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Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Faculteit Economische en Sociale Wetenschappen
Vakgroep Communicatiewetenschappen
THE CONSTRUCTION OF A MEDIA PROFESSIONAL
IDENTITY IN POLITICAL TELEVISION TALK
EVA DE SMEDT
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Nico Carpentier
Proefschrift aangeboden tot het behalen van de academische graad van Doctor in de Sociale
Wetenschappen: Communicatiewetenschappen
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Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Faculteit Economische en Sociale Wetenschappen
Vakgroep Communicatiewetenschappen
THE CONSTRUCTION OF A MEDIA PROFESSIONAL
IDENTITY IN POLITICAL TELEVISION TALK
Eva De Smedt
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The cover picture is a kaleidoscopic shape and is used under a Creative Commons license.
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ERRATA LIST
for
“The Construction of a Media Professional Identity in
Political Television Talk”
Eva De Smedt
14 December, 2015
This page lists all current corrections to the submitted versions of my PhD thesis. Only those typos that might cause confusions are included. Chapter 8: “Format team collaborations” —> “format components” (on pp. 297, 298, 299, 306, 309, 310).
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
“L’écriture c’est un voyage”; a quote that has captivated me ever since I spotted it on a Parisian wall a couple of years ago. Writing this thesis has shown to be a true journey; a journey that challenged and enriched both my intellectual and personal capacities. Much to my own frustration, the start of this journey did not come with a clever focus, perfectly designed structure, fluent sentences and smart reflections. Producing this work has often been a struggle, but evenso a source of enlightment and pleasure. A lot of people crossed my path and I am grateful to many of them to, in one way or another, have inspired me and helped me moving forward in this journey. First of all, my special appreciation and thanks goes to my supervisor, Nico Carpentier, whose expert guidance seemed made to measure my working methods. I am grateful for the way Nico intellectually inspired me and challenged my ways of reasoning with a particular openness that allowed me the time and space to grow along the way. I also thank Mats Ekström, Tom Van Hout, Joke Bauwens, Ronald Geerts and Piet Van De Craen for agreeing to be on my jury and for taking the time to absorb this work. I thank the team at Terzake for showing me the insides of political television production. Their generosity, trust and openness allowed me to broaden my horizons on the subject in ways that I never thought possible at the start of this journey. Thank you Jef Verschueren for bringing me into contact with them. My gratitude also goes to Ann Taverniers of the VRT visual archive for providing me access to many of the included political television broadcasts. For many years of collegiality, collaboration, encouragement, small talk and laughter, I would like to thank a number of (former or current) colleagues: Benjamin De Cleen, Joke Beyl, Karel Deneckere, Sarah Talboom, Iris Jennes, Mark Verheyden, Joeri Januarius, Jo Bogaerts, Frank Boddin, Nick Resmann, Maaika Santana, Wim Vanobberghen, Anouk Bouckaert, Silvia Bertolotti, Yiming Chen, Tereza Pavlickova, Christiana Voniati and Nikolas Defteras. A special word of thanks goes to Kristel Vandenbrande for having encouraged me to start this journey in the first place. Her calm and sincere support in the first years of my research career has unquestionably laid the foundations for
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this work. For having become my partner-in-crime, I thank Leen Van Brussel. Putting us together in one and the same office was perhaps not the department’s best idea of all time, but we sure made some absurde fun and dito friendship out of it. In 1895, the French writer Jules Renard claimed “writing is the best way to talk without being interrupted”. Obviously, Renard didn’t have my friends and family, nor did he get married or have a kid. Far from being a continuous and stable journey, the road to this work has been paved with a number of welcome distractions that helped me keeping feet on the ground. I thank my friends Kathelijn, Piet, Sarah, Dieter, Marinka, Tess and Thomas for the changes of scenery and for keeping the bottle cold. I want to thank my family for keeping faith and for being such a close clan. Bart, thanks for having always quietly supported and defended your little sister. Mama, it is amazing how a single woman can do so many things, with so much love as if it is the most normal thing in the world. Papa, how I wish you could have seen me become a ‘doctor’; I guess the memory of you was my biggest stimulus for proceeding in this crazy project. Stef, thanks for putting up with my constantly changing needs of concentration and distraction, as well as with my outbursts of frustration, despair, silence, enthusiasm and silliness – mostly in that order. Thanks for being my shelter, my best friend, my companion, my flame. My little Lou, I always thought that bringing you into the world wouldn’t immediately simplify this journey, but girl had I no idea of the intense love, joy and happiness you would bring. Thanks for making me laugh out loud, sing like a popstar, and dance like a ballerina. Every single day.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS IX
CHAPTER 1 MEDIA PROFESSIONAL IDENTITIES IN POLITICAL TELEVISION DISCOURSE: INTRODUCTION AND ORGANISATION 1
1.1 A FOCUS ON JOURNALIST‐PRESENTERS IN POLITICAL TELEVISION TALK 2 1.2 THE STUDY OF (POLITICAL) BROADCAST TALK IN MEDIA STUDIES 5 1.3 STUDYING IDENTITY AND POWER FROM AN INTEGRATED DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE 6 1.4 A HYBRID METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK: CONVERSATION ANALYSIS AND ETHNOGRAPHY 7 1.5 A TRANSCONTEXTUAL EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS 8 1.6 CHAPTER ORGANISATION 10
PART I ‐ CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
CHAPTER 2 A SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONIST AND PERFORMATIVE APPROACH TO POLITICAL TELEVISION DISCOURSE 17
2.1 MUCH ADO ABOUT CONTEXT: THE CAUSALITY OR “LOOSE COUPLING” OF ITS MICRO AND MACRO LEVELS 19
2.1.1 TEXT‐IN‐CONTEXT AND CONTEXT‐IN‐TEXT: THE DANGERS OF REDUCTIONISM AND MICRO‐ANALYTIC MYOPIA WITHIN DISCOURSE ANALYSIS 23
2.1.2 SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM AS DIALOGISM 29 2.2 PERFORMANCE AS HEURISTIC NOTION 35 2.2.1 THE TURN TO PERFORMANCE 36 2.2.2 THE DRAMATURGICAL MODEL 39 2.2.3 PERFORMATIVITY IN TALK‐IN‐INTERACTION 41 2.3 A SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONIST AND PERFORMATIVE LENS: SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING
REMARKS 44
CHAPTER 3 THE CONSTRUCTION AND PERFORMANCE OF IDENTITIES IN DISCOURSE 47
3.1 MAPPING THE FIELD OF IDENTITY STUDIES 49 3.1.1 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY AND THE INTERSECTION BETWEEN THE PRIVATE AND THE SOCIAL 50 3.1.2 RELOCATING THE CONCEPT: IDENTITY AS DISCURSIVELY GENERATED CONSTRUCT 53 3.2 AN INTEGRATED DISCURSIVE APPROACH TO IDENTITY 55 3.2.1 IDENTITY AS EMBEDDED CONSTRUCT 56 3.2.2 IDENTITY AS LOCALLY EMERGENT ACHIEVEMENT 59 3.2.3 AN INTEGRATED DISCURSIVE MODEL 63 3.3 ROLE PERFORMANCES AND THE SELF 65 3.3.1 ROLES AND NORMATIVE EXPECTATIONS 66 3.3.2 THE SOCIALLY CONSTITUTED SELF 70 3.4 SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS 76
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CHAPTER 4 PARTICIPANTS IN MASS‐MEDIATED SOCIAL INTERACTION AS BROADCAST PERFORMERS ON AN INSTITUTIONAL STAGE 79
4.1 THE INSTITUTIONAL SPECIFICITY OF POLITICAL TELEVISION TALK 82 4.1.1 A SEQUENCING OF QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 83 4.1.2 SEQUENCE ORGANISATION AND NORMATIVE BEHAVIOUR 84 4.2 POLITICAL TELEVISION DISCOURSE AS PERFORMATIVE DISCOURSE 85 4.2.1 THE DOUBLE ARTICULATION OF BROADCAST TALK 86 4.2.2 BROADCAST TALK AS A PUBLIC STAGE 88 4.3 (INTER‐)PROFESSIONAL IDENTITIES IN POLITICAL TELEVISION DISCOURSE 89 4.3.1 POLITICIANS AND THE STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE 92 4.3.2 JOURNALIST‐PRESENTERS AS MEDIA PROFESSIONALS 94 4.4 THE PRE‐PLANNED NATURE OF TELEVISION PERFORMANCES 105 4.4.1 OFF‐AIR INTERACTIONS BETWEEN JOURNALIST‐PRESENTERS AND POLITICIANS 108 4.4.2 PRE‐PLANNING MEDIA PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY: SCRIPTING 109 4.4.3 THE PRODUCTION TEAM AS BACKSTAGE FACILITATORS 112 4.5 SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS 118
CHAPTER 5 THE POLITICS OF POLITICAL TELEVISION DISCOURSE 121
5.1 POWER AS CONSTITUTIVE PHENOMENON 124 5.1.1 FOUCAULT AND THE “MICROPHYSICS OF POWER” 124 5.1.2 GIDDENS AND THE “DIALECTIC OF CONTROL” 126 5.2 POWER IN INSTITUTIONAL DISCOURSE 128 5.2.1 ASYMMETRIES AND PROFESSIONAL CONTROL IN INSTITUTIONAL INTERACTIONS 130 5.2.2 CALLING A SPADE A SPADE: A CRITIQUE OF ‘ASYMMETRY’ IN INSTITUTIONAL DISCOURSE 133 5.2.3 POWER AS A DIALOGIC FEATURE OF INSTITUTIONAL DISCOURSE 135 5.3 POWER IN POLITICAL BROADCASTING 138 5.3.1 JOURNALISM AND POLITICS AS MUTUALLY DEPENDENT POWER INSTITUTIONS 139 5.3.2 NEWS MEDIA PRODUCTION AS SINGLE INSTITUTION 141 5.3.3 POLITICAL TELEVISION AS A POWERFUL NEWS MEDIA INSTITUTION 143 5.3.4 THE MEDIA PROFESSIONAL AS PRIVILEGED PARTICIPANT IN POLITICAL TELEVISION TALK 144 5.3.5 PUTTING THE MEDIA PROFESSIONAL’S POWER INTO PERSPECTIVE 147 5.3.6 POWER RELATIONSHIPS IN PRE‐ AND POST‐BROADCASTING 150 5.4 SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS 154
PART II ‐ ANALYSING THE CONSTRUCTION OF A MEDIA PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY
CHAPTER 6 DISENTANGLING THE CONSTRUCTION OF A MEDIA PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY 159
6.1 RESEARCH AND SUB‐RESEARCH QUESTIONS 161 6.2 METHODOLOGICAL PLURALISM: NUANCED CONVERSATION ANALYSIS AND ETHNOGRAPHY 166 6.2.1 RESEARCHING THE FRONTSTAGE: CONVERSATION ANALYSIS 167 6.2.2 RESEARCHING THE BACKSTAGE: ETHNOGRAPHY 180 6.3 ANALYSING MEDIA PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY IN PRACTICE: DATA AND ANALYTIC
PROCEDURES 189 6.3.1 A CORPUS OF ON‐AIR AND OFF‐AIR DATA 190 6.3.2 AN ITERATIVE ANALYTIC PROCESS 206
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6.3.3 ISSUES OF VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY 214 6.3.4 A NOTE ON CONFIDENTIALITY 216 6.4 SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS 218
CHAPTER 7 THE ROLE OF INTERACTIONAL RESOURCES IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF A MEDIA PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY 221
7.1 POLITICAL TELEVISION PROGRAMMES AS MULTIDIMENSIONAL POWER CONTAINERS 224 7.2 JOURNALIST‐PRESENTERS AS INTERACTIONAL MANAGERS: INTERACTIONAL POWER 225 7.2.1 PROCEDURAL LEGITIMACY 226 7.2.2 TOPICAL LEGITIMACY 240 7.2.3 FRAMING LEGITIMACY 247 7.3 JOURNALIST‐PRESENTERS AS POLITICAL JOURNALISTS: PUBLIC POWER 258 7.3.1 LEGITIMACY TO BE ADVERSARIAL 258 7.4 JOURNALIST‐PRESENTERS AS TELEVISION PRODUCERS: MEDIA‐CULTURAL POWER 268 7.4.1 LEGITIMACY TO SEARCH FOR CONFLICT 269 7.4.2 LEGITIMACY TO SEARCH FOR SIMPLIFICATION 275 7.5 SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS 283
CHAPTER 8 THE ROLE OF FORMAT IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF A MEDIA PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY 285
8.1 POLITICAL TELEVISION FORMATS IN THE FLEMISH CONTEXT 286 8.2 VRT’S COVERAGE OF THE 2009 PRE‐ELECTION CAMPAIGN 288 8.2.1 PUBLIC CRITICISMS OF PROGRAMME FORMATS 288 8.2.2 THE USE OF PREDEFINED FORMAT COMPONENTS 289 8.3 THE RELEVANCE OF FORMAT IN THE PERFORMANCE OF A MEDIA PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY 292 8.3.1 THE JOURNALIST‐PRESENTER AS INTERACTIONAL MANAGER 293 8.3.2 THE JOURNALIST‐PRESENTER AS POLITICAL JOURNALIST 298 8.3.3 THE JOURNALIST‐PRESENTER AS TELEVISION PRODUCER 308 8.4 SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS 314
CHAPTER 9 THE ROLE OF PRODUCTION STANDARDS IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF A MEDIA PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY 317
9.1 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE TERZAKE TEAM, ITS ACTIVITIES, SPACES AND TOOLS 318 9.2 UNRAVELLING THE MEDIA PROFESSIONAL “REFLEX”: A LOOK BEHIND THE SCENES OF
TERZAKE 324 9.2.1 “GETTING THE BALL IN THE NET”: THE CREATION OF A JOURNALISTICALLY APPROPRIATE AND
UNIQUE BROADCAST OFFER 327 9.2.2 SCRIPTING THE UNSCRIPTED FEEL 354 9.3 SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS 370
CHAPTER 10 THE ROLE OF TEAM COLLABORATIONS IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF A MEDIA PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY 377
10.1 INTRAPROFESSIONAL TEAM PERFORMANCES IN THE BACKSTAGE 379 10.1.1 TALKING THE BROADCAST ‘INTO BEING’: DYNAMISM IN THE PRE‐BROADCAST PHASE 381 10.1.2 “WE ARE RIGHT BEHIND YOU”: TEAM COLLUSION IN THE BROADCAST PHASE 401 10.1.3 SCHMOOZING IN THE POST‐BROADCAST PHASE 413
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10.2 INTERPROFESSIONAL TEAM PERFORMANCES IN THE BACKSTAGE 418 10.2.1 DE‐DRAMATISING STRUCTURAL ASYMMETRIES IN THE PRE‐BROADCAST PHASE 421 10.2.2 DE‐DRAMATISING STRUCTURAL ASYMMETRIES IN THE POST‐BROADCAST PHASE 434 10.3 SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS 446
PART III ‐ CONCLUSIONS
CHAPTER 11 THE CONSTRUCTION OF A MEDIA PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY: SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS 451
11.1 THE CONTINGENCY OF MEDIA PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION 452 11.2 IMPLICATIONS AND CHALLENGES FOR FUTURE RESEARCH 457 11.2.1 IMPLICATIONS FOR DISCOURSE STUDIES 457 11.2.2 IMPLICATIONS FOR BROADCAST TALK STUDIES 459 11.2.3 IMPLICATIONS FOR POLITICAL TELEVISION JOURNALISM STUDIES 463 11.2.4 FUTURE RESEARCH TRACKS 466
LIST OF FIGURES 473
APPENDIX 475
REFERENCES 493
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CHAPTER 1
MEDIA PROFESSIONAL IDENTITIES IN
POLITICAL TELEVISION DISCOURSE:
INTRODUCTION AND ORGANISATION
“He kept on rattling in my ear. In the end I couldn’t understand what was being said at the table (…) I felt like yelling ‘stop!’, but yes of course that is not possible.” (Journalist-presenter after a Terzake broadcast, standing in the lounge area)
In this quote, one of the journalist-presenters of Flanders’ perhaps most well-known political television programme, Terzake (To The Point), expresses annoyance on a just-finished live broadcast with a colleague in the public service broadcaster’s lounge area just across the studio setting. The catalyst of the journalist-presenter’s expressed frustration is the excessive meddling of the editor-in-chief via the (for the viewer) hidden talkback system connecting the activities in the frontstage studio setting with those in the backstage control room. Apparently, the editor-in-chief’s continuous “rattling” from within the backstage prevented the journalist-presenter from being fully attentive to the interactional happenings at the studio’s debate table in the frontstage. More so than saying something about issues of collegiality or in-team relationships, this quote articulates a threat to what is taken as the central concern of this work: the construction of a media professional identity in political television talk. However trivial the production of this statement might have actually been in the broader professional context of Terzake, it touches upon some of the study’s most pivotal arguments, including the relevance of approaching political television talk from an integrated discursive and performative perspective, the assumed power of journalist-presenters in the local development of on-air talk, the relevance of broader,
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underlying contexts in identity construction processes, and collaboration as a necessary prerequisite for this construction. The question of how journalist-presenters manage to achieve a legitimate professional identity in political television talk is central in this work.
1.1 A FOCUS ON JOURNALIST-PRESENTERS IN POLITICAL
TELEVISION TALK
Political television talk, in the form of political interviews and television debates (be it in news programmes, current affairs programmes, political programmes, or talk shows), plays a pivotal role in the functioning of contemporary politics and journalism. Political interviewing has been argued to count as “one of the media society’s most widespread and legitimate forms of political accountability” (Ekström, 2007a: 971). What’s more, political television talk is considered to be a central means for generating the legitimacy of television journalism as one of “the most influential knowledge-producing institutions of our time” (Ekström, 2002: 259). It counts as the core function of political interviews and television debates to mediate opinions from politicians – but occasionally also from other public figures such as experts or other social relevant actors – to an undefined ‘overhearing’ audience (e.g. Bull & Fetzer, 2006; Fetzer, 2000; Heritage & Greatbatch, 1991; Hutchby, 2006; Scannell, 1991: 1).
Far from providing an unrestricted pulpit for politicians to get their messages across, political television talk takes place under the premises of pre-arranged turn-taking systems, pre-defined participant roles and pre-produced programme formats and scripts. It is the journalist-presenter who has a crucial role to play in the effectuation of these premises and in the establishment of the interactional conditions under which politicians can communicate their opinions, as well as in critically challenging and framing these opinions (e.g. Heritage & Greatbatch, 1991: 108). As hosts of political television programmes, journalist-presenters are put to the test to show a repertoire of performer competences and mastery of a variety of discursive practices that reach beyond traditional journalistic skills: they are expected to lead the broadcast interactions in the form of ensuring a balanced turn-taking
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and asking critical questions, and at the same time are required to parade an expertise as television producers, capable of keeping audiences engaged through the creation of a fluent and attractive television show. This situation poses journalist-presenters with a particularly complex performative challenge to achieve, uphold and defend a legitimate identity as “professional broadcasters” (Greatbatch, 1985: 241; Heritage & Greatbatch, 1991: 108; Hutchby, 2006: 2), or – as will be used throughout this study – as “media professionals” (Carpentier, 2005, 2011).1
This study shows how this challenge is accomplished by foregrounding the following research question: How is a media professional identity constructed in (the production of) Flemish political television discourse and how is this construction related to the dynamic operation of power? The study takes readers on an exploration of the discursive construction of a media professional identity in political interviews and television debates. More concretely, it is the study’s prime spur to identify the constitutive cornerstones of the performance of a media professional identity in political television talk. Therefore, it turns attention to the discursive mechanisms – i.e. the practices and processes – that underlie, support and facilitate the journalist-presenters’ performance of a professional identity in political television talk. A major starting point in this overall objective is that questions on the construction of identity in thoroughly mediated interactional settings such as that of political television talk cannot be separated from questions on how this construction is ‘talked into being’, both in the frontstage and backstage settings of political television programming.
Research on (political) broadcast talk – both on radio and television – is not new. Over the past three decades, scholars have managed to found a valuable knowledge base of the specificity of (political) broadcast talk in all its diversity (e.g. Clayman & Heritage, 2002; Ekström & Patrona, 2011; Fetzer & Johansson, 2008; Hutchby, 2006; Montgomery, 2007; Scannell, 1991; Tolson, 1 This is not to suggest that the concept of media professional should pertain exclusively to journalist-presenters. On the contrary, in
the context of media production, one can easily think of many more types of media professionals, including camera and sound
operators, photographers, social media experts, media trainers, interview coaches and advertisers. However, for the purposes of this
study, and as will become clear later on in this work (see especially Chapter 4), I prefer the usage of ‘media professional’ over merely
‘journalist’, because the broader meaning of the former term allows the inclusion not only of reflections on the journalist-presenters’
multitude of interactional, journalistic and media-related responsibilities in political television programmes, but even so of the media
professional tasks of other members of the production crew such as editors, researchers and reporters in the preparation of these
programmes.
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2001, 2006). Although this established body of work is characterised by heterogeneous research focuses and types of data, it stands out that the on-air context is the dominant centre of attention and that reflections on wider contextual relevancies, such as the role of programme formats, backstage production processes, and off-air teamwork, remain rather peripheral and have only sporadically attracted analytic attention (e.g. Ekström & Kroon Lundell, 2011; Kroon Lundell, 2009, 2010a; Ytreberg, 2004, 2006). This study aspires to address this gap by foregrounding an inclusive analysis of media professional identity in political television talk, in which the construction of identity and the achievement of power are considered to be contingent upon both on-air and off-air practices and processes.
A converging of the immediate frontstage setting and the underlying backstage contexts into a unified research set-up necessarily engages the researcher in a number of careful balancing acts. Far from trying to fix a clear-cut and one-sided research perspective, and as will be set out in the following, this study attempts to build a couple of bridges at four distinct levels: (1) the disciplinary level; (2) the theoretical level; (3) the methodological level; and (4) the empirical level. At a disciplinary level, this work believes in the value of integrating the analysis of ‘talk’ as a full-fledged object of study in media studies. At a theoretical level, the study attempts to establish a valid integrated discursive framework that allows for making issues on identity and power explicit in the study of institutional discourse and for recognising their inherent duality as both embedded and emergent constructs of social reality. At a methodological level, the study builds upon the tenets of Conversation Analysis (hereafter CA) and ethnography to make this inclusive research intention open for empirical analysis. And, finally, at an empirical level, the research combines a study of on-air political television talk with analyses of broader contextual relevancies such as the role of formats and backstage preparations. I am aware that this multi-level bridge-building exercise brings with it conceivable risks of, what Silverman (1997: 208) would call, “paradigm-crossing”, such as overpassing potential key aspects of particular perspectives, or a rudimentary adoption of multifaceted concepts. Nevertheless, I believe it is the risk worth taking and this work invites the reader to join me in this plunge.
