Top Communication Professor Lectures at MC

by Kyle Christensen
Courier Staff

What are the hidden agendas lurking behind the innocent-looking guise of daytime TV?

Professor Bruce Gronbeck was greeted by a full auditorium of MC students and faculty in the Wells Theatre on Thursday, March 16, 2006, for his lecture entitled “Oprah/ Harpo Inc.: Building Oral Culture Electronically.” Gronbeck, hailing from University of Iowa, is an acclaimed scholar in the field of Communication, having obtained the title of President of the National Communication Association among his many other accomplishments.

Gronbeck aimed to analyze the appeal of popular talk show hostess Oprah Winfrey and how she has used her principal conglomerate, Harpo Corporation, to establish what he dubs as an “Oral Culture” in our society, particularly via the television medium. As Gronbeck theorized, “Talk shows in television present ideas for people interested in communication.”

In defining the central term “Oral Culture,” Gronbeck divided the process by three distinct components. “Oral Socialization” consists of what information we gather from our interactions and “depends on learner participation.” Secondly, “Custom Laws” are the general social norms we adopt, sometimes implemented as edifying catchphrases, like “children should be seen, but not heard.”

The third, and perhaps most important concept, relates to “Technologies” and their likelihood in helping us collect and retain knowledge. To aid our memory, public speakers will often convey messages with manipulations in voice (volume, tone, emotional inflection) and physical movements (gestures, looks, facial expressions), using repetition & redundancy in delivery, to more effectively lead into a specific point.

To demonstrate how Winfrey has applied this approach to her show, Gronbeck screened a 20-minute clip of a 2001 episode of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” on weight loss, called (with intentional cleverness) “Getting Real About Fat.” When several guests recounted their life struggles with morbid and severe obesity, notorious psychologist, and then-frequent visitor, Dr. Phil McGraw suggested methods of dietary reforms, often in the form of simple one-liners, such as “You’re medicating yourself with food” and “You’re fat because you work at it.” McGraw even incorporated his self-structured “Ten Life Laws” into his arguments, including “Law #1: You either get it or you don’t,” and “Law #4: You can’t change what you don’t acknowledge.”

Further manipulations in visual editing were observed, with deliberate cuts between McGraw and Winfrey’s insights and random audience members nodding or displaying motions of agreement.

To conclude his seminar, Gronbeck searched the Oprah.com website and discussed other practices that Winfrey has utilized to charm her legion of devoted followers.

“For Oprah, life is made up of mind, body, and soul,” Gronbeck stated, encapsulating the motivations of Winfrey’s entire empire.

Venturing through archives of articles and personal testimonies, Gronbeck recited several titles (“Unleash the Power of Your Mind and You’ll Really Go Places,” “You Can Get Out of Debt,” “Go With Your Gut Idea,” etc.), all using language that directly addresses the reader and appears to promise all of the same beauty, wealth, and power that Winfrey herself possesses.

With a target fan base of women who are “oppressed, depressed, doting, and down,” Gronbeck noted two inevitable evils that may arise from this manner of promotion, stating sardonically, “Oprah has given you the tools, so if you fail, it’s your fault,” and “[You are] always responsible for your failure, while being responsible for her success.”