YOUNG OPERAS PEOPLE, SOAP AND REALITY TV Yearbook 2004 YOUNG PEOPLE, SOAP OPERAS AND REALITY TV EDITOR: CECILIA VON FEILITZEN The International Clearinghouse on Children, Youth and Media FEILITZEN VON CECILIA EDITOR: A UNESCO Initiative 1997 NORDICOM Nordic Information Centre for Media and Communication Research Göteborg University Box 713, SE 405 30 Göteborg, Sweden Telephone: +46 31 773 10 00 Fax: +46 31 773 46 55 E-mail: [email protected] www.nordicom.gu.se ISBN 91-89471-28-8 The International Clearinghouse on Children, Youth and Media Nordicom Göteborg University Yearbook 2004 YOUNG PEOPLE, SOAP OPERAS AND REALITY TV Yearbook 2004 YOUNG PEOPLE, SOAP OPERAS AND REALITY TV EDITOR: CECILIA VON FEILITZEN The International Clearinghouse on Children, Youth and Media Nordicom Göteborg University Yearbook 2004 Young People, Soap Operas and Reality TV Perspectives on Media Literacy and Media Regulations Editor: Cecilia von Feilitzen © Editorial matters and selections, the editors; articles, individual con- tributors (with two exceptions, see page 197 and 249) ? ISSN 1403-4700 ISBN 91-89471-28-8 Published by: The International Clearinghouse on Children, Youth and Media Nordicom Göteborg University Box 713 SE 405 30 GÖTEBORG Sweden Cover by: Roger Palmqvist Printed by: Grafikerna Livréna i Kungälv AB, Sweden, 2004 Contents Foreword Ulla Carlsson 7 Young People, Soap Operas and Reality TV, Introduction Cecilia von Feilitzen 9 Television Viewing among 4- to 12-year-olds in Spain José Ramón Pérez Ornia 47 “Soaps Want to Explain Reality”. Daily Soaps and Big Brother in the Everyday Life of German Children and Adolescents Maya Götz 65 Reception of TV Series among Children and Teenagers in Germany Helga Theunert & Christa Gebel 81 From Beverly Hills to Big Brother. How Australian Teenage Girls Respond Robyn Quin 89 Children Interacting between Values at School and in Media. Reflections from a Norwegian Project Asbjørn Simonnes & Gudmund Gjelsten 99 Critical Appreciation of TV Drama and Reality Shows. Hong Kong Youth in Need of Media Education Alice Y. L. Lee 117 Everyday People, Everyday Life. British Teenagers, Soap Opera and Reality TV Dorothy Hobson 129 Latin American Telenovelas. Interview with Valerio Fuenzalida María Dolores Souza 147 On Possible and Actual Lives. Young Viewers and the Reception of Brazilian Telenovelas Thaïs Machado-Borges 153 South Korean Television Drama in Asia Doobo Shim 163 Chilean Tweens and Reality Shows María Dolores Souza 169 The Idea of Learning. Young Viewers of Reality TV in the U.K. Annette Hill 181 Reality TV – The Mechanisms of a Success François Jost 189 Reality Shows in Cyprus. New Media “Fallout”? Nayia Roussou & Michaella Buck 199 “But It’s Not Real”. South African Youth’s Perceptions of Reality TV Nathalie Hyde-Clarke 211 Reactions of Nigerian Youths to the Reality Television Show Gulder Ultimate Search Eno Akpabio 219 “This is it” – South African Youth’s Reading of YizoYizo 2 John Gultig 227 YizoYizo: This Is It? A Critical Analysis of a Reality-based Drama Series René Smith 241 Authors 253 Foreword The aim of the Clearinghouse on Children, Youth and Media is to broaden and deepen our knowledge of children, youth and media and, thereby, to inform relevant decision- and policy-making. We also seek to contribute to constructive public debate and promote children’s and young people’s media literacy. Hope- fully, the work of the Clearinghouse will stimulate additional research on child- ren, youth and media. The basis of Clearinghouse activities is a global network of about 1000 partici- pants in more than 125 countries, representing not only Academia, but also the media industries, politics and a broad spectrum of voluntary organizations. Through its yearbooks, newsletters and survey articles the Clearinghouse has an ambition to contextualize knowledge about children, young people and media literacy, bringing together insights concerning children’s and young people’s relations with mass media from a variety of perspectives. The Yearbooks present the views and findings of leading researchers around the world in a variety of specialities relating to children, youth and the media. Media violence, media education and media literacy, new media technology, media globalization and media regulations are some of the themes past yearbooks have treated. This year’s volume is devoted to Young People, Soap Operas and Reality TV. Children all over the world listen to and watch adult programming from an early age, albeit a more genuine interest in adult entertainment appears first around the age of eight. This exposure, combined with the transformation of the tradi- tional soap opera into the extreme soaps and reality TV of today, has whipped up storms of controversy and aroused serious concern among adults. The Clearinghouse frequently fields questions like: What do children and young people learn from these series, the values and actions of which may run totally counter to those supposed