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