Under the (Glue) Gun: Containing and Constructing Reality in Home Makeover TV

Shufeldt, Madeleine; Gale, Kendra

doi:10.1080/15405700701608980

Cited by 15 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…4 However, few have researched reality television production (see Montemurro, 2008). Existing reality television studies are primarily interview based and often focus on ordinary people as participants rather than on the professionals who work with them (Andrejevic, 2004;Aslama, 2009;Roscoe, 2004;Shufeldt and Gale, 2007;Syvertsen, 2001). Some scholars have begun to investigate how producers subjectively respond to labor conditions in reality television (Mayer, 2009) and television talent shows (Hesmondalgh and Baker, 2008).…”

Section: The Case Of Reality Televisionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dealing with reality: Market demands, artistic integrity, and identity work in reality television production

Wei

2012

Poetics

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Cultural industry workers at times compromise the values and tastes that are important parts of their artistic identities to accommodate commercial demands. I argue that workers resolve frustrations that arise from such compromises through identity work, individuals' active construction of their identities in social contexts. Using ethnographic data from fieldwork at a reality television production company, I describe two identity work strategies, distancing and evaluative tweaking, that workers use to maintain their artistic integrity despite producing work that does not meet their standards of quality. The manner through which these strategies emerged during micro social interaction differed between managers and non-managers. Managers used distancing and evaluative tweaking to simultaneously do identity work and regulate their employees' identities when justifying decisions that threatened shared values and tastes. On the other hand, employees distanced themselves from managers while venting to colleagues about managers' decisions that conflicted with their idiosyncratic values and tastes. These dynamics are illustrated through a setting that has received insufficient ethnographic attention, reality television production. Some reality television workers prefer to portray "real" and "authentic" situations. These workers employ identity work strategies to maintain artistic integrity when distorting reality to create the drama and conflict they consider marketable. AbstractCultural industry workers at times compromise the values and tastes that are important parts of their artistic identities to accommodate commercial demands. I argue that workers resolve frustrations that arise from such compromises through identity work, individuals' active construction of their identities in social contexts. Using ethnographic data from fieldwork at a reality television production company, I describe two identity work strategies, distancing and evaluative tweaking, that workers use to maintain their artistic integrity despite producing work that does not meet their standards of quality. The manner through which these strategies emerged during micro social interaction differed between managers and nonmanagers. Managers used distancing and evaluative tweaking to simultaneously do identity work and regulate their employees' identities when justifying decisions that threatened shared values and tastes. On the other hand, employees distanced themselves from managers while venting to colleagues about managers' decisions that conflicted with their idiosyncratic values and tastes. These dynamics are illustrated through a setting that has received insufficient ethnographic attention, reality television production. Some reality television workers prefer to portray "real" and "authentic" situations. These workers employ identity work strategies to maintain artistic integrity when distorting reality to create the drama and conflict they consider marketable.

show abstract

Section: The Case Of Reality Televisionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dealing with reality: Market demands, artistic integrity, and identity work in reality television production

Wei

2012

Poetics

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show abstract

“…However, such proclaimed measures of ‘agency’ and ‘contingency’ always need to be balanced against the ‘structural’ constraints imposed by the production apparatus, including (subtle) ‘strategies of content’ (Teurlings, 2001: 255) deployed to create preferred narrative discourses and performances (Shufeldt and Gale, 2007) (cf. ‘internal and external conflict’ (I34), or, ‘[Y]ou can [almost] write down what’s going to happen’ (I1)).…”

Section: Formatting Simulation and ‘The Emotional Journey’mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For while participants (may) obtain (some) measures of ‘agency’ within the structural constraints of the production setting by holding on to the secure signpost of the ‘inner self’, this self-determination is possibly undermined by the control postproduction grants program makers to post facto shape preferred narratives and identities (cf. Shufeldt and Gale, 2007; Teurlings, 2001).…”

Section: Editing ‘Reality’mentioning

confidence: 99%

Negotiating the ‘real’ in ‘reality shows’: production side discourses between deconstruction and reconstruction

Mast

2016

Media, Culture & Society

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In this study, we set out to elaborate configurations of the 'real' and 'authentic' in the discourses of program makers and participants of 'reality shows'. This production side perspective has more often been the object, rather than the subject, in the debate. We develop our argument through a theoretically informed discussion at the intersection of cultural and documentary studies. Our analysis proceeds through a thematic content analysis of 39 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 14 television professionals and 25 participants involved in the production of formats belonging to various subgenres, all with a border-crossing circulation. The analysis demonstrates that when gauging 'the real' in 'reality shows', participants and program makers do not subscribe to a 'naïve realistic' celebration, as the 'reality TV' denominator may suggest, yet, nonetheless still strongly invest in a sense of the 'real' or 'authentic'. As such, they engage in a sophisticated, dynamic and, so it could be argued, strategic shifting to-and-fro deconstructive and reconstructive positions. What ensues from this dialog between deconstruction and reconstruction is a conception of the 'reality show' as a nodal point of the multiple and ever-evolving configurations of the 'real' and the 'authentic' in a reflexive, media-savvy culture.

show abstract

“…2000; Kilborn et al. 2001; Shufeldt and Gale 2007; Syvertsen 2001). The apparent neglect for the particularities of the production stage connects with a broader trend in the domain of television studies generally, where…”

Section: Making and Watching Reality Televisionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Documentary at a Crossroads: Reality TV and the Hybridization of Small‐Screen Documentary

Mast

2009

Sociology Compass

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Today, as tendencies of popularization and hybridization have fundamentally redefined conventional notions of (small) screen documentary, the genre (re-)emerges as a particularly appealing topic of scholarly research. This article elaborates some of the main strands of the multifaceted debate about these ongoing developments, thereby focusing on the 'reality TV' phenomenon, which is probably the most notable, yet also most controversial embodiment of the shifting that takes place. Discussing key positions regarding the problem of labeling and definition, questions of documentary values, and ethical issues, it is argued that a comprehensive, nuanced approach based on profound conceptualizations as well as empirical research into production and reception contexts are invaluable in making an astute assessment of the popular hybrid documentary.

show abstract

Under the (Glue) Gun: Containing and Constructing Reality in Home Makeover TV

Cited by 15 publications

References 3 publications

Dealing with reality: Market demands, artistic integrity, and identity work in reality television production

Dealing with reality: Market demands, artistic integrity, and identity work in reality television production

Negotiating the ‘real’ in ‘reality shows’: production side discourses between deconstruction and reconstruction

Documentary at a Crossroads: Reality TV and the Hybridization of Small‐Screen Documentary

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