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1.2 THE STUDY OF (POLITICAL) BROADCAST TALK IN MEDIA
STUDIES
Conventional media studies generally consider political television programmes as ‘texts’ to be analysed in relation to governing ideologies, institutional hierarchies, or political-economic considerations. For a long time, talk on radio and television has been treated as a rather trivial phenomenon and as mere ‘transferor’ of messages and representations. Since the mid 1980s onwards, and partly out of a critique on the predominant focus on ‘texts’ within media analysis, a number of scholars have emphasised the relevance of approaching these and other broadcast programmes as ‘talk’, to be analysed as legitimate objects of study in their own right (Clayman, 1988; Ekström et al., 2006; Ekström & Patrona, 2011; Ekström & Kroon Lundell, 2011; Emmertsen, 2007; Greatbatch, 1985; Heritage, 1985; Hutchby, 2006; Lauerbach, 2004; Lorenzo-Dus, 2009; Montgomery, 2007; Scannell, 1991; Tolson, 2001, 2006; Weizman, 2008). As Scannell (1991: 10) has observed, the traditional emphasis in media studies on text-reader relationships “make it well-nigh impossible to discover talk as an object of study in relation to broadcasting”.
By concentrating on the talk itself, broadcast talk studies take it as their prime concern to reveal the interactional dynamics of this type of institutional talk as situated interactional activity (e.g. Hutchby, 2006: 11; Montgomery, 2007: 20). The situation in which broadcast talk is produced among a small group of participants in an artificially designed studio setting and ‘overheard’ by potentially millions, contributes to the institutional specificity of broadcast talk and has sparked analytic attention, not at least from the conversation analytic research tradition. CA’s concern with the organisational features of institutional talk in relation to ordinary conversation particularly lends itself for application to the study of broadcast talk. As Ekström (2007: 971) has pointed out, the CA approach counts as “one of the most promising theoretical approaches to a talk and interaction perspective in journalism and media studies”, not at least because its micro-analyses allow for grasping broader questions, for instance on the power and legitimacy of journalism, from a bottom-up perspective. Especially the studies by Steven E. Clayman, John Heritage, and David Greatbatch have played a major role in establishing
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the first steps towards the micro-analysis of political television talk (e.g. Clayman, 1988, 1991, 1992, 1993; Greatbatch, 1985, 1988, 1992; Heritage, 1985; Heritage & Greatbatch, 1991). Ever since, the field of political television talk studies has expanded into a repertoire of cross-genre and cross-cultural findings (e.g. the collected works of Ekström et al., 2006; Ekström & Patrona, 2011; Ekström & Tolson, 2013; Scannell, 1991). Through their focus on how detailed analyses of mediated interaction can be related to broader reflections on media and journalism, these broadcast talk studies can valuably contribute to bringing the study of talk on the research agenda of media studies (Burger, 2006: 62; Hutchby, 2006: 10). In this sense, the micro-level analyses as integrated in this work can contribute to the formulation of refreshing, bottom-up insights into the functioning and state of the social institutions of political television journalism and broadcasting.
1.3 STUDYING IDENTITY AND POWER FROM AN INTEGRATED
DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE
The analysis of media professional identity in political television talk does not stand apart from questions on identity and power. As such, it is at least opportune, if not elemental, to develop a valid theoretical account of these notions as they operate in institutional settings. In media studies and discourse analysis, the notions of identity and power have already been extensively – albeit not consistently – defined, developed, and used. The definitions of these concepts are divergent, and are contingent upon the adopted approach and its perspective to context. Depending on whether the concepts of identity and power are approached from a critical discursive (e.g. Billig, 1999a, 1999b; Butler, 1990, 1991 [2006], 1993; Fairclough, 1992, 1997; van Dijk, 1997, 2001, 2003; Wetherell, 1998; Wodak, 1995), or a more interactionist discursive point of view (e.g. Antaki & Widdicombe, 1998; Arminen, 2000; Aronsson, 1998; Schegloff, 1991, 1997; Widdicombe, 1998; Zimmerman, 1998; Zimmerman & Boden, 1991), these notions are conceptualised as operating at either the macro-levels or micro-levels of social context, and are differently related to the much-discussed structure/agency debate. In this study, I choose to go beyond this dichotomy by departing from the inherent complexity and
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multidimensionality of identity and power. I believe that a synthesis of the critical and interactionist discursive research traditions into an integrated discursive approach allows for capturing the duality of identity construction and the operation of power in institutional contexts. On the one hand, this entails an acknowledgement that particular contextual features are stable over different situations and that it would be somehow analytically restrictive to overlook a theoretical exploration of questions on identity and power. On the other hand, it recognises the contingency with which these contextual phenomena need to be ‘brought into being’ – i.e. locally reproduced – in interactional settings. Consequently, the integrated discursive approach as proposed in this study would allow for relating reflections on the local emergence of identities and power relationships to the broader context in which they are embedded. In order for this synthesis to be conceptualised and theoretically grounded, the study falls back on an overall social constructionist framework 2 (e.g. Giddens, 1976, 1982; Linell, 1998a) and believes in the theoretical strength of the notions of performance (Goffman, 1959) and performativity (Butler, 1990, 1993) in emphasising the dynamism with which identity and power tend to be constructed in discourse.
1.4 A HYBRID METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK: CONVERSATION
ANALYSIS AND ETHNOGRAPHY
Inevitably, such an inclusive conceptualisation of identity and power at a theoretical level has repercussions on the analytic programme for the concrete empirical exploration of media professional identity in political television talk. More concretely, it poses a particular challenge to develop a methodological framework that provides the tools for analysing the “doing” (Butler, 1990: 25) of identity and power in discourse without loosing sight of broader underlying contexts. Whereas critical discursive approaches tend to be faced with a critique of lacking the concrete methodological equipment as
2 Throughout this study, I opt to use ‘social constructionism’ instead of ‘social constructivism’. Whilst often used interchangeably, the
two terms carry a slightly different connotation, with the –ivism variant still slightly implying the construction of social reality to be
an indiviudal matter and the –ionism variant directing more explicit attention to the inherent social and collective processes through
which the social world is consituted (Gergen, 2001: 121 ; Shotter, 1995). This issue is addressed somewhat more extensively in Chapter
2 of this work (e.g. 2.1.2).
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a result of an alleged over-emphasis on theorising (e.g. Schegloff, 1997: 167; Thornborrow, 2002: 18), the interactionist discursive research strands have been criticised for an over-emphasis on empirical analysis of local relevancies in interactional contexts, to the detriment of an integration of broader socio-cultural concerns in their analysis of talk (e.g. Billig, 1999a; Wetherell, 1998). To overcome these methodological fallacies of both research traditions, this study argues that the discursive study of identity and power in institutional contexts might benefit from a combination of the methodological frameworks of CA and ethnography. The mutual focus on local relevancies within each of these methods provides opportunities for analysing the routine practices through which, in this case, a media professional identity and related power positions and relationships are normatively constructed in (the production of) political television broadcasts, as well as for disentangling what is otherwise often taken for granted in this construction. Both CA and ethnography draw on so-called “thick” descriptions (Geertz, 1973) of talk and interaction: social reality is analysed from a members’ point of view to find out how this reality is experienced, perceived and oriented to by participants in a given social setting. While CA’s detailed analytic procedures are particularly valuable for studying the construction of a media professional identity from below, i.e. from the level of observable practices and processes of human interaction in the frontstage, the methodological tenets of ethnography allow for obtaining an analytic view from within, i.e. from the level of observable practices and processes of human interaction that underlie these frontstage relevancies in backstage contexts. Consequently, the combination of CA and ethnography can provide the necessary methodological grounds for producing bottom-up and holistic descriptions of (aspects of) the construction of a media professional identity while not overlooking the broader and underlying contexts within which this construction is embedded (e.g. Maynard, 1989; Moerman, 1988, 1990, 1992; Sarangi & Roberts, 1999).
1.5 A TRANSCONTEXTUAL EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS
Many of the existing studies on political television talk have been preoccupied with uncovering how the frontstage mediatised encounters
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between journalist-presenters and politicians are organised in terms of turn-taking and other interactional patterns. Much less attention has been given to how these on-air patterns are connected to off-air patterns in the backstage settings of political television production. This study aspires to address this gap by relating micro-considerations of the interactional achievement of journalistic roles and identities, to both the highly formatted character of much contemporary political television and the backstage production processes that lie behind the on-air production of talk. The study argues that, in order to grasp the complexity of identity construction in the context of political television discourse, one has to go beyond the frontstage interactional performances of a media professional identity to also include the role of programme formats, pre-mediation, backstage production processes, and teamwork in these performances. In order to achieve this intention, the study builds on two datasets. A first dataset relates to concrete instances of on-air political television talk to analyse, by means of CA, the interactional resources through which journalist-presenters can perform, negotiate and defend a professional stance in their frontstage encounters with politicians. The study therefore builds upon transcripts of 29 political television broadcasts on Flemish television: 10 broadcasts of De Zevende Dag (The Seventh Day), a current affairs programme weekly broadcast on Sunday morning on the first channel of Flemish public service television (Eén), from 2006 ; and 19 broadcasts of the series of political television programmes that were broadcast in the three weeks prior to the regional and European elections in 2009 on both the first (Eén) and second (Canvas) channels of Flemish public service television. A second dataset is related to observations at the off-air settings of political television production to analyse, by means of ethnography, the practices, standards, and collaborative processes through which the frontstage performances of a media professional identity are prepared for and facilitated in the backstage. The study therefore relies upon a series of fieldnotes from 6 weeks – i.e. 3 times 2 weeks – of ethnographic observations in the backstage settings – i.e. most prominently, the newsroom, the control room and the lounge area – of the political television programme Terzake, which is broadcast daily on the second channel of Flemish public service television (Canvas).
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Through the merging of these two datasets into a unified analytic corpus, the analysis as presented in this work contributes to the existing body of research on the construction of identity in political television talk by relating insights on the frontstage mediated encounters between journalist-presenters and politicians to the backstage practices and processes that underlie these encounters. This particularly inclusive empirical approach allows for situating the construction of identity and related operation of power at the multi-contextual level of the pre-performance, performance and post-performance settings of political broadcasting.
1.6 CHAPTER ORGANISATION
The sequence of the chapters in this work follows the hourglass-model that is commonplace within humanities and social sciences. The chapters are broadly organised in three broad parts: a first, theoretical part that closes down the research topic; a second, methodological/empirical part that opens up the research for analysis; and a third, concluding part that considers the research from a meta-level and relates it to future analytic paths. This broad threefold structure, together with its integrated chapters, sections and sub-sections, is far from a purely descriptive account, but instead has emerged as the dynamic product of iterative rounds of moving back and forth between theory construction and analysis.
The chapters in the first part – i.e. Chapters 2, 3, 4 and 5 – seek to develop an overall conceptual framework for the study of identity and power in the institutional context of political television talk. Chapter 2 introduces social constructionism and the notions of context, performance, and performativity. I argue that a social constructionist and performative approach allows accounting for the entwinement and mutual constitutiveness of social structural categories and local interactional relevancies. Overall, Chapter 2 develops the overarching theoretical lenses for understanding discourse and, in that sense, should be considered as a broader meta-theoretical account of how social reality and the study of social reality is approached in this work.
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In Chapter 3, this framework is applied and further extended to the notion of identity. The chapter explores the diverse ways through which identity has been conceptualised within social psychological and discursive research traditions and proposes an integrated discursive framework for the study of identity as a phenomenon that is constituted in and through discourse. Once this theoretical angle is brought into focus, I tackle how identity can be related to the closely associated notions of role and self.
Chapter 4 concretises this theoretical account of a social constructionist and integrated discursive perspective on identity by exploring how it can be applied to the context of political broadcast talk. It is suggested that questions on identity in this context are inseparable from issues on professionalism. In line with the study’s focus on the journalist-presenters’ activities in political television talk, the chapter zooms into the complexity of the journalist-presenters’ media professional identity and suggests that the construction of this identity is contingent upon the journalist-presenters’ performance of their roles as interactional manager, political journalist, and television producer.
In Chapter 5, the overall social constructionist view is further extended to include considerations on the notion of power. I depart from the works of Foucault (1977, 1978, 1980, 1982 [2001]) and Giddens (1982, 1987) to arrive at a conciliatory view on power that emphasises its constitutive aspects. Then, this dynamic approach to power is extended further to the specific context of political television programmes. After a discussion of power in the broad institutions of journalism and politics, the chapter gradually narrows down to power-in-interaction in political television talk. I will argue that, at a structural level, journalist-presenters can be expected to have a more powerful position in political interview and television debates than politicians. Part two of this study aims at putting these theoretical conceptualisations to concrete empirical work. Chapter 6 is a methodological chapter that re-introduces the study’s prime research question and sub-research questions and argues that a combination of CA and ethnography provides the adequate methodological tools for the empirical exploration of these questions. The chapter also introduces the reader to the study’s corpus and its data selection, data collection and analytic procedures.
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After the methodological chapter, part two comprises four empirical chapters that share an overall objective to empirically disentangle the complex constitutive cornerstones of a media professional identity in (the production of) political television broadcasts. The four empirical chapters are structured around four elements that show to be crucial to this construction process: interactional resources (Chapter 7); political television formats (Chapter 8); production standards (Chapter 9); and team collaborations (Chapter 10). While the first two chapters focus on the frontstage performance of journalist-presenters and politicians in the development of on-air political television talk, the last two empirical chapters shift attention to the backstage practices of journalist-presenters (and their fellow media professionals) and politicians in the off-air settings of political television broadcasts.
Chapter 7 shows how the strategic and selective use of particular interactional resources by both journalist-presenters and politicians might facilitate, challenge or disrupt the construction of a media professional identity and the according achievement of interactional, public and media-cultural power in political television talk. Turning to a set of transcripts of concrete instances of political television talk from De Zevende Dag and Terzake the chapter brings to light that power is far from a ‘fixed’ contextual property of these interactions, but instead is a highly dynamic concept that is in constant need of ratification, verification and negotiation among journalist-presenters and politicians.
Chapter 8 examines how political television formats are related to the journalist-presenters’ achievement of a media professional identity. Taking the VRT’s 2009 pre-election campaign as a case study, the chapter reveals the strategic potential of formats in the performance of identity and power in political television talk. It is argued that the presence of pre-planned format components can powerfully support journalist-presenters in playing out their roles as interactional manager, political journalist, and television producer in the televised talk, while at the same time reducing resistant acts from politicians.
Chapters 9 and 10 take these insights from the on-air context of political television talk as a basis for a more comprehensive exploration of the construction of (and preparation for) a media professional identity in the off-air settings of political broadcasting. Both chapters build on an ethnographic
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analysis from backstage observations at Terzake. Chapter 9 shows how the pre-planning activities of the media professionals at Terzake are centred on a number of recurring production standards that are related to the imperatives of journalism and broadcasting. From an overall intention to create a journalistically legitimate and attractive broadcast offer, the media professionals at Terzake appear to be routinely calling upon the standards of originality, distinction, accuracy, public relevance, neutralism and balance, continuity, and spontaneity. I argue that the media professionals’ backstage production activities carry potential for bolstering the journalist-presenters’ frontstage performance of a legitimate media professional identity.
In Chapter 10, I go a step further to show the crucial role of backstage team collaborations for the performance of media professional identity in political television broadcasts. In the backstage settings of these broadcasts, media professionals are required to collaborate in two symbolic operative teams: an intraprofessional team of fellow media professionals, and an interprofessional team of media professionals and politicians (or other types of studio guests). In this chapter, I show how each of these teams seem to operate according to a set of normatively inscribed behavioural patterns that shift as teams move in different temporal and spatial backstage settings. To master and fluently operate according to these ‘rules of conduct’ appears to be yet another component of the performance and protection of a media professional identity.
Part three comprises a concluding chapter that has the twofold objective of closing down and opening up the present study. The chapter starts with summarising the study’s prime findings in relation to the construction of a media professional identity in (the production of) Flemish political television discourse. It then draws attention to a number of broader implications and future challenges. More particularly, the chapter reflects on how the study can contribute to the research traditions in which this study is primarily embedded, i.e. the fields of discourse studies, broadcast talk studies and political television journalism studies. The chapter concludes with suggesting a number of relevant research tracks that would enable a further exploration of the versatility of media professional identity construction in broadcast talk.
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I Conceptual framework
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11
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1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11
Ι
CHAPTER 2
A SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONIST AND
PERFORMATIVE APPROACH TO POLITICAL
TELEVISION DISCOURSE
Political broadcast talk, as any other form of communicative event, can only be understood and interpreted by paying attention to the context in which it is embedded. Like any analysis of social reality, the study of professional identity in political broadcast talk calls for a reflection on the potential relevance of the different facets surrounding this social setting, in order to properly formulate and address the study's research questions. Inevitably, this goes hand in hand with reflection on the relevance of context and the difficulties involved in understanding and studying media professional identity in political broadcast talk. There are a variety of different approaches to context in the literature, which try to conceptualise and define this complex notion. Theoretical and analytical debate centres predominantly on attempts to explain the relationship between larger social formations and local human activities.
Overall, critical and interactionist discursive approaches tend to dominate the positions in the field. While the various research strands within these contradicting perspectives share a mutual concern with finding the extent to which knowledge about contextual information is relevant for understanding discourse, 3 they variously attempt to conceptualise the
3 The term discourse is used in this study to refer to talk-in-interaction (Schegloff, 1997: 167). In contrast to discourse understood as
referring to systems of knowledge, this notion of discourse shows correspondence with, for instance, Giddens’s (1984: 71)
conceptualization of discourse as “the physical environment of interaction” and Goffman’s (1959) use of “the situation”. In this
respect, Gee (2008, 2011) makes a distinction between discourses with a small ‘d’, as understood in this work, and Discourses with a
big ‘D’, as common in poststructural discursive approaches (e.g. Laclau & Mouffe, 1985 in Carpentier & Spinoy, 2008: 5). Gee (2008:
154) asserts that while “discourse” is always part of “Discourse”, “Discourse” (with a capital D), always entails more than just
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relationship between social structure and the interaction order as either causal or irrelevant. While critical, macro-approaches are often denounced for their view of social structure as stable explanatory factor, the interactionist micro-perspectives are also criticised for a similar linear style of reasoning in overemphasising agency and ignoring the explicit potentiality of the broader cultural, temporal and spatial contexts for influencing social action. This study does not pretend to offer a solution to the long-lasting dilemmas over structure versus agency, social order versus interaction order, and macro versus micro.4 Rather, it sets out to address the complexity that typically characterises institutional contexts, without indulging in pro and con discussions.5 In examining the variety of approaches to the notion of context, I provide an initial outline of the dominant macro and micro perspectives which is followed by the presentation of an alternative framework for dealing with context in the analysis of institutional settings. I will claim that a social constructionist and performative view of social context allows the traditional ambivalence in the prevalent theoretical and analytical strands to be transcended in favour of a both-and approach.
Building on the conciliatory models of Giddens (1976, 1982) and Linell (1998a), and ‘applied’ forms of CA6 (Hutchby 1999a, 1999b; Kothoff, 1997; Moerman, 1998, 1990, 1992; Silverman, 1997; Thornborrow, 2002), the first part of this chapter emphasises the relationship between discourse and context as mutually constitutive. In this view, social context is analysed as shaped through talk and as shaping talk; as existing partly prior to individual interactions, and as being continuously employed, developed and
language. In this study, then, the concept of discourse is understood as discourse-as-language (i.e. small d-discourse) rather than as
discourse-as-representation (i.e. big d-discourse).
4 See Ritzer (2008: 223) who warns that, although the literature on macro-micro and structure-agency often overlaps, one cannot
simply equate the one with the other. For, while most actors can be situated at the micro level, Ritzer claims that there are also actors -
such as collectivities and political parties - that can be situated at the macro level. Equally, while structures are mostly situated at the
macro levels of society, there are also structures that appear at the micro level. It is out of the scope of this study to delve any deeper
into the subtle distinctions between the sets of concepts of macro-micro, structure-agency, and social order-interaction order. In fact,
the study uses these concepts rather interchangeably, since much of its concerns and discussions are generally very similar.
5 See especially the combative exchange between Schegloff, Wetherell and Billig in Discourse & Society (Billig, 1999a, 1999b ; Schegloff,
1997, 1999a, 1999b ; Wetherell, 1998).
6 The idea of ‘applied’ CA is inherited from Alasuutari (1995 : 108) who introduced it as a nuance to so-called ‘pure’ CA studies. In
contrast to these latter, which traditionally adopt a strictly inductive, bottom-up perspective to doing research, applied forms of CA
create possibilities to integrate contextual considerations into analysis and, thusly, to leave the door open for an integration of macro-
aspects into micro-analysis. The methodological chapter (Chapter 6) will elaborate on these differences and the methodological
relevance of applied CA for this study more extensively.
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reconstructed at the local levels of social interaction.7 As such, there can never be one sole context deemed relevant to grasp the complexity of a discourse. Rather, I propose to think in terms of a "matrix of contexts" (Linell, 1998a: 144) in which situated stretches of talk are embedded (see also Arminen, 2000; Diamond, 1996). In this view, reality is a social construction and, in order to be analysed, needs to be approached as such. It is claimed that such a constructionist line of investigation enables an inclusive analysis relying on micro-sequences of talk, while also manifestly recognising the omnipresence of social context and its structural categories. In the second part of this chapter, I go a step further by claiming that any action within this social reality can be seen as a presentation of the self. After situating the general shift to performance within social sciences, the performative view on social action is elaborated on the basis of Goffman’s dramaturgical perspective and Butler’s insights on performativity.
The overall goal of this chapter is to develop a general paradigm positioning that forms the lenses through which the theoretical, methodological and empirical parts of this work should be read. A social constructionist and performative stance towards social reality allows for an inclusive approach, taking the situated nature of practices as a starting point to analyse how people invoke and ‘perform’ these practices to create a recognisable everyday world, without losing sight of the institutional and socio-cultural contexts in which it is situated. After summarising the chapter’s main points, the concluding part will elaborate about how such an approach exactly links up to the present research.
