Television Realism

1. Television Realism

2. Programs representing realism fall into the category of factual television • Realism may focus on WHAT is represented e.g. real people, places and scenes • or HOW things are represented, depending on techniques and conventions e.g. documentaries, docu-soaps, live news

3. Television realism aims to create an understanding of life amongst its audiences and to mirror society • It also carries an element of social responsibility • However, technology portraying realism may not present it in its entirety

4. Technology does not take into account the contexts of social relationships and multiple points of view • Technology may also manipulate images or manipulate them through digitisation • This may in turn distort reality and realism

5. Some forms of realism may be recognisable to some people and not others • If TV realism is so subjective, why do we take it up as a discussion? • It is because we have different forms of TV realism that are actually more dominating than others and are accepted widely (contd.)

6. One such dominant form is classic realism • Classic realism brings the portrayed individuals to the level of the audience, hence it is easy for the audience to relate to them. • This equality depends on different narrative forms such as looks, sound, speech and points of view, so these narratives need to be developed accordingly.

7. Soap operas • May present realism by portraying ordinary characters in ordinary situations • May not give the whole picture, or a wider perspective which may influence characters • Therefore the borders between reality and make believe are blurred

8. Live broadcasting • Another dominant genre of television realism • Live news may come across as accurate and uncontaminated • But there are opposing views to this idea. E.g. portrayal of third world countries by the western media

9. Realism and public service • Programs such as Crimewatch or “shabbirtohdekhayga” may assist in helping the police and warning and informing audiences against various crimes • However it addresses crimes carried out by individuals only and may forego corruption or crimes on a more organised level e.g. government corruption • We may have talk shows to uncover this particular brand of corruption. However, that too maybe staged on various levels or seem biased in content.

10. Docu-soaps and reality TV programs e.g. big brother present reality, but in a controlled environment • Fictional programs also make use of realist conventions in their representation of place, character and narrative • Hence television realism is somewhat subjective and the extent of reality depicted depends a lot on the codes and conventions used to portray them and the codes which the audiences possess and uses to receive them.