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of media economics that emphasises competitive and commercial media market structures as more fertile grounds for successful exports. Finally, the count‑

er-flow is creative. Danish series – together with other Nordic dramas – seem to have created a virtual ideas-based counter-flow, impacting on the pro‑

duction, themes, narration and aesthetics of series originating elsewhere. This combination of a peripheral, non-commercial and creative counter-flow

indicating the global distribution of audio-visual content is undergoing changes that beckon us to modify our understanding of the chains of connections

and associations that have accompanied the import/export of content thus far.The global success of Danish television drama is part of a general non-Anglo‑

phone turn in global television, in which content from a previously insignificant public broadcaster on the outskirts of Europe can become an international

industry trendsetter and speak to audiences that are culturally, linguistically and geographically remote; something which was not possible only a decade

ago.Via interviews with viewers, buyers and distributors of DanishTV dramas and an analysis of similar trends in other non-Anglophone markets, this paper

proposes a number of interconnecting factors that offer parts of the explanation as to why this is possible, the first of which is the exponential growth in

channels, platforms and other services providing audio-visual content to more and more niche-oriented audiences. This may very well mean that there is

now a demand for good stories no matter where they are from. Consequently, the increasing competition may also mean that there is a higher demand for

stories and content that set one competitor aside from the next. The global rise of format adaptation within the last two decades may also have allowed

for much larger interconnectivity between peripheral markets and the centre. This likely has opened the eyes of buyers to other suppliers of content and

subtly accustomed audiences to content from other parts of the world. Finally, following the introduction of commercial broadcasting sectors and streaming

services in most territories; audio-visual markets around the world are increasingly alike, which means that what goes in one market may very well go in

another.

PP 542

Mediated Affects in Global Reality TV Formats and Matters of Belonging

M. Lünenborg

, C. Töpper

Freie Universität Berlin, Institut für Publizistik und Kommunikationswissenschaft, Berlin, Germany

While until now research on reality TV has primarily explored issues of economic, ethical, and ideological criticism, the 'affective turn' and the affiliated

question of the programs' affective dimensions and their relevance for the construction of audiences as user communities, still has raised little attention

in media and communication studies (Wetherell 2012; Gregg/Seigworth 2010; Massumi 2002). Accordingly the social and cultural study of affects and

emotions in reality TV formats in particular has only recently begun. Working on the attraction of current forms of reality TV, we would like to fill this gap

in theory building and show how contemporary discourse of affect theory helps to expand the relation between globalized media products and affects and

emotions. This theoretical frame enables us to understand the affective dimensions of sociality and matters of belonging. To begin with, we will present our

theoretical concept of emotion repertoires and offer an approach of relational affectivity to be adopted for further research in media and communication

studies. Understanding reality TV as a mediatized arena for affects and emotions it serves as an example to reflect upon the question of how media and

communication practices are involved in processes of affective relatedness – referring to the interrelation between media production, the media text, and

its audiences. In order to meet the demands of viewers worldwide, allegedly universal emotions like pride, shame, schadenfreude, or love – are produced in

audiovisual content.Through the transnational distribution of these formats on a massive scale, these performances of emotional practices and experiences

circulate globally, while likewise local adaptations attempt to integrate these repertoires into existing emotional orders (Aslama/Panttii, 2006). In this

sense, the success of these formats might be ascribed to their ability to address a culturally diverse audience. At the same time, – and this is the guiding

line of our paper – the growing appearance of performers with migrant background, specifically in German reality TV (Lünenborg/Fürsich 2014), possibly

provides the ground for the emergence of hybrid emotional repertoires, thereby producing transcultural affective shifts. Thus questions arise about suppos‑

edly transcultural emotions and affects and how they contribute to notions of cultural belonging. Therefore our focus is especially on modes of transcultural

communication in popular TV program and its impact for construing belonging. Finally we will conclude with analytic reflections on the commodification

and transnational mediation of affects and emotions and the question how to understand 'being at home' in mobile and culturally diverse societies. Ref‑

erences Aslama, M./Pantti, M. (2006): Talking alone: Reality TV, Emotions and Authenticity. European Journal of Cultural Studies 9(2): 167–184 Gregg, M./

Seigworth, G. J. (2010) (Eds.): The Affect Theory Reader. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Lünenborg, M./Fürsich, E. (2014): Media and the Intersectional

Other:The

Complex Negotiation of Migration, Gender, and Class on GermanTelevision. Feminist Media Studies 14(6): 959–975 Massumi, B. (2002): Parables

for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Wetherell, M. (2012): Affect and Emotion: A New Social Science Under‑

standing. Los Angeles, London: SAGE Publications Ltd.

PP 543

Watching Reality from a Distance: Class, Genre and Reality Television

F. Stiernstedt

, P. Jakobsson

Södertörn university, Culture & Communication, Huddinge, Sweden

The cultural significance of reality television is based on its claim to represent social reality. On the level of genre, we might argue that reality television

constructs a modern day panorama of the social world and its inhabitants and that it thus, in the words of Nick Couldry, ‘makes populations appear’(Coul‑

dry, 2011). In constructing this supposed window onto social reality, television programmes cannot avoid questions of social class (Wood and Skeggs,

2011). Accordingly, the genre has received a great deal of critical attention for the way it represents and ritualistically reproduces class divisions (Couldry

and Littler, 2011; Ouellette and Hay, 2008). The purpose of this paper is to deepen our understanding of the cultural and ideological dimensions of reality

television as a genre, and to give a more detailed picture of the imaginaries of class in this form of television. In this paper, we analyse the genre of reality

television, as expressed in a specific television landscape (Sweden) at a specific moment in time (2015). This study includes about 2000 hours of television

material and over 1000 participants in reality television. We use a methodological approach that we, drawing on literary scholar Franco Moretti (2009) and

his distant reading, labels distant viewing. Our research questions concern four common claims about reality television. First, we ask whether there is any

difference between reality television and other televisual genres in the foregrounding of classed identities and classed relationships. Second, we investigate