The worldwide success of reality television has received plenty of academic and public attention. All the debates seem both implicitly and explicitly to address reality TV as a global phenomenon, but little attention has been given to any national characteristics that may emerge in its localized variations. In this article, using a Finnish adventure show Extreme Escapades as a case, we argue that national television still plays an important role in constructing national identities; that reality television as a popular cultural product should be viewed in the context of “banal nationalism” and that the genre may indeed redefine the meaning of national television in the globalized media sphere.
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