As a born-and-bred Brooklynite — and a lit geek, ‘natch — I’m thrilled to be bringing Reality Bites Back to the fifth annual Brooklyn Book Festival, along with brilliant writers including Laura Flanders, Jeremy Scahill, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and several Pulitzer Prize winners.

WHERE: Brooklyn Historical Society Main Hall (128 Pierrepont Street, Brooklyn, NY)

WHEN: 5pm, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2011

WHAT: Media Representations and Reality: The debate continues over whether the media reflects reality or has a hand in shaping it. Like Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, the act of presenting the news can

very often alter it. No one knows this better than Brooke Gladstone of “On the Media,” whose new book The Influencing Machine with Josh Neufeld examines the role of the media in American society. Patrice Evans, (Negropedia), examines media representations of African-Americans, and Jennifer Pozner (Reality Bites Back) looks at the completely unreal world of reality television. Moderated by Juan Gonzalez (News for All the People).

Haven’t heard yet from the panel organizers about whether I’m going to be giving prepared remarks, just answering questions from the moderator, or both, but whatever the format, I’ll do my best to discuss the media economics, product placement advertising, and virulent institutional sexism and racism at play within reality television. And I’ll throw in some laughs, like I

Are you a last-minute Christmas gift-giver? Do you owe belated Chanukah and Solstice presents? Well, take it from Feministing, Isak, Hello Ladies and Women’s Voices for Change: Reality Bites Back makes the perfect gift!

I wrote the book to spark a national conversation about the meaning and impact of reality TV on our culture, and in doing so I hoped to make media literacy not only enlightening, but fun. So, I’m really excited to see Reality Bites Back popping up on holiday gift guides by respected media outlets and blogs who seem to find the book engaging and enjoyable. I’m also gratified and flattered to see the book recommended by readers on Twitter as “The Must-Have Book This Season” and discussed as good holiday reading options on Facebook by professors who say, “I’ve read it, I’ve taught it, Jenn has been in LA to discuss it — I’m all about it. If you haven’t yet, go get it!”

At Feministing, the book tops Courtney Martin’s “Not Oprah’s Book Club: Holiday Edition” gift guide:

On Saturday, I introduced you to six people in the Reality Bites Back readers gallery: Andrew from Brooklyn, Veronica from Chicago, the interns of Reel Grrls in Seattle, and a very precocious (or, well, hungry) kid in Los Angeles.

Today, it’s time to meet four new members of our reading community:

Straight from the belly of the beast — Los Angeles, where reality TV stereotypes are carefully crafted — professor Melanie Klein snuggles up on her

couch with the book. Melanie will be teaching from Reality Bites Back this semester, along with many women’s studies, ethnic studies, communications/media studies, and humanities professors across the country. (Which I’m really excited about, by the way.) She is also helping to organize this event:

It seems Seattle-based Jerry Darcy was a bit confused by the book. First, he apparently thought some of the reality show anecdotes I described are so preposterous, they’d made more sense upside down:

Then, he searched in vain for a Reality Bites Back centerfold pinup. (You’ll be looking for a long time, there, Tiger…):

When he finally started reading it right-side up, he was shocked, SHOCKED, by what he learned: