Better Living through Reality TV

Television and Post-Welfare Citizenship

James Hay author Laurie Ouellette author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:John Wiley and Sons Ltd

Published:8th Jan '08

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

This paperback is available in another edition too:

Better Living through Reality TV cover

Combining cutting-edge theories of culture and government with programming examples—including Todd TV, Survivor, and American Idol—Better Living through Reality TV moves beyond the established concerns of political economy and cultural studies to conceptualize television's evolving role in the contemporary period.

  • A major textbook on the impact of reality and lifestyle television on today’s programming, and on broader social, cultural and political trends
  • Draws on a range of examples from The Apprentice and American Idol to Extreme Makeover and Wife Swap
  • Argues that reality television teaches viewers to monitor, motivate, improve, transform and protect themselves in the name of freedom, enterprise, and personal responsibility
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"Better Living through Reality TV achieves what cultural theory does at its best: a fascinating, insightful, and clear-eyed look at contemporary society as seen through the lens of pop culture."
--Mark Andrejevic

"With this book, reality TV finally 'gets real'."
--Nick Couldry

ISBN: 9781405134415

Dimensions: 229mm x 153mm x 15mm

Weight: 381g

264 pages