Introduction Chapter 1

Notes Introduction 1. I write in the context of major commentators such as Baudrillard ([1970]1998), Jameson (1991), and Featherstone (1991), who regard the prominence of both mediation and consumption as key to understanding contemporary or postmod- ern society. 2. Andrejevic links these trends to another form of convergence, that between leisure, labor, and consumption (2004, 53). This third conflation, while significant, is not my primary focus. 3. For simplicity’s sake, I still employ the terms “television,” “broadcast,” and “air” to refer to the primary source for the material I am discussing, even though much of it is delivered digitally via cable or satellite and distributed in a more heterogeneous fashion than in the network era. 4. I will use “public relations” or “PR” as singular nouns. 5. Indeed, Baudrillard (1996) goes one further when he credits Disney with being the precursor of a recently begun process of turning all of real life into a giant reality show. 6. Perhaps not surprisingly, this has been my own experience on several occasions, but I have also heard others say it both in real life and on television. 7. Cinema Verite (2011) is a dramatized behind-the-scenes account of the PBS series An American Family, in many ways the most obvious forerunner of today’s reality TV. 8. In 2011, US campaigns for Kraft mayo and Febreze fabric spray adopted RTV narratives and aesthetics. 9. Technologies of the self are, in Foucault’s terms, the ways in which individuals experience, understand, judge, and conduct themselves. Chapter 1 1. In 2010, the US expenditure on advertising was $131 billion and global spending on advertising is projected to exceed $500 billion in 2011. See http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011–03–17/u-s-advertising- spending-rose-6–5–in–2010-led-by-television-internet.html (accessed May 15, 178 ● Notes 2011). Also: http://www.aaaa.org/news/agency/Pages/120610_groupm_forecast. aspx (accessed May 15, 2011). 2. I have written elsewhere about the particular dynamics of product placement in the commodity-starved, Spartan environments of gamedocs like Survivor (Deery 2004a). 3. The annual rate of growth of product placement between 1999 and 2004 was 16.3 percent (Lehu 2007, 34). Nielsen Media Research recorded more than 100,000 placements on US television in 2006, with reality shows like American Idol and Home Edition leading the way (Magder 2009, 152). 4. There are only a few notable exceptions to ad avoidance, such as the American Super Bowl, when many television viewers tune in to see the ads. 5. This “Antichrist” remark was attributed to the CEO of Turner Broadcasting Jamie Kellner (Donaton 2004, 2). 6. For an account of Hollywood’s sometimes painful attempt to accommodate the grammar of advertising, see M.C. Miller (1990). 7. I compared infomercials and RTV in an earlier article, which I incorporate here (Deery 2004b). 8. The 2006 Pepsi ad featured an agent working for a can of Diet Pepsi and negoti- ating its role as a costar of a film with Jackie Chan. Available on YouTube: http: //www.youtube.com/watch?v= pz-rnHqRtek (accessed June 7, 2008). 9. One of the earliest offenders, the Breakfast broadcaster GMTV, was fined £2 million by the British media regulator Ofcom. 10. Other countries that ban or restrict product placement on television are Austria, Germany, Norway, and Denmark. 11. The spoof entitled “Extreme Home Makeover: Indian Edition” is available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v= xJaZpeMmEfo (accessed March 7, 2009). 12. Home Depot went from 340 stores and $12.5 billion in sales in 1994 to 1,890 stores and $73 billion in sales in 2004 to $66.2 billion in 2009. For details of the company’s growth history see http://www.homedepot.com/HDUS/EN_US/ corporate/about/timeline.shtml (accessed May 14, 2006). Similarly, Lowes went from $6.4 billion in sales in 1994 to $36.5 billion in 2004 to $47.2 billion in 2009: see http://www.shareholder.com/lowes/index2.cfm (accessed May 14, 2006). 13. For a Reality Blurred article on the campaign see, http://www.realityblurred.com/ realitytv/archives/industry_news/2005_Nov_23_wgaw_product_invasion (accessed April 16, 2007). 14. Stacy London has appeared in ads for Pantene, Dr. Scholl’s, Riders Jeans and many others. Copresenter Clinton Kelly is a spokesman for Macy’s and has a clothing line through the QVC brand Denim & Co. Kelly also wrote Freakin’ Fabulous (2008), Oh No She Didn’t (2010), and cowrote with London Dress Your Best (2005). 15. In recent years, Bayer has been accused of (among other things) knowingly dis- tributing blood products with potential HIV contamination and marketing more than one drug with lethal side effects. The company has also been prosecuted Notes ● 179 for the deaths of children who ingested a toxic milk substitute. So bad is Bayer’s public relations that it has inspired an international organization called the Coali- tion Against Bayer Dangers that documents the many current complaints and lawsuits against this giant manufacturer. See http://www.cbgnetwork.org/4.html (accessed June 2, 2008). 