Essay Paper

In this paper I will be reviewing both academic and journalistic articles on the hit series MTV’s The Real World. Both articles took different approaches when critically looking at the television show. The amount of evidence that was offered in the academic essay was significantly bigger than what was offered in the journalistic essay. The academic essay I looked at came directly from our textbook, it was “Constructions of Reality on MTV’s The Real World: An Analysis of the Restrictive Coding of Black Masculinity” by Mark P. Orbe. This article made claims such as “The Real World is not about characters following a pre-determined script, but rather the real life experiences of young people…that work to unmask and deconstruct racial and gender stereotypes”. The journalistic article I chose to review was found online on the RollingStone website, it was “The Real World' Keeps Turning: How MTV's Hit Survived to Season 29” by Andy Greene. In his review Greene mainly talked about how long the series has lasted rather than touching on what the text is about. On the other hand Orbe provides plenty of evidence on how this text shows “the ways in which this programming format contributes to the hegemonic power of racial images in reinforcing a general societal fear of Black men.” One of the most noticeable things between the two papers was the length. The academic article by Orbe was fourteen pages long in the textbook, without adding his references, while on the other hand the journalistic article by Greene was more of a Q&A with the producer of the text. Greene had about 12 questions answered by the producer and some answers were short. The length differences in both papers was mainly due to the fact that Orbe’s academic article backed up it’s arguments with proof and sources making it longer and more credible. Greene’s journalistic article did not really make an argument; it was all Q&A filled with the producer’s opinions, making it way shorter than Orbe’s.
When it comes to timelines Greene’s article was timelier than Orbe’s. What I mean by that is that Greene’s article came out in 2014, rather than in the early 2000’s like Orbe’s article. You could say that this can correlates to the audiences of the shows. Since Orbe’s academic article was published in the early 2000’s meaning his audience would have been the people who were watching the seasons aired at that time. As for Greene’s journalistic article that was published just this month, his audience might be the viewers of the more recent season featuring the cast’s exes that just joined in on the series. Generally we expect Orbe’s audience to be more mature and academic because of the arguments being presented as well as the format of the paper, which is way more formal stylistic than Greene’s informal journalistic article. You can say that the style of writing has a lot to say about the information being presented. Orbe’s more formal article seems to hold more important and useful information he is trying to get our while Greene’s informal article is just a series of questions being answered by the text’s producer. Greens’s audience wants to know why the text has managed to stay around for so many seasons. This however is not the case for Orbe’s audience. His audience wants an academic view of the TV show where it micro analyzes aspects of the text, such as coding of Black masculinity through the characters and storyline of the TV show. Greene’s audience can expect a quick answer to a question while Orbe’s audience can expect a lengthier and more analyzed paper with narrow focuses on certain aspects of the text. We have compared Orbe’s academic article to Greene’s journalistic article and we came to a few conclusions. We concluded that Orbe’s article was much longer in length compared to Greene’s, because Orbe made an actual argument and backed up them up with concrete evidence, sources, and proof unlike Greene’s article which was simple questions being answered by the text’s producer. The audience between these two articles was different, Orbe’s audience is more mature and academic while Greene’s audience is basically any one who is interested in the show today. However, Greene’s article was timelier than Orbe’s because his paper was written just this month including the new stuff that is going on in the text today. This correlates to what their audience can expect from these papers. Owens audience can expect an academic microanalysis of the characters and the coding of Black masculinity, while Greene’s audience can expect a quick easy to read Q&A with the producer of the text. So in conclusion Orbe's article is more academically challenging in comparison to Greene’s article about MTV’s The Real World.