The rise of the music industry, in dedicated music channels such as MTV, The Hits and Scuzz etc, as well as the rise of reality television taking on music conventions, is a clear indication of the change in the television landscape. The idea of a passive audience becomes apparent when the consumer is simply watching an over-paid, over-rated artist produce another “hit” single in a string of manufactured pop, or another aspiring musician hitting the wrong notes in a woeful audition broadcasted only for the cheap laughs aimed towards their target audience. On the other hand, to suggest “we are a society of passive consumers” could be wide off the mark, especially those that watch, for example X-Factor, who regularly vote and take the program more seriously than other members of the viewing public. Some, possibly through the influence of tabloids and magazines, garner a favourite within reality music shows and obviously spend their money on keeping their favoured contender in to eventually win a prize usually consisting of money or a music contract, usually both of them as they hit the music industry for three months of fame. Before they disappear into the vortex of “one-hit wonders” and celebrity shows like Big Brother as they desperately seek the attention and money they believe they worked so hard to achieve before their inevitable demise. The celebrity industry itself is a fickle business and most of these manufactured artists never hit the heights of their first single, and a result fall out of the national limelight.

So how can I relate this to the tabloid media? Well, it becomes quite apparent when leafing through a Sunday edition of the News of the World, Sunday Mirror etc, which I get aforementioned opportunity because of my job as a Sunday paper boy. They have dedicated supplements on the weekend’s action, fuelling this obsession about celebrity lifestyle, mundane shows that can sap your money and drive some people to depression.



To take a closer look at X-Factor, 250,000 odd hopefuls tried to break into the competitive music industry that can make you a millionaire, but also break your reputation, plunge into the depths of depression; reduce you to an anarchic drug-taker and possibly, even more serious ramifications. Nevertheless, through the blind loyalty to the Capitalist system, budding musicians sing not only for the fame, but more predictably for the money. We see nothing but desperate fresh-faced talent plucked from their normal, usually poorly paid jobs and catapulted into the celebrity world; most of them struggle to cope giving “sob stories” to win over the hearts of the more sensitive audience. What informs the audience as Simon Cowell plays to his “villainous” role in the Judge panel as the more sensitive, cheerful Louis Walsh tries to argue? What educates the audience as Cowell and Minogue gets into a petty argument? What is informing in music videos as another rap star poses by a swimming pool consisting of scantily clad women wearing as much as “bling” as money can buy and more importantly what is entertaining about seeing a broken woman shattered at missing out on a place in next week’s knock out stage? If you succeed, and sometimes even fail in reality music television (Gareth Gates, Lemar et al), what happens next? You lip-sync to a song clearly edited through studio interference, if you are female you simply become a sex object to the audience, thus strengthening the image that the audience are passive, and if you are male you are expected to flash your six-pack with a girl on each arm wearing the most expensive brands money can buy. This is certainly mindless entertainment, the educational or even the thought-provoking music videos are becoming decreasingly unpopular, thus replacing this with tedious escapist videos where everyone in a music video is attractive and conforming, those who are not are simply ridiculed or even punished. Not only mindless entertainment then, but articulate propaganda for the infamously obscure celebrity lifestyle that so many teenagers chase in the blind hope of gaining the affluent lifestyles these fake, manufactured show-ponies undeservedly attain.



In conclusion, these shows and music channels clearly do not educate and do not inform on a particular sophisticated level, and for some people these shows do not even entertain. Ultimately, these shows manifest its reputation to the nation through widespread media coverage, its accessibility and escapist, entertaining nature. The audience participation ensures that the audience is not completely passive but to suggest they are strung along to luxurious, mindless entertainment seems to be a cynical, yet true, conclusion to draw.