Annette Hill

Reality TV: audiences and popular factual television

1. Introduction: Reality TV 2. The Rise of Reality TV 3. The Reality Genre 4. Performance and Authenticity 5. The Idea of Learning 6. Ethics of Care 7. Pet Deaths 8. Conclusion: Critical Viewers

Big Brother: the real audience

In this article, the author focuses on Big Brother in relation to audience attraction. I outline the context of factual entertainment and its audience, and the specific experience of watching Big Brother. Seen in relation to factual entertainment as a whole, Big Brother is one of the least popular examples of “documentary as diversion.” Seen in relation to gamedocs, Big Brother is one of the most popular examples of new factual entertainment. The authors research, which uses quantitative and qualitative audience studies, indicates that attraction to Big Brother is based on the social and performative aspects of the program. The focus on the degree of actuality, on real peoples improvised performances in the program, leads to a particular viewing practice: audiences look for the moment of authenticity when real people are “really” themselves in an unreal environment. This, the author argues, is the popularity of the gamedoc, evident in its early incarnation, and writ large in Big Brother spin-offs and sub-sequent series.

Investigating media use and the television user experience in the home

In this paper we report on a study conducted in 2007 and 2008 looking at the media use habits of 27 families in the Greater London area. The project builds on previous work studying media use within a similar group in 2006. The study investigated attitudes towards different types of media and the role television (TV) currently plays and could play within the home environment. To facilitate the study we rapidly prototyped an experimental home media device and asked participants to use and respond to it. We explored issues of interactional simplicity and sharing media using a TV and employed the experimental device as a focal point for discussion and the generation of new ideas. Our key findings indicate a strong desire for services which support media presentation and consumption through the TV (combined with a suitable control device) and cater for social interaction within the home such as sharing photos and videos with other household members. In addition we found a strong user preference for services that offer fast and immediate access to specialised online activities, such as quick checks of e-mail accounts and social networking services.

Bringing the television experience to other media in the home: an ethnographic study

In this paper we report on a study conducted in 2007 and 2008 looking at the media use habits of 27 families in the Greater London area. The project builds on previous ethnographic work studying media use within a similar group in 2006. The study investigated attitudes towards different types of media and the role Television (TV) currently plays and could play within the home environment. Following a participatory design methodology, we rapidly prototyped an experimental home media device and asked participants and use and respond to it. We explored the issues such as interactional simplicity and sharing media using a TV using the experimental device as a focal point for discussion and the generation of new ideas.

Paranormal media: audiences, spirits and magic in popular culture

Chapter 1. Ordinary and Extraordinary Chapter 2. Spirit Histories Chapter 3. Paranormal in Popular Culture Chapter 4. Armchair Ghost Hunters Chapter 5. Psychic Tourists Chapter 6. Experiences Chapter 7. Beyond Magic Chapter 8. The Audience is the Show Chapter 9. Transformative Acts

Public and popular: British and Swedish audience trends in factual and reality television

The research in this article examines audience responses to a range of factual and reality genres. It takes as a starting point that television audiences do not experience news or documentary or reality TV in isolation but as part of a range of factual and reality programmes. Factual and reality programming includes a broad understanding of non-fictional programming on broadcast television, satellite, cable and digital television. The breakdown of factual and reality programming into specific genres includes news, current affairs, documentary, and reality programmes, with further sub genres applied within each of these categories. This article critically examines genre evaluation. The quantitative research in this article is based on two national representative surveys conducted in Britain and Sweden. In both Britain and Sweden, programme makers have moved towards a reliance on popular factual genres. In Britain this is across all channels, and in Sweden this is mainly concentrated on commercial channels. Whilst there is still a commitment to news, there is an increasing use of hybrid genres in an attempt to popularise factual output. The impact of this changing generic environment on audiences is that in both countries viewers have reacted by drawing a line between traditional and contemporary factual genres. It is precisely because of the redrawing of the factual map that viewers rely on traditional ways of evaluating genres as public and informative, or popular and entertaining. The data provides evidence that contributes to existing debate on television genre, public service broadcasting, and media literacy skills. The central argument in this article is that genre evaluation is connected with wider socio-cultural discourses on public service broadcasting and popular culture, and that these are common social and cultural values that are shared by national audiences in two Northern European countries.

