Companion to Reality Television

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).

• Notes on Contributors ixIntroduction 1Laurie OuellettePart One Producing Reality: Industry, Labor, and Marketing 91 Mapping Commercialization in Reality Television 11June Deery2 Reality Television and the Political Economy of Amateurism 29Andrew Ross3 When Everyone Has Their Own Reality Show 40Mark Andrejevic4 Cast-aways: The Plights and Pleasures of Reality Casting and Production Studies 57Vicki Mayer5 Program Format Franchising in the Age of Reality Television 74Albert MoranPart Two Television Realities: History, Genre, and Realism 956 Realism and Reality Formats 97Jonathan Bignell7 Reality TV Experiences: Audiences, Fact, and Fiction 116Annette Hill8 From Participatory Video to Reality Television 134Daniel Marcus9 Manufacturing “Massness”: Aesthetic Form and Industry Practice in the Reality Television Contest 155Hollis Griffin10 God, Capitalism, and the Family Dog 171Eileen R. MeehanPart Three Dilemmas of Visibility: Identity and Difference 18911 The Bachelorette’s Postfeminist Therapy: Transforming Women for Love 191Rachel E. Dubrofsky12 Fractured Feminism: Articulations of Feminism, Sex, and Class by Reality TV Viewers 208Andrea L. Press13 “It’s Been a While Since I’ve Seen, Like, Straight People”: Queer Visibility in the Age of Postnetwork Reality Television 227Joshua Gamson14 The Wild Bunch: Men, Labor, and Reality Television 247Gareth Palmer15 The Conundrum of Race and Reality Television 264Catherine R. Squires16 Tan TV: Reality Television’s Postracial Delusion 283Hunter HargravesPart Four Empowerment or Exploitation? Ordinary People and Reality Television 30717 Reality Television and the Demotic Turn 309Graeme Turner18 DI(t)Y, Reality-Style: The Cultural Work of Ordinary Celebrity 324Laura Grindstaff19 Reality Television’s Construction of Ordinary People: Class-Based and Nonelitist Articulations of Ordinary People and Their Discursive Affordances 345Nico CarpentierPart Five Subjects of Reality: Making/Selling Selves and Lifestyles 36720 Mapping the Makeover Maze: The Contours and Contradictions of Makeover Television 369Brenda Weber21 House Hunters, Real Estate Television and Everyday Cosmopolitanism 386Mimi White22 Life Coaches, Style Mavens, and Design Gurus: Everyday Experts on Reality Television 402Tania Lewis23 Reality Television Celebrity: Star Consumption and Self-Production in Media Culture 421Julie A. Wilson24 Producing “Reality”: Branded Content, Branded Selves, Precarious Futures 437Alison HearnPart Six Affective Registers: Reality, Sentimentality, and Feeling 45725 A Matter of Feeling: Mediated Affect in Reality Television 459Misha Kavka26 “Walking in Another’s Shoes”: Sentimentality and Philanthropy on Reality Television 478Heather Nunn and Anita BiressiPart Seven The Politics of Reality: Global Culture, National Identity, and Public Life 49927 Reality Television, Public Service, and Public Life: A Critical Theory Perspective 501Peter Lunt28 Reality Talent Shows in China: Transnational Format, Affective Engagement, and the Chinese Dream 516Ling Yang29 Reality Television from Big Brother to the Arab Uprisings: Neoliberal, Liberal, and Geopolitical Considerations 541Marwan M. KraidyIndex 557