The Politics of Reality Television encompasses an international selection of expert contributions who consider the specific ways media migrations test our understanding of, and means of investigating, reality television across the globe. The book addresses a wide range of topics, including: the global circulation and local adaptation of reality television formats and franchises the production of fame and celebrity around hitherto "ordinary" people the transformation of self under the public eye the tensions between fierce loyalties to local representatives and imagined communities bonding across regional and ethnic divides the struggle over the meanings and values of reality television across a range of national, regional, gender, class and religious contexts. This book will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students on a range of Media and Television Studies courses, particularly those on the globalisation of television and media, and reality television.

This book makes an important return to reception studies at an exciting juncture of media distribution and modes of consumption. The editors' introduction contextualizes this new work within a long history of feminist approaches to audience research, and argues that new media forms require new methods of research that remain invested in questions of gender, sexuality, and power. The contributions are rooted in the dynamics of everyday life and present innovative approaches to media and audiences. These include investigating online contexts, transnational flows of media images, and new possibilities of self-representation and distribution. Collectively, this work provides a robust theoretical and methodological framework for understanding media reception from a feminist communication and media studies perspective. The scholars included are in the vanguard of contemporary thinking about media audiences and users of technology in what some call the 'post-audience' age. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Feminist Media Studies.

Queer media studies has mostly focused on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) visibility, stereotypes, and positive images, but media technologies aren't just vehicles for representations, they also shape them. How can queer theory and queer methodologies complicate our understanding of communication technologies, their structures and uses, and the cultural and political implications of these? How can queer technologies inform debates about affect, temporality, and publics? This book presents new scholarship that addresses queer media production and practices across a wide range of media, including television, music, zines, video games, mobile applications, and online spaces. The authors consider how LGBTQ representations and reception are shaped by technological affordances and constraints. Chapters deal with critical contemporary concepts such as counterpublics, affect, temporality, nonbinary practices, queer technique, and transmediation to explore intersections among communication and media studies and cutting-edge queer and transgender theory. This collection moves beyond considering LGBTQ representations as they appear in media to consider the central role of technologies in understanding intersections among gender, sexuality, and media. Even the most heteromasculine technologies can be queered, yet we can't assume queerness works in the same way across different media. Emergent media technologies afford queer worldmaking, but these worlds are forged between normalization and niche marketing. This book was originally published as a special issue of Critical Studies in Media Communication.

This book makes an important return to reception studies at an exciting juncture of media distribution and modes of consumption. The editors' introduction contextualizes this new work within a long history of feminist approaches to audience research, and argues that new media forms require new methods of research that remain invested in questions of gender, sexuality, and power. The contributions are rooted in the dynamics of everyday life and present innovative approaches to media and audiences. These include investigating online contexts, transnational flows of media images, and new possibilities of self-representation and distribution. Collectively, this work provides a robust theoretical and methodological framework for understanding media reception from a feminist communication and media studies perspective. The scholars included are in the vanguard of contemporary thinking about media audiences and users of technology in what some call the 'post-audience' age. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Feminist Media Studies.

Watch this show, buy this product, you can be a whole new you! Makeover television shows repeatedly promise self-renewal and the opportunity for reinvention, but what do we know about the people who watch them? As it turns out, surprisingly little. The Makeover is the first book to consider the rapid rise of makeover shows from the perspectives of their viewers. Katherine Sender argues that this genre of reality television continues a long history of self-improvement, shaped through contemporary media, technological, and economic contexts. Most people think that reality television viewers are ideological dupes and obliging consumers. Sender, however, finds that they have a much more nuanced and reflexive approach to the shows they watch. They are critical of the instruction, the consumer plugs, and the manipulative editing in the shows. At the same time, they buy into the shows' imperative to construct a reflexive self: an inner self that can be seen as if from the outside, and must be explored and expressed to others. The Makeover intervenes in debates about both reality television and audience research, offering the concept of the reflexive self to move these debates forward.

The work of cultural and political theorist Stuart Hall, a pioneer of Cultural Studies who passed away in 2014, remains more relevant than ever. In Stuart Hall Lives, scholars engage with Hall's most enduring essays, including "Encoding/Decoding" and "Notes on Deconstructing the Popular," bringing them into the context of the 21st century. Different chapters consider resistant media consumers, online journalism, debates around the American Confederate flag and rainbow flags, the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, and contemporary moral panics. The book also includes Hall's important essay on French theorist Louis Althusser, which is introduced here by Lawrence Grossberg and Jennifer Slack. Finally, two reminiscences by one of Hall's former colleagues and one of his former students offer wide-ranging reflections on his years as director of Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK, and as head of the Department of Sociology at The Open University. Together, the contributions paint a picture of a brilliant theorist whose work and legacy is as vital as ever. This book was originally published as a special issue of Critical Studies in Media Communication.

