Influence of Reality-Based Television Shows on Adolescent Viewers: Empirical evidence

Abstract

Reality television is boon in 21^st century being one of the important players in connecting the world. Reality shows based on different activities have become a household brand in terms of television viewing.

The present study aimed at finding the influence of reality-based television shows on adolescent viewers from two perspectives – one is in creating awareness about crime in society and other is in sharing new ways of crime to viewers with criminal mentality.

Descriptive and hypothesis – testing research design it adopted in this study. Data is collected from 440 respondents of Delhi through well designed questionnaire using convenient sampling technique. Data analysis is done with SPSS 21 and results revealed that there are significant and positive influence of reality-based crime show on creating awareness and sharing new ways of crime to viewers too. The strong positive influence in creating awareness about crimes in society while moderate influence reported in case of new ways of crime to criminal minded viewers.

Parents are recommended to educate their children about good and bad part of reality-based shows.