Ruth Deller
Reader in Media, Principal Lecturer and Programme Leader, Undergraduate Communications (Journalism, Media, Public Relations) at Sheffield Hallam University.
Address: Room 9210, Cantor Building
Sheffield Hallam University
S1 2NU
Address: Room 9210, Cantor Building
Sheffield Hallam University
S1 2NU
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So why has reality TV become such a huge phenomenon, and what is its future in an age of streaming and social media?
This book provides an overview of key theories and debates in the study of reality television and discusses industry practices in their global and national contexts. Deller also explores, through interviews with participants and analyses of key programmes, why people take part in reality TV, how they are represented and impact this has on their lives.
From its documentary roots to its social media present and future - this is a guide to Reality Television: The TV Phenomenon that Changed the World.
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FYI - this is the pre-publication version. In the published version (which was edited in 2017 although not released until 2019) some changes to this original text were made - a few points were rewritten slightly, but also changes were made by the publishers to fit their house style (most notably that 'trans people' 'trans women' etc in my original were changed to 'transpeople' 'transwomen' etc and similar for 'cis people/cispeople').
I would hope and expect that the house style now would be different, given that 'transpeople', 'transwomen' etc have become used as currency within the so-called 'gender critical' movement and are seen as implying trans people are solely defined by their transness rather than it being a descriptor like 'white people', 'Muslim people' etc. I would prefer any quotations of this work, even if citing the published version, use 'trans people', 'trans women' etc, with the spaces, as originally written.
Please note: at no time did I get a sense that the publishers were transphobic, indeed there are several chapters with trans activism in the collection - I think it was just a case of an antiquated house style that hadn't yet caught up. Were I to publish this today I would have rallied against such a change.
So why has reality TV become such a huge phenomenon, and what is its future in an age of streaming and social media?
This book provides an overview of key theories and debates in the study of reality television and discusses industry practices in their global and national contexts. Deller also explores, through interviews with participants and analyses of key programmes, why people take part in reality TV, how they are represented and impact this has on their lives.
From its documentary roots to its social media present and future - this is a guide to Reality Television: The TV Phenomenon that Changed the World.
-
FYI - this is the pre-publication version. In the published version (which was edited in 2017 although not released until 2019) some changes to this original text were made - a few points were rewritten slightly, but also changes were made by the publishers to fit their house style (most notably that 'trans people' 'trans women' etc in my original were changed to 'transpeople' 'transwomen' etc and similar for 'cis people/cispeople').
I would hope and expect that the house style now would be different, given that 'transpeople', 'transwomen' etc have become used as currency within the so-called 'gender critical' movement and are seen as implying trans people are solely defined by their transness rather than it being a descriptor like 'white people', 'Muslim people' etc. I would prefer any quotations of this work, even if citing the published version, use 'trans people', 'trans women' etc, with the spaces, as originally written.
Please note: at no time did I get a sense that the publishers were transphobic, indeed there are several chapters with trans activism in the collection - I think it was just a case of an antiquated house style that hadn't yet caught up. Were I to publish this today I would have rallied against such a change.
Although youth-oriented media such as Radio 1's 'Internet takeover' and magazine Oh My Vlog! seek to capitalise on these celebrities and their audiences, such representations are in the minority. Many traditional media present YouTubers as lacking credibility and talent. Even when vlog stars have ventured into other modes of fame, their vlogging is repeatedly presented as a monetised 'hobby', delegitimising the idea that their celebrity can transcend the platform or has 'merit' compared to 'real' celebrity (echoing Rojek's 2001 discussion of hierarchies of fame).
For example, Louise Pentland (Sprinkle of Glitter)'s appearance on Celebrity Mastermind prompted repeated antagonistic questioning about her income and claims to fame from host John Humphrys - which no other ('old media') celebrity guests were subjected to. Coverage of Zoe Sugg (Zoella)'s ghostwritten novel Girl Online, presented her as immature, fraudulent, opportunist and lacking in talent; whilst the biggest YouTube star was dismissed as talentless in The Atlantic: 'PewDiePie doesn’t sing or dance, no. PewDiePie has made his name—and a fortune—posting videos of himself playing video games' (Zoia 2014).
Existing research into camera and vlogging communities (e.g. Senft 2008; Burgess and Green 2009; Marwick 2013; Smith 2014) notes how YouTubers alter notions of 'celebrity' through performances of 'authenticity' and through exemplifying 'participatory culture' (Jenkins 2009). We argue these values that drive audiences to vlogs are also used as ways of criticising their stars as inauthentic, talentless and fraudulent, such as Wyatt's summary of the criticisms of Sugg: 'called a hypocrite for making a career out of teaching young girls to be themselves, only then to put her name to a ghostwritten book' (2014).
We argue that such representations signify an apprehension and fear from the older formats towards the online mediums that threaten both the existence of traditional media forms, and the influence of traditional media professionals - as well as demonstrating contempt and 'concern' for the (presumed) younger audiences vloggers attract, who may well be bypassing older media in favour of YouTube.
and perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in fan communities. Bury (2005) argues that
media fans have always been early adopters of new information and communication
technologies, suggesting that from Usenet to LiveJournal, fans have established a variety of
innovative practices to engage with their favourite media texts and each other. In the age of
Facebook and Twitter, however, fans are not only able to engage with one another; they can
have a direct impact on how some of their favourite fannish objects are made and marketed
(Bennett, 2012).
This forum discussion seeks to examine the ways in which this type of participatory
fandom has altered the traditional relationship between fans and producers, making the
fan-producer boundary more ‘leaky’ (Haraway, 1988). Much academic work thus far has
focussed on television audiences’ use of Twitter (Deller, 2011) but we seek to open the
debate and question the ways in which other forms of social media like Facebook and
Tumblr contribute to the shifting nature of fan communities. Among the questions we
address in the course of this discussion are: how do older fans, such as those of British
singer Cliff Richard, use social media to enhance, rather than replace, their experiences in
older forms of internet community? How have older fandoms such as Star Trek: TOS, Blake’s
7 and The X-Files adopted new technologies to keep the fandom alive? What is the role of
older technologies, such as listservs, and social networking sites, such as LiveJournal, in fan
community making? How do guitar bands and their fans use Facebook, and how does this
affect the audience-producer relationship? Finally, is online participatory culture becoming
more global as a result of shifting patterns of audience reception?
The meme initially saw female users of multiple social media sites post selfies sans makeup with comments along the lines of “here’s my makeup-free selfie for breast cancer.” Before long, the posts mutated to being about cancer more generally, and they acquired messages with more specific actions, such as “Text BEAT to 70099 to donate £3.” More people started to share these photos, sometimes accompanied by a screenshot of their mobile phone to prove they had donated. And people began to nominate others to be the next one to dare to bare. It was around this time that the trend reached enough critical mass for it to be picked up on by other media outlets, and over the following week it mutated several times more, developing spin-off male-oriented memes, including #manupandmakeup (men wearing makeup) and #cockinasock (men naked except for socks covering their penises), as well as gaining traction internationally—generating thousands of words of commentary across news media and blog sites.
This article explores how the selfie became used as a charitable meme in this campaign and how the meme mutated from a (possibly naïve) notion of raising awareness to becoming a multimillion-pound fund-raiser. We consider the way the campaign was discussed and problematized within other media and how this contrasted with the coverage of cancer patient Stephen Sutton’s social media fund-raising events during the same time period and the campaign for Britons to post selfies using the #thumbsupforstephen hashtag following his death. Finally, we consider how these cases reflect wider discourses within British culture about charity, performativity, and national identity as well as how and why wider media responses to these two campaigns differed.
Elizabeth Currid-Halkett, Faber and Faber, 2010, Celebrity Studies, 6:1, 140-142