2.1 MUCH ADO ABOUT CONTEXT: THE CAUSALITY OR “LOOSE
COUPLING” OF ITS MICRO AND MACRO LEVELS
Context is a multi-faceted concept with proven relevance in a wide variety of academic domains. Within social sciences, there seems to be a shared research interest in the analysis of social structures and the everyday social practices 7 This study upholds a broad definition of ‘social interaction’; one that reaches beyond strictly verbal behaviour. Following Goffman’s
understanding of the notion, social interaction can be seen as including “behaviour in public places as well as social encounters,
public meetings and theatrical performances as well as conversations, physical assault and theft as well as buying and selling, driving
a car in a city as well as sexual intercourse in bed.” (Burns, 1992: 17)
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embedded in them. How the relationship between social structure and social action is approached, however, can differ in significant ways and can be an important indication of the concept of context and its related ideas. In making a distinction between the central focal event and the context within which that event is embedded (see Figure 2.1), Goodwin and Duranti (1992: 3) clearly emphasise the necessity to go beyond the event being examined so as to include contextual considerations, such as cultural setting, shared background assumptions, and speech activity. For them, the question of what counts as “relevant context” is largely a matter of “the use of background information to produce and understand action, and the question of how such background information is organized, recognized, invoked and understood” (Goodwin and Duranti, 1992: 10, original emphasis).
Figure 2.1: Relationship context – focal event from Goodwin & Duranti (1992: 3)
Evidently, different research paradigms uphold different conceptualisations of what this “background information” may or may not entail, and encompass different ideas about the possibility of defining this information either before or within the analysis. This classic dilemma of the meaning and (a priori) relevance of context is variously tackled within different research traditions. Consequently, the strongly related concepts of ‘identity’, ‘role’, ‘power’, ‘norm’, ‘orientation’, ‘culture’, and ‘definition of the situation’ will be differently used and defined as the relationship between focal event and context, or figure and ground, are differently understood (Zimmerman & Boden, 1991: 5). As such the meaning of context is anything but static and shifts significantly according to the types of framework used, and the starting points adopted.
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The anthropologist Arjun Appadurai is one among many social scientists who perceptively reflect on the interplay between locality and context. Using the setting of “neighbourhoods” as the focal event, Appadurai (1995, 1996, 2003) sets out to examine the ways in which these localities are related to wider social formations such as nation-states. Appadurai argues that neighbourhoods can be seen as localities that are the prerequisite to the ritualised and regular production of local subjects, as shown for instance in the socialisation processes related to new members. On the other hand, since these local subjects produce, reproduce, interpret and perform social actions, they potentially contribute to the production of new contexts: “through the vagaries of social action by local subjects, neighborhood as context produces the context of neighborhoods” (Appadurai, 1996: 185). He coined the term “translocality” (Appadurai, 1995, 1996, 2003) to emphasise this intrinsic dialectic nature of context. As Carpentier (2008: 246) argues, Appadurai’s notion of the translocal “allows theorising the moments where the local is effectively expanded by moving into the realm of the outer context”. Translocality is the moment when localities, on a micro-scale, are transgressed and extended through connections to broader, macro-scale formations:
[T]ies of marriage, work, business, and leisure weave together various circulating populations with kinds of “locals” to create localities that belong in one sense to particular nation-states but are, from another point of view, what we might call translocalities. (Appadurai, 2003: 339, original emphasis)
Applied to the present study, the concept of translocality would, for instance, open the way to dealing with how the locality of the television studio and the interactions taking place therein, are connected to larger systems of meaning and social formations, such as “journalism”, “politics” or “broadcasting”. If we were to try to schematise Appadurai’s distinction between the local, the translocal and the outer context in accordance with the model in Goodwin and Duranti (1992), one could adjust the scheme as follows:
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Figure 2.2: Relationship locality – translocality - context
As visualised by the two-directional arrow, the notion of translocality is appropriate for elucidating and examining how local spaces are tied intrinsically to the larger contexts in which they are situated.
With this assumption, it is not so difficult to make the leap from an anthropological perspective on geography, to discourse analytic approaches to context. Like Appadurai – and many other scholars of his ilk, discourse analysts have been predominantly occupied with trying to conceptualise (albeit not always using the same terminology) the relationship and distinction between the local, translocal and outer context. In contrast to Appadurai’s attention to context in relation to geographic (trans)localities, discourse analytic researchers are interested in the study of “talk and text in context” (van Dijk, 1997: 3). Generally, context within discourse analysis can be understood as “the way in which linguistic forms – i.e. talk and text – become part of, get integrated in, or become constitutive of larger activities in the social world” (Blommaert, 2005: 39). However, given the multidisciplinary character of discourse studies (van Dijk, 2011), understanding of context and its relationship with talk and text may vary significantly. Depending on the view taken, the notion of context is variously situated at either the “big” level of broader categorisations of social life, or at the “small” level of sequential organisation of social interaction. It is in this respect that Carpentier and De Cleen (2007) claim for a distinction between the macro and micro approaches to text and context. For, as Blommaert (2005: 40) stipulates, within discourse studies, “context is potentially everything and context is potentially infinite” (Blommaert, 2005: 40, original emphasis).
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2.1.1 TEXT-IN-CONTEXT AND CONTEXT-IN-TEXT: THE DANGERS OF
REDUCTIONISM AND MICRO-ANALYTIC MYOPIA WITHIN DISCOURSE
ANALYSIS
As mentioned before, two broad perspectives tend to dominate the field of discourse analysis: the ‘critical’ macro-contextual, and the ‘interactionist’ micro-contextual discursive positions (e.g. Benwell & Stokoe, 2006; Blommaert, 2005; Carpentier & De Cleen, 2007; De Fina et al., 2006; Jaworski & Coupland, 1999; van Dijk, 2011). From their respective points of view, these approaches address the questions of whether talk and text are the result or an indicator of social structural categories, and whether social structure should be analysed at the broad macro level of institutions and organisations or at the micro level of human behaviour. As the formulation of these questions suggests, debate has all too often been in the form of either-or statements, between two sides on a micro-macro continuum. While the critical discursive traditions tend to see context as a relatively stable and given construct, the interactionist discursive research strands approach context as inherently produced at the local level, in and through human activities.
A CRITICAL DISCURSIVE APPROACH TO CONTEXT
Exemplary of the critical discursive approach are the analytical and theoretical positions of critical discourse analysis (CDA) (e.g. Fairclough, 1992, 1997, 2003; Van Dijk, 1993, 1998, 2008; Wodak, 1995, 1996), discourse theory (Laclau & Mouffe, 1985), positioning theory (e.g. Davies & Harré, 1999; Harré & van Langenhove, 1999) and the critical branch of discursive psychology (e.g. Billig, 1999a, 1999b; Potter & Wetherell, 1987; Wetherell 1998). Albeit heterogeneous and diffuse in character, they typically share a mutual concern within socio-cultural themes and opt for an explicit critical stance towards the macro-sociological aspects of context (van Dijk, 1993: 252). As such, the notions of power, racism, inequality and ideology are key to their theoretical and methodological jargon. Critical discourse analysts are particularly interested in investigating how such notions are represented in and articulated through specific textual materials and, eventually, how these
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representations and articulations are related to larger systems of power and knowledge (Fairclough, 1997; Fairclough & Wodak, 1997; Fairclough et al., 2011; van Dijk, 2001, 2003; Wodak, 1995). As a result, analytic attention traditionally focuses on “texts” in the broad sense of materialisations of meaning, rather than on conversational instances – i.e. “talk” – (Carpentier & De Cleen, 2007: 277). Furthermore, proponents of the critical discursive strands of theorising are likely to take constraint and externality for granted in their analyses, and assume that interaction is a product of social structure. Consequently, the notion of context tends to be conceptualised from a top-down perspective: “we pay more attention to ‘top-down’ relations of dominance than to ‘bottom-up’ relations of resistance, compliance and acceptance” (van Dijk, 1993: 250). By means of a priori contextualisations, critical trends in discourse analysis tend to examine the social situatedness of discourse – in the sense of Gee’s earlier mentioned big “D” Discourse – (Blommaert, 2005: 52).
Figure 2.3: Relationship text-context in critical discursive approaches
Although the starting points of this critical discursive approach, especially in relation to CDA, will recur and be further explained throughout the theoretical chapters of this thesis, it is evident that this approach has provoked criticism, not at least from proponents of the interactionist discursive tradition. Their critiques have centred predominantly on the critical discursive theorists’ general perspective towards context, as well as on their approaches to theory and analysis (see especially Schegloff, 1997, 1999a,
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1999b). I would contend that critical scholars risk falling prey to reductionism in their tendency to overemphasise and unilaterally presume the manifestation and stability of broader “orders of discourse” (Fairclough, 1992) or “interpretative repertoires” (see Potter & Wetherell, 1987) in local conduct, neglecting the relevance-to-the-participants in the interactional, immediate context (e.g. Thornborrow, 2002: 18). This danger of reductionism, according to the interactionists, is reflected also in the ways critical discourse analysts deal with theory and the overly textual material they opt to use for their analyses. Hence, they have been blamed repeatedly for excessive resort to theoretical frameworks to define the terms for making sense of the world, of the sort Schegloff (1997: 167) calls “theoretical imperialism”.
AN INTERACTIONIST DISCURSIVE APPROACH TO CONTEXT
By contrast, micro-analytic approaches to discourse see context and text as inherently produced at the local level, in and through human activities. Work in symbolic interactionism (e.g. Goffman, 1959), interactionist discursive psychology (e.g. Antaki & Widdicombe, 1998; Widdicombe & Wooffitt, 1995), ethnomethodology (e.g. Garfinkel, 1967 [1984]) and CA (e.g. Hutchby & Wooffitt, 1998; Pomerantz & Fehr, 1997; Psathas, 1995; Ten Have, 2007; Sacks et al., 1974) is typically occupied with the sense-making practices of people in their day-to-day activities. In their search to determine the local orientations, interpretations and understandings of people in interactional encounters, such ‘bottom-up’ approaches suggest replacing the focus on macro phenomena with an emphasis on people’s local practices in the sequential development of talk-in-interaction (Schegloff, 1997). Unlike advocates of the critical tradition, interactionists consider talk and social interaction “in its own terms” (Schegloff, 1997: 171) and refrain from invoking sociocultural concerns in their analyses. Accordingly, interactionist approaches are strongly inductive and analytically grounded in their avoidance of theoretical abstractions and their stress on the value of “unmotivated looking” as the main guiding principle in its methodologies (Psathas, 1995: 45). In part, the assumption is that participants in an interaction will show an explicit understanding of contextual features in their local interactional behaviour, for these features to become relevant for the researcher. Consequently, “the
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presumptive relevance of standard sociological concerns such as the nature of the setting or the social identities of participants is suspended” (Zimmerman & Boden, 1991: 9). Rather than starting with a “bucket” theory of context (Heritage, 1987) according to which pre-existing circumstances are seen as constraining the talk-in-interaction, interactionists argue that social structure and its contextual categories can be involved in the analysis only when demonstrably oriented by the participants (Antaki & Widdicombe, 1998). Hence, there is a plea for “relevance-to-the-parties as the warrant for relevance-for-the-analyst in order to specify how the orientation to a context has become consequential for the participants’ conduct” (Arminen, 2000: 446). The notions of “procedural consequentiality”, “procedural relevancy” and “demonstrable orientation” (Schegloff, 1968, 1991; see also Chapter 6) are exemplars of the way interactionists deal with the link between social structure and social action, or institution and interaction. In paying attention to how participants display their orientations to social structure and its contextual categories in the local developments of interactions, they explicitly refrain from going along with the traditional dichotomisations or causal definitions of micro/macro and structure/agency and fundamentally reconceptualise the relationship between the interaction order and the social order as only “loosely coupled” (see Goffman, 1983: 11, but also Schegloff, 1991, 1997, 2006). For interactionists, structure is eminently constituted within talk and one does not need necessarily to venture beyond talk to demonstrate this (Drew & Heritage, 1992; Heritage & Greatbatch, 1991). Viewed thusly, interaction order and social structure are implicated in each other, and context becomes a local accomplishment (Garfinkel, 1967 [1984]) that needs to be dynamically produced and “brought into being” (Heritage, 1984: 290) in collaborative ways by the participants in an interaction:
Rather than seeing contexts as abstract social forces which impose themselves on participants, conversation analysts argue that we need to begin from the other direction and see participants as knowledgeable social agents who actively display for one another (and hence also for observers and analysts) their orientation to the relevance of contexts. (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 1998: 147)
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In this respect, John Gumperz’s (1982, 1992) thinking on contextualisation is appropriate. Taking an interactional sociolinguistic approach, Gumperz (1982, 1992) found that participants in an interaction are preoccupied with signalling to each other the relevant context for the interpretation of their behaviour. In Auer’s (1992: 4) view, Gumperz’s notion of contextualisation includes “all activities by participants which make relevant, maintain, revise, cancel… any aspect of context, which, in turn, is responsible for the interpretation of an utterance in its particular locus of occurrence”. Through the use of “contextualization cues” (Gumperz, 1982: 131), participants can point in their talk at the background knowledge or contextual presuppositions that are thought to be relevant for making sense of their activities. The process of contextualisation and the use of contextualisation cues clearly suggest a reorientation from looking at context to looking at the process through which context is being made available in and through social interaction. Consequently, interactionist scholars support a dynamic conceptualisation of context, emphasising the flexibility with which participants actively shape and reshape context through their social actions (Auer, 1992: 21; Gumperz, 1982: 131; Sarangi & Roberts, 1999: 30). Rather than seeing context and its sociocultural categories, such as class, gender and ethnicity, as taken-for-granted parameters that can be established before the analysis, interactionists see context as interactively constructed by the participants in an interaction. As such, context becomes the emergent outcome of participants’ joint efforts to make it available (Auer, 1992: 22).
Figure 2.4: Relationship text-context in interactionist discursive approaches
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It is especially this interactionist reconceptualisation of context as the outcome of social action (see Carpentier & De Cleen, 2007: 276) that has been subjected to copious critical voices denouncing its alleged ignorance of broader socio-cultural contexts. It has been claimed that the typical interactionist “bracketing procedure” (Schutz, 1962 in Heritage, 1987: 231) and the renowned policy of “ethnomethodological indifference” (Garfinkel & Sacks, 1970), which requires the analyst to suspend any privileged version of social structure, would degenerate into an excessive over-emphasis on agency and social action (Billig, 1999a, 1999b; Wetherell, 1998). In their study of the orderliness of talk and explicit avoidance of a priori involvement of contextual features, interactionist researchers are overly attentive to matters of local structure and organisation in talk and remain ignorant of broader, not-oriented-to, features of the interaction (Abell & Stokoe, 2001: 420; Antaki & Widdicombe, 1998: 8; Billig, 1999a: 547; Wetherell, 1998). The ethnomethodological stance, then, fails to relate reflections on the local emergence of institutional identities and power relationships to the broader contexts in which they are situated (Wooffitt, 2005: 186). It should be no surprise, then, that the approach has been criticised for conveying an “essentially non-critical view of the social world” (Billig, 1999a: 552). On that account, advocates of the critical discursive tradition argue for the need to invoke interpretative repertoires and socio-cultural concerns in any qualitative analysis of talk (Wetherell, 1998). Interactionists would probably retort that they neither confirm nor deny the existence of social structure, but instead are concerned with how contextual characteristics implicated by the social structures are relevant and consequential for talk (Schegloff, 1991: 196). However, it should also come as no s urprise that proponents of the interactionist approach to discourse have been warned about and blamed for what has been variously termed “sequential purism” (McHoul et al., 2008: 828), “micro-analytic myopia” (Wilson, 1986 in Mehan, 1991) and “micro chauvinism” (Turner, 2006: 4).
It is clear that, within the various strands of discourse analysis, several important differences can be found in how interaction and the social or institutional order are intertwined, with evident repercussions for the formulation of research questions, the character of the corpus, and the involvement of extra-situational or ethnographic information. Whether
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context is seen as existing in advance of discourse or as inherently emerging in and through discourse, each of the approaches has been subject to similar critique, of a tendency to overemphasise the causality and formality of the relations between social structure and social interaction. The debates between the critical and interactionist discursive positions have led to a number of theoretical exercises on how to overcome the fallacies of both paradigms in favour of an inclusive approach. In the following, I turn to the work of Giddens (1976, 1982), Linell (1998a), and a body of applied conversation analytic research (Hutchby 1999a, 1999b; Kothoff, 1997; Moerman, 1998, 1990, 1992; Silverman, 1997; Thornborrow, 2002) to present social constructionism as such a comprehensive framework allowing for the building of bridges.
2.1.2 SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM AS DIALOGISM
Adopting a dialectic perspective to text and context, the framework of social constructionism yields the possibility of transcending the traditional ambivalence of the ruling theoretical and methodological strands of thinking within discourse analysis. Arguing in favour of a both-and approach, social constructionists tend to maintain a belief in the co-dependency between the micro and macro levels, and try to reconcile the illustrious critical and interactionist discursive positions. The notions of social constructionism and constructivism are closely related and often used interchangeably, but, as several scholars argue (Gergen, 2001: 121; Shotter, 1995), there are some differences. While both perspectives share a view of the social world as a dynamic process constantly produced and reproduced by social actors, constructivism tends to concentrate on the individual construction of reality and personal subjectivity (cfr. the works of Bruner (1990) and Vygotsky (1978)), whereas social constructionism leans more towards a focus on the social and discourse as vehicles through which the world is articulated (cfr. the works of Bakhtin (1986), Butler (1990), Foucault (1972) and Garfinkel (1967 [1984])). Considering this distinction, this study uses the –ionism variant and its emphasis on the necessity of mutuality and collaboration in the process of meaning-making and social construction. A basic argument in the social constructionist perspective is that people actively perform, construct and negotiate knowledge and identities within discourse.
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Hence, it shares with the critical discursive approach that the construction of meaning can be affected by social structures such as historical backgrounds, institutional conventions, norms and routines. At the same time, however, social constructionists appear to be subscribing equally to the interactionist claim, in their recognition that these predetermined structures need to be brought into interaction in order to be maintained. Wilson (1991: 75, emphasis added) further explains this relativist stance of social constructionism in contending that “the constructionist line of investigation, as I see it, studies the situated artful practices of people and the ways in which these are employed to create an objectified everyday world without losing sight of institutional and cultural context”. This idea of society as dialectically constituted finds its roots in sociology and, more specifically, in the work of Berger and Luckmann (1966). Influenced by the work of Alfred Schutz (1962), Berger and Luckmann were among the first to consider reality as a social construct. Ever since, and in light of the renowned discursive and postmodernist turns in the social sciences, scholars identifying with its key principles have variously attempted to further conceptualise the social constructionist paradigm (Benwell & Stokoe, 2006). Three strands of work that are worthy of specific elaboration for their fruitful development of inclusive constructionist alternatives to the traditional dichotomies are: Giddens’s (1976, 1982) structuration theory, Linell’s (1998a) dialogism, and nuanced forms of CA (Hutchby, 1999a, 1999b; Kothoff, 1997; Moerman, 1988, 1990, 1992; Silverman, 1997; Thornborrow, 2002).
The sociologist Anthony Giddens (1976, 1982) has dealt thoroughly with how the relationship between structure and agency can be understood.8 Specifically, he refers to the “dialectic of control” to describe the interplay between autonomy and dependency, which he claims is prevailing in every social situation (Giddens, 1982: 39). Through this theoretical concept, he is able to conceptualise structure and agency as complementary and interdependent notions of a duality that he calls the “duality of structure” (Giddens, 1982: 36). He proclaims that: “By this duality of structure, I mean that social structures are both constituted by human agency, and yet at the same time are the very medium of this constitution” (Giddens, 1976: 121). 8 While Giddens is not a self-confessed social constructionist, his extensive theorising on the constructed nature of social reality
shows that he at least is “amenable to the social constructionist perspective” (Tucker, 1998: 203).
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Hence, social structure is viewed as both the resource and the product of human conduct (Giddens, 1982: 36). In Giddens’s view, social structure can guide the routine activities of people over time, but needs constant reproduction in order to be maintained: “At the most basic level social order for Giddens consists of patterns which would have no existence outside actions of the individuals who recreate them in their routine behaviour” (Haugaard, 2002: 101). According to Giddens (1982: 38), social structure is made up of rules and resources which people selectively draw on in the production of interaction. In treating resources and rules of conduct - which he eventually classifies under the umbrella term “strategies of control” - as trans-situational properties of social identities needing to be effectuated in human activity, he contributed significantly to the on-going debates at the time (Cohen, 1987: 298, see also Chapter 5 in this work).
A similar attempt to synthesise and overcome the long-established dichotomy between structure and agency can be found in the work of Linell. In his influential book Approaching Dialogue (1998a), Linell proposes the notion of “dialogism” as an effective and inclusive way to study talk. Central to Linell’s dialogism is the understanding that structure and action, or – in his terms – context and discourse, are reflexively related and mutually constituted. When he refers to “discourse-through-contexts and contexts-through-discourse”, Linell (1998a: 136) emphasises the interplay between structure and agency. In his view, discourse, within the meaning of ‘talk’, is not only manifestly embedded within context but contexts are also constantly invoked, generated and reconstructed in interaction. Aronsson (1998a: 76) similarly stresses this duality in her claim that social context should be “analyzed as something that is shaped through talk and as something that shapes talk”. It is in this sense that Linell (1998a: 63) speaks of “social reconstructionism” and argues that:
the construction, conceptualization, negotiation and contextualization of understandings of the world that take place in situated interactions build upon constructions, concepts, negotiated contracts and contextual frames that are in a sense taken as given, and used as resources for re-construction, re-conceptualization, re-negotiation and re-contextualization there-and-then.
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Dialogism, then, is presented in Linell’s (1998a, 2009) work as an apt theoretical and epistemological framework for studying how people, through their local activities, constantly bring into being constructions that are in part already there. Like Giddens, Linell (1998a: 60) acknowledges the stability of certain contextual resources over different social situations and stresses the significance of local reproduction: “social structures are (re)created, tried out, tested, negotiated and modified every time they are instantiated or drawn upon”. His problematising of the notion of context is relevant in this respect. Linell (1998a) argues that the use of “context”, in its singular form, is in itself problematic, since it suggests the possibility of being defined and encompassed in a single model. The risk that follows from seeing context either as predetermined and prior to discourse (cfr. critical discursive scholars) or as locally emergent in and through discourse (cfr. interactionists), is the tendency to forget the complexity and multidimensionality of the concept (Linell, 1998a: 128). In this way, attempts to “grasp” context often fail to take account of the inherent embeddedness of discourse within a variety of multi-faceted contexts, in plural form. Each stretch of discourse involves a number of contextual relevancies, either at the local level of the immediate setting and interaction, or at the less visible level of the wider socio-cultural environment.
