if you can. follow and welcome to cross talk i'm peter all of a. reality t.v. wonderfully popular in commercially lucrative but just how realistic are these programs are they are the ultimate form of spontaneous expression or are they merely evidence of how modern values are centered on the most banal common denominators. you can. discuss modern t.v. i'm joined by stephen reese and columbus he's the executive director of the world society of motivation scientists and professionals in glasgow we go to brian mcknight our he's a professor of journalism and communication at the university of strathclyde and we go to london to study malique she's a lecturer of media and communications of burnell university and another member of

our cross talk team yell on the hunger all right folks cross talk rules in effect but first i'd like to make a few comments about some of the research i did making this program because i am i do not actually watch reality t.v. programs quote this is what i found some my research reality t.v. makes us feel dirty and cheap and if we didn't we probably wouldn't bother turning turn tuning into it never have so many watch t.v. with so little good to say about it and also critics call it gutter t.v. and humiliation t.v. reflects a culture that worships vanity and wealth rather than virtue and humility so if i go to you brian why do people watch reality t.v. programs. i think that reality t.v. gives people in and say into us as banal as ordinary and put it doesn't shed a light on the ordinary and it makes the ordinary somewhat extraordinary we all live ordinary waifs. we really get an opportunity on mainstream t.v.

to watch interpersonal dynamics personalities developing all of it done in a relatively spontaneous manner and i think it's genuinely fascinating you know we are human beings we're interested in other human beings this kind of form of t.v. . access to one dimension of human experience that we rarely actually experience it wasn't our own families of course it was of our own friendships so this isn't a place of your but it is a voyage and i think it's quite healthy in quite a reflection miniature ok stephen you think it's healthy being a voyeur. i don't know how much boy or. is involved in reality t.v. i have a little bit of a different take on it go right ahead in the research that ok in the research that we did the number one reason the most important motive for watching reality t.v. is that it reflected the values of a person concerned with status and another words it was about fame and

fortune and so i think the audience can see ordinary people getting attention attention is a primal indicator of respect and importance and they can imagine themselves doing that and they sort of having their lives and the things that they see in their life being validated as important and the values the of the audience are the values of wealth and fame or what i call a high status person they're not the values of intellectuals and not the values of people who want to learn about anything they have the values of people who want to be rich and famous yeah but stephen vanstone with you is be humiliating yourself in front of millions of people is that a value. is that something that we should think is a social positive good well i don't know if they. keep it to do is two different

things here there's the audience and then there's the people who are going on t.v. i'm not sure that the people who are actually on t.v. . think of themselves as being humiliated they getting famous they getting attention and even negative attention is better than being ignored it it's a very primal thing you pay attention to things or people who are important you ignore everybody else most of the audience is ignored the people on a television program they are getting attention they getting fame and they're being paid they know probably don't see it is you really is ok city how about you or is it all of these programs truly reflect the values of society because i guess maybe i'm a snob i would like to think society has higher values than a lot of these programs not all of them but some of these programs that have come out that are still very very very popular. they are very popular i think it's very

easy to make these kind of sweeping generalization about reality t.v. being representing some kind of moral decline and the audience is sort of mindlessly kind of consuming what's put out by reality television and i think actually the story's a lot more complex than that of course there is a sort of sort of huge plot of reality television today and audiences clearly find a lot of pleasure in it there's this whole idea of the pleasure principle of audiences actually forgetting the pain in life to the difficulties of the every day and actually enjoying watching reality television for the pleasures that it brings in as different motivations for people being fascinated with reality television but there's also something else which kind of accounts for the popularity of reality television and that's a financial factor which doesn't mean mentioned here and that's obviously institutional issue which is about why actually reality television is so successful today and that's to do with the market the media market single formats being able

