Student viewers tune in every Tuesday evening for MTV s The Real World and every Wednesday evening for the recently-finished CBS Survivor, not to mention any number of reality television type shows such as Cops. I watch to see the conflicts between the different individuals, said Shane Ferguson, junior speech communication major. It s exciting to see the different people from different backgrounds trying to coexist.
Conflict makes it more exciting.
Haden Pennington, a senior speech communication major, watches for the suspense of who gets the reward at the end of the show. I watch to see who s gonna get the money, Pennington said. It s just real people out to win a million bucks. Reality television shows trace their ancestry back as far as the beginning of the French Lumiere Brothers creation of the motion-picture camera, according to Dixon McDowell, chair of the department of radio, television and film. The Lumiere Brothers used their newly created camera to film such subjects as workers in the factory where they were employed.