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‘Reality television’ - that wonderful blend of voyeurism and unscripted reaction - has hit the big-time, progressing from the segmented reality of Candid Camera and Funniest Home Videos, through the ‘sustained reality’ of The Real World, House From Hell, The Villa, Shipwrecked, Temptation Island, and, of course, Big Brother, to the reality/game shows of Survivor and its sequel Survivor: The Australian Outback, Treasure Island and The Mole. However, many of these later shows have been created in a television production era very different from earlier efforts: the era of audience interactivity though the online television forums. Interactivity is radically reconfiguring some aspects of ‘fandom’. In this article we review not reality television, or reality television websites, but some aspects of the reality television fandom as expressed through reality television websites.
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Television network websites now produce sites for reality television shows that not only provide ‘basic’ fan materials (pictures, sounds, background, summaries, etc.) but also their own online television forums (message boards, polls, email). By accessing the sites, fans gain in terms of immediacy and quality of access to desirable ‘official’ content materials, access to similarly-interested others, and, as in the case of Big Brother, actual control of the show. It is arguable that by co-opting (or perhaps pre-empting) the tools of fan communication, television network websites are promoting the idea of community, but creating only pseudo-community - group connections without ongoing commitment except to the products of the mediasphere.
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The forums of Treasure Island, the Australian island survival game show that aired in 2000, demonstrated the power of online television forums for self-perpetuating and potentially increasing viewing. Treasure Island’s unmoderated message boards were rich with the stuff of fandom, ongoing claims to insider information or, most interestingly, claims by users that they were cast-members. In the following example, of the “If you were on the island, who'd be going first?” forum, ‘westie’ and ‘coconuts’ contest the validity of each other’s claims to having been contestants on the program, attempting to convince other users (‘Nikki’, ‘Annie’ and ‘Iknowwhaturtalkingabout’) in the process:
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RE: ADELAIDE??
Author: westie
Date: 08-10-00 21:45
Dear Iknowwhaturtalkingabout,
I was really on the show, I can certainly talk to you, but unfortunaltly if you want any inside information about the show or who goes and who stays then I will not be able to give you any......I have been sworn to secrecy!!
"westie"
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RE: ADELAIDE??
Author: Nikki
Date: 08-10-00 22:02
Hey there WESTIE! My name is Nikki and I am from Brisbane... You say that you have been on the show... RITE!! R u for real? Could you let me know abit about yourself PLEASE!
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Question for Westie!
Author: Coconuts
Date: 09-10-00 10:08
Westie , I am sorry to doubt that you are a fello Westie! But I have to ask - What was the descriptive name given to the 1st bottle by our other fello Westie?
Coconuts
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RE: Question for COCONUT!
Author: westie
Date: 09-10-00 10:19
Dear Coconuts!!
I am really sorry, but Im not sure what you are talking about....either that or I have forgotten...my memory isn't all that good at the best of times!!
heres something that might convince you!!
here was something we sang...remeber....
"D**** M***** super star, who the hell do you think you are!!!!"
Oh and remeber this one....
"On the first day of Treasure Island we were so happy.....with a tent erected under a tree!!!"
Now does that convince you?? Can you give me a clue as to who you are???
"Westie"
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RE: to annie
Author: westie
Date: 09-10-00 10:37
Annie,
I think your sources are wrong baby...it was CRAIG and TOMMY, that went off the island last night!
"Westie”
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Whether or not westie and coconuts were actually contestants was (almost) immaterial, since part of the entertainment value of the forum was that these kinds of situations were possible. For the television network website, such situations were a bonus in terms of providing content and additional reasons for users to engage with the site and the program. Potentially, users such as Nikki and Annie might have left the forum with the sense of having interacted directly with contestants, and would be keen to view the program for further clues as to westie’s and coconuts’s identities, and may also have roped their friends into the program and the site on the basis of this engagement.
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Engagement with websites may, on occasion, last longer than the reality television series itself. Although most reality television websites are generally shut down after the series finishes airing, sometimes this is not the case. The UK version of Big Brother featured numerous unmoderated chat rooms. These rooms were still operating some four months after the program had finished - albeit with a much reduced population. Post-series, users in these room were discussing their everyday lives, not Big Brother. Was this an instance of a fan-community that had outgrown its media-product origins, or a group of users unable to interact without the boundaries of the media-product?
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Unlike the websites of Treasure Island and Big Brother, the original Survivor website actually featured little user-to-user interactivity, providing mainly summaries and cast-member popularity polls. However, numerous user polls (for example, “Will Susan and Kelly realign?” and “Could you have made it into the Final Four?”) created some sense of the ongoing audience/user feelings, but only, of course, on subjects decided by the television network. Users could also answer a short questionnaire about their own ability to cope in the Survivor situation, and selected questionnaires were posted on the site, but this, like the polls, was essentially broadcast monologue rather than interactivity.
