"Dad Came Back" TV Spectacle Phenomenon

The modern media spectacle is a product of the combination of the culture industry and different forms of media such as movies, news, advertising,Internet and other new digital media. It is also a product of culture media after a large amount of research, investments, creation and experiments. This spectacle can not only be used to reflect the modern problems in real life, but can also be used to explain these problems and bring social attention at the same time. Nowadays, media culture promotes the development of economy and the creation of consumer society. The facts that all the media giants start to merge together and become larger and larger only lead to more severe competition, and only the continuous creation of “spectacle” could capture the market. Under such circumstances, reality TV shows in China also gain tremendous popularity. Especially, the shows focusing on the life of celebrities and their children obtained such a high rating and popularity because of their reflection of the main value of Chinese culture. Among them, "Dad Came Back", with its natural style and socially concerned parent-child topic which is expressed through the interaction between the star dads and their kids, has been accepted by the majority of the audience.Combined with the media spread advantages, “Dad Came Back” provided a common field to communicate with audience and formed a new media spectacle.With Douglas Kellner’s "Media Spectacle" as the theoretical basis and a realistic context of media convergence as the background, this thesis uses a specific reality TV show as a case study to analyze the phenomenon of spectacle process. This thesis follows the technical route of “spectacle formed- to create a spectacle for the audience’s wonders of text interpretation”, and analyzes the spectacle “Dad Came Back” formed environment, communication content and expression, as well as explores a strategy study behind success of this reality TV show. As described in “Media Spectacle”, "Dad Came Back" just uses the image to express the real world and also letwhat is expressed in the image influence the real life, which consequently leads to a television spectacle.The success of “Dad came back” does not only rely on the influence of media itself,but also makes Zhejiang TV and its Parental types of programs receive widespread attention. The combination of online video and other forms of online interactive media further validates the formation of the role for media convergence in the media spectacle.This tells us that only the operating principles which adhere to market-oriented media and innovation can create images that truly meet the psychological demands of the audience and form the television spectacles.