BIG BROTHER INTERNATIONAL

Big Brother is one of the key cultural phenomena to mark the move into the twenty-first century. Both a scandal and a commercial hit, it has revolutionised television practice, changing the status of live multimedia events and challenging cultural theory. Big Brother International: Formats, Critics and Publics tells the story of its international impact. It chronicles many of the most striking moments of the show’s global career, from the sexual exploits in Italy, near bans in Germany and Africa and the cheating of Nasty Nick, to American attempts at sabotage, putting these events in perspective by linking them to their respective cultural contexts and media audiences. This multinational volume includes essays on Big Brother in Africa, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, South Africa, Turkey, the UK, Uruguay and the US. Media scholars from around the world have collaborated to compose an integrated view on Big Brother as a first step in our relationship with media culture in the twenty-first century.

January 2004
288 pages

978-1-904764-18-2 (pbk)	£16.99	£14.44 with 15% online discount - add to basket
978-1-904764-19-9 (hbk)	£45.00	£38.25 with 15% online discount - add to basket

Ernest Mathijs is Assistant Professor in Film and Theatre Studies at the University of British Columbia, Canada. He is the co-editor of Alternative Europe: Eurotrash and Exploitation Cinema Since 1945 (2004), editor of The Cinema of the Low Countries (2004) and author of The Cinema of David Cronenberg (2008).

Janet Jones is Lecturer in Television Studies at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. Formerly she was an editor at the BBC. Her research has been published in New Media and Society and the Journal of Media Practice.

‘Big Brother International is a timely collection that, by offering such a wealth of theoretical perspectives, not only makes for illuminating reading but also serves as a meaty introduction to the nature of media studies itself.’
– Times Higher Education Supplement

‘Big Brother International represents an important contribution to the analysis of "reality TV" as a whole and provides an insightful read into a much debated field.'
– Valentina Cardo, Media, Culture & Society

'The embedded local accounts of text, context and reception are illuminating but incredibly diverse, calling upon an amazing array of theoretical models and methodologies.'
– Participations journal