Reality TV

Reality programming has long used city settings to explore what urban life means in America. The book traces this link from the genre's early pioneers, including Candid Camera, An American Family and The Real World, through to today's programs on televisions and mobile devices. Its focus is on New York, Los Angeles and Boston. Presented as the first full-length study of the subject, the work treats the politics of urban space as its central concern in both history and theory.

The author places the genre within a broader economic change that began in the 1980s, when the United States moved from manufacturing to a post-industrial economy. Cities that once housed people of every class became hubs of global finance, pushing out everyone except the wealthy and the poor. In the earlier industrial period, reality shows reshaped relationships of class, race and gender toward liberating ends, producing an egalitarian spirit. Post-industrial programming, by contrast, works to persuade audiences that cities still serve them, even though most viewers find urban living financially out of reach.

Each chapter draws on a major idea from spatial theory to examine how these programs respond to that transformation. Concepts discussed include power geometries, diasporic nostalgia, orientalism, the imagination of social expulsion, and the connection between country and city.