Combining cutting-edge theories of culture and government with programming examples—including Todd TV, Survivor, and American Idol—Better Living through Reality TV moves beyond the established concerns of political economy and cultural studies to conceptualize television's evolving role in the contemporary period.

• A major textbook on the impact of reality and lifestyle television on today’s programming, and on broader social, cultural and political trends
• Draws on a range of examples from The Apprentice and American Idol to Extreme Makeover and Wife Swap
• Argues that reality television teaches viewers to monitor, motivate, improve, transform and protect themselves in the name of freedom, enterprise, and personal responsibility

Laurie Ouellette is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Minnesota. She is co-editor of Reality TV: Remaking Television Culture and author of Viewers Like You? How Public TV Failed the People.

James Hay is an Associate Professor in the College of Communication at the University of Illinois--Champaign-Urbana. He is a co-editor of The Audience and Its Landscape.