On June 25, The New York Times’ “Room for Debate” blog featured a collection of short pieces by academics opining on the “reasons people care about reality TV series.” Called “Why Jon and Kate Won’t Go Away,” these posts offered analyses like “the genre takes human subjects as the raw material for lessons in selfhood and social position,” in their assessments of reality content’s continued success and proliferation.
The professor’s explanations are uncharacteristically simple (perhaps due to NYT request) and ultimately fail to capture the complexity of the viewer/content relationship. By tacitly assuming that all reality content ‘works’ similarly (i.e., that all reality content is similarly meaningful just becauseit is reality-based) the explanations overlook the interplay of several psychological factors which, in my view, accounts for the power of vicarious narratives.
I therefore offer the following “3E theory” (developed with Andy Tuck at Applied Research & Consulting LLC). It maintains that all narrative content – reality-based or otherwise – ‘works’ because it provides its viewer with psychological comfort, reassurance or entertainment by eliciting feelings of Escape, Embarrassment or Edification. In fact, most popular content offers a complex mix of all three E’s. So while a particular narrative can simultaneously serve up responses from more than one E category – or affect different viewers differently – all content ultimately seems to ‘work’ (i.e., resonate, connect, compel future attention) on account of its E-ness.
Escape Narratives
Escape narratives come in two flavors: ‘escape to fantasy’ and ‘escape to the familiar.’ Fantasy-escapes are those narratives that allow the viewer to leave his life momentarily and project into an idealized life; a life in which he can be wealthier, better-looking, more athletic, or some other desired state of being. Sports programming, for example, often provides such an escape.
Escape is a mainstay of reality programming (‘Wow, how cool would it be to live in the Real World suite @ The Palms in Vegas?’). “America’s Next Top Model,” “American Idol,” “The Bachelor,” “Deadliest Catch” and “Make Me a Supermodel” come to mind.
Familiar-escapes, on the other hand, take several “everyday” — but notable — experiences and build them into an easily digested period of time (a single “Seinfeld” episode, for instance). Taken together, this series of otherwise-standard events becomes greater (funnier, more interesting) than they are individually. The psychological consequence is the self-realization, “my life looks/feels like that…I must be OK.”
Reality shows often compel escapes to the familiar (see “Airline,” “The Apprentice,” “Average Joe,” “Dirty Jobs” [for an unlucky few], “High School Reunion,” “The Pick-Up Artist” [for a fortunate few], and countless others).
Embarrassment Narratives
This is most reality programming and is clearly demonstrated in content like “The Jerry Springer Show.” By observing the failures of others, the viewer consciously (or unconsciously) thinks, “Wow…I’m glad my life doesn’t look like that,” which in turn makes the viewer feel good about him/herself.
VH1 is a dominant player here, with “I Love New York,” “Tool Academy,” “Charm School,” “Rock of Love,” “A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila” and several others sending shivers down the spines of mild-mannered viewers for years.
(It’s important to note that one viewer’s embarrassment is another’s fantasy-escape [or even familiar-escape!]; I imagine that this fact accounts for the popularity of controversial political punditry)
Edification Narratives
I associate Discovery, Animal Planet, The Science Channel, PBS, History, National Geographic and other “knowledge TV” with edification narratives. Fans of this content will often tell you that it is valuable to them because they “learn stuff” from it, but I suspect they are likely watching it because it makes them feel good (proud, perhaps) that they are the kind of people who actually care about these kinds of things (science, nature, the universe, etc.).
(Let’s face it… if it was only about acquiring facts, wouldn’t viewers just go online and get the facts they are after? It’s far easier to learn details about the Civil War from the Wikipedia entry than it is to watch a documentary about it.)
This affect is almost always unconscious, but evidence that it’s there can be elicited in qualitative research when respondents compare different types of content (as in, “I’m not going to waste my time with insect-eating on ‘Fear Factor’… I’d much rather learn how nylon and spandex become pantyhose on ‘How It’s Made.’”).
Some other edification-rich reality titles are “Survivorman,” “Man vs. Wild,” “Dog Whisperer,” “Intervention,” and “The Biggest Loser.”
I’d be happy to hear from readers about counterexamples to the theory or a way to reduce it to even fewer categories. As I continue to run content examples – particularly reality TV examples – through the 3E filter, it seems to hold up. I hope it helps you in your own development of content and/or your efforts to promote content.
Ed Castillo, SVP, Director of Account Planning at PHD Media, a Division of Omnicom. You can follow Ed @xandnotx
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