RUNNING HEAD: Creating a Space
CREATING A SPACE FOR “EVERY WOMAN” AT OPRAH.COM
Leda Cooks, Associate Professor
Erica Scharrer, Assistant Professor
Mari Paredes, Assistant Professor
Department of Communication
University of MA, Amherst
Amherst, MA 01003
Fax 413 545 6399
Contact phone 413 545 2895
Email leda@comm.umass.edu
Paper submitted for consideration to the Communication and Technology
Division of the International Communication Association
Creating a Space 2
CREATING A SPACE FOR “EVERY WOMAN” AT OPRAH.COM
Oprah Winfrey has a personal fortune estimated at a half billion dollars (Tannen,
1998), is the head of a media empire that includes a perennially popular television talk
show, an immediately prosperous magazine, a film and television production company,
and an extremely busy fan-based web site. Her book club selections virtually guarantee
immediate success for book and author. Guests on her show have become successful in
their own right by virtue of their association with Oprah as a mentor and a friend (e.g. Dr.
Phil McGraw).
Yet, Oprah’s success certainly cannot be measured by her finances and economic
impact alone. Her value lies in the degree of esteem with which she is held by millions of
women throughout the world. Her primarily female audience describes her as a trusted
friend, a confidant, and an ally. Winfrey interacts with audiences both present in studio
audiences and tuning in through the media alike, allowing insight into her own life and
establishing a rare sense of intimacy (Haag, 1993; Tannen, 1998). Winfrey is perhaps
unique in that she has inspired this sense of connection across multiple mediated
channels; her image, established in the mass medium of television, can extend to the
more interactive realm of the Internet through the conversations and discussions taken up
by her fans on Oprah.com. In this article, we analyze the ways womeni participate in this
on-line forum, in an attempt to understand how such participation is symbolized and what
it represents for practical notions of interpersonal relationships, communication and
community as well as more abstract academic theorizing on the virtues of virtual
relationships for women.
Creating a Space 3
The Oprah.com web site is fascinating to observe. Women visit it to seek support
from others, to give advice, to voice opinions or describe an experience, and to come
together as a community with Oprah fan hood as a common thread. In this work, we
study the formation of relationships and community in this particular area of cyberspace
through analysis of written contributions of web site users. We also assess the
characteristics and qualities of the space itself, the opportunities it affords in providing a
forum for women as well as the constraints it imposes by virtue of its commercial and
structured form. What results is somewhat unique to the “Oprah experience” but also
points to common themes as well as tensions around the notions of communities as they
exist both on and off line for women.
Thus, three important questions drive this study: (1) How do women participate,
how do they form relationships on Oprah.com? (2) What are the cultural and social bases
for their participation? (3) Are spaces such as Oprah.com important sites for women?
The theoretical underpinnings of this investigation come from social constructionist
approaches to communication that put communicative practices at the center of meaning
making. While the medium for the practices we analyze is the Oprah.com web site, the
focus for our study is how participation in this particular community is enacted in
cyberspace and what consequences attributed to their on-line participation.
While the strategy of media convergenceii plays an important role in the
structuring of Oprah.com and the marketing value assigned to the site, a discussion of the
political economyiii of this community is beyond the scope of this paper, and is taken up
in a related study (This author, 2001). For our purposes here, we wish to acknowledge
that “O Place” on Oprah.com has been created as a unique media form that both extends
Creating a Space 4
and generates other Oprah Winfrey media holdings. The on-line venue is marketed and
commodified as a community in which members can and must invest. The marketing of
Oprah’s image as well as her style of connection and intimacy helps to make the site
possible and plausible as a site for community formation and more or less real to those
who travel there.
The importance of defining and naming sites such as Oprah.com “communities” is
at the center of much CMC scholarship on the virtues of virtual communities. While we
touch briefly on the debates about the authenticity of such communities, our focus is
directed more toward the interpersonal, social and cultural premises for interaction in this
virtual space. In the sections that follow we detail the theoretical and methodological
considerations that inform our analysis.
Searching for Community: Theoretical Considerations
Jones (1998) and Wood and Smith (2001), among others, have noted that the idea
of virtual community and the quest to find it remains primarily an academic venture.
While we would not argue with this claim, we feel that the academic focus on the concept
does not warrant its dismissal. The idea or ideal of community remains critical for those
who theorize and analyze communicative practices as well as those who participate in
them, whether on or off line (Ashcraft, 2001; Depew & Peters, 2001; Rothenbuhler,
2001; Shepherd, 2001).
The formation of relationships and community in cyberspace has been the focus of
a large body of interdisciplinary research concerned with the relative stability or
fluctuation of these concepts and the degree to which they have promoted social
Creating a Space 5
interaction and social change. The debate over the nature and consequences of what
“counts” as relationship or community in computer-mediated communication generally
results in some predictable conundrums: between the unitary body located in physical
space and the fragmentation of identities in cyberspace, between the virtual space of
information and the material space of day-to-day reality, between the authentic and the
imaginary spaces of community, between spaces of anonymity, isolation, difference and
hierarchy and affiliation, relationship and equanimity.
It is toward the latter dimensions of community (affiliation, relationship and
equanimity) that Interpersonal Communication research has focused, implying both
explicitly and implicitly that intimacy, supportive social ties and community are highly
valued goals to be achieved (Burgoon, 1995). Adams (2001) observes “although intimacy
and close social ties may be desirable qualities for a community, they are neither
necessary nor sufficient conditions for the structure and functions of communities” (p.
39). While Adams’ argument is directed at communities located in physical space, where
people are often born into communities or join them, research and theory on cyber
communities has perhaps explicitly relied on interpersonal relationships as criteria for
community both because of the voluntary nature of most social interaction on-line as well
as the reliance on relatively limited and relatively homogenous means for
communicating.
To widen the scope of analysis of communities, rather that limiting the focus to
their veracity, Baym (1998) describes other important factors that help to determine how
meaning is made of on-line communities and how they become meaningful. Baym (1998)
provides a set of preexisting structures that are useful for analyzing an on-line
Creating a Space 6
community’s style (the scaffolding that helps provides a context for interaction): external
contexts (the cultural contexts that shape people’s use of and meanings given to their online interactions), temporal structure (synchronous or asynchronous, fleeting or long
term), system infrastructure (physical configurations, system adaptability, and level of
user friendliness), group purposes (whether discussing particular topics, providing advice,
or participating in a community of Oprah fans), and participant characteristics (ranging
from the size of the group to members’ experience with and attitudes toward new
technologies).
