Radio Phone-in Research Articles

Handling racism in a radio phone-in programme: Telling it like it is

It is widely acknowledged that broadcast programmes are produced to serve the public’s interest. Presenting the programmes in a neutral and objective fashion, and engaging the audience in forming opinions, are common ways of achieving this. However, studies have suggested that there is a departure from these practices when the object of broadcast becomes societal problems such as racism. This case study examines how a presenter responds to a caller’s abuse in two live radio shows, and how she sets out a programme - and a new conversation - using her personal experience of racism/xenophobia. Using conversation analysis and discursive psychology, we studied the situated use of language and the actions being brought about. We found that the presenter assesses the caller’s abuse by rudeness on the spot, formulating the call as disruptive to an ongoing conversation. On the following day, the presenter revisits, and topicalises, this call as xenophobia and racism. Our analysis revealed that the presenter’s shift in evaluating this call is grounded in, and licensed by, her drawing on and cultivating a sympathetic listenership, characterising the call as race-driven, and formulating her personal experience as of public’s concern. Our findings spotlight the presenter’s orientation to her moral accountability in talking about racism, and the potential of broadcast in leading conversations on anti-racism.

Discourse features of an Ethiopian health radio phone-in

This study aims to describe the discourse features of an Ethiopian health radio phone-in program. More specifically, building on previous studies that draw on the methodological insights of CA/MCA, we demonstrate how topical discussion about public health issues on a radio phone-in show is accomplished. Our analysis is based on eight hours of recorded and transcribed talk data from a public FM radio station broadcasting in Amharic, FM Addis 97.1. Our analysis shows that the speech exchange between the host and callers is central to the organization of interactions in the talk show and comprises phases such as openings, topical talk, and closings. We further demonstrate using examples how what counts as ‘topical talk’ is initiated and pursued through reliance on a sequential development of relevant categories and identities, where one builds upon another during the course of the interaction. Our analysis reveals that interaction resources such as reminding callers of the theme/topic, posing a question relating to the theme of the talk, and using ‘eshi’ (which translates as ‘ok’) or ‘eshi’ prefaced statements or questions are employed to initiate topical talk as well as elicit callers’ membership categories vis-à-vis the theme. Such categorical information is in turn drawn upon to develop topical talk. Central to the development of topical talk in the program then is the elicitation of callers’ first-hand experiential accounts. Overall, we illustrate that the accomplishment of the topical talk involves a reflexive combination of categorical and sequential methods through which layers of background context are built and drawn upon by the participants in the talk show.

Code-switching and advising in multilingual African situations: An analysis of radio phone-in programmes in Kenya and Cameroon

Radio phone-in programmes are relevant for linguistic analysis in multilingual contexts, like Kenya and Cameroon, because they provide relatively natural data in expert-user and user-user contexts in an often emotional interactive environment. Any topic on relationships is an emotive undertaking in any society given the varied cultural disparities. In radio phone-in programmes, speech activities such as advice-giving and advice-receiving are also performed symmetrically or asymmetrically. In this media format, code-switching is a highly important phenomenon that is an expected and unconscious part of the linguistic behaviour of multilingual speakers. Switches between languages are highly relevant since they provide evidence for evaluations of language variety, power and authority as well as language and emotion. This research explores the extent to which code-switching is used in radio phone-in programmes during discussions on relationships. In this article, we focus on the social and pragmatic motivations of code-switching between the caller and the host during the phone-in sessions. The Kenyan data was collected from two radio phone-in programmes: The Breakfast Show on Classic 105 Fm and The Big Breakfast on Kiss 100, where participants switch from English, Kiswahili, Sheng, and mother tongue in isolated occurrence. At the same time, two radio phone-in programmes from Cameroon, Make we Talk and The Other Side of Midnight, were considered for illustrations with code-switches between English and Pidgin. The analysis reveals that situational code-switching was dominant for the Cameroonian data, while metaphorical switches were evident for the Kenyan data. The findings further demonstrate that speakers’ code-switching is far from random but that they switch between languages at specific times for particular reasons, especially in informal emotion-provoking (public) discourse in order to achieve meaning and urgency.

Confessions of lockdown breaches. Problematising morality during the Covid-19 pandemic

This paper examines confessions of Covid-19 breaches in two radio phone-ins. The programmes hosted invited experts who were recruited at certain moments in the show to comment on the (in)direct experiences of lockdown compliance or breaches reported by the callers. The analysis focuses on the social actions the participants are seen to be carrying out and orienting to through talk such confessions and disclosures of minor unlawful behaviour in public. A set of features of confessions were found depending on whether personal circumstances could be said to warrant the breaches and the recipients align or not with the warrantability of the breaches. Callers who disclosed their breaches at the first available opportunity, presented them as primarily warranted by a long-term health condition and displayed full awareness of doing confessing. Both early confessions and those that appear later in the narration were carefully crafted. They were mitigated to minimize the seriousness of the transgression and reduce the actor's accountability. The positional nuances of the participants as they share their stories, coupled with their assessment of self- and other behaviour, shines a light on their orientations to, and interactional management of, the moral accountability of behaviour in public spaces during the pandemic.

