BBC Radio 4 LW

Watching Us

Watching Us: Week 2

Week 2

BBC Radio 4 - Watching Us, Week 2

How did reality TV turn surveillance into entertainment?

Big Brother reframed surveillance as entertainment, and we were too busy being amused to notice reality TV was a Trojan horse for a new kind of deal between us and the screen.

Whatever happened to the empowering promise of digital media in the late 90s, the one  where everybody was going to be a creator?
The market got hold of it. That’s what happened.
Digital media was meant to be democratizing.  We were expressing ourselves freely, and we were too busy being amused to notice reality TV was a Trojan horse for a new kind of deal between us and the screen. Surveillance was being reframed as entertainment.
As the cable channels were cranking out more and more cheap content they enlisted us, the viewers, to be part of the show. Our willing submission to being watched all the time was a form of participation that was then harnessed, commodified and sold to viewers as reality.  
We chose our celebrities, we voted for them, we consumed them. And then we judged them.

Presenter: Jamie Bartlett
Producer: Gemma Newby

BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

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Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Factual

Jamie Bartlett looks at the impact of twenty years of reality TV on culture and society.

20 years ago a TV show launched which changed history, revolutionising TV and transforming our ideas about truth, surveillance, technology and politics. The show was Big Brother.

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