Once huge ratings draws, reality TV shows are facing dwindling audiences in the UK and elsewhere. Is this the end of the genre, or can it adapt to survive?
Police forces across the country now have access to surveillance technologies that were recently available only to national intelligence services. The digitization of bias and abuse of power followed.
The dominant reading of George Orwell’s dystopian novel, “1984” has been that it was a dire prediction of what could be.
Denis Hamel Côté
In the year 1984, there was self-congratulatory coverage that the dystopia of the novel had not been realized. However, an expert argues that the technologies described in the novel are here and watching us.
Love Island 2017 stars Amber Davies (centre), Montana Brown (left) and Olivia Attwood (right) celebrating winning the Reality Programme Award at the 2018 TRIC Awards.
Ian West/PA Archive/PA Images
Many people dismiss the reality format as rubbish, but the shows and the social media discussion they promote are an important indicator of public opinion on vital issues.
Will facial recognition software make the world a safer place, as tech firms are claiming, or will it make the marginalized more vulnerable and monitored?
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Facial recognition software is an Orwellian concept that will monitor and regulate the public. Most disturbing is the recent announcement by China to use it in school systems.
Do you know who has the rights to access your digital data? And who might be interested in acquiring that information?
West Point-US Military Academy/Flickr
Sooner or later, China will recognise the value of digital assets. This adds to the urgency of citizens ensuring they control the data trails that tell the world what they think and do.
The brain during memory tasks.
John Graner/wikipedia
Shifts in our communication infrastructures have reshaped the very possibilities of social order driven by markets and commercial exploitation.
Marc Smith/flickr
Nick Couldry, London School of Economics and Political Science
Capitalism has become focused on expanding the proportion of social life that is open to data collection and processing – as if the social itself has become the new target of capitalism’s expansion.
Home Secretary Theresa May is giving new powers to the police, which will enable them to clearly identify who is using a computer or mobile phone at a given time. Putting the politics of national security…
Viewer numbers might be down – but more and more people are interacting with Big Brother via social media.
AAP Image/Nine Network, Paul Broben
While much has been made of the drop in ratings for this year’s season of Big Brother, not to mention cancellation of the Friday and Sunday episodes, social media activity is actually showing a slight…
The suspense of reality TV hangs on viewers’ votes for contestants. Can social media predict winners and losers?
AAP Image/Nine Network/Paul Broben
Reality television, alongside shows such as Q&A – which may be Reality TV in all but name – frequently drives social media conversations about the Australian television industry. Big Brother, currently…
So it’s Day 21 in Channel 5’s Big Brother household. It would also have been George Orwell’s 111th birthday. And this month marks 65 years since his landmark novel Nineteen Eighty-Four was first published…
Big Brother is back … but will we watch?
AAP/Big Brother
It’s tempting to wonder whether Channel Nine’s “Be Surprised” slogan, heralding the return of Big Brother, is intentionally ironic. After all, its producers are proudly offering nothing new. Speaking to…