TV Shows

Five decades after the widespread distribution of television, the relationship between television and American culture can best be described as ambivalent. On the one hand, the industry has made a genuine effort to treat blacks as artists on an equal basis with whites, to end discrimination against them, and to depict them realistically. On the other hand, the industry continues to portray blacks in stereotypical ways and is reluctant to hire them or to develop their talents.

This paper presents an analysis of a popular talk show, which has influenced the traditional American culture in myriad of ways; The Oprah Winfrey Show. The fact that her talk show is watched by more than 22 million people every week, that she is the first African-American woman (the second person of African-American origin after Robert Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television) to make it to Forbes magazine's list of billionaires, and that Time magazine named her one of the hundred most influential people of the twentieth century overshadows the important impact of her multifaceted leadership style on the American private and public landscape (Greenberg, 412). While no one disputes her as status as a talk show host or as an entertainment business executive, it is arguably her leadership that will be the lens through which history books examine her life. She may be the only self-made billionaire who “happily admits that she cannot read a balance sheet” and has declined invitations to serve on the corporate boards of AT&T, Ralph Lauren, and Intel because she was not sure what she would be doing as a board member (Greenberg, 413).

Winfrey's rise from her humble beginnings in Mississippi to her current status as a global cultural and business icon can be seen as a powerful reminder of the rags-to-riches metaphor that remains so powerful in American society. What gets overlooked is her drive and determination to reawaken the latent personal leadership that exists in all of us to understand, to act, and perhaps most importantly, to help improve society. Television, her instrument of leadership instruction, has been known mainly as the source of several negative side effects including sedentary lifestyle and obesity in children. But when it is in the hands of a dynamic and charismatic magician like Winfrey, the medium becomes much more than an impersonal electronic box that invites passivity (Woo, 109).

Her impact has been felt far beyond the television medium. Her ...