Reality Television, Foucault and Goffman

Had a great guest speaker today in my Sociology of Media class today. A student currently working on their MA in sociology wrote a paper (that will be published soon - so i will not write too much about it!) on reality television and surveillance. He used Foucault's theory of panopticism and Mathiesen's theory of syntopticism as functions of reality television. This alone was enough to entice me into reading the paper, but then he pulled in Goffman, who has - for a while now - been my theorist of choice. I was pleasantly surprised to be introduced to another dimension of Goffman - his work titled "Asylums" and his theory of 'total institutions'. Another thing on my 'to read' list! Nonetheless, this presentation was awe-inspiring to see someone tie in three dense theories and blanket the current state of reality television with them. I am glad to have been priveleged with both the presentation and the chance to read the paper in full - not to mention a chance to talk to the author about his work.

*As soon as I get info on where the article is published, I will post a link here - its well worth the read!