Outline: Research Paper: Reality TV and its influence on the younger generation I. Introduction A. Media has a huge impact on how people truly see themselves, particularly in women and young female teens. Reality television has made the standards of beauty quite high these days and there is a definite change in society’s view on what is truly beautiful. Turning off the TV has simply become too hard when it comes to reality TV shows 1. Turning into their favorite movie star is becoming more normal than ever. Skipping meals to look like the girl on the cover of the magazine keeps many people wandering what other lengths girls will go to to look like someone else. 2. These reality TV shows are gruesome and harmful to …show more content…
Kids also have mistaken this show for an excuse to experiment with sexual desires. While high school students are taught to abstain from sex in numerous health classes, they learn from MTV that a lot of teenagers participate in sexual intercourse. This gives them the idea that sex is normal for young teens and that they should join the bandwagon too III. Kids experiment with drugs and alcohol when they see other kids their age on TV doing the same things IV. Young girl’s self-images are influenced by the reality TV shows they watch. A. Girls especially are influenced by what they see on TV. 1. Most girls will do whatever it takes to be skinny and look like the stars that weigh 100 pounds "...the media influence on the cultural phenomenon of dieting and the perfect body. “Commercials and reality TV shows make you feel bad about yourself so you buy into the fad," Cohn said. The diet industry earns $50 billion each year on diet pills, and $8.4 billion is spent every year on cosmetic surgery. Women -- and men, Cohn stressed -- want to be thin, because large men and women are ridiculed" (Demmel). Eating disorders continues to be problem among young girls because of their role models. Girls on reality TV shows have that 'perfect' body and girls what to be everything like them. B. Influences girls to want to alter their
For example, in the article “Advertising and Image” researchers say that 23% of models weigh less than the average female and because of this 80% of 10-year old girls report having dieted. This happens because teens try to become just like the models on tv and magazine ads.
Some of the most popular television shows in today’s society are The Biggest Looser, Jersey Shore, and Big Brother. These programs and many others are classified as reality television. Reality television’s main purpose is to attempt to portray ordinary people in unscripted situations. Recently, however, many of these shows have achieved in creating the complete opposite, and have earned an immense amount of criticism as a result. Reality television programs are detrimental to society because they influence bad behavior among teenagers, do not produce authentic real life situations, and they humiliate many of the characters.
The media group that retouches images skews the “normal” body image of people through many of its outlets, including models in advertising and magazines, and actors in TV and movie productions. “The average model portrayed in the media is approximately 5’11” and 120 pounds. By contrast, the average American woman is 5’4” and 140 pounds” (Holmstrom, 2004). This statistic shows how the media manipulates consumers into believing that because they are not what the average model looks like, they are not living up to a certain standard which implies that they need to look like that to be beautiful. Another research fact that shows a similar concept is that, “In the United States, 94% of female characters in television programs are thinner than the average American woman, with whom the media frequently associate happiness, desirability, and success in life” (Yamamiya et al., 2005). This association of female thinness and happiness, desirability and success makes consumers believe they must achieve this unrealistic thinness to achieve more ultimate goals and fulfillment in life. “The media also explicitly instruct how to attain thin bodies by dieting, exercising, and body-contouring surgery, encouraging female consumers to believe that they can and should be thin” (Yamamiya et al., 2005). This idealization of thinness in the media is seen so much, and is extremely harmful to women’s self confidence and is often associated with body image dissatisfaction, which can be a precursor to social anxiety, depression, eating disturbances, and poor self-esteem (Yamamiya et al.,
Since teenage girls don’t think they look like these models, they hate their bodies and are really uncomfortable with them. They aren’t comfortable with being themselves. Young children under the age of 10 start worrying about being overweight and worry about their looks. Little girls shouldn’t have to worry about being ‘perfect’. Young girls are influenced to be skinny by all their dolls that are always super skinny and have curves in all the right places, and also have an excessive amount of makeup on. Girls grow up thinking they need to look like that. All the girls they see on television or in magazines, on social media sites, or even in movies are never overweight. Or at least appear to be that way. Magazine companies, television producers, and movie producers will spend months and months digitally editing photos so they look flawless. The girls on magazine covers or on television or in movies will appear to have perfect skin, no stretch marks, no scars, a perfect tan and hardly any fat. If you were to meet these women and girls in person they aren’t as flawless as the magazines. movies and television makes them look. Also, guys see the girls in magazines, in movies and on television, seeing how ‘flawless’ these girls are. They then expect every girl to be like that. Girls then feel like if they aren’t skinny enough, guys won’t find them attractive or even look at them. Girls will go to drastic measures to lose the ‘extra’ weight to have ‘perfect’ bodies, such as
Reality television is popular all over the world. The influence reality television has on society is significant, especially its influence on the youth generation since television is a widely accessible form of mass culture. Psychologist Randall Flanery, PhD, director of the Eating Disorders Program at the Saint Louis University School of Medicine tells Webmd.com (2003) that he is especially concerned about its teenage viewers, who are more than likely to develop eating disorders. Holly Hoff, program director of the National Eating Disorders Association, also shared with Webmd.com (2003) her concerns about reality television’s impact on youth, saying that reality television
According to Jesse Washington’s article, “How Reality TV is Changing The Way We Live,” one negative way reality TV affects participants in the way they live, is the way depression encounters their life when they are not on camera. In the article, Tyler Barnett admits that, "After being on camera for a month straight, almost 24 hours a day, when I got home I felt very depressed. And I'm not a depressed person," (Washington). Barnett is saying that when he does not have the attention that he had constantly for a month, he feels low and life doesn’t feel exciting anymore. This quote supports the negative effect reality TV brings to the participants of the show because, a former cast member of several reality TV shows, confesses the sudden slump
The key aspect discussed is how Murrow would not agree with modern television; he did not agree with the use of reality TV in society because it was not sharing the kind of news he personally felt it should be. Murrow felt very strongly that television companies were being simpleminded by not sharing news on wars or new inventions over a TV. Reality shows are beneficial to people, they share information to the public as well, and it influences everyone.
