ABSTRACT
In the post-socialist, post-war, neo-liberal, commercial media landscape in the former Yugoslavia, ethno-national, heterosexual femininity continues to be a dominant frame of reference. This article explores how the portrayal of gender is closely connected to ethno-nationalism on one of the most popular reality TV shows, The Palace, produced by the Serbian commercial broadcaster Pink TV. We analyse how female audiences in Bosnia and Herzegovina read and interpret the show and its main celebrity, the Slovene participant Ursˇka. We argue that the different reading positions of audience groups reinforce the hegemony of a specific type of neo-liberal femininity.
