Semiotic Analysis of MTV Roadies

Introduction: We are moving into the semiotic analysis of MTV ROADIES; attempt is to bring clarification to the persuasive symbols and messages used within Reality Television game show MTV ROADIES . The use of various codes and symbols, connotations, myths and how they are being consumed by consumers. Before we begin the analysis lets take a look at the show, MTV roadies is a reality show that is on air on MTV India. For the participations auditions are held at various cities of the country. They go through several questions that would test their patience, attitude and various other characteristics which the judges believe are going to provide feast for the public. There is no such limit to how many candidates will be selected but last few seasons there were around 13 participants. Then over next few weeks various tasks will be given to them which might include boxing, water sports or any act which comes near to the idea of challenge , but the show is not about this idea alone, real show lies in the interpersonal relation amongst the participant. How they act and react to each other and how they behave as a group during the show is that what defines the real content of the show. Based on their performances and the vote out which is being done by the team itself eliminations happen.

The show offers public involvement in every challenge and generates opinions for the participants. If we look at it carefully the public involvement is what every show looks for and this is the space where all the codes and values come into play. Considering the current impact of internet the footage of the show is also available on the internet. So, reality TV deals with various individuals along with various forces of social structure competing under certain given situations

Persuasion:

The channel, the concept, contestants and the viewers are playing the game of persuasion at various levels and within that persuasion all the symbols, myths coexists to serve one purpose and that is to sustain certain ideology and why sustain because it is the same function which must have worked earlier may be through print, radio, cinema so, MTV ROADIES IS PERSUASIVE BECASUE IT IS BEING CONSTRUCTED TO SUSTAIN EXISTING STRUCTURES (CULTURAL),AND IT IS TRUE THE OTHER WAY ROUND ALSO MTV ROADIES BECOME PERSUASIVE BEACUSE IT HOLD CERTAIN IDEALOGIES.

There is another very important and interesting aspect in reality shows and that is conversion of a viewer into a contestant with MTV Roadies all the contestants are non-actors and before they were selected as contestants they reacted to the show as viewers. This provides us a very interesting paradigm that if any medium is creates a persuasive popular concept then viewers consider it as their responsibility to sustain it.

Lets look at some of the cultural codes MTV Roadies represents:

Attitude, Style Sexy, Power, Clever, Smart, clever, cool

All these terms have their dictionary meanings which are completely different from their cultural and emotional associations or connotations.

Look at the term attitude, it means something but while being used as a term in MTV Roadies it is being associated with aggression, shrewdness all those characters who have shown complete insensitivity towards rest gets maximum popularity and even in the past shows the term attitude has been given similar associations and if we look at the channel it represents almost similar values in terms of these terms. Contestants are given makeovers to sustain the media images. The languages they use during the shoots again focus on those terms, because if you are cool you can use words like fuck off etc.

Identification:

The process of identification happens at various levels, firstly the role of individuals inside a show represents our society where various forces are competing with each other to get something, secondly, the idea of challenge, hurdles and all those attributes which are required to have in order to win the hurdles, there is another important aspect and that is access to someones personal lives that represents our longing to know whats happening inside.

Objects of desire A television show serves our longing but it doesnt do it actually, it makes us feel that we have achieved something by attaching ourselves with certain characters, the whole nation is involved in what is going to happen to roadies, who are going to win, who is better, who is cooler, who is hot and so on. Any woman who is on MTV is sexy and the term has been given association by the channel along with infinite advertisements, print, cinema and anyone who wants to be on MTV has to look like sexy. That sends out a continuous message to all those women who are not sexy that they lack something and that generates a negative pull towards the channel and the show. The same applies to men, they have to have attitude but even if they can do away with their looks because men represents power more than looks. If we look at closely under the name of break the rules MTV Roadies is sustaining all the conventions of the society, difference is only the look of it. Making absence presence is the function of persuasion and placing all the images of challenges, bitching with a casual approach that is where pride stays for current generation (thats what Roadies stands for in reality). Presence of the camera while doing all the challenges and during their eliminations provides an illusory common space to viewers where they feel as the part of the show. Camera setups, comments, reactions everything is being designed but Mtv Roadies comes under the tag of realism and it points to all the associations in our minds where we forget to look at the underlying factors. Viewers are limited to only edited versions of the show being decided by the producers. The TV time shows only the finished episodes which mean that real time is being captured first edited accordingly and then send on air it means IN OUR MINDS THE CONCEPT OF TIME IS RELATED TO MOVEMENT OF EVENTS RATHER THAN