Moving from a focus on the structure and processes through which virtual
communities articulate themselves, a crucial concern for feminists and others researching
gender, technology and community is whether, how or where women’s lives have been
improved as a result of the information revolution. Here, as in many debates about CMC
and community, the debate tends toward utopian and dystopian versions of the same story
(Preston, 2001), with some feminist scholars reporting that not only are women
underrepresented as users of the technology, but when they actually gain access to the
technology they are immediately reminded that the “electronic frontier” is once again a
male space. Scholars such as Herring (1996), Spender (1995), and Kramarae (1997)
report that women post (to listservs) in a “different voice” from men, and while it is
notable that both men and women can create “alternative” genders on-line (Bruckman,
1996; Turkle, 1995), negative stereotypes of women tend to be upheld (Kendall, 1996;
Kramarae, 1997). Other feminists argue that gender switching online simply serves to
reify previously existing gender categories of male and female, and little room for
alternative constructions of identity (Danet, 1998)
Creating a Space 7
On the other side of this debate are those feminists who see a natural link between
women and on-line technology. They see the web as offering a metaphor for connection,
for linking women to each other in ways that make them more powerful than they have
ever been before. Where women link to each other’s sites, they are weaving a complex
pattern of relationships and concerns that has historical precedent (Plant, 1995). This
sentiment is expressed in the Women’sSpace Web article on the culture of cyberspace:
There is a spirit of generosity in cyberspace which reminds us of the early days of
the Women’s Liberation Movement. Networking activism and support are
interwoven as we push ourselves to learn to work with the new electronic tools we
are encountering. Together we anticipate a future where growing numbers of
women can access and use the global connections to promote women’s equality
(Women’sSpace Vol. 1(3), Web page).
Ito (1997) attempts to move beyond this debate over the virtues of computer
mediated communication (CMC) for women, to examine the “inter and intra-textuality of
the Net as itself a social and political context where history, politics and discourse are
being constituted” (p. 93). We extend her analysis of the text and use the context of the
Internet as real social facts by looking at the ways participation is constructive of agency
and community for women.
Building Relationships On and Off Line: Methodological Considerations
We look to the work of Lannamann (1994) and Fitch (1994) to build a theory of
Creating a Space 8
interpersonal ideology which is, as Fitch says, “grounded in material practices, that is,
language use; well informed, though not dominated by the possibilities of human
interpersonal structures, including power imbalances…inclusive of the beliefs and
values…that are so basic that they are rarely stated; and grounded in a firm notion of
what is and is not cultural” (Fitch, 1994, p. 114) Such an interrogation of the operation of
ideology in the interpersonal communication of Oprah-identified web site participants
should prove instructive in tackling the question of how people create meaning when
“positioned and responding to the positions invoked by others” (Lannamann, 1994, p.
145). We respond to Fitch’s question about how people “transcend differences in
schemas, unknowable intentions, variable interpretations, conflicting goals, and other
individual complexities to a degree that allows actions to be coordinated and relationships
to form” (Fitch, 1994, p. 105) in order to provide some insight into the dynamics of the
creation of and participation in virtual communities.
Consideration of interpersonal dynamics in the formation of community also
shifts the focus from community as a homogenous product of interpersonal interaction
and toward interpersonal interaction as a product of community. Thus, interactions grow
and are shaped by the community rather than vice versa. Adams (2001) notes that “A
fascinating approach for interpersonal scholars might be the ways in which communities
influence communication and relationships, as well as how the new communities are, in
fact, built out of interpersonal relationships”(p. 39).
A growing body of research has focused on the interpersonal dimensions of online interaction. Wood and Smith (2001) note that three broad perspectives characterize
research on on-line relationships: the impersonal perspective, the interpersonal
Creating a Space 9
perspective and the hyper personal perspective. The impersonal perspective portrays
interaction on the web site as limited in terms of the amount of nonverbal cues and
emotional content that could be exchanged. Proponents of this approach viewed computer
mediated interaction as a poor substitute for face-to-face communication and those who
spent a good deal of time on the medium as isolated and disconnected with more
traditional forms of community.
The interpersonal perspective views the relationship among the various media
through which interaction occurs as more complex. One medium for interaction (e.g.,
computer mediated) does not necessarily substitute for another, but rather supplements or
extend the forums in which people form and maintain relationships. Thus, while I might
meet someone on-line, the fact that this is followed up by face-to –face contact neither
presumes the authenticity of one form over another nor does it mean that I have moved in
a linear fashion from impersonal interaction toward intimacy. The hyper personal
perspective (primarily based on Walther’s 1996 research) observes that CMC promotes
an environment where people are in more control over their self-presentation than in
face-to-face interaction and thus are better able to express themselves and form
relationships on-line than in “real life”. Walther (1996) highlights several conditions that
allow this to occur: the sender can control how she wishes to present herself to others, the
receiver can exaggerate the positive qualities of a potential relational partner, the
asynchronous nature of the medium allows messages to be posted with more forethought
than typically occurs in face to face interaction, and feedback can intensify the
relationship in the absence of other nonverbal cues (Tidwell & Walther, 2002).
Adapting these considerations to feminist conceptions of community, we see that
Creating a Space 10
naming a community for women gives rise to forms of communicating that are expected
and encouraged. Nonetheless, as Ashcraft argues, promoting an ideal for feminist
community carries consequences:
(a) it favors particular structures and procedures (e.g., minimal hierarchy,
consensual decision making) to the exclusion of process and outcome
considerations; (b) it promotes the rather bleak view that confrontation is
inevitably disabling; (c) it depicts any form of power imbalance as an antifeminist
development, thus equating feminist empowerment with absolute equality . . . At
best, theoretical bias bounds our understanding of feminisms-in-practice (Mayer,
1995). At worst it brands feminist community an impossibility—an endeavor
inherently destined for compromise (2001; 83).
Although Oprah.com can be more accurately described as a space created for
women, rather than a community devoted to a particular vision of feminism, Ashcraft’s
concerns are instructive as we consider what assumptions structure the network and
values presumed to be important to the women who participate there. Importantly, both
Ashcraft (2001) and Adams (2001) place emphasis on the resonance between ideology
and practice without forsaking the creativity and agency that arises from human
interaction.
Although perhaps neglecting somewhat the power dynamics and complexities of
virtual communities in relation to those formed in other spaces, Rheingold’s (1993) oft
quoted criteria for community: sustained conversation, public feeling and webs of
interpersonal relationships apply to the relationships constructed at O’s Place. To these
conditions, we would also add implicit criteria for credibility and membership through
Creating a Space 11
knowledge of and appreciation for Oprah as a media personality, and, by extension the
values and virtues she and her media outlets/enterprises promote. Even more implicit and
important are the rules for membership according to social and cultural categories that
apply in everyday physical spaces of community that are maintained in interactions on
the Oprah message boards and chat rooms. Forms of social and cultural capital that
cannot be seen in a text-based format are re-created to determine the credibility of one’s
story, one’s place in the community and, particularly in this community, one’s right to
offer advice to others in need.
