Nanny TV
by: Laurie Ouellette / Queens College
Are your kids a handful? Are you exhausted? Is your house a “zoo?” Do you need help juggling the demands of work and family? Me too.
I’m A Celebrity – Analyse Me: The Appeal of Celebrity Reality TV
by: Kirsty Fairclough / University of Salford, UK
What celebrity reality TV offers as opposed to its celebrity-constructing counterpart is not the transformation of the “ordinary” person into the “extraordinary,” but the opposite trajectory.
Belaboring Reality
by: Heather Hendershot / Queens College CUNY
In season one of The Simple Life, the apparently soulless Nicole Ritchie and Paris Hilton spend a month in rural Arkansas disappointing the Ledings, the humble, hard-working farm family that has agreed to take them in.
Media Spectacle and the Crisis of Democracy
by: Doug Kellner / UCLA
On March 10, 2004, when speaking to AFL-CIO union workers in Chicago, John Kerry said in what he thought was an off-mike comment: “Let me tell you–we’re just beginning to fight here. These guys are the most crooked, lying group of people I’ve ever seen.”
The Credibility of Reality TV and Its Lineage with other Photographic Arts
by: Mary Beth Haralovich / University of Arizona
Recently, I was asked to comment on the credibility of reality television as compared to the credibility of street photography by artists like Diane Arbus, Robert Frank and Cindy Sherman.
P.S. An Idol’s Pace
by: Mimi White / Northwestern University
This column is something of a postscript to the last one I wrote, concerning the differential paces of television.
Can the Social History of Audiences Contribute to Media Reform?
by: Thomas Streeter / University of Vermont
Zephyr Teachout, formerly a staffer for Howard Dean’s Presidential campaign, recently published an open memo to the Democratic Party about using the internet to help rejuvenate the Party at the grassroots…
Who Wants to be a Crorepati?: Global Television and Local Genres in India
by: Shanti Kumar / University of Texas-Austin
In 2000, when Star Plus Channel launched Kaun Banega Crorepati? (KBC), the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, the show quickly became the biggest hit on Indian television.
Set Your Cathode Rays to Stun(ning)
by: Brian L. Ott / Colorado State University
I’m coming out … and I’m doing it on FLOW. I suppose that, in some ways, I’ve always known that I was a bit “different.”
Why Media Scholars Should Write Corporate Histories
by: Frederick Wasser / Brooklyn College
Several trade publications have received notices that last month was the tenth anniversary of the launch of WB and UPN, the fifth and sixth broadcast TV networks, dubbed by the trades in their argot as “weblets.”
The Power of Nightmares
by: Jim McGuigan / Loughborough University
A recent TV documentary series prompted me to reflect upon the intellectual capacities of television, which are more often than not considered fairly limited.
At Last, TV for People Just Like Me
by: Christopher Anderson / Indiana University
I hate your favorite television show. Honestly. I loathe it. You love it, I know. But it’s a stinking pile of shit.