Reality TV - Cathy Come Home

How does Hill define reality TV? Describe his definitions in the context of a contemporary Reality TV show.

Hill (2005) defines reality TV is a genre that is being used in several ways to capture the attention of the audience, reality TV does this by using unscripted dialogue, surveillance footage, hand-held cameras, non-professional actors and the audience are also able to view scenes live as they unfold in front of the cameras. According to Hill (2005) reality TV is used to describe a range of popular factual programming that the audience are able to adapt to, these reality TV shows that normally range from peoples personal experiences for example programs like one born every second, survivor, American idol or more modern reality TV shows like keeping up with the Kardashians (KUWTK) and Xfactor. Hills (2005) describes reality TV shows as the element that captures the raw emotions and lives of people, these range from "birth to death, people to pets" (p.41) anything and everything happiness and sadness, break ups to make ups. 

However, i was rather interested in the fact that when watching cathy come home, it did actually seem to be in a reality TV setting. What i mean by that is when it came to focus of the camera, it did not look as if it had been edited to capture only interesting scenes. Furthermore, there were no sound effects added to give the effect of "impact" on the audience. In my personal opinion Cathy come home genuinely looked and sounded unedited. 

Whereas, reality TV shows like Keeping up with the Kardashians (might i add, that i am a fan of KUWTK) there are a lot of edited shots and also sound effects added into scenes to engage the audience. Hills (2005) mentions the use of reality TV as a form of entertainment in order to capture the attention of the audience and furthermore gain more ratings. Hills (2005) states that people become engaged with the characters and story line on the reality TV shows because of the "mass appeal of entertainment stories about real people caught on camera" (p.39). Some of the family members of KUWTK had even mentioned in an interview that sometimes they edit scenes in their show and only air what they want to be shown to the audience, which personally is a bit of sting as i do religiously keep up with the Kardashians (no pun intended), 
Hill (2005) does mention that "there is no one definition of reality programming but has many competing definitions of what has come to be reality genre". Which is true in terms that all reality genre tv shows has its own intended audience, and furthermore engages which each audience member as different story lines can relate to different individuals. 

Reference


Hill, A. (2005). The reality genre. In A. Hill, Reality TV: Audiences and popular factual television. (pp.14-40). Oxon: Routledge.