In general, reality TV can be described as a range of programmes based on realistic events. In the early days, reality television referred to on-screen footage of law and order or emergency services, but nowadays its definition has expanded into more various categories from people to pets, and from life to death (Hill, 2005). There are so many examples on-air evidencing this idea: we have shows like The Real Housewives focusing on daily drama, right beside Naked And Afraid focusing on survival skills - there are just so many diversity of reality TV. Hill (2005) claimed that reality TV has the nature of cannibalizes itself: improving and merging successful shows and concepts into hybrid new-and-improved shows and concepts. An example of such merging process mentioned by Hill was the merge of the documentary and soap genre to create an new genre: "docu-soaps".
Taking a contemporary reality TV show such as The Voice as an example, we can see how Hill's (2005) definition of reality TV as "factual entertainment" applies. The loophole here is that, as stated by Hill, reality TV by definition does not have to be completely factual. The producers only take "raw" aspects of the filmed events and process them into a more "cooked" reality format. This is different than older definition of reality TV because it is much more diverse and the "reality" aspect is only loosely applied. Cathy Come Home can be seen as another example of how reality TV does not have to consist strictly of real-time events. It is a television play, which means it has a script, and it was only filmed in a realistic manner. For audience, the term "reality TV" also does not have a solid definition; most of them described reality TV as "cameras following people around" (Hill, 2005).
Reference
Hill, A. (2005) The reality genre. In A. Hill, Reality TV: Audiences and Popular FactualTelevision. (pp. 14 – 40). Oxon: Routledge.
Good, thanks Eleanor
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