News Item: Fort Collins, Colorado – A six-year-old boy, his parents, and their homemade balloon recently made headlines after it was reported that the balloon floated away with the boy trapped inside its chamber. Not surprisingly, “Balloon Boy” received widespread media attention. Local law enforcement officials eventually declared the incident a hoax and said the family concocted the elaborate plan in order to achieve reality TV stardom. A popular genre among television viewers, reality shows often garner high Nielsen ratings. Why are they popular among television viewers? What is their allure? Pick up one of these books and see what the academics have to say.
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Arresting Images: Crime and Policing in Front of the Television Camera
By Aaron Doyle. University of Toronto Press, 2003
Call Number: HM1206 .D69 2003 (At Jupiter)
Better Living through Reality TV: Television and Post-Welfare Citizenship
By Laurie Ouellette and James Hay. Blackwell Pub., 2008
Call Number: PN1992.8 .R43 O84 2008
Big Brother: Reality TV in the Twenty-First Century
By Jonathan Bignell. Palgrave MacMillan, 2005
Call Number: PN1992.8 .R43 B54 2005
Big Brother International: Formats, Critics and Publics
Edited by Ernest Mathijs and Janet Jones. Wallflower Press, 2004
Call Number: PN1992.77 .B49 B49 2004
Big Bother: Why Did That Reality-TV Show Become Such a Phenomenon?
By Toni Johnson-Woods. University of Queensland Press, 2002
Call Number: PN1992.77 .B49 J64 2002
Discipline and Liberty: Television and Governance
By Gareth Palmer. Manchester University Press, 2003
Call Number: PN1992.8 .R43 P35 2003
Documenting Gay Men: Identity and Performance in Reality Television and Documentary Film
By Christopher Pullen. McFarland, 2007
Call Number: HQ76.2 .U5 P85 2007
Entertaining Crime: Television Reality Programs
Edited by Mark Fishman and Gray Cavender. Aldine de Gruyter, 1998
Call Number: PN1992.8 .R43 E58 1998
Freakshow: First Person Media and Factual Television
By Jon Dovey. Pluto Press, 2000
Call Number: PN1992.8 .R43 D68 2000 (Also available online via NetLibrary)
How Real Is Reality TV?: Essays on Representation and Truth
Edited by David S. Escoffery. McFarland & Co., 2006
Call Number: PN1992.8 .R43 H69 2006
Makeover Television: Realities Remodelled
Edited by Dana Heller. I. B. Tauris, 2007
Call Number: PN1992.8 .R43 M35 2007
Reality Check: The Business and Art of Producing Reality TV
By Michael Essany. Focal Press/Elsevier, 2008
Call Number: PN1992.8 .R43 E87 2008
Reality Squared: Televisual Discourse on the Real
Edited by James Friedman. Rutgers University Press, 2002
Call Number: PN1992.8 .R4 R43 2002
Reality Television
By Richard M. Huff. Praeger Publishers, 2006
Call Number: PN1992.8 .R43 H84 2006
Reality TV: Audiences and Popular Factual Television
By Annette Hill. Routledge, 2005
Call Number: PN1992.8 .R43 H55 2005 (Also available online via NetLibrary)
Reality TV: Realism and Revelation
By Anita Biressi and Heather Nunn. Wallflower, 2005
Call Number: PN1992.8 .R43 B57 2004
Reality TV: Remaking Television Culture
Edited by Susan Murray and Laurie Ouellette. New York University Press, 2004
Call Number: PN1992.8 .R43 R45 2004
Reality TV: The Work of Being Watched
By Mark Andrejevic. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2003
Call Number: PN1992.8 .R43 A53 2003
Shooting People: Adventures in Reality TV
By Sam Brenton and Reuben Cohen. Verso, 2003
Call Number: PN1992.8 R43 B74 2003
So, You Wannabe on Reality TV
By Jack Benza. Allenworth Press, 2005
Call Number: Available online via NetLibrary
The Spectacle of the Real: From Hollywood to “Reality” TV and Beyond
Edited by Geoff King. Intellect, 2005
Call Number: PN1995 .S623 2005
Staging the Real: Factual TV Programming in the Age of Big Brother
By Richard Kilborn. Manchester University Press, 2003
Call Number: PN1992.8 .R43 K55 2003
Survivor Lessons: Essays on Communication and Reality Television
Edited by Matthew J. Smith and Andrew F. Wood. McFarland & Company, Inc., 2003
Call Number: PN1992.8 .R43 S87 2003
Tabloid Culture: Trash Taste, Popular Power, and the Transformation of American Television
By Kevin Glynn. Duke University Press, 2000
Call Number: PN1992.8 .R43 G59 2000
The Truman Show (DVD)
Directed by Peter Weir. Paramount, 1999
Call Number: PN1997 .T7242 1999 (At Jupiter)
Understanding Reality Television
Edited by Su Holmes and Deborah Jermyn. Routledge 2004
Call Number: PN1992.8 .R43 U53 2004
Un-Resistive Reproduction?: Medical Hegemony, Pregnancy, and Reality Television– FAU M.A. Thesis
By Serena R. Bruno. Florida Atlantic University, 2005
Call Number: NX001. B786 2005 (Also available online)