TY - CHAP

T1 - Reacting to reality TV

T2 - The affective economy of an 'extended social/public realm'

AU - Wood, Helen

AU - Skeggs, Beverley

PY - 2010/10/24

Y1 - 2010/10/24

N2 - The endless mutation of reality television, the numerous sub-genres and variation in formats, has led some commentators to suggest that the term is no longer useful as a generic category,1 whilst on the other hand Nick Couldry argues for maintaining the term because of its suggestiveness about the myth of the mediated center: “presenting itself as the privileged ‘frame’ through which we access the reality that matters to us as social beings.”2 This difference of opinion represents a broader tension in our scholarship around whether television’s textual-aesthetic or social-relational character should provide us with the dominant frame of reference. Taking our lead from Richard Johnson’s observation that the textual/ social split in cultural research is inherently “phoney,”3 this chapter addresses the social character of reality television as it meets its audience. We argue that the immediacy offered by the form draws out what matters to us in ways that intervene in the politics of social distinction. But we insist that it is best not to understand that relationship between television and identity via a text/reader dynamic in which audiences are interpellated and made subject to the text’s dominant meaning system: a model which has ultimately reified and rendered static the categories of “text” and “reader.”4 Rather, we discuss the experiential aspects of being involved in reality television and explore how identity is evoked in the dynamic responses of our audiences. By addressing what matters to audiences in this way we begin to unpack how reality television intervenes in the affective economies of the UK’s current socio-political realm.

AB - The endless mutation of reality television, the numerous sub-genres and variation in formats, has led some commentators to suggest that the term is no longer useful as a generic category,1 whilst on the other hand Nick Couldry argues for maintaining the term because of its suggestiveness about the myth of the mediated center: “presenting itself as the privileged ‘frame’ through which we access the reality that matters to us as social beings.”2 This difference of opinion represents a broader tension in our scholarship around whether television’s textual-aesthetic or social-relational character should provide us with the dominant frame of reference. Taking our lead from Richard Johnson’s observation that the textual/ social split in cultural research is inherently “phoney,”3 this chapter addresses the social character of reality television as it meets its audience. We argue that the immediacy offered by the form draws out what matters to us in ways that intervene in the politics of social distinction. But we insist that it is best not to understand that relationship between television and identity via a text/reader dynamic in which audiences are interpellated and made subject to the text’s dominant meaning system: a model which has ultimately reified and rendered static the categories of “text” and “reader.”4 Rather, we discuss the experiential aspects of being involved in reality television and explore how identity is evoked in the dynamic responses of our audiences. By addressing what matters to audiences in this way we begin to unpack how reality television intervenes in the affective economies of the UK’s current socio-political realm.

U2 - 10.4324/9780203843567

DO - 10.4324/9780203843567

M3 - Chapter

AN - SCOPUS:84909639050

SN - 0203843568

SN - 9780203843567

SP - 93

EP - 106

BT - The Politics of Reality Television

A2 - Kraidy, Marwan M.

A2 - Sender, Katherine

PB - Routledge Taylor & Francis Group

ER -