Reality TV: Factual Entertainment and Television Audiences - Hardcover

Hill, Annette

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0415261511 ISBN 13: 9780415261517

Publisher: Routledge, 2013

Synopsis

Reality TV restores a crucial, and often absent, element to the critical debate about reality television: the voices of people who watch reality programmes. From Animal Hospital to Big Brother, Annette Hill argues that much can be learned from listening to audience discussion about this popular and rapidly changing television genre. Viewers' responses to reality TV can provide invaluable information to enhance our understanding of both the reality genre and contemporary television audiences. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative audience research to understand how viewers categorise the reality genre, and how they judge the performance of ordinary people and the representation of authenticity within different types of reality programmes. * Do audiences think reality TV is real? * Can people learn from watching reality TV? * How critical are viewers of reality TV? Reality TV argues that audiences are engaged in a critical examination of the development of popular factual television. The book examines how audiences can learn from watching reality programmes, and how viewers think and talk about the ethics of reality TV.

About this title

Review

‘Reality Television’ is the loose label used to cover a very wide range of popular programmes, including work of creative intelligence and of exploitative distortion. Hill concisely reviews existing research and debate in order to explore further how diverse forms of factual entertainment actually work as viewing experiences and to ask what kind of values are involved.

John Corner, Professor in Communication Studies, University of Leeds

In Reality TV Hill takes us through the key moments of this definition-defying form. From the Big Brother house, to the Pro-Wrestler arenas, Hill questions our fascination with the ‘performance of the real’ and our continued search for authenticity. This timely analysis puts Reality TV in the centre of the debate about contemporary culture.

Jane Roscoe, Director of the London Film School and former Head of International Content, SBS

... Hill discusses the development of reality TV up to Big Brother, and the uses the theory of Erving Goffman to examine performance of the self by participants in reality TV formats... This is a volume for those collecting the rest of the series or who do now own Ouellette's edited collection.

S.  Clerc, Southern Connecticut State University, USA, in CHOICE

Synopsis

What is reality tv for? Does it provide viewers with information and education, or are programme makers simply exploiting real people's lives for our entertainment and in pursuit of ratings? Real TV is an insightful investigation by a leading television studies scholar into the multi-faceted genre of factual entertainment. Annette Hill discusses a wide range of reality shows, from Big Brother and Popstars to The 1940s House and Animal Hospital , drawing on research among reality tv viewers to consider how different audience groups think about factual television, and whether they consider such programmes to be providing entertainment or information.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0415261511
• ISBN 13: 9780415261517
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240