Reality TV: Remaking Television Culture

by Susan Murray (Editor)

Survivor. The Bachelor. Extreme Makeover. Big Brother. Joe Millionaire. American Idol. The Osbournes. 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, Cops, and The Real World to the most recent crop of reality programs, Reality TV is the first book to address the economic, visual, cultural, and audience dimensions of reality television. 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 construction of televisual "reality" to the changing face of criminal violence on TV, to issues of surveillance, taste, and social control.
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.
Contributors include: Nick Couldry, Mary Beth Haralovich, John Hartley, Chuck Kleinhans, Derek Kompare, Jon Kraszewski, Kathleen LeBesco, Justin Lewis, Ted Magder, Jennifer Maher, Anna McCarthy, Rick Morris, Chad Raphael, Elayne Rapping, Jeffrey Sconce, Michael W. Trosset, Pamela Wilson.

Genres: Nonfiction, Tv

358 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Susan Murray is Professor of Media, Culture and Communication at New York University. She writes about media history and contemporary television.

Reviews

[Nilagia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some essays were quite interesting, while others, eeehh....sometimes it seems that film/television studies takes a while to get caught up on what's currently going on in its own field -- for instance, even though this book came out last year, a fair amount of the shows that were analyzed were not that new at all, like Real World. Still some pretty insightful stuff in places though;overall an OK read.

[Jolean · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good but a little dated. Wanted more on where TV is going, not so much on where it's been.