to be cloned globally and you know production companies be able to actually really get some sort of high revenue low cost material which the public seems to be very much in favor of and go back to you brian i mean. if we program to repeat the question. do they reflect the value of society or a large proportion of society they are fabulously popular. yes and i we do they are popular because they clearly appeal. to human interest you know they're often it's often dismissed this is just human interest media it's just human interest journalism but actually of course human beings are interested in themselves and in their societies and in their and their groups and as i said before reality t.v. at least as it started off with big brother and so on ten years ago was an opportunity presented an opportunity for people to kind of be flies on the wall of

groups of individuals or relationships watching them develop and change i don't think it was a wilson theme to be honest nearly in the early days of of big brother and other reality formats that me at that may have may have developed i mean as all successful formats on t.v. do it becomes becomes more complicated more contrived more game show focused that happened certainly to big brother and great britain and in other countries are you saying that i see a sign of being very expensive are you saying that i usually go ahead if there's been an evolution here and i could touch upon that go ahead stephen. finish a point i just want to see that it's basically just point about expensive it's true that it's true that it can be cheap t.v. and that's why it's popular with with with production companies that doesn't explain its popularity resurgence is though and it's also the case that programs like big brother are actually quite expensive to make the not as cheap sometimes as

regatta is thought that said that there are plenty of cheap imitations much much cheaper versions of some of these big shoes but the idea that all reality t.v. is just cheap t.v. that is produced mass marketed across the world is slightly i think. to simplistic is it can be very expensive i think and very very same place to me to make your hair jump in go ahead if i if i can just build on my point really which is that it's obviously reality t.v. has been. the way in which global formats have kind of thrived and flourished and certainly i wouldn't say that reality television is cheap t.v. if anything actually i'm kind of quite adverse to speaking about reality television if it's one thing we know that actually encompasses many different kinds of programming you know from docu soap to talent shows to surveillance shows such as big brother to talk shows so it's certainly not one thing we shouldn't talk about

in blanket terms at all. and i think there is an important connection there between the public society and reality television as is shown or and that goes way back sort of before big brother many decades before when you know we had to tell even television could have been said to start with sort of candid camera back in the forty's there's always been this kind of connection there between the social and. self in fact the early kind of notions of reality television were very much about the production of social knowledge and if we think about social documentaries the fifty's and sixty's and i think there's still that kind of connection today so i certainly wouldn't be the first person to say that actually you know it's cheap or lazy programming and i'm. generally very supportive of reality television even though i do think it does throw up a set of critical concerns which i think i think we're all aware of make we can talk a bit more about ok stephen if i go to you i mean we've all to we've all touched upon one issue here in common in the evolution here we've seen an evolution of this

type of programming because it makes me question i mean how much of it really is reality t.v. now because it's more and more scripted more and more controlled more and more outrageous for some people's tastes i mean we went from something that. made a connection to people and now it's super charged to really go find. the you know the consciousness or whatever i mean are you concerned about how that's been changing over the next five years. well i mean the whole culture keeps changing and it's hard to keep up with it sometimes you know things that were considered. maybe inappropriate thirty forty years ago you know they just keep pushing the limits and pushing no limits in terms of culture. i think that comment a little bit about the money part of it i don't really know that much about the business about the business but the fact that it may be inexpensive swimming it is

isn't going to attract anyone to watching it no one wants to watch a show cares about what what this show actually cause and what we study and we've studied probably forty fifty thousand people now including a fair number in europe and including russians we study values and the values we know how values go together so for example what i call a high status person the values that go under that are attention wanting to get attention ok so you can i'm going to jump in here real quick here after a short break we'll continue our discussion on reality t.v. shows stay with our team. and.

wealthy british. time to. market. find out what's really happening to the global economy with my next concert no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to conjure reports. for bush. always adds by one vote for kerry. so the people that are going to be validating this machine can stand there all day long and vote for somebody and it will be right every time but the guy can walk up here and if he hits the right buttons he can flip the vote that he's.

to be soo much brighter. from plans to mention. don't come. cheap.

