Adapting Idols: Authenticity, Identity and Performance in a Global Television Format

Since the first series of Pop Idol aired in the UK just over a decade ago, Idols television shows have been broadcast in more than forty countries all over the world. In all those countries the global Idols format has been adapted to local cultures and production contexts, resulting in a plethora of different versions, ranging from the Dutch Idols to the Pan-Arab Super Star and from Nigerian Idol to the international blockbuster American Idol. Despite its worldwide success and widespread journalistic coverage, the Idols phenomenon has received only limited academic attention. Adapting Idols: Authenticity, Identity and Performance in a Global Television Format brings together original studies from scholars in different parts of the world to identify and evaluate the productive dimensions of Idols. As one of the world's most successful television formats, Idols offers a unique case for the study of cultural globalization. Chapters discuss how Idols shows address particular national or regional identity politics and how Idols is consumed by audiences in different territories. This book illustrates that even though the same television format is used in countries all over the globe, practices of adaptation can still result in the creation of unique local cultural products.

Joost de Bruin

Contents: Adapting Idols, Joost de Bruin and Koos Zwaan; Part I Adapting the Global Idols Format: Strategic behaviour in the international exploitation of TV formats: a case study of the Idols format, Sukhpreet Singh and Martin Kretschmer; How media system rather than culture determines national variation: Danish Idols and Australian Idol compared, Pia Majbritt Jensen; Articulations of national, regional and ethnic identities in official Idols websites, Joost de Bruin; The search for an Asian Idol: the performance of regional identity in reality television, Jinna Tay; 'Accept no limitations': expressions of diasporic identity in Nigerian Idol, Tess Conner. Part II Politics of Identity in Idols Shows: An idol against his will? Ethnicity and cultural inclusion in Czech Search for a Superstar, Václav Å tetka; The power of imitation in Music Idol: popular music and cultural agency in post-Socialist Bulgaria, Plamena Kourtova; Does race matter to generation Y? The politics of identity in Australian Idol, Henk Huijser; Superstar and Middle Eastern political identities, Mary Ghattas; Fandom, politics and the Super Girl contest in a globalized China, Jeroen de Kloet and Stefan Landsberger. Part III Producing and Consuming Idols: Can a zero become a hero? Comparing personal characteristics of audition and live show contestants of the Dutch Idols, Koos Zwaan and Tom ter Bogt; Are you a musician? The rock ideology and the construction of authenticity on Australian Idol, Nicholas Carah; Gender performance in American Idol, Pop Idol and The X Factor, Ruth A. Deller; Watching without voting: Norwegian child audiences questioning Idols' ethos, VebjÃ-rg Tingstad; Our own Idols: appropriations of popular television in Dutch festivity culture, Stijn Reijnders, Gerard Rooijakkers and Liesbet van Zoonen; Appendix; Index.