The TV Talk Show Is The Message

Current American culture has been closely interwoven with mass media, which decides that to study and understand current American culture, one has to take the power and influence of mass media into consideration. The TV talk show, after over fifties years' development, has grown into a full-fledged television genre, and its paradoxical status as an extremely popular while notably controversial media genre in American society, especially since the 1990s, makes it a unique American cultural phenomenon that is worth studying. This thesis takes American TV talk show as a representative of mass media, and tries to understand current American culture by interpreting the messages conveyed by this controversial media genre. If we manage to comprehend those complicated while significant messages in this cultural phenomenon, we can have a better understanding of not only the genre per se, but also the culture it takes root. The roles played by American TV talk show in current American culture are the initial and primary concerns of this thesis.Besides Introduction and Conclusion parts, four chapters contribute to probe into the roles of the TV talk show in presenting and shaping current American culture, and Chapter Two to Four constitute the body of this thesis.Chapter One exhibits the controversial status of the TV talk show in academic circle through reviewing the literature of TV talk show studies. Three different attitudes are held by critics in evaluating the TV talk show's functions in American society: they are either for, against or neutral. Although critics' opinions may contradict each other, they all agree to emphasize the importance of studying this media genre to understand current American culture.Chapter Two explores the nature of American TV talk show. American TV talk show is a hybrid of television, American talk tradition and show business. Thus, it possesses several pairs of paradoxical characteristics. It is a both visual and verbal, both scripted and spontaneous, both fictional and factual, both private and public, both personal and social media genre. This nature determines that American TV talk show is capable to play dual roles in current American culture.Chapter Three discusses the first role played by American TV talk show—as a forum to present American "culture wars". American TV talk show functions as a digital forum for different cultural forces to articulate their stances, to identify their positions and to communicate or conflict with each other. Besides, political forces also take this forum as their battlefield in campaigns. Terry Eagleton's definition of "culture wars" is applied to understand these wars that are shown on the TV talk show and conducted in current American society in this chapter.Chapter Four concentrates on the second role American TV talk show plays actively—as one of the participants that are shaping current American culture. Marshall McLuhan's theory of the relation between "the medium" and "the message", that is "the medium is the message", is the base of the argument in this chapter. American TV talk show's nature decides that it inclines to promote multiculturalism, to encourage image culture and to advocate the culture of entertainment.The whole thesis concludes with a summary of the main ideas and an emphasis of the significance of connecting this study with Chinese status quo. In addition, several probable approaches to further studies are also recommended.