Abstract
The proliferation of popular television genres in which the public are key participants (talk shows, reality TV, and makeover and lifestyle television) on the surface may seem less to do with engagement and more to do with entertainment and voyeurism. However, this article explores an alternative to the idea that popular television based on personal experience is a marker of the end of television in general and the weakening of the public service tradition in particular. Two programs, Oprah! and Little Angels, are shown to address the agendas of reflexive modernity and governmentality and potentially to contribute to a normative social order based on the project of the self. The fact that both traditional public service providers and commercial channels are engaging with these social issues suggests that new ways of legitimizing television in the public interest are emerging, with implications for the character of public service television.
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