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Reality television is a dynamic, profit-making platform that occupies prime-time slots on the television almost all over the world. Despite its immense popularity and influence, it has received little attention in the extant literature and almost none in terms of its impact on celebrity repositioning. This study aims at examining the relationship between the film stars as brands and the impact of the platform of reality television in repositioning these celebrities in the Indian context.

Through extensive literature review and qualitative interviews, the paper expounds that reality television provides an opportunity to celebrities to successfully reposition themselves at crucial junctures in their career. The framework to study this repositioning has been adopted from the work of Chris Simms and Paul Trott (2007) who created it to study the brand repositioning of various consumer goods.

The literature establishes celebrities as brands. This study provides evidence that brand repositioning through reality television is possible for these celebrity brands. The symbolic and functional repositioning of these celebrities is presented through thematic content analysis.

The study provides a useful framework to understand celebrity brand repositioning through reality TV. It can also be replicated to understand the repositioning of a wide variety of celebrities other than film-stars such as sportspersons, social media influencers and politicians.

The paper contributes to the need of expanding the corpus of Indian reality television and explains how Indian celebrities reposition themselves through reality television.

Social cognitive theory (SCT) suggests that the observation of role models prompts the formation of beliefs that will govern future behaviors. The paper's objective is to explore the perceived influence of television media on feelings about eating habits, body image, clothing styles, and physical attractiveness attributes by high schools students in terms of SCT.

Data on attitudes and perceptions were collected using an online survey of a convenience sample of high school students (n=467) to determine influence of television media characters on behaviors.

The results of this survey suggest that high school students do not indiscriminately model behaviors depicted by television programs, but may selectively incorporate some views that fit with their reality such as the importance of attractiveness in romantic partners, but not influences of clothing styles or eating habits.

Recognition of the fictional quality of television characters does not refute that they have influence on the high school respondents, but it does suggest some degree of cognitive recognition about the lack of reality of television characters. The convenience sample of adolescents may be more media‐savvy than others because of associations with high‐school journalism programs.

High school students do not indiscriminately model behaviors depicted by television programs, but may selectively incorporate some views that fit with their reality in accordance with SCT.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the cultivation effects of television advertising viewing on the perceived affluence in society and the materialistic value orientations among adolescents in urban and rural China.

The paper shows that a survey of 646 adolescents aged 11 to 17, in Guangzhou City, and in a rural county of Henan Province, was conducted in 2006. Constructs were measured using established scales.

Television advertising viewing demonstrated first‐ and second‐order cultivation effects among urban as well as rural respondents. Heavy television advertising viewers were more likely to have a higher perceived affluence than light television advertising viewers. Heavy television advertising viewers were also more materialistic than light television advertising viewers. When television‐advertising viewing was controlled, urban respondents had a higher perceived affluence, while rural respondents had a higher level of materialism.

Students in grades 7 and 8 were examined only. A convenient sampling method was adopted. The city selected for the study is highly advanced in terms of economical and advertising development compared with most other Chinese cities.

Rural adolescents did not hold strong beliefs about prevalence of affluence in society. Popularity appeal may not be a fruitful marketing communication strategy for durable goods for them. Different marketing communication strategies should be adopted for the urban and rural adolescents as target audience.

The paper is a pioneer work on the study of consumption values of adolescents in urban and rural China.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to examine televised images of jail by looking at televised documentaries and reality-based programs. Since jails are closed institutions, the way the media depicts them can have a significant impact on people's perceptions of these institutions.

Methodology – Content analysis, a common media research technique, was employed to analyze how jails are portrayed on television. More specifically, a sample of seven televised documentaries and 24 episodes of the reality-based programs Jail and Inside American Jail were examined to determine the accuracy of these images, as well as the underlying themes presented in these programs.

Findings – There were both similarities and differences in the way these programs depicted county jails in the United States. Overall both programs offered a selective look into the jail system. Whether depicting the largest jails in the country or focusing exclusively on the areas of the jail where inmate outbursts are most likely to take place, these programs offer a sensationalized view of jail that supports current crime control policies.

Research limitations – The sample used in this study is a purposive sample and only focuses on reality-based images (excluding news broadcasts). Examining additional televised images of jail would add to the strength of this study.

Originality of paper – Although research on prisons in the media is becoming more popular, that on jails is nonexistent; therefore, this chapter adds to our knowledge of how these institutions are portrayed in the media.

Purpose: Drawing on research in crime and media studies, this research examines media images and stereotypes of criminals within the popular television crime drama series Bones. Methodology/approach: All 24 episodes of Season 9 were examined. Through a content analysis offender gender, race, age, offense type, and motive were examined. Findings: This research revealed that most of the images do not reflect the reality of crime and criminals. Gendered and racialized images were revealed. While male minorities’ victimization was more accurately portrayed, White females were cast in the stereotype as the emotional offender and minority females’ criminality was portrayed as similar to male criminals.