[Patrick]

Tomorrow, I have to do a presentation on Reality Television and how it has changed over the years.

More than anything I'll be focussing on Big Brother, but I'm going to include other shows aswell - just mostly BB.

I need some ideas on what topics to bring up and incidents and big moments etc.

Help me omg. x

[Withano]

If TOWIE etc are reality TV now, then that ought to be your main argument.. Its scripted now..

[Patrick]

Yeah - I was thinking of going from like 2000-2013, how it's changed completely.

[Jack_]

I had to write an essay a few weeks back on whether postmodern media has blurred the boundary between reality and representation and wrote a massive opening paragraph on Big Brother and included some examples of twists my knowledge of the show was quite useful

I'd start off by saying how Big Brother brought about and defined the new genre of 'reality TV' and prying into people's lives and it went from a social experiment into a heightened environment with producer manipulated twists, and the format led to other similar reality shows...set in a jungle, on an island...and then the idea of watching people was taken into hometowns and cities (TOWIE, MIC etc) but it was no longer really 'reality' because a lot of it was set up and engineered (as was Big Brother in its later years), and now you've got reality shows about people's sex lives, 'embarrassing' bodies, how they do their house up, hoarding, live shows about people's experiences of struggling to get their kids to bed, subcultures (gypsies, prisoners etc). We've become obsessed with watching people live their lives and all the weird little things that go on in them, Channel 4 are particularly bad (or good, whichever way you see it) for these kind of shows.

Also maybe mention how when Big Brother started, you could get 15 minutes of fame from a reality show, and normal people became minor celebrities for a short space of time, but now the tables have turned and a lot of the reality shows are focused on existing celebrities, so those shows that follow around people like Katie Price and Peter Andre and are meant to portray their actual lives when really it's just a condensed version of what they want you to see which isn't really 'reality' at all.

[Patrick]

OMG Jack. Ily.

[Jack_]

You're welcome

[Jake.]

Wow Jack lol, good stuff

[zakman440]

Youtube video

Hopefully you can pull a few things from here.

[Gstar]

Another great post from Jack

You can also add how reality TV's editing can make a good person come across as a villian and vice versa, how many secrets/lies there are when the cameras stop rolling and how much involvement the producers really have (in an attempt to create drama/entertainment)

[lostalex]

The most fascinating (and sadistic) reality Tv show i can remember was called solitary, i'm sure you can stil find clips of it on youtube. I think if you need examples of the EXTREMES that reality tv can go to, that would be a good show to talk about.

Youtube video

Youtube video

I miss Val

Youtube video