I missed the last symposium not out of laziness, but because I went to ‘The Big Meet’, a careers fair held in Etihad Stadium. This means that this is the first real Symposium I’ve been to (as the first lecture was more of just a lecture, and the second was a public holiday). I have read the information and thought it was pretty cool.

The questions.

Why is reality TV popular? Why are we so interested in seeing “real” lives on TV as well as stories?

My cynical side is simply that reality TV is dirt-cheap to make, compared to scripted television. Because it’s easy to make, channels pump out more of them, which means that reality TV is disproportionately represented in Australian television prime-time. From there, I honestly think that people think they’re seeing “real” people, that they can identify with and empathise is. Personally I despise reality television, and think it’s the most performative, lowest common denominator, manipulative, garbage trash television available.

But the symposium brought up some good points about cross-platform content and interactivity. It involves an arbitrary set of rules, judgement, “leveling up” and winning or dying. (As many science fiction shows have done episodes that take “reality TV” to the extreme of playing or dying, or even The Hunger Games.)

Have we lost Habermas’ notion of the public sphere with the widespread use of mobile technologies?

The rise of portable technology has shifted Habermas’ notion of the public sphere. Whereas phones used to be confined to a fairly private phone booth, now conversations are open for anyone.

Authenticity – grainy images, shaky cameras, skewed angles – amateur footage can be shot in the public sphere, documenting the real in amateur style.

The public sphere has become less rational, and has also become more fractured, which can go two ways : we can surround ourselves with only things we agree with or want to see, or be exposed to all manner of things.

Is there a chance that the accessibility of media nowadays ruins film making instead of ‘liberating it from the old’?

What is film making? Many people who do make films don’t consider themselves filmmakers. Not everything we film is actually a Film.

Also: language can’t keep up with technology. There’s no actual film involved in a dSLR or a phone. The only thing it shares with old films is that it’s moving pictures.