Access a growing selection of included Audible Originals, audiobooks, and podcasts.
You will get an email reminder before your trial ends.
Audible Plus auto-renews for $7.95/mo after 30 days. Upgrade or cancel anytime.
True Story  By  cover art

True Story

By: Danielle J. Lindemann
Narrated by: Libby McKnight
Try for $0.00

$7.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $21.49

Buy for $21.49

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

A sociological study of reality TV that explores its rise as a culture-dominating medium - and what the genre reveals about our attitudes toward race, gender, class, and sexuality.

What do we see when we watch reality television?

In True Story: What Reality TV Says About Us, the sociologist and TV-lover Danielle J. Lindemann takes a long, hard look in the “funhouse mirror” of this genre. From the first episodes of The Real World to countless rose ceremonies to the White House, reality TV has not just remade our entertainment and cultural landscape (which it undeniably has). Reality TV, Lindemann argues, uniquely reflects our everyday experiences and social topography back to us. Applying scholarly research - including studies of inequality, culture, and deviance - to specific shows, Lindemann layers sharp insights with social theory, humor, pop cultural references, and anecdotes from her own life to show us who we really are.

By taking reality TV seriously, True Story argues, we can better understand key institutions (like families, schools, and prisons) and broad social constructs (such as gender, race, class, and sexuality). From The Bachelor to Real Housewives to Cops and more (so much more!), reality programming unveils the major circuits of power that organize our lives - and the extent to which our own realities are, in fact, socially constructed.

Whether we’re watching conniving Survivor contestants or three-year-old beauty queens, these “guilty pleasures” underscore how conservative our society remains and how steadfastly we cling to our notions about who or what counts as legitimate or “real”. At once an entertaining chronicle of reality TV obsession and a pioneering work of sociology, True Story holds up a mirror to our society: The reflection may not always be pretty - but we can’t look away.

©2021 Danielle J. Lindemann (P)2021 Recorded Books

What listeners say about True Story

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    11
  • 4 Stars
    4
  • 3 Stars
    4
  • 2 Stars
    3
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    7
  • 4 Stars
    8
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    9
  • 4 Stars
    4
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    3
  • 1 Stars
    1

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Entertaining

Very insightful but no real thesis. A fun way to look at reality tv for those of us who are fans.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!