The Thammasat University Library has acquired a new book that should be useful for students interested in sociology, media studies, psychology, business, communications, and related fields.

True Story: What Reality TV Says About Us is by Associate Professor Danielle J. Lindemann, who teaches sociology at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the United States of America.

The TU Library collection includes several other books about different aspects of reality television.

Reality television documents supposedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring unfamiliar people rather than professional actors. Reality television began to be seen as a distinct type of programming in the early 1990s with shows such as The Real World, then achieved prominence in the early 2000s with the success of the series Survivor, Idols, and Big Brother, all of which became global franchises.

Documentaries, television news, sports television, talk shows, and traditional game shows are generally not classified as reality television. Critics argue that reality television shows do not accurately reflect reality. Participants are placed in artificial situations and misleading editing, coaching of participants on behavior, prepared storylines, and staged scenes add to the falseness of the shows.

Other criticisms of reality television shows include that they are meant to humiliate or exploit participants, and they make stars of untalented people who are not worthy of fame.

In research published in Sociology Compass in 2007, Dr. Beth Montemurro investigated a sociological approach to reality television, noting:

Reality television has become a standard genre of programming in the twenty-first century. The popularity of these unscripted programs merits investigation. Reality shows can be seen as significant cultural objects whose production and consumption reflect and reveal norms and ideologies of contemporary culture. Although what is currently conceived as the reality television genre is perceived as novel, this type of programming has a long history, with its foundations dating back to the early days of television. Despite the popularity of reality television and its solid roots in Western media, sociology has been underused in its analysis. In this essay, I review the research on reality television. Its definition, history, and issues of classification in the genre are addressed. Then, I summarize the major themes in the research: production; analysis of content, presentations of race, gender, and sexuality; and audience response and interaction. I conclude with a discussion of what sociology might add to the existing research.

What are sociologists to make of the current wave of reality television? What do these shows and their popularity tell us about society? Despite the editing and packaging of these shows and the way people are turned into television-friendly characters and prototypes, these programs bear similarities to social research. Many are explicitly or implicitly promoted as ‘social experiments’. Reality shows often cast relatively diverse groups with the intention of seeing whether conflict or harmony will result. Success in reality competitions is often achieved through the development of alliances and strategic relationships and the process by which these unions form can be sociologically fascinating to watch. Yet, sociology, in method and theory, has rarely been applied to the analysis of reality television. This is not to say that reality television has not been examined academically. In fact, there is a growing body of research, primarily conducted by communication studies scholars, that takes this type of television seriously.

Research on reality television examines the production and reception of programs. Additionally, there are studies that document the significance of the popularity of this genre in television and popular culture. Other research analyzes the content of reality television, aiming to make sense of communication norms depicted on shows like Survivor and Big Brother. Although many of the articles and books about reality television investigate themes with which sociologists are quite familiar (e.g., identity, stereotypes, social structure), missing from most of the current analyses is systematic use of rigorous sociological methodology, perspective, and theory. Sociology could contribute a great deal to the study of reality television. Certainly, a microsociological, symbolic interactionist analysis of both the content of reality shows and the ways viewers interact with them would be a useful extension to the existing literature.

In her own book, Associate Professor Lindemann argues that despite being “bold and garish,” reality television.  holds the potential to explore new possibilities… [and] gain a keener understanding of ourselves.

Reality TV’s impact on the self, couples, groups, and families is examined in the context of major issues such as race and gender.

The author suggests that unscripted television is a fun-house mirror of our dominant, heteronormative culture, and even as it deals in sexual archetypes, the genre also shows us some possibilities for transcending our deeply entrenched roles and expectations.

As the CNN website observed in February,

On their faces, “Jersey Shore” and the “Real Housewives” franchise don’t seem like series worthy of sociological study.

Danielle Lindemann knows better than to count them out, though.

Lindemann, a sociologist who’s previously written books on dominatrixes and commuter couples, was raised on reality TV — the fourth season of “The Real World,” set in London, was a particularly formative watch — and teaches a seminar on the genre at Lehigh University, where she’s an associate professor.

“Reality TV has sort of followed me across my life,” Lindemann told CNN ahead of her book’s release. “Especially in the lowest points of my life, I often turn to reality TV. As it turns out, many people do.”

But when it came to research on the cultural impacts of reality TV, the results were scant. So Lindemann took up the subject herself.

Her latest analysis, “True Story: What Reality TV Says About Us,” released Tuesday, asks readers to view their favorite shows through an analytical lens. Series like “Survivor” and “The Bachelor” aren’t just forms of escapist entertainment or windows through which to gawk at strangers in extreme scenarios, she writes — reality series hold up a funhouse mirror to their viewers through which they can learn more about themselves and their culture.

“Reality TV is kind of real life dialed up to 11,” Lindemann said. “But it’s oftentimes by looking at these exaggerated caricatures and tracing their outlines, that we come to a greater understanding of ourselves.”

At one point in the book’s introduction, Lindemann describes reality TV as “elements of our culture in drag form,” referencing the philosopher Judith Butler’s theory that the art of drag elucidates the ways in which we perform gender within narrow confines. The same theory can be applied to the ways we consider race, sexuality, class and ourselves, Lindemann writes.

To better explain these weighty ideas, Lindemann draws from characters and moments familiar to stalwart reality viewers: From “Real Housewives of New York City” star Luann de Lesseps and her evolution from arrogant “countess” to divorced, slightly self-aware cabaret performer, we can glean that “there is no ‘authentic’ self,” but the selves we create partially based on the perceptions of others.

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)