Sexuality in reality shows isone of the biggest problems. There are shows like “Rock of Love Bus” or “Jersey Shore” that are all about sex and the consumption of alcohol. Those kinds of shows tend to focus too much on sexual relationships with drinking involved. The entire story of Jersey Shore is about the craziness of those people in the show. If they actnormal, it is not going to be on the show because that is not entertaining. All we can see from Jersey Shore is thatpeople have parties and hookup with random people in the club. It does not give any good influence on people who watch that show. Young kids not mature enough for this kind of content only gain bad influence from watching these shows. They perceive those kinds of crazy actions that they see on shows as cool things to do and end upimitating them in real life.The fact that the producers putthat craziness in the show might make the audience feel good, but it also reinforces the bad elements in people.
Reality television tries to disguise what is really going on in the television shows. The actors and producers shine a false spotlight on “reality”. “Reality television is defined as a ‘TV show observing real-life situation: television programs often deliberately manufactured situations, and that monitor their emotions and behavior’” (Paredes 26). Reality television is a bad influence on our society today due to the popularity, decision making, and misconduct of the individuals shown. People in today’s time can be compared to the time period when The Lady or the Tiger by Frank R. Stockton was set. Today’s world lets reality television and live shows influence their decisions by trying to make it look like powerful individuals have control over their own lives when in reality they don’t, just as the characters in the story allowed the trials to give them entertainment at the expense of someone’s torture.
There are many discussions about the effects of reality TV on society. Positive and negative effects of reality TV are two parts of a coin. Unfortunately the coin mostly falls on the negative side. Many reality TV shows are created purely for profit without thinking about its consequences on the mindsets of viewers, especially young viewers . Media companies accept that they make these shows for profit and they do not care about the effects on people. They say that they just show us what we want. Is it right not to care about the viewers mental health just to make more money? Most of these shows do not portray reality and this weakens
People watch media for different reasons. Reality TV is a common source of entertainment on various channels and media outlets. The purpose of reality TV is to “promise more drama, suspense, and laughter while pushing the envelope of what is morally and socially acceptable, funny, and, of course entertaining” (Glouner et al.). This type of media allows real people to connect to those on TV. Reality is not completely real, there are aspects of it that are scripted, rehearsed and completely altered (Crouch).
Reality television has taken off over the past few years bringing shows to the airwaves such as the Bachelor and Breaking Amish. One of the more successful reality television shows, which is going off the air after this season, is Duck Dynasty. The show features a cast of redneck white males who have created a fortune making handmade duck calls. Their wives are the typical stay at home moms who cook and clean the house, or as Uncle Si would say, wifely duties. The show is shot in West Monroe, Louisiana, a country town. Which is exactly where the “rural hillbillies” like to be. Somewhere they can hunt ducks, frogs, and any other creature they can eat.
This particular episode of Dancing with the Stars was scheduled on a Sunday, 7-8:35pm, TV3. As stated by Horrocks (2004), this time is during the prime viewing time, with substantial numbers of audience members watching television. According to Creeber (2008) the genre of reality TV is typically shaped by the weekend program, followed by results and elimination – hence, Dancing with the Stars has performances on Sunday and results of voting of Monday. As shown by Throng (2015), this episode, screened July 12, had 346,930 people watching with a potential audience share of 8.3% of total viewers watching TV at that time, which can be compared to the competition on other stations (Neilsen, 2015; Throng, 2015). TV One screened Sunday at 7-8pm (442, 700 viewers, 10.5% share of the total audience) followed by House Hunt 8-8:30pm (302,820 viewers, 7.2% share of the total TV audience) (Neilsen, 2015; Throng, 2015). TV One is aimed at older audiences, thus, viewers older than the key demographic of Dancing with the Stars would most likely have watched TV One during this time. TV2 however, was in direct competition with TV3 during this time as it had a similar reality TV talent show screening – The Voice Australia (Neilsen, 2015). This show is aimed at a slightly younger demographic due to the target audience of TV2 being younger, however, because of the time slot and genre it is in competition with Dancing with the Stars (Neilsen, 2015). However, The Voice Australia, had only 188,450
"The winner of the first Survivor competition is...Rich." It was the name heard 'round the country the night of August 23, 2000, as 51 million television viewers tuned in to the finale of Survivor. The questions, the predictions, the bets, and the reality rested on that one name. For three months, America watched and wondered. Who could it be? Who is the ultimate survivor? With the unveiling of that single, now infamous, name, you could almost feel the country erupt with emotion. The collective gasp of the shocked was shrouded by the cheers and hollers of all the Richard Hatch fans scattered across the country's living rooms and sports bars. But just how real is this reality tv?
Has reality TV shows damaged our youth? Reality has become the new normal for our teenagers. A lot of reality shows has portraying unlikely normal behavior, including: overly caring about self-image, partying and getting drunk, loud and physical behavior, and the list goes on. Some teens watch these shows with or without their parents’ permission. Some of these teens would rather watch these shows then during their homework and getting a good education. Some of them even think that these shows are real and that it is normal to act these way. We are supposed to teach our children to learn and get an education to go to college and get a degree to better their lives. Reality TV shows had taken over the world in which can be called as the “new age”. Things has changed drastically over the past ten years. Our youth are being damaged by these shows and it is hard to overcome these issues.