Daytime TV Delves into Politics
By Kay Steiger - Oct 9th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
The fabulous Rebecca Traister has a great article in Salon about how the election is playing out on more than just the cable news networks. Political discourse has found an unlikely home: daytime talk shows. Outlets like The View, Ellen DeGeneres’s show, and the forum of cook-turned-talk-show-host Rachael Ray have become a place to speak one-on-one with the candidates and discuss the news of the day.
What’s interesting about Traister’s analysis is that it demonstrates that daytime talk shows, like other shows from a female point of view, were always thought to be distinct from discourse about politics and policy. Surely the women who watch these shows are more interested in learning about how to do crafts with their kids or celebrity gossip, the reasoning went. But something has shifted. Now the assumption is that women who watch these shows are interested in politics and policy because they affect their everyday lives.
Women, polls show, are worried about the economy. They stress about the cost of gas, retirement, and how to pay for health insurance. The way policy plays out has real implications for all of these things, so it should be no surprise that the shows are finally waking up to the fact that people want to hear and talk about political issues. The old assumptions about the viewers of these shows are falling away, and hopefully they will bring more to male-dominated political discourse.
To whom this concerns , my name is Dwayne H White , I live in kansas , ,I am not shure how this plays into your views , poverty, I am a husband and father of three small children ages 7 , 5 , and 3 ,, I have tried everything to get ahead. I have fallen so far into poverty that I am now at the point that suicide seems to be the only way out . when we finaly recovered from a house that we had last january , we got us a home that we are all happy with , we find out that our land lord didnt make the bank notes , now we might be looking at living in the streets, the house will be sold at sheriff auction. we love our home , but I am out of work , my wife draws disability , and food stamps , my credit is shot , my wife has told me many times that I have let the family down ,, and when I get to thinking about it , I have , a family of 5 cant live on a mininum wadge salorie . and my boss said that he had to let some people go due to lack of business, , I feel I have become a failure , letting everyone down , my babies begging me for us to keep our home ,, everyone looking at me for the answer and relief of this situation , I cant , I am looking at two choices , one is keep being a dissapointment and watch my family go without , , or let them go , at least if she moved in with her mother , they will have a room to stay in ,, I have tried everything , even asking celebraties for help,, I have gone all the way down to begging ,, the last thing that I want to do is loose my family , but for them to get ahead , I would gladly give my life ,
March 8th, 2010 at 10:34 pmI dont know what to do anymore, just give up ive hit rock bottom , , ive let my family down , were loosing our home , no car , everything I do is wrong, we cant get ahead , my marriage is in shambles , my children are going without , suicide is the only way out , I dont want to die but if that is what it takes. someone elses mistake costed us a y wifes home . I cant afford 85,000 , or even come close to it , I dont have a job , were living off my wifes disability. 665.00 per month .,,, and food stamps ,, I dont think there is hope we will never be able to get ahead ,
March 8th, 2010 at 10:49 pmcountry21303@yahoo.com
785-806-7243
Dwayne H White