A Critical Forum on Media and Culture
Overhaulin’ TV and Government (Thoughts on the Political Campaign to Pimp Your Ride)
by: James Hay / University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign
These days, the expression “overhauling” is in the air (and “on the air.”)
Domestic Reality TV
by: Allison McCracken / DePaul University
I have finally found a reality program that I can watch without cringing with embarrassment for the participants and/or becoming enraged at the producers. Not surprisingly, it’s trailing in the ratings and on the brink of cancellation.
Black Zen Masters in the Dojo of Reality Television
by: L.S.Kim / University of California, Santa Cruz
Typically in reality television, the host is white – famous examples include Jeff Probst in Survivor, Ryan Seacrest in American Idol, and Regis Philbin in Who Wants to be a Millionaire? whose through-the-roof ratings jump-started the reality programming watershed. But in America’s Next Top Model, The Road to Stardom, and Pimp My Ride, the hosts are African American and already stars.
Apology
by: Cynthia Fuchs / George Mason University
Apologizing is an art. And apologizing for TV is something else.
Race and Reality…TV
by: L. S. Kim / University of California, Santa Cruz; UCLA
A prime-time line-up without reality television programming seems a lifetime ago.
10,000 Years of Media Flow
by: Faye Ginsburg / New York University
It’s one of those unseasonably warm Saturdays in November, a beautiful autumn day in New York City that competes with the films being shown in darkened rooms during the annual Margaret Mead Film Festival.
