Provides both the record of a strange moment in history and a contribution to contemporary cultural politics.
This second, revised edition brings the story right up to the present with a compelling blend of the ancient and
the modern.? --Toby Miller, editor of Television & New Media
The Apprentice. Project Runway. The Bachelor. My Life on the D-list. Extreme Makeover. American Idol. 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 like Candid Camera and wending its way through
An American Family and The Real World to the most recent crop of reality programs, Reality TV, now updated with
eight new essays, is one of the first books to address the economic, visual, cultural, audience, and new media
dimensions of reality television and has become the standard in the field. 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 blending of fact and fiction, to the
uses of viewer labor and ?interactivity,? to issues of surveillance, gender performativity, hyper-commercialism,
and generic parody.
By spanning reality television?s origins in the late 1940s to its current overwhelming popularity, Reality TV demonstrates
both the tenacity of the format and its enduring ability to speak to our changing political and social desires
and anxieties