welcome back to promise not computable or down to mind you were talking about what stands behind the popularity of reality t.v. programmes. but before let's see what russians think about them says reality shows first appeared on t.v. screens they have sparked a lot of debate and the issue of censorship is high on the agenda the russian public opinion research center conducted a survey then ask citizens what should be censored on the t.v. fifty seven percent said it was necessary to vent said see fifteen percent wanted censorship of reality t.v. programs and the same percentage of people called for a filter on the use of bad language and the five percent say they want to see the

coverage of tragedies and terrorist attacks censored how about eight percent believe there should be no censorship at all on the russian t.v. back to peta ok stephen i'd like to go back to you on that beef because i want to talk more about values and that's what you were talking about again another comment i'd like to read about what i came across and in in preparing for this program a car a community of more materialistic morons who don't think by. think twice about running around naked while swallowing live cockroaches if it means being cool and winning a million dollars to do so again i think i go back to values because i've always believed and i liked how documentaries educated people made people aware of things about how people live and maybe i'm old fashioned in that respect but stephen you were talking about values i mean is it a value to do that kind of thing just for money is that a reflection of our society today. well it's a reflection of the values of some people in this society you're also expressing

different values you're you're basically expressing a negative view towards those values by saying you know why isn't society have a higher values notice also use you said you don't watch reality t.v. so it's perfectly consistent and you're an example of what i'm saying that the people watching have the other values the the one thing about values to make two quick points a common opposites so there are some people who value wealth and fame and there are some people who don't and people who are on the two ends of the pole motivated to trash each other you can't understand someone who has an opposite value to you so if you're someone who likes the shows because they project wealth and fame and you're someone who and someone else doesn't value wealth and fame they're going to tranship the person who doesn't value wealth and fame they're going to say that's low values what's wrong with you for wanting to do that that's

true not only in regard to reality t.v. and the values are now explaining why people are criticizing it you're basically saying intellectual values a better than status values and that's for you that's how that works out for you but i can assure you there are millions of people who are the other way around oh i can say this i really value wealth and in time i value wealth and fame but you know i don't go on reality t.v. shows i do television shows you know you know i come in there and. you make so you just said there are many different kinds of reality t.v. show and the one nine hundred ninety s. we had to join a new one as doc you saw in this country in britain. tommy done a lot of research on the motivations of those who participated in those programs and they often say things like i want to share my experience of you know difficulty or tragedy with others. i want to develop myself personally and so forth and many

of those programs were very educational and intentionally hard what's really to call their social knowledge function so we learn about people who worked on cruise ships or in airlines or we learned about driving instructors and how they function don't you but bryce and i don't you know his only point very clearly a quick question i mean where we are when someone says never was a money at all was money the agenda and i guess you just answered it was money at the center and on it because a great deal of it today is go ahead it wasn't it wasn't about and in many of the current programs i would say it's no at the center but you're right to say that. john has evolved to the former has evolved in the last decade the very success of big brother and other formats in attracting media coverage from from the tabloid press in particular has meant it that emerges as a vehicle if you want to be famous very quickly and you don't have much talent then one way to do it is to go on to reality t.v. that is true and that has happened. and as

a result though some of those four months i think have lost their educational function and how become of oh well through theme and what people are prepared to do in order to achieve it and it becomes a game show and the audiences enjoy as a game show it's like pop idol x factor reality reality sure how t.v. has morphed into a. kind of game sure type of so it's a liberty culture in which ordinary people are you know and celebrities are a way to participate and possibly become celebrities well once famous for thirty million just read a rag on head right jump right in there go ahead. i think it's really interesting what brian's saying and i think one of the things that we directed and it's we're trying to do is read try and sort of historic reality t.v. look at the ways it's changed in the last decade and it's definitely been tonal shifts one mildly that actually now sort of post in the u.k. the celebrity big brother race around there's been a shift in some of the sort of manifestations of some of the talent shows and some

