01/28/2002 Entry: "Breaking Where, Exactly?"

Mercury Center story in "Breaking News": BBC producers borrow from Stanford experiment for reality show. Interesting to note, however, that this story broke first last May (before they'd finalized the name) and also in October in the UK Press. So much for "Breaking" news.

As far as the show itself, I'm conflicted. The Stanford Prison Experiment was the impetus for all kinds of ethical questions regarding Social Psychology Experiments, and I find "Reality TV" somewhat repellent anyway. But I'm vaguely curious to know what happened, and how they kept this "experiment" from getting out of hand. Part of me really wants to see the experiment conclude in a non-exploitive way, but I'm not sure that "Reality TV" knows how to do that any more than the psychologists knew what their independent variable was.