At this point, it is important to note that this project moves back and forth from
the details of the everyday use and discourse on the Oprah chatrooms to the ways in
which such use reflects larger social and cultural patterns of power. We utilize both
descriptive and discourse analysis of the site and the messages posted in the message and
chat rooms over an eight-month period. Our goal as participant/observers on the site is to
extend previous analyses that focus primarily on the textual (conversation analytic
approaches) or on the structural dimensions of Internet use.
Methods and Procedures
In the next section, we describe the site of our research and cyber fieldwork: the
structure and space of “O Place.” The length and duration of our fieldwork in this site has
been eight months. Our baseline was determined by previous assessments of the
structure of communal space on the Internet, the intertextual nature of this particular
community (members of the web site are also clearly fans of other Oprah related media),
and the unique expectations of and commitment to virtual communities, given their
Creating a Space 12
potential anonymity and ease of access for those who have a computer and a modem.
In the study we address the central concerns of our research through ethnographic
(descriptive and discursive) analysis of the Oprah web site, message boards and chat
rooms. We base our interpretation of the participation and activity on the message boards
on several ethnographic criteria: the usefulness of the activity for identifying and
solidifying a sense of we-ness, depth of feeling the activity provides or provokes, and the
amount of responses/interest the activity generates.
Based on previous research of virtual communities (LeBesco, 1996; Mitra, 1997;
Wood & Smith, 2001), we identify several characteristics of text-based communities that
applied to this community as well, such as: (1) frequent discussions of rules for
participation and/or membership, including discussion of punishment for violation of
those rules; (2) the use of text-based emotional identifiers such as, :} (smile), Lol (laugh
out loud) or rofl (roll on floor laughing), among others; (3) continuity and coordination of
meaning based on threads of conversations; (4) flexibility in participation and
commitment on the part of members, due to the ephemeral nature of the format and (5)
some discussion of authenticity and/or verifiability that members were indeed who they
represented themselves to be. This last criterion is much more important for “realitybased” communities (those that reflect upon or attempt to mirror activities and identities
taken on in real life) than for fantasy-based communities, such as Multi User
Dungeons/Domains or MUDs. Authenticity, however, remains an important criterion in
both types of communities, whether one is authentically their real identity or their realfantasy identity, while the degree to which the community represents real-life activities
and experiences is flexible in the ongoing interaction of each type of community as well.
Creating a Space 13
As mentioned above, we spent eight months observing on line interaction, as well
as occasionally participating on the Oprah.com site. We did not identify ourselves as
researchers nor did we ask questions explicitly related to our project. As is the case with
much “virtual” ethnographic work (LeBesco, 1996; Watson, 1997) the discourse posted
on this site was/is considered to be public information, accessible to those who logged on
or signed up (in the case of the chat rooms) to the site.
Nonetheless, there are several ethical implications to collecting these stories and
conversations for the purposes of research that need to be acknowledged. First, the site is
intended as an interpersonal space for women to share their lives, therefore both
reciprocity (of communication) and the personal nature of stories are implied. Second, as
sometimes observers/lurkers and sometimes participants on the site, we intervened in the
meanings that were created in on-line conversations, as well as in the meanings that we
give to those posting/conversations in our research. Finally, our own positions as
researchers/ethnographers as well as participants needs to be acknowledged. Although
we participated on-line during the study, we did not and do not consider ourselves
members of an Oprah “fan” community (thus compromising our implied authenticity as
part of an on-line fan community). Our impetus for conducting this study was based on
our curiosity about Oprah as a media icon and cultural phenomenon who had achieved
her success by appearing “real” and “connected” to women's lives and stories. Still, other
factors served to protect and preserve the anonymity of members of the site. Each person
registering on the site was required to use a pseudonym (explicitly not a version of their
real name) each time they logged on or wished to participate on Oprah’s site. Members
also were informed of the rules of the site and the degree to which the messages they
Creating a Space 14
posted became public information (i.e. were accessible to all who logged onto the site or
entered a chat room).
Before we participated on the message boards or in the chat rooms we spent some
time observing the organizing topics and threads of conversation on the message boards.
While the general themes that circulated in the discourse produced were generated by
events and guests on Oprah's show or in the magazine, more specific references to
relationships and community often emerged in the descriptions of how groups of women
had met on-line and then formed local groups based on physical proximity (e.g. “spa
girls”) or how members found support and nurturance through their on-line “buddies”.
Several women referred to the members of Oprah.com as the only positive support they
had in their otherwise busy and overwhelming and chaotic lives. Other women went to
the site to solve or resolve specific issues in their lives (e.g. relationship problems) but
nonetheless relied on the reciprocity of other group members to help them through their
difficulties.
Each of these uses of the site (and others mentioned elsewhere in the study) point
to Oprah.com as an interpersonal gathering place, a community of women formed
through their communication both for the purposes of reaffirming a togetherness among
women who shared some common experiences and for seeking validation for themselves
as individuals. Shepherd (2001) notes that interpersonal can mean both between, as in
between “between persons” as well as together, as in the term intermingle He argues that
“it is the latter sense of interpersonal that is key to understanding a useful postmodern
sense of communication (p. 31). He goes on to observe that communion, the giving and
partaking of the other through communication, is necessarily interpersonal. We build an
Creating a Space 15
understanding of ourselves through the constant creation and recreation of relationships
(as when inter means “together, one with the other”) (p. 32).
It is with this understanding of the site's interpersonal potential for creating
community that we based our participation on the site. Our interest was both in entering
into and experiencing the interpersonal dimensions of the site, as well as observing the
cultural basis for its popularity and use. To analyze the discourse, we downloaded the
messages from the bulletin boards and recorded (via handwritten transcript) the
interactions in the chat rooms. We used a representative sampling method that looked for
key themes that appeared on the various message boards and chat rooms. To check for
validity across our samples we first each downloaded what we thought was representative
from the message boards and then compared samples from the discourse. Once we had
identified what we thought were key themes from each board, we then assigned five
message boards and one chat room to each author. In all, we downloaded or wrote down
106 transcripts of conversation from message boards and chat rooms. From the
downloaded messages, we then searched for common and representative (i.e. understood
by members of the community) terms for describing the space of the web site, common
and representative terms for relating to or describing the experiences of others on the site,
and actions and behaviors that occurred and were understood by members as contributing
to a common sense of community.
