How does reality television construct a sense of intimacy between its participants and viewers?

 Reality Television constructs a sense of intimacy between its participants and viewer because it has an effect on their emotions. Different types of television genres attempt to bring out different emotions. A comedy show will attempt to make the audience happy and laugh so it is a technology of humour, whereas, reality television attempts to create a sense of relation between viewer and participant and is seen as a “technology of intimacy” (Kavka,2008, p.1). Reality Television is understood as a cultural form that gives us access to an emotional ‘real’ and a feeling of intimacy. The development of reality television and the invasiveness of it allows the audience to be a fly on the wall in order to connect with the participants. The more episodes that someone may watch, the bigger the connection they may feel between themselves and the people on the show because they feel as if they are getting to know their relatable personalities and make associations with what is going on with them, to their own situation. Audiences tend to fall in love with reality television because of its relationship to the real and non-fictional content.

 However, even though it is often seen as factual entertainment, it does frequently display conventions of fictional programming, for example, at the end of each episode of the hit ITV reality television programme ‘Love Island’, which is a dating show, there is an emotive music followed by a cliff-hanger to keep the audience in suspense and keep them guessing about what is going to happen until the following episode. 

This type of convention is usually more commonly used for soap operas or dramas. Reality television is also often criticised for being fake due to it being fabricated and simulated because of the way it is manipulated during the editing phase. This means that the people creating the show may be steering it into a certain narrative that they want to portray that will be more entertaining to watch, whilst deceiving the audience. The reason to dupe the viewers is in order for the most entertaining parts of what is being filmed on a daily basis to be aired and gives the show a better chance to create that sense of intimacy with the viewers.

One way that reality television constructs a sense of intimacy between its participants and viewers is through the continuous changes in emotions and voyeurism between onscreen participants. It can create an intense form of attachment, allowing for viewers to feel what the participants feel. For example, when watching a reality dating show like ‘Love Island’ or ‘First Dates’, the focus is solely on the participants. This means when they are happy and feel a sense of love or romantic spark with their spouse, we as an audience will tend to feel happy for them, so even though we do not know the people we are watching, our emotions are interconnected because they are relatable. Likewise, when the participants are angry or confrontational, we make counteracting judgements about their characters and personalities, even though we only see small segments of what is actually going on each day and it enhances how we may feel towards a certain participant. This then means we may not like to view them as much as someone that you do like in future episodes because they make you feel angry or annoyed about continuously having to watch them on our screens. The effect that the various emotions towards reality television participants has on intimacy is quite astounding because it can also tell you about the audiences’ personality too. Avid reality television viewers could be seen as nosy or intrusive because they gain enjoyment from watching people that they do not know, either make strides in the dating scene or continue to have numerous mishaps as “curious peeking into private lives has become a defining characteristic of contemporary society” (Calvert,2004, cited in Baruh, 2009, p.191). The audience gains a lot of its pleasure from reality television due to participants’ misfortunes because things such as arguments or embarrassing moments provide the entertainment that the audience love.

Another way that reality television creates intimacy with viewers is through the use of features that may be associated with other genres. Reality Television shows such as ‘Love Island’ and ‘Married at First Sight Australia’ use melodramatic and intense emotive music to put the audience on edge as the episode comes to a close, with many of them also ending with a cliff-hanger which is generally a feature used for Soap Operas. For example, ’EastEnders’ is a long running soap opera known for its ending as every episode ends on a “boom, boom, boom” more commonly known as a cliffhanger that keeps the audience in suspense until the next episode. In ‘Love Islands’ case, the camera tends to zoom in on an intense conversation, usually around the firepit where the aesthetics of the fire adds to the tension surrounding the participants conversation and the episode usually ends in the middle of the exchange rather than the culmination of the conversation and gives a sneak peak to the following episode. The reason that the break in conversation through the use of cliff-hangers between episodes creates intimacy is because it gives the audience a chance to stay fixated and engaged with the current situation between the participants even when they are not watching as “the emotion and effect of participants not only provide climactic narrative moments-they also serve as evidence of authenticity” (Grindstaff,2015,p.111), as well as it gives the viewers a chance to discuss what they think about each contestant with their friends who may also watch the show and them more words spoken about it, the more the audience stays hooked. 

Also, according to Helen Wood and Beverley Skeggs’ work, they found that audiences make connections to participants and relate these back to their own values, experiences and emotional histories. For example, when a relationship may not work out on ‘Love Island’ or ‘First Dates’ it may bring back the same emotions that someone felt during past failed relationships or dates so the experiences shared between viewers and participants will create intimacy because a failed relationship on screen will link to a certain emotion that an audience member may be feeling.

An additional feature that reality television uses to create intimacy is the attempt to simulate real life and encourage audience participation through the use of breaking the fourth wall. For example, the long running hit reality television show ‘Big Brother’ was unique in its kind at the time that it first aired and one of the things that made it stand out was that it incorporated a diary room where participants can go and articulate their frustrations with their fellow housemates whilst addressing the nation who are watching behind their screens. When the participants speak to ‘Big Brother’ in the diary room it almost myriads the style of a documentary where the participant is staring into the camera and allows for the audience to be as much a part of the show as the houseguests. It is also the moment where the show feels the most authentic and inclusive because they are portraying their actual self whilst addressing the nation rather than potentially playing a character in front of the twenty-four hours a day surveillance camera and their fellow housemates.  According to Misha Kavka, “the development of reality television piggybacked on the conventions and techniques of the television documentary” (Kavka 2014, cited in Ouellette, 2014, p.460). This means that it is common for reality television shows to adopt a documentary style approach in order to mirror factuality and legitimacy because they want the audience to feel included and the show to stay authentic. 

