Lifestyle Tv

Lifestyle TV will present students with an accessible critical introduction to the fastest growing sector of television programming today: non-scripted lifestyle programming. From The Rachel Zoe Project to How to Look Good Nakes, Ouellette examines the myriad cooking and home decorating tutorials, health and fitness programs, self-help interventions, finance and budgeting advice programs, property makeovers, fashion, style and body makeovers, and diet and fitness programs that teach people specific techniques for achieving a good (successful, aesthetically pleasing, healthy, solvent) life. The book analyzes the characteristics and conventions of burgeoning array of lifestyle formats on network and cable channels and situates the prolifeeration of these formats historically, arguing that the life-stylization of television ultimately signals more than the television industry's turn to cost-cutting formats, niche markets, and specialized demographics. Rather, Ouellette argues that the surge of reality programming devoted to the achievment and display of particular (desirable) lifestyle practices and choices must also be situated within broader socio-historical changes in capitalist democracies.