As a result of the growing popularity of social networks, virtualization and
digitization of culture, art, and the formation within the framework of globalization
of a more or less homogeneous media-environment, significant changes have taken
place in all spheres of the society of the 21st century. In the global dimension,
reality shows have become the formative and most visible element of
postmodernization and post-postmodernization cultural processes and changes. In
the global dimension, reality shows have become a formative and most visual
element of cultural processes and changes, not only television, but also the
Internet, an audiovisual form of reflection of reality. The decisive factor in their
influence is the cultural aspect of creating a reality show as both a supplier and
consumer of various topics, displaying trends aimed at various social and gender
groups of society, etc. The speed of their development, thematic diversification and
goals not only passively reflect the events in the surrounding socio-cultural
environment, but often exert a full-fledged media influence on the cultural,
communicative, processes, fashion and appearance of the audience, introduce new techniques into the art and structure of the narrative.
The reality show phenomenon is based on the principles of journalism
(documentary) and television entertainment shows, which have many different
branches. It is the multifaceted nature of journalism genres — from informative to
artistic and journalistic, in combination with no less diverse genres of television
programs that has provided a wide range of topics for reality shows. In addition to
observation and transmission of reality, journalism also performs educational and
propaganda functions in reality shows. This is helped by directorial methods,
which are most often used by directors in feature films. In this way, the
combination of directorial means of expression with journalism has ensured the
position of the reality show as one of the most popular types of programs in the
television space of Ukraine for more than thirty years. In addition, it was with the
appearance of domestic reality shows on Ukrainian television that it became
possible to talk about the design of television space in audiovisual culture and the
spread of one’s own culture abroad.
The author has made an attempt to analyze reality shows from a cultural
point of view, in particular, to establish a correlation between social and cultural
transformations in the historical context and changes in the themes and goals of
reality shows, to identify cultural archetypes in the cast of reality show characters
and their national archetype. At the same time, the study of the artistic structure,
the structure of the narrative and artistic means, the expressiveness of reality shows
indicates that reality shows are a new morphological formation, which in its
features, artistic means and narrative structure reflects the characteristic features of
post-postmodern audiovisual culture of the beginning of the 21st century.
