This book brings the emergent interest in social class and inequality to the field of television studies. It reveals how the new visibility of class matters in serial television functions aesthetically and examines the cultural class politics...
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Hochschule für Wirtschaft und Umwelt Nürtingen-Geislingen, Bibliothek Nürtingen
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This book brings the emergent interest in social class and inequality to the field of television studies. It reveals how the new visibility of class matters in serial television functions aesthetically and examines the cultural class politics articulated in these programmes. This ground-breaking volume argues that reality and quality TV's intricate politics of class entices viewers not only to grapple with previously invisible socio-economic realities but also to reconsider their class alignment. The stereotypical ways of framing class are now supplemented by those dedicated to exposing the economic and socio-psychological burdens of the (lower) middle class. The case studies in this book demonstrate how sophisticated narrative techniques coincide with equally complex ways of exposing class divisions in contemporary American life and how the examined shows disrupt the hegemonic order of class. The volume therefore also invites a rethinking of conventional models of social stratification. Contents -- List of Figures -- Introduction: Class Di_visions and the Cultural Politics of Serial TV -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Part I: (Di)Vision: "Lower" Class Televisibility -- Framing Class, Vicarious Living, and Conspicuous Consumption -- Media Framing and the Performance of Class in Everyday Life -- The Upper Classes: Affluence and Consumerism Make People Happy -- The Poor and Homeless: "Not Me!"-Negative Role Models in the Media -- The Working Class: Historical Relics and Jokes -- Middle-Class Framing and High-Level Worrying -- Media Framing and Our Distorted View of Inequality -- The Realities of Class -- The Hangover After Hedonistic Consumerism -- Is Change Likely? Media Realities Support the Status Quo -- Media Ownership -- Old-Media Journalists: Constraints and Opportunities -- New Media: Constraints and Opportunities -- Notes -- "Hillbillies," "Welfare Queens," and "Teen Moms": American Media's Class Distinctions -- Media Framing -- Americans' Self-Identification with a Social Class -- Media Framing of the Poor -- Framing Research -- "Welfare Queens" -- Mitt Romney's Welfare Attack Ad -- Teen Moms -- Here Comes Honey Boo Boo -- Implications -- Bibliography -- The Paradoxical Class Politics in Here Comes Honey Boo Boo -- Class and Reality TV -- Class and the South in Honey Boo Boo -- "Better Redneckognize": Redneck Lifestyle -- A Different Gaze -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Reality TV and Its Audiences Reconsidered: Class and Poverty in Undercover Boss (CBS) -- Undercover Boss: Representing Class and Poverty -- Audiences Reconsidered: Social Media Writes Back -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Part II: Di*Visions: Screening Exploitation, Neoliberal Lies, and Class Realignment -- Lifestyle Precarity and Creative Class Affirmation in Girls -- Precarity and the Creative Class Girls and Feminist Celebrations of "Real Women's" Lives -- Creative Precarity as Cultural Capital -- Precarity as Lifestyle -- Precarity as Selling Point -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- House of Lies and the Management of Emotions -- Emotions and Finance -- Daddy's Girls, Social Mobility, and Emotional Health -- Breaking the 4th Wall: Emotional Management 101 -- Notes -- Bibliography -- The Financialization of Domestic Space in Arrested Development and Breaking Bad -- Financialization During the Housing Boom and the Great Recession -- Tricks (Illusions) and Arrested Development -- Home Cooking: Breaking Bad and Domestic Decay -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Realignment and Televisual Intellect: The Telepraxis of Class Alliances in Contemporary Subscription Television Drama -- Television's New Golden Age? -- First Wave: HBO's The Wire and Treme -- Second Wave: FX's Justified -- Crisis and Realignment -- Third Wave: Netflix's Hemlock Grove -- Notes -- Index