think are going to provide good pyrotechnics. But then they bring in non-actors with no scripts and allow this kind of improvisation like a jazz piece to occur." (Robert Thompson)

In the past half century, American television has become more dramatic, more violent and sexually explicit. Nevertheless, many viewers still enjoy reality TV. The main reason for the popularity of the shows is that viewers identify theirself with the ordinary people who are chosen as participants and then become famous. Maybe they even see their own chance to get famous like the people these shows.

Despite their lucrativ and popular status, many analysts find current reality TV shows ethically and morally reprehensible. In additon to that, reality TV is often a poor example for teenagers, (whith whom the shows are especially popular) when they glorify characteristics such as physical beauty over spiritual strength.


http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/59150/the_fake_world_of_reality_television.html?cat=9