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whether reality television is a stage for ordinary people. Third, we ask if reality television gives a voice to working-class participants or if, on the contrary,
working-class participants are limited to roles in which they are being talked to, rather than being allowed to speak for themselves. Finally, we address
the issue of the relationship between the genre and neoliberal themes of individualization and responsibilization. Some of our findings confirm or strength‑
en previous assumptions about reality television. However, the results of this study also bring new knowledge about the reality television genre and modify
or revise assumptions from previous studies. Most importantly, we show that upper-class people and people belonging to the social elite are strongly
over-represented in the genre and appear much more commonly in reality television than in other televisual genres. This result opens up a re-evaluation
of the cultural and ideological dimensions of the reality television genre. In the conclusion, we also discuss in what ways the method used in this analysis
(distant viewing) can be used within and in relation to the critical and qualitative mainstreamwork in studies of reality television and inmany television and
cultural studies in general. We argue that neither of the two approaches is sufficient on its own for the analytical work, but that the two approaches prove
useful in combination. This claim is backed up by the study reported here, and we argue that this study provides insights into the genre of reality television
that have been missing or understated in previous work in this field.