Third turn position in British election phone-in conversations

AbstractAn election radio phone-in program is designed for questions and answers, thus providing a context for direct interaction where lay-participants can engage with politicians’ responses. The current study aims at examining the third position that follows a question-answer sequence in a phone-in conversation, when radio hosts and/or callers evaluate politicians’ answers. Previous research has shown that radio hosts may offer a comeback to the caller, terminate the call, or ask their own question; and that a caller may come back on their own initiative. The aim of this article is to discover if there are patterns that underlie this diversity in the third position in radio phone-in conversations. The data consist of 4 hours and 20 minutes of transcribed conversations from election phone-ins from the Leading Britain’s Conversation (LBC) radiobroadcast prior to the 2015 general election. Using Conversation Analysis, this study looks at the sequential context and the substantive content of utterances to examine if the design and the content of the question and answer have bearing on the third position. The findings show that hosts either offered a comeback to callers or terminated the call right away when the politician’s answer was non-evasive and lacking opposition; that hosts or callers pursued an answer when evasion and opposition were apparent, and that callers pursued only when they showed oppositional stance taking in the questioning position.

(Mis) leading Britain’s conversation:The cultivation of consent on the Nigel Farage radio phone-in show

In this article, I adopt the socio-cognitive approach to critical discourse analysis (CDA) to interpret the discourse found on the popular UK radio phone-in programme the Nigel Farage Show. Evidence emerged of positive self-presentation and negative other representation through denials of prejudice, discursive de-racialisation and the use of war metaphors and lexis referencing legality, criminality and the collective. However, the control over this forum was its defining feature which appeared to propagate an anti-immigration stance and normalise the aforementioned lexis. This control was evident through the selection and placement of contributors, the influence of cognitively central participants, the foregrounding of Trump’s rhetoric, topic selection, protection offered to in-group members and topicalisation which supported the in-group and served to vilify the views and identity of the out-group. All of which led to the creation of a closed community devoid of alternatives.

The construction of gendered identities in Moroccan radio phone-in programmes

ABSTRACT The restructuring of the media landscape and access to new radio outlets resulted in the popularity of interactive programmes among Moroccans. Many phone-ins now exist that offer advice on a variety of social problems. Some address issues that pertain specifically to the modern Moroccan woman. The interactive aspects of phone-ins offer an opportunity to study the ways gender is co-constructed by lay callers and the experts providing advice. This article offers an Ethnomethodological account of two calls to Kif Lhal, a popular Moroccan radio phone-in. It describes the ways callers mobilised the categories wife, mother, father and husband to construct specific gender identities. Methodologically, Membership Categorisation Analysis is used to describe how callers deployed gender categories, and how their deployment betrayed patriarchal worldviews. The article argues that an ethnomethodological analysis can offer a glimpse at the emic logic of gender relations in everyday life. It can also trace the ways this logic spills over into the discourse of Kif Lhal as a media text. While their positive impact is undeniable, phone-ins run the risk of inadvertently importing patriarchal modes of discourse to the public sphere of media, where major strides have been made towards gender equality.

Motivations for Engaging in Radio Phone-in Programmes Among Radio Users in Osogbo

This study examined motivations for engaging in Osun state radio phone in programmes among radio users in Southwest Nigeria. The thrust of the study is to bridge the gap in knowledge by examining motivations for participation in phone-in programmes on Osun state radio and investigate any variations in the radio listeners’ participation in phone-in programmes on Osun state radio in terms of age. To achieve this and in line with the Uses and Gratification Theory upon which the study is premised, Survey and in-depth interview methods were used with a sample size of 384 respondents which were selected randomly for the survey while 5 presenters of the selected phone-in programmes were interviewed and analysed. The findings indicated among other things that the majority of the respondents often participate in phone-in programmes on Osun state radio when the topic of discussion interest them; due to programmes’ format, when a favourite presenter was anchoring. Keywords: Motivations, Phone-ins, Radio, Users DOI : 10.7176/NMMC/81-05 Publication date :June 30 th 2019

Motivations for Engaging in Radio Phone-in Programmes Among Radio Users in Osogbo

