Reality Television

Catalog description

This course examines why reality television became a popular television genre in the twenty-first century and how reality television serves as a site for cultural struggles in contemporary society. Special attention is paid to the ways that changes to media culture in the late twentieth century primed viewers to consume reality television; how contemporary battles over race, class, gender, national identity, regional identity, urban identity, and rural identity take place on reality television; and how reality television promotes key aspects of twenty-first century life such as neoliberalism, self branding, and the commodification of the self.