ABSTRACT
In the mid-1980s television talk shows shattered the conventional wisdoms guiding nonfiction television programming. News reporting has become increasingly incapable of providing information and knowledge that can be incorporated into peoples lives in meaningful ways. Using the visual language of “objectivity” developed during the medium’s infancy, Dan Rather and Ted Koppel sit planted behind their desks. Citizens are indeed given little voice on official news, except as the “edited public.” Talk shows address the need for information that relates to people’s lives, and their method has been to provide the public with narrative representations of lived experiences. Public testifying for the common good is very different from confessing in the pseudotherapeutic context offered on talk shows. The talk show emerged at a time of increasing ossification of traditional news reporting, public dissatisfaction with the interdependence between the media and the state, and the restriction of a multiplicity of voices so apparent on news and information programming.
