Equivocation in Arabic News Interviews

Abstract

In the Arab media, it has been claimed that independent news channels put more pressure on officials and public figures, compared with the state-owned news channels. This article aims to compare empirically the strategies that Arab interviewers use to restrict or broaden the answers expected from interviewees in two different channels. Adopting contrastive methods, the findings show that the percentage of equivocations is remarkably low in the government-controlled channel. The study suggests that the findings could be understood within the well-studied theory of equivocation “avoidance-avoidance conflict,” which argues that people tend to equivocate when they are expected to reply to a question for which all potential replies have negative consequences. Arab interviewers in the government-controlled channels design their questions in a way that does not constrain their guests, but avoids conflict with them by allowing them to give a wide range of valid answers.