Introduction to Mass Communications

Kutztown University | Fall 2016

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From the article, “Reality TV Gives Back”, by Laurie Ouellette, the true meaning behind reality TV is revealed, explaining specific methods of how they impact viewers and the people these producers are supporting. The author states that “reality TV’s helping intervention last disrupt the calculated rationality of today’s enterprise culture, encouraging visceral and affective reactions to poverty”. The reality TV show Extreme Makeover Home Edition is an example of this idea. The show helps families raising children with disabilities or financial hardships, to get the homes they always needed and dreamed of. Families are taken out of their homes and spend time somewhere else as they build a new home suitable for these families. A big reveal is featured at the end of each episode, displaying the home not only to that family but hundreds of other people supporting them. You can notice the reactions on their faces and the emotion that comes out, after getting through a hard time they may have dealt with for the majority of their lives.

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CBS’s “Undercover Boss” places corporate CEO’s in lower level positions at their own company to allow them a chance at seeing how their business really functions, and what their workers truly think of them. When speaking of the functions a do-good reality show operates under, Laurie Ouellette says, “Reality entertainment instead intervenes directly in social life, enacting ‘can do’ solutions to largely personalized problems within emotional and often suspenseful formats.” 

UB provides moments such as this within their show, and this clip demonstrates just that. Through the CEO’s interactions with her workers, she is able to identify the struggles one of her employees has come under, as well as recognize that this same employee is an exemplary person, earning the CEO’s respect. Through the program, the CEO offers her employee a solution to her problems and, in doing so, leads to an emotional scene as Ouellette mentions in her article.

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Ink Master: Flash Challenge: Battle Scars

WATCH THE EPISODE HERE: http://ow.ly/nZOD0 The artists are tested on their use of value: being able to show dark and light in smooth transitions. On top of t...

The clip above from Ink Master shows contestants in a reality tattoo competition. For this particular challenge, they have to cover up scars on their “canvases.” Though the idea of a tattoo competition is easy to overlook as something providing a volunteerism, Ink Master helps real people cover up negative scars they find unattractive and turn it into a positive: a work of art.  In Ouellette’s article on Reality TV’s civic functions she states, “to Dismiss these ventures as trivial or somehow less that “real” would be to overlook their constitutive role as technologies of citizenship, private aid, and volunteerism.”

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This clip from a reality TV show called Teen Mom is representative of this quote from the article “In the wake of the current financial crisis and recession, these dimensions of reality TV may be intensifying“. This is clear in this reality TV show because it is about the struggles and problems occurring in specific female’s lives who had children at the age of 16. Clearly this character having a court battle with her child's father shows there is struggle money wise. Being so young one can only imagine having to go through this so the intense situation that every one of the characters have to go through in this is evident.

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http://www.history.com/shows/pawn-stars/videos/vintage-wine-press

“reality TV  continues to be mobilized as a resource for educating and guiding individuals and populations.” - Ouellette

Pawn Stars is the show where various items come through the pawn shop door and the main characters engage in back to back bidding to find the right price. The History channel goal is for their to be valuable lessons learned especially in some of the older items that are spoken about. The team of workers knows very much about all kinds of historic memorabilia and war type artifacts. It’s audience enjoys watching in interactions in real-life situations to see if a deal can be met or not. 

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Upon reading Ouellette’s article concerning 'do-good’ reality programming, an example that I found to fit her argument would be the A&E series Beyond Scared Straight. Ouellette argues that regardless of how “artificial and staged these programs appear on the surface, they help to constitute powerful truths concerning appropriate forms of civic conduct and problem-solving.” The objective behind a show like Beyond Scared Straight is to influence the lives of young adults and teenagers to stay out of trouble. I think this show relates directly to Ouellette’s argument because the show is slightly staged but its purpose is to send a powerful message to the individuals within the episode, as well as reach a greater audience on air. Beyond Scared Straight may be staged, but the idea behind scaring teens with realities like prison is to hopefully have a greater impact on the lives and futures of those teens, which goes hand in hand with ‘do-good’ reality programming.

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Lauren Ouellette states in her article that, “Do-good programs can take on a variety of formats—from the audience participation show to the competition to the make-over—but all reject the earlier notion of public service as education and preparation for participation in the official political processes.” Property Brothers is a Canadian reality TV show that is about twin brothers, Johnathon and Drew. The brothers goal is to help couples find a home that needs to be fixed up, and together they try to turn it in to the couples dream home. The television series, Property Brother takes on the format of competition to the makeover. They find cheap houses that need to be fixed up and compete for the couples approval. 

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Randy the Fairy Godfather | Say Yes to the Dress

Randy helps Alicia fulfill her dream "Big Fat Military" style wedding. #SYTTD Say Yes to the Dress Fridays at 9/8c on TLC http://www.tlc.com/tv-shows/say-yes...

In her article “Reality TV Gives Back: On the Civic Functions of Reality Entertainment”, Laurie Ouellette says “Products and brand names are woven into the melodramatic interventions and as many critics have noted, complex issues, and socioeconomic inequalities are simplified and downplayed.” This reminded me of the reality television program Say Yes to the Dress because Randy, described as the fairy godfather provides a brand name couture wedding gown at no cost to the upcoming military bride because she could not afford it. This amplifies the shows “generosity” but also promotes the brand names, and the store Kleinfeld. 

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Eighteen castaways will compete against each other on SURVIVOR, when the Emmy Award-winning series returns on Wednesdays on CBS Television Network. Click to ...

“However  market-driven  and stitched into the circuitry of privatiza-tion, do-good reality programming does provide  all-too-rare  visibility  on  U.S. television for the poor, the sick, the un-employed, the homeless, and the uninsured.”

