Jennifer L. Pozner has been monitoring reality television since The Bachelor first started handing out the long-stems. The following is a sample of some of her published journalism analyzing reality television, calling for media accountability, and offering media literacy tips and strategies.

(For the author’s work on other media-related topics, see WIMN’s media analysis program, WIMN’s Feminist Media Criticism Archive, and Jennnifer’s complete WIMN’s Voices blog.)

• “Reality TV’s 9 Worst Stock Characters,” Newsweek, Nov. 11, 2010
• “Reality TV (Re)Rewrites Gender Roles,” On The Issues magazine, Winter 2010
• EXCERPT: “The Surreal Life…Reality TV: Harmful fluff or a humorous escape?“ (PDF) Reality Bites Back excerpt (teased on the cover) by Jennifer L. Pozner, Elle Canada, Nov. 2010

• EXCERPT: “The Surreal World: Class anxiety, hyperconsumption and mocking the poor, for your viewing pleasure,” (PDF) In These Times, Nov. 2010)

• “Can’t we just sit back and enjoy reality TV?” (PDF) Jennifer L. Pozner (sidebar p. 17 within larger package, “Reality TV: Is it harmless entertainment or a cultural threat?” by Maryanne Haggerty, CQ Researcher, Aug. 27, 2010)

• EXCERPT: “Unraveling Reality TV’s Twisted Fairy Tales” (PDF)
  Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture magazine, Spring 2009, Issue 43

• “Media Literacy: Piercing Content and Who Controls It”
  On The Issues magazine, Spring 2010
  
  
• “Triumph of the Shill: Reality TV Lets Marketers Write the Script”
  Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture magazine, Issue 24, Spring 2004
  
  
• “Evil Dead: Feminist Bloggers Bring The Hammer Down on Top Model Necrophilia” (PDF)
  Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture magazine, Summer 2007

• “The Unreal World: Why women on ‘reality TV’ have to be hot, desperate and dumb“
  Ms. magazine, Fall 2004
  
  
• “How To Write a Protest Letter”
  Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture magazine, Issue 20, Spring 2003
  
  

WIMN’s Voices Blog: Reality TV Archive

WIMN’s Voices is the group of Women In Media & News, the media analysis, education and advocacy group founded by the author of Reality Bites Back. This archive contains WIMN’s Voices bloggers’ compelling, insightful writing about gender, race, class, beauty, sexuality, and product placement advertising in reality TV, from 2006 – Present.

The following posts were written by Jennifer L. Pozner, Lucinda Marshall, Miranda Spencer, Paula Kamen, Silja J.A. Talvi, Robin Andersen, Christine Cupaiuolo, Jess McCabe, Deborah Siegel, Courtney Martin, Veronica Arreola begin_of_the_skype_highlighting     end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting     end_of_the_skype_highlighting, Sarah Werthan Buttenwiser and Mikhaela Reid.

