JUNK TV… POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE?
It’s currently evident that junk television is a phenomenon that we can all recognise.
From 1990’s onwards, the audio-visual world starts offering a broadcast that is also
based on the well known TV trash, the public space that involves talk shows and reality
shows. The first ones are about polemic topics like sex, violence or religion, and on the
other side, the TV reality tries to show us a TV genre in which some figures appear
without script and the audience stare at their dramatic and troubled lives and
coexistence. The main point that junk programs have in common is their objective: to
create a morbid and sensationalist spectacle.
As time goes by, people are getting more and more addicted to junk contents… but
why? We should take into account the manipulation which we are exposed to when we
watch TV. Media have the objective to maintain us controlled and the more shocking
broadcast it offers, the more people is going to follow it, and the more money they are
going to earn.
Talking about these kind of programs, I would like to focus on the current effect that
reality shows have in the society. When we watch TV, not only we want information
and the adoption of culture, but also we want entertainment. The audience is going to
look for contents to get entertained in reality shows, and Big Brother is the great
example par excellence. Having cameras recording everything that some contestants do
24/7, can cause them the quickly jump to fame, the absolute loss of privacy, dangerous
effects on their reputation and dignity and the lack of authenticity.
It is believed that junk TV has only negative effects on the audience because it isn’t a
cultural program and the sensationalism that they transmit is not appropriate to educate.
I consider that we can learn with these programs because we have the opportunity to
look at and analyse the behaviour of some people, we have the option to see what’s
wrong in them and act in favour of us trying to correct and improve what they are not
doing well. If we all watched reality shows with the capacity of judgement and way of
knowing, we would be able to learn from people’s mistakes. So that, as ying-yang
theory says: in everything bad there is always something good, and in everything good
there is always something bad.