kind of cruelty has actually changed and we've seen a kind of more gentle approach towards the public so the ways in which reality television itself is changing the nuances is really the way we should be approaching it rather than talking about a decline in valleys per se and i would also want to say it's an area that i'm interested in researching is actually some of the social good that potentially has come out so reality television and i'm thinking specifically about the way in which reality television more than any other shown on television has actually platform the range of social types and in many ways can be seen as being responsible for. showing a kind of more modern conception of the world that we see different people in terms of ethnicity in terms of sexuality ability intellect you know social background and actually i would say that we are to television is doing a lot more in that sense than some of the other genres even those that are claimed

to kind of work in the public interest so that if i get you how to use it it's breaking down certain stereotypes you might have about. gender or ethnicity about sexual orientation and things like that i mean if you mean example what you mean by that we're in example where these reality programs can actually help what i would use is a progressive agenda. yes i mean i think you know if you look at the big brother in the u.k. which has just just been launched launched last week you know you've got such a huge range of people in there and there's very little space elsewhere on television where you get that diversity so i think there are there are sort of really important developments and that's not to say that reality t.v. has the power to eliminate all stereotypes because because of course in many ways it's quite a conservative schoener in many ways it does hold certain definitions of what

citizens are and those who belong and those who do not but i think what's important to look at just not what we are to t.v. kind of doing to society but also how society is reflected in reality television and so i think it's a two way process and there is a dialogue going on stephen what do you think about is it two way street there a dialogue going on between the two. i. am kind of skeptical about. i think everybody has the same values every you know the same the same things we care about but we care about them differently we prioritize the same things differently so everybody is going to say oh i like wealth and fame or i would like to be rich or gay or almost everybody will but we in our work we as people stream question searchers wealth is the most important thing to me so we can we can differentiate how motivated you are by money how motivated you are and you yourself

may not know the answer to that these things don't change very much what would people who like attention and what people who like money do they select the programs that agree with with their values now intellectuals do not watch reality t.v. people watching reality t.v. like attend. and that's why these shows are going to get more and more extreme because if you look at something you paying attention to it after a while you get bored with it so they have to get more extreme or outrageous to attract you ok so i'm skeptical about people learning think a bright ality if i go to brian it sounds like stephen is saying that we're just going to go down the line of spreading circuses ok more and more extreme. i'm afraid i think stephen is all over simplifying was a very complex set of t.v. genres. sure that are people who are interested in wealth and theme and that is

their motivation to go on but there are also people who wish to test themselves who wish to push the boundaries a little but who wish to educate the british surely american of the great russian public you know there are many motivations good motivations for appearing on reality t.v. and audiences i think it's i think it's wrong to say that they're not intellectual i think they're sort of slightly dangerous. i mean i would regard myself i'm not snobbish at all as an intellectual but i mean i've enjoyed reality t.v. through across the last decade i've learnt a lot from i believe enjoyed watching real people and kind of slightly yes it's not it's not it's not unmediated reality by any means but it's a form of spontaneous social observation made possible by the internet made possible by digital technologies and cameras that we simply didn't have access to back in the ninety's or the teaser even before ok when we were almost running out

of you was running out so we don't like to give you the last word where are we going with reality t.v. and about forty seconds well well i think now we can just talk about reality television let's talk about reality culture look at you chibi is reality without the t.v. . and people are voluntarily are asking to be watched through to twitter through you know through facebook or other social networking sites so really we're talking about a new kind of public which producer and that's something to be a plan with it in terms of access. ok well thank you guy i want to i could say ed you know what i mean and seconds go ahead their heads now you say we look at every motor every one curiosity has no correlation with watching reality t.v. now what so ever just as many people intellectuals watch as you know. it's not watch all right people values dad is overwhelmingly white ok i want to thank my

guests today in london a glasgow and columbus and thanks to you our viewers for watching us here at r.g.p. see you next time and remember cross talk rules.

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