Better Living through Reality TV asserts that reality television is a cultural technology through which we have come to monitor, motivate, improve, transform, and protect ourselves in the name of freedom, enterprise, and personal responsibility. Combining cutting-edge theories of culture and government with programming examples--including Todd TV, Survivor, and American Idol--Better Living through Reality TV moves beyond the established concerns of political economy and cultural studies to conceptualize television's evolving role in the contemporary period.