Steven Spielberg has warned the rise of virtual reality technology represents a potentially “dangerous” development for traditional film-makers.

Current trends in film and television production styles have favoured the use of aesthetics associated with prosumer and social media products. These aesthetics, including handheld shaky-cam, variable audio and open acknowledgement of the camera, have been utilised for their ability to imitate reality, to take away a little of the polish of professional film and television production and to inject the raw, ad hoc immediacy of actuality.

This paper presents an examination of augmented reality (AR) as a rising form of interactive narrative that combines computergenerated elements with reality, fictional with non-fictional objects, in the same immersive experience.

Realistic fiction is a genre consisting of stories that could have actually occurred to people or animals in a believable setting. These stories resemble real life, and fictional characters within these stories react similarly to real people. Stories that are classified as realistic fiction have plots that highlight social or personal events or issues that mirror contemporary life, such as falling in love, marriage, finding a job, divorce, alcoholism, etc. They depict our world and our society.

“Magic realism is defined by what happens when a highly detailed, realistic setting is invaded by something too strange to believe.” These words appear in the opening sequence of the first episode of Narcos, a thinly fictionalized TV series based on the life of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar. Though the events that follow are based in reality and would not traditionally be considered magic realism, the fact that one of the most popular shows of the past two years opens using this term signifies its importance in contemporary popular culture in 2016—even though it has its roots in a literary genre invented long, long ago.

This article examines how the constant challenge of “putting ‘reality’ together” (Schlesinger) has been met by innovation and experiment in differing social, political, and economic climates since the mid-1950s and how the perception of television realism itself has evolved. In the context of reality television and today’s postmodern hybrids which blur the distinctions between fact and fiction, entertainment and information, this article concludes with a reflection on whether British television’s (re)creation of reality is an end in itself or whether it is a means of achieving other objectives.

This article discusses how Iranian filmmakers freely blend fact and fiction to create a hybrid cinema that addresses the nation's social and political issues.