Analysis
O Place: Description of Oprah’s Web Site
O Place, on Oprah.com, is the official web site that links the major elements of
the entertainment offerings of Oprah Winfrey. Many of the individual offerings on the
Creating a Space 16
Oprah site revolve around the topic of understanding, improving, and establishing
comfort with the self. Yet, this is often accomplished through interactions and the
establishment and continuation of relationships among the largely female users of the
site. Thus, with the help of Oprah and her fans, with whom the user can form a sense of
rapport, one is invited to apply the strategies discussed on the television show, in the
magazine, and on the web site to her own life to make it more fulfilling.
There are ten categories of content listed on the far left of the site that help guide
the user. These listings fit largely into two types, those about Oprah’s media offerings
and those, which by title alone point to the “Live Your Best Life” theme. The ten featured
categories on the Oprah site are: The Oprah Show, O The Oprah Magazine, Oprah’s
Book Club, Oprah’s Angel Network, Your Spirit, Relationships/Dr. Phil, Food, Mind and
Body, Lifestyle Makeovers, and About Oprah. Some of these titles are also used to
organize the chat discussions (the focus of this research endeavor) that the user can
access easily from the home page.
The middle section of the home page for Oprah.com highlights selections from
the various sections by showing pictures, providing brief descriptions, and offering direct
links (rather than accessing them through one of the ten categories listed above). Oprah’s
image is frequently featured, most likely as a familiar and welcoming symbol users
readily identify with and feel favorably toward. The use of Oprah Winfrey’s image, often
smiling and featuring warm hues, can help foster the perceived relationship web site users
may feel they have with Winfrey and create a sense of participating with her and fellow
fans through communication on the site.
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The page also allows the user to access “This Week on the Oprah Show.” With a
click on this button, day-to-day descriptions of the topics to be addressed on the
upcoming shows of Oprah’s television program are given. This section also seeks input
via a question posed to the user, one question per upcoming program. If the user clicks on
this question and/or the accompanying thumbtack icon, she will “go” directly to the
message board and chat area and specifically to this topic as it is situated on the page. For
example, an upcoming program featuring Oprah’s expert on relationships asks “What
would you like to ask Dr. Phil?,” and provides a dialogue box for the user’s response.
Input from the user is also featured on the far right side of the home page in soliciting
contributions to O, The Oprah Magazine. This button takes the user to a list of topics
about which she is invited to “contribute your (her) ideas and experiences.” For example,
on April 2, 2001, the topic was School Shootings and Bullies. Clicking on this topic takes
the user to a page on which a brief blurb of the topic is provided (e.g., “In light of the
saddening incident that took place in Santee, California recently, we at the Oprah
Magazine want to know what questions you have about school shootings and bullies.”).
A nearby box is provided with “Tell Us Your Story” as the only prompt. Thus, users are
invited to post personal experiences or opinions and/or to ask questions about the topic.
This interactive feature allows women to take ownership of the issues raised in the Oprah
television show by voice their own life experiences via their submitted comments.
Though on the message boards, unlike in the chat rooms, users do not reply to each other
immediately, they still respond and refer to one another’s comments in their own
postings. Relationships can be formed, therefore, in cyberspace through women’s
responses to each other around a common topic.
Creating a Space 18
Feedback Mechanisms on the O Place Web Page
Many of the themes of this research project are evident in the structuring and
content of the web site. First, contact and participation on the part of the user is highly
sought after and often obtained. The site contains many easy-to-use feedback and opinion
expression mechanisms, encouraging interactivity that is important to the degree of
involvement one feels in the relationship with Oprah and fellow fans. Another function
that interactivity affords is the application of information and concepts advanced in
Oprah’s show, magazine, or web site to users’ own lives and experiences. Users of the
Oprah site make sense of and utilize information provided by Oprah in their own
potentially diverse and unique fashions. Interactivity also allows for the fostering of
community and mutual support between and among women who chat on the message
boards provided by the site. Community is formed virtually across space and time
through conversations that take place on the Oprah web site, with mutual support and
teamwork encouraged through such language as: “Have you completed Dr. Phil's 10week plan? Stay on track with your weight loss goals—return to this board for continued
support and motivation!” or “If you're on the road to pursuing your passion and need
encouragement, visit our Finding Encouragement chatroom.”
The consistent categories of content, Oprah’s Angel Network, Your Spirit,
Relationships/Dr. Phil, Food, Mind and Body, and Lifestyle Makeovers, are all clearly
targeted toward women and reveal notions about the types of issues in which Oprah fans
(mostly women) are most interested. Identifying and discussing people who have
“performed miracles” (The Angel Network), nurturing one’s spirit (Your Spirit), asking
Creating a Space 19
an expert for advice about relationships (Relationships/Dr. Phil), and exchanging recipes
(Food) are all typically viewed as primarily concerns of women according to marketers.
Likewise, the feedback mechanisms mostly take a form often used in recovery programs,
such as writing in a journal, “talking it out” with others, or finding comfort and support in
others.
Message Boards and Chat Rooms
The bulk of content provided by the site’s creators that helps structure the
conversations women have around the site is largely “self-help” or self-improvement in
nature. Though there is a focus on the self, however, self-improvement as defined by the
strategies and content advanced on Oprah’s website is not a solitary pursuit. Rather, the
path is paved, in part, through tapping into the strength and resources of others and
through communicating to others one’s feelings and experiences. In short, the
relationships one forms are frequent sources of support and guidance in the process of
self-help. We turn to the broad questions of how women use information from the site
and what functions relationships that build from the site serve in the latter part of our
analysis.
The main focus of this article is an in-depth, qualitative analysis of discourse
generated by and exhibited on Oprah.com. Yet, we also attempt to place that qualitative
analysis into a larger context by providing a brief quantitative overview of the numbers of
messages that were posted under each folder during a specified amount of time. Thus, the
appended table and its description here intend to provide a sense of the scope and
magnitude of the interactions on Oprah.com that may not be apparent in an analysis of
specific exchanges and postings.
Creating a Space 20
Analysis of the activity occurring over approximately a one-month period of time
on the Oprah.com website suggests that, in general, the site is rather active. The table
demonstrates the number of postings included in each of the folders used to organize
input on Oprah.com from April 2 to May 2, 2001. These figures were collected from the
site on four different dates (April 2, April 11, April 20, May 2) in order to determine the
growth in numbers of postings for each topic over time. The month of April to May was
chosen at random to represent a typical month on the website. Though a longer period of
time would have provided an interesting view of the activity on Oprah.com, the one
month period chosen was deemed sufficient for our purposes here, to simply provide an
overview of the typical context in which the discourse that we analyze in the article was
occurring.
