Publication date:
07 October 2003Length of book:
264 pagesPublisher
Rowman & Littlefield PublishersDimensions:
230x156mm6x9"
ISBN-13: 9780742527485
Drawing on cultural theory and interviews with fans, cast members and producers, this book places the reality TV trend within a broader social context, tracing its relationship to the development of a digitally enhanced, surveillance-based interactive economy and to a savvy mistrust of mediated reality in general. Surveying several successful reality TV formats, the book links the rehabilitation of 'Big Brother' to the increasingly important economic role played by the work of being watched. The author enlists critical social theory to examine how the appeal of 'the real' is deployed as a pervasive but false promise of democratization.
Why has the burst of interactivity celebrated by new media not led to an increase in democracy? In his brilliant analysis of reality television, Mark Andrejevic convincingly argues that surveillance accompanies the fun and flexibility of networked communications. Just like the faux 'stars' of reality TV, we seem all too willing to be watched, to see <U>and be seen<U>. This book is a major contribution to a critical theory of communicative capitalism....