Saturday, October 3, 2009

Week 1 Blog 2 - Spoiling Reality TV Shows

I am currently reading Henry Jenkins book entitled Convergence Culture:  Where Old and New Media Collide.  I am enjoying reading about how the popular reality TV show Survivor has a massive group of people that try to figure out the show before it even airs.  I have witnessed psychotic Survivor followers that religiously follow the show, but I did not know that there were a group of "spoilers" lurking!  The fact that people are using satellite data to determine where Survivor is currently being filmed seems above and beyond.  I find this group of people fascinating.  I use the word "fascinating" mostly because I don't understand why they spend so much time trying to figure out a reality TV show.

I personally am not sucked into many reality TV shows.  In fact after the first American Idol I have avoided reality TV shows because they can become time consuming (and I choose to spend my spare time completing graduate school homework).  I wonder if the people who are avid reality TV show watchers and spoilers have a common predisposition to liking this type of entertainment.  It is obvious that these people love solving problems since they invest an exorbitant amount of time into this "hobby."  Could these types of people use their skills in other ways?

As a teacher, I wonder how I could use students' natural inquiry to solve real science dilemmas.  Could the government, businesses, and scientists harness this problem-solving ability of reality TV loving groups to help them solve problems too?  I think this is something to seriously think about.







Resources:

Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide. New York: New York University Press.

Photo Credits:

K. Hirt, Utila, Honduras, 2007
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3 comments:

  1. clarkemOctober 4, 2009 at 11:07 PM

    When reading the chapter "Survivor Spoilers" I thought the same thing. I knew there were followers of Reality T.V. shows but I did not know about the "spoilers" either. I always wondered how people would find out information about shows before the ending of the season, now I know they are "spoilers". I too wonder why these Spoilers are spending so much time on something so useless. Really, what are do they do for a living? and what do they do to have so much extra time?

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  2. jbbOctober 11, 2009 at 1:27 AM

    excellent question. Maybe all the things that "reality TV" presents to it's viewers/participants are the things lost in traditional education. It would be said to think that TV is more participatory than education. Just ask TV people and educators, who is supposed to be serving whom and it might reveal where things have gone wrong in education.

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  3. theacademyoflife?October 25, 2009 at 10:17 PM

    I have the same feeling about reality television. I had kno clue there was a such thing as "Survivor Spoiling", and I think the understanding behind it is seems fun. The view in many ways become part of the game. I teach business classes so I too am thinking of a way to tie in the new show "Shark Tank" into the class.

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