The message boards and chat options appear to be used fairly frequently, with
recurrent conversations occurring between and among users, a portion of which we’ve
included in our analysis below. The topics of discussion on the message boards that
generated the largest numbers of postings were: Ideas Exchange under the heading
Oprah’s Angel Network, Remembering Your Spirit and Favorite Quotes under Your
Spirit, Simplify Your Life under Lifestyle Makeovers, and One Simple Change under
Mind and Body. Each of these topics had garnered well over 1000 discussions among
users of the site and clearly emerged as those that inspired the most conversation. The
most popular topics have much in common. Each invites users to discuss specific
strategies and techniques used to retain physical and psychological well-being. Each
involves self-help, through attention to spirituality (Remembering Your Spirit), ways to
relieve stress and retain order in life (Simplify Your Life), and healthful diets, non-
Creating a Space 21
smoking strategies, and exercise efforts to maintain physical health (One Simple
Change). It is not surprising that these useful, practical guidelines shared among users of
the site would be the most common source of exchange. The popularity of Favorite
Quotes, somewhat similarly, suggests users also lend words of wisdom via statements
made by famous others, in addition to reporting their own personal experiences.
The remaining topic that inspired well over 1000 discussions in one file and
several hundred in a series of additional files centered on Oprah’s Book Club. One
month’s activity on the site reveals a high frequency of discussions generated around this
topic, thereby attesting to the impressive power of Oprah’s Book Club on the reading and
purchasing behaviors of readers and on the publishing industry. Over 1500 Book
Suggestions had been posted by website users by 5/2/01 with the number of postings in
this file increasing by 120 in the span of one month. Users were clearly also very
interested in having a conversation about children’s books; we observed a growth of 120
postings on this topic between 4/2 and 5/2/01. Hundreds of Oprah.com website users also
discussed inspiration they had received from authors and their works (What Authors
Have Inspired You?) and created a dialogue around Building Your (Their) Own Book
Club.
Participation and Criteria for Membership in Virtual Communities
Participation is at the center of our analysis of the ways in which a virtual
community is created and maintained around the media image of Oprah. In the remainder
of this study, we analyze the ways people (primarily women) coordinate their actions to
create and uphold meaningful membership in the Oprah community as a valid cultural
Creating a Space 22
form. We identify several rituals of activity based on the repetition and frequency with
which they occur as well as the salience that they posed for the members of the
community. Themes of self-responsibility, offering and receiving advice or support,
affirmation, and marking or regulating community each reflected the ways women
participated on the message boards and in the chat rooms.
Claiming Responsibility for What We Can Change
In line with Oprah’s philosophy of transforming communities through selftransformation, a major way of participating on the message boards and in the chat rooms
was through claiming responsibility for one’s own actions. As the majority of the
messages indicate, “claiming,” “naming,” but not “blaming” is key rules for participating.
Members chastise each other for not “owning your own stuff” and “tak[ing]
responsibility” for weight gain, relationship problems or (most importantly) reporting
back to the community about their progress.
Much of the discourse around taking responsibility could be directly linked to the
underlying theme of Oprah’s show, magazine and web site, taking charge and changing
your life. In particular, this theme referenced the popular 12-step program of overcoming
addiction through reliance on a higher power. These contradictory discourses (taking
responsibility for self versus reliance on a higher power beyond your control) are
reflected powerfully in US culture generally and are discussed in more detail later in the
article.
Asking /Giving Support or Advice.
A typical activity for many of the participants on the sites that also affirmed the
community and the connection among members was asking for and receiving advice and
Creating a Space 23
support. This activity occurred frequently and was replicated on all the discussion groups,
whether on spirit, relationships, or the general talk around the show. While many threads
could be cited on all the message boards, one from the “Simplify your life” board
exemplifies the importance that both asking for and receiving advice and support served
for the community. After one woman posted a message asking for relationship help, she
received many responses that both affirmed her struggle to distance herself from a bad
relationship and provided advice and support for “going on” without him. The following
excerpts illustrate the ways these women communicated an empathetic understanding of
relational difficulties while urging the woman with the problem to acknowledge her own
“addiction” and seek help from a higher power:
Dear Brokenhearted girl!!iv
Listen to what all frosting1112 had to say to you today… she is wise
and what she said is right-on!! I, too, think your ex-boyfriend is trying
to keep you hanging on!! Guys do this all the time. They will break
your heart…knowing that you love them. and then feel some sort
of…male"thing" when you cry about them.. It makes me sick!! Girl..
Maybe it's time you just start setting some of those boundaries for
yourself!!
Your pain is very genuine to me. I know and can feel threw the
computer and threw your words that you need help . . .but… if you
keep focusing on him and never really try working this out for yourself.
You are going to continue to stay sick!! And, you are sick . . . he is like
a drug for you. YOU got to make a step…toward recovery!! He is an
addiction!! (Phyllis g)
Hi again. Hope things are getting better for you girl.. You still sound a
little confused and upset to me.. I hope and shall keep you in my
prayers. And know God will bring you peace if you let him!! (Frosting
1112)
I wanted to thank you all for you beautiful reply. I could only hope to
be as beautiful as the sweet spirit that I know from all of you!!
(Brokenhearted)
Creating a Space 24
While the responses from other members of the community indicated their
support, the underlying message for Brokenhearted was that it was up to her to ”recover”
from her addiction. Her response indicates both that she agrees with the “diagnosis” of
her relational disease and that she wants to validate the connections she feels with other
participants by responding to each one:
I think your words will help. No Phyllis, you haven't offended
me. Your words are the truth. I will try to break free. You are
absolutely right about him being my drug. I feel as if I had to get away
from him, cold turkey. Just like that he was gone.
Frosting1112, I still want to write him a letter, but I have already
sent him e-mails. I have even put poems in them that say it all: exactly
how I feel. I also have asked him face to face why he left me. . Yes I
made the unwise step to sleep with him a few days ago, and it was clear
that we both had different intentions . . . He says he wants me to be
strong again like I was in the beginning of our relationship, six years
ago. He says he wants me to be independent from him. He wants me to
have lived a life without him. After that he thinks he might want me
back. I truly believe he wants the best for me. He thinks I need to break
free from him to save myself.
I know, Phyllis, you were right about him making all the decisions.
