JERSEY SHORE!

Background

Jersey Shore is an American reality television series that premiered on MTV on December 3, 2009 in the United States.

It follows the lives of eight housemates spending their summer at the Jersey Shore in New Jersey.

Season 2 followed the cast to Miami Beach then season 3 returning back to the Jersey Shore. Then season 4 was filmed in Italy and premiered on August 4, 2011.

The show debuted amid large amounts of controversy regarding the use of the term 'Guido/Guidette' as portrayals of Italian-American stereotypes and scrutiny from locals because the cast members were not residents of the area.

The show is dubbed a cultural phenomenon and has garnered record ratings for MTV making it the network's most viewed series telecast ever. The series' cast has also been credited with introducing unique lexicon and phrases into American popular culture. The University of Chicago and the University of Oklahoma are among the educational institutions that have had classes or conferences about the show. In 2010, the cast of Jersey Shore was named on Barbara Walters' 10 Most Fascinating People list and the series has since been exported to dozens of countries worldwide.


 Production History
VH1 producer proposed the idea of a show focusing on the 'guido' lifestyle for TV in the form of a competition series. MTV networks felt the series 'loud, young, bold' style was better suited for MTV than VH1 and after The Hills it was time to go for a more authentic approach, like a documentary. When casting they looked for 'candor, honesty, boldness and a very combustible, chaotic mess. You could honestly say none of these people were traditionally beautiful'
The eight housemates are:
Angelina Pivarnick, Jennifer Farley, Michael Sorrentino, Nicole Polizzi, Paul elVecchio, Ronald Ortiz-Magro, Samantha Giancola and Vincenzo Guadagnino.


Season 1: 1.375 million viewers and grew in popularity and was the subject of parody on Saturday Night Live
Ranked #1 in its time period vs all cable competition among P12-34
Season 1 finale audience: 4.8 million
Increase of more than 3.4 million 
Was MTV's highest rated original series telecast in almost 2 years


MTV and Universal Republic released a soundtrack creating the perfect summer playlists
Gym, Tanning, Laundry: The Official Jersey Shore Quote Book was released by MTV including a bonus DVD with the most memorable moments from season one.
A sticker book: Jersey Shore Activity Book was also released and a wall calender
Bobble heads dolls of the cast, a beach game set, Halloween costumes, a GTL sports bottle, The situation- Official App for iPhone and T-shirts.


MTV receive criticism from Italian American organizations for the way in which they marketed the show, as it liberally used the word Guido to describe the cast members.
The term Guido is regarded as an ethnic slur when referring to Italians and Italian Americans.


UNICO National formally requested that MTV cancel the show and called it a 'direct, deliberate and disgraceful attack on Italian Americans... They are blatantly as well as subliminally bashing Italian-American with every technique possible'
Other Italian-American organisations joined the fight such as NIAF and the Order Sons of Italy in America.
MTV responded 'We understand that this show is not intended for every audience and depicts just one aspect of youth culture' then several sponsors have requested that their ads not be aired during the show, these include Dell, Domino's and American Family Insurance.


Several Parodies included
Jersey Shore: Spoof'd
Remixed songs of Tik Tok, Empire State of mind and California Girls to make fun of the show
Webcomic Jersey Circus is a mashup of artwork from the newspaper comic strip The Family Circus
Mad on Cartoon Network made a mash up of the Disney Pixar movie Up and Jersey Shore which they named S'Up.
TNA Impact!
South Park entitled the ninth episode of the 14th season 'It's a Jersey Thing parodying the cast of JS.

Similar shows:
*The Only Way is Essex
*Geordie Shore
*Lake Shore
*Brighton Beach

My Critical Investigation Idea!

My three possible investigation options are:

* E-media's control over society and how we do things and interact.
How one thing can get posted online and spread around the world in a matter of seconds is extremely interesting to me, and also how we can interact with people in different country, but in turn this has made us not really have an actual social life but a virtual social life.

* Jersey Shore- The glamorisation of being trashy and thus the breakdown of high culture.
I am interested in investigating the viewpoint that the media is low culture, using Jersey Shore as an example of how it has somewhat contributed to the oxymoron that it is glamorous to be trashy and not having any morals or self respect. People no longer want to be smart or respected they prefer to have drunken parties and sleep with whoever they can. Why is this now acceptable?

* The power the media has in invading privacy.
If I do investigate the above topic I'll be wanting to find out about the phone hackings and Rupert Murdoch's empire and how the media are angered by celebritie's use of super injunction and in a way are triggered to invade celebrities privacy even more. To what extend can the media break boundaries? And if the celebrity has offered themselves to the media through magazine features and reality TV shows, can they really accuse the media of invading privacy?

I have settled on:
JERSEY SHORE!