Hybridity As Challenge in Televised Election Campaign Interviews
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Hybridity as challenge in televised election campaign interviews Argyro Kantara Center for Language and Communication Research, School of English, Communication and Philosophy Cardiff University Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of PhD at Cardiff University September 2017 Abstract This thesis contributes to on-going discussions amongst academics on broadcast political disc ourse with respect to the multiplicity and transformation of institutional roles and relatio ns in p olitical news interviews. The thesis has as a startin g point the way hybridity in broadcast talk challenges “traditional” standa rds and participants’ identities in political news interviews. Adopting a conversation analytic perspective, it examines how these modified standards and identities shape political news interviews at a micro and a macro level. At a micro level, this thesis investigates episodes of adversarial talk in one -on -one 2012 Greek election c ampaign interviews, in terms of the turn -taking system and power relations between participants. Doing so, it points to changes in political news interviews (a sub -genre of which is the election campaign interview ). In particular, the thesis explores and discusses how, through their hybrid (antagonistic ) practices, Greek politicians and jou rnalists transfor m the televised election campaign news interview into an antagonistic arena where the winner is the one who shows that s/he plays the game of televised news interview in a fair way. At a macro level this thesis contributes with empirical , micro -analytic ev idence to wider debates related to politics and media communication by discussing the significance of both participants’ hybrid practices regarding: 1) how (mainstream) populism as political style, becomes manifest and 2) the epistemology of TV journalism in relation to its knowledge producing practices . It is argued that the collaboratively produced hybrid practices identified promote antagonistic po litics as the norm and legitim ise mainstream politicians’ populist performances. i Dedication To the loving memory of my mother Zoe and Dimitris without whom in my life I wouldn’t be who I am ii Acknowledgements It is really difficult and maybe impossible, to fully acknowledge on a single page the special role every person, that was already part of my life or I met in Cardiff, played while working on this thesis. Nevertheless I will try! First of all, I want to thank my supervisors Dr Frances Rock and Dr Tereza Spilioti for their professionalism, support, patience and the time and space they gave me to develop my ideas and try out different ways of working with my data. Very many thanks for everything Frances and Tereza (and not only for your constructive criticism and commentary on various drafts of this thesis). I would like to thank all the academic and administrative staff at the Center for Language and Communication Research for their valuable help and support in academic and non-academic matters alike! Special thanks should also go to the IT staff that helped me deal with various issues regarding my audio and video data. I would also like to thank all the people who gave me valuable feedback when presented my research at various conferences. I cannot thank enough my sister Athina for all her love, help and for always being there for me. Thanks for being my sister, kiddo! Thanks dad for supporting me although you disagree with my choices. Special thanks to all my friends both back home and in Cardiff for being part of my life and supporting me in every possible way: Lilian, Katerina D, Vaso, Angela, Katerina S, Nantia, Popi, Olympia, Haris, Jaspal, Guilia, Rowan C, Kerstin, Alexia, Mustafa, Amaha, Rowan Z, Polina, Elizabeth, Dorottya, Artemis, Harriet, Mari- Louise, David, Piotr, Matt, Holly, James, Jacques, Katy, Amjad, Michael, Boi, Zayneb, Anna, Susan, Jessi, Amber. Geraint Rhys Whittaker deserves special thanks for being a great friend, a great listener and for putting up with me during my most grumpy moments! Thanks pal! iii Table of Contents 1. Introduction ................................ ................................ ................................ ................ 1 1.2. Epistemology of TV journalism and why hybridity might be important ........ 5 1.3. Mainstream po pulism as a political style ................................ ......................... 7 1. 4.Research Questions ................................ ................................ .......................... 8 1. 5. Thesis Structure ................................ ................................ .............................. 9 2. The News Interview ................................ ................................ ................................ .12 2.1 The news interview as a form of institutional talk ................................ ......... 12 2.2. The prototypical news in terview ................................ ................................ ... 14 2.3 The turn -taking system of news interviews ................................ ................... 15 2.4. Neutralism as an interactional achievement ................................ ................. 17 2.5. Political (news) interviews ................................ ................................ ............ 18 2.6. Changes in political (news) interviews over time ................................ ......... 19 2.7. Election campaign interviews ................................ ................................ ....... 21 2.7.1. Journalistic questions in UK and U.S general elections ............................ 22 2.8. Chapter S ummary ................................ ................................ ......................... 24 3. Adversarial Challenges and Challenging Responses ................................ ............... 25 3.1. Adversarialness in journalistic questioning ................................ .................. 25 3.1. 1. Adversarial Follow -up Questions ................................ .............................. 27 3.1.2. The concept of adversarial challenges ................................ ....................... 29 3.2. Politicians’ r esponses to adversarial challenges - Some preliminaries ......... 32 3. 2.1 . Challenges ................................ ................................ ................................ .. 32 3. 2.2 Challeng ing Responses ................................ ................................ ............... 33 3. 3. Chapter Summary ................................ ................................ ......................... 40 4. Hybridity in Broadcast News Interviews: Arguments and Laughter ....................... 41 4.1. Hybridity in Broadcast News Interviews ................................ ...................... 43 4. 1.1. Hybridity as argument in journalists’ talk ................................ .................. 44 4.2. Hybridity as argument (and performance) in politicians’ talk ...................... 48 4.2.1. Argumentation Theory and political interviews analysis ........................... 48 4.2. 2. Conversational Violence as argument and performance in debates ........... 50 4.2. 3. Argumentation in political news interviews ................................ .............. 55 4. 3. Hybridity as laughter and challenge in news interviews .............................. 56 4.3.1. Hybridity as a jovial adversarial journalistic resourc e............................... 58 4.3. 2. What is laughter? ................................ ................................ ....................... 63 4.3.2. 1. Conversation Analysis and Laughter ................................ ...................... 63 4.3.3. Laughter as hybridity i n politicians’ challenging responses ...................... 66 4.3.4. Hybridity as challenge in Greek televised election campaign interviews .70 4.3.5. Chapter Summary ................................ ................................ ...................... 71 5. Methodology and Data ................................ ................................ ............................. 73 5.1. Conversation Analysis: Rationale and Epistemology ................................ ... 73 5.1.1. A methodological synergy and the concept of ‘wider context’ .................. 79 5.2. Context and Data ................................ ................................ ........................... 85 5.2.1. The political situation in Greece before the 2012 elections ....................... 87 5.2.2. The dataset and sampling issues ................................ ................................ 89 5.2.4. Tr anscription and Translation ................................ ................................ .... 93 5.3. Chapter Summar y ................................ ................................ ......................... 96 6. Hybridity in journalists’ adversarial challenges ................................ ....................... 97 6.1. Sanctioning interviewee resistance ................................ ............................... 98 6.2. Integrated hybridity in journalists’ adversarial challenges ......................... 104 6.3. Discussion ................................ ................................ ................................ ... 108 iv 7. Hybridity in the service of interactional argumentation ................................ ........ 110 7.1. Journalist s and politicians argue about journalist s’ professional capability : politician attacks ................................ ................................ ...............................