That is true, I am afraid I made that happen by always making him so
much more important than myself. I said to him, I will always have
hope of us getting back together in the future. He knows that. A friend
said to me that if he could see me being stronger and even with other
guys, he would miss me and come back. You see, he betrayed me once
before. I forgave him. I guess that made him stop respecting me.
I feel now as though I made all the mistakes, while I know all I did was
love him as purely as I could. Is that wrong?
I am afraid.... Bye,
Love,
your
Brokenhearted
friend...
Creating a Space 25
The rhetoric of addiction and recovery was present in all the message areas,
whether the subject was weight, relationships or, as in the case of this board, simplifying
one’s life. The movement from doing it on your own (as in the discourse of Dr. Phil’s
contributions on the show and in the magazine) to giving up control and giving yourself
over to a higher power is consistent with the contradictory cultural messages that pervade
contemporary media and self-help literature. The ways women in particular utilize selfhelp literature and participate in self-help communities have been documented elsewhere
(see, for example, Cooks & Descutner, 1994; DeFransisco, 1995; Grodin, 1995),
however, for our purposes, it is useful to note that the cultural premises for self-help talk
(“addiction” and “recovery” through a higher power) were understood and shared among
participants on most of the message boards.
Celebrating Victories and Sharing Struggles.
Women participated frequently on the message boards to affirm others “struggling
along the path” and to ask for affirmation from other members of the community. Often
the women would discuss the ways that their relationships in physical space had let them
down, and would look for or offer validation that members of this community would not
let them down. As “O Place” member Faithstep put it,
I truly enjoy reading about peoples little victories. A whole bunch of
those add up to a big result. I thank you all for sharing your hearts. And
if you are struggling I want to hear that too. The world is too full of fair
weather friends. I do not think there is any such thing as overpraising
or being too nice.
While Faithstep (and others) cited a higher power or some other source of strength, they
also thanked women on the Oprah message boards or Oprah herself for helping them get
Creating a Space 26
through the really hard times.
On the official messages boards for spirit and for simplifying your life, many of
the women told stories of hardship: of poverty, abuse, hard work and difficult emotional
times in their lives. They connected their stories with others on the site and on the show,
and to Oprah herself. On these boards in particular, Oprah was often represented as the
center or the core values for a community marked by self-empowerment, selftransformation, good will and friendship. Oftentimes, when the discussion in the chat
rooms or on the message boards went into areas not recognized as the official format of
the web site or as appropriate topics for the community, the members would pull the
discussion back to a safer theme, either through directing the member back to the lists of
rules for participation, through discussion of what topics were valued by the community
or through the use of humor. The following discussion thread from the Lifestyle
Makeover chat room on the official site occurred after several members were engaging in
a conversation with cybersex innuendos:
When they said that this was the lifestyle makeover room, I didn’t
think they were talking about this kind of lifestyle . . . (Mirror)
LoL Mirror. (Judyp) (Others respond with the same character
indicating, “laugh out loud”)
I just snorted my tea all over the keyboard . . .(Asparagus)
That’s a frequent problem. I NEVER eat when I’m chatting with these
guys. (Gingerspark)
I’d rather have food than sex, or cybersex, anyway. (Mirror)
If I wanted cybersex I’d look elsewhere. This room is for bonding with
friends. (Brownieb)
Creating a Space 27
How could you do that anyway? You don’t even know what the person
looks like . . . (Jerrydo)
Yeah, they could be ugly or have cooties (Mirror).
Ooh cooties. Lol. (Asparagus) [Others respond with rofl “roll on the
floor laughing” or Lol]
After this exchange (in which one of the authors participated) the discussion went
back to a conversation about bizarre diets, eating disorders and stomach distress, which
led to another discussion of potential remedies. The suggestion of and even advertising
for products deemed helpful in many situations (here for the relief of gastrointestinal
distress) occurred frequently in chat rooms and on message boards and will be addressed
in more depth later in the paper. What is important to note, in the context of this
exchange, is the subtle guiding of the topic back to one that was sanctioned by the web
site and by the format of this particular chatroom.
Marking/Regulating Community
Tracking Mobile Communities
Messages indicating movement through the virtual spaces of the community allow
others to track both their movement/progress through the program, as well as keep
informed about members. One of the message boards actually framed participation in
terms of where a member was in progress toward the goal of losing weight. Thus, a
member would post on the Week 5 bulletin board, if that indicated her progress in the
plan. Members would regulate the postings by asking others to limit their posts to the
particular week they were on. On Week 10 bulletin board, for instance, several members
became upset when a few posts indicated the women were at an earlier stage in their
Creating a Space 28
diets. This prompted an interesting response to the idea of when and where certain forms
of talk could occur:
I have been really searching my heart about what I want to say before I
post. I feel a bit intimidated and have been even looking at that. I think
I know now. If you don't believe I should be here posting (a week five
person, then pass on, because this is my heart no matter what week I
am in) I am not going away.(yes I am doing the work back there)
(Skylark)
These messages connote both agency (in movement through the relationship and
diet plan) as well as reference to imposed movement to another message board. Another
message reads: “It seems the powers that be have created a new board for those who are
continuing past week 10. Check it out. That is where you will find most of us that have
done the work. The address can be found on message #292. See ya there.” In these posts,
the idea that someone is tracking progress assumes caring and affirms community, while
at the same time noting the limitations of the current “space” for participation.
The Difference that (Cyber) Space Makes
While each of these ways of participating: taking responsibility for oneself, asking
giving support or advice, affirming community, marking/regulating and maintaining
community are mirrored or reflected in women’s participation in other forms of
community life, it is important to note that cyberspace communities differ in terms of the
continuity of conversations and in the fluidity of and commitment to participation.
Members of virtual communities enter and exit the community with very little personal
risk (that is, risk to their social presentation of self). Cyberspace preserves physical
anonymity and to some extent on-line personas are protected by the different pseudonyms
and identities they can adopt. Additionally, the formats of chat rooms are often marked
Creating a Space 29
by discontinuity and fragmentation in conversation, which reduces expectations for
commitment to sustaining threads of conversation for long periods of time. The format of
the chat room itself is set up so that members are free (and to some extent encouraged) to
leave at any time to pursue subjects in different rooms. This leads to a third difference in
virtual communities: commitment to the conversation/topic and to other members
participating in that conversation. While the conditions of anonymity, discontinuity and
flexibility in time and space may lead to decreased responsibility to others in the
community, these same conditions also can be said to actually increase participation in
and commitment to the community. As we have seen in the previous section, members
felt free to disclose very personal information that they might have felt less comfortable
explaining in the physical presence of others. Moreover, some members noted that they
actually expected and relied more on the support of their friends in cyberspace than they
did on their “fair weather” friends and relatives in physical space.
