The Fine Line between Person and Persona in the Spanish Reality Television Show La isla de las tentaciones: Audience Engagement on Instagram

Abstract

The hybridization of television genres has led to numerous non-fiction television shows that base much of their success on audience engagement through social networks. This study analyses a specific case, that of La isla de las tentaciones (Temptation Island), to identify interpretive frames in reality shows and their interrelationships with audience involvement on Instagram. Based on a corpus of 8409 comments posted on Instagram by the followers of the program’s actor profiles, the article analyzes the lines between reality and fiction in this non-fiction television show about relationships and infidelity, and, in particular, how online “haters” play a performative role. The show’s participants who were unfaithful are insulted and receive numerous negative value judgments. The “coding and counting” method, drawn from Computer Mediated Discourse Analysis, is used for the coding. Results show that viewers barely allude to this show as fiction, do not differentiate between the actors and their characters, and empathize strongly with the stories they view. The study shows the need for media education, both for those who make the media and those who view it. The goal is not to detract from entertainment value, but to improve critical skills and to recover the educational function of media.

Promoción de Élite (Netflix) en sus redes sociales: una comparativa entre la primera y la quinta temporada (2018-2022)

“…Este fenómeno suele darse durante la emisión en directo de los programas que más audiencia generan, tanto dentro de España como en el extranjero (Navarro, García-Muñoz y Delgado, 2022;Ramón, Paíno-Ambrosio y Rodríguez-Fidalgo, 2022;Torrego, Gutiérrez-Martín y Hoechsmann, 2021). Además, también se puede encontrar en el mundo del streaming (García, De la Fuente y Martínez-Borda, 2022).…”

Mensajes de odio hacia la comunidad LGTBIQ+ en los perfiles de Instagram de la prensa española

“…Desde el punto de vista de la comunicación, más allá de la política, se ha estudiado cómo se comunican los jóvenes a través de Instagram (Candale, 2017), las diferencias de género que existen en sus usos comunicativos (Cuenca et al, 2020), cómo ha modificado la comunicación visual (Sarmiento-Guede y Rodríguez-Terceño, 2019) o cómo es utilizada por parte de celebridades para crear su discurso mediático (Mattei, 2015). También se han analizado los perfiles en esta red de periódicos (Aguiló, 2020;González, 2020;Góngora y Lavilla, 2020a;Góngora y Lavilla, 2020b), programas de televisión (Torrego et al, 2021), prensa deportiva (Rojas y Panal, 2017) y radios (De-Sola-Pueyo et al, 2021).…”

Health Promotion on Instagram. Descriptive-Correlational Study and Predictive Factors of Influencers’ Content

“…The study by Ref. [16] emphasises the power of social networks based on how the audience of a television programme creates a reality constructed from what happens in the programme, but not restricted to it. Aside from what happens in the TV show, a virtual debate takes place in which everything, from behaviours to the way people dress or their responses to the programme, is analysed.…”

“…Further research is needed to improve the ethical standards of media and media education to differentiate what is truthful and rigorous from what is mere entertainment, also aiming to avoid real-life harassment situations derived from the characters appearing in different television programmes, by learning to discern between reality and fiction, the character and the person [16].…”