Quotes

(Pettie, 2011) Big Brother, and hundreds of shows like it, placed its subjects in a heightened version of reality by cooping them up in a confined space and then poking them with a metaphorical (and in some cases literal) sticks. (Purvis, 2011:158) It is in the era of postmodernity that audiences are promised new life-styles, new choices and ecstatic futures, and it is television which has encoded this imaginary in reality programmes such as ITVs The X-Factor (UK,2004-), Idol/Foxs American Idol (USA,2002-; originally as American Idol: The Search for a Superstar), and Endemols Big Brother (UK, Channel 4, 2000-10). (Butler, 2003 : 21) We live, not inside reality, but inside our representations of it.