Resourcefulness, advocacy, gratitude: Three ethnic narratives in Master Chef Israel

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 908-924 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liora Gvion
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
Reality Television ◽  
Reality Tv ◽  
The Public ◽  
Food Practices ◽  
Television Shows ◽  
Culinary Knowledge ◽  
Stock Of Knowledge

This article looks at the experience of Mizrahi contestants in Master Chef Israel as exemplifying the limitations certain ethnicities impose on the incorporation of native culinary knowledge into the realm of haute cuisine. It also considers how such ethnicities can serve as obstacles to winning reality television shows. Specifically, I ask how Mizrahi participants can use their ethnicity explicitly within the context of reality TV to negotiate the articulation of their culinary knowledge and food practices into the public discourse on haute cuisine. I argue that Mizrahi contestants are pushed either to use ethnicity as a resource to enrich their cookery, to acknowledge the limitations it imposes on their kitchens or to use it as a stock of knowledge to be enriched so they become better Mizrahi cooks. The three versions of ethnicity, which work simultaneously in the show, point to the dynamic and changing nature of ethnicity and its ability to provide its holders with various modes of participation in the culinary sphere.

scholarly journals Chasing the Public: The CBC and the Debate Over Factual Entertainment on Canadian Airwaves

2009 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Derek Foster
Keyword(s):  
Reality Television ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
Reality Tv ◽  
The Public ◽  
Débat Public

Abstract: This article focuses on the public debate surrounding the CBC as it began to program reality TV. It highlights the tension between a public broadcaster’s popular programming and the expectations of a cultural nationalist public that seeks to hold the institution accountable. It argues for the existence of a “CBC effect” and questions whether the transnational format of reality television on Canada’s national broadcaster augurs changes in Canadian public culture.Résumé : Cet article porte sur le débat public entourant le CBC quand ce dernier a commencé à diffuser de la téléréalité. Il souligne la tension qu’engendre la programmation populiste d’un radiodiffuseur public à l’égard d’un public nationaliste qui s’attend à ce que celui-ci fasse des choix plus cultivés. L’article postule l’existence d’un « effet CBC » et se demande si le format transnational de la téléréalité telle qu’elle passe au radiodiffuseur national du Canada annonce des changements à venier dans la culture publique canadienne.

scholarly journals The X Factor and reality television: beyond good and evil

Popular Music ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Graham
Keyword(s):  
Reality Television ◽  
Reality Tv ◽  
Cultural Impact ◽  
Music Competition ◽  
Television Shows ◽  
British Music ◽  
Good And Evil ◽  
Potential Pressure

AbstractDespite huge popularity and lasting cultural impact, reality television shows such as The X Factor, a British music competition that started screening in 2004, are seen by many as a cultural nadir. However, in this article I argue that, while reading reality TV as an index of an increasingly superficial, market-based culture makes a great deal of sense, it doesn't tell the whole story. Using the particular music-based dramas of The X Factor as a case study, I explore ways in which this show and populist reality television in general might be seen to embody both the predicaments and potential pressure points of contemporary neoliberal culture.

Justifying Trash: Regulating Reality TV in Israel

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 219-240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noa Lavie
Keyword(s):  
Reality Television ◽  
Reality Tv ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Body ◽  
Economics And Politics

Reality TV is a highly popular but much criticized television genre. However, little has been written about the attitude of state broadcasting authorities toward this genre and the degree to which it is regulated and controlled in different countries. In this article, we focus on the Second Authority for Television and Radio, the public body that oversees commercial broadcasting in Israel, and look at how it controls the volume and content of reality TV programs while considering factors that are unique to Israeli economics and politics. The findings of this article indicate that in Israel, reality television is legitimized de facto despite perception of its moral shortcomings.

scholarly journals “Get Your Teeth Fixed Before You Go on TV”: Online Discussions of Reality Television as the Hegemonic Gaze Pointed at Socially Unacceptable “Others”

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Jakub Machek
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Capital ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Reality Television ◽  
Reality Tv ◽  
Online Discussions ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Research Outcome ◽  
Shifting Boundaries ◽  
Insight Into

