When lives meet live: categorization work in a reality TV show and “experience work” in two home audiences

Abstract

This paper explores the cultural and political implications of some “seen but unnoticed” aspects of a TV program and its viewing. Both practices are approached as social interaction in a changing visual space. A close multimodal analysis is undertaken of an extract from a live Danish reality TV show Robinson Ekspeditionen 2000 and its two receptions. The extract was selected on the basis of what at first looked like a coinciding interpretative practice in two widely different audiences, first, an elderly couple in their living room, and second, four young men watching the same episode together. In the extract, the host interviews “judges” in the last episode of that year's series. The analysis shows how the host's talk, geared toward eliciting audience reactions, produces certain contrastive categorizations and positions. In both audiences, the host's categorization of a participant was met with an amused repetition of what was just seen and heard. The paper demonstrates why the two similar repeats actually show differing orientations to the formulation on the basis of different (life) experiences. The analysis of the extracts is used to discuss, with a combination of process-oriented theorization, the episodes in relation to the political atmosphere in Denmark anno 2000.