Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • apa.csl
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
Wanna Be on Top?: Labor Pedagogies and Neoliberal Ethics in Greece’s Next Top Model (GNTM)
Karlstad University, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (starting 2013), Department of Geography, Media and Communication (from 2013).ORCID iD: 0000-0002-3872-5096
2024 (English)In: Class, Culture, and the Media in Greece, Volume 2: Neoliberalism(s), the Mainstream, Counter-cultures / [ed] Yiannis Mylonas, Elena Psyllakou, Palgrave Macmillan, 2024, Vol. 2, p. 99-119Chapter in book (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

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. 

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Palgrave Macmillan, 2024. Vol. 2, p. 99-119
Keywords [en]
Critical moment, Critical perspectives, Flexible labor, Labour conditions, Platform for learning, Reality TV, Social mobility, Socio-cultural, Workers’
National Category
Media and Communication Studies
Research subject
Media and Communication Studies
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:kau:diva-104811DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-55159-8_5Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105004544580ISBN: 978-3-031-55158-1 (print)ISBN: 978-3-031-55159-8 (electronic)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:kau-104811DiVA, id: diva2:1965070
Available from: 2025-06-06 Created: 2025-06-06 Last updated: 2026-02-12Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

No full text in DiVA

Other links

Publisher's full textScopus

Authority records

Aitaki, Georgia

Search in DiVA

By author/editor
Aitaki, Georgia
By organisation
Department of Geography, Media and Communication (from 2013)
Media and Communication Studies

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar

doi
isbn
urn-nbn

Altmetric score

doi
isbn
urn-nbn
Total: 124 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • apa.csl
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf