Political Interviews Research Articles

Applying Critical Discourse Analysis in Translation of Political Speeches and Interviews

From the ancient times, language has been using as an ingenious device for transmission of ideology and for manipulation of the audience minds by those who have been in power. As Kress in Van Dijk (1985: 29) states, Ideologies find their clearest articulation in Hence, a powerful way of examining ideological structure is through the examination of language. Adopting Critical Discourse Analysis with particular emphasis on the framework of Fairclough (1989) and utilizing the notions of SFL by Holliday (1985), the present investigation is an attempt to shed light on the relationship between language and ideology involved in translation in general, and more specifically, to uncover the underlying ideological assumptions invisible in the texts, both source text (ST) and target text (TT), and consequently ascertain whether or not translators’ ideologies are imposed in their translations. The corpus consisted of President Bush speeches during the years 2005 till 2008 about the nuclear program of Iran. The data consist of ST (in English) in the form of a political interviews and TTs in the form of 8 translations in Persian. The obtained results proved the fact that the application of CDA for the analysis of the ST and TT helps the translator to become aware of the genre conventions, social and situational context of the ST and TT, and outlines the formation of power and ideological relations on the text-linguistic level. DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2013.v2n1p35

Co-constructing knowledge in news interviews: An application of Hardy and Palmer's (1998) discourse model

This article builds on previous research which suggests that news interviews represent a special form of dialogue, in which discourse is co-constructed between the interviewer and one or more interviewees, and aims to present for critical discussion, an analytic framework that could provide insight into the nature of such co-constructions. More specifically, Hardy and Palmer's (1998) discourse model is applied to a corpus of news interviews, in order to investigate the negotiation of meaning in political interviews, and the subsequent construction of a platform on which audiences are encourage to accept or reject the knowledge that emerges from this process of negotiation. The analyses reported here, focus on televised interviews about contemporary political events.

Gaze work in political media interviews

This article analyses the orientation of gaze as a significant communicative resource in televised political interviews. The study explores how interviewees use their gaze, in coordination with talk, in receiving and answering adversarial questions. It is guided by conversation analysis (CA), Goffman’s work on gaze in interaction, and the approach on embodied actions developed primarily by Goodwin. Gaze is described as a flexible recipient and speaker resource available for stance-taking, the downgrading and upgrading of actions, and the claiming of the floor. The study is based on taped and transcribed data from two formats of election campaign interviews on Swedish television, including 350 question and response sequences.

Too hostile, too deferential: Processes of media answerability following political interviews

Processes of media answerability are important for the professional conduct of media organizations and their analysis allows a better understanding of the negotiation among public actors over journalistic practices perceived as deviant. By intersecting public criticism over perceived deviant political interviews with Israeli ombudsmen’s responses to these complaints, our aims are to (1) characterize processes of media answerability within the institution of the ombudsman and in the open public arena; (2) identify diversions between the public and the ombudsmen perspectives regarding perceived deviating practices (over-aggressive and over-deferent style of interviewing) and their causes (political bias and violations of interpersonal codes of behavior); (3) pinpoint the outcomes of media answerability processes. Our findings suggest that while a disrespectful attitude toward public figures bothers the public more than an overly deferential approach, the ombudsmen tend to reject both types of complaint. At the causal level, while citizens point to interviewers’ ideological bias as the main explanation for all types of deviations, the ombudsmen tend to accept complaints regarding violations of interpersonal codes of behavior and reject claims of political bias. In conclusion, we point to the advantages and limitations of a media answerability process.

Media literacy and media bias: Are media literacy students less susceptible to nonverbal judgment biases?

The phenomenon of nonverbal (NV) media bias has been established and investigated in recent studies. A series of controlled experiments demonstrated that the friendly or hostile NV behavior of a TV interviewer in a short political interview can systematically influence viewers’ impressions of the interviewed politician and their attributions about the interviewee. Consistent media bias effects emerged in a series of independent samples in four countries, and several cognitive and motivational remedies for reducing media bias were investigated (Babad, 1999, 2005; Babad & Peer, 2010; Babad, Peer, & Benayoun, in press). The present study carried the investigation into the educational realm, focusing on the question of whether participation in a course in media literacy education, intended to inoculate students against media influences and to increase their mindfulness as consumers of the mass media, might reduce the students’ susceptibility to media bias.