Reality Television plays a big role in the celebrification of its’ participants. The ordinary people who apply and partake in reality television programmes such as ‘Love Island’ and ‘The Only Way Is Essex’, have their lives broadcasted in front of the public viewers for a number of weeks where it will be decided if they are loved or if they are hated. Those that tend to be admired by the viewers, will more often than not, become people within the public eye or minor celebrities. Off the back of starring on these reality television programmes, the people that feature may find opportunities easier to come by than before they were on the show in order to achieve their aspirations. 

Many former contestants of ‘Love Island’ have gone on to have brand deals and become social media influencers, others have become music artists, and some have gone back to the jobs they had before they were on the show. The intimacy created between viewer and participant is important when it comes to the celebrification of the participant because it is those that are liked and very popular with the viewers that retain the luxuries provided to them after the show and those who may have got voted off early and were not so popular may not get brand deals and will struggle more to stay in the public eye. This means that the intimacy created between the viewer and the participant has an impact on the participants’ life going forward, regardless if they win the show or not because being beloved on one platform, means that they are very marketable in another industry. For example, clothing brands such as Boohoo are more likely to give them a deal because they represent normal people rather than models as they are more relatable, favourable and as a result more clothes may sell. Another benefit the participants get from the show is that some former contestants have managed to gain their own spin-off realty television show that documents their lives after appearing on the show. ITV have given spin-off shows to the most favoured contestants because the intimacy between viewer and participant will already be strong, so they will do this in order to raise viewing figures as they know the audience will want to know and watch what the former contestants are up to after the show and strengthen the intimate bond they already have.

New technologies allow for the celebrification of YouTube vloggers through the use of intimacy because it is dependent on “viewers positive responses” (Berryman,2017, p.309) if the vlogger then becomes instantly popular amongst the targeted demographic. YouTube vloggers can create a sense of intimacy because they are filming their whole behind the scenes lives for the audience to see “whereby the immediacy and the feeling of proximity” (Kavka,2008, P.2) are important so the audience feels included and like they know the person behind the screen as if they are a friend. 

Once the reality television star has been induced into fame, the number of followers they have on social media takes an upwards trajectory in comparison to before they were on the show. For example, ‘Winter Love island’ winner Paige Turley had just over 36 thousand followers on Instagram before the show and within four weeks of leaving the show she gained over 1.4 million followers. Through the use of social media and vlogging the participant can interact directly to there audience which creates that sense of intimacy because the viewer will know the ‘celebrity’ but the reality star will not know the viewer so through social media interactions and brand endorsements, the participant can get to know the audience as much as the audience knows all about the participant.

In conclusion, I believe that reality television constructs a sense of intimacy between its viewers and participants because it has a big effect on one’s emotions. Intimacy is able to be created through the use of television features such as cliff-hangers, audience participation, melodrama and emotive music. This is because the use of these features allows for the audience wanting more. The audience will become emotional invested into some people and no so into others because even though reality television can often be criticised for being fake, the entertainment that it provides the viewers, allows them to feel different emotions from one moment to the next. They may feel happy or sad, frustrated or tense within minutes of watching the show and this allows intimacy to be created. Viewers may feel withdrawal like symptoms when a season comes to an end because they are viewing every aspect of the participants’ lives for weeks, so when that ends it is almost like the curtain is shut on being a fly on the wall of the person who they have an intimate creation with. Although, having said this, as the intimacy was created during the airing of the show, the intimate interactions are then continued further through the comments and interactions section on social media, allowing for the participant to interface and connect with the viewer as the viewer already has that interconnected intimacy from watching the show.

Bibliography

Baruh, L, Ph.D. (2009) Publicized Intimacies on Reality Television: An Analysis of Voyeuristic Content and Its Contribution to the Appeal of Reality Programming, Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 53:2, 190-210.

Berryman, R, Kavka, M. (2017) ‘I Guess A Lot of People See Me as a Big Sister or a Friend’: the role of intimacy in the celebrification of beauty vloggers, Journal of Gender Studies, 26:3, 307-320.

Grindstaff, L, Murray, S. (2015) Reality Celebrity: Branded affect and the emotional economy. 109-132.

Hearn, A. (2016) Witches and bitches: Reality television, housewifization and the new hidden abode of production. European Journal of Cultural Studies, Online First, pp. 1-15.

Kavka, M. (2008) Reality Television, Affect and Intimacy: Reality Matters. London: Palgrave Macmillan. 

Ouellette, L, Kavka, M. (2014): ‘A companion to Reality Television, A Matter of Feeling Mediated Affect in Reality Television’. 459- 477.

Skeggs, B. and H. Wood (2012) Reacting to Reality Television: Performance, Audience and Value, Abingdon and New York: Routledge.

https://thetab.com/uk/2020/02/27/love-island-winter-instagram-followers-145931