Participants are often placed in exotic locations or abnormal situations , and are sometimes coached , to act in certain scripted ways by off-screen `` story editors '' or `` segment producers , '' with the portrayal of events and speech manipulated and contrived to create an illusion of reality through editing and other post-production techniques .

Many shows portray a modified and highly influenced form of reality , with participants put in exotic locations or abnormal situations , sometimes told to act certain ways , and with events on screen sometimes changed by editing .
