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Affects of Soap Operas/ Reality Shows on Society

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Submitted By leiadame
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Almost every household in today’s society, owns a television and pay for some type of digital cable service. Television delivers both audio and visual feedback to viewers, which makes this the preferred method for entertainment and receiving information (Holmes and Jermyn). But this preference for communication also brings along with it certain concerns linked to how people have embraced this form of communication. Reality shows are a type of Television shows which have gained continuous popularity over the years. Due to reality shows being linked to real life scenarios, they have grown popular among viewers who prefer them and willing to watch them as compared to other shows available on Television (Ford and Kosnik). Soap-opera, survival and wildlife documentary are just some of the popular reality shows aired on TV in recent years with each attracting its own audience but yet these shows are very unrealistic.
Each Reality show will have a different effect on a viewer. Some People may like survival and wildlife commentary that tend to provide actual knowledge, while others like soap-operas. Soap Operas tend to attract more women than men. Some examples include Love and Hip Hop, The Real Housewives etc. These types of shows are more destructive to the family unit because they glamorize and over exaggerate family problems. Soap-opera’s mainly focus on creating shows that depict families and couples suffering from major disputes and stress. At home family problems should not be handled the way they are on tv(Wyatt and Bunton). While this may be overlooked by many people to be just a Television show, these reality shows have been identified to have a major effect on the viewer’s mind. Research shows that since Television began being viewed by large numbers of people in the 1960’s and 70’s the rate of marriage complications, disputes and separations has increased at

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