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 re-visits how we think about communication and power in the global era. It takes stock of the last fifty years of scholarship, maps key patterns and concepts and sets an agenda for theory and research. The book addresses such questions as: How are national and cultural identities re-fashioned and expressed in the global era? How can we best understand the emergence of multiple and sometimes antagonistic modernities worldwide? How are political struggles fought and communicated on the local-national-global nexus? How do we integrate emerging media environments in global communication studies? Bringing together essays from a range of internationally renowned scholars, this book will be useful to undergraduate and postgraduate students on Media and Communication Studies courses, particularly those studying globalisation and global media. Contributors: Hector Amaya Paula Chakravartty Andrew Crocco Myria Georgiou Le Han Aniko Imre Koichi Iwabuchi Marwan M. Kraidy Sara Mourad Patrick D. Murphy Tarik Sabry Paddy Scannell Piotr M. Szpunar Guobin Yang Barbie Zelizer

A Times Higher Education Book of the Year Uprisings spread like wildfire across the Arab world from 2010 to 2012, fueled by a desire for popular sovereignty. In Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, and elsewhere, protesters flooded the streets and the media, voicing dissent through slogans, graffiti, puppetry, videos, and satire that called for the overthrow of dictators and the regimes that sustained them. Investigating what drives people to risk everything to express themselves in rebellious art, The Naked Blogger of Cairo uncovers the creative insurgency at the heart of the Arab uprisings. "A deep dive into the cultural politics of the Arab uprisings...Kraidy's sharp insights and rich descriptions of a new Arab generation's irrepressible creative urges will amply reward the effort. Reading Kraidy's accounts of the politically charted cultural gambits of wired Arab youth rekindles some of the seemingly lost spirit of the early days of the Arab uprisings and offers hope for the future." -Marc Lynch, Washington Post "The Naked Blogger of Cairo is a superb and important work not just for scholars but for anyone who cares about the relationships between art, the body, and revolution." -Hans Rollman, PopMatters

What does it mean to be modern outside the West? Based on a wealth of primary data collected over five years, Reality Television and Arab Politics analyzes how reality television stirred an explosive mix of religion, politics, and sexuality, fuelling heated polemics over cultural authenticity, gender relations, and political participation in the Arab world. The controversies, Kraidy argues, are best understood as a social laboratory in which actors experiment with various forms of modernity, continuing a long-standing Arab preoccupation with specifying terms of engagement with Western modernity. Women and youth take center stage in this process. Against the backdrop of dramatic upheaval in the Middle East, this book challenges the notion of a monolithic 'Arab Street' and offers an original perspective on Arab media, shifting attention away from a narrow focus on al-Jazeera, toward a vibrant media sphere that compels broad popular engagement and contentious political performance.

This book re-visits how we think about communication and power in the global era. It takes stock of the last fifty years of scholarship, maps key patterns and concepts and sets an agenda for theory and research. The book addresses such questions as: How are national and cultural identities re-fashioned and expressed in the global era? How can we best understand the emergence of multiple and sometimes antagonistic modernities worldwide? How are political struggles fought and communicated on the local-national-global nexus? How do we integrate emerging media environments in global communication studies? Bringing together essays from a range of internationally renowned scholars, this book will be useful to undergraduate and postgraduate students on Media and Communication Studies courses, particularly those studying globalisation and global media. Contributors: Hector Amaya Paula Chakravartty Andrew Crocco Myria Georgiou Le Han Aniko Imre Koichi Iwabuchi Marwan M. Kraidy Sara Mourad Patrick D. Murphy Tarik Sabry Paddy Scannell Piotr M. Szpunar Guobin Yang Barbie Zelizer

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.

What does it mean to be modern outside the West? Based on a wealth of primary data collected over five years, Reality Television and Arab Politics analyzes how reality television stirred an explosive mix of religion, politics, and sexuality, fuelling heated polemics over cultural authenticity, gender relations, and political participation in the Arab world. The controversies, Kraidy argues, are best understood as a social laboratory in which actors experiment with various forms of modernity, continuing a long-standing Arab preoccupation with specifying terms of engagement with Western modernity. Women and youth take center stage in this process. Against the backdrop of dramatic upheaval in the Middle East, this book challenges the notion of a monolithic 'Arab Street' and offers an original perspective on Arab media, shifting attention away from a narrow focus on al-Jazeera, toward a vibrant media sphere that compels broad popular engagement and contentious political performance.

The Media Globe is a multifaceted look at contemporary trends in media practices in regions beyond the United States, including Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, and Australia. A diverse group of respected scholars follows the emerging patterns in a variety of media worldwide, identifying the existing and developing issues and the potential impacts on democratic communication. They also assess the current tensions between ongoing global media practices and local or regional cultural norms. Using theoretical approaches such as 'glocalization,' hybridity, hegemony, cultural imperialism, and world-systems theory, the authors consider alternative scenarios for global communication that could better mesh with these cultural norms and practices. Given the rapid global consolidation of media and the resulting reform of its regulatory agencies, this reassessment is a timely and important read.

The Media Globe is a multifaceted look at contemporary trends in media practices in regions beyond the United States, including Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, and Australia. A diverse group of respected scholars follows the emerging patterns in a variety of media worldwide, identifying the existing and developing issues and the potential impacts on democratic communication. They also assess the current tensions between ongoing global media practices and local or regional cultural norms. Using theoretical approaches such as "glocalization," hybridity, hegemony, cultural imperialism, and world-systems theory, the authors consider alternative scenarios for global communication that could better mesh with these cultural norms and practices. Given the rapid global consolidation of media and the resulting reform of its regulatory agencies, this reassessment is a timely and important read.