| This paper
will revisit Jane Feuer's classic (1983) paper on the ideology of 'liveness'
in television to consider the 'ideological' implications not only of 'liveness'
but the connected term of 'reality', in the sense mobilised in 'reality
TV'. The ideological nature of this term sets it apart from more specific
debates about realism on television, specifically TV documentary , since
what is at issue is the symbolic authority of television or 'the media'
(in the common sense usage) as institution in an increasingly contested
symbolic arena. The claim to access social 'reality' becomes more, not less,
important for television in an era of channel and media multiplication.
The tenn 'ideological' is here used in the sense not of the promotion of
a specific political ideology , but of the legitimation of television's
own concentration of symbolic power, as a privileged access-point to our
shared 'reality'. The implications of this approach to 'reality TV' will
be explored using examples from Big Brother and elsewhere. |
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Nick Couldry
Lecturer in Media and Communications, London School of Economics
author of The Place of Media Power (Routledge, 2000) and Inside
Culture (Sage, 2000), and currently writing anew book on media rituals
(publication due late 2002).
n.couldry@lse.ac.uk
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