Rogers 1 Candace Rogers Mia Eaker ENG 1102 22 April 2013

Rationale My topic of choice for my project is how real is reality TV and what are its effects? I hope my audience gains more insight of reality TV and if they take away anything from my project, its that reality TV is in no way entirely real and that it influences people in not always the best ways. My repetend is a short phrase and it is mentioned in all three of my genre pieces. I chose to use fictional reality as my repetend because its sort of a play on words, and I personally feel that it describes realit y TV perfectly in the sense that they try to pass it off as real when its really just mostly fictional. Fictional reality will connect in my magazine cover, my top ten list, and my PowerPoint. Obviously it will be used to describe reality television in each genre; on the magazine cover it will be the name of one of the major articles, in the top ten list it will be in the introduction to describe reality television, and it will be the name of my PowerPoint presentation. As of today, teenagers and young adults are the most avid viewers of reality TV, but at the rate that it is growing, the next generation will mostly be raised watching those kinds of programs. That being said, I have two different target audiences: adolescents (ages 10-13) who are being brought up on reality television currently, and teenagers and young adults who have not necessarily been brought up on it, but are currently watching and becoming addicted to it due to its growing popularity. I feel like teenagers and young adults could mesh in the same category because teenagers

Rogers 2 are more closely related to young adults than adolescents. My research informed most of my perspective because before I even looked into any information, I was one of those people who wanted to believe so badly that reality TV was actually reality. Ive mentioned before that the series finale of The Hills was shocking to me because the very end revealed the actors walking off a set, leaving it up to the viewers to decide what was real and what wasnt. I know Im not the only one who was totally taken off guard by that and that there were plenty of other people who were as utterly confused as I. So since then Ive noticed that things in reality shows have to be planned; most of the time you can tell that a scene was set up and scripted. I dont really like the fact that people are being lied to by producers just to get ratings. Reality TV is like a guilty pleasure; you love watching it, but dont really want to admit it. I still watch reality television, but my perspective has radically changed from my research and I dont see most shows the same way now. As mentioned before, my genre pieces include a magazine cover, and top ten list, and a PowerPoint. On the cover of the magazine, I plan on using the phrase, my repetend, Fictional Reality as the name of the major article which will basically be centered around proof that some scenes from Keeping up with the Kardashians are reshot and edited. Ill include a picture of Kim Kardashian on the cover since the article is focused on her reality show Then Ill have sub-stories featured on the cover that include negative impacts of reality TV, the top ten list, and a story about how yet another couple from The Bachelor has called it quits. Chances are that if you watch reality TV shows, you also read magazines. Most of the time there are a lot of things written about reality shows in tabloids and although some of it is false information, it can be true sometimes. I chose

Rogers 3 this for both audiences, my teenagers/young adult audience and adolescent audience because they mainly read magazines and buy into the information that is inside them. I think that if they read a magazine that was focused on exposing reality television that they would believe it and the point would be made. Hopefully they would realize that Snooki is not a good role model and would not emulate her actions. The purpose of a magazine cover is to be short and to get the point across briefly to interest people into buying it and reading what else is inside. I think if teens and young adults saw something like this that they would be interested in reading about it. I plan on using bright colors to better attract people into reading it. I chose to do a top ten list because it is something more interesting to read than a lengthy magazine or newspaper article. It is a backwards countdown (starting at 10 to 1) of reality shows based on how fake they are and how theyve negatively influenced viewers. Fictional reality will be used to describe reality TV and will be mentioned in the introduction. This list would be included in the magazine, so I will mention it on the cover as one of the articles to read. The target audience for this will be the teens and young adults again, as I said that they were the ones most likely to buy and read magazines. Adolescents could possibly take interest in this, but its more likely for them to just flip through the pages and not read lengthier pieces. Teens and young adults may read about one of their favorite reality shows in the list and realize that its not really real. I think it could be an even bigger eye opener than just the cover because it actually is revealing information about reality TV shows. Its informal so its easy and more interesting to read, therefore better relating to teenagers and young adults. Just like the

Rogers 4 magazine cover, I plan on using bright colors and big fonts to further make it more attractive to my audience. My last piece is going to be a PowerPoint presentation titled Fictional Reality to be used to give out information on reality television and the negative effects it has been shown to have on people. This will be more informative than my other two pieces, as it will include statistics and actual information. Its purpose is to inform my audience and give them more knowledge on the subject of reality television and its false perceptions. I think this will be a good closing genre because the other two are more light hearted and humorous, as opposed to a PowerPoint which is meant to come across in a more serious matter to solely give information. Both of my audiences could see this and get something out of it. Even if their own personal views of reality television didnt change, it is more likely that they would watch a reality show and notice little things about the show that seem fake that they wouldnt have noticed before. My research in general influenced this piece because I wanted to be able to put all the details and statistics in one place, so I decided a PowerPoint would be the most productive way to achieve that. The template that I chose for the presentation is called couture and I picked it because thats what I think of when I think Hollywood and reality shows. I want my audience to know that these reality stars are not people to idolize; the entire Kardashian family is famous and filthy rich for what reason other than appearing on a reality show? Kim Kardashian is certainly no positive role model for girls of any age-her first rise to fame was due to her part in a sex tape with a B list celebrity. If any parent was ok with Kardashian being a role model to their daughter, I would be quite concerned. Hopefully my audience will

Rogers 5 take this kind of information into account and not believe everything they see on television. I believe each of my pieces fit well with my project in that they all relate to my line of inquiry: how real is reality TV and what are its effects? I hope to bring to light the trending topic that is reality TV and show people that its manipulated to the point where peoples reputations become tainted just because producers want them to be seen in a certain way for ratings. Each of my genres depicts reality television in a different realm and makes my intentions of my project clear-that reality TV causes more harm than good.