Content analysis: extreme reality television programming versus contest based television programming

This master's thesis looks into the world of reality television programming by comparing two different types of programming and measuring the occurrences of 13 visual and audible production techniques. The two types of programming are extreme based reality shows and contest based reality shows. For the purposes of this study, the extreme based shows were Hoarders and Hoarding: Buried Alive. The contest based shows are Big Brother, The Amazing Race and Dirty Jobs. For each watched episode in the same, the researcher recorder the occurrences in real time by watching them through Amazon.com video on demand. The occurrences were documented in a coding instrument. The research suggests that even though the hoarding based shows are labeled as extreme, they contained less overall occurrences of production techniques than the contest based shows. In fact, the contest based shows had significantly more occurrences of these techniques. The findings revealed that all shows in this research use a tremendous amount of production techniques. Often, they occur at such a quick pace that they could be easily missed if a viewer was not paying attention. These techniques add to the overall look and feel of each show. In some cases, the occurrences are used to accentuate the scene and add a dramatic effect. In other cases, they are needed for a viewer to fully understand the contents of an episode.