“Get Your Teeth Fixed Before You Go on TV”: Online Discussions of Reality Television as the Hegemonic Gaze Pointed at Socially Unacceptable “Others”

The article is engaged with the question of how viewers of Czech reality television programmes negotiate the social status of low-income participants in online discussions. The analysis is triggered by an enquiry into practices of stigmatisation and the processes of drawing, maintaining, and shifting boundaries between the normalised, well-ordered “self” and the poverty-stricken, socially unacceptable “other”. The public judgement of people lacking economic and cultural capital is analysed using Internet and social network debates related to the Czech adaptations of the reality TV programmes Výměna manželek (Wife Swap, TV Nova, 2005-present) and Prostřeno (Come Dine with Me, TV Prima, 2010-present). This method provides insight into the creation of consensual meaning, and allows the analysis of the positions, claims and arguments adopted by online discussants. The research outcome showed some important differences between the evaluations offered by the producers of programmes and those accepted by viewers.The article is engaged with the question of how viewers of Czech reality television programmes negotiate the social status of low-income participants in online discussions. The analysis is triggered by an enquiry into practices of stigmatisation and the processes of drawing, maintaining, and shifting boundaries between the normalised, well-ordered “self” and the poverty-stricken, socially unacceptable “other”. The public judgement of people lacking economic and cultural capital is analysed using Internet and social network debates related to the Czech adaptations of the reality TV programmes Výměna manželek (Wife Swap, TV Nova, 2005-present) and Prostřeno (Come Dine with Me, TV Prima, 2010-present). This method provides insight into the creation of consensual meaning, and allows the analysis of the positions, claims and arguments adopted by online discussants. The research outcome showed some important differences between the evaluations offered by the producers of programmes and those accepted by viewers