The Oprah Phenomenon
Her image is iconic: Oprah Winfrey has built an empire on her ability to connect with and inspire her audience. No longer just a name, "Oprah" has become a brand representing the talk show host's unique style of self-actualizing individualism. The cultural and economic power wielded by Winfrey merits critical evaluation. The contributors to The Oprah Phenomenon examine the origins of her public image and its substantial influence on politics, entertainment, and popular opinion. Contributors...
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With a Foreword by Robert J. Thompson Her image is iconic: Oprah Winfrey has built an empire on her ability to connect with and inspire her audience. No longer just a name, "Oprah" has become a brand representing the talk show host's unique style of self-actualizing individualism. The cultural and economic power wielded by Winfrey merits critical evaluation. The contributors to The Oprah Phenomenon examine the origins of her public image and its substantial influence on politics, entertainment, and popular opinion. Contributors address praise from her many supporters and weigh criticisms from her detractors. Winfrey's ability to create a feeling of intimacy with her audience has long been cited as one of the foundations of her popularity. She has repeatedly made national headlines by engaging and informing her audience with respect to her personal relationships to race, gender, feminism, and New Age culture. The Oprah Phenomenon explores these relationships in detail. At the root of Winfrey's message to her vast audience is her assertion that anyone can be a success regardless of background or upbringing. The contributors scrutinize this message: What does this success entail? Is the motivation behind self-actualization, in fact, merely the hope of replicating Winfrey's purchasing power? Is it just a prescription to buy the products she recommends and heed the advice of people she admires, or is it a lifestyle change of meaningful spiritual benefit? The Oprah Phenomenon asks these and many other difficult questions to promote a greater understanding of Winfrey's influence on the American consciousness. Regina M. Beard, Economics Librarian, Kansas State Libs. - Library Journal Contributors to this collection examine several aspects of the Oprah Winfrey juggernaut, including her talk show, magazine, and book club. The thematically grouped essays critically analyze how she uses personal information, particularly her battles with weight, to effect a level of intimacy with her audience. Several of the articles mention the talk-show episode where, after a 60-pound weight loss, Oprah pulled onstage a wagonload of fat representing the loss. Her detractors also argue that her book club diluted the discussion of so-called literary fiction, and much attention is paid to Jonathan Franzen's being disinvited to discuss The Correctionsafter his seemingly ungrateful comments about the overall intellect of the book club and its members. More extensive in its coverage than Kathleen Rooney's Reading with Oprah: The Book Club That Changed America, this book identifies the common threads that run throughout Oprah's empire, the demographics of her audience, how she brings together women from diverse backgrounds, and her use of empathy and encouragement to foster self-improvement. Recommended for academic libraries.
Foreword viiIntroduction: Oprah Winfrey as Subject and Spectacle Jennifer Harris Elwood Watson 1Oprah Winfrey and RaceThe Specter of Oprah Winfrey: Critical Black Female Spectatorship Tarshia L. Stanley 35My Mom and Oprah Winfrey: Her Appeal to White Women Linda Kay 51The "Oprahization" of America: The Man Show and the Redefinition of Black Femininity Valerie Palmer-Mehta 65Oprah Winfrey on the StageOprah Winfrey and Women's Autobiography: A Televisual Performance of the Therapeutic Self Eva Illouz Nik John 87From Fasting toward Self-Acceptance: Oprah Winfrey and Weight Loss in American Culture Ella Howard 101Spiritual Talk: The Oprah Winfrey Show and the Popularization of the New Age Maria McGrath 125Oprah Winfrey and Spirituality Denise Martin 147Phenomenon on Trial: Reading Rhetoric at Texas Beef v. Oprah Winfrey Jennifer Richardson 165Oprah Winfrey on the PageOprah's Book Club and the American Dream Malin Pereira 191Some Lessons before Dying: Gender, Morality, and the Missing Critical Discourse in Oprah's Book Club Roberta F. Hammett Audrey Dentith 207Making Corrections to Oprah's Book Club: Reclaiming Literary Power for Gendered Literacy Management Sarah Robbins 227Knowing for Sure: Epistemologies of the Autonomous Self in O, the Oprah Magazine Marjorie Jolles 259Oprah Winfrey's Branding of Personal Empowerment Damiana Gibbons 277List of Contributors 293Index 297
\ Library JournalContributors to this collection examine several aspects of the Oprah Winfrey juggernaut, including her talk show, magazine, and book club. The thematically grouped essays critically analyze how she uses personal information, particularly her battles with weight, to effect a level of intimacy with her audience. Several of the articles mention the talk-show episode where, after a 60-pound weight loss, Oprah pulled onstage a wagonload of fat representing the loss. Her detractors also argue that her book club diluted the discussion of so-called literary fiction, and much attention is paid to Jonathan Franzen's being disinvited to discuss The Correctionsafter his seemingly ungrateful comments about the overall intellect of the book club and its members. More extensive in its coverage than Kathleen Rooney's Reading with Oprah: The Book Club That Changed America, this book identifies the common threads that run throughout Oprah's empire, the demographics of her audience, how she brings together women from diverse backgrounds, and her use of empathy and encouragement to foster self-improvement. Recommended for academic libraries.\ —Regina M. Beard, Economics Librarian, Kansas State Libs.\ \ \ \ \ \ From the Publisher""[Harris & Watson] assert that the foundation of Winfrey's message to her vast audience is her belief in self-actualization, which says that anyone can be a success regardless of background or upbringing."Spittin' Grits, (spittingrits.blogspot.com)" --\ ""These excellent essays examine the ingredients behind [Winfrey's] triumph as a television talk show host, film and play producer, magazine publisher, and self-help guru.... Stimulating and frankly a must-read for those curious about the nature of the 'Winfrey phenomenon."--Journal of Social History" --\ ""The Oprah Phenomenon is a fascinating blend of approaches and voices and will undoubtedly be a lively contributor to the scholarly conversation about Oprah"--Dr. Cecilia Konchar Farr, author of Reading Oprah: How Oprah's Book Club Changed the Way America Reads" --\ \ \
