A Companion to Reality Television

A Companion to Reality Television presents a comprehensive guide to the study of reality, factual and nonfiction entertainment television. Broader in scope and scale than existing collections, the Companion encompasses major primetime entertainment formats, including talent competitions, makeovers, dating programs, reality soap operas and social experiments; it also covers lifestyle/how–to programming, game shows and talk shows featuring “ordinary” people, and online initiatives that evoke the shifting boundaries of producer versus consumer, content versus advertising, and ordinary versus celebrity. International in scope, the Companion synthesizes and intervenes within important theories, debates and issues, and traces and explains the social, historical, political, commercial, ethical, and creative dimensions of reality/factual/non–fiction television entertainment. It also analyzes the production, conventions and reception of major formats, and situates reality television as a global and local phenomenon, identifying and commenting upon emergent trends. Leading scholars in the intersecting fields of media studies, television studies, cinema studies, and cultural studies provide theoretical depth and clarity on the history of nonfiction and reality television, forge links to important scholarly debates, and analyze the politics of reality entertainment worldwide.

Notes on Contributors Introduction: Laurie Ouellette Part 1: Producing Reality: Industry, Labor and Marketing 1. Mapping Commercialism in Reality Television June Deery 2. Reality TV and the Political Economy of Amateurism Andrew Ross 3. When Everyone Has Their Own Reality Show Mark Andrejevic 4. Cast–aways: The Plights and Pleasures of Reality Casting and Production Studies Vicki Mayer 5. Program Format Franchising in the Age of Reality Television Albert Moran Part 2: TV Realities: History, Genre and Realism 6. Realism and Reality Formats Jonathan Bignell 7. Reality TV Experiences: Audiences, Fact, and Fiction Annette Hill 8. From Participatory Video to Reality TV Daniel Marcus 9. Manufacturing “Massness”:  Aesthetic Form and Industry Practice in the Reality Television Contest Hollis Griffin 10. God, Capitalism and the Family Dog Eileen Meehan Part 3: Dilemmas of Visibility:  Identity and Difference 11. The Bachelorette’s Postfeminist Therapy:  Transforming Women for Love Rachel E. Dubrofsky 12. Fractured Feminism:  Articulations of Feminism, Sex and Class by Reality TV Viewers Andrea Press 13. “It’s Been a While Since I’ve Seen, Like, Straight People:” Queer Visibility in the Age of Post–Network Reality Television Joshua Gamson 14. The Wild Bunch:  Men, Labor and Reality Television Gareth Palmer 15. The Conundrum of Race and Reality TV Catherine Squires 16. Tan TV:  Reality Television’s Post–Racial Delusion Hunter Hargraves Part 4: Empowerment or Exploitation? Ordinary People and Reality TV 17. Reality TV and the Demotic Turn Graeme Turner 18. DIY(t)Y, Reality–Style:  The Cultural Word of Ordinary Celebrity Laura Grindstaff 19. Reality TV’s Construction of Ordinary People:  Class–Based and Non–Elitist Articulations Nico Carpentier Part 5: Subjects of Reality: Making/Selling Selves and Lifestyles 20. Mapping the Makeover Maze:  The Contours and Contradictions of Makeover TV Brenda Weber 21. House Hunters, Real Estate TV and Everyday Cosmopolitanism Mimi White 22. Life Coaches, Style Mavens and Design Gurus:  Everyday Experts on Reality TV Tania Lewis 23. Reality Television Celebrity:  Star Consumption and Self Production in Media Culture Julie Wilson 24. Producing “Reality”:  Branded Content, Branded Selves, Precarious Futures Alison Hearn Part 6:  Affective Registers: Reality, Sentimentality and Feeling 25. A Matter of Feeling:  Mediated Affect in Reality TV Misha Kavka 26. “Walking in Another’s Shoes:  Sentimentality and Philanthropy on Reality TV Heather Nunn and Anita Biressi Part 7:  Politics of Reality:  Global Culture, National Identity and Public Life 27. Reality Television, Public Service and Public Life:  A Critical Theory Perspective Peter Lunt 28. Reality Talent Shows in China:  Transnational Format, Affective Engagement and the Chinese Dream Ling Yang 29. Reality Television From Big Brother to the Arab Uprisings:  Neoliberal, Liberal and Geopolitical Considerations Marwan Kraidy Index

Laurie Ouellette is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Minnesota, where she teaches Critical Media Studies. She has published extensively on reality television and is co–editor of Reality TV: Remaking Television Culture (2004 and 2009), and co–author of  Better Living Through Reality TV: Television and Post–Welfare Citizenship (Wiley, 2008).