Gogglebox is a constructed form of and a distorted reflection of reality. A Post-Traditional observational documentary, mediated by Channel 4, re-presenting real people, TV culture and reality. It is a microcosm of our reflexive society, allowing for multiple readings as a semiotic democracy whilst presenting hegemonic ideals. This is a critical analysis of The Representational, Factual and Fictional and Intertextual construction of Gogglebox, and how they influence the audiences’ interpretation of said constructed reality.
Gogglebox idealizes tradition whilst epitomizing Giddens post-traditional society (Giddens 2013). Our fractured audiences lead to the representation of ‘tradition’ being the family gathered around the television, this however has to be constructed and mediated in such a way it is not ‘true’ but merely verisimilitude. An aspect of Post traditional society that makes Gogglebox so representative of modern British society is how opinions and attitudes towards; family, programs, broadcasters and TV are less influenced by precedents set in tradition.
The Goggleboxers are open to make their own actions and choices, restricted only by public opinion and law. It is a highly reflexive text, mirroring and almost acting as a microcosm of our post-traditional, reflexive society. Gogglebox reflects on its own constructed state, and yet the idealized tradition Gogglebox presents is another mediated construction designed to re-present the masses and produce a feeling of nostalgia for the audiences. The Goggleboxers, discuss the issues in mainstream media, disagree with each other and what the media tells them, they create and take their own meaning from texts, the discourse creates new meaning of texts for the audiences, disrupting and distorting original messages by the broadcasters.
Post-traditional society has encouraged further discourse; this discourse the Goggleboxers partake in regarding the media they consume can be divided by Halls reception theory (Hall 2007). The producers encoded messages can be decoded as preferred, negotiated and oppositional readings, as evidenced in Gogglebox different people can have different readings of the same text. A segment in Gogglebox (S03 E05) where they watch ‘The Michael McIntyre Chat show’ for example, Rev Kate and Graham, among others, take an oppositional reading of how Nigella Lawson is presented as a ‘princess of the pantry’, making reference to her then recent cocaine scandal and divorce, whereas the Sadiqi family take a preferred reading and have sympathy for Nigella. Reception theory plays an important role in how the cast and audiences are represented, as well as needing to have a wide range of British Society on the program, Channel4 have ensured multiple perspectives were taken into account, which lead to multiple readings and effects how the audiences associate with the program.
Presenting multiple readings of the same text, allows the audiences to have their own perspective verified.
Because the Goggleboxers are real families the audiences can relate to them by personally identifying with individuals, this would have been intended by the shows producer Tania Alexander who ensured the cast ‘represented a cross section of British society’. Blumer and Katz use and gratification (Communication theory 2016) of personal identity also allows the audiences to have their own personal beliefs reinforced, personal beliefs that potentially would not align with the hegemonic ideals they are subjected to daily through the media.
Audiences gain information on the world, culture and identity and feel a sense of belonging because they can relate to the cast personally, again particularly if their beliefs are not in the mass media so often or so prolifically. That said the content of Gogglebox is based heavily on Prime Time TV, so you would expect the viewers of Gogglebox to be mainstream audiences since in order to relate to them the audiences must know what the cast are talking about. This links to the gratification of information, an audience member could watch Gogglebox and gain world, social and cultural information as a form of learning.
Additionally so long as they had some knowledge of Prime Time TV then they would be able to engage with and relate to the Goggleboxers. Entertainment as a use and gratification of Gogglebox could be considered a way the dominant class/group are oppressing the masses; the proletariat are distracted, diverted from real life class struggles in order to prevent a revolt. It could however also be emotional release, a form of escapism or getting intrinsic cultural or aesthetic enjoyment.
Audiences may feel more represented in Gogglebox than in other mainstream media down to the careful selection of the cast in order to represent as many of the potential audiences as possible, giving them more incentive to watch the show. The audiences will be influenced by the casts own opinions or have their ones verified because of the strong relation they have to the Goggleboxers. The sense of a wider connection to society because Gogglebox is a cross-section of said society, and the personal identity audiences will have could strengthen the preferred reading of hegemonic ideals presented in both the original shows and the carefully mediated footage on Channel 4’s Gogglebox.
Media is a constructed form of and a distorted reflection of reality. Whether, for example, a scripted drama or an observational documentary such as Gogglebox they are both construction and neither are ‘true’ reality rather reflection of, verisimilitude at best. From mediation to Hegemony (Hill & Fenner 2010) and to the ‘culture industry’ Gogglebox is neither wholly true nor false, rather a collage with multiple layers of ‘truth’ and ‘false’ conveying a possible variety of hegemonic ideals.
