Talk Shows
TALK SHOWS The television talk show is, on the face of it, a rather strange institution. We pay people to talk for us. Like the soap opera, the talk show is an invention of twentieth century broadcasting. It takes a very old form of communication, conversation, and transforms it into a low cost but highly popular form of information and entertainment through the institutions, practices and technologies of television.
The talk show did not originate over night, at one time, or in one place. It developed out of forty years of television practice and antecedent talk traditions from radio, Chatauqua, vaudeville and popular theater. In defining the talk show it is useful to distinguish between "television talk" (unscripted presentational address) and "talk shows"--shows organized principally around talk. "Television talk" represents all the unscripted forms of conversation and direct address to the audience that have been present on television from the beginning. This kind of "live," unscripted talk is one of the basic things that distinguishes television from film, photography, the record and book industries. Television talk is almost always anchored or framed by an announcer or host figure, and may be defined, in Erving Goffman's terms, as "fresh talk," that is, talk that appears to be generated word by word and in a spontaneous manner. Though it is always to a degree spontaneous, television talk is also highly structured. It takes place in ritualized encounters and what the viewer sees and hears on the air has been shaped by writers, producers, stage managers and technical crews and tailored to the talk formulas of television.
Thus, though it resembles daily speech, the kind of talk that occurs on television does not represent unfettered conversation. Different kinds of television talk occur at different times of the broadcast day, but much of this talk occurs outside the confines of what audiences and critics have come to know as the "talk show." Major talk
The talk show did not originate over night, at one time, or in one place. It developed out of forty years of television practice and antecedent talk traditions from radio, Chatauqua, vaudeville and popular theater. In defining the talk show it is useful to distinguish between "television talk" (unscripted presentational address) and "talk shows"--shows organized principally around talk. "Television talk" represents all the unscripted forms of conversation and direct address to the audience that have been present on television from the beginning. This kind of "live," unscripted talk is one of the basic things that distinguishes television from film, photography, the record and book industries. Television talk is almost always anchored or framed by an announcer or host figure, and may be defined, in Erving Goffman's terms, as "fresh talk," that is, talk that appears to be generated word by word and in a spontaneous manner. Though it is always to a degree spontaneous, television talk is also highly structured. It takes place in ritualized encounters and what the viewer sees and hears on the air has been shaped by writers, producers, stage managers and technical crews and tailored to the talk formulas of television.
Thus, though it resembles daily speech, the kind of talk that occurs on television does not represent unfettered conversation. Different kinds of television talk occur at different times of the broadcast day, but much of this talk occurs outside the confines of what audiences and critics have come to know as the "talk show." Major talk
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