Symbolic Violence, Culture and Reality TV Competitions

Presentation of violence on screen is an important social problem. Violence is subject to the lots of television programs such as news, films, serials, competitions and even cartoons in verbal and nonverbal ways so often. Symbolic violence which might be described as the gentle form of violence is also frequent on screen. One of the television genres which symbolic violence has been seen frequently is Reality TV shows and its subgenre cooking-themed competitions. Cooking-themed competitions are one of the popular formats of Reality TV competitions worldwide. In these competitions symbolic violence which has been permeated in daily life is visible. In this study aiming to demonstrate the symbolic violence on TV in the case of cooking-themed competitions, Come Dine with Me (UK) which is the origin of the genre and Turkish version We are at Dinner (Yemekteyiz) were compared. In the study, signs of the symbolic violence were analyzed in two steps. First, it was evaluated if there was difference in general formation of the programs. Secondly, personal and cultural differences on presentation of symbolic violence between the countries were analyzed.