Gate Keeping (Dyer 1985) as a mediation of Gogglebox influences the audiences’ interpretation of the text and messages encoded within, if you assume Fiske’s Semiotic Democracy (Advertising and Society 2011) (Which I believe is evidenced in Gogglebox) rather than effects theory (E. Shaw 1979) which argues the audiences are dupes accepting all the media throws at them. Gate keeping itself puts into question the truth of Gogglebox, is this fact or fiction? Since ‘media’ is a distorted version of reality, Gogglebox would include distorted representations of people and Prime time TV, perhaps even distorted messages and ideals. A reality program, even an observational documentary is just as heavily mediated as a fictitious one, Gogglebox as an observational documentary therefore has the same treatment, and the level of ‘truth’ of the program would vary episode to episode, reaction to reaction, depending on the Agenda Setting of Channel 4.
Dyers ‘gate keeping’ and how that influences the audiences can be seen in three parts within Gogglebox, the two-tier gatekeeping by broadcasters and the self-mediation from the cast. Firstly, the two-tier gate keeping; the original gatekeepers being the broadcasters of the original prime time program, have mediated and constructed the text with encoded culturally hegemonic ideals. X-factor promotes dominance of these ideals, specifically Pop-culture: to have ‘The X-factor’ for example, denotes (Citrinitas 2016) a combination of ideologically good; talent, looks and personality, to have something different and special which is not learnt but natural. The connotation of ‘The X-factor’ is mainstream media, pop-culture, mass-culture, sex and controversially fake, produced, and unoriginal, recycled content. The latter, more controversial connotations portray a disenfranchised view of pop-culture, fakery and therefore the hegemonic ideals X-factor represents. Gogglebox is a prime example of how audiences have become disenfranchised, consistently arguing against the content of the program such as song choices and judges decisions on acts, this is reflective in the year on year fall in ratings for X-factor.
Gogglebox as a microcosm of society, reflects the national feelings of discontent, or channel 4 are selecting elements which support they’re own goals and beliefs since they as the second tier gatekeeper mediates the footage they show, how that footage is broken up and what responses they select to portray to the audiences. Again putting into question how Gogglebox is a true reflection of society when the example of audience disenfranchisement of X-factor could be considered one dominant group (Channel 4) attacking ideals of another (ITV). Furthermore Channel 4’s ability to mediate leads to distorting the original content and encoded message or simply replacing it with their own, for example a shock X-factor result that has been emphasized on the original program is questioned by the ‘Goggleboxers’.
The quality of the talent was evidently not up to standard for X-factor but was so for the many families shown on the program. Consequently in Gogglebox, Channel 4 have replaced the ideological messages of the original program with their own, liberal, messages, portraying the semiotic democracy and encouraging the audiences to give the texts their own meaning. Finally, self-mediation, the Goggleboxers, knowing they are on TV create a hyper-reality, they mediate their own actions and words presenting themselves as false. They’re gate-keeping of their own actions, added to the construction by Channel 4 you get a lack of true verisimilitude throughout Gogglebox on every level, from the original prime-time TV, to Gogglebox itself and finally the Goggleboxers. Gate keeping on three levels creates gives falsehood of the program, although the genre as an observational documentary is designed to be and has the purpose of being truthful.
Gramsci’s Hegemony (Hill & Fenner 2010) can be portrayed in more than one way with Gogglebox, firstly the use of only terrestrial channels and Prime Time TV, secondly the said power of mediation by Channel 4. The capitalist system, supporting these hegemonic values and ideals, which are being filtered into these programs to be decoded by the audiences, faces, in Gogglebox at least, little resistance, they mostly agree and support.
They have the power to give different meanings through discourse and to create meaning for themselves which is seen occasionally as evidenced with X-factor, but it shows how powerful Prime Time TV is in successfully conveying messages. Within one culture, it seems, this hegemony crosses, the traditional, racial, religious and geographical boundaries, as all that the Goggleboxers share in common is they are British watching British/Western TV.
This brings into question what is true and what is false within the media; since the media is a distorted representation of reality everything would be both false and true simultaneously. Including cultural ideals, whether they are the domination of a social group over the proletariat or evolved cultural ideals the media presents because they know that’s what the audiences want. Gogglebox as a ‘reality’ documentary still conveys the same ideals, and yet the dominant group are not on the program it is the proletariat themselves.
