Reality Television and Class

How does class get 'cast' and made performative? What modes are there for people to wrestle-back their forms of representation? And how should we understand this intense manipulation of feeling? This bookexamines why class politics matter against much political and academic rhetoric which refract inequality through other means.

BEVERLEY SKEGGSProfessorinthe Department of Sociology at Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK. She held the Kerstin Hesselgren Professor in Gender Studies at Stockholm University, Sweden,and is an Academician of the Academy of the Learned Societies for the Social Sciences, UK. Her previous books include Formations of Class and Gender: Becoming Respectable (1997) and Class, Self and Culture (2004).
HELEN WOOD Reader in Media and Communication at De Montfort University, Leicester, UK. She is the author of Talking With Television: Women, Talk Shows and Modern Self-Reflexivity (2009).

Introduction: Real Class; H.Wood& B.Skeggs
PART I: MEDIATED EXCHANGE AND JUDGEMENT
Class and Contemporary Forms of 'Reality' Production or, Hidden Injuries of Class 2; N.Couldry
'I'm common and my talking is quite abrupt' (Jade Goody): Language and Class in Celebrity Big Brother; A.Tolson
Managing the Borders: Classed Mobility on Security-Themed Reality TV; M.Andrejevic
Fame on the Farm: Class and Celebrity on Slovene Reality TV; Z.Volcic& K.Erjavec
Reality TV without Class: The Postsocialist Anti-Celebrity Docusoap; A.Imre& A.Tremlett
'You've put yourselves on a plate': the Labours of Selfhood on MasterChef Australia; T.Lewis
PART II: NORMALISATION, ASPIRATION AND ITS LIMITS
'I'm a girl, I should be a princess': Gender, Class Entitlement and Denial in The Hills; L.Taylor
Organic Branding: The Self, Advertising and Life-experience Formats; G.Palmer
'The virtuous circle': Social Entrepreneurship and Welfare Programming in the UK; A.Biressi
From All-American Mom to Super Bitch from Hell: Kate Gosselin and the Classed and Gendered Politics of Reality Television; B.Weber Investing in the 'Forever Home': from Property Programming to 'Retreat TV'; H.Nunn
PART III: PERFORMING AND FEELING CLASS
Reality Television's 'Classrooms': Knowing, Showing, and Telling about Social Class in Reality Casting and the College Classroom; V.Mayer
From Jerry Springer to Jersey Shore: The Cultural Politics of Class in/on US Reality Programming; L.Grindstaff
Pramface Girls: The Class Politics of 'Maternal TV'; I.Tyler
Shame on you! Intergenerational Trauma and Working-class Femininity on Reality Television; V.Walkerdine
'This is a Matter of Pride': The Choir, Un-Sung Town and Community Transformation; L.Blackman