Sensational Daytime Talk Shows

However, even more serious talk shows, like Oprah, emphasize subjects that are highly personal and showcase guests who are willing to spill their guts about private matters. This is less understandable. The intention in this paper is to look at some of the theories about why people spill their guts on daytime talk television, with a focus on Phil Donahue as the forerunner and Oprah Winfrey and Sally Jessy Raphael as contemporary practitioners.

According to Pots et al. (1996) high sensationseekers tend to watch more daytime television (along with music videos) than their low sensationseeking peers. In other words, they watch daytime talk television because it is likely to provide them with the kind of high stimulation that they desire. It is exciting in some way.

What they watch also helps to inform their view of reality and their response to it. Ira Glasser (1988) indicated that television plays a major role in developing the public's perception of reality and has an important influence on public policy. He looked specifically at the impact of sports coverage and talk shows, noting tha

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n a kind of superrealism. What others view as sensation, or exploitation, Squire viewed as a tactic in changing the public's view of women and marginalized groups. Like Priest and Dominick (1994), Squire seemed to see the selfrevelations of guests on the Winfrey show as part of a counterhegemonic movement. In other words, guests contribute to undermining the mainstream, or consensus, view of normality and reality. They contribute to reconstructing that view of reality by presenting other viewpoints and other kinds of lives. In a more mundane explanation, it also seems possible to view participants as seeking help for their problems. As Squire (1994) noted, the focus on the Winfrey show was on psychological matters, with psychologists the most frequent expert guests. Topics were generally psychological, including such things as obsessions and negotiation skills. This seems borne out as at least one aspect of participants' motivation in a study of discourse strategies on the Sally Jessy Raphael and Bernard Meltzer programs. The researchers discovered that there was a common strategy to both adviceseeking and advicegiving on these shows. The focus was on explanation, elaboration, and narration, with adviceseekers tellin
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Meers Gamson, Diann Shoaf, Priest Dominick, Reasons Revealing, According Saltzman, Jessy Raphael, Instead McConnell, Oprah Winfrey, Ira Glasser, Jerry Springer, daytime talk, television talk, oprah winfrey, sexual minorities, therapeutic discourse, talk television, sally jessy raphael, provided forum, sally jessy, squire 1994, phil donahue, daytime talk television, priest dominick 1994, forum sexual minorities, public's perception reality,
Approximate Word count = 2530
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)

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