The work of cultural and political theorist Stuart Hall, a pioneer of Cultural Studies who passed away in 2014, remains more relevant than ever. In Stuart Hall Lives, scholars engage with Hall's most enduring essays, including "Encoding/Decoding" and "Notes on Deconstructing the Popular," bringing them into the context of the 21st century. Different chapters consider resistant media consumers, online journalism, debates around the American Confederate flag and rainbow flags, the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, and contemporary moral panics. The book also includes Hall's important essay on French theorist Louis Althusser, which is introduced here by Lawrence Grossberg and Jennifer Slack. Finally, two reminiscences by one of Hall's former colleagues and one of his former students offer wide-ranging reflections on his years as director of Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK, and as head of the Department of Sociology at The Open University. Together, the contributions paint a picture of a brilliant theorist whose work and legacy is as vital as ever. This book was originally published as a special issue of Critical Studies in Media Communication.

Reality television is global. Transnational television companies and international distribution networks facilitate the worldwide circulation of popular shows; the 1990s in particular saw the growth of media companies that specialize in the development of reality television formats that are easily adaptable to local variations. While the industrial history of the global migrations of reality television is well established, there has been less consideration of the theoretical and methodological implications of this expansion. The Politics of Reality Television encompasses an international selection of expert contributions who consider the specific ways these migrations test our understanding of, and means of investigating, reality television across the globe. The book addresses a wide range of topics, including: * the global circulation and local adaptation of reality television formats and franchises * the production of fame and celebrity around hitherto "ordinary" people * the transformation of self under the public eye * the tensions between fierce loyalties to local representatives and imagined communities bonding across regional and ethnic divides * the struggle over the meanings and values of reality television across a range of national, regional, gender, class and religious contexts. The Politics of Reality Television proposes ways in which we can think through the international dimensions of reality television in the context of highly mobile media, politics, and publics. It offers a global, comparative examination of reality television alongside empirical research about the genre, its producers and consumers. This book will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students on a range of Media and Television Studies courses, particularly those on the globalisation of television and media, and reality television.

Queer media studies has mostly focused on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) visibility, stereotypes, and positive images, but media technologies aren't just vehicles for representations, they also shape them. How can queer theory and queer methodologies complicate our understanding of communication technologies, their structures and uses, and the cultural and political implications of these? How can queer technologies inform debates about affect, temporality, and publics? This book presents new scholarship that addresses queer media production and practices across a wide range of media, including television, music, zines, video games, mobile applications, and online spaces. The authors consider how LGBTQ representations and reception are shaped by technological affordances and constraints. Chapters deal with critical contemporary concepts such as counterpublics, affect, temporality, nonbinary practices, queer technique, and transmediation to explore intersections among communication and media studies and cutting-edge queer and transgender theory. This collection moves beyond considering LGBTQ representations as they appear in media to consider the central role of technologies in understanding intersections among gender, sexuality, and media. Even the most heteromasculine technologies can be queered, yet we can't assume queerness works in the same way across different media. Emergent media technologies afford queer worldmaking, but these worlds are forged between normalization and niche marketing. This book was originally published as a special issue of Critical Studies in Media Communication.

In a hard-hitting book that refutes conventional wisdom, Katherine Sender explores the connection between the business of marketing to gay consumers and the politics of gay rights and identity. She disputes some marketers'claims that marketing appeals to gay and lesbian consumers are a matter of "business, not politics" and that the business of gay marketing can be considered independently of the politics of gay rights, identity, and visibility. She contends that the gay community is not a preexisting entity that marketers simply tap into; rather it is a construction, an imagined community formed not only through political activism but also through a commercially supported media. She argues that marketing has not only been formative in the constitution of a GLBT community and identity but also has had significant impact on the visibility of gays and lesbians.

Watch this show, buy this product, you can be a whole new you! Makeover television shows repeatedly promise self-renewal and the opportunity for reinvention, but what do we know about the people who watch them? As it turns out, surprisingly little. The Makeover is the first book to consider the rapid rise of makeover shows from the perspectives of their viewers. Katherine Sender argues that this genre of reality television continues a long history of self-improvement, shaped through contemporary media, technological, and economic contexts. Most people think that reality television viewers are ideological dupes and obliging consumers. Sender, however, finds that they have a much more nuanced and reflexive approach to the shows they watch. They are critical of the instruction, the consumer plugs, and the manipulative editing in the shows. At the same time, they buy into the shows' imperative to construct a reflexive self: an inner self that can be seen as if from the outside, and must be explored and expressed to others. The Makeover intervenes in debates about both reality television and audience research, offering the concept of the reflexive self to move these debates forward.