Social Reality and Reality Television: An Empirical Analysis of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City

This thesis explores the relationship between reality television and social reality, using The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City (RHOSLC, 2020–present) as a case study. In the first chapter, I review the relevant literature within the sociology of culture, sociology of television, and sociology of reality television. Through this review, I find that reality television can provide unique insight about the relationship between culture and society and that it is therefore worthy of sociological analysis. In the second chapter, I take up that task, utilizing a context-focused approach and inductive methodology in order to analyze RHOSLC. I identify three key themes represented on the show: hostility towards religion, the valorization of entrepreneurship and consumption, and an individualized relation to race. I find that all three are broadly indicative of social practices and discourses associated with individualized postfeminism. This analysis demonstrates not only that RHOSLC is reflective of the social world surrounding it, but provides insight into the most prevalent discourses within postfeminism today. Further, through its theoretical and empirical grounding in sociology, this research provides a foundation for further work in the sociology of reality television.