Ethics of Reality TV

Beginning with the new millennium, reality television exploded both in number of shows and in popularity. The scholarship on reality TV is beginning to catch up, but one of the most enduring questions about the genre--Is it ethical?--has yet to be addressed in any systematic and comprehensive way. Through investigating issues ranging from deception and privacy breeches to community building and democratization of TV, The Ethics of Reality TV explores the ways in which reality TV may create both benefits and harms to society. The edited collection features the work of leading scholars in the field of media ethics and provides a comprehensive assessment of the ethical effects of the genre.

When 'reality tv' covers most of the social domain, it seems strange that we do not have more debates about the ethics of how it does this. Even stranger, when we consider the frequent conflicts between production goals and the needs of those who appear in reality shows. This lively book brings together both critical and more sympathetic assessments in a series of accessibly written essays that open up this important topic to students and general readers alike. --Nick Couldry, Professor of Media and Communications, Goldsmiths, University of London, and author of Listening Beyond the Echoes: Media, Ethics and Agency in an Uncertain World (Paradigm Books, 2006), The temptation with a book on reality TV is just to slam the genre as an ethical wasteland. Indeed, the authors provide compelling reasons to disapprove of common ethical trespasses in reality TV, including deception, exploitation, and stereotyping. However, they also challenge us to take the good with the bad. Do some shows, at least, have the potential to uplift, educate and inspire? If so, are they the exception or the rule? Are there some shows we can support wholeheartedly, or must we settle for ethical lemons that can be turned into lemonade? This balanced collection is a must-read for anyone seeking an intelligent ethical examination of reality TV in the United States and abroad. -- Sandra L. Borden, Professor of Communication and Co-director of the Center for the Study of Ethics in Society at Western Michigan University, USA, Reviewed by, Wyatt and Bunton have taken an important first step in filling a sizable hole in the literature of media ethics with this first systematic, international, and philosophical inspection of a key, if not dark, continent within the television landscape.

Kristie Bunton is professor and chair of the Department of Communication and Journalism at the University of St. Thomas. Her scholarship has been published in such journals as Public Integrity, Journal of Mass Media Ethics, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, Journalism Educator and American Journalism. Wendy N. Wyatt is an associate professor in the Department of Communication and Journalism at the University of St. Thomas. Her research interests include communication ethics, press criticism and media literacy. She is the author of Critical Conversations: A Theory of Press Criticism (Hampton, 2007).