tin’s Press, 2000. Lead detective on the Ramsey
case argues that the Boulder district attorney’s of-
fice protected the Ramseys.
Maureen Puffer-RothenbergSee also Crime; Klaas kidnapping and murder
case; Simpson murder case.
Real World, The
Identification Reality television show
Creators Mary-Ellis Bunim (1946-2004) and
Jonathan Murray (1955- )
Date Premiered on May 21, 1992
The series mixed documentar y and soap opera elements, spawn-
ing a new era of television programming, the reality show.
The Real World, created by Mary-Ellis Bunim and Jon-
athan Murray, first aired on May 21, 1992, on MTV.
Bunim, who had produced soap operas for sixteen
years, and Murray, with a background in journalism,
became partners in 1992 and created the 24/7 docu-
mentary series about seven strangers ages eighteen
to twenty-five living together in New York City and
having their lives filmed. The house was filled with
cameras, the residents wore recording packs, and
camera crews followed them whenever they left the
house. Each subsequent year, the show moved to a
new city with seven new housemates.
Impact The Real Worldbecame the model for future
reality television series. It enjoyed enormous popu-
larity, becoming the longest-running MTV show of
the 1990’s and continuing its success into the twenty-
first century. Despite the show’s popularity, many
critics believed that what began as a legitimate look
at young people as they tried to find their way in the
world became increasingly voyeuristic, self-referen-
tial, and orchestrated. When the series began, seri-
ous issues such as prejudice, politics, morality, sexu-
ality, and personal growth were explored honestly
and openly. Many subjects taboo on network shows
were routinely presented. Then the show gradually
changed, providing casts with weeklong vacations,
ready-made employment situations, and fantasy
housing, which increased the show’s artificiality.
Cast members were chosen to ensure conflict and
controversy, and some participants seemed to have
serious medical and emotional problems. Instead of
locating the casts in cities with varied cultural and
employment opportunities, producers started plac-
ing them in resort communities, with cast members
becoming overly self-aware and too focused on sex,
fame, and binge drinking.Further Reading
Hill, Annette.Reality TV: Factual Entertainment and
Television Audiences. New York: Routledge, 2005.
Murray, Susan, and Laurie Ouellette, eds.Reality TV:
Remaking Popular Culture. New York: New York
University Press, 2004.
Leslie NeilanSee also Cable television; Television. Recession of 1990-1991
The Event U.S. economic contraction
Date Lasted from July, 1990, to March, 1991Although the recession of 1990-1991, the only recession of
the 1990’s, was considered to be mild in terms of its dura-
tion and the reduction in output experienced, President
George H. W. Bush claimed that the Federal Reserve’s re-
sponse to it was the reason that he was not reelected in 1992.Market economies experience periods of economic
expansion and contraction, often referred to as busi-
ness cycles. Difficult to predict, these periods of eco-
nomic contraction are called recessions. By com-
mon usage, a recession is said to occur if real gross
domestic product (GDP) falls for two or more con-
secutive quarters. Real GDP is a measure of the mar-
ket value of the output produced in a country that ig-
nores the impact of inflation on prices, and a
quarter is a three-month period of time. The Na-
tional Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the
organization that assigns the beginning and ending
dates to recessions, does not use this definition, in-
stead defining a recession as “a significant decline in
activity spread across the economy, lasting more
than a few months,” which may be seen through a
number of economic indicators, one being real
GDP. A recession is said to have ended when the
economy begins to expand.
The recession of 1990-1991 ended the second-
longest period of economic expansion up to that
point in the twentieth century and was followed by
the longest period of economic expansion in U.S.The Nineties in America Recession of 1990-1991 703