This study examined motivations for engaging in Osun state radio phone in programmes among radio users in Southwest Nigeria. The thrust of the study is to bridge the gap in knowledge by examining motivations for participation in phone-in programmes on Osun state radio and investigate any variations in the radio listeners’ participation in phone-in programmes on Osun state radio in terms of age. To achieve this and in line with the Uses and Gratification Theory upon which the study is premised, Survey and in-depth interview methods were used with a sample size of 384 respondents which were selected randomly for the survey while 5 presenters of the selected phone-in programmes were interviewed and analysed. The findings indicated among other things that the majority of the respondents often participate in phone-in programmes on Osun state radio when the topic of discussion interest them; due to programmes’ format, when a favourite presenter was anchoring. Keywords: Motivations, Phone-ins, Radio, Users DOI : 10.7176/NMMC/81-05 Publication date :June 30 th 2019

Frames and interaction on the air

Drawing on frames theory as an analytical framework, this study examines discourse interaction of a radio phone-in programme in Shanghai, during which professionals specialised in psychology or a related field provide advice to audience callers by answering questions and addressing concerns on the phone. It aims to describe and analyse what frames are constructed, and how these frames are linguistically and discursively accomplished at a local level in institutional settings. Identifying three major frames (Host, Professional, and Community), the author demonstrates how participants create, shift, and blend frames in response to the contingency of the local discursive and interactional context. This study also underlines the benefits of incorporating multiple perspectives in examination of discursive interaction.

Constructing a genre: Hebrew ('ani) lo yode'a / lo yoda'at ‘(I) don’t know’ on Israeli political radio phone-ins

Abstract We explore employment of the Hebrew construction ('ani) lo yode'a / lo yoda'at (lit ‘[I] not m/f-sg.know’), roughly equivalent to English ‘I don’t know’, by callers and hosts in 80 interactions on Israeli political radio phone-in programs, as compared with its functions in casual conversation. Five uses were attested in the corpus of radio phone-ins and correlated with the syntactic form of complementation (if available) for each token of the construction: (i) expressing literal lack of knowledge; (ii) expressing epistemic stance of uncertainty / hedging; (iii) gaining cognitive processing time in the midst of self-repair; (iv) expressing affective stance of contempt or criticism; and (v) avoidance strategies. While most of these uses are common to both genres, some are unattested in casual conversation. By exploring the functions of the ('ani) lo yode'a / lo yoda'at construction and their distribution according to institutional role, the study (i) sheds further light on the use of the construction and its evolvement through use; and (ii) shows how hosts and callers exploit this specific construction in ways that establish the Israeli political radio phone-in institutional genre.

'You must know what you mean when you say that': the morality of knowledge claims about ADHD in radio phone-ins.

Drawing on a corpus of radio phone-ins, we present a discursive psychological analysis of how mothers carefully tailor their knowledge claims regarding their children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Mothers typically claim knowledge about their children's good intentions, but not about the 'ADHD-ness' of their conduct. Whereas the former is seen as appropriate knowledge for a concerned parent, the latter is treated as a matter of expert knowledge. We show that as soon as problematic behaviour is treated as observable from the outside and describable by mothers and other lay persons, it becomes vulnerable to being formulated as 'normal disobedience', rather than symptomatic of a professionally administered, doctorable condition. We argue that it is important to be aware of the moralities hidden in knowledge claims, as they help sustain an unproductive perspective in which either the child's brain or his mother is blamed for behaviour perceived as problematic.

‘I’m a Scouser’

Abstract Despite the emergence of newer forms of web-based political engagement, radio phone-ins continue to have a significant role in the enactment of the democratic process, providing a live forum for direct encounters between members of the public and politicians, beyond the professional forms of mediated encounters between studio journalists and politicians. In this paper, drawing on data from the BBC’s 2015 phone-in Election Call, we use Membership Categorisation Analysis to examine the ways in which political engagement is configured within this forum in the run up to the UK General Election in 2015. In particular, we examine how callers and politicians engage in live political debate through transforming personal experiences into politicised social categories. What emerges most significantly here is that, whereas in previous Election Call series participants configured political categories through personal social identities, in 2015 there is a particular emphasis on callers’ geographical locations as political categories.

Men and women on air

This paper investigates the use of humour in a Malaysian radio phone-in programme to reinforce or challenge stereotypical conceptualisations of men and women. It is argued that these acts of humour uphold gender hierarchies and inequalities in a few ways. Traditional stereotypical portrayals of women still prevail, and these characteristics are naturalised by appealing to assumed shared common sense. Although both sexes are mocked in some instances of humour, when analysing why men and women are ridiculed, it was found that the men were targeted for two conflicting reasons: for exhibiting stereotypical feminine characteristics and for attempting to produce a hegemonic masculine identity. On the other hand, women were mocked for embodying traits culturally ascribed to masculinity. It is concluded that this works to legitimate men’s social dominance over women.