The article is engaged with the question of how viewers of Czech reality television programmes negotiate the social status of low-income participants in online discussions. The analysis is triggered by an enquiry into practices of stigmatisation and the processes of drawing, maintaining, and shifting boundaries between the normalised, well-ordered “self” and the poverty-stricken, socially unacceptable “other”. The public judgement of people lacking economic and cultural capital is analysed using Internet and social network debates related to the Czech adaptations of the reality TV programmes Výměna manželek (Wife Swap, TV Nova, 2005-present) and Prostřeno (Come Dine with Me, TV Prima, 2010-present). This method provides insight into the creation of consensual meaning, and allows the analysis of the positions, claims and arguments adopted by online discussants. The research outcome showed some important differences between the evaluations offered by the producers of programmes and those accepted by viewers.

scholarly journals Iranian Diaspora, Reality Television and Connecting to Homeland

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-187
Author(s):  
Elham Atashi
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Reality Television ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Reality Tv ◽  
Audience Engagement ◽  
The Public ◽  
Reality Show ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Iranian Diaspora

<p><em>Befarmaeed Sham</em>, an Iranian diasporic media production adapted from the original UK reality show “Come Dine with me” features Iranian diaspora of diverse backgrounds as contestants in a cooking reality show. The success of the show has been unprecedented among audiences back home in Iran, reaching millions of households. Using discourse analysis this article examines the potential of reality TV in widening the scope of public sphere and in providing a space for participation and representation. The key practices to illustrate this are ways diaspora position themselves as subjects through discursive practices to express agency in generating, participating and sharing opinions. Casual talk and the entertaining attribute of reality TV focused on the everyday life of ordinary people, constructs a space to normalize audience engagement with what is otherwise, restrictive taboo topics embedded in themes around belonging, homeland, gender, and identity. The article concludes that the broad system of discourse used by diaspora as participants in the reality show constructs a space for representation. It can be considered as a contribution to enhancing the public sphere to not only communicate and connect with their homeland but to express opinions on broader social issues as a practice of civic engagement. This unique adaptation of reality TV is an important aspect of globalization and in using new media to mobilize diaspora in connecting to homeland.</p>

Reality TV Crime Programs

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annette Hill
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Reality Television ◽  
Video On Demand ◽  
Reality Tv ◽  
Central Component ◽  
Law And Order ◽  
The Real ◽  
The Public ◽  
Origin Story ◽  
True Crime

Crime reality television is a significant origin story in understanding reality entertainment. In the 1980s, crime reality television captured the public’s imagination with cold cases, ongoing criminal investigations, surveillance feeds, and live appeals to the public for information to catch criminals. Early crime reality television borrowed from other factual genres, including news reportage, crime and observational documentary, and crime drama; this mixing of different generic elements helped to create representations of crime that were a combination of dramatized spectacles, surveillance footage, and public appeals. What united this mix of factual and dramatic styles was the sense of liveness; the live address to the public and the caught-in-the-act camerawork contributed to an experience of watching as immediate and real. This feeling of liveness, a central component of television itself, meant that crime reality television was popular entertainment that also connected to the real world, inviting audiences and publics to engage with crime in their local neighborhood, in society, and in public debates about law and order. This was citizen crime television that had commercial and public appeal. At some point in the origin story of reality television, crime was overshadowed by the global development of this entertainment genre. In early studies, books such as Entertaining Crime (Fishman & Cavender, 1998) or Tabloid Television (Langer, 1998) examined the influx of infotainment and sensational news reportage primarily on television in Europe, Australia, and America. These books were about reality television and addressed the first crime wave in the genre. Studies of the 2000s books, such as Reality TV (Hill, 2005) or Staging the Real (Kilborn, 2003), examined docusoaps and competitive reality and talent shows, addressing the second and third waves in the genre. More recently, companions to reality television (Ouellette, 2014) contain research on global reality television formats, as well as scripted reality or business reality, and analyze issues concerning politics, race, class, production, celebrities, branding, and lifestyles. Crime is conspicuous by its relative absence from these discussions: what happened to crime reality television? Today, true crime is flourishing in commercial zones, for example, on branded digital television channels like CBS Reality or the international surveillance format Hunted, and subscription video on demand true crime Making a Murderer. Many of these popular series tap into that feeling of liveness that was so crucial to early crime reality television, particularly the connection between representing crime, law and order, and the real world. This makes crime reality television a rich site of analysis as an intergeneric space where there are tensions surrounding the staging of real crime for entertainment, and its connection to traditional values of authority and duty, representations of ethnicity, gender and social class, and broader moral, legal and political issues.

