Video interventions in “everyday life”: semiotic and spatial practices of embedded video as a therapeutic tool in reality TV parenting programmes

Abstract

Video technologies have made their way into many domains of social life; for example, as a useful tool for therapeutic purposes. Reality TV parenting programmes, such as Supernanny, Little Angels, and The House of Tiny Tearaways, all use embedded video as a prominent element, not only of the audiovisual spectacle of reality television but also of the therapy, counselling, coaching and instruction intrinsic to these programmes. The main uses of embedded video can be categorised into the following genres: live video observation/monitoring; live video relay and instruction from one space to another; and video-prompted recall. Using a multimodal conversation analytical approach, excerpts from these programmes are analysed to investigate several key phenomena: mediated space and video practice; use of embedded video to localise, spatialise and visualise talk and action that is distant in time and/or space; the translating, stretching and cutting of experience in and through video technologies; and the display and embodied mediation of professional vision. The use of video technology enables the professional to do a number of important therapeutic or counselling tasks; for example, to give timely advice and instruction to a parent in the midst of a troublesome situation involving their child(ren) or to use playback of video recordings of past conduct to prompt reflection and a perspective shift by the parent(s). These have to be managed both temporally and spatially, as sequentially organised settings in which semiotic space is designed to channel interaction and experience, and interactional space is governed from a distance through the semiotic representations afforded by the video technology.

Keywords:

• embedded video
• reality TV
• parenting
• media therapeutics
• mediated space
• recall
• instruction
• professional vision

Notes

1. The following acronyms are used throughout this paper: HTT (The House of Tiny Tearaways, BBC), LA (Little Angels; BBC) and SNUK (Supernanny, UK version; C4). It is from these series that the examples in this paper are extracted. Other notable series are Driving Mum and Dad Mad, and Honey, We're Killing the Kids (Ouellette and Hay 2008a, 88–92).

2. See McIlvenny (2008) for an extended discussion of the interpenetrability and interleaving of multiple spaces and participation frameworks of “front” and “back” in reality TV parenting programmes.

3. This is clearly seen in the strategic use of live video relay, in which the parents wear a hidden wireless earphone so they can surreptitiously hear the voice of the professional while they are interacting with their children. In the scene, they appear in situ to be completely autonomous and involved with their children. If the children suspected their parents were acting as puppets manipulated by an outside force, then any success that the parent would have in controlling the conduct of their children would probably be undone.

4. See Broth (2004, 2008, 2009) for analyses of the complicated task of producing a “live” televisual product from the collective work of the television studio team; and see Carter (2004) and Ytreberg (2006) for insights into the back-stage production and the novel forms of scripting used on the Big Brother reality TV studio set. Heath and Luff (1992, 1996) have investigated the use of live video surveillance in organisational settings such as the London Underground to monitor and intervene in remote sites where passenger management is paramount.

5. The audiovisual data corpus on which the analysis is based consists of recordings of single episodes or a series of episodes following the same family or families. Some of the recordings feature a Danish voice-over (because they were recorded when they were rebroadcast on Danish television), others have the original English voice-over. The extracts have been transcribed using a modified conversation analytic transcription system (Have 2007) to cater for the representation of the talk-in-interaction within the complex interspatial events and practices. Hand-drawn images and comic-strips are used to highlight visually the actions and talk in space and over time. The additional transcription conventions are as follows:

6. In an earlier paper (McIlvenny 2008), I analysed extensively the live monitoring session in Excerpt 2. At one point, Kelvin notices that his daughter, who is hiding from her mother as she enters the room, gestures to the camera. I have analysed this as an example of an interspatial gesture, in the sense that the space–time of observation is folded into the space–time of action by the gesture. In order to gain agency, Sophie playfully stretches the inter-action, creating a more extensive actor-network, which interlaces at least two distinct spaces – the “front-stage” of the monitored site and the “back-stage” of the monitoring site – in an ironic fashion.

7. An unusual “rupture” sequence may occur when a parent (or child) moves between sites:

I.	Parent exits the “front-stage” monitored site and enters the “back-stage” monitoring site.
II.	Reception of parent backstage: (a) Professional instructs parent to return. (b) Professional encourages parent to stay.
III.	Period of observation of child(ren) by professional and parent.
IV.	Instructions by professional.
V.	Return to “front-stage” site.
VI.	Commentary on parent's conduct.

In this case, the bodily transition between two mediated spaces is managed by the participants, much as it is in video observation when a parent enters the space of observation.

8. Most often the directive takes one of a variety of forms: a “do as I say” (e.g. “tell her that …”); or a “do as I do” (e.g. “look at the birdie”); or performed as a “doing with” the parent. Infrequently, the parent(s) may initiate by interjecting before the professional prompts or issues a directive.

9. The response receipt may be said in low volume, thus attending to the “private” audio channel of communication between parent and the professional (e.g. Excerpt 6).

10. Ironically, it is at this point that Tanya is independently advising the mother to disattend her daughter's actions.

11. There are occasions where the clips are viewed more publicly, for example, with other parents present (e.g. in The House of Tiny Tearaways and Driving Mum and Dad Mad). The clips are obviously chosen for their pedagogical and therapeutic potential.

12. To my knowledge, there are no cases in the reality TV parenting programmes in which the interpretation of the parent(s)'s conduct in the video clip by the professional is explicitly contested by the parent(s), although there are cases where the professional's comments and advice based on their prior observation of the family (but not in the context of video-prompted recall) are resisted. For instance, in the Bailey family episode of the first series of the US version of Supernanny (SNUS 1–6: Bailey), the parents – especially the father – are upset by Jo's negative evaluations in their own home of their family's lack of routines and disciplinary practice.

13. In the reflections after each clip, the participants reference the (conduct in the) video either verbally or by their eye gaze and body orientation. When a reference (e.g. “that was a ve:ry ha:rd night” on line 12, “when you wa:tch it” on line 16, or “when you sa:w that” on line 45) is made to the event or the conduct recalled in the video, the speaker shifts eye gaze in the direction of the monitor, and sometimes a gesture is made towards the monitor (line 25).

14. Laurier and Philo (2006, p. 188) note that “what the video recording provides in the way that it preserves is seemingly a re-observation of an emerging event. In the practical efforts made to avoid changing the events being recorded and to exclude from the record events that were clearly produced by the presence of an observational device, the recording serves the activities in that each clip … lasts only as long as the activity. The video records allow the researcher to examine past activities not as past but rather as ‘formerly present’ (Raffel 1979)”.