In addition to Linell, a number of scholars have attempted to conceptualise this complexity by identifying various dimensions of context, generally distinguishing between the immediate “co-text” and the more abstract, “mediate” contexts (Linell, 1998a: 128-130), the “proximate” and “distal” levels of context (Schegloff, 1991), or the “proximal” and “extra-situational” contexts (Zimmerman, 1998: 88). Instead of approaching these contextual levels from a dichotomising stance, persistently contradicting the macro-levels of institutions with the micro-levels of interactions, the value of categorising such dimensions of context must be found in the acknowledgement that discourse can never be simply and unequivocally understood by focusing analytic attention on either of these contextual levels. It is in this respect that Linell (1998a: 128) argues interestingly that a given stretch of talk is always “embedded within, or activates, a matrix of different kinds of contexts (or dimensions of context)”. Likewise, Arminen (2005: 33) stresses the relevance of considering the complexity of contexts, when he
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points out that “institutional reality consists of multiple layers of potentially relevant variables – such as gender, age, ethnicity, social status, institutional agenda, expert knowledge, the form of the organization”. Therefore, instead of making claims about “the” context of a stretch of talk or interaction, these arguments rightfully point to the necessity to recognise the availability of a complex matrix of contexts that can be made relevant at any moment in any social encounter, through the local and situated practices of participants. Moreover, in his model of dialogism, Linell (1998a) further endorses the view that some contextual features can be more stable over various local instances than others. Socio-cultural characteristics belonging to the broader, external level of context, such as class, gender, race and ethnicity, for instance, can be said to be more or less fixed social variables that are carried across different local instances. By contrast, features typical of the proximate, immediate local context, are more a matter of the actors’ turn-by-turn accomplishments in the “here and now” and, consequently, are more flexible and shifting. Auer (1992: 26-27) argues, in similar vein, that some “context parameters” can be more a matter of pre-allocation than others. Think, for instance, of the pre-assignment of social roles in institutionalised forms of interaction or the ‘fixed’ visible features belonging to the physical surroundings of the interaction. Such parameters are clearly more default than, for instance, the turn-taking procedures in non-institutionalised talk.
Such social constructionist attempts to build bridges between the interaction order and the social structure have much affinity with recent pleas for nuanced forms of CA considerations (Hutchby, 1999a, 1999b; Kothoff, 1997; Moerman, 1988, 1990, 1992; Silverman, 1997; Thornborrow, 2002). The argument is that CA’s advanced focus on oriented-to structures of talk can provide possibilities for the analysis of aspects CA does not traditionally cover, such as power (Hutchby, 1999a, 1999b; Thornborrow, 2002), identity (Silverman, 1997), ethnographic relevancies (Kothoff, 1997), or cultural contexts (Moerman1988, 1990, 1992). These authors claim that CA’s interactionist focus allows the study of such phenomena as emergent outcomes of talk-in-interaction, rather than as pre-given structures. In his seminal article Beyond Agnosticism?, Hutchby (1999a: 86) strongly endorses this nuanced form of interactional analysis and argues for a more explicit formulation of its research intentions with no shying away from drawing
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conclusions about features that generally are related to the macro level, such as power: “we need to make fewer bones about the fact that the phenomena of talk-in-interaction being analysed are precisely related to what Fairclough (1995) called the higher-level features of society and culture”. According to Hutchby (1999a: 92), the known critical remarks with which CA and other interactionist approaches typically have to cope, can be intrinsically challenged by such an inclusive research attitude. This pool of social constructionist insights is valuable for the purposes of this study, not at least because it allows for establishing the foundations for an overall integrated discursive approach to the study of identity and power in political television talk (see Chapters 3, 4 and 5). As suggested, a distinction between different types of context, as proposed by Linell (1998: 128) and others (e.g. Arminen, 2005: 33; Auer, 1992: 26-27; Schegloff, 1991; Zimmerman, 1998: 88) opens up possibilities to account for both the stable and flexible aspects of social reality. From a recognition of the varied flexibility of a local interactional context, a surrounding physical context, and an outer extra-situational context, and the reflexivity between these contexts and talk and text, social constructionism emphasises the highly dynamic process through which the local and the structural are mutually constituted. Much in line with Appadurai’s (1995, 1996, 2003) earlier mentioned introduction of translocality to conceptualise this dialogism and dynamism, this study puts forward the notion of performance as a useful and crucial bridge-building concept that can be heuristically deployed to concretise this symbiotic relationship between the local and the structural levels of social reality (see Figure 2.5). More concretely, invoking the concept of performance into the theoretical framework permits to account for how – i.e. the practices and processes through which – aspects of social order such as identity and power are ‘done’, ‘brought into being’, produced, negotiated, resisted and reproduced – i.e. ‘performed’ – in dynamic ways in people’s everyday activities. The following elaborates more deeply on this heuristic potential of performance for dealing with the dialogic relationship between talk and text and context(s).
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Figure 2.5: Relationship talk & text-contexts in social constructionism
2.2 PERFORMANCE AS HEURISTIC NOTION
Given the cross-disciplinary presence of the notion, performance is not easily grasped within one model or definition. It is beyond the scope of this doctoral thesis to fully contextualise the notion or to represent all of its subtleties. Rather, the remainder of this chapter situates the notion within a general turn to performance in social sciences and focuses on the not always happily related reference works of Erving Goffman (1959, 1967) and Judith Butler (1990, 1993) in order to arrive at a workable framework for the later study of performance in the more concrete setting of political broadcast talk. Hence, this section sketches the broad contours of work being conducted in the realm of performance and performativity in order to set the tone for the further conceptualisations in this study (cfr. the later theorising on identity and power in Chapters 3, 4 and 5). After an initial account of the performance turn in humanities, I discuss the dramaturgist approach to social life, evident in the works of Goffman, and Butler’s poststructuralist accounts of the performance-notion. Drawing analogies between the world of theatre and social life, Goffman (1959, 1967) was among the first to see individuals as performers who, in their daily lives, are pre-occupied with managing impressions and staging performances. After introducing his dramaturgical view to social life, I emphasise the relevance of approaching the process of identity performance as a discursive accomplishment, by building predominantly on the reasoning of Judith Butler (1990, 1993) in relation to performativity.
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2.2.1 THE TURN TO PERFORMANCE
A piece of theatre, a play, a dance, or an opera are typical forms of culture that involve displays of expressive and specialised competences by performers, in front of an audience (Bauman, 1986 in Schiefellin, 1998: 195). It is in this sense that the concept of performance is most commonly understood as a bounded and intentionally produced enactment implying the production of rehearsed symbolic or aesthetic activities for specific purposes (Bial, 2004: 57; Schieffelin, 1998: 199). Under the influence of a turn to performance within humanities and social sciences, however, the concept has come to be more broadly understood as inherent in the social (Bauman & Briggs, 1990). In light of this turn, scholars have tried variously to apply the original theatrical concept to everyday human behaviour. According to Connor (1996: 108), the concept of performance refers to both “acting” in the sense of spontaneously doing something in an immediate context, and “enacting” in the sense of simulating and repeating. The “rise of performance” (Roberts, 2009: 311) finds its origin in the early work of Kenneth Burke (1945) and, more expressively, in that of Erving Goffman (1959). Already in the 1940s and 1950s, Burke and Goffman were developing an approach to social life as a drama, in which human relationships are seen as dramatic performances, similar to those on a public stage. Two decades later, their ideas were picked up and further developed by those now regarded as the founding fathers of the realm of “performance studies”, namely Richard Schechner (1985) and Victor W. Turner (1988). Closely connected to the artistic world themselves, they were determined to look for congruences between performance arts and social sciences (Schechner, 1998, 2004). They argued for a broadening of the traditional definition of performance to include “a broad spectrum of activities including at the very least the performing arts, rituals, healing, sports, popular entertainments, and performance in everyday life” (Schechner, 2004: 7). Hence, social sciences owe to the field of performance studies the first claims to investigation of how social roles are enacted and popular forms of culture are performed. Since the initial works of Schechner and Turner, the concept of performance has proven its interdisciplinary character, as scholars from various disciplines such as sociology (Goffman, 1959), education (Lyotard,
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1984), queer studies (Butler, 1990) and philosophy (Austin, 1975; Bourdieu, 1977) have continued theorising the notion. From their respective academic backgrounds, these scholars have attempted to account for how identities and power relationships are produced and reproduced in people’s day-to-day activities (Madison & Hamera, 2006). Generally, the notion of postmodern performance is enclosed by a general vagueness about “where action ends and performance begins” (Connor, 1996: 109). Indeed, it seems that almost any form of human behaviour involves a presentation of the self and is, thus, a performance:
To treat any object, work or product ‘as’ performance - a painting, a novel, a shoe, or anything at all - means to investigate what the object does, how it interacts with other objects or beings, and how it relates to other objects or beings. Performances exist only as actions, interactions and relationships. (Schechner, 2002: 24)
People no longer “have” or “are” an identity, but are constantly involved in performing certain practices in order to be seen as embodying an identity (McIlvenny, 2002: 114). As such, “performance has evolved into ways of comprehending how human beings fundamentally make culture, affect power, and reinvent their ways of being in the world” (Madison & Hamera, 2006: 12). Consequently, and in light of the social constructionist movement, the turn to performance relocated attention from structure to agency and shifted the analytic focus from “text” as product, to “performance” as process (Bauman & Briggs, 1990: 67; Roberts, 2009: 312). Similar to the critical and interactionist discursive approaches within the realm of discourse analysis, research in performance studies has dealt diversely with the text-context relationship. As Bauman and Briggs (1990: 67) demonstrate, performance researchers have oriented their research to either the textual or contextual level. The anthropologist Malinowski, for instance, already in 1926 argued for inclusion of the sociocultural and interactional context of language use, in his case folktales in tribal culture. In asserting that “the text, of course, is extremely important, but without context it remains lifeless”, Malinowski (1926 [1948]: 82) clearly emphasised the importance of taking into account the context in which a tale, as performance, is produced.
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Almost ten years later, he extended his argument and developed his renowned concepts of “context of situation” and the broader “context of culture”, by which means he wanted to accentuate that performance is always doubly constituted by “the situation in which the utterance is being made and the situation to which it refers” (Malinowski, 1935: 45 in Kirschenblatt-Gimblett, 1975: 106). Similarly, Goffman (1974), in his later work, called attention to the ubiquity of the “frames” that structure individuals’ performances. Goffman believes that social settings form specific frames of meanings, rules and expectations according to which interaction is organised. However, others, such as Blackburn (1988 in Bauman & Briggs, 1990:67), called attention to a microsociological approach to performance. In a way that is similar to the social constructionist line within discourse analysis, Bauman and Briggs (1990) tried to overcome the classic opposition between the textually and contextually oriented realms within performance studies. Using the earlier discussed notion of contextualisation as a bridge to transcend the traditional “micro-macro problem” (Bauman & Briggs, 1990: 79), they try to take account of the situated nature of performance, while not losing sight of its connections to the larger systemic structures in which they are organised. When performing, individuals make use of – what Gumperz (1982: 131) had defined earlier as – “contextualization cues” and, as such, make available and bring into being the relevant contexts surrounding the performance. In this respect, performance researchers set great store by the ‘routinisation’ that affects many social behaviour. It is claimed that performance generally entails any action in social reality that implicates the presentation of routinised behaviour. The iterative character of social life, through which people repetitively bring into play routines in their day-to-day activities, plays a major role in the constitution and even preservation of the social order and its organisation (see Butler, 1990, 1993 below). Giddens (1984: 72) further explains: “the routinization of encounters is of major significance in binding the fleeting encounter to social reproduction and thus to the seeming ‘fixity’ of institutions”. This apparent “fixity” of the social order by no means insinuates that individuals are powerless subjects, acting unquestionably according to pre-established social arrangements. Instead, the turn to performance takes account of the possibility of resistance, through which individuals may appeal to subversive practices in order to challenge
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established norms and rules. As will become clear in the discussion of Butler’s performativity, the shift towards performance in social sciences “provided opportunities to think of not becoming, of undoing of possibly contesting gender’s reified status” (McIlvenny, 2002: 114, original emphasis). While many performance studies and theories are directed at gendered selves, many of their reflections and insights can be extended to a theory of identity in general (see Chapter 3).
2.2.2 THE DRAMATURGICAL MODEL
In his 1959 book, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, the sociologist Erving Goffman develops a dramaturgical approach to social interaction. He was among the first scholars to take the context of the theatre as a framework for the analysis and interpretation of non-theatrical conduct (Bial, 2004: 57). More specifically, Goffman used the world of theatre and drama as a metaphor for investigating how people put on different performances in various situations and co-operate in maintaining or negotiating a definition of the situation. Drawing on a number of theatre-related terms, such as “front” and “back” stage or regions, “routines”, “parts”, “roles”, and “teams” – all of which will be elaborated further in this work, Goffman was preoccupied with conceptualising everyday life as a “stage” where people carefully manage the presentation of their selves. Just like the actors on a stage, in their interactions with each other people play social roles, change characters and costumes, and adhere to conventional norms (Meyrowitz, 1990: 71). For Goffman (1959: 253), the self is a performed character, a “dramatic effect arising diffusely from a scene that is presented”. Rather than being an organic and fixed entity that resides in its possessor, the self is presented as a thoroughly social process. It is through the managing of impressions and staging of performances, that individuals convey and construct performances of (aspects of) their selves. In public, people will always stage a particular understanding of the definition of the situation, and – thus – of their selves, through what they say, how they act and which images they project. Consequently, social reality, and the identities and power relationships that circulate in it, are constructed and articulated in the world by means of performative activities (Schieffelin, 1998: 200).
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Goffman (1959: 15) defines performance as “all the activity of a given participant on a given occasion which serves to influence in any way any of the other participants”. Although broad and somewhat vague, this definition emphasises the selectivity by which participants in an interaction display some roles and practices, while concealing others. It should be no surprise, then, that, for Goffman, the performance of social conduct is strongly strategic and largely a matter of managing impressions and developing appropriate strategies:
When an individual plays a part he implicitly requests his observers to take seriously the impression that is fostered before them. They are asked to believe that the character they see actually possesses the attributes he appears to possess, that the task he performs will have the consequences that are implicitly claimed for it, and that, in general, matters are what they appear to be. (Goffman, 1959: 17).
Consequently, when people interact with each other, they do more than merely communicate information; they perform images of themselves that they want others to accept (Diamond, 1996: 18). In repeating his point that people are preoccupied in social life with “putting on a show”, Goffman (1959: e.g. 231) illustrates the alleged importance of impression management very lucidly. People constantly develop and employ strategies in their interactions with others so as to credibly play their normative roles and keep “face”, be it sincerely or cynically (Goffman, 1959: 17-18). In his later work, Goffman (1967) continued to expound on his dramaturgical framework, and came to set great store by the routinised aspects of social life. In recognising that social life is permeated with routine rituals, Goffman further developed his thinking on the normative dimension of performance. Interpersonal social interaction is governed by a set of rules and guidelines, which show themselves especially at critical moments in an interaction such as openings and closings. Such moments typically are tied to a number of mutual expectations and obligations, which people need to adhere to in order to remain in line with the moral standards of society. To illustrate this point, Goffman (1967: 71) gives the example of the interactional sequences that stereotypically accompany the “noticing” of a change in
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appearance: “new clothes, new hairdos, occasions of being ‘dressed up’ would call forth a round of compliments, whatever the group felt about the improvement”. Thus, while social encounters typically occur as routines, Goffman (1959: 49) posits that individuals tend to obscure the iterative nature of social life and foster the impression that their performance is unique and spontaneous.
2.2.3 PERFORMATIVITY IN TALK-IN-INTERACTION
Goffman’s thinking on performance has anticipated later work on performance theory, especially by Richard Schechner (1985), Victor Turner (1988) and Judith Butler (1990, 1993). Like Goffman, they approach social interaction as a performance, taking place under the premises of a given setting – or “frame”, in Goffman’s terminology - within which participants are engaged in continuous modes of self-presentation for the purpose of accomplishing their goals (Benwell & Stokoe, 2006: 34). However, there are some important differences in these approaches. In her poststructuralist theorising9 on gender identity, Judith Butler (1990) especially opposes the intentionality with which Goffman’s performers act and display presentations of the self. For Goffman (1959), participants, when in co-presence, are occupied with intentionally calculating strategies and tactics in order to keep “face” and achieve personal objectives. However, Butler explicitly resists this view of self as inherently cynical, rational and intentional, and calls attention to the subtlety with which people may unconsciously enact established social norms and routines (Benwell & Stokoe, 2006: 34). It is this role of the repeated recycling of prevalent standards in society in ways that are not always situated at a conscious level that Butler conceptualises in the term “performativity”. Inspired by Austin’s (1975) theorising on speech act theory, Butler first proposed this concept in 1990 and clarified it further in Critically Queer (Butler, 1993). With her focus on
9 While it is clear that Butler’s work has been influenced by and, in turn, has influenced poststructuralist thinking, she did not always
explicitly engage with poststructuralist theory. For instance, in her doctoral thesis, Butler initially – to put it in her own words –
“resisted” (Butler, 1987: xiv) an account of poststructuralist thought. It was not until the publication of her thesis in a revised version
three years later (i.e. Subjects of Desire, 1987), that she started to integrated the ideas of French poststructuralist thinkers such as
Derrida, Lacan, Kristeva, Foucault and Deleuze (see Lloyd, 2007: 13).
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performativity rather than performance, Butler stresses the discursive and unintentional character of (gender) identity. She explicitly rejects the idea of an authentic, original or pre-discursive self that lies behind or beneath the performance and deliberatively steers its activities, and so arrives at the same conclusion as Nietzsche that: “there is no ‘being’ behind the doing, acting, becoming; ‘the doer’ is merely a fiction added to the deed – the deed is everything” (Butler, 1990: 25). Rather than focusing attention on the ‘act’, the ‘performance’, or the ‘done’, Butler overtly concentrates on the ‘doing’ and, consequently, opts to relocate attention from the theatrical to the discursive (Madison & Hamera, 2006: 19; McKenzie, 1998: 226). It is at this point that she distinguishes Goffman’s ‘performance’ from ‘performativity’:
In no sense can it be concluded that the part of gender that is performed is therefore the “truth” of gender; performance as bounded “act” is distinguished from performativity insofar as the latter consists in a reiteration of norms which precede, constrain, and exceed the performer and in that sense cannot be taken as the fabrication of the performer’s “will” or “choice”, further, what is “performed” works to conceal, if not to disavow, what remains opaque, unconscious, un-performable. The reduction of performativity to performance would be a mistake. (Butler, 1993: 24)
Performativity, then, allows for broadening and extending the notion of performance, to include the ways in which “performance constitutes identities and experience, producing and reproducing that to which it refers” (Langellier, 1999: 129, original emphasis). The necessity for adding performativity to performance can be found in the stress on the constitutiveness of performance (Langellier, 1999: 129) as well as its iterability (McKenzie, 1998: 227). Butler (1990: 145) explains the latter by claiming that “all signification takes place within the orbit of the compulsion to repeat”. She thus presents performativity as a normative reiteration and re-enactment of socially established meanings (McKenzie, 1998; Speer & Potter, 2002). This does not mean that subjects are per se constrained by these iterations or compelled to follow the norms. Instead, taking the performance of drag as an example, Butler (1990: 145) leaves room for alternative performativities and
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locates agency “within the possibility of a variation on that repetition”. Agency and the possibility of subversive performativity are, then, not a matter of “whether to repeat, but how to repeat or, indeed, to repeat and (…) to displace the very gender norms that enable the repetition itself” (Butler, 1990: 148, original emphasis). While the notion of performativity allows for theoretical treatment of the construction of social reality, it has been argued that, like many other forms of abstract theorising, it lacks the methodological tools for an empirical analysis of language use in context (e.g. Widdicombe & Wooffitt, 1995: 28). Consequently, it has been claimed that Butler’s politics of performativity “does not provide an analytic programme for studying discourse practices”, nor does it account for “an examination of the local accomplishment of gendered and prejudiced actions in real-life situations” (Speer & Potter, 2002: 158, 174, original emphasis). Although many of the concerns of poststructuralist theorising differ from those of micro-analytic traditions, scholars have attempted in various ways to reconcile the arguments of performativity with the concrete methodological tools of interactionist approaches found in CA (McIlvenny, 2002) or discursive psychology (Speer & Potter, 2002). As McIlvenny (2002: 112) states: “we need to consider carefully in what ways CA might be relevant and applicable to feminism and queer studies, especially with regard to developing an appropriate methodology for analysing the performativity and sexuality in talk”. Guided by the motivation of “revisiting and (re)theorising the analysis of talk”, McIlvenny (2002: 111) and Speer and Potter (2002) note congruencies between the theorising of Butler and ethnomethodological accounts, especially with regard to the notions of agency, identity and normativity. In conceiving identity as something people “do”, Butler’s theory resembles the micro-analytic tenet of sequential orientations and “bringing into being” (McIlvenny, 2002: 111). Equally, the poststructuralist rejection of a pre-existing substantial self as purported by Butler (1990), necessarily draws attention to interactional encounters in their own right (Hall, 2000: 186). Accordingly, it has been claimed that a micro-analytic focus on orientations and local relevancies, combined with the theoretical insights of performativity theory, provide opportunities for examining how speakers deal with the normative expectations of their speech in the on-going production of their identities, and
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could bring to the surface what otherwise is regarded as natural or normal (McIlvenny, 2002; Speer & Potter, 2002). In relation to the present study’s focus on identity construction in political television talk, this methodological exercise of studying identity-in-context will be responded later in this work, by proposing a combination of the analytic procedures of CA and ethnography (cfr. Chapter 6).
