Description
Book SynopsisInternational in scope and more comprehensive than existing collections, A Companion to Reality Television presents a complete guide to the study of reality, factual and nonfiction television entertainment, encompassing a wide range of formats and incorporating cutting-edge work in critical, social and political theory.
Table of ContentsNotes on Contributors ix
Introduction 1
Laurie Ouellette
Part One Producing Reality: Industry, Labor, and Marketing 9
1 Mapping Commercialization in Reality Television 11
June Deery
2 Reality Television and the Political Economy of Amateurism 29
Andrew Ross
3 When Everyone Has Their Own Reality Show 40
Mark Andrejevic
4 Cast-aways: The Plights and Pleasures of Reality Casting and Production Studies 57
Vicki Mayer
5 Program Format Franchising in the Age of Reality Television 74
Albert Moran
Part Two Television Realities: History, Genre, and Realism 95
6 Realism and Reality Formats 97
Jonathan Bignell
7 Reality TV Experiences: Audiences, Fact, and Fiction 116
Annette Hill
8 From Participatory Video to Reality Television 134
Daniel Marcus
9 Manufacturing “Massness”: Aesthetic Form and Industry Practice in the Reality Television Contest 155
Hollis Griffin
10 God, Capitalism, and the Family Dog 171
Eileen R. Meehan
Part Three Dilemmas of Visibility: Identity and Difference 189
11 The Bachelorette’s Postfeminist Therapy: Transforming Women for Love 191
Rachel E. Dubrofsky
12 Fractured Feminism: Articulations of Feminism, Sex, and Class by Reality TV Viewers 208
Andrea L. Press
13 “It’s Been a While Since I’ve Seen, Like, Straight People”: Queer Visibility in the Age of Postnetwork Reality Television 227
Joshua Gamson
14 The Wild Bunch: Men, Labor, and Reality Television 247
Gareth Palmer
15 The Conundrum of Race and Reality Television 264
Catherine R. Squires
16 Tan TV: Reality Television’s Postracial Delusion 283
Hunter Hargraves
Part Four Empowerment or Exploitation? Ordinary People and Reality Television 307
17 Reality Television and the Demotic Turn 309
Graeme Turner
18 DI(t)Y, Reality-Style: The Cultural Work of Ordinary Celebrity 324
Laura Grindstaff
19 Reality Television’s Construction of Ordinary People: Class-Based and Nonelitist Articulations of Ordinary People and Their Discursive Affordances 345
Nico Carpentier
Part Five Subjects of Reality: Making/Selling Selves and Lifestyles 367
20 Mapping the Makeover Maze: The Contours and Contradictions of Makeover Television 369
Brenda Weber
21 House Hunters, Real Estate Television and Everyday Cosmopolitanism 386
Mimi White
22 Life Coaches, Style Mavens, and Design Gurus: Everyday Experts on Reality Television 402
Tania Lewis
23 Reality Television Celebrity: Star Consumption and Self-Production in Media Culture 421
Julie A. Wilson
24 Producing “Reality”: Branded Content, Branded Selves, Precarious Futures 437
Alison Hearn
Part Six Affective Registers: Reality, Sentimentality, and Feeling 457
25 A Matter of Feeling: Mediated Affect in Reality Television 459
Misha Kavka
26 “Walking in Another’s Shoes”: Sentimentality and Philanthropy on Reality Television 478
Heather Nunn and Anita Biressi
Part Seven The Politics of Reality: Global Culture, National Identity, and Public Life 499
27 Reality Television, Public Service, and Public Life: A Critical Theory Perspective 501
Peter Lunt
28 Reality Talent Shows in China: Transnational Format, Affective Engagement, and the Chinese Dream 516
Ling Yang
29 Reality Television from Big Brother to the Arab Uprisings: Neoliberal, Liberal, and Geopolitical Considerations 541
Marwan M. Kraidy
Index 557
