If the earliest psychologists had Big Brother, perhaps some of their conclusions would have been different. Technology as it relates to this very popular reality television show has turned many viewers into what could be referred to as pseudo-psychologists.
The Big Brother Africa season is nigh and there have been animated discussions concerning the airing of the hugely popular reality television show on DStv. This year’s edition will be the fourth in the series, and the discussions have swung from extremes.
In the last two seasons, the debate was on the propriety of including all the scenes captured by television cameras in the 24-hour reality TV show, seeing that parental guidance was necessary to prevent minors from seeing scenes of supposedly indecent exposure of flesh or scenes that may be considered sexual. The scenes Nigerians strongly objected to, as articulated by some members of the legislature and sections of the media, were the bathroom sessions and uncut versions. With the announcement of the fourth edition, which is scheduled to start in September this year, at a media launch recently, another uproar followed? M-net, owners of the content said that the shower hour and uncut versions had been expunged. What would people look forward to if shower hour and uncut versions of Big brother Africa are removed? Many of the journalists queried.
The reality show is not different from other reality shows on television, especially those programmed along the same lines as the BBA. Indeed, there is Big Brother reality show in Europe as well as the United States. Many more countries are signing up to staging their version of the very popular show which sequesters people of different backgrounds for a certain period of time. Based on the rules of the house, the most persevering of the housemates, or the one with the most guile, based on viewers’ perception and determined by their votes, wins and goes home with the prize money and unto subsequent fame. But the process leading up to the finale reveals the housemates in their basic characters and looks, sometimes without their cloths to the viewing public.
When human beings are sequestered for that long – BBA usually runs for three months – their tact concerning exposing only a part of the part of their body they want people to see falls. Sometimes, they get carried away and fall in love with other housemates and what follows thereafter are not left to the imagination of the viewing public but are brought to their living rooms in bright colours and sensual scenes.
But this time around, BBA will have nothing of that. All manner of sexual relationships have been banned. Shower hour, which used to beam the behaviour of housemates while in the bathroom to viewers, has also been deleted. The uncut versions which are unedited recordings of the house which may not be appropriate for young viewers that in the past were beamed late in the night have been cut. Replacing these are innovations that are set out to make this edition of the reality show even more enjoyable. But what is BBA without the shower hour and uncut versions?
What is New in BBA4?
The biggest innovation and one that will have the most impact in the new season of BBA tagged “Big Brother Africa: The Revolution” is the technology. There will be 40 all-seeing, all-knowing cameras, and 100 microphones to search out all the sights and sounds that are open and hidden. There will be no hiding place for any of the housemates, nor will they have the ability to hide conspiracies, intrigues, plots, and even whispers! All will be laid bare before the viewing public! The technology accompaniment promises to be bigger than the seasons 1, 2 and 3 of Big Brother Africa combined.
To put this into perspective, a football match of clubs in top European leagues are usually covered by about 20 cameras. Now, the standard football pitch is bigger than the BBA house and has more players (25, including the referee and his assistants), than the Big Brother House. All the actions missed by the referee and his assistants are captured by the cameras. Then how much more in a smaller environment with fewer participants?
 In addition to the number of cameras and microphones is the prize money, which has been upped from US$100,000 to a massive, life-changing US$200,000 winner-takes-all. Also, the old rules banning conspiracy in the house has been lifted. Contestants will be free to forge alliances, discuss strategy openly and play the game in an entirely different way. The voting pattern has also changed. This season, audiences will be asked to vote for the housemates they want to see remain in the house rather than the housemates they want to see leave the house. Fourteen housemates, an increase of two from previous seasons, will compete for the ultimate prize.    
“The team has been working for months already, fine-tuning the latest edition, focusing on delivering the ultimate Big Brother Africa. We’ve got quite a few secrets this time around…After three seasons; it was time for a fresh spin, time for bright ideas. This series is for the fans, to say thank you for supporting Big Brother since it began. So we are giving them the best gift we can – a show to beat others,” said Biola Alabi, director of M-NET Africa. Following up on this vision, the producers Endemol have also been busy analysing and observing other Big Brother successes around the world to develop innovative elements in order to inject fresh new creativity into the production of BBA season 4.    
