Jonathan Bignell presents a wide-ranging analysis of the television phenomenon of the early twenty-first century: Reality TV, exploring its cultural and political meanings, explaining the genesis of the form and its relationship to contemporary television production, and considering how it connects with, and breaks away from, factual and fictional conventions in television. Relationships with surveillance, celebrity and media culture are examined, leading to an appraisal of the directions that television culture is taking in the new century. His highly-readable style is accessible to readers at all levels of Culture and Media studies.