In response to today’s symposium lecture, I find it intriguing that how many people are being so attached to reality tv shows and how popular it has become. I agree to Jasmine’s statement that reality tv is obviously realistic and it gives the audience a desire of involvement to it. It also exaggerate a little about all our daily lives. It that is what it keeps the show interesting. Long story short, it’s connects with real life and that’s why people love it.
Adrian said that it does not however has to do with reality. But it does give some involvement with the audience. For instance American idol. It gives the audience the privilege to vote via SMS, phone call or maybe through online. Reality tv show is somewhat picking things up from games. It involves leveling up and having sets of rules placed in the arena. This is what happens when games meet television. Seth also mention that reality tv show taps into the private world of others which is why it appeals to the audience. Things that are private are now public and things that are supposedly public is somewhat private. Adrian also mentioned a little bit about the missing Malaysian plane. Whether it is hijacked or plane error. We don’t know. In that sense, I kind of agree to that issue. There are many things the media isn’t telling us. There are certain things are being kept private which is causing families of the victims being worried sick and leads to chaos. Because of some censorship, citizens are suspecting the odd. I can’t say for sure, I’m merely replicating the words of people from the social media. Another thing to mention about this people want to see what they want to see, even if it’s not true. For instance, about the Malaysian airplane; if anyone has a blurry image of what is relevant, television will buy it and will broadcast it.
Here’s a clip of Shepard Smith on the Malaysian missing airplane
Another point from the symposium was that Adrian mentioned about public sphere is crumbling because there is no rational discussions on the web. For instance, in my perception, if a person hates a particular celebrity, and the person will continuously go reading about the bad side of the story and disregard anything else.If someone takes a picture or video of a police being brutal to a suspect and it will go viral. It is actually enlarging the public sphere. Mobile technology filming is more of a self expression. It doesn’t matter with your camera skills as long as you got a good shot. It doesn’t ruin filmmaking, but rather it creates opportunities.
Another thing I picked up from the lecture was that life is not a narrative, it is not a story. It is mentioned that there is no such thing as an accident in a story. It is an intentional accident. In life it is different. Who knows when our life ends, who knows when the earth decided to just blow up. For example, SAW 5, the story is basically about 5 people being trapped in a game of torture and pain. They have to face five levels of torture to win the game. However the players/victims believe that every game has to eliminate one person and by eliminate, it means to kill. What the victims don’t know was that everyone can survive at every level of the game. Basically the whole story is plotted. In life, there is no such thing.