The Social Value of Reality TV

As well as being a pioneer of heavy metal, Ossy Osborne was one of the early stars of reality TV. The MTV show The Osbornes, running from 2002 to 2005 and featuring Ossy, Sharon and two of their teenage children, was described as a reality sitcom. Previous fly-on-the-wall programmes had been presented as documentaries, albeit with some dramatic elements, but this one was edited for drama.

Reality TV receives a lot of criticism and disparagement. Some people have commented on the relationship between Sir Joseph Bazalgette, the Victorian engineer who build a system of sewers to pump effluent out of Londoners' homes, and Sir Peter Bazalgette, the creative director of Endemol responsible for Big Brother.

The BBC reports some sociologists as arguing that reality TV can have some social value.

Reality TV ... can be a tool for greater social understanding. Danielle Lindemann

It can potentially offer benefits to viewers and society because it can lead to wider conversations about the world we want to live in. Jacob Johanssen

However, Dr Johanssen has previously expressed criticism of the way participants in reality shows are exploited and shamed, both by the programme makers and by the audience (via social media). He frames reality TV as a neoliberal update on Guy Debord's notion of the spectacle.

---

Nathan Briant, The sisters from UK's first fly-on-the-wall series (BBC News, 21 June 2024)

Jacob Johanssen, Immaterial Labour and Reality TV: The Affective Surplus of Excess. (In: Briziarelli, M. and Armano, E. (eds.). The Spectacle 2.0: Reading Debord in the Context of Digital Capitalism. pp. 197–208. London: University of Westminster Press 2017). https://doi.org/10.16997/book11.l 

Alex Taylor, How reality TV changed the way we think - for the better (BBC News, 26 July 2025)

Caitlin Wilson, Ozzy Osbourne: From Prince of Darkness to reality TV's favourite dad (BBC News, 26 July 2025)

Achilles Heel

Perfection is for the gods. Heroes are supplied with a fatal flaw, which ultimately destroys them. The gods (or scheming humans) may coax them into situations where they will be most vulnerable, but it is often their own arrogance that does them in.

George Galloway championed many causes, opposed the war in Iraq, stood up for Moslem rights, dared to challenge Tony Blair and George Bush. His vanity led him to join some humiliating TV spectacle, with perhaps lasting damage to his credibility as a politician.

Mark Oaten was a steadfast Liberal, opposing the Labour Party on Identity Cards and Anti-Terror Legislation. An embarrassing scandal has caused him to resign his position as party spokesman.

Did they destroy themselves, or were they set up? What is the POSIWID of such self-destructive behaviour?

 

Update: perhaps not lasting damage in Galloway's case. He won two parliamentary by-elections, in both cases losing the seat in the subsequent general election.