“You'll need a miracle to win this election” (J. Paxman 2005): Interviewer assertiveness in UK general elections 1983–2010

In several recent discussions of different forms of ‘news interview’, some principles, previously thought to be fundamental to this genre, have been called into question. In particular, the concept of ‘neutralism’, central to the analysis of interviewer (IR) strategies in the UK and USA, has been found to be both internationally variable and not necessarily adhered to in some contemporary political interviews. On occasion IRs have been found to use strategies of ‘assertion’ in which they state their own opinions and argue with interviewees, and it is further suggested that these practices are becoming increasingly prevalent. To investigate these questions, this article presents a survey of IR strategies in a particular sub-species of news interview, the ‘set-piece’ election interviews with party leaders that have been a feature of British broadcasting since 1983. In this context it is found that adversarial interviewing has always involved some use of IR assertion and that this practice did indeed increase in the late 1990s, but it is also suggested that IRs might have felt justified in these departures from ‘neutralism’ by changing definitions of their role as ‘tribune of the people’.

Pronominal Choice in Political Interviews

Ways of achieving interactional goals of interpersonal involvement, responsibility and trustworthiness are fundamental to the political arena. The aim of this paper was to investigate the pragmatics of the pronominal choice in two political interviews. Discourse analysis was used to determine if personal pronouns functioned exclusively pertaining to the speakers’ interactional goals and to evaluate their use in the light of what the interlocutor expected. The results revealed that the politician who created interpersonal involvement with the audience and used comprehensible and clear language established credibility, and such a strategy was more likely to receive positive evaluation. It may be concluded that the politician’s communicative success may depend on the extent to which the applied linguistic strategy meets the expectations of the interlocutor. In such a case, the interactional goals of interpersonal involvement with its sub-components of responsibility and trustworthiness may be evaluated positively. Thus, the lack of trustworthiness may be experienced due to the politician’s failure to communicate important meaning components.

Power and Politics of Language Use: A Survey of Hedging Devices in Political Interviews

One tactful strategy in political rhetoric is hedging which is associated with vagueness and innuendos. Despite the studies that address hedging in academic discourse and conversation analysis, studies that investigate hedges in relation to political power, face, and politeness are tremendously few. To this aim, four political interviews were selected from CNN and BBC websites on the basis of the diversity of topics and the popularity of the interviewees and analyzed following a combination of the existing taxonomies of hedges. The results of this analysis revealed an inverse relationship between the frequency of downtoners and the degree of political power. The use of hedges in political interviews also contributes to the implementation of positive as well as negative politeness strategies.

Non-neutrality and argument in the hybrid political interview

This article explores the nature of argumentative interaction in the hybrid political interview: a broadcast news genre whose discourse positions the journalist not just as investigator but as socio-political advocate. Such interviews offer explicit challenges to the traditionally conceived ‘neutral’ role of the broadcast news journalist. Interviewer ‘non-neutrality’ is examined in contexts where the speech exchange system shifts into the unmitigated and aggravated opposition characteristic of argument. Drawing on a sample of interviews involving different hosts, I analyse the structural features of both interviewer and interviewee turns that occur in these environments. I do this in relation both to sequential matters — that is, the types of turns taken and their relations with other turns in their immediate environment — and to matters of the substantive content of utterances — that is, what speakers are saying and/or the way they are saying it.

