I have guilty pleasures and one of them is definitely reality TV--or "reality" TV, I should say. I love parking myself in front of the boob tube to see Project Runway, America's Next Top Model, even Beauty and the Geek. I didn't quite get into Survivor or Amazing Race, but you know what I mean. If you're anything like me, then you probably have your own reality TV list.
What makes them so fascinating? That's the question Carolyn Davis asked herself. That's also the question that led her to the doctoral program at Syracuse University. From a glitzy-sounding life in Manhattan as publicist for such companies as MGM and Fox Searchlight, sh hied herself to Syracuse University to do research on reality TV.
She loves the genre so much, she's writing her dissertation on it."It's such a format for the age," says Carolyn, a gregarious, fast-talking hyperactive young woman, as she goes on about this medium viewers often take for granted.
While we're all glued to our shows, Carolyn says that not even the definition of reality TV is fixed. As Joanne also writes in her article for the Denver Post, reality TV isn't as real as audiences might think it is. "When is manufactured reality simply showbiz as usual?"
If even mass communication theorists don't have a definition for reality TV, how can we differentiate it from the rest of the packaged 1-hour shows we watch? Carolyn offers one question to ask. "To what extent do the characters exhibit agency within the narrative"
Unlike other shows where actors are told what to do and even how to do it, reality TV stars are usually given the setup, but not much else is staged. Of course, there are story editors and post-production editing, but whatever is captured on film really did happen. That's fodder for us to think about while still enjoying our own dose of "reality" each week.
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