Reality Television. Dalla Tv della realtà alla Tv dell'emozione

The subject of this research is the neo-television communication practice which is characterized by production inspired by a strict adherence to everyday life reality, both in its more dramatic aspects and in its more banal ones as a result of an increasingly close involvement of the public and of ordinary people. After a brief history of the genre in Italy, in Europe and in the USA, the research show the way the programming of Reality Television presents some linguistic forms and some pragmatic choices which represent a sort of "rhetoric of reality". By analysing a corpus of programs of the 1995-96 Tv season, the research highlights the common features of the space-time parameters, the viewing modalities, the performing skills and the role of the television set, the narrative and pragmatic dimensions