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Chapter 5

TV's constitution of citizenship

In chapter five, part of the book Better Living Trough Reality TV, authors L.Ouellette and J.Hay, give us an overview of the function of reality TV as a consulting resource, shaping and establishing standards and "private constitutions" of different communities. This links to Foucault's explanation of liberal government, it's development trough households and it's current dimension in the present epoch.

The authors give examples of different types of group governance embedded in various reality tv shows. Starting with the smallest framework - the household ('Supernanny'), scaling up to neighborhoods ('Welcome to the neighborhood'), where subjects are tested and questioned by contrasting populations that are usually looked up to. Teamwork, endurance and competition add to that model of self-reliant citizenship in reality tv. Moreover group governance converts from rational to commercial in the strive to produce the ideal corporate citizens ('The Apprentice'). Another strategy is exercising abilities and responsibilities to becoming a mature citizen. To add even more to the functions of reality Tv in building good, citizens is the emphasize on individuality and artistry ('Top Chef') and democratic government in a multicultural society.

Reality TV acts as a tool of "reinventing government" and making it administered beyond nation states. By staging citizenship tests and behavioral experiments, reality tv forms "nongovernmental" ways of governance in different communities of various scale and function. These citizenship tests are turned into a game, a form of entertainment with educational purposes.

Chapter 6

Playing TV's democracy game

The next chapter is a complex dissection of the ways modern TV makes us feel as a lively part of democracy.

With the change and development of television, comes the need for interactivity, for active consumers. Viewers are now empowered to express choice and become emancipated media citizens. The democracy game is possible in contemporary tv trough various technological methods. Participation is a very prominent method, and recently, technology of counting and being counted. The "reinvention" of tv is a direct bridge to "reinvention of "government". Viewers are made more active, and democracy gathers knowledge to understand what is expected from it. People are involved in voting in reality tv, they are judges and this gives private government unlimited power, teaching people this is democratic and making them accustomed to voting not ony in tv shows but in elections.

The "revealing" function of tv gives a sense of truth and transparency and democracy gradually becomes a technological achievement implemented in the participatory(interactive) nature of television and new media.