Do Talk Shows Provide an Opportunity for Public Debate - Essay Example

Female-hosted TV Talk Shows as Modern Arena of Public Debates? Introduction There are so many contradictory perspectives about the role and impact of talk shows – a platform where the public bare intimate details of their lives and feelings – as a popular television product offered to the consuming public. Cultural critics, politicians, journalists, and the academia, however, have been harsh in condemning the form and content of talk shows, particularly its being a purely entertainment platform. Some leading experts invariably point out the such television show format's sensational treatment of topics, appealing only to the prurient interests of the public and dedicating least priority to its role as a “public good” medium. Media discourses and literature may be used in threshing out ways to explore answers whether talk show platforms can purely carry its role as an emancipated public sphere that allows the holding of public debate or that TV talk shows can balance this serious aspect of programming without being too concerned with its commercial potential as an entertainment medium. In this particular study, we will look into the context of thinking about talk shows and its genre using female TV talk show programmes. Female TV Talk Shows: A Structural Background Check To understand form and content of TV talk shows, this paper tries to look into female-hosted TV talk show programmes' form and content, such as the Oprah and The Tyra Bank Show. Oprah Winfrey, a former TV journalist before embarking on TV hosting, hosts the very popular and influential talk show, Oprah while Tyra Banks who has little to no background in media albeit ramp modeling hosts the talk show named after her. Perception of trustworthiness of these kinds of programmes were analyzed using Carl Hovland and Walter Weiss' standards on the source credibility (1951) or standards of trustworthiness and expertise as components of credibility. Qualities of trustworthiness to be checked include the show's longevity and the expertise of host, among others. In this regard, Oprah may be perceived as the more credible programme for its long, solid years in television programming that started in 1986 and recently announced nearing its final season in 2011, than with The Tyra Banks Show which only had its first aired telecast in 2005. In terms of expertise, Ms. Winfrey’s show is the reigning female talk show programme that can be credited to the host's background in journalism and the show's longer life in the television which allowed it to gain more experience and time to improve its quality and discourses offered to the public. Contrast this to the host of The Tyra Banks Show whose host's background started in the retail fashion industry. While Oprah attracts viewers from all ages but half of it are in the 50 and older age range, The Tyra Banks Show is intended for a very particular sector of young teenage girls to age 34 yet 65 percent audience are under 50. TV Talk Show Discourses: Less Public Service and More Entertainment Discussions in female-led talk shows are often viewed exhibiting emancipatory potentials yet fall short for focusing on individual solutions instead of structural issues. This argument posits that talk show discourses – compared against an ideal public sphere where the participants are given equal treatment – are structured around the moral authority and knowledge of the hosts and experts. Together they shape what is spoken and how stories are told. The subject of Oprah's discourses are chosen based on what the host felt close to her heart, which is also true with The Tyra Banks Show. Although selection of themes may vary, however, these are often influenced and shaped by the hosts' preferences. In Oprah, topics vary in subject matter yet highlighting themes of women empowerment, race, celebrities’ lifestyle, and more. In the The Tyra Banks Show, the issues being discussed centered on empowering younger women across all races. In other words, female talk show programmes such as Oprah and The Tyra Bank Show similarly offer its audience with some kind of hope or messianic grace among people who deem need to be empowered, reassured of their worth and be inspired. As these programmes are interested in asserting about their achievements that to be influential and really memorable, one must push harder to earn the respect and acceptance of the people because each need to have a kind of guarantee from the people. Unlike in Ms. Winfrey’s show where rehearsals are standard practice and teleprompter are relied on, some observers claim that Ms. Banks prefer not read from the show’s teleprompter and rehearsals are shunned. Hence as a result in terms of format and quality, Oprah is carefully structured, streamlined to incorporate as varied and diverse subject matter that will appeal to its massive audience. Thus in this regard, although Oprah may be giving voice to the marginalized sector, the emancipatory or subversive promise of their discussions has the tendency to be controlled by the host. Some media researchers observed that most television programmes are increasingly becoming more conversational and informal in form with chat taking over the formality once considered regal (Heritage, Clayman and Zimmerman, 1988). The same is likely true with regard to The Tyra Banks Show although the show tries to sets itself apart from other shows by highlight its seeming reality-feel or unstructured atmosphere to deviate from what may termed as standard or too formal show intended to show unashamedly the imperfections and flaws of reality-talk show. The dilemma created with most TV talk programmes' new-found format posed some problems to the invited professional resource speakers, especially in professing expert advices on complex arguments or scientific discourses. The tendency then for experts is to simplify arguments or rely on their status (Hovland, Janis and Kelly, 1953) as against the quality of the experts' arguments and proofs. For both programmes, the colonisation of the media by marketplace interest are factors that may have stunted intentions to fully