​Written by Zoe Davies

Defining reality television has been an important part of coming to terms with its increasingly popular role in society as more and more viewers embrace it. John Corner (2000) notes that we need to understand televisions ‘greatly expanded range of popular images of the real’. These images of the real are most commonly found in mainstream media so will often pander to established and prevalent social values as a way of maintaining audiences and ensuring entertainment. However, these images must be considered from a multitude of complex viewpoints and cannot simply be seen as singular artefacts. These images connect to a web of social, political and economical issues and standpoints each with its own identity and community.

In 2007 the Australian Media and Communications Authority conducted a review into whether the Commercial Television Industry Code of Practice reflects community standards regarding reality television programming in the free-to-air commercial television sector and whether it provides appropriate community safeguards with respect to reality television.

Although much of the content is out of date and discounts many of the shows we have seen emerge since 2007, it makes a number of interesting points about the nature of reality television. Across all the evidence considered by the review, there was no agreement on a single definition of reality television programming, although there was a general consensus that it conveys a ‘highly edited reality’ (As a result, it focused here on identifying characteristics of reality television programming, including those that may give rise to community concerns.

The review also found that;

Producers have the ability to control the environment in which reality television show participants interact, as well as how those interactions are presented to the public. According to industry participants, the risks inherent in designing a program around real people often mean that reality television programs are some of the most highly controlled forms of programming, particularly at the pre-production and production stages. In addition, producers are able to control the presentation of footage through editing. (ACMA p.27)

Reality, when applied to television, usually refers to the attempt in stimulating real life events through various forms of dramatized reconstruction. The term is discursive, and many scholars object to its use when applied to certain formats of television that they do not believe it can represent the world accurately. However, we must ask ourselves if anything can ever really capture the world in all its complexities and opinions or even seek to define the world as a singular entity. John Patterson problematizes the entire definition of Reality Television by taking quite a negative critical position on the form;

“If I had been asked to define the term Reality Television a year ago, I would have said it described footage of the Rodney King beating…Apparently I’ve got it all wrong. What the networks dub as Reality Television comes at us with musical cues on the soundtrack, manipulative editing and ill managed anger, all enacted by a cast of wannabe models, actors and game-show hosts”. (Patterson, 2001, p12)

In this instance, the term reality television is thrown into question as its relationship to the real is contested and Reality Television’s cultural values begin to emerge along with suspicion around both the agendas and ideologies of Reality Television. Jon Dovey refers to the increasingly popularity of Reality Television as a ‘democratization’ of television, asking ‘why all the awful ordinary people are allowed on television’. This slightly sarcastic question leads to the more earnest issues of class discourse and moral ideological debates that are more and more being substituted with Reality based programming. We must be aware of the role and potential role politics plays in Reality Television.

The agenda setting function theory (Dearing, 1998)  may be important to keep in mind in the process of assessing the amount of impact reality television has on political and cultural issues in Australia. The theory suggests that the media (i.e. television) can’t tell you what to think but it can tell you what to think about. It can make certain issues accessible. One pertinent point that theory makes is that the media does not reflect reality but power and shape it. This is definitely linked to the power reality television has in putting forth a consistent set of values and characters that consistently reiterate prominent values, thereby giving viewers permission to accept them as real and natural.

It was Lippmann's theory that the mass media create our pictures of the world. However, he understood that the pictures provided by the media were often incomplete and unclear. “We can see only reflections of reality (not reality itself) in the news media. Yet, those reflections provide the basis for our pictures” (Lippman, 1922).

This is perhaps where the power of reality television lies in that it often displays complex mixtures of people and unusual situations without clearly explaining them. There is space between what they a showing and what they are (or are not saying) and audiences are forced to make assumptions on what they see.

“In recent years, the televisual experience has been overwhelmed by reality-based programming, making it the most popular form of entertainment. It has moved from the margins of television culture to its core in dominating fashion” (Murphy, 2006)

In Australia the initial success of early reality television programming such as Sylvania Waters indicated our interest in following the lives of everyday people and their reactions to everyday situations. After conducting a consumer-based study, the journal of consumer research (1989) found that “viewers may be drawn by the chance to mentally "test" their behaviour against that of the actual participants contrasts with the common criticism of Reality Television viewers as passive voyeurs.” Kerrie Murphy suggests “Reality Television has become a means of understanding our world…we need to see the real thing in context to understand” (Murphy 2006, p5)

This is perhaps where the initial success of reality television lies, and where the audiences were first drawn to a concurrent experience of reality with characters they could truly relate to who were not simply ‘actors’ playing out contrived situations. The genre’s success and development signals its significance in contemporary television production and it is thus equally important how national narratives are being represented to their audiences and how a multitude of identities are being represented via reinforcing myths surrounding Australian social values. Reality Television has, no doubt gained far greater cultural currency than ever before and therefore we as audiences must be aware of its new found power of influence as Friedman states – “the industries reliance on reality as a marketing tool is unprecedented…what separates the spate of contemporary reality-based television is the open and explicit sale of television programming as a representation of reality”(Friedman, 2002, p7)

Many media experts such as John Patterson have been critical of the form and dismissed reality television as a momentary craze that would eventually fade away. However, as reality television has become much a multifaceted and muti-genre form, we are now inclined to understand its impact both on individuals and society. Reality Television is now a staple in contemporary western media and makes up a huge portion of Australian Free to Air Television programming. Recent studies have argued that Reality Television “picks up where university ethic committees forced psychologists to leave off…” Scholars are beginning to move away from attempting to define Reality Television toward claiming that the platform has the power to represent authentic social interaction – “programming that whether scripted or not, offers its viewers an ostensibly real depiction of both individuals and issues” (Andrejevic & Colby, 2006, p.195)

Tania Lewis (2013) agrees saying that “reality TV is perhaps one of the places where we are seeing a diversity of identities”. Lewis emphasis the power of reality television to push questions of identity and spark public debate in the public sphere, which relates to ACMA’s observation that reality television has highlighted public concerns about national identity and values.

Therefore, we must ask – does reality television have the tools to be a new site of political discussion that can openly discuss issues that are often surrounded with political ‘correctness’ and social implications?



Andrejevic, M and Colby, D, 2006. "Racism and Reality TV: The Case of MTV's Road Rules." How real is reality TV?  Essays on representation and truth. Ed. David S. Escoffery. Jefferson, N.C: McFarland, pp195-211.



Reality Television Review, 2007, Australian Media and Communications Authority, Canberra

[http://www.acma.gov.au/webwr/_assets/main/lib101055/acma_reality-review_discussion-paper_dec2006.pdf] Accessed 3rd April 2013.



Corner, J, 2000. ‘What can we say about “documentary”?’. Media, culture and society vol 22. No. 5. pp 681-8.



Dovey, J, 2000, Freakshow: First Person Media and Factual Television. London, Pluto.



Dearing, J; Rogers, E, 1988,  Agenda-setting research: Where has it been, where is it going?, Communication Yearbook 11: pp555–594.

Friedman, J, 2002, Reality squared. New Brunswick, N.J, Rutgers University Press.



Lewis, T, 2013, How do certain Reality Television shows reflect popular myths in Australia? Interviewed by Zoe Annabel Davies and Katrina Varey [in person] RMIT University , 07/05/2013.

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Lippmann, W, 1922, Public Opinion, New York, Nu Vision Publications, LLC.

Murphy, K., 2006, TV land, Milton, Qld,  John Wiley & Sons

Patterson, J, 2007, Guardian Online, 9 March 12  [online] Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2007/mar/03/3 [Accessed: 3 April 2013].

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