Using the proletariat, leads to the use and gratifications of ‘Personal identity’, reinforcing the values that are impressed on the media in the culture industry to the audiences. Additionally, ‘Entertainment’, they the audiences are diverted away from their low status, preventing revolt. Channel 4 mediate the program, as the second way in which hegemony is presented in Gogglebox, and it is within channel four that the dominant group would be effective at ensuring the dominant ideology and cultural hegemony is still filtered through a program designed to critique just that.
Thus, whether Gogglebox is ‘true’ or ‘false’, has little to no consequence to society as a whole, so long as the same messages are encoded and more importantly decoded in the correct manner to distract the proletariat and convey the same overarching hegemonic ideals in order for the dominant group to maintain control.
Watching people watch TV was a concept first aired as a regular section of ‘Noels house party’ (91-99), Gogglebox takes this concept and produces a whole program on the reactions and discourse between Goggleboxers as the audience. The show relies heavily on elements of others in order to form its own content through said discourse. For example there is implicit referencing to ‘The Royle Family’, a sit-com again that plays on the same concept of watching people watch TV. Narrators of Gogglebox as Craig Cash and Caroline Aherne who had both starred on ‘The Royle Family’ seems to make the intertextual reference explicit. By referencing, either implicitly or explicitly, other texts, Gogglebox also references and recalls ideals from the original texts. This is visible in two ways, firstly, Channel 4’s use of referencing ‘The Royle Family’, echoes tradition and family values, whilst also recalling the ideals set by the BBC in the prime time program.
Given that Channel 4 use only terrestrial channels and prime time programs emphasizes the shared ideology they contain. Secondly, Gogglebox is a literal example that ‘Any text is the absorption and transformation of another’ Kristeva (Word, dialogue and Novel) having clips and tissues of other texts come together to form a whole ‘new’ text. The ‘transformation’ is how ideals and meanings are distorted and disrupted by discourse and Channel 4s mediation; the visibility of various readings of texts specifically causes disruption of the audience’s interpretation.
Because of the high usage of Intertextuality in Gogglebox, most of which explicit, using direct clips from only Prime Time TV, the influence the repeated ideals have on the audience could be high, however as discussed, the discourse created on Gogglebox particularly if it is against the traditional ideals disrupts their flow and there is little consistency in how these are encoded to audiences, leaving the audience free to create their own meaning with limited influence. Furthermore, Bakhtin (Graham, A) argued words are in dialogue with aspects of their placing, and meanings are constructed in relation to the social conditions they take place in. Therefore the texts presented in Gogglebox will have an altered if not different meaning to someone watching the program as it is, as a whole.
The social condition of Gogglebox is presented as a primarily comical relief for people and families to relate to, this differs entirely to most of the shows that have clips in the program, for example ‘Poldark’, ‘X-factor’, ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ and ‘Planet Earth 2’. Additionally, each family on Gogglebox have their own social condition that will effect how they perceive meaning in the texts, this would contribute to the differing readings presented on Gogglebox and to the audiences.
Gogglebox: a TV show where you watch other people watching TV, could be no more of a perfect example of ‘culture industry’ working not for the interests of the consumers but in the interests of capitalism and the ruling class/dominant group. Adorno and Horkheimer (A & H, 2002) viewed the main function of culture industry to merely distract the proletariat from the inequalities of the class system, undermining any need for revolt. The TV show is in fact a simple re-dissemination of prime time TV and their associated ideals encoded within. Therefore giving support to the statement, ‘under capitalism all mass culture is identical’ (A & H, 2007:405) Gogglebox could be described as the recycling bin of cultural ideals, this further supporting Kristevas argument.
To conclude, I would like to make two points; I believe it is the constructed nature of Gogglebox, with the cross-section of British society and the mediation from Channel 4 that makes Gogglebox ‘factual’ rather than ‘fictional’’ Its re-presentation of people, TV culture and reality, a distorted reflection yes, but the freedom the cast have to create meaning for themselves makes it all the more truthful and the microcosm truly reflective of societies response to media and creation of meaning for themselves. The ‘truthfulness’ of Gogglebox leads to a support of semiotic democracy and not only allows but encourages the audiences to take and create their own meaning from a text. Secondly, the use of both explicit and implicit intertextuality creates nostalgia of traditional TV Culture whilst the show epitomizes a Post-traditional society; this combination further supports the power of the audiences. The audiences now know through discourse, reflecting on their constructed reality they can make their own meaning and do not have to accept the hegemonic ideals of mass media.