concentrate on the giving of “public good” aspect of these television format. This may also be explained by the advent of popular understanding, which now represents a transformation of expertise in television. The result then is a new definition for such television talk show as another particular form of discursive public affairs programme that is institutionally mediated by the medium of television, however. Television's role then is argued to be attempting to provide an organized representation of rational consensus as giving a voice to diverse themes or subjects and that meanings and comprises are allowed along the way. Could TV Talk Show be Habermas' New Arena for Informed and Critical Public Opinion? Within Jugen Habermas's conceptualization of public sphere, he proposes a branching out of a new arena that could facilitate an independent or autonomous platform for rational-critical inquiry and debate. In his the Structured Transformation of the Bourgeois Public Sphere, Habermas defined public sphere as a kind of autonomous public forum where participants meet as equals and debates are conducted in a rational-critical manner. In letting go of the influence of state interests, there is perceived independence and the circulation of discourses without fear or favor to established institutions are facilitated. The bourgeois public sphere where rational-critical debates that Habermas wrote about were traced to tea shops and literary salons that later include newspapers. Through these public sphere arena, citizen control of society and even political participations were sealed. Further tracing the sociopolitical growth of such public arena, Habermas identified capitalism's and industrialized society's rise as factors that gradually stirred the blurring of lines between society and state, resulting in the public sphere as independent forum as an untenable argument. From this standpoint when marketplace interests are overcoming public good and that the bourgeois public sphere have started to decline, Habermas proposes the creation of his so-called critical public opinion arena. Within the definition offered by Habermas, the sometimes fragmented, emotional, and repetitive discussions of women empowerment, race, and other sensitive issues on Oprah and the Tyra Banks Show would hardly be called as constituting a public sphere even though debate is existent about the definitions of terms and threshing out of sensitive issues' causes and effects. In direct contrast, feminist theories shed some different light for the public discussions of the themes often discussed in these female-hosted talk shows of Oprah and The Tyra Banks Show. To note how black feminist theorists in particular have argued that oral histories and emotional narratives albeit an endangered type of knowledge building may be used as alternative platforms in constructing an empowered community (Carpignano et al, 1990, p.53). Thus, experts' participation in these talk show programmes provides a sandbox for testing woman-centered public sphere. The unitary model as formative platform of public opinion proposed by Habermas was opposed as a more appropriate model by Felski and Fraser who pointed out that multiplicity of public spheres would allow several counter public spheres to exist in a contestatory relationship to dominant publics. Hence, the subject female talk shows would have simultaneously succeed and fail at the test of counter public sphere proposed by Felski and Fraser. As pointed out by Felski, a feminist counter public sphere should be "structured around an ideal of a communal gendered identity." This means, the counter public sphere that emerges from the talk shows analyzed are the ones that affirms and critiques some established norms or identity assigned to the marginalised sectors. As a drawback of this counter public sphere, the talk shows deviated its focus from the real changes that feminists are seeking to realize. As a genre, these talk shows remain within existing structures without resorting to radical structural changes that would liberate the programmes from the constraints of a singular approach, which may be caused by its concerns for audience ratings and popular support. Conclusion In the final analysis, talk programmes may have expanded the nature of debate and public opinion by providing a plurality of opinions from which the consuming audience can approach several sociological issues affecting all sectors, from the marginalised to the bourgeois and elitist sectors. The new arena of participatory television programmes activate a means in which popular and expert definitions can be articulated simultaneously. What this brings, however, is a debate that is left wide open since no single subject position is offered by audience which is comprised of diverse set of people that while a representation of public opinion emerges, however, contributions are contradictory. Despite all the intentions to formulate an ideal alternative public sphere in various formats, particularly television talk programmes, an autonomous media debates are almost always threatened by the existence of marketplace demands that Habermas identified. References Carpignano,P., Anderson, Robin, Aronowitz, Stanley, Difazio, William. 1990.“Chatter in the age of electronic reproduction: talk show and the 'public mind'.” Social text (25/26): 33-55. Heritage, J., Clayman, S., & Zimmerman, D. 1988. Discourse and message analysis: The micro- structure of mass media messages. In R. Hawkins, J. Wiemann, & S. Pingree (eds.), Advancing communication science: Merging Mass and interpersonal processes (pp. 77-109). New Bury Park, CA: Sage. Felski, R. 1989. Beyond Feminist Aesthetics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Habermas, J., 1989. The Structural Transformation of the Bourgeois Public Sphere. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hovland, C, & Weiss, W. 1951. The influence of source credibility on communication effectiveness. Public Opinion Quarterly, 15, 635-650. “Oprah.” Encyclopedia. Nationmaster.com. 2005. Retrieved on 7 Dec 2008. . “Tyra Banks Show.” Encyclopedia. Nationmaster.com. 2005. Retrieved on 7 Dec 2008. . Read More