A Comparison of Marriage Shows in Two Cultures
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KADİR HAS UNIVERSITY SOCIAL SCIENCE INSTITUTE DEPARTMENT OF AMERICAN CULTURE AND LITERATURE TYING THE KNOT: A COMPARISON OF MARRIAGE SHOWS IN TWO CULTURES DOCTORAL THESIS ŞENAY TANRIVERMİŞ THESIS ADVISOR: DR. JEFFREY WINSLOW HOWLETT ISTANBUL, 2015 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF PHOTOS iii LIST OF TABLES iii INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 1 7 CHANGING DYNAMICS OF MARRIAGE AND FAMILY 7 1.1 CAPITALISM AND FAMILY 10 1.2 WOMEN’S VISIBILITY IN THE PUBLIC SPACE 12 1.3 LOVE AND SOCIETY 15 1.4 EVOLUTION OF COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE 19 1.5 THEORIZING THE MEDIA EFFECTS ON SOCIETY 21 1.5.1. Liberal Pluralists 23 1.5.2. Critical Theory 29 1.6 THEORIZING TWO MARRIAGE PROGRAMS IN TWO SOCIETIES 31 CHAPTER 2 35 PRIVACY 35 2.1. CONCEPTUAL CLASSIFICATIONS OF PRIVACY 35 2.2. THE HISTORICAL DISTINCTION BETWEEN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SPHERE 46 2.3. MODERN BOUNDARIES OF PRIVACY 51 2.4. TECHNOLOGY AS A TOOL FOR DECONSTRUCTING PRIVACY 55 CHAPTER 3 61 i MARRIAGE CULTURE AND TV SHOWS IN TURKEY AND AMERICA 61 3.1. MARRIAGE CULTURE IN TURKEY 62 3.2. MARRIAGE CULTURE IN THE USA 66 3.3. MARRIAGE SHOWS IN TURKEY AND AMERICA 70 CHAPTER 4 80 COMPARISON OF MARRIAGE SHOWS AND PRIVACY IN TWO CULTURES 80 4.1. COURTSHIP CULTURE IN TURKEY 80 4.2. COURTSHIP CULTURE IN THE USA 83 4.3. BROADCAST RULES AND REGULATIONS 87 4.3.1. In Turkey 87 4.3.2. In the USA 92 4.4. AN OVERVIEW OF THE TWO MARRIAGE SHOWS 95 4.4.1. Esra Erol’da Evlen Benimle 95 4.4.2. The Bachelor 98 4.5. THE COMPARISON OF TWO PROGRAMS 104 4.5.1. Expectations of Participants 107 4.5.2. Settings, Rules and Scenography 116 4.5.3. Different Cultural Influences on the Two Shows 120 CHAPTER 5 129 METHODS 129 5.1. CONTENT ANALYSIS 129 5.2. CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS 130 RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND UNITS OF ANALYSIS 132 CHAPTER 6 135 FINDINGS 135 6.1. STRICTLY PERSONAL? 136 6.2. PORTRAYING INTIMACY 160 CONCLUSION 182 REFERENCES 192 APPENDICES 212 APPENDIX A 212 APPENDIX B 213 APPENDIX C 223 ii LIST OF PHOTOS Photo 1: Esra Erol, The host of Esra Erol’da Evlen Benimle ...................................110 Photo 2: The Bachelor Ben Flajnik, Season 16 ........................................................115 Photo 3: Personal/Private Information Revealing at The Bachelor ......................... 164 Photo 4: Shawn, one of the participants in The Bachelor ........................................ 165 Photo 5: Personal/Private Information Revealing at Esra Erol’da Evlen Benimle ..................................................................................... 170 Photo 6: The conversation of Fatma and Osman ..................................................... 173 Photo 7: Dates with The Bachelor1 ........................................................................... 84 Photo 8: Intimate Moments of The Bachelor ........................................................... 188 Photo 9: Tears in the Studio, Esra Erol’da Evlen Benimle, April 2013 ................................................................. 194 Photo 10: Nudity of Courtney, The Bachelor, 2013 ................................................. 200 LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Comparison of The Bachelor and Esra Erol’da Evlen Benimle ...................120 Table 2. Similarities Between The Bachelor and Esra Erol’da Evlen Benimle .........122 Table 3: Components of individualism and collectivism ..........................................138 Table 4: Major orientations of some countries ..........................................................139 Table 5: Comparison between two marriage shows in terms of individualistic culture/collectivistic culture .........................................................143 Table 6: Weighted Means for Research Question I ...................................................175 Table 7: Weighted Means for Research Question II ................................................. 203 iii INTRODUCTION Bringing the world into our homes, television represents one of the most important mass communication tools of the modern world. On television, images and sound work together to create programs and commercials (Butler, 2009, p. 5) and its broadcast made of harmonious sounds and images became the main element of its enormous success. It’s a phenomenon that has always attracted and fascinated all world populations. What was at first simple combinations of moving pictures soon became complex coded messages with a vast variety of contents. Step by step it has become the most important source of information and entertainment along with technological and marketing developments. In countries where it is relatively new, such as Turkey, time spent in front of the TV takes away from other