Social and Cultural Effects of Participation
While critics of the Internet point to the tendencies of on-line technologies to
isolate and potentially stratify communities, leading away from democracy, our study has
shown another tendency. For women in the midst of the information age, life has never
been more busy and difficult to manage. For many of the women in the Oprah
community, time spent on the message boards and in the chat rooms was indeed time to
connect with other members in a space that did not demand a rigorous reworking of
schedules for face-to-face contact. These women could tune in and out of the community
when they had the time and space to do so, a factor that gave them some control over
their otherwise hectic lives and schedules. This important difference from interaction in
Creating a Space 30
physical space meant for these women that they could “connect with friends,” as one chat
room participant put it, without the stress and obligation that encumbered other forms of
friendship and community. Whether such cyber-relationships replace or in fact
supplement physical communal space is difficult to say and perhaps not relevant, as
communication and other technologies increase contact with others (who have access)
exponentially.
The proliferation generally of possibilities for contact (if not, for some, of
authentic relationships) becomes representative of the increasing fragmentation of self
(Gergen, 1991) as well as self-in-relation-to community. To debate whether and if virtual
communities pose a threat to the nature of relationships or of community presupposes the
authenticity that then must necessarily only exist in physical spaces. Binaries such as the
real or fantastic, veracity or inauthenticity become important when identities are called
into question, whether on or off line.
Another, and somewhat overlapping concern addresses the ways in which the
cultural premises that shape the discourse on the message boards and chat rooms lead to
the tensions between individualism/self sufficiency and relationships/community.
Oprah’s appeal is that she represents the struggles of every woman through embodying
the tensions of being a woman in today’s society: achieving ideals of wealth and
independence while acknowledging the need for relationships and to connect with
community.
Conclusion
Throughout this article we have referenced various discourses through which we
assert that communities have been built in the cyberspace of Oprah.com. Yet, it has been
Creating a Space 31
reasonably argued that on-line communities are nothing more than pseudo-communities,
offering little in terms of commitment, reciprocity, or authenticity and a good deal of selfindulgence and fulfillment of individual needs and desires. Many scholars have debated
both the criteria for on and off-line communities both in terms of their features and their
consequences for communication and for our social world. Looking forward, Shepherd
(2001) argues that contemporary communities must necessarily be based on promise or
possibility, rather than on what is. He notes that “community has increasingly seemed an
impossible achievement to us because we increasingly disbelieve the presence of the one
condition required for its realization: the possibility of [interpersonal] communication…If
we are to believe that communication is impossible in this world of uncommon
individuals and indeterminate truth, then so too is community…We will not create
community without allowing for faith in the possibility of inter-subjective transcendence
through communication” (p. 33).
The possibility for conceptualizing community in the wake of increasing access to
and reliance on computer mediated communication, then, lies in the combination of
communication (as the giving and receiving of embodied experiences) and faith that
somehow we will grow and learn from this exchange. Oprah a symbol of authenticity
(both essentializing and negating her blackness and femaleness), transcendence through
struggle, acceptance, and ties to her community, and success (ascribing to and upholding
the values of the most successful capitalist society on the planet) – serves as the
touchtone for a community of women connected through their faith in transformation and
change, even as they recognize the contradictions and challenges in their lives. Oprah’s
leadership, her success, and her ability to connect in an intimate way with the stories and
Creating a Space 32
lives of others have helped to position her as a central figure among a global community
of women.
At this point we return to the three important questions related the growing
significance of female-oriented on-line communities which guided our research: (1) How
do women participate, how do they form relationships on Oprah.com? (2) What are the
cultural and social bases for their participation? (3) Are spaces such as Oprah.com
important sites for women?
Based on our analysis, these are some of the following ways that women
participated and formed relationships on Oprah.com: offering and receiving advice or
support, providing affirmation, promoting self-responsibility, and marking or regulating
community via message boards and chat rooms. For many of the participants, the O
Place web site gave them the opportunity to connect with other members of the O Place
community who generally agreed with the social and cultural beliefs promoted by Oprah
Winfrey and her various media outlets. There is no doubt that on-line spaces are
important sites for women, but whether commercial sites like Oprah.com are the best
models is yet to be determined. Schiller (1999) notes that although information resources
are tools that can be utilized by anyone, anywhere, information commodities are limited
in their ability to promote alternative ways of thinking about the world. Oprah.com is a
beginning, but it remains to be seen whether on-line “commercial” spaces can be
transformative sites by and for women.
Limitations of the Study
While much interpersonal communication research has analyzed the relationship
between on and off line communication behaviors, the determination as to whether the
Creating a Space 33
Internet inhibits, supplements or advances the off line relationships of the women who
participate on Oprah.com is beyond the scope of this paper. Future research in this area
could involve the women more directly and in greater depth by asking them to track their
communication activity, both on and off line. This research would extend CMC research
(e.g., Baym, 2001) that has examined the communication activity of students through
diary tracking of their daily interactions on and off line. Such efforts would help to
position the Internet as part of a larger network of media that shape interaction both
through their intertexuality as well as through their different uses and effects. Other
limitations of the current research are its ability to adequately examine the Oprah.com
site as an extension of previous research on fan communities, as well as to take into
account dimensions of parasociality at work at work in various members postings to or
about Oprah which seemed to assume her accessibility as a friend, confidante, mentor,
etc. Also, (and taken up elsewhere in our research), the larger political and economic
effects of the convergence of Oprah Winfrey’s media holdings need to be as part of the
structuring and processes that emerge in the course of building this community.
Oprah.com: A space that women can relate through?
Revisiting the questions that guided our study we see that women participate on
Oprah.com as mothers, daughters, sisters, friends, consumers, pseudo-therapists,
relationship experts, and fans. Perhaps due to the intimate and self-transformative nature
of the site, the women who form relationships there rarely highlight differences across
lines of culture, class, ability or sexuality. The apolitical or universal sense of sharing
identities as women connects with Oprah’s refrain that she is “Every woman.”
CMC scholarship on the nature and formation of on-line relationships and
Creating a Space 34
communities resonates with some of what we have found in our participation in and
observation of the Oprah.com site. Of the three perspectives on interpersonal interaction
identified earlier, the impersonal, the interpersonal and the hyperpersonal perspective, our
study supports the interpersonal perspective on on-line relationships in a number of ways.