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The most interesting aspect of the Survivor site was the method of linking the online and television worlds to generate content and interest in the show, and, even more usefully for CBS, a host of other news and interview shows. From the original Survivor site, users could send emails ‘to’ unsuccessful contestants who would be asked selected questions from these emails on an interview show hosted by Bryant Gumble. Despite the indirect nature of the interactivity, viewers/users were able to use the system to find out behind-the-scenes information. When Colleen Haskell was interviewed, she was able to explain why and how the father of one of the contestants happened to pose as the captain of a yacht in one episode. It turned out that the appearance of the father was not pre-scripted, but a result of an unexpected circumstance not mentioned in the show. With this system, CBS limited the direct sense of user community, but generated significant interest in an interconnected web of Survivor television.
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The website of Survivor: The Australian Outback (Survivor II hereon in) has changed the formula. While the summaries remain, gone are the Survivor quizzes, replaced with java-based survival-skill computer games. The polling system now includes less actual show-by-show content, reduced to an ongoing cast-member popularity system. While that popularity system provides an extremely complex and configurable graphical representation of users’ ongoing feeling about the cast, it is hardly community. However, there has been a critical addition of a continually open real-time unmoderated chat room that also features a weekly moderated chat with the most recently ejected cast-member. At any time of the day or night, users can be found discussing the show. Given that a fan community is at least partially formulated through ongoing interaction, it is in these unmoderated chat rooms that the sense of connection leading to community is most likely to arise. Indeed, ‘official’ chat rooms now compete for fan-space with usenet newsgroups and fan-created sites.
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Of course, fan sites have not disappeared, and one could certainly argue that they have always been pseudo-communities based on the products of the mediasphere. However, it is interesting to note just how paradoxical some fan sites can be - particularly in the era of reality television. We finish our review with a brief mention of two other Survivor II-related sites.
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Ostensibly an anti-Survivor site, SurvivorSucks.com is astonishingly paradoxical. SurvivorSucks.com prides itself on producing ‘spoilers’ - sightings of cast-members that might give away information about the winner - a negative summary of each show, and a host of message boards on which people can rant about that show. However, it is impossible to view SurvivorSucks.com without noticing just how delighted its producers must be in having Survivor II as a target, and how knowledgeable most contributors are. As on many pro-media-product sites (such as many Star Wars sites) ‘spoilers’ are presented in white text that users must highlight to read - detracting immediately from true spoiler status. Similarly, the anti-Survivor II summary is of such detail and hyperbole that it is difficult to read as anything but heavily ironic. Finally, the content of SurvivorSucks.com’s message boards effectively mirrors most of the content on the official Survivor II site and pro- Survivor II sites. Perhaps most interestingly, SurvivorSucks.com includes detailed comments about the production of the show and, in particular, the discussion of the movements of Mark Burnett, Survivor II’s producer, and his ability to 'hide and distort' information about the show. The official Survivor II website itself makes no attempt to buy into the ‘reality’ of making Survivor II continuing the transparency façade of traditional television. SurvivorSucks.com, on the other hand, adds a whole new dimension to interacting with reality television, concerning itself with any and every aspect of Survivor II’s reality. Like the official sites, SurvivorSucks.com generates more interest in a multidimensional universe of anything related to Survivor II.
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Not explicitly a fan site (although possibly the work of closet fans) is The University of Queensland's UQ Survivor II Media Kit which provides information and email links to experts from the University on the Australian Outback, its flora and fauna and Aboriginal history. While intended as background comparison to a more authentic Australia, ("Is the real Outback anything like that seen on the CBS television program, Survivor II?" ) with descriptions of snakes, mosquitoes, bush tucker and aboriginal culture, it concludes that "despite its distortions, Survivor II is as accurate as it needs to be for an American television audience".
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Reality television fandom, as expressed through interaction on reality television websites, appears inescapably bound to the commercialisation of the mediasphere. Whether the sites are official or not, the associated pseudo-communities of fans find themselves enmeshed in the promotional culture of the medium and willing participants in the generation of more content beyond that of reality television itself.
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18 | | Details/References
Big Brother (18/11/2000) (Now offline)
Big Brother Australia
Survivor (24/10/2000)
Survivor: The Australian Outback (10/4/2001)
SurvivorSucks.com (10/4/2001)
Treasure Island (15/11/2000) (Now offline)
UQ Survivor II Media Kit (28/3/2001)
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19 | | Citation reference for this article
MLA style:
Sean Rintel and Sue McKay. "Interacting with Reality TV" M/C Reviews 04 May 2001. [your date of access] <http://www.api-network.com/mc/reviews/features/realitytv/interactive.html>.
Chicago style:
Sean Rintel and Sue McKay, "Interacting with Reality TV," M/C Reviews 04 May 2001, <http://www.api-network.com/mc/reviews/features/realitytv/interactive.html> ([your date of access]).
APA style:
Sean Rintel and Sue McKay. (2000) Interacting with Reality TV. M/C Reviews 04 May 2001. <http://www.api-network.com/mc/reviews/features/realitytv/interactive.html> ([your date of access]). | |
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