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"Through detailed case studies this book breaks new ground by linking together two major themes: the production of realism and its relationship to revelation. It addresses 'truth telling', confession and the production of knowledges about the self and its place in the world".--BOOKJACKET.
The Tabloid Culture Reader provides an accessible and useful introduction to the field.
Celebrity culture has a pervasive presence in our everyday lives – perhaps more so than ever before. It shapes not simply the production and consumption of media content but also the social values through which we experience the world. This collection analyses this phenomenon, bringing together essays which explore celebrity across a range of media, cultural and political contexts. The authors investigate topics such as the intimacy of fame, political celebrity, stardom in American ‘quality’ television (Sarah Jessica Parker), celebrity 'reality' TV (I’m a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here!), the circulation of the porn star, the gallery film (David/David Beckham), the concept of carto...
Reality TV is popular entertainment. And yet a common way to start a conversation about it is ‘I wouldn’t want anyone to know this but...’ Why do people love and love to hate reality TV? This book explores reality TV in all its forms - from competitive talent shows to reality soaps - examining a range of programmes from the mundane to those that revel in the spectacle of excess. Annette Hill’s research draws on interviews with television producers on the market of reality TV and audience research with over fifteen thousand participants during a fifteen year period. Key themes in the book include the phenomenon of reality TV as a new kind of inter-generic space; the rise of reality entertainment formats and producer intervention; audiences, fans and anti-fans; the spectacle of reality and sports entertainment; and the ways real people and celebrities perform themselves in cross-media content. Reality TV explores how this form of popular entertainment invites audiences to riff on reality, to debate and reject reality claims, making it ideal for students of media and cultural studies seeking a broader understanding of how media connects with trends in society and culture.
Read The Chronicle of Higher Ed Author Interview In This Is Not a President, Diane Rubenstein looks at the postmodern presidency — from Reagan and George H. W. Bush, through the current administration, and including Hillary. Focusing on those seemingly inexplicable gaps or blind spots in recent American presidential politics, Rubenstein interrogates symptomatic moments in political rhetoric, popular culture, and presidential behavior to elucidate profound and disturbing changes in the American presidency and the way it embodies a national imaginary. In a series of essays written in real time over the past four presidential administrations, Rubenstein traces the vernacular use of the Americ...
Written especially for undergraduate students, Representation synthesises and updates our understandings of representation - and the tools for its analysis - for use in the new mediascape. Jenny Kidd uses an engaging range of current examples and a lively style to explore a number of key questions reflecting existing and contemporary debates about representation. These key questions include: Who ‘owns’ and manages representations? Whose realities are foregrounded, and whose are consigned to invisibility? To what extent are increased opportunities for self-representation altering the landscape? And what happens to representation within the noisy, playful and often subversive communications of the Internet? Kidd considers the political, social and cultural importance of representation across a broad spectrum of cultural and creative industries. This examination of the relationship between media/cultural representations and the construction of reality, identity and society makes it an ideal text for students that need to get to grips with this core thematic of media and cultural studies.
The first book to consider the rapid rise of makeover shows from the perspectives of their viewers Watch this show, buy this product, you can be a whole new you! Makeover television shows repeatedly promise self-renewal and the opportunity for reinvention, but what do we know about the people who watch them? As it turns out, surprisingly little. The Makeover is the first book to consider the rapid rise of makeover shows from the perspectives of their viewers. Katherine Sender argues that this genre of reality television continues a long history of self-improvement, shaped through contemporary media, technological, and economic contexts. Most people think that reality television viewers are i...
Re-Reading Pat Barker brings together a number of scholars from across the world who explore in detail the work of one of Britain’s most notable contemporary novelists. The essays both acknowledge and engage with previous scholarship, re-establishing Barker’s eminence as a writer and adding to existing critical perspectives. In the collection, established Barker scholars return to her work, re-reading her novels to offer fresh and innovative readings, and other critics who have not previously published on Barker offer new insights into her body of work. The contributors examine a number of thematic concerns including matrilineal heritage, masculinity, the body, ways of seeing, institutional and personal violence, psychoanalysis and gender and class. The essays in the collection explore the broader social and historical aspects of Barker’s novels and the aesthetics and ethical issues in her work, drawing our attention to the ways that she engages with the world, gesturing towards new ways of seeing and to the possibilities of personal and political regeneration. The collection shows there is still much to say about the novels and the ways in which we choose to read them.
The untimely deaths of Amy Winehouse (2011) and Whitney Houston (2012), and the ’resurrection’ of Tupac Shakur for a performance at the Coachella music festival in April 2012, have focused the media spotlight on the relationship between popular music, fame and death. If the phrase ’sex, drugs and rock’n’roll’ ever qualified a lifestyle, it has left many casualties in its wake, and with the ranks of dead musicians growing over time, so the types of death involved and the reactions to them have diversified. Conversely, as many artists who fronted the rock’n’roll revolution of the 1950s and 1960s continue to age, the idea of dying young and leaving a beautiful corpse (which gave...
In a surveillance culture, the ubiquity of audio-visual recording devices has enabled the unprecedented documentation of private indiscretions, scandalous conversations, and obscene behaviors performed by both ordinary and high-profile people. From former President Donald J. Trump's lewd banter on the infamous Access Hollywood video and leaked audio of celebrity racist tirades to outburst of violent hate speech posted daily to YouTube, contemporary media culture is awash in obscene performances of transgressive white masculinity. Such exposés are screened and viewed under the assumption that revealing secret prejudices will necessarily realize the promises of democracy and bring about a pos...