While we did not directly ask the participants on the site about their off-line relationships,
such “talk” was often the content of their posts and thus would indicate an extremely full
network of relationships. For women who had very busy off-line lives, the convenience
of chatting or posting a message late at night allowed them to feel connected at a time
when they might otherwise have been alone. For women who chatted across a variety of
time zones and countries, the space offered a way to connect cheaply and conveniently in
ways they could not accomplish otherwise without a great deal of inconvenience. As
many of the women noted, posting a message or entering a chat room allowed them to
analyze their problems and the problems of others, figure out their relationships and
affirm their own and other’s struggles to change and improve their lives.
It is important to note, however, that the perspective one takes toward
relationships on-line has much to do with the characteristics of the virtual space where
interaction occurs. Since the Oprah.com site attempted to deal with the real world issues
and interests of women, the space was less one for acting out alternative sexualities and
identities (e.g. Ito, 1997) than it was for women to extend or supplement the spaces for
community in their real life. Thus, the structure of the site helped to shape the types of
interactions that took place there as well as the types of people who became members.
Categories for interaction such as “Simplify your life” are attractive to women who lead
busy and complicated lives off-line and who go on-line to relate to others with similar
Creating a Space 35
interests and concerns.
This leads us back to the notion of on-line community, which a variety of CMC
research on the topic has indicated may be based on factors such as anonymity,
accessibility, shared interests and support. While not pertaining to all on-line sites for
participation and membership, certainly these are characteristics that make such spaces
attractive to members. Still, however, the question persists as to whether Oprah.com
could be considered a space for women?
Preston’s observations about the role of postmodernism as depicting
communication in the information age perhaps hints at the nature of the question as well
as the stakes behind it: “The term postmodern poses as many issues about the how (how
to describe, represent, etc.) as it does about the what (the key content or contours or
facts) of social and cultural change” (2001; p. 80). Indeed, research on community and
CMC has evolved from a need to document virtual community as a space for social
interaction on the Net, to a focus on the requirements for the authenticity or validity of
such community. Thus, the connections between how such moments of connection occur
and what effects emerge from those relationships are less relevant than the documentation
of their relevancy for some larger Community. For those concerned with the
consequences of on-line community, the question of what should (virtual) communities
do deserves a response located in when and how women (and others) create a space for
building and affirming both their on and off-line lives. This study has been an attempt
toward locating those spaces.
Creating a Space 36
Table. Charting Activity on Oprah.com’s Website Discussion Groups.
Number of postings
Date in 2001
Topic (provided by the website)
4/2
4/11
4/20
5/2
The Oprah Show
April Broadcasts
May Broadcasts
Information from Past
Shows Here!
5
0
0
918
10
0
0
941
20
0
0
967
0
4
0
1001
Oprah Magazine
April Issue
May Issue
Looking for Information?
Oprah’s Cut
7
0
758
0
7
0
759
0
7
1
765
0
7
1
0
7
Oprah’s Book Club
Icy Sparks
What Authors Have
Inspired You?
Recommended Kids’ Books
Book Suggestions
Build Your Own Book Club
Non-Book Club Books Seen
On Oprah
143
0
364
879
1456
617
0
239
212
0
362
889
1480
629
0
239
254
0
377
905
1505
635
0
245
327
0
416
919
1576
645
0
254
Oprah’s Angel Network
Inspired by the Use Your
Award
“Use Your Life Award”
Kindness Chain
In Need of Prayer
Making a Difference
Ideas Exchange
0
75
170
237
221
373
959
0
94
173
253
258
390
1000
0
98
174
257
300
399
1011
0
102
175
271
326
412
1029
Your Spirit
Remembering Your Spirit
Gratitude
The Best Part of Today
Random Acts of Kindness
Meditation
Favorite Quotes
1385
664
301
133
93
802
1564 1726 1906
775
848
904
319
326
333
152
162
176
113
127
134
849
882
1071
Continued on next page.
Creating a Space 37
Table. Charting Activity on Oprah.com’s Website Discussion Groups.
Number of postings
Date in 2001
Topic (provided by the website)
Relationships-Dr. Phil McGraw
Getting Straight with Your
Weight
Getting Real with Your
Relationship
Relationship Rescue
Family
Relationships
4/2
4/11
4/20
5/2
0
9
0
2
7
8
9
0
11
0
2
7
8
9
0
11
0
2
7
8
9
0
11
0
2
7
8
9
5
4
4
70
193
25
0
0
7
4
4
71
200
25
0
0
8
4
4
74
208
29
0
0
10
4
4
86
219
28
0
5
Lifestyle Makeovers
Lifestyle Makeover Weekly
Challenge
Lifestyle Makeover
Pursuing Your Passion
Simplify Your Life
0
11
17
0
1078
0
12
17
1
1105
0
14
17
1
1125
0
15
17
1
1149
Oprah Winfrey Presents
The Movie: Amy and
The Book: Amy and
116
16
117
16
118
16
121
16
Mind and Body
Your Mind
Your Body
Spa Girls
One Simple Change
9
13
3
1642
9
9
9
13
13
14
3
3
3
1689 1735 1800
Continued on next page.
Food
Oprah.com Recipe Review
Recipe Exchange
Healthy Eating
We Want to Hear from You
Cooking Questions?
Art’s Recipe Box
Recipe Review: Spa
Breakfast
Creating a Space 38
Table. Charting Activity on Oprah.com’s Website Discussion Groups.
Number of postings
Date in 2001
Topic (provided by the website)
4/2
4/11
4/20
5/2
In the News
Science and Health News
Sports News
Election 2000
Headline News
Good News!
Hometown News
Political News
Business News
58
9
365
134
48
30
176
17
63
9
366
145
51
30
181
17
65
9
367
150
54
30
186
18
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
Journal Message Boards
Community Gratitude
Daily Journal
Gratitude
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
25
157
50
Creating a Space 39
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Endnotes
i
No definitive analysis of the gender of those who posted or chatted on Oprah.com was possible. We relied
on fairly ambiguous cues, such as nicks or pseudonyms, pronouns, as well as references to activities,
identities and relationships to try to determine the percentage of women who participated on the site.
ii
Media Convergence is the synergistic strategy of using a variety of media to get the most
exposure/saturation for a product. In this case, Oprah’s image is communicated via mass media such as
television and print as well as the Internet.
iii
Preston (2001) notes that much of the work of political economists focuses on exploring how
technological economic and political factors have brought about fundamental but interrelated sets of
changes in both (1) the media of public communication and (2) in the broader/overall fabric of socioeconomic and political processes in contemporary capitalist industrialism” (p. 101). A key concern of
much of this work is mapping who owns the media, systems of control and regulation and structural
changes in the ways that information is produced and processed.
iv
Pseudonyms of those who posted are stated in parentheses after each post.