Reality programmes: Levelling of public and private discourse in the media

Abstract

Common to all formats of reality shows broadcasted in Serbia (Farm, Palace, Survivor, Big Brother VIP ...) is their identification of public and private discourse in the real-time of the 'story' (dijegetic time, in contrast to film time). The paper analyzes the corpus of the third season of Farm on TV PINK. Material is consisted of 7 day reviews: Sunday 28, Monday 29, Tuesday 30, November and Wednesday 1, Thursday 2, Friday 3, and Saturday 4 of December 2010; or the 76th, the 77 th, the 78 th, the79 th , the 80 th, 81 st and the 82nd day of the third broadcast cycle of the Farm on TV Pink. The aim was to observe the discourse strategies which in television broadcast void the boundary between private and public discourse, delivering the public content of reality shows to the viewers' private domain. The audience is thus placed in the position of consumer of a mass media content bereft of any public interest element, which is not meant to be a media spectacle. Its aim is to deconstruct the implicit message this discourse delivers to its numerous audience, and put themselves into the context of professional ethical code of journalists.