True Story

True Story PDF Author: Danielle J. Lindemann, PhD
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374720967
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 166

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Book Description
Named a Best Nonfiction Book of 2022 by Esquire A sociological study of reality TV that explores its rise as a culture-dominating medium—and what the genre reveals about our attitudes toward race, gender, class, and sexuality What do we see when we watch reality television? In True Story: What Reality TV Says About Us, the sociologist and TV-lover Danielle J. Lindemann takes a long, hard look in the “funhouse mirror” of this genre. From the first episodes of The Real World to countless rose ceremonies to the White House, reality TV has not just remade our entertainment and cultural landscape (which it undeniably has). Reality TV, Lindemann argues, uniquely reflects our everyday experiences and social topography back to us. Applying scholarly research—including studies of inequality, culture, and deviance—to specific shows, Lindemann layers sharp insights with social theory, humor, pop cultural references, and anecdotes from her own life to show us who we really are. By taking reality TV seriously, True Story argues, we can better understand key institutions (like families, schools, and prisons) and broad social constructs (such as gender, race, class, and sexuality). From The Bachelor to Real Housewives to COPS and more (so much more!), reality programming unveils the major circuits of power that organize our lives—and the extent to which our own realities are, in fact, socially constructed. Whether we’re watching conniving Survivor contestants or three-year-old beauty queens, these “guilty pleasures” underscore how conservative our society remains, and how steadfastly we cling to our notions about who or what counts as legitimate or “real.” At once an entertaining chronicle of reality TV obsession and a pioneering work of sociology, True Story holds up a mirror to our society: the reflection may not always be pretty—but we can’t look away.

True Story

True Story PDF Author: Danielle J. Lindemann, PhD
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374720967
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 166

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Book Description
Named a Best Nonfiction Book of 2022 by Esquire A sociological study of reality TV that explores its rise as a culture-dominating medium—and what the genre reveals about our attitudes toward race, gender, class, and sexuality What do we see when we watch reality television? In True Story: What Reality TV Says About Us, the sociologist and TV-lover Danielle J. Lindemann takes a long, hard look in the “funhouse mirror” of this genre. From the first episodes of The Real World to countless rose ceremonies to the White House, reality TV has not just remade our entertainment and cultural landscape (which it undeniably has). Reality TV, Lindemann argues, uniquely reflects our everyday experiences and social topography back to us. Applying scholarly research—including studies of inequality, culture, and deviance—to specific shows, Lindemann layers sharp insights with social theory, humor, pop cultural references, and anecdotes from her own life to show us who we really are. By taking reality TV seriously, True Story argues, we can better understand key institutions (like families, schools, and prisons) and broad social constructs (such as gender, race, class, and sexuality). From The Bachelor to Real Housewives to COPS and more (so much more!), reality programming unveils the major circuits of power that organize our lives—and the extent to which our own realities are, in fact, socially constructed. Whether we’re watching conniving Survivor contestants or three-year-old beauty queens, these “guilty pleasures” underscore how conservative our society remains, and how steadfastly we cling to our notions about who or what counts as legitimate or “real.” At once an entertaining chronicle of reality TV obsession and a pioneering work of sociology, True Story holds up a mirror to our society: the reflection may not always be pretty—but we can’t look away.

The Show Starter Reality TV Made Simple System

The Show Starter Reality TV Made Simple System PDF Author: Donna Michelle Anderson
Publisher: Movie in a Box Books
ISBN: 0978715012
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description


The Reality Shows

The Reality Shows PDF Author: Karen Finley
Publisher: The Feminist Press at CUNY
ISBN: 9781558616721
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
"Ms. Finley hasn't lost the power to disturb."—Ben Brantley, The New York Times No other performing artist has captured the psychological complexity of this decade as Karen Finley has. In her inimitable style, she has embodied some of the most troubling figures to cast a long shadow on the public imagination, and has envisioned a kind of catharsis within each drama: Liza Minnelli responds to the September 11 attacks; Terri Schiavo explains why Americans love a woman in a coma; Martha Stewart dumps George W. Bush during their tryst on the eve of the Republican National Convention; Silda Spitzer tells the former governor why “I’m sorry” just isn’t enough; and the ghost of Jackie O cries, “Please stop looking at me!" The Reality Shows is a revelation of a decade by one of our greatest interpreters of popular and political culture.