2.3 A SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONIST AND PERFORMATIVE LENS:
SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS
Through an examination of the established critical and interactionist discursive research traditions, I have suggested that their respective top-down and bottom-up perspectives on the relationship between interaction and social structure can be problematised. It is especially their approaches to and conceptualisations of the notion of context that appear to be subject of criticisms, chiefly denouncements of their causal definitional view of the connection between local situational actions and the wider social context. Whereas the critical discursive strands in the literature tend to overemphasise the relevance of social structural categories as explanatory factors, the interactionist discursive traditions risk overly celebrating the importance of sequential organisation and local participant orientations. An alternative approach is to diversify between different levels of context and acknowledge their connection as mutually constituent. It has been argued that a social constructionist approach allows the study of how this variety of contextual layers is brought into the practice of social interaction; how they are defined, produced and negotiated by participants in their sequential orientations. In this way, the view of discourse and context as interconnected, found in the works of Giddens (1976, 1982) and Linell (1998a, 2009), and the pleas for applied forms of CA, create possibilities for exploring how social structural categories and local sequential relevancies are interwoven in the on-going course of interaction. The notion of performance would appear to be crucial for further elaborating this entwinement. In the light of a general turn to performance in social sciences, social life has come to be seen as permeated by dramatic performances of the self, maintained and guided by the habitual
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repetition of established social meanings. Instantiated by Goffman (1959) and his dramaturgical framework, the notion of performance has been further expanded and conceptualised, not least by the poststructural feminist philosophies of Judith Butler (1990, 1993). Partly as a critique of Goffman’s interpretation of performance as a kind of strategic manipulation of impressions, Butler suggests adding the notion of performativity to performance and, as such, shifts attention from the finished act or the ‘done’ to a more dynamic process of identity construction as a discursive practice of ‘doing’. Overall, this chapter has developed a “lens” through which the remaining study should be read. The social constructionist and performative framework presented are of particular relevance to study how social structural categories, such as professional identity and power, are accomplished in the interactional context of political broadcast talk. While a social constructionist perspective makes it possible to account for the duality that characterises the theoretical notions of roles, norms, identity and power; the notion of ‘performance’ is involved as a significant heuristic device for investigating how roles, norms, identities and power positions are produced, negotiated and challenged through discursive practices in interactions. The following theoretical chapters subsequently deal with how this framework opens up valuable possibilities for exploring both the embedded and emergent aspects of identity (Chs 3 and 4) and power (Chapter 5) in an institutional context.
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1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11
Ι
CHAPTER 3
THE CONSTRUCTION AND PERFORMANCE OF
IDENTITIES IN DISCOURSE
Chapter 3 sets out to explore how the general social constructionist and performative approach can be applied to the study of identity. As people move across social contexts, they are necessarily confronted with a wide portfolio of circulating identities, which affect both themselves and others. To recognise and appoint, as an analyst, when a social identity is operative in a particular context-under-study has formed the nexus of some fierce debates in social sciences (e.g. Antaki et al., 1996; Benwell & Stokoe, 2006; Jenkins, 2008; Wetherell, 2010; Widdicombe, 1998). From an understanding of identity as either private or social, monolithic or multiple, agency-related or structurally determined, approaches as varied as social identity theory, social categorisation theory, CDA, CA and symbolic interactionism have made considerable efforts to grasp and conceptualise the complex notion.
This multiplicity of approaches can be categorised roughly into social psychological approaches and discursive approaches. In social psychology, the notion of identity is typically conceptualised from an interest in the private mental processes that are involved in individuals’ group memberships. In this respect, it is social identity theory and social categorisation theory in particular that have extensively elaborated this process of identity formation at the intersection of the private and the social. By contrast, discourse analytic approaches to identity emphasise the discursively constructed and contextually contingent nature of identities. Discourse analysts generally endorse the view that identity is unavoidably and necessarily situated in the context in which it is being made relevant, rather than being an autonomous category residing solely in the individual private self (e.g. Benwell & Stokoe, 2006; Jaworski & Coupland, 1999; Jenkins,
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2008). Within discourse analysis, critical and interactionist strands of theorising have attempted variously to grasp and conceptualise identity as a socially constituted and fluid notion. Despite their mutual focus on the significance of context-sensitivity in relation to the concept of identity, critical and interactionist discursive approaches support different ideas about what exactly should be understood as ‘context’ (cfr. Chapter 2) and, more relevantly for this chapter, about the precise role of this context in the process of identity construction (e.g. Antaki & Widdicombe, 1998; Benwell & Stokoe, 2006; Georgakopoulou, 2006; Jenkins, 2008; McKinlay & Dunnett, 1998).
Building further on the social constructionist approach as suggested in Chapter 2, this chapter proposes an integrated discursive approach to identity to overcome the traditional contradictions between the existing discursive research strands and argues in favour of reconciliation. I suggest that the theoretical and analytical insights of both the critical and interactionist discursive research lines provide the necessary grounds for conceptualising the complexity of identity as being both a matter of a priori assignments in relation to social structural categories and dependent on the local level of agency in order to be accomplished. Identities, then, are both embedded within the structural arrangements of the immediate and larger social contexts, and emergent products of dynamic interactions.
Chapter 3 first deals consecutively with the wide array of approaches conceptualising ‘identity’ within the social sciences. After this general introduction to the social psychological and discursive frameworks, I narrow the focus to the discursive perspective on identity as constituted in and through discourse. The critical and interactionist variants of discourse analysis are discussed and subsequently included in an overall integrated discursive framework for the study of identity. Then, the multiple nature of identity is tackled in more detail, distinguishing identity from the closely related, but often interchangeably used, concepts of role and self. While an inclusion of the role-playing activities of participants in situated encounters is essential to the local accomplishment of wider social identities, a theoretical account of the broader concept of the self allows the complex identity formation processes of individuals to be encompassed. The chapter concludes with some final remarks on the dual and performative character of identity formation.
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3.1 MAPPING THE FIELD OF IDENTITY STUDIES
In common sense social sciences, the versatile and sometimes slippery concept of ‘identity’ has been extensively conceptualised and analysed within a number of different fields (e.g. Benwell & Stokoe, 2006; Jenkins, 2008; Wetherell, 2010; Widdicombe, 1998). Broadly, and as mentioned, this vast body of literature includes two main research traditions - the social psychological and discursive - that have tried and continue to attempt to capture the elusive notion within social science. Each is rooted in distinct research interests and points of departure; social psychologists and discourse analysts have been concerned with how identities reside in social contexts and how the manifestation of identity is related to either mental processes or broader structural arrangements. Depending on the approach adopted, whether one of the traditional social psychological approaches or the more recent discursive research lines, the notion is seen as either bridging between the individual and the social, or as situated at the junction of agency and structure.
Figure 3.1 schematises these social psychological and discursive strands of theorising and positions towards identity. Generally, three broad distinct, but interconnected operational levels of identity formation can be identified within these research traditions: the individual level of private mental processes (related, for instance, to personal biography, attributes, emotions and traits); the social-interactional level of interaction and agency; and the structural level of structural arrangements. Whereas the emphases of social psychology seem to situate the manifestation of identity at the intersection of individual mental processes and the social-interactional level of agency – generally conceptualising how identities reside in individuals’ private qualities, discursive approaches clearly move away entirely from situating identity at the individual level and refocus attention on the connection between agency and structure as the primary site of identity work. Depending on whether a critical or interactionist discursive approach is adopted, more analytic attention is paid to the regulating and influential validity of either the structural or the social-interactional levels, drawing inferences from the analysis of identity on one level in order to make statements about the regulation of the other. By contrast, the integrated
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discursive approach, as adopted in this work, aims to take account of the intrinsic co-dependency between the social-interactional and the structural in order to stress the significance of both agency and structure for the contingent construction of identity. In what follows, this scheme is set out in more detail, focusing consecutively on the social psychological and discursive conceptualisations of identity.
Figure 3.1: Overview of identity formation processes within the social psychological and discursive approaches
3.1.1 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY AND THE INTERSECTION BETWEEN THE PRIVATE
AND THE SOCIAL
Since the 1980s, the strands of thinking in psychology on the pervasiveness of identity in social contexts has been developed and elaborated extensively, not at least under influence of the frameworks of “social identity theory” (SIT - Tajfel & Turner, 1979) and the related “self categorisation theory” (SCT - Turner et al., 1987). As schematised in Figure 3.1, proponents of these traditions generally support a view of identity as being shaped along two central dimensions: the personal level of private mental processes, and the social-interactional level of group memberships. Hence, they tend to pay
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particular attention to the dual “relationship between human psychological functioning and the large-scale social processes and events which shape this functioning and are shaped by it” (Tajfel et al., 1984: 3). In their interest in how people categorise themselves according to psychological and mental private processes, both SIT and SCT tend to approach social identity as a matter of perceptual “reality” (Antaki et al., 1996: 474; McKinlay & Dunnett, 1998: 49). SIT and SCT generally have been preoccupied with explaining individuals’ social behaviour in relation to their memberships of various social groups and, thus, with developing a conception of how individuals mentally internalise social identities (Benwell & Stokoe, 2006: 25; Reicher et al., 2010; Jenkins, 2008: 112; Widdicombe, 1998: 192; Wooffitt & Clark, 1998: 107). While Tajfel (1978) and other followers of SIT and SCT acknowledge the moment-to-moment flexibility of identities, they nevertheless seem to emphasise identities as relatively enduring over time and, as such, tend to uphold a view of identity as a finished project; as being already ‘there’, residing in individual’s qualities – i.e. individual traits, emotions, biographies, idiosyncratic attributes – and ready to be discovered by the social scientist (Antaki et al., 1996: 476). As concerns the position of the social scientist, proponents of SIT and SCT are inclined to bring their theoretically pre-established identity categories to an intentionally installed context, aimed at discovering how identity emerges within these categories (Jenkins, 2008: 114). Thus, the research practice typifying approaches such as SIT and SCT generally entails “the attribution of particular, often stereotypical, social identities to research participants by the researcher” (Antaki et al., 1996: 475). Consequently, research data are collected through laboratory experiments and questionnaires rather than through more observational methods (Turner, 1981 in Antaki et al., 1996: 475).
While many of its theoretical and empirical starting points continue to be closely adhered to and fiercely defended in recent identity studies (e.g. Haslam et al. 2011; Postmes & Branscombe, 2010), the social psychological insights of SIT and SCT do not escape scepticism and criticism, not least from the discourse analytic research strands. These critiques seem to be overly directed towards the social psychologists’ theoretical conceptualisations of identity and their methodological data collection and analysis methods (e.g. Antaki et al., 1996; Edwards, 1998; Jenkins, 2008; Widdicombe, 1998). At the
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theoretical level, it is especially the idea of identity as a private process that has come to be challenged. Discourse analysts, and especially the proponents of its micro variants such as CA, critically proclaim that a social psychological notion of identity would mislead the analyst by too readily imposing social theory on practical reality (e.g. Sacks, 1992). They claim equally that SIT and SCT would underestimate the potential flexibility of identities by ignoring the procedural aspects of social behaviour (e.g. Edwards, 1998: 17; Jenkins, 2008: 115; McKinlay & Dunnett, 1998: 48; Widdicombe, 1998: 193). Hence, from a discourse analytic perspective it is argued that more thorough consideration of the dynamic and contingent nature of identity play would enable social psychological researchers “to identify contextual flexibility in social identities which are masked by current research procedures” (Antaki et al., 1996: 478).
At a more methodological level and from a similar discourse analytic point of view, followers of the SIT and SCT traditions have been criticised for their almost exclusive use of laboratory and isolated experiments - and on a number of grounds. Firstly, the standardised ways through which research subjects are “artificially assembled” (Jenkins, 2008: 114) is problematic for the study of identity, not least because it risks controlling identity and underestimating the potential “plasticity of self-description” (Antaki et al., 1996: 489). All too often within these approaches, identity becomes a matter of a priori ascription and manipulation, thereby underplaying the inherent contingency that is involved in the process of identity construction (Antaki et al., 1996: 475). Secondly, and related to the first problem, is the problem of ‘context’. In the experiments of SIT and SCT researchers, context is overly emphasised as a unilateral and closed environment, isolated from the outside world and existing somehow beyond the participants. This notion of context is considered inherently problematic because it “overlooks the diachronic nature of the research procedure, and the possibility that, in the course of a single ‘piece’ of research, ‘contexts’ may shift and change” (Antaki et al., 1996: 477). Finally, Jenkins (2008: 114) warns about the danger of too easily drawn, generalised conclusions from these isolated contexts. For Jenkins, social psychologists should be cautious about falling into simplified and overly ambitious generalisations on the basis of limited and tightly controlled experiments.
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3.1.2 RELOCATING THE CONCEPT: IDENTITY AS DISCURSIVELY GENERATED
CONSTRUCT
Motivated in part by these criticisms of social psychological approaches, the field of discourse studies, from the mid 1990s, sets out to develop an alternative framework for the study of identity.10 Influenced by the seminal insights of broader poststructuralist and postmodern perspectives, followers of a discursive approach to identity came explicitly to reject the traditional social psychological notion of identity as a fixed cognitive reality, and shifted their attention from examining which identities people have, to how identities are contingently mobilised and constructed in and through discourse (Abell & Stokoe, 2006; Antaki et al. 1996; Benwell & Stokoe, 2006; Jaworski & Coupland, 1999; Potter & Wetherell, 1987; Widdicombe, 1998).11 Whilst often heterogeneous in character, the various strands of discourse analysis all share a central focus on identity as discursively generated, and point to the social-interactional level as essential site for meaning-making and identity work (see Figure 3.1). As such, the relevance of a discursive perspective to identity should be found mainly in its reformulation of the notion as a social construct: “rather than being reflected in discourse, identity is actively, ongoingly, dynamically constituted in discourse” (Benwell & Stokoe, 2006: 4, original emphasis). For discourse analysts, then, categorisations of self and others are discursive actions through and through; they are situationally constructed and always embedded within social interaction. It is in this sense that the typical discourse analytic claim of “situational flexibility” needs to be understood (e.g. Edwards, 1998: 31). In a rejection of the so-called “mechanical variables-and-effects model” (Edwards, 1998: 31), found particularly in SIT and SCT frameworks, discourse analysts point to the value of their approach for situating the ubiquity of identity and its formation
10 The understanding of identity as a social phenomenon and dynamic construct within discourse studies is often contrasted with
Enlightenment thinking. In a rejection of the Enlightment assumption of one universal, rational and autonomous self, hiding behind
or inside the artificial, followers of a discursive approach to identity stress the inherent dynamism and flexibility with which
identities tend to emerge within discourse (Callero, 2003: 118; Hall, 2000).
11 In early psychoanalysis (e.g. Freud) and biological approaches, such as neuropsychology, the social aspect of identity is excluded
completely from the analysis. In these contexts, identity is not even a matter of which identities people have, but is seen as something
people are. The regularities of social behaviour are then understood as the outcome of individual states of mind and determined by
personal traits. In that view, identity simply resides as an inner and private organisation, with very little dynamism between the
individual and socio-interactional level (e.g. Benwell & Stokoe, 2006: 20).
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processes within discourse. Consequently, identity can never be completely fixed or ‘given’ as part of a mental process: “identities are not given entities, static properties or finished projects” (Georgakopoulou, 2006: 83). Instead, identity is seen as an inevitable site of struggle that needs to emerge and re-emerge, and be claimed and negotiated (Jaworski & Coupland, 1999: 412-413; Jenkins, 2008). Moreover, and in part as a logical derivative of the previous, discourse analysts fiercely reject a view of identity as individual or monolithic, and problematise the notion as multidimensional per se, often entailing a wide variety of different constellations within one and the same context (e.g. Abell & Stokoe, 2001; Bucholtz & Hall, 2005; De Fina et al., 2006; Greatbatch & Dingwall, 1998; Weizman, 2008; Zimmerman, 1998). Hence, it is generally upheld that identity can be analysed only when taking account of its multiplicity and the complexities inherent to its construction. Viewed from this angle, identity can never be regarded as a final or fixed category, but “can only be understood as process of ‘being’ or ‘becoming’” (Jenkins, 2008: 17).
While a discourse approach to identity clearly sets great store on the contingency and dynamism with which identities tend to be constructed in and through language, perceptions of how these discursive constructions are related to factors that are external to the immediate interactional setting, differ significantly (Antaki & Widdicombe, 1998; Benwell & Stokoe, 2006; Georgakopoulou, 2006: 83; Jenkins, 2008; McKinlay & Dunnett, 1998). As with the notion of context (cfr. Chapter 2), theoretical attitudes to identity in the discursive research traditions are fragmented and fall roughly into critical and interactionist discursive understandings of the concept. From a differential attitude towards the traditional structure-agency dichotomy, the critical and interactionist discursive approaches hold different ideas about how the process of identity formation through discourse is related to structural characteristics (see Figure 3.1). Whereas critical discursive approaches are generally interested in how identities are imposed on individuals through discourse practices and ideologies that are dominant within wider – capital D – Discourses (cfr. the structural level), interactionists refocus on the social-interactional level (cfr. agency) in order to account for the identifications people dynamically bring into play in concrete social instances. As discussed in Chapter 2, this research – in line with the conciliatory models of Giddens (1976, 1982), Linell (1998a) and applied forms
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of CA (Hutchby, 1999a, 1999b; Kothoff, 1997; Moerman, 1988, 1990, 1992; Silverman, 1997; Thornborrow, 2002) – aims to bridge the traditional contrast between the critical and interactionist research traditions in discourse analysis in order to include their insights in an overall integrated social constructionist and performative paradigm.
3.2 AN INTEGRATED DISCURSIVE APPROACH TO IDENTITY
An integrated discursive approach to the study of identity allows for transcending not only the habitual juxtapositions between the established discursive approaches, but also the corresponding fallacy of assuming causal relationships between structure and agency. Rather than conceptualising identity as either a matter of structural arrangements at the level of Discourse or a purely local accomplishment being oriented to by participants at the social-interactional level, an integrated discursive approach to identity attempts to go beyond this structure-agency opposition. It recognises instead both the social and structural levels as sites of struggle where identities are dynamically accomplished, vied for, negotiated and resisted. Whereas social interactions play a palpable crucial role in the moment-to-moment construction of relevant social identities, overlooking the importance of structure in shaping these social actions and identities would misjudge the structuring power of pre-established arrangements such as the social expectations and normative patterns of conduct that are intimately connected with the wider social context, and vice versa (Antaki & Widdicombe, 1998; Wetherell, 1998; Widdicombe, 1998). In what follows, this dialogism between structure and agency is examined in more detail. Alternately building on critical and interactionist discursive understandings and using the already touched upon performative insights of Judith Butler as a bridge, I show how identity can be both embedded within wider contextual frameworks, and a matter of local accomplishment, appropriation and negotiation.
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3.2.1 IDENTITY AS EMBEDDED CONSTRUCT
In order to conceptualise identity as a feature partly depending on pre-established structural arrangements, it is useful to draw on the seminal insights in critical discursive and related (post-)structuralist perspectives. For critical discourse analysts and (post-)structuralists, actors are constantly involved in projecting identities that are connected to broader contextual categories such as groups, institutions or cultures (e.g. Billig, 1999a, 1999b; Fairclough, 1992, 1997; Foucault, 1977, 1978, 1982 [2001], 1994; Laclau & Mouffe, 1985; van Dijk, 1997). In this sense, the broader meaning-making systems – i.e. Discourses, appear to play a crucial role in the regulation and manifestation of identities in social instances. The work of Michel Foucault (1970, 1972, 1977, 1978) has been influential in the critical view of discourse analysis on identity construction. While Foucault himself seldom used the term ‘identity’, his ideas on “the subject” created fertile ground for later theorising on the concept (see also 3.3.2 below). Foucault believed that subjects always operate within the limits of the Discourse or, in his terms, the “épistème” (Foucault, 1970) or in his later reconceptualisation, the “discursive formation” (Foucault, 1972) of a certain culture or period in time. It is through particular epistemes or discursive formations that human subjects are constituted and positioned within a space of power-knowledge: “rather than autonomous subjects using discourse to construct identities, it is discourse that produces power-knowledge relations within which subjects are positioned, identities are constructed and bodies are disciplined” (Ainsworth & Hardy, 2004: 238). Each episteme or discursive formation, then, produces different sorts of subjects which individuals are expected to take up in order to make sense of the world (Benwell & Stokoe, 2006: 34; Hall, 1997: 45). From Foucault’s perspective, individuals are “vehicles of power” (Foucault, 1994: 214), constituted through the disciplinary practices of specific systems of discourse. As such, he connects questions of identity to questions of power, and approaches the subject as a direct effect of larger discursive formations. Foucault asserts that: “The individual, that is, is not the vis-à-vis of power; it is, I believe, one of its prime effects” (Foucault, 1994: 214). Working mainly on the discourse of madness, punishment and sexuality, Foucault aims at demonstrating how these formations create their own powerful “regimes of
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truth”, producing the subject positions of, amongst others, the madman, the hysterical woman, the criminal and the sexual pervert.
This idea of subjects somehow “personifying” Discourse (Hall, 1997: 45), was picked up and further developed by critical discourse analysts. In theorising about how Discourses or “orders of discourse” (Fairclough, 1992) differently position people into distinguishable categories of subject, critical discourse analysts largely claim for embedding talk and social identity within a wider sociocultural context. It is in this sense that Wetherell and Potter (1988) coined the term “interpretative repertoires”. Against a background of critical discursive psychology, they argued that the social actions of people in talk are not simply a matter of local, on-the-spot behaviour in immediate interactional instances, but rather are the result largely of the ways in which Discourses influence and structure people’s interpretations and evaluations within a wider social context. From a critical discursive perspective, then, identities are deemed to be “the outcome of a complex and contradictory interplay of discourses (…) by actors with competing interests” (Ainsworth & Hardy, 2004: 40). Hence, Foucault’s and the critical discursive research tradition’s views on identity allow for embedding identity in the wider Discourses by which people are positioned (McKinlay & McVittie, 2008: 244).
This is not to assume that social identity is all but a consequence of discursive formations, or that identity is a mere effect of Discourse. To do so, would be to overly underestimate the fluidity and dynamism with which identity is constructed. In this respect, it is worth recalling Judith Butler’s view on the matter. While she borrowed much from critical discursive thinkers and their view of the role of Discourse in identity formation (Thorne, 2001: 10), Judith Butler (1990, 1993) adopts a rather sceptical attitude towards the lack of contingency found in many critical discursive perspectives, not at least in Foucault’s views on subject positioning. In an interview with Butler (Bell & Butler, 1999: 164), she criticises Foucault’s early views on the process of subject constitution for being “too unilateral” and “too unnuanced”. In her theory of performativity, Butler, more than Foucault does, explicitly opts to take account of the “tenuousness”, “vulnerability” and “unpredictability” of the process of identity construction (Bell & Butler, 1999: 164). Following Butler’s (1990: 271) idea of gender identity as a profound performative act, the process of identity formation then becomes a comprehensive performative
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process, through which identities are dynamically constituted by the situated discursive and performative practices speakers bring into play (e.g. Hetherington, 1998: 141; Speer & Potter, 2002: 153).