to be taught by family and school? Is it not too early for child- ren to gain such a direct, yet false, insight into adult life? And, are young peo- 7 Foreword ple’s conceptions of the human body and appearances, not to mention their own self-images and behaviour, influenced by the ‘ideals’ of these series? These and other questions are addressed in the articles, based on current research findings, presented here. Finally, on behalf of the Clearinghouse, may I express our gratitude and ap- preciation to all the contributors and to UNESCO, whose financial support made the book possible. Göteborg in December 2004 Ulla Carlsson Director 8 Young People, Soap Operas and Reality TV Introduction by Cecilia von Feilitzen, Scientific Co-ordinator of The International Clearinghouse on Children, Youth and Media Soap operas have existed almost as long as radio and television have. And the research on soap operas and adults is rather extensive. One innovative U.S. study by Hertha Herzog, What do we really know about daytime serial listeners?, dates back to 1944 and was preceded by an article in 1941. The study focussed on the gratifications that housewives, the target group of such radio serials, received from listening. However, it was not until the 1980s that the soap opera genre, now on television, received intensive research interest. These studies were mainly carried out as text analyses, reception studies and cultural studies with women, as soap operas have long been conceived of (and looked down on) as a women’s genre. The term soap opera is, however, not used all over the world – in Latin America the most popular corresponding programme genre is the telenovela, and in Asia it is drama serials. There are also narrative differences between, on one hand, the soap opera and, on the other, the telenovela and Asian drama serial, of which one of the most conspicuous is that the soap is ‘open’, while the novela/drama serial comes to a ‘closure’ (see the introductory box The Television Genre(s) of Soap Opera, Telenovela, Drama Serial in this book, as well as the interview on Latin American Telenovelas with Valerio Fuenzalida and the article South Ko- rean Television Drama in Asia by Doobo Shim). There are also many cultural differences between the serials, be they soaps, telenovelas or dramas, depending on the country in which they are produced, something that is evident from the just mentioned texts, as well as from many other articles in this book. Recently, local and internationally exported soap operas, telenovelas and drama serials, often attracting large audiences, have become more and more common around the world, not least because of the explosive spread of cable and satel- lite television in the 1980s and 90s. In several countries, these fictional serials have also to a greater extent been addressing a wider audience than mainly women, that is, also men and young people. The U.S. Dallas and Dynasty (also for men) and Beverly Hills 90210, Sopranos, Ally McBeal and Sex and the City 9 Cecilia von Feilitzen (for the young audience) are examples of such soaps, and there are similar ten- dencies among novelas and drama serials in certain countries, the reasons being that the women of today are more engaged in gainful employment than previ- ously and that television in our contemporary media culture is subjected to ag- gressive competition from other channels and the new digital media. Many soaps, novelas and drama serials have also become increasingly daring – sometimes showing in a single or a few episodes more about sex, divorce, deceit, revenge, power struggle, shady economic transactions, crime, etc., than a person experi- ences in her/his whole life. Moreover, the soap/novela/drama genre has recently been accompanied by highly sensational ‘docu-soaps’, ’reality game shows’ or ’reality TV’. The defini- tions of this ‘genre’ or these genres are not commonly agreed upon and they have several historical forerunners – see the introductory box The ‘Genre’ of Reality TV in this book. Likewise, the authors of the articles presented here use the terms docu-soaps, reality TV, reality shows, etc., interchangeably. What the Yearbook and its authors focus on is more easily explained by referring to the recent genera- tions of ‘global events’ reality TV from the late 1990s and the 2000s, which are popular among young people, namely reality game shows such as Survivor, Big Brother, Popstars, Pop Idol and similar serials. For the historical roots and main concepts of reality TV – including the fact that actors are replaced by ‘ordinary people’, that the ‘story lines’ are not traditionally scripted, that the contestants are recorded in most intimate detail during their hygiene routines, eating, sex affairs, stress, and conflicts by constantly running surveillance cameras, and that the audiences often are allowed to vote out the contestants according to unclear criteria – see the introductory box The ‘Genre’ of Reality TV.