Reality Shows and Social Class in China

Reality shows define social reality for their viewers. Discuss using examples.

Reality Shows and Social Class in China

Introduction

The field of communication and media has acknowledged that different subgenres of reality shows cover almost every perspective of real life and represent the structures of social relationships and classes, from upper class to ordinary people. Reality shows seem to explicit the social class on screens, and some western scholars criticized that reality shows could create and even promote “formats of class antagonism”, for example, Wife Swap and Holiday Showdown (Wood and Skeggs, 2011, p2). Reality shows are now blooming in China following the trend from Korea, US, and Europe. Around 200 reality shows will be produced and launched in China through different media platforms from televisions to video websites. Due to censorship and production restriction in China, the production of reality shows in China is lagging behind that in Western Europe, U.S., and Korea. While the structure of the social class in China is different from that in capitalist countries, its representation and formation through reality shows are correspondingly different. Hence, academic research on reality shows in China is relatively a blank, especially from the perspective of social class. In this essay, I argue that, due to the commodification of the real life of ordinary people, some reality shows may define the image of social class and even reinforce the formats of class antagonism with Chinese characteristics. This essay will exemplify this argument with a case study of X-Change (Bian Xing Ji) and carefully analyze one episode called Curved Mountain (Shan lu wan wan). X-Change is a docusoap-style life-swap reality show produced by Hunan TV and focused on teenagers from different social classes, living in urban and rural areas.

Reality shows and Class

This part reviews former studies about reality shows and social class in the Western media. Therefore,...