Constructing the nation in reality TV: A comparative study

This paper explores the ways in which reality TV constructs the nation as part of an everyday nationhood. By focusing on the ‘Next Top Model’ format, this paper argues that reality TV acts as a pervasive force in the reproduction of the nation, challenging critiques that ‘television is seen as prime evidence for the loss of national distinctiveness’ (Bonner 2003, 171). By comparing both the German and American versions of ‘Next Top Model’, this paper finds that the distinctive national context of each production provides clear differences in the ways in which the nation is (re)constructed. This is achieved by focusing more specifically upon performances of the self within reality TV and uncovering how these selves relate to particular performances of nationhood. While the American version was found to embrace difference as part of its rhetoric of ‘e pluribus unum’, performances of the self were heavily regulated for non-American contestants who often failed at ‘performing American’. Performances of Germanness were also constrained, with visibility awarded to a ‘white’, Western Germany.