Includes bibliographical information. WordPerfect 5.0 file. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, daytime talk shows such as Oprah, Donahue, Shirley, and Geraldo proliferated on commercial television in America. This dissertation considers the cultural significance and political implications of these mediated expressions of testimonial performance.
Subsequent chapters examine debates about the daytime talk show through five distinct approaches.
Chapter two scrutinises the historical traditions that frame talk in America as an instrument of free speech, tolerance, democracy, and self-authentication. Chapter three examines the varied utterances of commercial television addresses and the limited set of rejoinders they offer viewers. Other media formats are compared to daytime talk shows to demonstrate how this format functions within the media economy to hail its viewers with its own ontology. Chapter four probes the contradictory politics of daytime talk shows which serve viewers, media critics, politicians, guests and, ultimately, the marketplace. Chapter five examines the productions of Shirley to suggest the utterances of daytime talk shows are shaped to anticipate a viewer not as citizen but as consumer.