Better Living Through Reality TV: Television and Post-Welfare Citizenship, (Hardcover)

Combining cutting-edge theories of culture and government with programming examples--including Todd TV, Survivor, and American Idol--Better Living through Reality TV moves beyond the established concerns of political economy and cultural studies to conceptualize television's evolving role in the contemporary period.

• A major textbook on the impact of reality and lifestyle television on today's programming, and on broader social, cultural and political trends
• Draws on a range of examples from The Apprentice and American Idol to Extreme Makeover and Wife Swap
• Argues that reality television teaches viewers to monitor, motivate, improve, transform and protect themselves in the name of freedom, enterprise, and personal responsibility