For Butler, it is not so much Discourse itself that structures identities, but rather it is the repetitive performance of discursive acts that sustains normative identities. Especially in her discussion of heterosexuality, she points to this need to iterate for a heterosexual identity to be acceptably constructed. It is, she goes on to argue, through the “repetition of the same”, that “the illusion of a seamless heterosexual identity” can be established (Butler, 1991 [2006]: 264). As such, identities must be seen as a type of “doing”, becoming constituted and recognisable for others only through the performative reiteration and recitation of practices. Another important nuance Butler brings to Foucault’s early theorising on the subject, is her observation that this typical compulsion to iterate is not simply a derivative of the top-down relationship between Discourse and identity, but is instead guarantee of its continuous failure: “if there is, as it were, always a compulsion to repeat, repetition never fully accomplishes identity” (Butler, 1991 [2006]: 264). Butler, thus, brings in the idea and possibility of the inherent fluidity and subversiveness of the ruling regulatory frames constituting identity (Thorne, 2001: 10). She claims that as long as iteration is needed to construct and sustain normative identities, there will be a “perpetual threat of a disruption” (Butler, 1991 [2006]: 264). Butler believes strongly in the possibility of negotiating, resisting and reconstituting the subject positions in which individuals find themselves.12 In her book chapter on “contingent foundations” (Butler, 1992: 13), this explicit foregrounding of resistance in a critique of Foucault’s early critical theorising on the subject becomes apparent, and is centralised in her question: “Where are the possibilities of reworking that very matrix of power by which we are constituted, or reconstituting the legacy of that constitution, and of working against each other those processes of regulation that can destabilize existing power regimes?” (Butler, 1992: 13). 12 Worth noting is that while Foucault’s early archaeological work did not overly consider the subversive aspects of subject
construction, he does take account of the productive aspects of this process starting with Discipline and Punish (1977). In the late 1970s
and early 1980s, Foucault (e.g. 1977, 1978, 1980, 1982 [2001]) dedicated a considerable amount of his writings to showing how analysis
of the strategies of resistance can reveal the normative subject positions within a given discursive formation. Chapter 5 in this thesis
provides a more comprehensive discussion of Foucault’s theorising on power and resistance.
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In emphasising the relevance of including the concrete practices through which established identities and accompanying relationships of power can be dynamically resisted, reworked and reconstituted, Judith Butler significantly contributes to a reformulation of identity as a fluid construct pertaining to both structure and agency (Benwell & Stokoe, 2006: 33). Often herself linked to poststructuralism, Butler nevertheless adds a crucial nuance to the traditional (post-)structuralist and critical discursive perspectives in making explicit the need to include the inherent subversive and disruptive potential of the process of identity construction. Like her, many discourse analysts have focused on understanding identity as an inherently emergent and performative construct, emphasising the centrality of discursive practices to the process of identity formation (e.g. Abell & Stokoe, 2001; Benwell & Stokoe, 2006; De Fina et al., 2006; Fairclough, 2001; Wetherell, 2001; Zimmerman & Wieder, 1970). Thus, identities are not to be seen as residing solely in external sociocultural and historical contexts and determining agency in immediate conversational instances. Instead, the normativity that stereotypically accompanies many identity categories can be challenged locally and destabilised through the discursive practices of actors in interaction.
3.2.2 IDENTITY AS LOCALLY EMERGENT ACHIEVEMENT
While Butler significantly refocuses attention on the “doing” of identity, she pays little attention to empirical analysis of the concrete social actions through which identities are locally performed and negotiated (e.g. Speer & Potter, 2002: 158). Within the field of discourse analysis, it is especially the interactionist discursive approaches, together with thinkers in the closely related field of symbolic interactionism, that have attracted analytic attention to the concrete mechanisms through which identities are constituted, managed and negotiated in talk. In explicitly foregrounding the discursive claim of seeing the play of identity as a process entailing discursive “work” (Benwell & Stokoe, 2006: 18; Bucholtz & Hall; 2005; De Fina et al., 2006: 2), these approaches have argued variously for the analysis of “identity-in-interaction” (Aronsson, 1998) and “identity-in-practice” (Antaki & Widdicombe, 1998: 2). From an endogenous, bottom-up perspective, such
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analyses show a determination to look after the identifications people dynamically bring into play in concrete social instances. Ethnomethodologists and conversation analysts have persisted in their claims for the “activeness” with which identities are being produced. For them, identities are not simply related to established social categories, but are enacted and produced through interactional practices. In contrast to the critical discursive research lines, which tend to approach identity as a resource or strategic tool for understanding people’s conduct in relation to a particular social structure and setting, the interactionist discursive traditions approach identity as a resource of the participant rather than the analyst (Antaki et al., 1996: 476; Widdicombe, 1998: 192; Wooffitt & Clark, 1998: 107). Accordingly, interactionists emphasise the inherent social nature of identity construction and, as such, have a shared interest in showing “how identities are (re)produced through language (and other media) and how they come into existence through social interaction” (De Fina et al., 2006: 22). Bucholtz and Hall (2005: 585-586) extend the argument by claiming that identity is “a relational and socio-cultural phenomenon that emerges and circulates in local discourse contexts of interaction rather than as a stable structure located primarily in the individual psyche or in fixed social categories”. Identities, then, are more than mere reflections of big D Discourses, reflected in small d discourses, and are constantly mobilised, produced, maintained and challenged by the participants in social encounters (e.g. Abell & Stokoe, 2001; Antaki & Widdicombe, 1995; Aronsson, 1998; Zimmerman, 1998).
Two issues are of further relevance here. First is the interactionist discursive claim of “accomplishing” talk and the accompanying principle of procedural consequentiality. In rejecting a view of identity and other social variables such as power (see Chapter 5) as something people ‘own’ or ‘have’ – an idea found, for instance, in SIT and SCT mentioned above, interactionists explicitly highlight the achievement of these social variables as a process of “doing” (Zimmerman, 1991, 1998). Gubrium and Holstein (2001: 6) clearly emphasise this constructed nature of identity, when they state that we “talk ourselves into being” in social interaction: “social identities are not tokens in a pinball machine, ricocheting and rebounding, totally without design or restraint. What we say about ourselves is always spoken in terms of – and through – our social relationships”. In maintaining that “practices as varied as
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narrative, life story, interviews, letter writing, and conversation all provide systematic (yet emergent) means of ‘doing’ things through talk that simultaneously provide means of ‘being’”, De Fina, Schiffrin and Bamberg (2006: 22) build further on this interactionist stress on the agency of identity by relating the use of practices to the dynamic construction of identities. Accordingly, the aim is not so much to ‘objectively’ or ‘truthfully’ discover and appoint ‘real’ identities in their positioning outside the concrete social interactions. Instead, what is of relevance for conversation analysts is how identities are perceived as real or are taken to be real by the participants in an interaction (Antaki & Widdicombe, 1998: 2; Aronsson, 1998: 83; Packer, 2011: 195). Consequently, from an interactionist discursive perspective, identities can be analysed only in and through participants’ local understandings of and orientations to identity-relevant aspects within their mutual interactions (Arminen, 2000: 446; Greatbatch & Dingwall, 1998: 121; Widdicombe, 1998: 191). The question then of “how professional analysts can establish which, if any, of the social identities that can be applied to participants are relevant to understanding their interactional conduct”, becomes largely a matter of participants’ orientations to their identities in the local course of their interactions (Greatbatch & Dingwall, 1998: 121). In this way, proponents of the interactionist discursive research tradition partly align with Butler’s (1990, 1993) earlier claim that identities can only be constructed through the active performance – the ‘doing’ – of social practices. However, they differ in how this performative aspect of identity should be theoretically and empirically elaborated. Whereas Butler focused especially on theoretical elaboration of performativity, interactionists are firmly of the view that identities should be analysed empirically in concrete social contexts. Second, and related to this dynamic view of identity, interactionists tend to set great store by the ‘social’ aspects of identities in interaction.13 As identities are articulated and aligned in an interaction, participants are
13 However, it should be noted that this emphasis on the social character of identity formation cannot be ascribed solely to
interactionist discursive approaches, and can be found in most discursive researChapter Within discourse analysis, it is generally
maintained that identity is an entirely social phenomenon: “identities are never autonomous or independent but always acquire social
meaning in relation to other available identity positions and other social actors” (Bucholtz & Hall, 2005: 598). Similarly, Fairclough
(1995: 126) claims that “although it is analytically useful to distinguish questions of identity from questions of relations, the two are, in
practice, inseparable”. However, as noted earlier, the interactionist discursive traditions tend to pay more explicit empirical attention
to the concrete mechanisms through which these joint processes of identity construction occur dynamically.
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involved not only in projecting identities for each other but also in reflexively ratifying these articulations and alignments (Gumperz, 1982: 206; Zimmerman, 1998: 90). Identity, then, is seen not only as a local production but also as a collective process in need of acknowledgement and ratification from other participants in order to be achieved successfully (Altheide, 2000: 3; Diamond, 1996: 152-153; McKinlay & Dunnett, 1998: 48; Schiffrin, 1996: 198). In this view, identities are all but fixed entities, but need to be actively oriented to and aligned with by others:
[T]he processes through which people make out, challenge or defend their sense of self for themselves (or for others) is often a complex matter of negotiation and active formulation in which identity can be seen to be discursively constructed (McKinlay & Dunnett, 1998: 48).
The idea that intended identities can be achieved only through the collaborative activities of co-participants has been extensively theorised by positioning theory, a framework closely related to the interactionist strands of discourse analysis. As founders of and key thinkers in the field, Harré and van Langenhove (1999: 17) underscore the intrinsic social aspect of identity formation, especially if one takes account of the interactivity and reflexivity with which people position one another in interactions: “one can position oneself or be positioned as e.g. powerful or powerless, confident or apologetic, dominant or submissive, definitive or tentative, authorized or non-authorized and so on”. When participants assume a particular identity in what has been called a “first-order position”, the other participants are free to negotiate, challenge, resist and, as such, reformulate this identity claim in a “second-order position” (e.g. Harré & van Langenhove, 1999: 123; Weizman, 2008: 16). In talk, then, participants are involved in a constant process of reciprocal positioning, dynamically assigning themselves and others specific roles and associated identities: “If A positions himself as powerful vis-à-vis B, then B is positioned as powerless vis-à-vis A, and vice versa" (Weizman, 2008: 14). Julie Diamond (1996: 152-153) extends this argument highlighting the importance of recognising the collaborative aspects of articulating identities: “social identities are constructed collaboratively with our fellow interactants,
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competitors and opponents. The role that another takes for herself or himself will directly affect the role that we may take for ourselves”. It is in this context that Karin Aronsson (1998: 81) argues for a “social choreographic analysis of talk”, focusing attention not only on the ways identities are constructed through dynamic use of discourse practices – i.e. the “choreographic” aspect – but also on the processes of negotiation and change – i.e. the “social” part – which intrinsically parallels the choreography of identity construction. For Aronsson, the success of identity claims “is always a matter of multiparty negotiations”. From an interactionist point of view, identity then becomes an intrinsic emergent aspect of local conduct. Refocusing analytic attention on the many ways of ‘doing’ identities, methodologies pertaining to the interactionist discursive traditions allow scrutiny of the moment-to-moment practices through which identities are locally constructed.
3.2.3 AN INTEGRATED DISCURSIVE MODEL
The traditional critical and interactionist discursive perspectives on identity as either an embedded within wider orders of discourse or as a dynamic, emerging product of social interaction, suggest that a full understanding of its complexities requires a more comprehensive conceptualisation of the notion - one that goes beyond the traditional oppositions between these approaches to include both the embedded and emerging aspects of identity construction in and through discourse. Overall, we can arrive at what could be called a ‘butterfly model’ of an integrated discursive view of identity construction (Figure 3.2). Building on (post-)structuralist and related critical discursive perspectives, it is reasonable to assume the crucial role of wider contexts and structural arrangements in the creation of social identities. The institutional context, physical setting and wider social culture in which identities occur, necessarily generate a number of interpretative repertoires, norms, values, expectations, rights and responsibilities through which meaning can be constructed and conveyed. In this sense, social identities are in part already “there” as more or less predictable aspects embedded within the structural arrangements of a social setting. However, in line with interactionist discursive pleas to refocus attention on the emerging aspects of identity work,
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it is equally crucial to acknowledge the unstable and shifting aspects of identity construction in institutional and everyday interactional settings. At the level of agency, actors are constantly engaged in performing aspects of their selves and actively accomplishing and mobilising identities. It is through the production of a multitude of discursive practices and through dynamic interactions with others, that identities are contingently and jointly performed, i.e. accomplished, negotiated and resisted. An integration of aspects of the two discursive research ‘wings’ into one inclusive, social constructionist approach, then allows for taking account of both its fluid and stable, emergent and embedded facets of identity formation.
Figure 3.2: Butterfly model of an integrated discursive approach to identity
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3.3 ROLE PERFORMANCES AND THE SELF
Throughout the literature, different understandings of identity circulate, referring interchangeably to ‘subject’, ‘self’, ‘role’, ‘position’, ‘subject position’, ‘personality’ and ‘agent’ to stipulate different aspects of identity. In this regard, Bucholtz and Hall (2005: 593) hold that “from the perspective of the analyst, it is not a matter of choosing one dimension of identity over others, but of considering multiple facets in order to achieve a more complete understanding of how identity works”. One way that this multifaceted character of the notion can be accounted for is to explore the closely related notions of role and self and consider their specificities in relation to identity. While the borderline between identity, role and self is not always easily delineated (e.g. Weizman, 2008: 19), the following will suggest that the notion of identity as previously elaborated, is innately connected, on the one hand, to role-playing practices in concrete social instances, and the presentation of broader selves on the other. The concepts of role, identity and self are bound to each other, not through a linear process, but in a dynamic and mutually informing relationship (see Figure 3.3). In social life, role, identity and self constantly interact and mutually reinforce each other. As such, they must be seen as interdependent notions, being articulated through one another. The following section alternately discusses how role and self are connected to the concept of identity against the background of the general integrated discursive and performative perspective taken in this study.
Figure 3.3: Role-identity-self as interrelated concepts
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3.3.1 ROLES AND NORMATIVE EXPECTATIONS
As identities are dialogically constructed and articulated in social encounters, individuals are constantly involved in the reflexive enactment of role-playing. That identities and roles are closely connected is evident from a variety of sources. Antaki and Widdicombe (1998: 3), for instance, hold that the dynamic accomplishment of identities in discourse unavoidably goes hand in hand with the performance of more concrete activities: “for a person to ‘have an identity’ – whether he or she is the person speaking, being spoken to, or being spoken about – is to be cast into a category with associated characteristics or features”. Similarly, Diamond (1996: 153) points to this “pairing” (Georgakopoulou, 2006: 100) of identity and role in arguing that “identity is created out of the roles we take up for ourselves”. Hence, roles can be regarded as primary sources of identity construction, arranging the concrete and situated achievement of identities through an ensemble of specific functions (e.g. Castells, 2010: 7; Georgakopoulou, 2006; Hall, 1999). In this study, I follow Goffman (1959: 128-129) in his definition of ‘role’ as “an equivalent to specialized capacity or function”. As Burns (1992: 107) elucidates, Goffman largely interprets roles as “routines or codes of behaviour appropriate to (and thus expressive of) specific social positions – as father, mother or child, as worker, salesman or manager; as priest, physician or politician, as neighbour, spectator, host or guest”. While the “social positions” Burns refers to are recognised in this study as ‘identities’, his explanation of Goffman’s role-concept clearly shows the centrality of behaviour and social action – in the form of role-play – in the articulation of identities. Consequently, for social identities to be successfully enacted, individuals need to stage or perform the roles that are connected to the construction of these identities. It is only through the dynamic achievement and negotiation – or even manipulation – of roles that identities are established (e.g. Bucholtz & Hall, 2005; Hall, 1999: 296). The question of how identities relate to role performances, then, is largely a question of the relationship between identity and social action. Generally, the literature points to two role categories – ‘institutional’ and ‘interactional’ – which are connected to specific types of social action. These, so-called, “situated” forms of identity (Zimmerman, 1998) or “here-
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and-now identities” (Georgakopoulou, 2006: 85), embrace either professional or social positions in short term institutional contexts (institutional roles), or positions that are more directly related to interactional contextual environments (interactional roles) (e.g. Greatbatch & Dingwall, 1998; Thornborrow, 2002; Weizman, 2008; Zimmerman, 1998). Whereas institutional roles refer to the institutional and social positions of individuals in everyday life, interactional roles – described by Zimmerman (1998) as “discourse identities” – are represented as more dependent upon the particular sequential organisation of an interactional setting. It is the local interplay between these social and interactional roles that shapes the organisation of the situation and, by extension, contributes to the participants’ accomplishment of their social identities (Thornborrow, 2002: 5). Taking the institutional setting of the university as an illustration, the identity of ‘professor’ can only be enacted through dynamic role-playing activities in a diversity of interactional contexts. As a professor shifts from one setting to another, he or she will alternately or (often) simultaneously appeal to different capacities or functions, i.e. ‘roles’. Hence, the institutional roles, such as supervisor, lecturer or department chair, are alternately made relevant, as part of the professional ‘umbrella’ identity of professor. At the same time, the individual is also expected to assume specialised interactional roles, including questioner/answerer, advice-giver/advice-taker, story-teller/story-recipient among many others (Goodwin, 1987; Weizman, 2008: 26; Zimmerman, 1998). In line with the conversation analytic framework, an examination of how these institutional and interactional roles occur specifically in talk, can provide insights into how the broader social identity of, in this example, ‘professor’ is variously tailored and mobilised (e.g. Greatbatch & Dingwall, 1998; Wooffitt & Clark, 1998).
Moreover, and perhaps more strikingly, Burns’s definition of roles quoted above, focuses attention on the relevance of behaving within the confines of what generally counts as ‘appropriate’ forms of behaviour. Hence, social identities appear to be innately connected to a range of socially shaped expectations that arrange the culturally appropriate ways in which individuals ought to behave and play their roles. What exactly these “expectations of appropriateness” (Altheide, 2000: 6) entail has been identified as being largely dependent on a shared understanding of a so-called “interaction order”
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(Goffman, 1983) or – as discussed in the French tradition of discursive role and identity studies – the “contrat de communication” (e.g. Chabrol & Ghiglione, 2000; Charaudeau, 1997) of the encounter. The general principle of such an interaction order or contract of communication is based on the existence of a repertoire of norms, rules, rights, duties and obligations that are connected to interactional contexts; or a set of unwritten rules tacitly structuring the social behaviour of participants in an interaction (Chabrol & Ghiglione, 2000; Charaudeau, 1997; Goffman, 1959; Meyrowitz, 1990: 67; Weizman, 2008: 19). As Meyrowitz (1990: 67) concisely states: “In short, to know how to behave in any interaction, we need to know ‘what is going on here?’”. Thus, the ‘order’ or ‘contract’ of a given situation arranges the situation-bound and socially defined expectations that are of relevance for the performance of roles and the achievement of identities (Weizman, 2008: 19). As individuals accomplish their identities through the performance of institutional and interactional roles, they utilise their knowledge of the situation to assess how they are expected to behave and what behaviour is generally regarded as appropriate (e.g. Juhila & Abrams, 2011: 278). As such, individuals orient their behaviour to the expectations that are intrinsic to the local context and the identities involved, which constitute “a complex matrix of conventional behaviour” (Meyrowitz, 1990: 71). This set of fixed rules and social conventions – i.e. the “system of norms”, as defined by Goffman (1971: 97) – help participants in projecting their behaviour to a mutually shared “definition of the situation” and, consequently, behaving in normatively regulated ways (Goffman, 1959, 1967, 1971).14 According to Goffman (1959: 9), these projections will seldom openly contradict, and are mostly “sufficiently attuned to one another”. Thus, a tacit consensus or “surface agreement” (Goffman, 1959: 9) tends to exist among interactional participants, meeting the social expectations and, consequently, maintaining the general normativeness of the situation. Even in situations that are specifically organised to generate conflict and contradictory opinions, Goffman (1959: 10) argues that a certain degree of agreement on the rules of the game is required.
14 In this respect, Goffman (1967: 49) refers to the “actor-recipient character of many rules”, thereby pointing to the interesting
relationship between expectations and obligations. He explains further that: “what is one man’s obligation will often be another’s
expectation” (Goffman, 1967: 49).
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However, while role-expectations are largely a matter of external constraints embedded within social contexts, they cannot be regarded simply as standing outside of discourse “as an exogenous ordering principle” (Maynard & Clayman, 2003: 187). Rather, and in line with the upheld integrated discursive view, the orderliness of social life can be sustained only in and through the sense-making activities of members of society (e.g. Garfinkel, 1963, 1967 [1984]; Goffman, b1971; Zimmerman, 1998). As Hammersley (2003: 755) clarifies: “values, norms, rules, etc. cannot be employed as explanatory factors in accounting for human behaviour but must be interpreted in particular contexts in order to lead to any course of action”. Viewed in this way, preservation of the interaction order or contract of communication cannot be taken for granted, but to a large extent is a matter of local orientations, manipulations and negotiations. As much as individuals are inclined to comply with the system of rules in a social situation, they are occupied equally with developing strategies for bypassing this normative structure. In stressing the subversive capacities of identity formation processes, Butler (1990, 1993) draws explicit attention to the concrete practices through which individuals can disrupt the normative patterns of expectations. When interactional compliance with the normative conventions is lacking, a gap arises between action and expectations (Juhila & Abrams, 2011: 285). Scholars of the interactionist discursive research tradition have dealt variously with the concrete interactional practices through which individuals expose behaviour that deviates from the ritual order.15 In this respect, Garfinkel’s (1963, 1967 [1984]) “breaching experiments” can be counted as one of the most renowned and influential studies to account for such failures in the performance of role-expectations. Garfinkel (1963: 188) was determined to find out how common sense or so-called “perceived normality” of social events could be studied by experimenting with manipulating stretches of talk. He used these manipulations as a means of finding out the conditions under which an event can be treated as ‘normal’ or ‘regular’ (Heritage, 1987: 233). Garfinkel’s main conclusions from these experiments are based on the insight that ‘normal’ states of affaires in social encounters are conceived of as taken-for-granted only for as long as they are cooperatively sustained (Maynard & 15 See especially Goffman’s (1971) study on “remedial work”, Schegloff’s (1968) analysis of deviant conversational openings and
Zimmerman’s (1998) analysis of “misalignment”.
