ABSTRACT
Television is an important socializing agent that shapes and creates viewers’ attitudes and behavior (Bandura, 1994). With an estimated 10 million viewers a day, 750,000 of whom are under 13 years old (Mifflin, 1995), talk shows function as socializing agents that expose viewers to very distinctive and nonnormative patterns of public disclosures. Much of talk shows’ increasing popularity is due to their increase in the controversial and sensational nature of guests’ disclosures (Heaton & Wilson, 1995). Talk shows are “public confessionals” that encourage private revelations of intimate personal information (Priest, 1995). Private disclosures are then transformed into televised disclosures. Priest (1994) conceptualizes a televised disclosure as “the televised outpouring of personal information usually revealed only to one’s close friends, family, rabbi, minister or therapist” (p. 75).
