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lectures > lectures spring 2003

Maps, Space and the Brain

Speaker: Sam Brenton
10 May 2003

During the 1990s a new hybrid form of television emerged, mixing elements of documentary, soap opera, quiz and talk shows with a dash of social psychology and a healthy dose of voyeuristic intrusion. From inanity to brutality, from botched attempts to harness the popularity of the formats (in the service of a public broadcasting remit) to new depths of trash TV, from suicidal contestants to overnight millionaires, reality TV is the most talked about, lauded and lambasted phenomenon in recent broadcasting history. By now, in 2003 it has leaked from its niches into the fabric of all kinds of programming.

Sam Brenton examines why reality television has become so popular, whether some of its practices are ethically questionable, and where we can turn to understand better the true role and reach of such rampant new media forms. He argues that, in the absence of grand narratives, reality TV's elevation of the personal, its focus on the flotsam and jetsam of selfhood, has become the era's perfect vehicle and catalyst for its self-fascination. Why, via the dully reflective surfaces of camera lens and screen, do we consume, and offer up for consumption, that which is most ordinary about ourselves?

Sam Brenton is co-author, with Reuben Cohen, of Shooting People, Adventures in Reality TV (Verso Books, hardback publication May 2003; ISBN 1 85984 5401). He has published several volumes of poetry including Telephone Voices (Cambridge Poetical Histories, 1999). He works at Queen Mary College, University of London.