The Cultural Industry in Germany. Application of Adornos Theories to "RTL" and its Reality-TV

Seminar paper from the year 2019 in the subject Communications - Multimedia, Internet, New Technologies, grade: 1,3, Korea University, Seoul, course: Studies in Television Culture, language: English, abstract: This papers purpose is to analyse the genre of Reality TV and find certain patterns which help these shows to be successful. Furthermore, this article deals with one of the most known theories in terms of culture industry. The German philosopher and sociologist Adorno advocates a very pessimistic view on this phenomenon, which is applied here as vehicle to classify the private channel „RTL“ and its program offerings, especially Reality TV. This paper wants to find out if his gloomy ideas became realized there. Reality TV is a hybrid genre which merges authenticity with production. As the name implies, it suggests an attempt to portray reality through the medium of television. These programs are made to overcome the scripted nature of television shows and their predetermined endings by "real people" in "real situations" which should evoke the feeling of honest. But this “reality” is only partly true.