A Research On The TV Reality Show Under The Vision Of The Consumption Culture

It is a few decades since the Reality Show come out, but it has spread all over the world and become a strong TV text, not only created one and another ratings myths, but also formed a unique television cultural and economic form. A TV text is a mirror of social culture, so the popularity of the TV Reality Show can not be separated from the background of the Consumption Culture. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between TV media and the Consumer Culture by referring to Chinese and foreign TV reality shows, and to reveal the cultural characteristics of the TV Reality Show. As a perfect unite of the Consumption Culture and the Mess Media, the characteristics of the Consumer Culture such as symbolization and symbolic, commercialization and reproduction, day-life aesthetic and consumption for delight also project to the Reality Show, making it become a unite of cultural attribute and commodity characteristics, and follow the attention law of rating first, the ubiquitous advertisements show that the TV Reality Show is actually a conspiracy between TV media and capital, and capital creates a feast with a variety of lustrous and dazzling symbols, driven by curiosity and glimpse desires, audience participate in this carnival to get self identity and emotional support, but only to have false satisfaction, and the so-called master is just a dream of Utopia.Every coin has two sides; the Consumer Culture is no exception, the Consumerism’s destructiveness has impacted the Reality Show with some malpractices such as vulgarization leads to moral crisis, the homogenization results in audience aesthetic fatigue and a series of copyright mess, and commercialization caused a bad social ethos of supremacy of money, which are bad for the construction of harmonious society. According to these defects, this paper has carried on a rational criticism and reflection, proposed some corresponding suggestions. The Reality Show should take the actual situation of our country into consideration, make localized and ethical adjustments, focus on audience’s emotional needs, and take cultural responsibility. Only in this way can we contribute audience with more "meaningful" than "interesting" show, the Reality Show go on a healthy developing road.This paper has adopted methods like literature and case analysis, the related works and theoretical results referring to the Consumer Culture, the Communication, and the Reality Show, and taken some pioneering and typical reality shows as examples. On one hand, the Reality Show’s connotation and classification, origin and evolution, as well as the development in China were sorted and analyzed; on the other hand, the concept and characteristics of the Consumer Culture are elaborated and summarized. With the background of the Consumption Culture, from the relationship between the Consumer Culture and the Mass Media, this paper means to study the Consumer Culture characteristics of the TV Reality Show, so the research object is more specific and in-depth, and this is the innovation and theoretical significance.Finally, this paper analyzes current situation of Chinese TV Reality Show, and makes prospects about the future. It is facing two challenges, one is to overcome common defects and the other is to solve the problem of over reliance on the foreign models, and the fundamental way is localized innovation. We should set up market idea, study reality show innovation rules with elements composition and fusions, and pay attention to brand establishment, maintenance and extension, draw on useful experience of Europe and South Korea mode, we can launch a suitable reality show mode of China, and strengthen Chinese TV competence and cultural soft power. Therefore, challenges and opportunities coexist. With principle of bold supposition and careful verify, based on the popularity of the celebrity reality shows and their defects, combined with national policies and regulation situation, this paper believes future reality show maybe return to its original intention, amateur show will become the mainstream of next stage of reality show, before, celebrity and amateur binding reality show is a kind of transitional form.