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5. Laurie Ouellette and James Hay, “Makeover Television, Governmentality and the Good Citizen”

Summary

The makeover genre of reality television offers a glimpse into how television in general has adopted the role of making “good citizens” in a post-welfare, neoliberal state.

Questions

1. What happened to the welfare state after the 1980s and the age of neoliberalism?
2. How does makeover television, as a genre of reality television, function as an instrument of personal intervention and of “remaking government”?
3. How does television replace the nation-state as the agent of making good citizens?