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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 149-159).

ABSTRACT This thesis analyses a range of reality television programmes produced in New Zealand as part of a wider investigation into the affective strategies and discursive practices of the medium of television itself. The capacity of television, and more specifically reality television, to bring things close and render them present - spatially, temporally, socially and emotionally – is the thematic fulcrum of this study. Closeness is variously interpreted here as proximity (in terms of space, geography or social position), co-incidence (in terms of time) and intimacy (in terms of emotional affect). The present-ness of reality programming is both temporal (occurring now, in the present tense) and physical (occurring here, in this body, in this home, in this country). It is through this affect of present-ness that reality television most clearly engages with the domain of the real. Thus, this study also turns upon a consideration of the various significant ways in which reality television defines, pursues and manifests moments of realness on screen. The thesis is broken down into two parts, entitled Here and Now respectively, reflecting the double axis of spatial (incorporating social) and temporal present-ness. Within this bi-partite structure, six chapters focus in turn on a number of different discursive threads: Viscerality, Ordinariness, Community, Amateurism, Intimacy and Temporal Immediacy, producing a cumulative theoretical framework through which to address reality TV. In terms of methodology, this thesis pursues its exploration of reality television through close textual readings of selected programmes which have been produced for a New Zealand audience. Where appropriate, however, it draws on international examples of reality programming, in particular, those high-profile formats from Europe and the United States which have generated new paradigms for the production and reception of reality television worldwide. In addition, this thesis analyses programme form and content through a range of theoretical frameworks drawn from television studies and other academic disciplines. It also seeks to engage with international critical and academic debates surrounding the often controversial rise of reality programming as a televisual phenomenon in the nineties and into the twenty-first century. The production of this thesis coincides with a surge in academic output on the subject of reality television, and has benefited from recent publications in this area. This thesis attempts to balance both general and specific interests in New Zealand’s reality programming. On one hand, it places reality television within the context of long-established, international academic discussions about television as a medium, with the intent of showing that reality programming has an innate applicability to the domestic medium out of which it has arisen. On the other, this thesis pursues a more specific project, as it considers locally-produced programming as the particular output of the island nation of New Zealand. In this case, I argue that the particular aesthetic and discursive practices of reality programming, which devolve upon the ordinary, the domestic and the local, are well-suited to the ongoing production of culture and identity in a settler nation such as New Zealand.

Madness is often associated with violence, criminality, and degenerative human failure in stigmatising media reports, and these are most people’s site of information about madness. Despite (or maybe because of) reductions in stigmatising reporting, negative perceptions of madness persist, notwithstanding stringent broadcast standards and expensive public health campaigns. When regulation dominates, extreme views can move underground into less monitored areas such as film which enjoys a wider scope to explore ideas and issues concerning a culture. Agencies which have more freedom to represent madness beyond objective journalistic conventions can be more subversive. This work takes Foucault’s archaeology of madness (among other works) as its point of departure to look at cinematic representations of madness, exploring the notion that cinema reflects and reinforces the asylum discourse. It investigates cinema as a strategy of neurotic reiteration to confine madness in narrative—to close down the spectre of the Other—in cultural structures to exorcise it from the collective consciousness. Commercial imperatives drive stigmatising representations of madness, drawing on cultural loadings inherent in the asylum discourse, trading on demonising and pathologising to exacerbate drama and tension, essential elements of tragedy. Foucault’s framework is the basis for detailed analyses and close readings of a selection of cinematic representations, critiquing their role as constituent of, and constituting, the spectacle of madness. The films considered are from New Zealand and dominant (i.e. Hollywood) cinema in order to permit comparisons between representations here and overseas. This work follows my master’s thesis (1999), which used a similar methodology to examine representations of suicide in cinema in four popular films. Here, I look at the ideas that represent knowledge and authority about madness as represented in discourses associated with cinema. I look at loadings of illness, moral failure, Otherness, animality, and the mechanisms through which the asylum discourse of containment and spectacle is validated (or otherwise). This links with Fuery’s discussion of madness and cinema, and madness as a necessary aspect of spectatorship that makes cinema possible. It also connects to my current employment on a project addressing stigma and discrimination against people with experience of madness.

