Cowboys and celebrity: Reading rhetorics at the Texas Beef v. Oprah Winfrey trial

In January of 1998, a conglomerate of cattle producers sued talk show host Oprah Winfrey for comments made on her show about mad cow disease and the safety of the U.S. beef supply. Widely publicized, dramatized, and attended by local, national, and global audiences, the Texas Beef v. Oprah Winfrey trial represents a convergence of ideologies and enacts the complex intersections and interactions between a number of coexistent and often competing public rhetorics. Paying attention to the ways in which rhetorics interplay in this contested space informs a more complete understanding of the political and ideological tensions inherent in current American popular culture and its public discourses.; Looking at how the mainstream press covered the event and the issues it contains becomes an exploration of American public rhetorics about rhetoric. The rhetorics of this event illustrate the kinds of appeals and strategies that succeed with the American public in the popular press, demonstrate the power of ultimate terms and the ideologies they carry in contemporary American society, and reveal the ways in which the issues that involve those in positions of power are pushed to the forefront in the mainstream media. During the trial, the popular press focused primarily on the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and its democratic notion of free speech, Winfrey's hyper-popularity and celebrity ethos, and the media circus surrounding the case. Rarely, if ever, did the mainstream media mention or discuss issues of mad cow disease and the safety of the U.S. beef supply, corporate agribusiness and its influence over public policy and financial markets, or issues of race and gender.; This rhetorical pattern of emphasis and omission creates a version of the trial that serves the interests and investments of American civil society and consents to American hegemony rather than attempting to counter it. In the end, the media coverage of the trial and its rhetorical patterns exemplify how institutions of civil society serve the interests of the dominant ruling class, government agencies, and corporate financiers who regulate not only what Americans put into their mouths, but also what they can say about it.