Laurie Ouellette makes this point about the civic duty of reality television shows. Survivor is a great example of a show that has a civic duty to give back. The cast and crew go to an island for 40 days and the viewer sees American’s struggling to survive on this island with what they are given. The important thing that Survivor does not always show is that there are natives that actually live on the island and have to survive everyday with much less than the cast is given. In this episode, members of the cast win an award and are given the chance to give back to the local community by handing out school supplies and spending time with the locals. This is connected to the quote from Laurie Ouellette because the motive may be market driven from the producers view, but it is important to shed light on the locals situation, and give back. The scene I discussed starts at 13:35. 

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After reading the article, I found a statement that would best describe what "Pitbulls and Parolees" is all about. "However artificial and staged these programs appear on the surface, they help to constitute powerful truths concerning appropriate forms of civic conduct and problem-solving." To some people, some of the scenes that this show produces tend to be a little over-dramatic or staged in a way to either get viewers to return from commercial break or to donate money after a tragedy. They show crazy previews of the next scenes or the next episodes as well. In the midst of trying to spread awareness of pitbulls being a great and loyal dog breed, they sell the show by saving and housing hundreds of dogs and employing parolees to help as well. They save, feed, house and provide medical attention to their animals which fits inside the social construct of appropriate forms of civil conduct while playing off of their audience's emotions and loyalty to their program.

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“However artificial and staged these programs appear on the surface, they help to constitute powerful truths concerning appropriate forms of civic conduct and problem-solving.”

This quote from Ouellette made me think of the show bully beatdown, which has received criticism in the past for being a staged. But this show demonstrates that sometimes our bullies aren’t as tough as we think they are and they just need a good ass whooping to put them in their place and the end of this clip illustrates that quite clearly.

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Rib Hillis in Extreme Makeover Home Edition - Frisch Family

Rib Hillis in Extreme Makeover Home Edition - Frisch Family Ty and his crew set to work on restoring a house that is home to 13 family members, but it can no...

In Ouellette’s article “Reality TV gives back” she mentions this notion of do-good reality programming. The show “extreme house makeover” is a perfect example of this idea. Ouellette would say “However artificial and staged these programs appear on the surface, they help to constitute powerful truths concerning appropriate forms of civic conduct and problem-solving.” In this show the community a lot of times comes together to help these people in need get a better house. 

The show gives a sense of community and even though sometimes the subjects may be sensitive it powers through them and even helps bring light to the problems that some of these families are facing.

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All American Muslim S01E01 How to Marry a Muslim

All-American Muslim was an American reality television program. The program followed the daily lives of five Lebanese-American Shia Muslims families in Dearb...

In her article Laurie Ouelette explains the purpose that reality tv shows can have, “reality TV does not ‘divert’ passive audiences from the serious operation of democracy and public life, as much as it translates broader sociopolitical currents and circulates instructions, resources, and scrips for navigating the changing expectations and demands for citizenship”. The reality TV show “All American Muslim” dims social expectations and stereotypes for Muslims in America. “All American Muslim” shows muslims as regular people in american society and could help give xenophobic Americans a look inside the lives of moderate muslims in our community.

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Within Laurie Ouellette's article, she says "However artificial and staged these programs appear on the surface, they help to constitute powerful truths concerning appropriate forms of civic conduct and problem-solving." Relating this back to Bar Rescue, the show is very artifical and staged. Even so, it shows the reality that many restaurant and bar owners are going through daily. The show promotes business and problem-solving by showing owners how to target a market and bring in more business. While all of the renovations come from sponsors and the like, it shows that everyone can run a successful business.

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In Ouellette’s article, she talks about how shows ‘do good’ in the world and try to portray that to the audience. One example that came to mind is the MTV show Catfish. This show does a great job reaching the audience with this view, as Nev and Max try to help people from around the world find out who they’ve really been talking to online. Ouellette says in her article:  “If the civic functions of reality entertainment are more difficult to recognize,  it is partly because they now operate within market imperatives and entertainment formats, but also because prescriptions for what counts as ‘good citizenship’ have changed”, and Catfish is a great example of that.

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'Shark Tank' Successes That Give Back

When Rick and Melissa Hinnant pitched their sock company, Grace and Lace, on ABC's "Shark Tank," there was no hint of the company's painful origins.

The ABC reality television show Shark Tank hits multiple points that Laurie Ouellette made in her article “Reality TV Gives Back: On the Civic Functions of Reality Entertainment. She stated “Reality TV’s civic functions are also marketable, effective, entertaining and executed through dispersed partnerships among the television industry, sponsors, nonprofit agencies, celebrities” Shark Tank revolves around marketing products that are effective while also making it entertaining. The Entrepreneurs are chosen based off of their background stories and how useful their products are, they are debated on by the “sharks” who are well known and successful celebrities Kevin O'Leary, Barbara Corcoran, Daymond John, Robert Herjavec, Lori Greiner, Mark Cuban that help further the products of the entrepreneurs. The goal of the     show is to make “do-good television” because they take struggling people with products that need help and allow them to make a difference in society. Many of the products from the show have had a huge impact and made a difference in many lives. This show continues to support Ouellette’s claim that “ABC brands itself as a Better Community”.

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In Ouellette’s article she expresses how shows for example The Biggest Loser gives viewer a more positive outlook as they see people handle everyday situations we all normally find challenging. Though they are all competing for a prize, however each person is on the search to better themselves. “..reality games command an indirect and unofficial role in constituting, normalizing, educating, and  training the self-empowering...”