Reality TV : remaking television culture / Susan Murray and Laurie Ouellette.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Murray, Susan.

Contributor:

Ouellette, Laurie.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Reality television programs--United States.

Reality television programs.

Local Subjects:

Reality television programs--United States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (388 p.)

Place of Publication:

New York : NYU Press, 2004.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Survivor.The Bachelor.Extreme Makeover.Big Brother.Joe Millionaire.American Idol.The Osbournes. It is virtually impossible to turn on a television without coming across some sort of reality programming. Yet, while this genre has rapidly moved from the fringes of television culture to its lucrative core, critical attention has not kept pace.Beginning by unearthing its historical roots in early reality shows likeCandid Cameraand wending its way throughAn American Family,Cops, andThe Real Worldto the most recent crop of reality programs,Reality TVis the first book to address the economic, visual, cultural, and audience dimensions of reality television. The essays provide a complex and comprehensive picture of how and why this genre emerged, what it means, how it differs from earlier television programming, and how it engages societies, industries, and individuals. Topics range from the construction of televisual "reality" to the changing face of criminal violence on TV, to issues of surveillance, taste, and social control.By spanning reality television's origins in the late 1940s to its current overwhelming popularity,Reality TVdemonstrates both the tenacity of the format and its enduring ability to speak to our changing political and social desires and anxieties.Contributors include: Nick Couldry, Mary Beth Haralovich, John Hartley, Chuck Kleinhans, Derek Kompare, Jon Kraszewski, Kathleen LeBesco, Justin Lewis, Ted Magder, Jennifer Maher, Anna McCarthy, Rick Morris, Chad Raphael, Elayne Rapping, Jeffrey Sconce, Michael W. Trosset, Pamela Wilson.

Contents:

Contents; Acknowledgments; Introduction; PART I: GENRE; 1 "Stanley Milgram, Allen Funt and Me": Postwar Social Science and the "First Wave" of Reality TV; 2 Performing the Real: Documentary Diversions (with Afterword); 3 "I Think We Need a New Name for It": The Meeting of Documentary and Reality TV; 4 Teaching Us to Fake It: The Ritualized Norms of Television's "Reality" Games; 5 Extraordinarily Ordinary: The Osbournes as "An American Family"; PART II: INDUSTRY; 6 The Political Economic Origins of Reali-TV; 7 Television 2.0: The Business of American Television in Transition

8 Hoaxing the "Real": On the Metanarrative of Reality Television9 Global TV Realities: International Markets, Geopolitics, and the Transcultural Contexts of Reality TV; PART III: CULTURE AND POWER; 10 Country Hicks and Urban Cliques: Mediating Race, Reality, and Liberalism on MTV's The Real World; 11 "Take Responsibility for Yourself ": Judge Judy and the Neoliberal Citizen; 12 Belabored Reality: Making It Work on The Simple Life and Project Runway; 13 Cinderella Burps: Gender, Performativity, and the Dating Show

14 The Comedic Treatment of Reality: Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List, Fat Actress, and The ComebackPART IV: INTERACTIVITY; 15 Melancholy, Merit, and Merchandise: The Postwar Audience Participation Show; 16 Visceral Literacy: Reality TV, Savvy Viewers, and Auto-Spies; 17 Buying into American Idol: How We Are Being Sold on Reality Television; About the Contributors; Index; A; B; C; D; E; F; G; H; I; J; K; L; M; N; O; P; Q; R; S; T; U; V; W; Z

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

ISBN:

1-4798-3087-9