Transcultural Television Formats and their Audiences: A Comparative Study on the Appropriation of the Top Model-Format in Different Cultural Contexts

In this talk, Miriam will present first findings from her Ph.D. research project on global reality television formats and their audiences in different cultural contexts. In particular, the project is concerned with the question of how the narrative of the "gendered enterprising self” is reproduced in the Top Model-format, and how it is appropriated and negotiated by young female viewers in Germany and the USA. Drawing on the theoretical framework of governmentality by Michel Foucault and the theoretical concept of transculturality, empirical audience research is used to understand the worldwide success of the Top Model-format and its negotiation in the everyday life of viewers. Through the method of focus groups, the study shows that viewers appropriate and negotiate the television text in their specific cultural and social contexts, while at the same time transcultural patterns of appropriation and negotiation strategies and processes which are shared across different cultural contexts become evident.