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Clayman, 2003: 178). Accordingly, Garfinkel’s breaching experiments demonstrate that the performance of deviant behaviour can in fact “tell us something about how social structures are ordinarily and routinely being maintained” (Garfinkel, 1963: 187). Since then, especially interactionist discourse analysts have continued to develop the relevancy of studying ‘departures’ of normality.
3.3.2 THE SOCIALLY CONSTITUTED SELF
While identity construction is clearly a role-based process, it is also strongly related to a broader presentation and constitution of the self. In fact, as individuals make relevant different aspects of their repertoire of identities, they are constantly involved in showing off and managing different presentations of their overarching self. In this study, the self is understood as the overarching result of the dynamic articulations and performances of identities and roles in social encounters. The notion of the self is, thus, broader than identity and encompasses the totality of complex identities and related roles that individuals perform as they move through a variety of spatial and temporal settings in social life. According to Ferguson (2009: 20), the self all too often carries connotations of inherent stability and finiteness. In line with a discursive and related postmodern view, however, I opt to conceptualise the self as a fundamentally relational and reflexive construct rather than a steady unity. To account for this peculiarity and complexity of the concept, I turn to the symbolic interactionist and poststructuralist insights on the constitution of the self and its relationship to the notion of identity. While often presented as polar models, the symbolic interactionist view of self as an interactionally achieved construct, and the poststructuralist conceptualisation of the notion as inherently political and discursively rooted, can be seen, in fact, as being far from mutually exclusive (e.g. Wetherell, 1998). 16 Without wanting excessively to reconcile the viewpoints and theoretical backgrounds of both of these perspectives, it is valuable to devote
16 Although the differences between poststructuralist and symbolic interactionist accounts of the self are evident at many points, one
should guard against too easily contrasting the two. As Battershill (1990) points out, for instance, Goffman can be considered a
precursor to much postmodern thinking on the subject. In particular, Goffman’s accounts on the ‘definition of the situation’ and the
subject in many ways correspond to later theorising on the matter from Lyotard and Foucault, for example.
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brief attention to their general views on the self in order to develop a broader consideration of self as an inherently constructed outcome of identity formation processes.
Generally, the field of symbolic interactionism shows a preoccupation with establishing the reflexive aspects of self and showing how presentations of the self in social life can be understood only in terms of social interaction (Callero, 2003: 119). In this respect, Charles Horton Cooley and George Herbert Mead were among the first to develop a theory of the self, of how we develop our selfs in dynamic interactional relationships with others. Based on a pragmatic approach to the social world, both Cooley (1902) and Mead (1934) placed great emphasis on the social aspects of self and approached the individual-society relation as intrinsic to the constitution of self. In their view, the individual and society are an essential part of the self and cannot be separated from it. Cooley (1902) uses the metaphor of a “looking-glass self”, and developed the idea of self as based on the imagined judgments of others. Concretely, he argues that self-consciousness is constituted by three main elements: (1) imagining how we appear to others; (2) imagining how these others judge this appearance; and (3) developing self-feeling related to how we think others judge us (e.g. pride or mortification) (Jacobs, 2006: 53; Ritzer, 2008: 369). While Mead (1934) was quite critical of Cooley’s strong emphasis on society as existing almost solely within the individual mind and consciousness, both writers provided fertile ground for later (more empirical) studies and interpretations of a socially constituted self within symbolic interactionism (Ritzer, 2008: 369). One of these was by Herbert Blumer (1969: 14), who approached the human being – “the self” – as profoundly social, constantly engaged in dynamic social interactions with its self and others. The self, in Blumer’s (1969: 62) view, needs to be conceived as a process emerging out of dynamic role-taking processes within social interaction, rather than as a stable or fixed “thing” or “structure”. Blumer, thus, presents the self as a multi-layered phenomenon, occurring in several forms and emerging out of reciprocal negotiations in situated interactions.
A similar processual interactionist perspective on the self (Gecas, 1982: 11) is also pervasive and recognisable in Erving Goffman’s (1959) thinking on “impression management” and “the presentation of the self” in social life. Utilising dramaturgical metaphors, he approaches the self as constructed
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through the performances of actors and their staging of a definition of the situation. Goffman believes that the individual operates “as a kind of enterprise engaged in managing a whole stable of roles and social selves to the best advantage” (Burns, 1992: 111). As such, the Goffmanian self consists of the performance of roles and identities and the stage-managing of impressions within specific situated contexts (Elliott, 2008: 37). Distinguishing broadly between the private and social aspects of self, Goffman assumes the presence of an inner ‘I’, operating – much like the Russian doll model – inside the social, role-playing self, strategically directing and steering its activities (Burns, 1992: 107; Elliott, 2008: 37; Jenkins, 2008: 49). This inner, private self is constantly engaged in monitoring and tactically manipulating the performances through which the public self gives off impressions in routine social interactions. 17 Goffman also makes use of regional demarcations between the ‘frontstage’ and ‘backstage’ areas of self-presentation, both of which are discussed further in Chapter 4.
Despite Goffman’s attempts to situate the self within the performance rather than within the individual, and despite his initial emphasis on the self as a result rather than the cause of performance (Goffman, 1959: 252-253), he has been criticised for presuming the existence of a ‘real’, intentional and inner self (e.g. Butler, 1990: 25; Butler, 1993: 24; Gubrium & Holstein, 2001: 10-11). From a postmodern perspective, there can be no such thing as a private self disconnected from the social, deliberately steering the behaviour of the social self. Elliott (2008: 42) joins in this critique of Goffman’s distinction between an inner and a public self in arguing that “there is something a little disturbing in his [Goffman’s] social vision of performance, in which everyone is cynically manipulating appearance and staging inauthentic representations of the self”. Thus, the self, in Goffman’s view, risks being reduced to a ‘mask’ behind which an unknown individual is hiding, deliberately manipulating his public performances (Brand & Scannell, 1991: 201). Moreover, Goffman’s thinking on the self has been subject to other criticisms, denouncing not only the (lack of) theoretical implementation but also the a-historical and a-
17 It is this emphasis on the strategic manipulation of impressions by a private self that distinguishes Goffman from the tradition of
symbolic interactionism. Although Goffman is often represented as a follower of symbolic interactionism, his theorising in fact
conceptualises the individual as deliberately steering and managing its public impressions, an aspect of self that symbolic
interactionism does not wish to consider (Elliott, 2008: 38).
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political approach to the self. In Goffman’s work, there are numerous observations related to concrete presentations of individuals’ self-images in a wide range of social situations. However, what appears to be missing is a systematic body of theory supporting and explaining these observations, to allow generalisations to other contexts (e.g. Jenkins, 2008: 90). As Meyrowitz (1990: 65) vividly asserts: “Goffman’s work is more thoroughly interesting than it is thoroughly theoretical”. Partly connected to this is the alleged lack of attention to the long-term processes of transformation and change in Goffman’s account of the self. While Goffman clearly shows an interest in the possibility of behavioural change across spatial encounters, he seems not to account for how conduct changes or for the situations through which it changes (e.g. Meyrowitz, 1985: 2). What seems to be missing in both his early work on the presentation of self and his later work is an account of the continuity of everyday life. For, as Brand and Scannell (1991: 202) argue, in contrast to theatrical performances, which entail a vast number of clearly separated episodes, the constitution of the self in everyday life is all but episodic in nature, and implies much more continuity in time. Garfinkel (1967 [1984]: 166) shares this appraisal in stating that “all of Goffman’s analyses either take episodes for illustration, or turn the situations that his scheme analyses into episodic ones”. Hence, while being highly valuable for its micro-accounts of the self, Goffman’s concrete elaborations of the notion seldom allow broader generalisations or inferences at the level of historical developments regarding transformation of the self (e.g. Jenkins, 2008: 90). As a result of the overemphasis on the analysis of concrete episodes of social interaction, Goffman has to cope also with the critique that he overlooks the role of social structure and, consequently, has difficulty in accounting for political issues in the construction of the self (e.g. Elliott, 2008: 36-37; Hacking, 2004: 288; Jenkins, 2008: 90; Ytreberg, 2002: 495). In Forms of Talk (1981), for instance, Goffman focuses on a sociolinguistic analysis of institutional talk, but falls short of accounting for the precise link between the micro-level of social interactions and the macro-level of institutions and social structures (Ytreberg, 2002: 495). In other words, what is omitted by Goffman is the question of how observations from daily life can be integrated into reflections on the broader, structural level and, accordingly, how political aspects such as power and control are involved in the constitution of the self (Elliott, 2008: 36-
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37; Hacking, 2004: 299). For this reason, Goffman’s work has been repeatedly criticized as having something of a “hollow shell” (Jenkins, 2008: 90) and an ‘“empty’ feel to it” (Giddens, 1984: 70).
In contrast, the poststructuralist thinkers, such as Michel Foucault, Judith Butler and Laclau and Mouffe, know how to compensate to a large extent for the criticisms levelled at Goffman’s work. Firstly, the idea of an inner self, lurking behind and strategically controlling the performances of the public self – tacitly assumed in Goffman’s thinking – is explicitly rejected within their frameworks. Rather, poststructuralists believe that the self is a social product, and can neither exist or function independently of its social construction (e.g. Laclau & Mouffe, 1987: 118). For Laclau and Mouffe, the self and its multiple subject positions – ‘identities’ – are constructed in and even determined by Discourse (e.g. Wetherell, 1998). As already referred to in this chapter, Foucault, especially in his early work, dwelt extensively upon the peculiarity of the subject as a product of Discourse, occupying positions within wider systems of knowledge. As such, he repeatedly maintained that “nothing has any meaning outside of discourse” (Foucault, 1972: 32). Secondly, unlike Goffman’s a-historical tendency and, by extension, the symbolic interactionist tradition, poststructuralists favour an approach that takes continuity and history as essential grounds for analysis, thereby transcending the peculiarity of concrete interactional episodes. Guided by Foucault’s historical analyses, there is a belief that Discourse, knowledge and representation can produce meaning only within a specific historical and cultural context (e.g. Hall, 2001: 74). Thirdly, poststructuralism is both manifestly theoretical and critical in nature, and depends on a vast theoretical apparatus that often emerges on the basis of expectations about the social world (e.g. Wetherell, 1998: 395). In contrast to the bottom-up methods of symbolic interactionist and interactionist discursive approaches, poststructuralists do not back away from pre-formulating expectations on the basis of theory, mainly presuming the potential of discursive formations to co-determine the subject. Finally, poststructuralism takes political relations of power and control as integral to the constitution of self. While this aspect of the poststructuralist framework is explained in more detail in Chapter 5, it suffices for now to mention that Foucault, for instance, in Discipline and Punish (1977) argues that in modern societies individuals are increasingly surveilled
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and disciplined through complex systems of power, which – much like a ‘panopticon’ – work as a means of social control. He advances the view that individuals are almost powerless victims of their subject positions, but can engage in a number of resistant moves and strategies (e.g. Elliott, 2008: 89). Of course, and as already discussed, poststructuralist attention on the continuity of the self and its surrounding political procedures of meaningmaking are, in turn, not without limitations. For example, it has been claimed repeatedly that the poststructuralist overemphasis on the social operation of power relationships in Discourses risks taking little account of the autonomy of the self (e.g. Hacking, 2004: 288). In similar vein, Elliott (2008: 99-100) argues that Foucault’s work does not account for the question of how discursive formations penetrate daily life, potentially reducing the self to “simply a by-product of discourse”.
The question that then remains is how to capture the notion of self and value its inherent complexities, as well as to how, in a second instance, it relates to the concept of identity. Starting from the main principles of symbolic interactionism and poststructuralism, one arrives at least at an understanding of the self as a multidimensional and comprehensive notion, functioning at different levels of the social. While symbolic interactionism allows emphasis on the self as a symbolic project that is actively constructed through the subtle processes by which identities are accomplished in social interaction, the merit of poststructuralist theorising is that it highlights the role of structural formations in the constitution of the self. As Hacking (2004) and Wetherell (1998) demonstrate, for instance, a combination of both frameworks is helpful for understanding “making up people” (Hacking, 2004), e.g. how people are made up within existing institutional structures. Such a synthetic approach to the self takes account of the active and performative construction of self in social and institutional life, while avoiding overlooking the political components of its constitution. The self, then, comprises the set of identities and associated roles that individuals are expected to act out in social life and, consequently, arises as the dynamic outcome of local identity performances and role-playing activities, rather than the steering mechanism hiding behind the individual’s public performances (e.g. Elliott, 2008: 39; Gubrium & Holstein, 2001: 10; Hall et al., 1999: 317). The self, in this sense, becomes a situationally defined construct, dependent on the
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local role-playing activities of individuals within various situated circumstances (e.g. Hall et al., 1999: 317). Hence, as individuals stage their identities situationally in social life, they contribute continuously to a dynamic constitution and shaping of their self. Accordingly, similar to the concept of identity, self becomes a profound shared articulation, that is actively and locally constructed through social performances and complex relationships of power and control.
3.4 SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS
This chapter clarified and conceptualised the constructionist and performative aspects of identity construction in discourse. In the 1990s, a general turn to discourse essentially reconceptualised traditional understandings of identity as a stable and consistent notion, in a more dynamic approach to identity that took account of its inherent plasticity and context-sensitivity. The discursive research traditions, far from being a united field, developed diverging and not always compatible perspectives on how identities are related to the structural and social-interactional levels of society. Whereas proponents of the critical discursive perspective tend to think of identity as standing in close relationship with wider orders of discourse, interactionists situate the construction of identity much more at the level of local relevancies in social interaction. Despite this dissension, this chapter has shown that the critical and interactionist discursive strands need not always be diametrically opposed. Instead, a combination of the theoretical and analytical insights in these traditions opens doors for conceptualising an integrated view of identity and its related notions. Overall, this inclusive discursive approach to identity recognises the complexity of the concept and takes account of both its determining and constitutive aspects. In broad terms, the study of identity in discourse might benefit from a more balanced synthesis of the critical and interactionist discursive perspectives in discourse analysis in order to take account of both the embedded and emergent aspects of identity formation. This would contribute to an understanding of identity as inherently situated within the broader frames of ritualised and structurally determined patterns of behaviour while leaving room for analytical centralisation of the importance of studying the concrete and local practices
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through which identities are locally accomplished, i.e. vied for, negotiated and resisted.
Far from being ready-made categories in which people occasionally engage, social identities are proposed as variously constructed in and through a dynamic set of discursive practices in social contexts. Identities are inextricably connected to particular clusters of behaviour – i.e. ‘roles’ – that arrange the mutually shared expectations in social encounters. Roles constitute the essential analytical ‘platforms’ for the study of larger social identities. Moreover, the discussion of self on the basis of symbolic interactionist and poststructuralist theorising demonstrates how identities, in turn, make available the constitution of the self. Self has been proposed as an umbrella-concept, constructed in complex ways from an ensemble of discursively contingent social identities. As such, the concept of identity emerges as in dual relationships with the concepts of both role and self. The process of identity formation should be seen as an inherent performative process, through which people invoke a variety of discursive role-related practices in order selectively to articulate aspects of their selves.
The conceptual framework for the notion of identity proposed in this chapter defines the terminology and insights on which the later analyses of media professional identities in political broadcast talk rely. Chapter 4 take a closer theoretical look at the peculiarities of identity play within mediated forms of interaction since, as any other institutional setting, broadcast talk involves a wide array of structurally determined arrangements regarding participants’ behaviours and identities.
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CHAPTER 4
PARTICIPANTS IN MASS-MEDIATED SOCIAL
INTERACTION AS BROADCAST PERFORMERS
ON AN INSTITUTIONAL STAGE
The process of identity construction is primarily a dialogic process that is linked to both the interactive process of role-playing activities and the broader social process of the constitution of the self. Chapter 4 builds on these insights by examining more closely how this theoretical framework and the interdependency between the notions of role, identity and self apply to and reside in the mass-mediated context of political broadcast talk. Since Mead’s (1934) and Cooley’s (1902) initial interpretations and reflections on the development of self through interaction, the means and opportunities for social interaction have expanded substantially. The advent of ‘new’ communication technologies, such as radio, television and the Internet, has provided new contexts in which to interact and display particular dimensions of the self without needing to be in the same location or the same time period (Meyrowitz, 1985). When watching a television show, reading a newspaper article, or chatting on the Internet, individuals, consciously or unconsciously, are engaged in reflections on their selves, on who they are and what they stand for (Altheide, 1984, 2000). While there is much to say about the role of mass media in the creation of audience’s self-conceptions, equally interesting questions emerge about the selves that are portrayed in these mass media. Participants in mass-mediated encounters are engaged in complex performances of their selves, in front of an overhearing audience. Participation in media talk, then, necessarily involves a repertoire of social identities, which, in turn, generate a multitude of expectations regarding the roles to be played, the tasks to be fulfilled and the turns to be distributed.
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In relation to participation in political broadcast talk more specifically, two broad categories of studio participants are involved: journalist-presenters and politicians. When engaging in broadcast talk, in the form of political interviews or debates on radio and television, journalist-presenters and politicians engage in dynamic mutual encounters that are highly institutionalised, performative and pre-mediated in character. Firstly, the distinctive institutionalised nature of broadcast talk already implies a certain normativity regarding the reciprocal conduct of journalist-presenters and politicians. Most significantly, it allows participants to (inter)act in rather predictable and routinised ways, with behaviour that generally conforms to a predetermined turn-taking system or sequence of questions and answers. This institutionally prescribed pattern not only establishes a crucial framework of expectations and arrangements upon which journalist-presenters and politicians are expected to base their discursive practices, but also makes available a range of other patterns of behaviour and legitimate entitlements that are unavoidably connected to these activities, such as eliciting or providing information. Secondly, political broadcast talk is both pervasively institutional and literally and figuratively performative. The ubiquity of an ‘overhearing’ but non-present audience 18 , and the very arrangement of the setting as almost literally a ‘stage’, provide for a general atmosphere in which participants are incited selectively and very carefully to manage and perform aspects of their selves. In a more figurative sense, and following Butler’s theory of performativity, interactions in political television programmes are also performative in the sense that the typical institutionalised constraints on the participants’ allowable and legitimate conduct imply ritualised performances of a variety of social identities. It is only through the repetitive enactment, negotiation and challenging of normatively defined roles and discursive practices that broader social identities can be constructed. Finally, and partly as a consequence of their institutionalised and performative nature, interactions in political television programmes often occur under the premises of strict formats and particular
18 While it is not uncommon for broadcast talk to involve a studio audience that is co-present with the studio participants, broadcast
talk nevertheless remains primarily designed for an absent audience. As Hutchby (2006: 14) notes: “even when a show is produced in
the presence of a studio audience, the audience of viewers and listeners remains a principal recipient toward whom the talk is
oriented”.
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pre-arrangements (e.g. Talbot, 2007; Tolson, 2001, 2006). In this respect, pre-mediation, in the form of pre-planning and production activities, must be seen as a crucial aspect of not only political television talk, but also of the construction of a media professional identity therein. While often neglected and overlooked in studies of political television talk, the processes that occur in the back-regions of this setting, such as the off-camera interactions between journalist-presenters and politicians, preparatory scripting activities of a media professional team, and the talkback system in the control room that connects the journalist-presenter in the frontstage with fellow media professionals in the backstage, constitute an essential context for on-air identity performances. This chapter argues for the relevance of activities in this backstage production context and their inclusion in the analysis in order to achieve more complete insights into the accomplishment of identities in political television discourse.
In line with the overall focus of this work on the performance activities of, especially, journalist-presenters in political television discourse, the chapter predominantly devotes attention to journalistic identity formation processes. The notion of media professionalism is introduced as an intrinsic and recurrent aspect of journalist-presenters’ performances of identity. It is proposed that the institutionalised and performative demands of the setting typically require of journalist-presenters the competence to accomplish an overall identity as media professional. The respective journalistic roles of interactional manager, political journalist and television producer are proposed as mutually constitutive aspects of this identity. The wide variety of expectations that typically underlie this repertoire of roles, together with the need for collaboration on the part of politicians, make the construction of a media professional identity within political television discourse a delicate and complex matter; a process requiring the professional and local mastering of a number of specialised performer competences and skills.
To arrive at this typology of a media professional identity, the chapter first discusses the peculiarity of political broadcast talk as an institutional setting. The typical institutionally inscribed turn-taking system of sequenced questions and answers is described along with its implications for the normativity of the participants’ interactional conduct. The audience-oriented and stage-managed character of political broadcast talk is described to
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provide an interactional context that is inherently performative in nature. Following the discussion of these institutional and performative aspects of political television interactions, Chapter 4 turns to the issue of media professionalism, addressed first from the point of view of politicians and then argued more extensively from the position of journalist-presenters. In order to perform a defensible identity as media professional, I suggest that journalist-presenters need to demonstrate competence to master a wide variety of normative expectations and professional capacities. On the basis of a discussion of the three main roles of journalist-presenters, it will become clear that journalist-presenters are in a peculiar situation that demands the iterative accomplishment of specialised performer skills. The chapter then argues for the importance of including reflections on the pre-planned nature of political broadcast talk by taking account of the back-region activities of media professionals as intrinsic parts of the production process. The chapter concludes with some critical reflections on the study of journalistic identity construction within political broadcast talk.
4.1 THE INSTITUTIONAL SPECIFICITY OF POLITICAL TELEVISION
TALK
Numerous types of mediated communication imply, in some way, a form of institutionalised communication by virtue of their being produced within certain contextual constraints and institutional peculiarities (Bilmes; 1999; Clayman & Heritage, 2002; Heritage 1985; Heritage & Greatbatch, 1991; Ekström et al., 2006). As such, political television interactions are typical institutionalised forms of interaction. In contrast to everyday or ‘ordinary’19 conversations, institutional interactions typically involve conversational sequence types that are “specialised, simplified, reduced, or otherwise structurally adapted for institutional purposes” (Maynard & Clayman, 1991: 407). The embeddedness of these interactions within a broader structural institutional framework inherently implies and presupposes a variety of – 19 It is especially conversation analytic research that has made ‘ordinary conversation’ the object of study (Sacks et al., 1974).