Push-Pull Dynamics : Producer and Audience Practices for Television Drama Format the Bridge

This article explores push–pull dynamics in television drama production and reception. Push–pull dynamics are understood as complicated power relations in the transactions between television industries and audiences. The research is underpinned by qualitative data, drawing on more than 170 participants in interviews, focus groups, and participant observations, with producers and audiences from Northern Europe and North and South America. A case study of The Bridge (FX, 2013–2014) crime drama and its adaptations is used to think through the idea of push–pull dynamics. A key question concerns how power is performed in television itself, referring to work in cultural studies and Williams’s notion of the television experience. The Bridge crime drama and its adaptations underscore the particularities of power for television industries and audiences: this is not a tale of surrender to global industrial forces; rather, this is a story of the reality of power and the struggle over how producers and audiences make sense of global television.

Spectacle of excess: The passion work of professional wrestlers, fans and anti-fans

This article examines how professional wrestlers, promoters and audiences perform the passion work of sports entertainment. Rather than celebrate professional wrestling as a popular phenomenon, this articles seeks to use empirical research on live wrestling events to understand the meaning of passion work in sports entertainment. In Roland Barthes’ seminal article on professional wrestling in Mythologies, he describes wrestling as a spectacle of excess, where passions such as love and hate are exaggerated through the expressions of wrestlers and audience members. A key research question concerns how the passion work in professional wrestling involves different types of labour, the physical and emotional work of wrestlers and event organisers, and the work of audiences, fans and anti-fans interacting with professional performers. The article uses ethnographic research of professional wrestling to explore how different types of passionate labour re-enforce and legitimate each other, shaping an emotional structure to a spectacle of excess. The overall argument in this article is that the meaning of passion work in sports entertainment highlights what Stephen Coleman calls a public performance of power relations, where the particularities of power are made visible through the collective labour of wrestlers and audience members. Power is neither industry led nor in the hands of audience members; rather, it is made visible through the work of promoters, wrestlers and audiences as a collective performance in a high-energy, adrenalin-fuelled live event.

Investigating pay-as-you-go to address issues of trust, privacy and security around media use at home

This paper explores the use of a pay-as-you-go (PAYG) concept as a means of addressing issues of trust, privacy, billing and security around media in the home. The findings are based on a study conducted in 2007 and 2008, looking at the media-use habits of 27 families in the Greater London area. The study investigated attitudes towards uses of various forms of media within the home environment, with a particular emphasis on television (TV). To facilitate the study, a rapid prototype of an experimental home media device was produced, asking participants to use and respond to it. The key findings show the desirability of devices and services that incorporate a payment system which would help in regulating spending and allow household members to manage their own media purchases. The PAYG concept was well received by study participants as a means to prevent unauthorised spending and help manage costs. Participants were also enthusiastic about more transparent billing mechanisms and the possibility of monitoring the TV and media use of younger household members.

Passion: Introduction to Special Issue

There is a dark side to passion: a black heart, something malicious and not to be trusted. This Special Issue1 looks at the tensions between the positive and particularly the negative connotations of passion. This is the kind of passion where an adoring fan can become a menacing stalker. Or a ritual December celebration turns into a contested site of race relations. Often, when we think of media and passion, the first things that come to mind concern love and romance, a positive attachment to something or someone that matters to us. This meaning of passion is certainly one that can be found in an earlier special issue of this journal on passion and labour (Volume 18, Number 2), where the intense feelings associated with song writing, or the spectacle of excess in the world of professional wrestling, highlighted the sheer pleasure and adrenalin rush of passionate labour. Researchers offered health warnings in the marshalling of passion in a neoliberal labour market, but still emotion work signalled the potential for a positive professional experience, if only affect and feelings could be channelled for the greater good in our working lives. In this companion issue, we strike a darker tone to affect, emotion and passion. John Corner offers an introduction to key concepts related to passion. His article focuses on the contested relations between reason and passion, where these two seemingly disparate areas interact and engender varieties of passionate experience. He explores how ideas of the intense and extreme make passion ‘a provocative topic for cultural theory and analysis’. Why is passion provocative? Cheryl Hall’s (2005) book The Trouble with Passion sums up the uneasiness associated with passion, excess and intensity. As we shall see in the articles for this issue, how people feel about politics,