In the new season, housemates will once again be asked to nominate their fellow housemates for eviction, based on whom they want to see evicted from the house. This time around, viewers will then vote for the housemate they want to see remain in the house. This is expected to keep the best housemates in the house for as long as possible.
Another innovation, although making a return, is the head of the house role. This will allow the player who wins the Head of House task each week the special power to save a housemate who is up for eviction and replace this housemate with one of their own choosing. In addition, the head of the house will have extra powers and other special privileges this season.
But without the new technology, the promises made by Alabi will not materialise because this edition will not be different from previous editions. The technology underpins everything that has been put together to make this year’s edition the best ever.
The All-Seeing, All-Knowing Big Brother
The Big Brother in this year’s edition of Big Brother Africa has 40 eyes and over 100 ears to search out and record everything the housemates do or say. This will be recorded and broadcast on television and the internet. The housemates cannot eat, rest or sleep without viewers seeing their every move. With the higher scrutiny the housemates will receive this year, it is even possible for viewers to literarily see into their minds to explain the motivations for the actions they will take. And this one of the most interesting feature of this year’s series.
The general format of Big Brother provides interesting demographic and sociological perspectives on human behaviour. Confining 14 people from different backgrounds and countries, with the only connection being the English language, to a house for three months, they are forced to interact with one another. Living together under continuous observation, the programme relies on four basic props for providing these perspectives: the stripped-bare back-to-basics environment in which they live; the evictions; the weekly tasks set by Big Brother and the Diary Room in which the housemates individually convey their thoughts, feelings, frustrations and of course their nominees for eviction. Forced to live with total strangers for three months, Big Brother helps viewers see how people react when they are removed from their usual environment and placed among total strangers. Without the aid of cameras and microphones and the television and the internet, it is not normally possibly to observe such interactions vividly. But with the aid of technology, insights are gained into the motivations and actions of people when removed from their comfort zones and forced to put up with strangers for a lengthy period of time.
Predictably, many of the airs the housemates came with to the house, which are facades that cover up their real self, fade within a very short time. Alliances in the form of friendship are struck for many reasons. For some, it is to survive for as long as long as possible in the house, or somebody to simply bond with, or in some cases, real attraction between some of the housemates and they then go on to become friends. As the show progresses and the number of housemates thin out, strategies are devised by the housemates to eliminate other housemates that they consider a threat to their ultimate goal of going home with the prize. All these mirror, to a smaller or larger extent, the competitive nature of man in the real world.
BBA housemates will be drawn from Nigeria, Angola, Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Ethiopia, a collection of diverse people from countries with different histories and cultures, languages, ethos, and aspirations, creating a melting pot of personalities, tempers, and ambitions. It is a psychologist’s delight as he will be presented innumerable opportunities to watch and analyse the human mind and the motivations behind many of the actions we take.
If Freud had Big Brother…
The growth of technology and its application in many human endeavours have helped to create deeper insights into behaviour, greatly contributing to the understanding and growth of the behavioural sciences. The Big Brother reality television series is a platform that has turned many viewers into pseudo-psychologists, generating issues that are argued via text messages and internet.
If Sigmund Freud, still regarded as the doyen of behavioural sciences had had help from Big Brother, perhaps many of his conclusions would have been different.   Freud was quite influential in two related but distinct ways: he simultaneously developed a theory of how the human mind is organised and operates internally, and a theory of how human behaviour both conditions and results from this particular theoretical understanding. His theories laid the foundation for the growth of psychology and psychoanalysis. But he operated in an era technology was not as advanced as it is now. Moreover, he had no help from hundreds of cameras and microphones to capture the expressions of the thoughts of his subjects.
But audiences will have more powers than Freud had with his subjects in that they can determine to vote out of the house housemates whose behaviours in their estimation falls short of their expectations. This they will do by voting for the housemates they want to see remain in the house, while the housemates that is not as well liked is evicted.
Technology, that great leveller of divides, has made the Big Brother television series a phenomenal success.