Tweeting the TV Event, Creating ‘Public Sphericules’: AD HOC Engagement with SBS's Go Back to Where You Came from — Season 2

2014 ◽  
Vol 152 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theresa Sauter ◽  
Axel Bruns
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Reality Tv ◽  
Public Event ◽  
Public Opinions ◽  
The Public ◽  
Social Media Tools ◽  
Political Realities

This article uses the example of the mediatisation of Season 2 of the Australian documentary-cum-reality TV series Go Back to Where You Came From, and the associated #GoBackSBS Twitter feed, to investigate how public opinions are shaped, reshaped and expressed in new hybrid media ecologies. We explore how social media tools like Twitter can support the efforts of a TV production; provide spaces through which the public can engage ad hoc with a public event, be informed, shape their opinions and share them with others; and thus open up new possibilities for public discourse to occur. We suggest that new online public sphericules are emerging that provide spaces within which publics can engage with the cultural social and political realities with which they are confronted. In this way, we highlight the importance of mundane communication to the shaping and constant reshaping of public opinion.

Discursive construction of an anti-immigration Europe by a Sweden Democrat in the European Parliament

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 429-439
Author(s):  
Kamber Güler
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Direct Democracy ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Social Power ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Discursive Construction ◽  
Cognitive Approach ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Group

Discourses are mostly used by the elites as a means of controlling public discourse and hence, the public mind. In this way, they try to legitimate their ideology, values and norms in the society, which may result in social power abuse, dominance or inequality. The role of a critical discourse analyst is to understand and expose such abuses and inequalities. To this end, this paper is aimed at understanding and exposing the discursive construction of an anti-immigration Europe by the elites in the European Parliament (EP), through the example of Kristina Winberg, a member of the Sweden Democrats political party in Sweden and the political group of Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy in the EP. In the theoretical and methodological framework, the premises and strategies of van Dijk’s socio-cognitive approach of critical discourse analysis make it possible to achieve the aim of the paper.

On Waxen Wings: Challenges to the Public Sphere in the Network Age

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Francoeur
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
The Internet ◽  
The Public ◽  
Digital Space ◽  
Multiple Viewpoints ◽  
Internet Users ◽  
Economic Production ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Communicative Space

There is a tendency, particularly among Western pundits and technologists, to examine the Internet in almost universally positive terms; this is most evident in any discussion of the medium’s capacity for democratization. While the Internet has produced many great things for society in terms of cultural and economic production, some consideration must be given to the implications that such a revolutionary medium holds for the public sphere. By creating a communicative space that essentially grants everyone his or her own microphone, the Internet is fragmenting public discourse due to the proliferation of opinions and messages and the removal of traditional gatekeepers of information. More significantly, because of the structural qualities of the Internet, users no longer have to expose themselves to opinions and viewpoints that fall outside their own preconceived notions. This limits the robustness of the public sphere by limiting the healthy debate that can only occur when exposed to multiple viewpoints. Ultimately, the Internet is not going anywhere, so it is important to equip the public with the tools and knowledge to be able to navigate the digital space. 

The Affective Politics of Citizenship in Reality Television Programs Featuring North Korean Resettlers

Cultura ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 145-163
Author(s):  
Soochul KIM ◽  
Kyung Han YOU
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
Cultural Politics ◽  
Reality Television ◽  
Civic Identity ◽  
Media Representation ◽  
Media Industry ◽  
Television Programs ◽  
Global Media ◽  
Television Shows

This study examines the dynamics of cultural politics in reality television shows featuring North Korean resettlers (NKR2) in South Korea. As existing studies focus on the role of media representation reproducing a dominant ideology for the resettlers, this paper focuses on the specific media rituals of NKR2 programs, which can be seen as a product of the neoliberalist localization process of the global media industry. In doing so, this paper demonstrates how NKR2 programs interrupt the current dynamics of emotions in regard to North Korean resettlers in South Korea. We argue that in shaping civic identity as an effect of the NKR2 show, cultural politics of citizenship in South Korea on North Korean resettlers serve the formation of relatively conservative and sexist civic identity.

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