• “Reflections On an Interracial The Bachelorette Finale: A Series Ender in Tweets,” Jennifer L. Pozner, Aug. 3, 2010
• “Livetweeting ‘The Bachelorette’: Join in on Twitter Mon. night,” Jennifer L. Pozner, July 12, 2010
• “‘Advertising hasn’t changed since ‘Mad Men’ – Hank Wasiak at #140 Conf,” Jennifer L. Pozner, April 20, 2010
• “Quick thoughts on media coverage of Kate Gosselin,” Jennifer L. Pozner, April 18, 2009
• “Cartoon: Your Yucky Body (Embrace Your Shape Edition),” Mikhaela Reid, July 29, 2009
• “Fox’s ‘More to Love’ likely just more of the same,” Jennifer L. Pozner, July 28, 2009
• “Just the kind of neighbors I never wanted,” Jennifer L. Pozner, May 13, 2008
• “Request for followers of race and reality TV,” Jennifer L. Pozner, May 9, 2008
• “Jon and Kate Plus…eight or ten cameras, dozens of video editors, thousands of dollars…” Sarah Werthan Buttenwisser, April 17, 2008
• “‘MILF Island’ and ‘Slut Wars’ — satiric genius, or Fox reality almost-rans?” Jennifer L. Pozner, February 20, 2008
• “ABC swaps stereotypes (and, er, wives),” Veronica Arreola, January 3, 2008
• “Striking Writers: Solidarity on the Streets, Not on the Screen,” Jennifer L. Pozner, November 12, 2007
• “Reporting on writer’s strike reinforces myth of ‘unscripted’ reality TV genre,” Jennifer L. Pozner, November 5, 2007
• “Most offensive cable TV PR moment of the day: ‘screw the Constitution,'” Jennifer L. Pozner, October 9, 2007
• “Baby — and Dogma — on Board,” Miranda Spencer, September 24, 2007
• “Promise me you can’t tell anybody about this,” Jennifer L. Pozner, September 21, 2007
• “The only kind of ‘feminist empowerment’ E! can get behind,” Jennifer L. Pozner, September 20, 2007
• “Pimp My Pageant,” Miranda Spencer, August 24, 2007,
• “Broadcast Journalism Reduced To Reality TV,” Courtney Martin, August 23, 2007
• “Sisterhood Interrupted… by misleading media and popular culture,” Deborah Siegel, July 23, 2007
• “Oh, hell no. Fox wonders if women with ‘axes to grind’ can ‘effectively rule society,'” Jennifer L. Pozner, July 13, 2007
• “Something tells me Betty wouldn’t approve,” Jess McCabe, July 3, 2007
• “‘Charm School’s’ Classes on Class,” Paula Kamen, July 2, 2007
• “Sunday question: what do you hate most about ‘Flavor of Love: Charm School’?” Jennifer L. Pozner, July 1, 2007
• “What’s the clearest way to portray women as commodities?” Jennifer L. Pozner, June 30, 2007
• “Paris Hilton vs Michael Moore? What About Paris Hilton vs. Darfur?” Jennifer L. Pozner, June 28, 2007
• “ABC.com asks WIMN about ‘Age of Love’s’ money shot,” Jennifer L. Pozner, June 28, 2007
• “Prime Time Women on TV,” Christine Cupaiuolo, June 23, 2007
• “NBC Pits ‘Kittens’ Against ‘Cougars’: New Reality Show Should Be Called, ‘Who Wants to Make My Head Explode,'” Jennifer L. Pozner, June 18, 2007
• “Asinine ‘Anchorwoman’ sneak peek tonight makes mocking women journalists a prime-time sport,” Jennifer L. Pozner, June 11, 2007
• “NBC’s new head honcho says, ‘more product placement, please,‘” Jennifer L. Pozner, June 4, 2007
• “Saturday, 8pm: WIMN’s Jennifer L. Pozner rejects ‘The Bachelor’ on ‘Geraldo At Large,'” May 25, 2007
• “Goodbye Girls: TV closes the book on smartest female characters left…” Jennifer L. Pozner, May 17, 2007
• “Video: WIMN’s reality TV analysis on PBS–advertiser-driven sexism is serious business,” April 18, 2007
• “Jennifer L. Pozner discusses reality TV as backlash on PBS’s To The Contrary, 4/14” August 23, 2007
• “What Does Torture Have To Do With It?” Robin Andersen, April 2, 2007
• “Top Model looks ugly to the blogosphere and the media–thanks for rolling with our outrage!,” Jennifer L. Pozner, March 27, 2007
• “Top Model’s Beautiful Corpses: the nexus of reality TV misogyny and ad industry ideology,” Jennifer L. Pozner, March 22, 2007
• “What the heck is in that Trimspa stuff, anyway?” Paula Kamen, February 22, 2007
• “MTV’s ‘Juvies‘” Silja J.A. Talvi, February 10, 2007
• “Environmental ‘Ed’-ucation?” Miranda Spencer, January 21, 2007
• “BBC to air rape reality show,” Lucinda Marshall, December 16, 2006
• “A Real Flavor of…Self hate,” Silja J.A. Talvi, October 23, 2006
• “Model mania: ‘Edgy’ or Over the Edge?” Miranda Spencer, September 22, 2006
• “Project Plus Size, other Bravo observations,” Paula Kamen, August 23, 2006
• “Dog The Bounty Hunter takes on women,” Silja J.A. Talvi, August 22, 2006
• “Bad girls, bad girls, watchu gonna do?” Silja J.A. Talvi, June 1, 2006