16. For decades, Bayer’s ads claim that “the ingredient in Bayer aspirin” performs such and such a wonder, implying that the Bayer brand has some USP (unique selling proposition). Actually, it has the same active ingredient as any aspirin: so it is true that it has real health benefits, but then so does any other brand. We are also informed that Bayer aspirin prevents more heart attacks than any other aspirin. Again true, but not the whole truth. Bayer aspirin prevents more heart attacks simply because it is the most commonly bought brand: a testament more to its advertising than to the product. 17. http://www.thefutoncritic.com/news.aspx?id=20041207nbc01 (accessed Octo- ber 5, 2008). 18. The Delivery Agent platform enables viewers to purchase products they see on- screen by visiting a show’s website and clicking on an online store or calling a toll- free number. See http://www.deliveryagent.com/about.php (accessed April 17, 2007). 19. I visited the Home Edition site during filming in Colonie, NY on 27 March 2007. 20. A Fear Factor Live theme park attraction was opened in 2005 at Universal Studios Florida (Magder 2009, 156). 21. For more on sponsorship in early television, see Barnouw (1978), Boddy (1990), G. Jones (1992), Marling (1996), Samuel (2002), Murray (2005), and Baugham (2007). 22. The most notorious case of sponsor rigging was the behind-the-scenes coach- ing of academic Charles Van Doren for the quiz show Twenty-One ;seeStone (1992). The best known dramatization of this scandal is Robert Redford’s 1994 film Quiz Show. 23. See http://www.toyota.com/about/news/product/2002/09/23–1–4runner.html (accessed October 17, 2003). 24. Linking mass production to home production is not new. In the 1920s, Heinz ran an early ad campaign that stressed that its canned products were made in “homelike kitchens” and depicted individual women preparing single dishes of food (Marchand 1998, 171). 25. By the beginning of Home Edition’s seventh season (2009–10), an estimated 500,000 Americans had helped with the show. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Home_makeover#Reaction_and_criticism (accessed June 15, 2011). 26. Available at http://www.o2mediainc.com/ (accessed March 15, 2011). 27. For studies of TV and the Internet see Brooker (2001), Spigel and Olsson (2004), Jenkins (2006), Ross (2008), Turner and Tay (2009), Kackman, et al. (2010) and Gillan (2011). Multiplatformicity is also becoming an important consideration in fan studies, as in Booth (2010). More specific examinations of the Internet and RTV include Tincknell and Raghuram (2002), Andrejevic 180 ● Notes (2004, 2011), Holmes (2004), and essays in Ross (2008), and Kackman, et al. (2010). 28. Coactive describes the use of two or more devices at the same time. 29. For example, Holmes ponders where media scholars should now draw the line between text and reception (2004). 30. First there was The Real Housewives of Orange County (2006), then The Real Housewives of New York City (2008), Atlanta (2008), New Jersey (2009), Washington D.C. (2010), Beverly Hills (2010) and Miami (2011). 31. The Internet is generally regarded as a clear example of new media, though it encompasses many different possible relations between content-producer and content-seeker. 32. For overviews of new media and digital culture, see Lister et al. (2009), Creeber and Martin (2008), Gane and Beer (2008), Jenkins (2006), Manovich (2002) and Flew (2002). 33. In “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” Benjamin ([1936] 2006) writes: “the distinction between author and public is about to lose its basic character. The difference becomes merely functional; it may vary from case to case. At any moment the reader is ready to turn into a writer” (28). 34. In his seminal essay on “Encoding/Decoding” (1980), Hall suggested that there are three main ways for audiences to “decode” a text: the “dominant,” where audi- ence members accept the producer’s preferred meaning; the “negotiated,” where they inflect the preferred readings according to their own sociopolitical position; and the “oppositional,” where they reject the preferred reading and recognize it as a hegemonic device that favors the ruling class. 35. The same categories of participation and interactivity can apply to online com- munication, though the potential for participation in texts or interactivity with texts or some combination of the two tends to be greater on the Internet. 36. Jenkins borrowed the term “poachers” from de Certeau ([1980]1984). 37. For an incisive discussion of recent fan activity and new media see Booth (2010). 38.

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