"This article aims at understanding the popularity and cultural and social significance of the highly prominent Chinese television show Super Girls’ Voice (the 2005 season), a talent contest largely modeled upon “reality shows” such as American Idol in the United States and Pop Idol in the Uni ... ted Kingdom. We focus particularly on whether the show, as some critics have claimed, has altered the power relationship between the media and the audience. Theoretically, we follow Couldry’s (2000) framework and consider the media’s construction of the symbolic boundary separating the “media world” and the “ordinary world” as crucial to the legitimization of media power. Based on an analysis of media discourses, review of publicized materials about the show’s organization, and a focus group study on young female audience members, we contend that the Super Girls’ Voice has involved a temporary suspension of the media/ordinary boundary. Yet the boundary was re-established toward the end of the show, thus relegitimizing media power. The audience members, meanwhile, were largely complicit throughout the process: they both enjoyed the temporary suspension and the ultimate re-establishment of the media/ordinary boundary." (Abstract) more

"This article focuses on events surrounding the third season of 'Indian Idol' in order to assess the changing relationship between television, everyday life, and public political discourse in contemporary India. In the summer of 2007, media coverage of Indian Idol focused on how people in Northeast ... India cast aside decades-old separatist identities to mobilize support for Amit Paul and Prashant Tamang, the two finalists from the region. Situating this media phenomenon in relation to the changing landscape of Indian television and the socio-historical context of ethno-national politics in Northeast India, I explore how reality television, combined with mobile media technologies and practices, has enabled new modes of cultural and political expression. Positing the notion of “mobile publics,” I argue that participatory cultures surrounding television create possibilities for the renewal of everyday forms of interaction in public settings that may have been forgotten, subdued, or made impossible under certain political circumstances." (Abstract) more