TALK SHOWS THAT ELICIT AND MANIPULATE NEGATIVE EMOTIONS FOR ENTERTAINMENT

TALK SHOWS THAT ELICIT AND MANIPULATE NEGATIVE EMOTIONS FOR ENTERTAINMENT

1. Radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, heard by 20 million Americans daily, regularly made misogynist jokes, calling feminists “feminazis who look like rhinoceroses.” WABC’s Bob Grant calls welfare mothers “maggots.” The audiences cheer (Mattussek, 1995).

2. In a 1995 episode of the Jenny Jones show, guest Jonathan Schmitz was told he would soon meet his secret admirer who had

a crush on him. The mystery person turned out to be another man, Scott Amedure, who spoke of fantasies of tying Schmitz in a hammock and spraying him with whipped cream and champagne. Schmitz was very distraught and 3 days later was arrested for killing Amedure. He told the police that the embarrassment from the program had eaten away at him (Gamson, 1995).

3. Ricki Lake hosted confrontational guests on talk shows with titles like “Get Real, Honey, Your Boyfriend Is a Dog,” “Pack Your Bags or You’ll Wish You Were Dead.” “I Want to Tell My Cheating Boyfriend It’s Now or Never,” and “You’re the Rudest Thing Alive, and I’m Sick of Your Attitude” (Zoglin, 1995). Jerry Springer aired shows “I Won’t Let You Sell Your Body,” “Pregnant Bad Girls,” and “Guess What, I’m a Man!”(J.Collins, 1998). Yelling, screaming, crying, and even hitting other guests were allegedly encouraged.

4. Shauna Miller from Livermore, CA appeared on the Richard Bey Show after being told she would be reunited with someone from her past. Expecting it to be an older brother she had never met, Shauna was surprised to see her younger brother’s fiancée, with whom she had been feuding. The younger woman began yelling at her and making all sorts of accusations apparently having been

159 A Cognitive Psychology of Mass Communication

encouraged to do so by program staff (Bellafante, 1995).

5. Nikki and her new husband Chico appeared on the Jerry Springer Show without being told what the producers really had in mind. During the taping it was revealed that Chico was still seeing his old girlfriend Mindy and also had a male lover, Rick. Both of them were on the show with the couple, and Mindy even assaulted Nikki. The audience was encouraged to show contempt for them. “It’s white trailer trash! I love it!” said an 81-year-old farmer from Oregon (J.Collins, 1998). The show offers to pay for counseling for guests afterward, but few accept the offer.

6. One episode of The Maury Povich Show featured a group of teens who lived together in a one-bedroom apartment. Jason was in love with Calvin, who was having an affair with Jason’s twin sister Jamie, who was also the mother of a three-month-old. Jamie was interested in Scott, who had had sex with at least Calvin and Tiff arvie, who walked onstage holding Jamie’s hand. The audience enjoyed name-calling and criticizing the teens and questioned their sexual orientations and morality (Gamson, 1995).

Are such programs freak shows that exploit guests and bring out the worst in the audience, or are they legitimate formats to hear people’s stories that we would otherwise not hear (but perhaps should)? By the way, in case you ever wondered where these shows find these people, there is a National Talk Show Guest Registry, a database of thousands of people who tell stories or have problems they are willing to vent about on the air.

Although emotion is present in virtually all types of media, we now turn to examining in more detail two domains of media where the emotional response is absolutely central, namely sports and music