Negotiating Norms of Discussion in the Public Arena: The Use of Irony in Israeli Political Radio Phone-In Programs

Phone-in radio programs are part of the public sphere and thus require open access, rationality, and practicality. Simultaneously, they are a media product, which requires entertaining content. We demonstrate these demands through the analysis of interactional irony in Israeli political radio phone-ins. From an emic perspective, callers see irony as detrimental to the discussions, yet hosts and regular callers use it to make entertaining interactions. Irony is a critical tool that points to violations of norms: the norm of a clear 2-sided interaction; norms akin to the Habermasian public sphere; and at the content level, irony is used to reject racist positions. Being indirect, irony can be used to create an entertaining yet critical discussion in the public sphere.

Advice in Japanese radio phone-in counselling

Unlike the short and specific advice of service-encounters, advice in counselling settings is longer and more complex. In these interactions, it is known that advice is initially resisted in all languages. Scholars have tried to explain this phenomenon in terms of ‘face loss’ (Brown and Levinson 1987; Goldsmith 1992, 1994; Hinkel 1994; Murakami 1994); premature delivery (Heritage and Sefi 1992); the inappropriateness of the advisors (Jefferson and Lee 1992); or discrepancies in the interpretation of a problem (Murakami 1994). One of the difficulties in counselling or therapeutic settings is that the giving of advice in these interactions is a ‘process’ that is long and complex. In order to understand advice resistance, it is essential, first and foremost, to identify the characteristics of advice and how it is delivered. The present analysis of Japanese radio phone-in programs focuses on advice in order to identify its formal characteristics and also to try to understand the factors that determine its acceptance or resistance.

Fine-Tuning Africa’s Radio Stations: Connecting Communities and Cultures: A Review Essay

One concurs with the editors when they allude, in their opening chapter, to the fact that even though African radio is embedded in the continent, it effectively managed to reach out through audio-streaming and the use of smart phones to African communities in the diaspora. These (imagined) communities, being part of the transnational ‘interactive publics,’ conveniently connect with the local ‘interactive publics’ via the radio phone-ins and other related programmes.

La dimension pragmatico-discursive du français en contact

The aim of this paper is two-fold : First it argues for a stronger consideration of the pragmatic and discourse level in research on language contact. Secondly it contributes to the pragmatics of a specific regional variety of French, namely Cameroonian French. Starting with a picture of the complex linguistic landscape of this multilingual African country, the paper stresses the importance of the pragmatic and discourse level by raising some of the crucial theoretical and methodological issues that a broader, usage-based view on language contact has to cope with. First it suggests that pragmatic and discourse conventions may be influenced by the local contact languages and secondly it emphasizes that they may not be specific to a language, but be shared by a much larger and encompassing community of discourse. A case study of Cameroonian radio phone-ins where callers seek advice on medical issues points out some of these conventions. Here the participants establish a specific participation framework that avoids direct interaction between caller and expert while the host is set in as a mediator. This global mitigation technique then allows for quite direct realisations of the advice at a local level.

Formulations on Israeli political talk radio: From actions and sequences to stance via dialogic resonance

This article explores the properties of formulations in a corpus of Hebrew radio phone-ins by juxtaposing two theoretical frameworks: conversation analysis (CA) and dialogic syntax. This combination of frameworks is applied towards explaining an anomalous interaction in the collection – a caller’s marked, unexpected rejection of a formulation of gist produced by the radio phone-in’s host. Our analysis shows that whereas previous CA studies of formulations account for many instances throughout the corpus, understanding this particular formulation in CA terms does not explain its drastic rejection by the caller. We therefore turn to an in-depth examination of strategies for lexical and syntactic resonance as a stance-taking device throughout the interaction. In so doing, we not only shed light on the anomalous interaction, but also offer an answer to a provocative question previously put forward by Haddington (2004) concerning which of the two – stances or actions – have more meaningful consequences for the description of the organization of interaction. In the particular interaction analyzed here, stances play the more significant role. We propose that the intersubjective stance-taking of participants may be viewed as a meta-action employed among participants as they move across actions, sequences, and activities in talk.

Who speaks and who is addressed in radio phone-ins?

The present paper shows that the “primitive notions of hearer and speaker” (Goffman, 1979:23) are not sufficient to analyse radio phone-in conversations. The format and (the audible as well as the non-audible) participants can be traced in the language used in conversations of different phone-in shows comprised in the British National Corpus. The application of Goffman's (1979) participation and production format and Burger's (2005 [1984]) communicative circles proves helpful to account for the special personal as well as technical constellations of phone-ins. Depending on how (ratified) ‘participation’ is understood, however, a further category of addressed, but not ratified participants has to be added to Goffman's (1979) participation framework when focusing on one conversation within a phone-in programme.