The labour of transformation and circuits of value ‘around’ reality television

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Notes

 1. Hardt and Negri's definition of affective labour is that which ‘always directly constructs a relationship’ (2000, 147). However, the gender-specific aspects of these ‘new’ forms of immaterial labour are rarely addressed.

 2. Which is a reversal for the discursive term ‘economy’, which was initially used to describe domestic management: see Poovey (1995).

 3. Selected from British terrestrial television, these shows included: Wife Swap (RDF for Channel 4, 2003–); Faking It (RDF for Channel 4, 2000–); What the Butler Saw (BBC2, 2004); Get a New Life (BBC Scotland, 2003–); The Apprentice (RTL Talkback Thames, 2005–); What Not to Wear (BBC, 2001–); Supernanny (Ricochet for Channel 4, 2004–); Ladette to Lady (RDF for ITV, 2005–); and Club Reps (SMG for ITV, 2004–). We classified programmes into themes (money, holidays/travel, homes, food and health, hygiene, families/relationships, work, sex, appearance, manners, class mobility) that we mapped against ‘dramatic techniques’ (swaps, passing, challenges, competition, makeover, expert observation, life overhaul, abject).

 4. The focus of our textual analysis detailed how a ‘moral person economy’ was made visible on ‘reality’ television through a process of metonymic morality. Here we describe how types of behaviour and dispositions (e.g. eating, speaking, manners, tastes, forms of expression) are identified as parts which are loaded with moral value (good or bad, potential or abject) and outlined as in need of improvement in order to transform the whole self (see Wood and Skeggs 2008).

 5. Jordan, aka Katie Price, is a British celebrity famous for her enormous breasts, relationships with footballers, her marriage to pop singer Peter Andre, and looking after her disabled child.

 6. ‘Wife Swap Star Guilty of Benefit Fraud’: ‘The loudmouth mother of eight, who shot to fame in a hit Channel 4 reality show, pocketed £3,800 for media work while raking in £37,500 a year in state handouts’, Daily Mail, 26 September 2005.

 7. ‘By the end of the summer Jade had been described as a nasty slapper, public enemy number one, the most hated woman in Britain and a monster’; see ‘The Jade Goody Phenomenon’ in The Independent, 9 January 2007, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/the-jade-goody-phenomenon-431370.html (accessed 21 April 2008).

 8. This focus group discussion took place before Jade was ejected from Celebrity Big Brother for attacking Indian film star Shilpa Shetty by calling her ‘Shilpa Poppadom’ and creating a national scandal during which the then Chancellor (now Prime Minister, Gordon Brown) had to apologize for Jade and British racism to the Indian Prime Minister. See full transcript on http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/enertainment (accessed 15 August 2007).

 9. We add the prefix ‘semi-’ here because we are told that Vince, the husband, spends £50 per week on weed.

10. Liselle directly identifies herself as ‘middle class’ through a discussion of her education, housing, family and aspirations.

11. RDF, which makes Wife Swap, announced a turnover of £37.5 million and profits of £11.5 million in 2006. See http://www.rdfmedia.com/rdfmedia/rns/.rnsitem?id = 1161237679nRHSS691k&t-popup (accessed 21 April 2008).