The premise of the show was extremely simple : twelve strangers living in a house together for a period of four months, where cameras and microphones would record every sigle step, 24 hours of the day, 7 days a week for our entertaiment.Moreover, an unknown voice would tell them what to do and where to go. The producers decided to call the show Big Brother, as a reference to 1984 by Geroge Orwell.Inmediate criticism arouse, some people stating that it was a cruel social experiment, others calling it a human zoo and even calling it a high-end jail. Despite the criticism, Big Bother has proven to be one the most successful TV franchaises in history and has led to the creation of millions of other reality shows.
After having reality tv for most of our lives , the questions is: how "real" are reality shows? not in content, but in concept; hencefoth the question we all should ask ourselves is "are we living in a constant reality show? do we have a "Big Brother? As farfechted as this inquieres might be, the answer has started to become positive.
As discussed in class, french philospher Michel Foucault coined the term Panopticism in his book Dicipline and Punish (1977). According to him, society is been contantly controlled and watched, most of the times by unknown moral, economical and social forces. A panoptical society is constantly wacthed, controlled and punished in order to ensure social stability. This ideas are heavely reflected on1984, a society under constant surveillance by all-mighty forces.Many argue that Panopticism is not just a social theory, but that we are currently living it. 1984 has never been any closer to reality than right now, our lives are a reality show.Just like in the reality shows, we are constantly being watched and controlled.
In Big Bother the contestants are recorded 24/7, although we may not be aware of it, we are also been recorded 24/7. A good example for this are surveillance cameras. On the one hand we are told that they are meant to protect us and ensure common safety, but on tthe other hand it also means that we lost our privacy. Thus, authorities can know where we go, at what time and to do what. As if we were in a reality show, our steps are wacthed by an audiance, yet we are told that " Por SU seguridad, estamos grabando"
Just like the people on reality shows are told that they must lost their privacy in order to entertain, we are told that in order to procect us, we might have to lose our privacy. In both cases we are controlled and convinced by authotities.In a more inderct way, social media is also a good example of the Panoptical society in which we are living, which make us feel in a reality show. Facebook ask us what we think, where we took a picture, where have we been, what are we listening to, what are we reading to , what are we watching to or what are we reading to. All this for the entertaiment of others, moreover we are willing to provide this information, because we are told that is a way to keep in contact with others and share our life experiences.
Although we may not feel like it, our lives have become a sort-of a reality show, where our lives are exposed, controlled and watched in order to ensure stability. In an article called "How TV fakes it", the author states that reality TV is not as different as having cameras inside a supermarket, after all in both cases we are recorded with a purpose, the only difference is that we are not paid to do so, we WANT AND NEED to do so.
In a way, the criticsm that reality shows recieve can also be applied to critique our own society, after all we have dicovered that they are not that different Some argue that we are living in a post-panoptic society, mostly due to the fact that we are not been controlled by power or politics, but for social media. Our Big Brother is now the fake need to take selfies and to write a post on Facebook.
As a personal opinion , I do feel like we live in a constant reality show, where we are monitored, yet I still believe that it has not gotten to the extent described in 1984, or at least is less evident
what do you think? do you feel as if you were on a reality show? can we scape from that feeling?
Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. Random House LLC.
Kerr, O. S. (2002). Internet surveillance law after the USA Patriot Act: The big brother that isn't. Nw. UL Rev., 97, 607.
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ResponderEliminarI wholeheartedly agree with you. I think that social media is flourishing as the new surveillance cameras of the century. Albeit we are told that we can set up privacy setting so we can safely upload information on the internet, that's not what really happens whatsoever. Every day we are beaming out more and more sensitive info. For instance, every time we instragram a photo, checked in on either foresquare or Facebook and tweet, we are sharing a lot of private stuff. A recent study carried out by a computer scientist called Shai Reshef in which they put up a stand in the street and randomly took photo of the passers-by unveil that a lot of private info is up in a ''cloud''. The team of experts were able to match each of the photos with the person's name, id card, address and so on, just by using a basic software.
ResponderEliminarDespite that we keep on doing so, we are widely aware of the consequences that being a social media addict brings, but we are just not willing to put an end to it. This is a two-way relationship, meaning that social media is used and consumed by us. Were we to stop doing so, reality would be different. We are also ''feeding'' our inner social-media dependent persona we have inside. It has not gotten to the extent described in 1984, but it might in the oncoming years if we just keep on giving in to this addiction.
I will refer to the last wrods of Felipe's remark: Addiction. The reason why we may feel that we are living in a reality show is just a voluntary attittude to do so. The main platforms in which we can feel that we are being observes just like a reality are aforementioned above. The implications of being a social media lover are serious when it comes to give information freely without any precaution. What people tend to think is that internet life and real life are different, when in fact they are boh the same but in different contexts. Therefore, if you write your email account or personal number on your personal data in your FAcebook profille, it would be as if you were walking on the street while giving people pieces of paper with the same information.
ResponderEliminarThe feeling of being in a reallity show according to my perspective, is just voluntary.