Examines the talkshow as a cultural form whose curious productivity has become vital to America's image economy. This book takes a look at the talkshow's history, programs, production methods, and the "talk" about it that pervades media culture the press, broadcasting, and Hollywood.

He analyzes individual shows such as "Geraldo," "The Morton Downey Show," "The McLaughlin Group," and radio call-in "squawk" programs, as well as movies such as Talk Radio and The King of Comedy that investigate the talkshow's peculiar status. Munson also examines such events as the political organizing of talkhosts and their role in the antitax and anti-incumbency groundswells of the 1990s. In so doing, Munson demonstrates how "infotainment" is rooted in a deliberate uncertainty. The ultimate parasitic media form, the talkshow promiscuously indulges in and even celebrated its dependencies and contradictions. It "works" by "playing" with boundaries and identities to personalize the political and politicize the personal. Arguing that the talkshow's form and host are productively ill-defined, Munson asks whether the genre is a degradation of public life or part of a new, revitalized public sphere in which audiences are finally and fully "heard" through interactive. Wayne Munson is Assistant Professor of Communications/Media at Fitchburg State College in Massachusetts.

Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Sense of the Talkshow
1. Turning to Talk: The Talkshow's Development
2. Constellations of Voices: How Talkshows Work
3. Making Sense and Nonsense: Talk about the Talkshow
Postscript: A New Sense of Place
Notes
Index