The Tube has Spoken: Reality TV and History Edited by Julie Anne Taddeo and Ken Dvorak Featuring ordinary individuals plucked from their living room couches, reality television illuminates a unique world where everyday people produce contemporary history. The draw of reality TV lies in its shock value as the participants interact, scheme, and complete challenges. The Tube Has Spoken: Reality TV and History provides a much-needed critical analysis of the growing phenomenon of reality TV, its evolution as a genre, and its historic roots in American culture. The contributors inspect a wide variety of shows from the 1950s to the present, detailing little-known truths of reality TV by analyzing programs such as Candid Camera, Big Brother, Wife Swap, Kid Nation, Survivor and The Biggest Loser. Providing a fascinating glimpse of a world where anyone can become an international celebrity, this groundbreaking volume offers both a multidisciplinary and cross-cultural perspective, exploring how reality TV in the United States, Britain, Canada and other nations presents cultural and political issue to the public. The Tube has Spoken analyzes numerous facets of reality TV, such as the breakdown of compliance, the creation of celebrity, the invasion of privacy, and the development if programs intended to educate participants and viewers. The editors also provide a vivid description of how reality TV reflects the tensions between the individual and the community, and examines the pressures of living in a consumer-driven society. This unique collection also considers the similarities between reality TV and documentaries, emphasizing in particular the "fly on the wall" approach to capturing the drama and humor of daily life. The Tube has Spoken highlights how reality TV has become an influential part of the modern-day culture, altering the tastes and values of twentieth- and twenty-first-century audiences. Julie Anne Taddeo is visiting associate professor of history at the University of Maryland and the author of Lytton Strachey and the Search for Modern Sexual Identity. Ken Dvorak currently serves as the secretary-treasurer of the Southwest Texas Popular Culture/American Popular Culture Association and as an editorial member of the Journal of Popular Culture, Journal of American Culture, and Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Film & Television Studies.