EXACT TIME, LIKE IF SOMEONE IS SITTING ON A HOT PLATE WILL FEEL THE TIME DIFFFERENTLY AND ONE WHO IS WITH HIS LOVER WILL FEEL THE TIME AS QUICK*, IT MEANS WHILE WATCHING A REALITY SHOW WE ARE COMPLETELTY DRIVEN BY THE TERM ITSELF BECASUE THIS PARTICULAR TERM HAS ALREADY CREATED A SPACE FOR ITSLF IN OUR MINDS OVER A PERIOD OF TIME.*
(*Concept of time by Albert Einstein)

We consider all the conflicts happening inside the show as real.

MTV Roadies present a smaller version of young world where they have to compete and win one prize. There is only one door and all of us have run through that only that is the underlying thought or myth that is running the show.

During the auditions characters like Raghu and Nikhil Chinappa shout, abuse use words like fuck off and so on and the here the idea of self abuse invites all the youngsters to go for the auditions, if you notice channel shows only those excerpts of the audition where there is shouting and abuse , there are two important elements first one is we do not mind our favourite characters doing such things since they are successful they have all the right to abuse and that somewhere supports oppressive nature of the powerful and passive nature of weak and here the whole youth is weak and Raghu and Chinippa since they come on MTV they can abuse anyone and getting abused by them is divine.

What we have analyze so far

The concept of realism along with the help of medium has created a space called as reality TV where viewers turned contestants or actors compete with each other to win a prize. An MTV Roadie represents a culture and an age group in our society which is competitive in nature and who are cool. Clever, sexy, bitchy, full of attitude and so on. All these terms have their connotations and our contestants represent these connotations. Here we can look at the innate capacity of medium to first create associations through infinite attacks and take our mental space completely and then relive those associations through public participation in order to sustain their own structure. MTV Roadies is functioning as a factory of meanings where with every image, dialogue a whole set of system is replayed and sustained. While consuming these meanings viewers cannot escape because if you are not a possessor of these traits you are not cool, clever, sexy and so on and it is very important to be these since they appear everyday on national TV and everybody knows and you are a star so, there is no escape. The format of elimination represents what is mentioned above if you do not have what it takes then you are eliminated and that elimination happens in the minds of viewers of themselves, elimination happens at a meaning level where millions of youngsters would eliminate all those qualities from their minds which are not in the contestants who stays back .

The idea to investigate doesn't indicate our intentions to place it in the models of morality; our effort is only to get an insight into something which is governing our lives. We are surrounded by images and ideas and in this crowded mind space it is difficult to realize that beyond all these scripted, designed, polished life there is a life which is not good or bad or beautiful or ugly but it is as it is just like trees.

Bibliography : Cinema Studies The Key concepts, Second Edition, Susan Hayward, Routledge Key Guides A New Earth - Eckhart Tolle , Penguin Books (Chapter on Television Pg 230-233)

Media Semiotics Jonathan Bignell, Manchester University Press Understanding Reality Television By Su Holmes, Deborah Jermyn Semiotics for Beginners David Chandler Online References Lectures on Understanding Media by Marshall Mcluhan Semiology - Roland Barthes Theories -http://www.ic.arizona.edu/~comm300/mary/semiotics/barthes.terms.html Saussure's Third Course of Lectures on General Linguistics (1910-1911) http://www.marxists.org Roland Barthes, Ferdinand De Saussure, Anthropology, Structuralism, Post Structuralism Source Wikepedia History of Art - http://www.all-art.org/contents.html Semiotic Analysis of various Movies and Advertisements.

Copyright Kanika Prurhi, 2008, All rights reserved