What can a retrospective of Swedish reality television history – and its critical reception – tell us about ethics? In this essay, we explore the relationship between (cultural) journalism, documentary film, and reality television, with particular attention to how ethical dimensions are negotiated within journalistic discourse. Focusing on the critical reception of Den svenska dokusåpan, a documentary produced by the Swedish public service broadcaster SVT that reflects on the history of reality TV, we argue that ethical debates surrounding reality television are as enduring as the genre itself. Revisiting this history highlights persistent concerns and underscores the need for continued scrutiny. Documentaries such as the one discussed here help keep discussions about responsible media practices alive, although their ethical arguments are often articulated in rather broad or vague terms. Ultimately, ethical issues surrounding reality television are collectively negotiated across both old and new media formats.

This thematic issue advances digital geographies of hope as a lens for examining how possibilities for action, connection, and alternative futures take shape in a deeply datafied and platformized world. While critical scholarship has documented extraction, surveillance, bordering, and algorithmic injustice, the contributions foreground hope as situated, relational, and contested, emerging within crisis rather than outside of it. Drawing on utopian and feminist thought, queer and decolonial critique, and research on affect, care, and solidarity, the thematic issue conceptualizes hope as both affective and infrastructural: enacted through everyday practices, collective struggles, and sociotechnical imaginaries that expand “room to act.” Cases range from feminist and anti‐war organizing to rural and regional media ecologies, post‐digital work cultures, and AI governance debates. Read across these contexts, hope appears as ambivalent yet generative, enabling refusal, repair, solidarity, and world‐making across scales. 

Polarisation and an increased blending of politics and fiction in various media outlets makes audiovisual storytelling and politics increasingly intertwined. This article presents the first systematic literature review of what we know about the relationship between audiovisual fiction and democracy. We investigate how articles conceptualise 1)democracy and 2) the relationships between politics, fiction, and audiences. Wefind that most articles implicitly assume a taken-for-granted liberal representativedemocracy, rather than elaborate on particularities. Further, extant research tendsto find that fiction relates to democracy primarily by the way it may impact politicalopinions, attitudes, and behaviour under certain circumstances, or by contributing toconstructing identities and belongings that can either enhance or diminish democraticvalues. Finally, some research elaborates on how cross-media flows makes fictionalelements part of democracy movements.

This article explores how reality TV represents (distant) suffering, focusing on the first season of reality-based show Sweatshop: Deadly Fashion. Drawing from theories of media witnessing and mediated suffering, we analyze how reality TV negotiates working conditions in the global garment industry and reflects transnational power inequalities. Specifically, we critically dissect the multimodal strategies used to negotiate suffering and construct a story of transformation from privileged naivety to political mobilization. While acknowledging reality TV’s good intentions, the analysis reveals the common pattern of downplaying the role of systemic issues in perpetuating labor exploitation in the Global South. Additionally, results highlight the importance of context-dependent readings of complex cultural documents that carry political and ideological ambivalence, as well as entertaining dimensions.

The article explores the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the production and narrative strategies of the 90 Day Fiancé franchise, focusing on its spin-off, 90 Day Fiancé: Self-Quarantined (2020). It examines how the programme adapted to mobility restrictions and lockdown policies through self-filming, remote interviewing, and focusing on mundane, pandemic-specific activities. Using theories of reality TV, documentary and authenticity, the study highlights the spin-off’s negotiation of authenticity via transtextuality, place anchoring and boredom. The article contributes to understanding how pandemic-era reality TV embraced flexibility and pragmatism, blending heightened authenticity with performative elements to maintain relatability and audience engagement.

Christopher Papakaliatis, a prominent figure in Greek television, propelled Greece into the global streaming arena with his series Maestro in Blue. Supported by the National Centre of Audiovisual Media and Communication (EKOME) and initially aired on MEGA TV, the show made history on 19 December 2022 as the first Greek drama to debut on Netflix. This study explores the significance of such turning points for small television nations, analysing textual choices, production strategies, and broader significance for the visibility of Greek television on the global stage. As such, the study contributes to understanding the evolving landscape of transnational television and its implications for small television cultures and industries.

This editorial essay introduces the VIEW Journal of European Television History and Culture Special Issue on how algorithmic curation mediates archival practices and influences the management, preservation and accessibility of television content. Within this scope, it examines the evolving role of television archiving in the shaping of audiovisual culture against the backdrop of significant advancements in media technologies and infrastructures. As streaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video have transformed the landscape of television production, distribution, and reception, the growing reliance on algorithms presents both challenges and opportunities for audiovisual heritage. Taking a comparative historical perspective, this editorial underscores past, present, and future understandings of television archiving in an era characterized by pervasive digitization. By doing so, it provides an overview of how the papers reflect on the fragmented nature of television archives and repositories in the European landscape. Significant attention is given to the technocultural transformation of the archival work in light of digital and algorithmic practices, emphasizing how these innovations contribute to the making of cultural identities and collective memory while also raising questions on the circulation of television content after its initial broadcasting lifecycle. By taking a glimpse into each contribution, this introduction problematizes the interplay of data management workflows, digital library systems, user-centered platforms and their impact on the permanence of television content in online repositories. Ultimately, the issue advocates for collaborative efforts between archivists and media scholars to navigate the complexities of audiovisual archiving in an increasingly data-driven landscape.

This chapter aims to contribute to the ongoing discussion regarding reality TV competitions as a socio-cultural platform for “learning to labor”. Previous research has adeptly covered the ways that reality television reproduces capitalist hegemony by naturalizing the neoliberal agenda, perpetuating the myth of meritocracy and social mobility, and normalizing the precarity of labor conditions. By (i) expanding on the notion of the “pedagogical invitation” of reality television and, specifically, its role in training both the contestants and the viewers as workers within the broader neoliberal labor landscape and (ii) drawing from critical perspectives on competition as an ultimate good and intelligence, talent, and effort as the path to achieve success, this essay aims to critically dissect the labor politics and pedagogies embedded in contemporary reality television, with an empirical grounding on Greek reality competitions and, in particular, Greece’s Next Top Model. More specifically, the essay centers on three critical moments that define the competition format, namely the challenges, the coaching, and the weekly judgment, and focuses on the discursive and visual strategies through which reality TV negotiates commercially informed aesthetics, self-enterprise, and flexible labor.