activities. For example, in Turkey 20% of the population spend more than five hours a day watching TV. Television is only one of many ways to enrich general knowledge, but due to its commonness it’s taken very seriously even though it does not necessarily reflect reality or give relevant information. There is no doubt that television has shaped and affected social culture in many ways. In the last 20-25 years, especially in terms of culture, we witnessed an acceleration of social changes, operated through technological and informational development. Television as the most common and cheapest mass media appliance 1 has become the main promoter of popular culture, participating in the reshaping of perspectives of whole generations. Kitsch takes an important place in the new order of things and values: a populace spoiled for choice returns to its primary instincts and indulges in uncontrollable spiritual and physical tantrums; rock and roll, the sexual revolution and the legitimization of more liberal points of view don’t seem to satisfy the ever-curious human spirit reaching for more. Only this time, things seem to have gotten out of hand, while we witness ordinary people disguised as TV stars parading and selling their integrity for a piece of the audience’s vain admiration. It calls into question the possibility of dignity, as one of the highest values of the human legacy built through the guidelines of civilization. Among countless TV genres, Reality TV, as one that provoked absolute bewilderment among the audiences, has found its way to the top with skyrocketing ratings. Not only has it reached a vast audience, it has also actively participated in social changes bringing along considerable consequences. Reality television brought up a whole new concept of voyeurism to the world. According to Joe Jenkins (2002) in the book entitled Contemporary moral issues, reality-based programs seek to represent voyeuristic and exhibitionist behaviors as “normal.” People participating in reality shows are exposing themselves on a voluntary basis and can be perceived as “exhibitionists.” He also claims that what is called a “Reality show” (Jenkins, 2002, p.42) is a combination of voyeurism and exhibitionism becoming the new popular distraction. We can say that both of these phenomena have become the new normal, a standard that is easy to reach: all we need to do is strip in front of the crowd and claim our right to uniqueness, and suddenly, our deviant behavior becomes legitimate and approved. People starring in match-making reality shows become neighborhood heroes thanks to their unusual, extravagant or even socially unacceptable behavior. Revealing details concerning their private lives and exhibiting their intimacy provide them with the opportunity to become famous and join heavenly orders reserved for the happy few. Consisting of the banal everyday actions of rather ordinary individuals, and sometimes including tumultuous verbal or physical conflicts, emotional outbursts 2 and shocking behavior, Reality TV shows tend to promote a new cult thoroughly built on the principles of late capitalism: the cult of the individual. The values and ideas promoted by such ideology induce worship, and appear as one of the most prominent signs of the derailing modern society. The Reality industry, selling programs which have been running on almost every channel, seem to induce cultural corruption rather than cultural enrichment. One of the aspects of this corruption is a very thin, disappearing line between the boundaries of private life and public life, thus privacy happens to be one of the values put on the line in the era of the technological prosperity and ethical downfall. Developments in communication and technology, accompanied by socio-cultural, economic, and political changes were largely involved in the transformation of privacy. This process, at first giving the impression of creating more space for freedom, actually brought about voluntary restrictions on privacy. Therefore, individuals in the modern society look more flexible than ever before in terms of revealing their privacy and disclosing intimate details, which certainly seems like a phenomenon worth looking into. Marriage reality shows, as a variety of reality TV, have rapidly come to occupy a place at the forefront of contemporary television culture. This study seeks to examine the complicated and often polemical terrain of marriage programs while considering their effects on the perceptions of privacy in two different societies: The United States of America and Turkey, in regards to two reality TV marriage shows: The Bachelor and Esra Erol`da Evlen Benimle. Although this study does not attempt to rectify or impose a standardized definition of the genre, it suggests that looking at the parts may help in better understanding the whole, especially for the case of privacy. (Barton 2013, p. 218) One of the subgenres of the reality