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Revision with unchanged content. Reality programs have transformed televison, pushing many traditional narra tives such as miniseries, sitcoms, and movies of the week off the dial. Be cause of the genre s roots in documentary, many scholars and critics have condemned reality televison for its perceived lack of formal appropriateness and for how it uses documentary conventions for sensational purposes. Examining four representative programs, this book takes a different position, arguing that reality television has more in common with traditional narrative programs than with documentary: its rhetoric is a narrative rhetoric. Whereas documentaries tend to use argument as a primary mode within which narration may figure, reality programs operate within a primarily narrative mode, telling dramatic stories about real people. And the success of the reality television phenomenon may be due to those very narrative structures it employs to order and construct its reality. This book will interest those in the fields of Communications, Rhetoric, Film Studies, Television Studies, Media Studies, and Popular Culture Studies.

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Lecturer in English at N.C. State University, holds a master s in Rhetoric and Composition from N.C. State University and in Film Studies and Screenwriting from Hollins University.

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