The Masses and Cultural Industry in Reality TV

As described in our textbook, the term masses is a very “complex word in social description.” We can use this term to describe the majority of the people, by the people, and for the people. These “working-class” or ordinary people have been drawn into the reality television world by default. I feel the masses are what brought reality television to life rather than producers or agents looking for weird, awkward, angry, and bold people to be put in one room to see how long they can tolerate each other.  However reality television began, slowly we start paying attention to shows such as, Jersey Shore, The Bachelor, and Real Housewives of New York. How many times have you sat down in front of your TV? Set and start flipping channels to only come across a show like The Bad Girls Club on Oxygen and watch how a bunch of angry, neglected, insecure, oppressed in some ways (in my eyes), and boy crazy young women put in a beautiful house with no form of technology and only each other to keep themselves company? Absurd, right? You wouldn’t watch that kind of garbage, correct? Well, I found myself saying the same thing while watching a whole season of it! It’s amazing how the “common people” are ashamed and blown away at how much stupidity and anger a person is displaying on TV for us to watch; yet, we watch it!! I believe ordinary people may watch such shows in order to either get away from their own “reality” and ponder upon how much they now appreciate their life rather than being on national television making a fool of themselves. Others focus on ordinary people engaging in common activities such as dating or home redecorating. In both instances, viewers are given the chance to compare and contrast their own lives with those of the shows' protagonists.  The resulting experience is a complexly constructed and highly individualized. That viewers may be drawn by the chance to mentally "test" their behavior against that of the actual participants contrasts with the common criticism of reality TV viewers as passive voyeurs. The terms “mass deception” and “social control” seems to most accurately describe the ideas and theories that Adorno earnestly prescribe. Adorno re-iterated the understanding of the culture industry by suggesting that a dominant ideology has surfaced socially due to the capitalist movement, which has transformed “art” into a business and commercialized product.  While watching shows such as, The Real Housewives of New Jersey, in between the shows the network advertises the clothing, jewelry, and accessories that we see the “The Real Housewives” wear during the show. These networks have their own websites, and every time someone visits their page, they make tons of money. Let alone the merchandise, if you even wanted to blog on their webpage for free, they are still finding ways to make profit out of our opinions and thoughts about the show, which are meaningless and all the industry sees are dollar signs.