Realism in Media Texts

The genre and form of a text often determines how realistic an audience believes it to be. Think about how realistic the following genres and forms are:

• television news
• newspaper
• feature film
• reality television
• documentary
• soap opera

Often, we discuss how realistic film and television is. This is frequently determined by the content and construction of the text. The film United 83, for example, employs technical codes that encourage us to believe that its realistic. Filmmaker Paul Greengrass is acclaimed for creating documentary style feature films. His previous films included Bloody Sunday and Bourne Supremacy. Although the film is based on true events, Greengrass uses naturalist lighting and handheld camera movement to imply a sense of realism.

Audience knowledge

The knowledge, attitude and experience of an audience also has a bearing on how realistic we believe media texts are. On October 30, 1938 the Mercury Theatre presented a radio dramatisation of HG Well’s The War of the Worlds. The script, which was written by Howard Koch and Orson Welles, started with a series of live newscasts reporting an invasion from Mars. Although this style of presentation was not new, many listeners mistook the broadcast as factual and it sparked widespread panic. An audience’s knowledge of the text, its form and content can have a bearing on how realistic they believe it to be.

Context

The context in which a text is read can also have a bearing on how realistic the audience believes it is. Context covers everything from marketing and promotional campaigns to the conditions in which the text is viewed.

The marketing campaign surrounding a film, book or television program often influences the way people read and respond to the text. Films are often promoted as being ‘based on true events’.

Through its online promotional campaign, The Blair Witch Project was promoted as being actual footage, despite the fact that it was a fictional film. The film created a heightened sense of fear by convincing many audience members that it was real, despite various reviewers explaining that the film was fictional.

The remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre was marketed with the tag line ‘Inspired by a true story’, despite the fact that events like the ones described in the film have never occurred in real life. The film itself was very loosely inspired by real life serial killer Ed Gein. In fact. the real inspiration for the original film came to Tobe Hooper when he was working in a hardware store: “Here’s what director Tobe Hooper recalls about developing the screenplay: “I was in the Montgomery Ward’s out in Capital Plaza. I had been working on this other story for some months — about isolation, the woods, the darkness, and the unknown. It was around holiday season, and I found myself in the Ward’s hardware department, and I was still kind of percolating on this idea of isolation and such. And those big crowds have always gotten to me. There were just so many people to go through. And I was just standing there in front of an upright display of chainsaws. And the focus just racked from my eyeball to the people to the saws — and the idea popped. I said, “Ooh, I know how I could get out of this place fast — if I just start one of these things up and make that sound.” Of course I didn’t. That was just a fantasy.” The context in which a text is read determines the level of realism we ascribe to it.