The Relationship of Verbal and Nonverbal Behavior to Political Stature: The Political Interviews of Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon

The study presents an innovative model for examining both the relationship between the verbal and nonverbal behavior of a political figure in political interviews and the effects of his/her political stature on his/her performance. The uniqueness of the model lies in the simultaneous examination of the two channels of communication, the verbal and nonverbal and the definition of their relationship, e.g., discrepancy when there is a contradiction and inconsistency between the channels, and non-discrepancy when they are consistent and do not contradict each other. The model characterizes patterns of discrepancy and non-discrepancy both in the behavior of the interviewer and in that of the interviewee and relates them to the political standing of the interviewee. The study examined the behavior of Israel's former prime minister Ariel Sharon in television appearances over the past 20 years, in which he had both periods of strong political standing as well as periods of low political status. Findings significantly show that patterns of discrepancy and non-discrepancy between the verbal and the nonverbal messages are indicative of the political stature of the political person being interviewed. The findings have interesting methodological and theoretical implications.

Adversarial Questioning and Answering Strategies in Chinese Government Press Conferences

Studying political interviews and press conferences is significant as it may provide a special insight into the change in the policy of a country, and perhaps even the well-being of a society as a whole. Previous studies on broadcast interviews have identified adversarial questioning as an increasing and pervasive style in journalistic practice in the western world (Clayman and Heritage 2002a/b). The use of such adversarial style has emerged in Hong Kong-a metropolitan city deeply influenced by both Chinese and western cultures (Yip 2003). However, the general knowledge of how journalists treat public figures in other parts of the Chinese-speaking world remains relatively unknown. This study attempts to investigate the questioning and answering patterns, in particular adversarial questioning, in Chinese government press conferences which has thus far received little scholarly attention. Drawing on Clayman and Heritage's coding system for measuring adversarial questioning in U.S. press conferences (2002b), the current study examines the question-answer sequences based on a corpus of ten government press conferences held in mainland China, and aims to present a questioning format by showing any differences in the design of questions by Chinese journalists and their foreign counterparts. The study further explores the format of the response of Chinese officials typical of these events and some possible correlation between government officials' question-taking and their setting of the political agenda.

Interview Effects: Theory and Evidence for the Impact of Televised Political Interviews on Viewer Attitudes

Although political interviews have been a mainstay of U.S. television, they are undertheorized in the media effects tradition. This article seeks to ground possible interview effects into theory—particularly to recent developments in the study of incivility and its effect on public opinion. An experiment-based study finds that viewers are likely to think more negatively about journalists in an environment marked by uncivil interviewing. At the same time, exposure to interviews perceived as not sufficiently adversarial could also reduce trust in journalists, which suggests that the effect extends beyond the question of incivility, depending on viewers' expectations. Beyond the particular findings, this study indicates the possibilities of a research agenda centering on political televised interviews and their social implications. Les effets de l’interview : theorie et indices de l’impact des interviews politiques televisees sur les attitudes des telespectateurs E. Ben-Porath Bien que les interviews politiques constituent un pilier de la television americaine, elles sont sous-theorisees dans la tradition des effets mediatiques. Cet article cherche a ancrer des effets possibles des entrevues dans la theorie et particulierement dans certains recents developpements de l’etude du manque de civilite et de ses effets sur l’opinion publique. Une etude experimentale revele que les telespectateurs sont susceptibles de penser plus de mal des journalistes dans un environnement marque par des techniques d’interview manquant de civilite. Parallelement, l’exposition a des interviews percues comme n’etant pas suffisamment conflictuelles pourrait egalement reduire la confiance en les journalistes, ce qui suggere que l’effet va au-dela de l’enjeu du manque de civilite, tout dependant des attentes des telespectateurs. En-dehors des resultats specifiques, cette etude indique les possibilites d’un programme de recherche se concentrant sur les interviews politiques televisees et leurs consequences sociales. Intervieweffekte: Theorie und Evidenz fur einen Einfluss von politischen Interviews im Fernsehen auf die Einstellung der Zuschauer E. Ben-Porath Auch wenn politische Interviews im amerikanischen Fernsehen allgegenwartig sind, werden sie im Sinne einer Medienwirkungsperspektive theoretisch nicht ausreichend fundiert betrachtet. Dieser Artikel ist ein Versuch, mogliche Effekte von Interviews auf die offentliche Meinung herauszuarbeiten und zu diskutieren. Ergebnisse einer Experimentalstudie zeigen, dass Zuschauer eher negativ uber Journalisten denken, wenn das Interviewumfeld als eher unhoflich eingeschatzt wurde. Gleichzeitig verringern Interviews, die als nicht kontrovers genug eingeschatzt werden, das Vertrauen in den Journalisten, was wiederum darauf hindeutet, dass der Effekt uber den Aspekt der Unhoflichkeit hinausgeht und von den Erwartungen der Zuschauer abhangt. Neben diesen spezifischen Ergebnissen zeigt die Studie Moglichkeiten einer Forschungsagenda fur politische Fernsehinterviews und ihre sozialen Implikationen. Los Efectos de la Entrevista: La Teoria y Evidencia del Impacto de las Entrevistas Politicas Televisadas sobre las Actitudes de los Televidentes E. Ben-Porath Research SSRS, 53 W. Baltimore Pike, Media, PA 19063, USA Resumen Aunque las entrevistas politicas han sido una de las estadias principales de la television de los Estados Unidos, son poco teorizadas dentro de la tradicion de los efectos de los medios. Este articulo busca anclar los efectos posibles de la entrevista dentro de la teoria—particularmente los desarrollos en el estudio de la incivilidad y sus efectos sobre la opinion publica. Un estudio basado en un experimento encuentra que los televidentes piensan mas probablemente en forma negativa acerca de los periodistas en un ambiente marcado por la entrevista incivil. Al mismo tiempo, la exposicion a entrevistas percibidas como no suficientemente adversarias pueden reducir tambien la confianza en los periodistas, lo cual sugiere que los efectos se extienden mas alla de la pregunta sobre la incivilidad, dependiendo de las expectativas de los televidentes. Mas alla de los hallazgos particulares, este estudio indica las posibilidades de una agenda de investigacion centrada en las entrevistas politicas televisadas y las implicaciones sociales.

