Aim To discover the importance of contemporary television broadcasting to the nature of our society and culture. Objectives 1. To explore the key concept of ideology as interpreted by poststructuralists such as Foucault and Althusser as well as the Gramscian notion of hegemony. 2. To investigate the way that we are unconsciously manipulated into receiving cultural values and class position by the world around us. To show that existing within the context of a society dominated by the influence of a capitalist media engine shapes the normative conditions of these evaluations, and illustrate how constant change allows modern capitalist society to revamp and perpetuate itself through self-referential discourse. 3. To trace some of the patterns and phenomena in our modern media. To establish what might have caused the proliferation and success of ‘reality television’ and the cult of celebrity. To understand how television invades our homes and turns us into consumers in our own front room, transforming unique individuals into aspiring capitalists engaged in the systematic labour of production and consumption. Method Close reading of texts such as Foucault’s ‘The Archaeology of Knowledge’ and ‘Power/Knowledge’ and Gramsci’s ‘Selections from the Prison Notebooks’ as well as an examination of recent trends in television and the effects of modern celebrity on individuality.