Peculiarities of the development of the talk show genre in the Georgian television media

Abstract

Despite the very intensive development of the Internet in terms of consumption, modern television is still the leading means of mass communication. It is established as a powerful tool for maintaining the integrity of social structures, and therefore it is characterized by ideological, genre and conceptual diversity. Obviously, in the globalized media world, Georgian television journalism „borrowed“ from the American media and further developed or adapted several genres and formats to its own audience. Adapted version of these genres. One such genre is talk show. A talk show is a conversational television format that serves social, political, economic, cultural and many other tasks.  The main goal of both television in general and talk shows in particular is to spread and stabilize social models accepted in – society. The task of the talk show is – to present the daily topic as a socially important problem, to organize a discussion within the program, to present a situation that will be an integral part of any person's daily routine. A talk show should definitely focus on the problem. It is with this that he should create an intriguing situation on the air, which helps to attract the attention of the audience to the discussed problem and to form a certain attitude. There are two main features of a talk show: 1) combines different genres of interaction between journalist and audience: interviews, discussions, games, monologues;  2) Creates interdependence on all participants of the talk show.  It should be noted that any TV show must have a pre-prepared and written script, therefore, the specifics of the program, the behavior of the presenter is always determined in advance, depending on the style of the program. Talk show, as a genre of television journalism, is a multi-component, complexly organized phenomenon that combines sociocultural, gender, extralinguistic, genre and language characteristics. We must take into account that the participants of various talk shows are characters whose life stories and real or fictional problems the authors of the program try to present sharply and emphatically. But at the same time, they maintain the recreational function of the show, the mass media and television in particular thus control public opinion. Talk shows that use real human stories with their problems and difficulties, lots of different, interchangeable characters with their range of emotions - e.I.  They create a certain behavioral pattern/example for the viewer.  Despite the fact that there is quite a large selection of shows on Georgian television, it was very difficult for me to find the genre of a talk show in particular. As we mentioned above, the participants of the talk show are: journalist, guest/guests and invited audience. With these parameters „Eka Khoferia's talk show“ was found. This program is closed at this stage, but it was quite popular at the time. I will also take the TV program „day code“ operating on the public broadcaster, which, despite its thematic difference, corresponds to part of the main criteria of the talk show. It will be quite interesting to compare the two programs mentioned above and discover both common and opposite properties between them. If in the „Eka Khoferia talk show“ the audience participates with the respondent, and the role of moderator is played by the presenter, in the program „day code“ the interaction is only between journalists and respondents, but both parties are actually in an equal position and take turns playing the role of presenter. Eka Khoferia's program adheres to the main standards of the talk show: it offers its audience light programs with simplified texts, indirectly raised problematic issues, entertainment elements and characters interesting to the Georgian society.  And in the „day code“ presenters: Nika Lobiladze, Nino Iakobidze and Davit Andriadze give the audience the opportunity to get comprehensive information about culture, sociology and various fields of education with their arguments and counter-arguments. The program „in the code of the day“ leads to highly qualified discussion, which makes the talk show interesting on the one hand, but less recreational on the other.  Comparison of „day code“ and „Eka Khoferia“ programs will be based on the main research tool, critical structural monitoring.  The discussion of empirical data is preceded by a theoretical part, in which the genre spectrum of television programs, in particular the specifics and directions of the talk show, will be described. Structural monitoring of both broadcasts includes formal and compositional elements: principles of selection of invited guests, details of conducting dialogue, interesting presentation of problematic topics. The main goal of the research is to determine to what extent TV programs tested in Georgia correspond to the Western „classic“ talk show genre, which position their project as a quality media product, in particular a talk show.