Cognitive verbs in context

This paper examines the frequency, distribution and function of 1st person self-references with the cognitive verbs think and believe, and penser and croire in British English and French argumentative discourse comprising 29 British political interviews (178,712 words) and 26 French political interviews (118,825 words). It employs quantity-based methodology supplemented by insights from a context-dependent qualitative analysis, considering explicitly the co-occurrence of these cognitive verbs with discourse connectives. It argues for these 1st person self-references to be assigned not only a subjectivising function, but also one of expressing intersubjectivity. In the two sets of data, the parenthetical constructions signify that the status of a particular piece of information encoded in a proposition is open for negotiation. Depending on their co-occurrences with discourse connectives they may boost or attenuate the pragmatic force of the contribution which they qualify.

Out of Africa: Accounting for refugee policy and the language of causal attribution

The words of political elites have the potential to play a significant role in the constitution and proliferation of racist discourse, especially when this discourse has the nuanced linguistic characteristics of ‘new racism’. This article examines the political rhetoric deployed in the articulation and defence of contentious government policy on Sudanese humanitarian refugee quotas in media interviews. Utilizing critical discourse analysis, we analyse a corpus of seven political interviews and identify a number of pervasive discursive features. These include descriptions, categories and multidimensional causal narratives that characterize the Sudanese as young, violent (i.e. gang members) and uneducated; the construction of ‘culture as cause’ narrative; and the differential orientation to the term race. Through our analysis, we show how causal inference and category description function multifariously in political discourse, contending with situated issues of policy justification, accusations of racism and the allocation of blame which exclusively rests with African refugees. The role of causal formulations in racist discourse is discussed.

The before and after of a political interview on TV: Observations of off-camera interactions between journalists and politicians

This article deals with the organization of off-camera interactions between journalists and politicians. What kinds of talk transpire between the participants before and after the broadcast interview? What functions do the before and after interview interaction appear to have? What social norms and conventions seem to influence the character of the pre-interview and post-interview discourse? How are their respective professional roles negotiated in these settings? The framing of the interview as an object of study in its production context aims to contribute to existing research on the news interview, specifically within Conversation Analysis (e.g. Clayman and Heritage, 2002), which has not studied processes of production, but has mostly restricted itself to analyses of that which is broadcast to the audience.

