Credited with creating a more intimate confessional form of media communication,[17] she is thought to have popularized and revolutionized[17][18] the tabloid talk show genre pioneered by Phil Donahue,[17] which a Yale study says broke 20th-century taboos and allowed LGBT people to enter the mainstream.[19][20] By the mid-1990s, she had reinvented her show with a focus on literature, self-improvement, and spirituality. Though criticized for unleashing a confession culture, promoting controversial self-help ideas,[21] and an emotion-centered approach[22] she is often praised for overcoming adversity to become a benefactor to others.[23] From 2006 to 2008, her support of Barack Obama, by one estimate, delivered over a million votes in the close 2008 Democratic primary race.[24]