(Im)politeness and exploitative TV in Britain and North America: The X Factor and American Idol

Abstract

Biressi and Nunn (2005, p. 2) note that ‘the highly visible presence of ordinary people in “unscripted” situations is both the watermark of reality TV (RTV) and arguably an explanation of its success with audiences’. RTV creates entertainment through its likeness to what audiences recognize as real. That sense of the ‘real’ can be enhanced by the use of language that is unscripted (not predictable), unstandardized (not conforming to prestige dialects or styles) and personal (not selected for a public audience). Such language is entertaining: the unpredictable, non-conforming and personal make for exciting TV. Impoliteness is not dependent on such language, but it is typically associated with it. It is thus not surprising that the rise of RTV has seen a rise in impoliteness on TV, as many lay commentators have bewailed (see Lorenzo Dus et al. in this volume, for academic evidence). Indeed, one might note that over the last two decades traditional chat, quiz and talent shows have developed popular exploitative genres (see Chapter 1). The key feature that separates the exploitative from standard non-exploitative genres is that the former are characterized by impoliteness, something which has been a focus of recent research (e.g., Culpeper 2005; Bousfield 2008; Lorenzo-Dus 2009; Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, Lorenzo-Dus & Bou-Franch 2010; Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, Bou-Franch & Lorenzo-Dus 2013).