Effectiveness of interruptions as a communicative strategy in the 2020 Presidential Debates in the USA

Abstract

The research hypothesizes that the American 2020 Presidential debate participants used recurrent interruptions as a communicative strategy to gain more power on the debate floor and win the voters' support. The form of political interaction (televised debates) also affected the candidates' speech behavior in a way that it added another participant (the general public) to the discussion; as a result, an institutionally controlled form of political discourse was subjected to a medial turn. This kind of media influence contributed to the speakers' choice of specific interruption types during the debates. The research analyses the turn-taking strategies of D. Trump and J. Biden employed in the First and Second (and Final) Debates and matches them with the pre- and post-debate poll results. The article concludes that although having a certain impact on the perception of the politicians' personalities, the effect of interruptions as a debate strategy on the voters' final choices was marginal.