Description
Book SynopsisIntervenes in debates about both reality television and audience research, offering the concept of the reflexive self to move these debates forward
Trade ReviewLike all ground-breaking studies of culture, The Makeover, appropriately, tells us not just about its object, narrowly construed, but about ourselves, the society we have created, and the contradictions that permeate both. Sender combines detailed empirical research with thoughtful and nuanced interpretation to provide us with a timely meditation on the limitsand potentialsof reflexivity. The result is a smart and original contribution to the way we think about popular culture and its relation to broader questions of self-hood, identity, and power. -- Mark Andrejevic,University of Queensland
With its central focus on audience practices, Senders lucidly-written book is unique among the growing body of scholarship on reality TV. While offering a smart and provocative analysis of the complex appeal of specific & makeover shows, she also makes a major contribution to active audience theory. In particular, she problematizes the issue of reflexivity, in the context both of viewers relationships with the shows and in their roles as research participants. In doing so she challenges all audience scholars to examine more carefully the very nature of the research encounter. -- S. Elizabeth Bird,author of The Audience in Everyday Life
A success on multiple levels. Sender's analysis... provides strong insight into the social significance of reality television. * Contemporary Sociology *
Table of ContentsSelf-Projects: Makeover Shows and the Reflexive Imperative2 Gender and Genre: Making Over Women's Culture 3 Not Like Paris Hilton: Instruction and Consumption in Makeover Shows4 Shame on You: Schadenfreude and Surveillance5 Feeling Real: Empirical Truth and Emotional Authenticity6 Mirror, Mirror: The Reflexive Self7 Research Reflexivity: Audiences and Investigators in Context8 Once More with Feeling: Reconsidering Reflexivity