Reality Show

Reality Show PDF Author: Howard Kurtz
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416580611
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 482

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Book Description
Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings: They were on a first-name basis with the country for a generation, leading viewers through moments of triumph and tragedy. But now that a new generation has succeeded them, the once-glittering job of network anchor seems unmistakably tarnished. In an age of instantaneous Internet news, cable echo chambers and iPod downloads, who really needs the evening news? And, by extension, who needs Katie Couric, Brian Williams, and Charlie Gibson? But the anchors still have a megaphone capable of cutting through the media static. Their coverage of Iraq helped turn the country against that bloody war, and they are now playing a leading role in chronicling the collapse of George Bush's presidency and the 2008 race to succeed him. Yet, even as the anchors fight for ratings supremacy, the mega-corporations they work for have handed them a bigger challenge: saving an American institution. In this freewheeling, intimate account of life atop the media pyramid, award-winning bestselling author Howard Kurtz takes us inside the newsrooms and executive suites of CBS, NBC, and ABC, capturing the deadline judgments, image-making, jealousies, and gossip of this high-pressure business. Whether it is Couric trying to regain her morning magic while coping with tabloid stories about her boyfriends, Williams reporting from New Orleans and Baghdad while worrying about his ailing father, or Gibson weighing whether to follow his wife into retirement while grappling with having to report the explicit details of sex scandals, Kurtz brings to life the daily battles that define their lives. The narrative reflects an extraordinary degree of access to such corporate chieftains as Jeff Zucker and Les Moonves, star correspondents, and the anchors themselves. Their goal: create an on-screen persona that people will tune in to and trust. Yet they are faced with a graying, shrinking audience as younger viewers flock to Jon Stewart, whose influence on the real newscasts is palpable. Here is the untold story of what these journalistic celebrities think of their bosses, cable competitors, bloggers, and each other.

Reality TV

Reality TV PDF Author: Susan Murray
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814757340
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 387

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Book Description
A collection of essays, which provide a comprehensive picture of how and why the genre of reality television emerged, what it means, how it differs from earlier television programming, and how it engages societies, industries, and individuals.

Reality TV

Reality TV PDF Author: Jon Kraszewski
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1317806042
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
From early first-wave programs such as Candid Camera, An American Family, and The Real World to the shows on our television screens and portable devices today, reality television consistently takes us to cities—such as New York, Los Angeles, and Boston—to imagine the place of urbanity in American culture and society. Jon Kraszewski offers the first extended account of this phenomenon, as he makes the politics of urban space the center of his history and theory of reality television. Kraszewski situates reality television in a larger economic transformation that started in the 1980s when America went from an industrial economy, when cities were home to all classes, to its post-industrial economy as cities became key points in a web of global financing, expelling all economic classes except the elite and the poor. Reality television in the industrial era reworked social relationships based on class, race, and gender for liberatory purposes, which resulted in an egalitarian ethos in the genre. However, reality television of the post-industrial era attempts to convince viewers that cities still serve their interests, even though most viewers find city life today economically untenable. Each chapter uses a key theoretical concept from spatial theory—such as power geometries, diasporic nostalgia, orientalism, the imagination of social expulsions, and the relationship between the country and the city—to illuminate the way reality television engages this larger transformation of urban space in America.

Reality Television

Reality Television PDF Author: Ruth A. Deller
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing
ISBN: 1839090235
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 150

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Book Description
Reality television is shown worldwide, features people from all walks of life and covers everything from romance to religion. It has not only changed television, but every other area of the media. So why has reality TV become such a huge phenomenon, and what is its future in an age of streaming and social media?

How Real Is Reality TV?

How Real Is Reality TV? PDF Author: David S. Escoffery
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 147660228X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
American viewers are attracted to what they see as the non-scripted, unpredictable freshness of reality television. But although the episodes may not be scripted, the shows are constructed within a deliberately designed framework, reflecting societal values. The political, economic and personal issues of reality TV are in many ways simply an exaggerated version of everyday life, allowing us to identify (perhaps more closely than we care to admit) with the characters onscreen. With 16 essays from scholars around the world, this volume discusses the notion of representation in reality television. It explores how both audiences and producers negotiate the gulf between representations and truth in reality shows such as Survivor, The Apprentice, Big Brother, The Nanny, American Idol, Extreme Makeover, Joe Millionaire and The Amazing Race. Various identity categories and character types found in these shows are discussed and the accuracy of their television portrayal examined. Dealing with the concept of reality, audience reception, gender roles, minority portrayal and power issues, the book provides an in-depth look at what we see, or think we see, in “reality” TV. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

Life Is Not a Reality Show

Life Is Not a Reality Show PDF Author: Kyle Richards
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062113496
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 165

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Book Description
In Life Is Not a Reality Show, breakout star of Bravo’s The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills Kyle Richards reveals everything she’s learned about succeeding without getting stuck up, with insights into everything from keeping a marriage fresh while juggling four kids (with not a nanny in sight) to finding the best beauty steals and home-decorating inspirations. Pop culture fanatics and fans of hip, no-nonsense women’s books from Kelly Cutrone, Bethenny Frankel, and Brandi Glanville will find all they’re looking for and more in Richards’s Life Is Not a Reality Show.

Reality Television and Class

Reality Television and Class PDF Author: Beverley Skeggs
Publisher: British Film Institute
ISBN: 9781844573974
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
How does class get 'cast' and made performative? What modes are there for people to wrestle-back their forms of representation? And how should we understand this intense manipulation of feeling? This bookexamines why class politics matter against much political and academic rhetoric which refract inequality through other means.