The Reception of "South African Idol" in South Africa

Reality television or "factual entertainment" is a hybrid of old television formats and factual programming in order to create a "new" entertaining show designed to draw the attention of audiences and increase viewership ratings. South African Idol is one popular local example. Adapted from the British programme "Pop Idols", the show promises upward mobility for the young star who wins the competition. This show has become a subject of conversation amongst young people in South Africa who aspire to the notion of "success" and "celebrity" status that is promoted by the show. This paper makes use of a Cultural Studies framework in order to examine the relationship between this broadcast text and its consumption by a township audience situated near Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape. My research focuses on the meanings that young people make of the show in a context of unemployment and scarce social and economic resources. Drawing on a critical celebrity studies framework which understand how meanings are generated, this study seeks to understand how the meanings offered by the show inflect the township audience's own view of themselves as upwardly mobile youth.