A Companion to Reality Television - Hardcover

Ouellette, Laurie

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0470659270 ISBN 13: 9780470659274

Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014

Synopsis

International in scope and more comprehensive than existing collections, A Companion to Reality Television presents a complete guide to the study of reality, factual and nonfiction television entertainment, encompassing a wide range of formats and incorporating cutting-edge work in critical, social and political theory. * Original in bringing cutting-edge work in critical, social and political theory into the conversation about reality TV * Consolidates the latest, broadest range of scholarship on the politics of reality television and its vexed relationship to culture, society, identity, democracy, and ordinary people in the media * Includes primetime reality entertainment as well as precursors such as daytime talk shows in the scope of discussion * Contributions from a list of international, leading scholars in this field

About this title

Review

?Laurie Ouellette has created an indispensable resource for those working in media studies, television studies, communication, and critical industry studies. This is a lively and unique collection, including essays by so many and such diverse scholars who take reality television as a context for understanding broader cultural, economic and political conditions and questions about everyday life. The reach of the book is expansive, beginning with industry and labor issues involved in producing reality television, ending with global politics and distribution, with smart, incisive analyses of histories, identity, affect, and subjectivities in between. After several decades of reality television and scholarship that investigates it, this book offers a convincing, important, and timely contribution to the field.? ?Sarah Banet-Weiser, University of Southern California, USA

From the Back Cover

A Companion to Reality Television presents a comprehensive guide to the study of reality, factual and nonfiction entertainment television. Broader in scope and scale than existing collections, the Companion encompasses major primetime entertainment formats, including talent competitions, makeovers, dating programs, reality soap operas and social experiments; it also covers lifestyle/how-to programming, game shows and talk shows featuring "ordinary" people, and online initiatives that evoke the shifting boundaries of producer versus consumer, content versus advertising, and ordinary versus celebrity.

International in scope, the Companion synthesizes and intervenes within important theories, debates and issues, and traces and explains the social, historical, political, commercial, ethical, and creative dimensions of reality/factual/non-fiction television entertainment. It also analyzes the production, conventions and reception of major formats, and situates reality television as a global and local phenomenon, identifying and commenting upon emergent trends.

Leading scholars in the intersecting fields of media studies, television studies, cinema studies, and cultural studies provide theoretical depth and clarity on the history of nonfiction and reality television, forge links to important scholarly debates, and analyze the politics of reality entertainment worldwide.

About this edition

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0470659270
• ISBN 13: 9780470659274
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 592