'Reality TV' Not So Real, Says Article
by AFA Journal
June 6, 2006
(AgapePress) - - It may be the fad that just won't die, and it may be highly popular among couch potatoes, but it seems that the one thing "Reality TV" isn't is, well, real.
An article in Time magazine revealed some of the tricks frequently employed on reality shows. For example, producers of ABC's "The Dating Experience" thought it would make for more interesting television if a female participant was perceived to like one of the male contestants, when in reality she did not.
How did the producers solve this problem? Time's James Poniewozik said: "So they sat her down for an interview. Who's your favorite celebrity? they asked. She replied that she really loved Adam Sandler. Later, in the editing room, they spliced out Sandler's name and dropped in audio of her saying the male contestant's name."
Apparently such tactics are a regular part of reality television. Poniewozik said the above example even has a name -- "Frankenbiting." The moniker comes from the fact that sound bites are "stitched together" to create a sentence that wasn't actually spoken by a participant.
Other tricks: fake settings are built, maybe an office or an apartment that gives the impression the contestants are at a real location; a "misleading montage," in which footage shot days apart is reassembled to create a more interesting story line; or even dubbing in sounds over a scene in which participants are off-screen, to suggest something that never really occurred -- like sex.
Of course, Poniewozik admits that most people who watch reality shows expect some shenanigans. "But even savvy viewers who realize that their favorite reality shows are cast, contrived, and edited to be dramatic," he said, "may have no idea how brazen the fudging can be."
Read 'Who's Doctoring Reality Shows?' at Newsday.com
This article, printed with permission, appears in the June 2006 issue of AFA Journal, a monthly publication of the American Family Association.
