Big Brother

Abstract

Since its launch in 1999, Big Brother has become that rare cultural phenomenon that brings the role of television and new media into the heart of public debate. Devised by Jon De Mol in The Netherlands, the Big Brother "project" was soon one of the most successful franchises in television history. As a sociocultural phenomenon, it inspired much discussion about the meaning and function of television and the internet at the turn of the century. In this issue, we attempt to put the series into context by presenting a series of papers that reflect on its success. Our aim is to connect the program to the larger shifts within television in what John Corner describes in this issue as postdocumentary culture.One of the first questions that arises concerns the question of genre: what exactly is Big Brother? A documentary, a game show, or a psychological experiment? Perhaps the safest answer is to say that Big Brother is a typical product of our commercially oriented age in being a hybrid, a combination of various genres designed to maximize audiences. Like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, what makes the format such a creative business proposition is that it has been imported into countries where their own national characteristics can be revealed.The newness of the format has passed some critics by. Instead they choose to fulminate about the role of television as a corrupting influence on both those watching and those participating. In this version, Big Brother represents a further "dumbing-down" of culture. In many ways, it is seen as a more damaging form of "reality TV." Critics argue that the production and consumption of such an exploitative program does not reflect well on any nation that screens it. In France, police used tear gas to disperse protestors who believed that the show undermined public morals. As Ernst Mathijs shows in his article on critical responses to Big Brother in Belgium, 251

Piperine Promotes Glucose Uptake through ROS‐Dependent Activation of the CAMKK/AMPK Signaling Pathway in Skeletal Muscle

“…In skeletal muscle, it is considered that TRPV1 expressed in the sarcoplasmic reticulum . Activation of TRPV1 of different cell types results in Ca 2+ mobilization and ROS production …”

Aprendiendo a amar: la evolución en el desarrollo dramático de los dating shows en España (1992-2010)

“…El estudio llevado a cabo no es meramente descriptivo para establecer una clasificación o simplemente una cronología, sino que profundiza en el desarrollo dramático de los dating shows, es decir, en los elementos estructurales que cambian y que hacen evolucionar el subgénero, así como en el influjo de GH en la nueva generación de programas de estas características. Hay autores que han apuntado que los formatos creados a partir de GH significan una traición al "noble impulso" del documental (Hill;Palmer, 2002: 252), y desde el primer momento surgieron dudas ante la capacidad representativa de lo que veían los espectadores, porque ¿cuánto de real es la realidad televisiva? (Cummings, 2002).…”