A CHOICE Outstanding Academic Book Flip through the channels at any hour of the day or night, and a television talk show is almost certainly on. Whether it offers late-night entertainment with David Letterman, share-your-pain empathy with Oprah Winfrey, trash talk with Jerry Springer, or intellectual give-and-take with Bill Moyers, the talk show is one of television's most popular and enduring formats, with a history as old as the medium itself. Bernard Timberg here offers a comprehensive history of the first fifty years of television talk, replete with memorable moments from a wide range of classic talk shows, as well as many of today's most popular programs. Dividing the history into five eras, he shows how the evolution of the television talk show is connected to both broad patterns in American culture and the economic, regulatory, technological, and social history of the broadcasting industry. Robert Erler's "A Guide to Television Talk" complements the text with an extensive "who's who" listing of important people and programs in the history of television talk.

The "talk show" has become a ubiquitous feature of American and European television. The various examples have been frequently discussed by academic commentators, as well as journalists in an attempt to place them in a cultural setting. Ultimately, the conclusion is reached by both academics and non-academics that talk shows matter because they are a focus for considerable public debate and are crucial to the landscape of popular television. All the variations of talk shows, from chat shows to celebrity interviews, have key elements in common: They all feature groups of guests, not individual interviewees, and they all involve audience participation. The studio audience is not only visible, but is given the opportunity to comment and intervene. Other books have applied academic analysis to the phenomenon of these shows, but this is the first to analyze the actual "talk" of the talk shows, and in that sense it is closer to discourse analysis than to other forms of analysis. This book provides a systematic empirical study of the broadcast talk in talk shows and maps out the range of formats that appear in the major American and British television shows. The contributors are members of an international network of researchers interested in the study of broadcast talk.

Television talk shows have fueled debates about television's faltering role as a medium for social interaction, but this book points out that many viewers don't just absorb the shows; they react to them and even talk back to their televisions. By observing and analyzing the daily viewing habits of a dozen women viewers, Helen Wood interprets these experiences as daily rituals of self-reflexivity, focusing on the performance of gender as a doubling of place in contemporary conditions of modernity. Directly challenging the fundamental assumption that new media forms are uniquely interactive, Talking with Television reveals that televisual styles, particularly talk-based TV, have always sought to encourage a participatory relationship with viewers at home.

Absorbing, entertaining and keenly perceptive, Talking Trash illuminates the complex viewer response to daytime television talk shows and examines the cultural politics surrounding this wildly controversial popular phenomenon.

The Talking Cure examines four nationally syndicated television talk shows--Donahue, The Oprah Winfrey Show, Geraldo and Sally Jessy Raphael--which are primarily devoted to feminine culture and issues. Serving as one of the few public forums where working-class women and those with different sexual orientations have a voice, these talk shows represent American TV at its most radical. Shattuc examines the tension between talk's feminist politics and the television industry, who, in their need to appeal to women, trades on sensation, stereotypes and fears in order to engender product consumption. However, this genre is not a one-way form of social interaction. The female audience complies and resists in a complex give-and-take, and it is this relationship which The Talking Cure aims to understand and reveal.

"After framing the genre in this way, Dr. Lowney's book raises the essential question, conversion to what? The faith preached on talk shows is based on the principles of the Recovery Movement, among whose tenets are that care for one's self is the highest virtue and that psychological wounds that endure from childhood into adulthood create troublesome and addictive behaviors or "codependency." The only "cure" is to join a therapeutic 12-step group."--BOOK JACKET. "Baring Our Souls probes the roots of the genre in the religion of recovery, and holds both up to the scrutiny of sociological inquiry. This will be a welcome supplementary text in courses in social problems, media, and civil religion."--BOOK JACKET.

Not only is everyday conversation increasingly dependent on television, but more and more people are appearing on television to discuss social and personal issues. Is any public good served by these programmes or are they simply trashy entertainment which fills the schedules cheaply? Talk on Television examines the value and significance of televised public debate. Analysing a wide range of programmes including Kilroy, Donohue and The Oprah Winfrey Show, the authors draw on interviews with both the studio participants and with those watching at home. They ask how the media manage discussion programmes and whether the programmes really are providing new 'spaces' for public participators. They find out how audiences interpret the programmes when they appear on the screen themselves, and they unravel the conventions - debate, romance, therapy - which make up the genre. They also consider TV's function as a medium of education and information, finally discussing the dangers and opportunities the genre holds for audience participation and public debate in the future.

Flip through the channels at any hour of the day or night, and a television talk show is almost certainly on. Whether it offers late-night entertainment with David Letterman, share-your-pain empathy with Oprah Winfrey, trash talk with Jerry Springer, or intellectual give-and-take with Bill Moyers, the talk show is one of television's most popular and enduring formats, with a history as old as the medium itself. Bernard Timberg here offers a comprehensive history of the first fifty years of television talk, replete with memorable moments from a wide range of classic talk shows, as well as many of today's most popular programs. Dividing the history into five eras, he shows how the evolution of the television talk show is connected to both broad patterns in American culture and the economic, regulatory, technological, and social history of the broadcasting industry. Robert Erler's "A Guide to Television Talk" complements the text with an extensive "who's who" listing of important people and programs in the history of television talk.

He leaped from his chair, ripped off his microphone, and lunged at his ex-wife. Security guards rushed to intercept him. The audience screamed, then cheered. Were producers concerned? Not at all. They were getting what they wanted: the money shot. From "classy" shows like Oprah to "trashy" shows like Jerry Springer, the key to a talk show's success is what Laura Grindstaff calls the money shot—moments when guests lose control and express joy, sorrow, rage, or remorse on camera. In this new work, Grindstaff takes us behind the scenes of daytime television talk shows, a genre focused on "real" stories told by "ordinary" people. Drawing on extensive interviews with producers and guests, her own attendance of dozens of live tapings around the country, and more than a year's experience working on two nationally televised shows, Grindstaff shows us how producers elicit dramatic performances from guests, why guests agree to participate, and the supporting roles played by studio audiences and experts. Grindstaff traces the career of the money shot, examining how producers make stars and experts out of ordinary people, in the process reproducing old forms of cultural hierarchy and class inequality even while seeming to challenge them. She argues that the daytime talk show does give voice to people normally excluded from the media spotlight, but it lets them speak only in certain ways and under certain rules and conditions. Working to understand the genre from the inside rather than pass judgment on it from the outside, Grindstaff asks not just what talk shows can tell us about mass media, but also what they reveal about American culture more generally.