Coming After Oprah

By Vicki Abt and Leonard Mustazza

This title looks at the evolution and cultural significance of daytime talk shows, concluding that they are more than harmless entertainment. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0879727527
• ISBN13: 9780879727529
• Release Date: June 1997
• Publisher: Popular Press
• Length: 216 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.1" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Brilliant expose of cultural corruption

The disturbing anomie of "trash TV" and its connection to multi-billion dollar corporate media consolidation are given a brilliantly-argued treatment in this concisely-written book. The authors have produced a clarion call-to-arms warning us of the dangers of coagulating media moguldom. While occasionally marred by ideological partisanship, the authors' description of the interconnected web of toxic TV talk shows and the desolate value-vacuum of a society ravaged by a culture war is dead-accurate. Worth the price of admission alone is the chapter on the rules of the trash talk show game wherein millionaire "hosts" act as tabloid ringmasters, flogging pathetic, often desperate "guests" into a confessional frenzy. The diagnosis is clear, but what is the cure? Abt and Mustazza quixotically call for government re-regulation, licensure of media professionals and taxation. But the sickness outlined here goes beyond any political solutions. All told, a classic illustration of Marshall McLuhan's prophetic vision of the media as extensions of the human sensorium and the way new media effect changes that are never value-neutral