In the months following the Sandy Hook elementary school tragedy, there has been increased attention and debate regarding violent video games and how they affect those who play them. While some lobby for increased regulation of their sale, others argue that video games are not the reason such tragedies continue to happen. In this report, I approach the debate from social, personal and political dimensions to better identify the inconsistencies regarding how violent video games are presented to and received by the public. I also interview video game developers, critics, and researchers to uncover solutions and new strategies to increase video game education and perception about the use of violence in a video game. / text

The following thesis examines how documentary texts, in particular those that are associated with the tradition of political documentary, negotiate their way into being. For this purpose, I use a series of documentary case studies, each one structured around a work of my own. The five documentaries I examine were made through the decade 1990-2000 and, although these works address a range of specific cultural and political issues, they were produced either out of the US or New Zealand, the two countries within which I have lived while a documentary maker. My methodological approach is two-fold. First, I place each documentary within a framework designed by Bill Nichols as a way of defining documentary. Nichols, a major presence in the field of documentary studies, looks at documentary as constructed through a matrix of factors: the interplay of possible documentary modes and styles, pressures brought to bear through the institutional context surrounding documentary production, such as funding and distribution, the expectations of the genres' audiences, and the dialogue and influences generated by a community of documentary practitioners and their films and videos. In following Nichols' model, I offer up a modal and textual analysis for each of my own works cited, and examine, through a mixture of anecdote and theory, how funders, distributors, audiences and my fellow makers shaped my documentaries. In carrying out this examination, I also highlight certain debates that raged through the decade, particularly around documentary realism and identity politics, that were to have considerable impact on my work. My second methodological approach is to situate each work within a history of "political documentary". In Chapter One of this thesis I have attempted to categorize the various formulations of the sub-genre, which have developed since the inception of film over a century ago. In the ensuing chapters I examine how each of my documentaries draws on that history. My own body of works of course was produced in a relatively short period, but even within this time the historical changes the world has undergone are immense. Documentary is ever sensitive to its context and I chart the impact of political change on the texts being scrutinized. Although the focus, my own work, may appear narrow, the thesis draws on the tradition of participant observation and seeks, by analyzing the complexities of production within a series of case Studies, to cast light on contemporary documentary practice generally. / Whole document restricted, but available by request, use the feedback form to request access.

ABSTRACT This thesis analyses a range of reality television programmes produced in New Zealand as part of a wider investigation into the affective strategies and discursive practices of the medium of television itself. The capacity of television, and more specifically reality television, to bring things close and render them present - spatially, temporally, socially and emotionally – is the thematic fulcrum of this study. Closeness is variously interpreted here as proximity (in terms of space, geography or social position), co-incidence (in terms of time) and intimacy (in terms of emotional affect). The present-ness of reality programming is both temporal (occurring now, in the present tense) and physical (occurring here, in this body, in this home, in this country). It is through this affect of present-ness that reality television most clearly engages with the domain of the real. Thus, this study also turns upon a consideration of the various significant ways in which reality television defines, pursues and manifests moments of realness on screen. The thesis is broken down into two parts, entitled Here and Now respectively, reflecting the double axis of spatial (incorporating social) and temporal present-ness. Within this bi-partite structure, six chapters focus in turn on a number of different discursive threads: Viscerality, Ordinariness, Community, Amateurism, Intimacy and Temporal Immediacy, producing a cumulative theoretical framework through which to address reality TV. In terms of methodology, this thesis pursues its exploration of reality television through close textual readings of selected programmes which have been produced for a New Zealand audience. Where appropriate, however, it draws on international examples of reality programming, in particular, those high-profile formats from Europe and the United States which have generated new paradigms for the production and reception of reality television worldwide. In addition, this thesis analyses programme form and content through a range of theoretical frameworks drawn from television studies and other academic disciplines. It also seeks to engage with international critical and academic debates surrounding the often controversial rise of reality programming as a televisual phenomenon in the nineties and into the twenty-first century. The production of this thesis coincides with a surge in academic output on the subject of reality television, and has benefited from recent publications in this area. This thesis attempts to balance both general and specific interests in New Zealand’s reality programming. On one hand, it places reality television within the context of long-established, international academic discussions about television as a medium, with the intent of showing that reality programming has an innate applicability to the domestic medium out of which it has arisen. On the other, this thesis pursues a more specific project, as it considers locally-produced programming as the particular output of the island nation of New Zealand. In this case, I argue that the particular aesthetic and discursive practices of reality programming, which devolve upon the ordinary, the domestic and the local, are well-suited to the ongoing production of culture and identity in a settler nation such as New Zealand.