SURVIVOR

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SURVIVOR

• Shannon
• Bart
• Emi
• Amanda
• Heidi

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Central Assertion

• As a postmodern reality TV game show, Survivor
  attains mass media entertainment status because
  it influences spectator pleasure and habits of
  thought in North American culture.
• Survivor is highly comparable to media sports.

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Topics to be Discussed

• Introduction
• Reality TV and Game Shows
• Postmodernism
• Spectator Pleasure
• Habits of Thought
• North American Culture and Survivor
• Survivor Compared to Sport and Kinesiology
• Conclusion

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Characteristics of Survivor

• A color TV show
• Aired once a week for one hour
• Season duration is approximately 14 weeks
• Game lasts 39 days
• Produced by CBS
• Produced by Mark Burnett

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Television Today

• TV is a mass entertainer, informer, persuader,
  and educator
  
• Is the dominant leisure-time activity in our
  society
  
• It is the mass medium that reaches society the
  most frequently

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The Audience

• Composed of individuals who are likely to have
  shared experiences
  
• Tends to be large
• Is heterogeneous
• Tends to be relatively anonymous
• Physically separated from the communicator

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Theories of Mass Communication

• Individual Differences Perspective
• Social Categories Perspective
• Social Relationships Perspective

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Reasons for Watching

• For personal identity
• Integration and social interaction
• Entertainment

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Networks

• Organizations that provide TV programming
• Local stations can produce their own local
  programs
  
• Two types of stations
• 1) Network stations
• 2) Network Affiliate stations

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CBS Standards (Survivor)

• A CBS Television program is a guest in the
  home
  
• Is intended to conform to generally accepted
  boundaries of public taste including
  
• Language
• Nudity and Sexuality

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What is Reality Television?

• Definition of real is Actually existing not
  fictitious, true, genuine
  
• Survivor is as remote from reality as its
  setting Caryn James of the New York Times

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Survivor as Reality

• Not the first in the Reality Series
• The environment is real
• The situation is simulated
• Uses regular people
• Unscripted

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Filming

• Producers get one shot for every shot
• Cannot show re-runs

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PerceptionFiltered Abstraction

• Content is edited
• First Survivor was pre-recorded

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Survivor as a Game Show

• What is a game show?
• Challenges Immunity and Reward
• Game show regulations

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Postmodernism

• Hybrid TV
• Reflexivity
• The Game
• The Players
• The Camera

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Spectator PleasureAdvertising

• Theory of TV
• Commercials
• Product Placements

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Spectator PleasureVoyeurism

• Defined Pleasure of illicit looking or
  watching some object (usually another person)
  without being invited or allowed to
  
• -Carlisle Duncan
• Experience without risks
• Sexually motivated

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Spectator PleasureNarcissism

• Defined in looking at representations of the
  human body, or part of it, the spectator
  identifies with himself
  
• -Carlisle Duncan
• Character development
• Representations of the body

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Spectator PleasureFetishism

• Defined Pleasure of fascination directed
  towards a spectacle, an object of frank, even
  invited viewing pleasure
  
• -Carlisle Duncan
• Survivor Craze
• Survivor Parties

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Spectator PleasureEscapism

• Mass Media and escapism
• Survivor and escapism- how much farther from
  reality can you get?!

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Habits of Thought

• As kinesiologists we value the aesthetic art of
  human movement and experience. Survivor
  satisfies this intrinsic value of beauty by
  integrating fluid images of what is displayed on
  the TV screen and seduces our minds to manipulate
  time and space creating habits of thought.
•  
• WHAT DO I MEAN BY THIS?

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• The media and the audience share a logic that
  is used to make sense of social phenomena. The
  audience develops a media consciousness.
  
• Ideal Norms
• HARD WORK
• HONESTY
• MODESTY
• FIDELITY
•  
•         LOP - Least Objectionable program
• Ideal norms represent the sacred traditions
  of society. (Snow, 1983)

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Media Personalities

• That Jenna sure reminds me of the value of
  family. Maybe I should pay more attention to my
  children. Who knows how many times I will have
  to hug them and kiss them?

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WHY DOES THE AUDIENCE ORGANIZE THEIR MINDS TO
TAKE ON THE MEDIAS PERSPECTIVE?

• TV is powerful, hypnotic and requires little self
  reflexivity.
  
• Tool for socialization
• Erodes boundaries once respected between
  generations, genders, and other social
  institutions
  
• As a result our habit to think beyond our daily
  lives and integrate into the social ambiance of
  survivor takes us to a new level of consciousness
  and aesthetic activity.

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Entrancement

• Networks controlling this perspective have 5
  things in common
  
• 1) making profits
• 2) shaping values
• 3) providing public service fantasy
• 4) building own reputations
• 5) expressing themselves in artistic form.
• 98 of all American families have at least one
  TV

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North American Culture and Survivor

• Culture involves a sense of how people ought to
  live and how a group can be distinguished through
  artifacts.
  
• WHAT VALUES DOES SURVIVOR PROMOTE AND WHAT
  PRACTICES DO WE PARTICIPATE IN?
  
• Statistics show that sleeping is the only
  activity in which the average American indulges
  more than television viewing. (Downing,
  Mohammadi, and Sreberny-Mohammadi, 1995)

WE LIKE OUR TV TIME!
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Cultural Practices

• We distrust differences of taste and we assume
  that because others like what we do not like that
  their tastes point towards undesirable social and
  behavioral consequences.
• - American Dream
• - Social and cultural movement has been built
  upon to display distinct behavior
  
• - Roles and Behavior
• - Order and Disorder
• - Evolution of Human Societies

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Material Cultural Artifacts

• Board games and other paraphernalia
• If television is more believable and more
  desirable than everyday life, and if television
  personalities and characters are more acceptable
  in face-to-face encounters, cultural change is
  bound to occur. (Snow, 1983)
• North American Culture is Popular Culture

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Survivor and Sports

• Why is Survivor a game?
• Pre-lusory goal Outwit
• Outplay
• Outlast
• How is Survivor like sport?
• Physical challenges

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Escapism and Competitor Identification

• Escapism binary opposition
• Winning versus losing
• Team versus individual competition

Identification sharing the quest to win
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Role Models

• Colby Donaldson
• Age26
• Career Custom Auto Designer
• Hometown Dallas, Texas
• Single and sexy!

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Liminality

• Judges
• in sport are defined
• in Survivor are also players

Physical Game Space - in sport the arena - in
Survivor, lack of physical boundaries
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Kinesiology and Survivor

• Not just physical ability
• Outwit psychological
• Outplay physical
• Outlast sociological

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Sociology as a Discipline

• Found in Outlast component
• The study of human organization and social
  relationships.
  
• Human beings social beings.

Rodger Elizabeth
Susan and Kelly
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Stratification
Rich and Rudy- differences in sexuality and age
Jenna single mom
Gervase African American
Sean the funny guy
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Survivor Strengths and Weaknesses

• Strengths
• show consumers what they want
• TV shows spurred by Survivor
• Highly effective due to escapism

• Weaknesses
• becoming repetitive
• Content has replaced quality
• No real deeper meaning
• Reality aspect is diminishing

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