Sabiha Mazid
The Quest for ‘Reality’ Reality television (TV) has been generally defined as a genre of television programming that documents supposedly ‘unscripted real-life’ situations. As the name itself implies, reality TV is an attempt to ‘accurately’ portray ‘reality’ through the medium of television. It differs from documentary television in that the focus tends to be on drama, personal conflict, and entertainment rather than educating viewers. It seeks, or at least claims, to remove the dependability and predetermination of scripted TV shows by replacing them with ‘real people’ in ‘real situations’. The idea is to convey a conception of reality that is honest because it is ‘unscripted’ and which can, therefore, be trusted by the audience as authentic (Potts, 2007). The question of ‘reality’ has been a philosophical one, dealing with the aspect of ontology, that is, the state of being. Various disciplines – ranging from physics, philosophy, literature, sociology, and others – have attempted to develop theories of reality. One strand of such theory believes in the dictum that ‘perception is reality’; reality is what we perceive and attach meanings to. For others like Thomas Kuhn, Berger, and Luckmann, reality has to be comprehended and that comprehension requires knowledge. Of course, these are simplified versions of the major theories that the aforementioned scholars have propounded and which will not suffice in getting deeper into the ontological question of reality. From the point of view of a postmodern, technocratic, and information society, however, the question of what is reality takes a different dimension altogether.