Reality Television in Society essays

Reality Television in Society essays Reality television is just that television. Television is a form of entertainment. Most television shows, except for the news, have no informative aspect to them. This includes reality television. Reality television does not help people deal with their real-life problems. Like all entertainment it offers an escape from real-life problems through entertainment. Reality television is entertainment not an informative show like the news or some instructional video. It does not have information that can be useful in a real world setting. A show like The Osbornes demonstrates how a dysfunctional spoiled, rich, and famous family lives. So unless the viewers are equally rich and famous than their lives arent like the Osbornes lives. Other shows like Survivor, Fear Factor, and Road Rules take ordinary people and put them in unusual situations, because of the entertainment value. No matter how similar to reality the situations on these shows are, they lack many aspects of reality. People watch these shows because they remove the more unpleasant aspects of reality. If the viewers wanted reality they could always watch the news but [t]he nightly news brings us stories of suffering and sacrifice, victims and violence(Sacks 5). Certain aspects of life are not entertaining, this is why these aspects of real life are not included in reality television. Reality television is entertainment it makes viewers forget about their ordinary lives, if only for 30 minutes or an hour, and think about the excitement on television. Nwosu said it best when discussing reality television and reality when he said, normal people are seeking a way to escape their mundane lives and to enter a world in which their lives could be anything but boring. Reality television, should be renamed avoid reality television, because it helps viewers avoid and escape reality. ...