Dr Alexia Smit

Television Studies

Dr. Alexia Smit is a senior lecturer at the Centre for Film and Media Studies at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. She holds a PhD in Television studies from the University of Glasgow. Her research focuses on popular entertainment television, with a particular interest in South African reality television, gender, class, postfeminism, transnational African TV, and women's television genres in Africa. She is also interested in theories of affect and embodiment, film and TV aesthetics and the relationship between painting and cinema. Alexia is an artist and her paintings are an extension of her critical interest in screen images.

Selected Recent Publications:

  • Smit, Alexia. (2021). "Consuming the rich white “Bitch” on The Real Housewives of Johannesburg." Consumption Markets & Culture: 1-15.

  • Smit, Alexia and Tanja Bosch. (2020). “Television and Black Twitter in South Africa: Our Perfect Wedding." Media, Culture & Society.

  • ‘ For Love or Money? Romance, Luxury and Class Distinction on Mzansi Magic’s Date My Family” in Dosekun, Simidele Olatokunbo, and Mehita Iqani. African luxury: aesthetics and politics. Intellect, 2019.

  • Smit, Alexia. (2016). "Reading South African Bridal Television: Consumption, Fantasy and Judgement." Communicatio 42(4): 63 -78.

  • Smit, Alexia. (2016). "Intimacy, identity and home: 40 years of South African television." Communicatio 42(4): 1-10.

  • Smit, Alexia. (2016). ‘Forgiving and forgetting: South African reality television, fatherhood and nation." European Journal of Cultural Studies: 20(1): 72-86

  • Smit, Alexia. (2015). "“On the Spectator Side of the Screen”: Considering Space, Gender, and Visual Pleasure in Television." Feminist Media Studies 15(5): 892-895.

  • Smit, Alexia. (2014). "Care, Shame, and Intimacy: Reconsidering the Pleasures of Plastic Surgery Reality Television." Camera Obscura: Feminism, Culture, and Media Studies 29.2(86): 59-83.

  • Smit, Alexia. (2014). "On the ‘Scalpel’s Edge’: Gory Excess, Melodrama and Irony in Nip/Tuck." Melodrama in Contemporary Film and Television. Palgrave Macmillan, London: 81-95.