The “Public Inquisitor” As Media Celebrity

This article looks at the development and utility of celebrity among high-profile political interviewers. Offering the revised description “public inquisitor,” the article presents an overview of the rise of the political interviewer as a celebrity form of the “tribune of the people” (Clayman 2002). It focuses on the UK-based journalists and broadcasters Jeremy Paxman and John humphrys, and looks at the expansion of their professional activities and their attendant construction as media personalities. It argues that the forms of celebrity presented by Paxman and humphrys draw upon discourses of integrity and authenticity associated with practices of advocacy, and suggests that their extension beyond the formal political realm into media genres traditionally excluded from the established political domain might work to consolidate the public inquisitor as a discursive figure. Therefore, while acknowledging that this depends on the effective management of individual media profiles, the article proposes a critical reappraisal of the place of the celebrity personae in political communication in order to account for the possibility of constructive modes of media performance.

Dialogue and dissemination in news media interviews

This article analyses the nature of the dialogue of broadcast news media interviews and their public dissemination and argues that political interviews are fundamentally contestable and indeterminate encounters. In contrast to theoretical and journalistic accounts that see conflict and disagreement in news media interviews as problems that need to be minimized and overcome, this article states that the dialogical account of language employed in the work of Bakhtin and Vološinov and agonistic political theory more accurately capture the communicative dynamics of news media interviews. It follows that the function of journalistic interviewers should be cast less in terms of producing consensus and mutual understanding and more in terms of keeping the political open.

INTERVIEWS AS COMMUNICATIVE RESOURCES IN NEWS AND CURRENT AFFAIRS BROADCASTS

This study quantitatively establishes the centrality and importance of interviews in news and current affairs broadcasts. We show how segments of interviews (from soundbites to longer recorded, or live, question-and-answer interactions) are deployed as communicative resources in the construction and presentation of news in various ways. The data allow for a cross-national comparison between the United Kingdom and Sweden which points to differences in practice between the countries. We argue that our findings may be used critically to examine various conceptualisations of broadcast interviews in general and political interviews in particular. We also show how journalists outnumber politicians as interviewees in the news, a finding that is in need of further exploration from a range of perspectives. We also believe that our study provides solid ground on which to base future critical studies of the authority of journalism, dialogical and soundbite journalism, and the alleged fragmentisation of news.

Announced refusal to answer: a study of norms and accountability in broadcast political interviews

This article investigates the announced refusal to answer as a form of dispreferred and challenging response in broadcast political interviews. The aim is to study how the rightness and wrongness of conduct is dealt with in situations of announced refusal. More specifically, the paper focuses on: (1) announced refusal as a particular type of conduct; (2) the orientation to norms and accountability in situations of announced refusal; (3) how the legitimacy of politics and journalism is negotiated in broadcast interviews. The data consist of 23 cases from Swedish election campaigns, and the analysis is based on Conversation Analysis, focusing on how the participants treat themselves and others as normatively accountable. The study indicates that the politicians understand themselves as accountable and avoid hostile actions in the interviews. Their refusals are designed mainly to be understood as appropriate distancing actions without explicitly complaining about the interviewers’ conduct.

The management of applause and laughter in live political interviews

In the competition for the audience’s attention, TV journalism’s mode ofaddressisbecomingmoreandmoreimportant(Ben-Porath,2007;Ekstrom,2000),andinterviewswithpoliticiansarewithoutdoubtapartofthisdevel-opment.Withinfluencesfrommoreentertaininggenres,establishedformsofpoliticaldebatesandinterviewsareredefinedandnewonesareproduced(seee.g.Clayman,2006;Lauerbach,2004).Interviewstakingplaceinfrontofalivestudioaudiencemightbeseenasasignofsuchchange.Inpoliticalinterviews,thepresenceofastudioaudiencecanbeseenasanoutcomeofwhatScannell(2003)describesasthe