Reality television and the politics of mass surveillance in channel 4's Hunted

Bibliographic Data

ID5681900
AuthorsSean Brayton (0000-0002-0932-3872, University of Lethbridge, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume19
Issue1
Pages58-74
Publication date2024-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCritical Studies in Television The International Journal of Television Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1749-6020 • E-ISSN: 1749-6039
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/17496020231185103
OpenAlexW4384407046
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited15

This paper is interested in representations of mass surveillance in Hunted, Channel 4's reality tv series in which 'ordinary British citizens' roleplay as 'fugitives' that must evade surveillance and capture by 'the state.' Here contentious powers of state surveillance are mitigated by (a) the programme's deployment of a myth of surveillance 'symmetry' and a 'fugitive fantasy' that obfuscate the racial politics of 'being watched' in a post-9/11 climate; (b) personal stories of contestants or 'fugitives' that enable a 'therapeutic self' that situates the mass surveillance experience as productive and transformative; and (c) the 'gamification' of surveillance itself

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