Includes bibliographical references, filmography and index.

'Lifestyle TV' analyses a burgeoning array of lifestyle formats on network and cable channels, from how-to and advice programmes to hybrid reality entertainment built around the cultivation of the self as project, the ethics of everyday life, the mediation of style and taste, the regulation of health and the body, and the performance of identity and 'difference'. The author situates these formats historically, arguing that the lifestyling of television ultimately signals more than the television industry's turn to cost-cutting formats, niche markets, and specialised demographics. Rather, she argues that the surge of reality programming devoted to the achievement and display of lifestyle practices and choices must also be situated within broader socio-historical changes in capitalist democracies.

Specialized.