Conversation analysts consider ordinary conversation, as opposed to institutionalised forms of talk, to be the most basic form of
everyday human interaction. CA is typically determined to demonstrate the “identifying details” of institutional practices, as distinct
from ordinary conversations (Garfinkel in Heritage & Greatbatch, 1991: 96).
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often complementary – participant roles, responsibilities, rights and relationships, which, in turn, contribute to the broader construction of social identities. In institutionalised forms of interaction, the turn-taking organisation, sequencing of actions, and initiating of topics occur in more or less predictable and ritualised ways, constituting important “inferential and accountability frameworks” (Silverman 1997: 188) which participants choose and on the basis of which they can be held accountable (Boden & Zimmerman, 1991; Drew & Heritage, 1992). In political broadcast talk, the specialised and recognisable turn-taking process and sequential organisation are constrained by tightly defined procedures with considerable implications for the course of the encounter, not least in terms of the mutual expectations it generates regarding the roles to be played and the actions to be performed.
4.1.1 A SEQUENCING OF QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
At the most basic level, and as in most other forms of broadcast talk, the turn-taking system in political interviews and television debates is typically organised according to a recurring pattern of sequencing questions and answers (e.g. Bilmes, 1999; Clayman, 1988; Clayman & Heritage, 2002; Greatbatch, 1988; Heritage, 1985; Heritage & Greatbatch, 1991). Briefly, the distinctive turn-taking practices of questions and answers are distributed between the participants’ interactional positions of interviewer and interviewee, normatively arranged so that the interviewer does the questioning and the interviewee provides responses to the questions. This specific participation framework and turn-type pre-allocation typically constitute an inferential framework to which journalist-presenters and politicians mutually orient and on the basis of which they can be held accountable (e.g. Silverman, 1997: 188). Consequently, departures from these normative and structural properties of political broadcast talk are potentially sanctionable (e.g. Clayman & Heritage, 2002: 149; Heritage, 1985; Heritage & Greatbatch, 1991: 128). Therefore, conversation analytic studies on the peculiarity of institutional talk arrive at the same conclusion as Goffman (1959), described in Chapter 3, when they conclude that participants generally tend to respect the arrangement of the turn-taking system and, by so doing, engage in the joint construction of the encounter and their relevant roles and
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identities: “Through their detailed respect for the rule, the parties display their pervasive orientation to the context of their talk and the relevancies of their local social and discourse identities as interviewer and interviewee” (Clayman & Heritage, 2002: 149). In other words, by restricting themselves to the normatively arranged discursive practice of producing questions and answers and, accordingly, meeting the expectations that underlie their institutionally defined positions as interviewers and interviewees, journalist-presenters and politicians are, by and large, inclined collaboratively to sustain the joint and recognisable activity of ‘doing an interview’ (e.g. Clayman & Heritage, 2002: 119; Heritage, 1985; Heritage & Greatbatch, 1991). While departures from the pre-allocated normative pattern definitely occur, they are often treated by the other participant to be departures from normality and, therefore, as possibly problematic and sanctionable (Clayman & Heritage, 2002: 98). Moreover, deviant conduct on the part of participants may lead to a violation of their socially accepted identities in the encounter. Therefore, the rules and provisions of political broadcast talk are seldom radically disrupted, which allows participants to interact in rather routinised and predictable ways.
4.1.2 SEQUENCE ORGANISATION AND NORMATIVE BEHAVIOUR
The typical question-answer pattern in broadcast talk has considerable implications for the overall structural organisation of its interactional settings (Heritage & Greatbatch, 1991: 98). Since participants need to act within the contours of the general turn-taking system in their production of particular types of turns, they are also automatically given or denied access to other, related activities in the encounter. In the context of political broadcast talk, the specific turn-taking system arranges that journalist-presenters structurally are expected to elicit information from politicians by means of questioning activities. This basic arrangement at the level of turn-taking immediately implies a number of consequences regarding the journalist-presenters’ other normatively allowable and expected activities in the encounter. For instance, their exclusive legitimacy over the production of questioning turns deprives them of the right to make personal statements, overtly evaluate interviewees’ responses or engage in routine acknowledgements (Heritage, 2005). The
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politicians, on their side, are normatively restricted to the production of responsive practices, which considerably limits their rights to open or close the interview, allocate turns or set the agenda (e.g. Heritage & Greatbatch, 1991: 98). The institutionally inscribed turn-type pattern of sequencing questions and answers, thus, brings a set of legitimated conduct that is normative in character and creates powerful expectations regarding what can be counted as legitimate or appropriate behaviour. How these interactional provisions are actually distributed in asymmetrical ways is of specific relevance to Chapter 5, certainly in the light of the interactional strategies participants have to bring into play in order to deal with the institutional restrictions of the interview setting (Thornborrow, 2002: 90).
4.2 POLITICAL TELEVISION DISCOURSE AS PERFORMATIVE
DISCOURSE
While all sorts of talk can said to be innately permeated with performances (Goffman, 1959, 1967), participation in (political) broadcast talk is, by definition, performative in character.20 Two aspects are of relevance in this respect. Firstly, the so-called “double articulation” (Scannell, 1991: 1) of political television interactions – and all other forms of broadcast talk – bestows additional complexity on the already described institutionalised character of the participants’ role-playing activities. While the institutionalised nature of the setting arranges that participants are routinely engaged in respectively questioning and answering activities, participants are, remarkably, not each other’s primary respondents: they “are asking and answering questions but they are not exchanging information, at least with one another” (Dillon, 1990: 94). Rather, they are constantly orienting the production of their talk to an absent audience potentially of millions of people. Hence, (political) broadcast talk is typically double articulated by virtue of being produced by direct studio participants, but designed for recipiency by non-present audiences (Hutchby, 2006: 14; Scannell, 1991: 1). Secondly, the profound performative nature of political television interactions can also be found in the specificity of the setting of production personnel, 20 Television has been described as the “visual theatre of performance” par excellence (Tolson, 2013: 134).
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studio arrangements, cameras and microphones. From the staged set-up of the encounter and the authority of the organising broadcasting institution it follows that participants in television talk literally enter a stage that implies the enactment of specialised relevant roles in such a way that the communicative event makes sense and is recognisable, both to the participants and the overhearing audience. In this sense, it should be no surprise that ‘staged-ness’ has come to be marked as a “quality that is such a familiar attribute of the broadcast news interview” (Clayman, 1991: 55).
4.2.1 THE DOUBLE ARTICULATION OF BROADCAST TALK
In contrast to ordinary conversations, in which role-play primarily is directed at the direct co-participants, the negotiation of roles in the discourse genre of broadcast talk is also directed to an “overhearing”21 media audience (e.g. Bull & Fetzer, 2006; Fetzer, 2000; Heritage & Greatbatch, 1991; Hutchby, 2006; Scannell, 1991: 1). Participants in political broadcast talk traditionally engage in two distinct interaction orders or ‘contrats de communication’ (Burger, 2005; Fetzer, 2000; Fetzer & Johansson, 2008; Scannell, 1991): a first-frame interaction where the emphasis is on direct interaction between journalist-presenters and politicians – “communication réciproque” (mutual interaction) (Burger, 2005: 56), and a second-frame interaction in which the engagement between journalist-presenters/politicians and the overhearing audience is central – “communication unilatérale” (one-way interaction) (Burger, 2005: 56). As a derivative of its public character, broadcast talk is “a communicative interaction between those participating in discussion, interview, game show or whatever and, at the same time is designed to be heard by absent
21 While the term “overhearing audience” is widely used in studies of broadcast talk (e.g. Clayman & Heritage, 2002; Ekström &
Patrona, 2011; Scannell, 1991; Tolson, 2001), Hutchby (2006: 14) nuances the concept by claiming that it too easily tends to suggest a
unified group of individuals who, as it were, by accident hear what the participants in broadcast talk are saying. Rather, Hutchby
proposes the notion of “distributed recipients” since this takes account of the heterogeneity of the group that is actually addressed by
the talk being produced. Moreover, the notion of “overhearing audience” would indicate that viewers are merely “attenders” at an
interaction in which they are not in any way directly addressed as primary recipients. However, there are obvious instances, such as
opening and closing sequences, which explicitly suggest that the programme and talk being produced are intended to be witnessed
by the audience. However, like Hutchby (2006: 14), this study opts for the concept of “overhearing audience” rather than “distributed
recipients”, given the widespread use of the former in broadcast talk studies.
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audiences” (Scannell, 1991: 1). This, evidently, affects the normative behavioural patterns of the participants in those interactions. As Tolson (2013: 151) explains specifically in relation to hosts:
Successful broadcasters (TV ‘personalities’) do not simply look directly at the camera and address their audience as a collective – that is just one dimension of what they do. Rather, they alternate between collective direct address and interaction with co-present fellow participants.
Consequently, the typical “geography of the situation” (Meyrowitz, 1985: 6) of broadcast talk arranges that participants not only produce their talk for each other, but also for reception by a non-present, ratified audience. As such, the dual character of broadcast talk is intrinsically and unavoidably related to its characteristic institutional production and domestic consumption.
The constant switching between these two spatial contexts evidently makes the play of identities in political broadcast talk rather complex, allowing the creation of a number of “mixed identities” for both journalist-presenter and politician (Burger, 2002: 10). The fact that the talk is oriented primarily to an audience of non-present viewers, constitutes a considerable constraint on its production. Not only is the politician expected to be lucid in presenting his or her viewpoints and take responsibility for his or her actions, the journalist-presenter has the normative obligations to prevent the talk from escalating into incomprehensible chatter, and to resist the expression of personal opinions so as to centralise the eliciting of information and opinions from the politician (e.g. Clayman, 2001; Clayman & Heritage, 2002; Ekström, 2001). From their identities as representatives of the institutions of politics and journalism/broadcasting, both politicians and journalist-presenters have a responsibility to fulfil towards the absent audience of potential voters, consumers or citizens. Yet, the double articulated nature of their encounter restrains them from unilaterally and straightforwardly conveying their messages and fulfilling their duties to the audience, and arranges that both actors are mutually dependent on each other for the accomplishment of their duties and accompanying social identities. This specific ability of participants,
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observed by Tolson (2013: 134), to move seamlessly between two interactional frames, serves to display their so-called “telegenic” qualities.
4.2.2 BROADCAST TALK AS A PUBLIC STAGE
Interacting within media formats, then, is not merely a matter of communicating with each other; it is a performance, taking place for a ratified audience of overhearing viewers within a pre-designed studio setting (e.g. Brand & Scannell, 1991; Dillon, 1990: 94-95; Martel & Turbide, 2005: 195-196; Tolson, 2001, 2006). Players on the media stage are constantly engaged in presenting favourable images and keeping “face” (Goffman, 1955 [2006], 1967). Accordingly, the use of self-presentation strategies and the display of selective behaviour that, to some extent, is planned and rehearsed becomes a vital issue (Meyrowitz, 1990: 68). In his essay on radio talk, Goffman (1981: 198) posits that “there is no question of the subjects modifying their behaviour because they know or suspect they are under study”. Equally, Scannell (2009: E2) states that “those who take part in talk on radio or television are not simply required to be themselves: they must produce a good performance of themselves”. According to Brand and Scannell (1991: 223), the very nature of broadcast talk requires participants to stage their institutionalised performer roles successfully, in line with the normatively determined expectations of the setting:
To enter the studio is to cross a threshold, to enter a social environment that creates its own occasions with their particular situational properties, discursive and performative rules and conventions. To enter this place is to assume, for the duration, a role and identity appropriate to the particular communicative event that is being staged.
Similarly, Economou and Svensson Limsjö (2006: 141, emphasis added) point to the temporariness of role-play in the context of media interactions when they argue that the social roles of participants in broadcast talk should be approached “as a more or less temporary (or more or less professional) identity that people take on in certain situations in which, more often than not, what is invoked and represented is a performance or reenactment of what can be
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publicly recognized as a valid instance of the expected ‘role’”. Thus, role performances in media talk are typically temporal and spatially dependent performances. Or, as they state further: “Put somewhat simpler, the situation of being put in front of a camera calls for us to answer what we think that particular camera wants us to be” (Economou & Svensson Limsjö, 2006: 141). While the role-playing activities of participants in broadcast talk may, in fact, be slightly more complex than just acting in accordance with the immediate demands of the setting – consider, for instance, the contemporary magnitude of media and interview training, the above quotes show clearly that the very situation of being on-air demands the strategic performance of normatively defined interactional and social roles in front of an overhearing audience. In other words, participants in broadcast talk typically will be inclined to modify their behaviour when they know they are being ‘overheard’ (Bull, 2004: 206).
4.3 (INTER-)PROFESSIONAL IDENTITIES IN POLITICAL
TELEVISION DISCOURSE
Recalling Butler’s performativity theory, it is of relevance to recognise that interactions in political television programmes are also performative in a less literal sense of the concept. As individuals put institutionally defined discursive practices (structure) into the moment-to-moment action of their encounter (agency) 22 , they inevitably are also engaging in dynamically producing and reproducing – i.e. ‘performing’ – social identities. Applied to the context of political television talk, the dynamic and repetitive enactment by journalist-presenters and politicians of roles and accompanying practices, is strongly connected to the performance of their broader journalistic and political identities. At this point, the notion of professionalism comes to the fore as an intrinsic aspect of both journalist-presenters’ and politicians’ identity construction processes. Like all forms of institutional interaction, political television talk, by definition, involves the participation of “at least one participant who
22 As Butler (1990, 1993) repeatedly emphasises, this very ‘re-enactment’ of the structurally delineated set of expectations can
manifest itself in the sense of both its normative reiteration and its subversive reworking.
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represents a formal organization of some kind” (Drew & Heritage, 1992: 3). A ‘professional’ generally functions as a member of the organising institution and, therefore, normatively bears responsibility for the success and outcome of the encounter (Goodwin, 1994; Hak, 1994; Linell, 1990). Thus, a professional participant typically is supposed to take initiative and guide the interaction by means of a variety of discursive activities, including questioning, allocating turns, and judging the (ir)relevance of the participants’ contributions (Linell, 1990). As members of the organising institution, professionals can thus be said to have a privileged position in institutional interactions because of their “preferential access to discourse” (van Dijk, 2001: 259) and their ability to resort to a certain professional expertise to legitimate their conduct and constrain the other participants’ discursive actions. Taking the court institution as an illustration (e.g. Atkinson & Drew, 1979), it is the judge who is assigned a professional status and, typically, takes responsibility in the interactions; it is the judge who routinely asks probing questions of the defendants and makes the final decision, often in consultation or collaboration with a jury, about their guilt or innocence. In an education setting (e.g. McHoul, 1978), the teacher typically controls the turn-taking patterns in classroom contexts and has a structural legitimacy to ask questions, decide on what will be discussed, and make evaluative comments on the students’ contributions. In turn, the institutional context of police interviews (e.g. Haworth, 2006) provides the policeman with legitimacy to control the topic, interrogate the suspect and decide on the relevance of the responses. In the context of political broadcast talk, the journalist-presenters’ membership of both the institution of journalism and the institution of broadcasting endows them with such specialised “institutional know-how” (Heritage, 2005: 114) on which basis they can claim legitimacy to organise, manage and even orchestrate the development of broadcast programmes. Following on from the broadcaster’s responsibility for the talk being produced, “control and management of all talk in broadcasting must rest, first and last, with the representatives of the institutions, that is the broadcasters” (Brand & Scannell, 1991: 216). What’s more, journalist-presenters do not stand alone in this control and management of on-air talk, but are backed up by a team of fellow media professionals that operate behind the scenes. While the
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privileged position of journalist-presenters and other media professionals is discussed in more depth in the rest of this chapter and in Chapter 5, it should be emphasised that professionalism in political television talk is not a matter merely of media professionals meeting their role-bound professional expectations. In contrast to many other forms of institutional discourse, such as classroom interactions (e.g. McHoul, 1978), emergency calls (e.g. Whalen & Zimmerman, 1990; Zimmerman, 1992) or broadcast programmes with ‘ordinary people’ (e.g. Carpentier, 2001; Livingstone & Lunt, 1994), political television interactions involve the interprofessional meeting of individuals from different institutional backgrounds. Like the journalist-presenters, politicians enter the encounter with an overall expert identity as representatives of a social institution. Rather than defending private views, politicians speak for the public institution of politics and are expected to endorse party-related policies. Thus, both journalist-presenters and politicians are part of a broader elite, which gives them the power to claim and legitimate expertise (Livingstone & Lunt, 1994: 100). Fetzer and Weizman (2006: 149) subscribe to this view in stating that, in political media discourse, “all of the first-frame coparticipants are assigned the status of an expert: the interviewers are experts regarding their profession as a journalist and the interviewees are experts regarding politics”. In such interprofessional discourse, journalist-presenters and politicians are mutually dependent on each other for the fulfilment of their missions in the represented social institutions (Ekström, 2007a; Linell, 1998b: 143). Occasionally, other professionals, such as academic, societal or other journalistic23 experts, are also involved in on-air broadcasts. Consequently, the institutional context of political broadcast talk is infused with a complex web of professional performance competences of participants with potentially diverging institutional backgrounds. The next section elaborates in more detail the performative peculiarities of political and journalistic professional identities in political
23 The broadcast interactions among journalistic professionals have been described as the “affiliated interview” (Montgomery, 2007)
or “doing a commentary” (Ekström & Kroon Lundell, 2011). In contrast to the avoidance-avoidance conflict situations that are typical
of interactions between journalists and politicians (see later, e.g. Bavelas et al., 1990), which intraprofessional types of interviews
mostly develop in a more flexible and smoother atmosphere. This is no surprise given the shared communicative goals, professional
values and ideals among the participants, which allow journalists to jointly and collaboratively construct a mutual frame for their
performance. In this respect, Kroon Lundell (2010b: 447-448) points to the significant empowering potential of these types of
broadcast talk.
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interviews and television debates. Given the main focus of this work on journalistic practices, I choose not to expound too extensively on the interactional conduct of politicians in political television talk and keep focus on the construction of a media professional identity within this context. Nevertheless, journalist-presenters do not autonomously construct a media professional identity, but are intrinsically dependent upon the willingness of politicians to collaborate in this construction. Therefore, it is necessary to, at least briefly, also account for the normative expectations regarding the interactional conduct of politicians in political television talk. The following starts with such an account of the structural expectations regarding the politicians’ roles in televised interviews and debates, after which I expound more elaborately on the complex set of performer skills that is required of journalist-presenters to achieve a media professional identity in these mediated encounters.
4.3.1 POLITICIANS AND THE STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNICATIVE
COMPETENCE
Stemming from the distinctive dual articulation of political broadcast talk, politicians participating in political interviews and television debates find themselves in a somewhat difficult interactional position. While the main objectives of their participation in broadcast talk lies in motivations that extend beyond the immediate interaction, such as influencing and convincing the overhearing audience of potential voters, pushing through decisions, or impeding political agendas, they cannot afford to use the interactional situation merely as a platform for promoting their ideas and achieving their own goals. Instead, normatively they are expected to play out the interactional roles as answerer and interlocutor in order to achieve an overall professional identity as responsible politician (Ekström, 2011: 148); they are required to show an orientation to the other participants’ conduct and to, at least seemingly, abide by the rules of the interactional game in order to be seen and evaluated as a ‘decent’ interviewee or debater (Bilmes, 1999: 234). To accomplish this peculiar interactional balancing act, the display of specialised “communicative competences” (Hymes, 1972) becomes a crucial issue for politicians to keep “face” (Goffman, 1955 [2006], 1967). In function of
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impression management and the maintenance of reputation, politicians are faced with a particular challenge to strategically deal with the structural arrangements, expectations and participation frameworks of political television talk (Ekström, 2012: 153). Indeed, the performances of politicians are for a large part judged on the basis of their competence to confute each other’s arguments, evade the journalist-presenters’ questions and deliver brief and fluent arguments (Bavelas et al., 1990; Bull, 2004; Bull & Fetzer, 2006; Harris, 1991; Martel & Turbide, 2005). Therefore, a good “communicational performance” (“performance communicationnelle”, Martel & Turbide, 2005: 195) or “articulateness” (Gans, 1979) of politicians typically involves the use of a number of strategic and well-considered interactional practices to simultaneously evade questions and promote own opinions while countering those of adversaries (Simon-Vandenbergen, 1996, 2008). Several studies indicate that either answering a question straightforwardly or circumventing a question, by definition generates negative outcomes since neither confirmative nor denying replies are deemed completely appropriate to the situation (e.g. Bavelas et al., 1990; Simon-Vandenbergen, 2008: 352). As a result of these typical “avoidance-avoidance conflict situations” (Bavelas et al., 1990), politicians are inclined strategically to engage in evasion strategies and equivocation practices so as to reduce the negative consequences of their potentially resistant actions and, by extension, protect their professional identity (Bull, 2004; Bull & Fetzer, 2006). As Corner (2000: 397) argues, “broadcast interviews, especially those done ‘live’, frequently present the strongest test both to the promotional tacts and the persona stability of politicians, although methods for responding to this challenge are well established”. Similarly, it has been observed that the evasive behaviour of politicians has, as it were, become “commonplace” in political television interactions (Clayman, 2001: 439; see also Bavelas et al., 1990; Bull & Fetzer, 2006; Harris, 1991). This accords with Goffman’s (1967: 13) observation that the use of face-saving practices often becomes a routinised and habitual activity in social interaction, eventually comprising a characteristic repertoire of strategies on which participants can rely to perform positive self-presentations and, by extension, to uphold and protect their professional identity.
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In his study of the specific dynamics of answering and evading questions, Clayman (2001) analyses the variety of discursive practices that politicians routinely and strategically bring into play in political television talk. Starting from a distinction between overt and covert resistance strategies, he develops an analytic scheme in which he maps out the practices through which politicians strategically can minimise the potential damage of their evasive behaviour. While some of these practices are discussed further in the empirical Chapter 7 of this study, it is sufficient here to point to the implications of this evasiveness for politicians’ performances of their selves. Just as politicians are routinely preoccupied in their talk with developing and using strategies to pursue their own goals and agendas by means of equivocation, the journalists’ “attempts to extract unequivocal answers, therefore, predictably fail” (Simon-Vandenbergen, 2008: 355). The result is a very strategic form of talk, in which politicians are expected to display their competences to produce evasive answers to critical or adversarial questions without explicitly withholding an appropriate answer (e.g. Arminen, 2005: 138).
4.3.2 JOURNALIST-PRESENTERS AS MEDIA PROFESSIONALS
In the context of normative behaviour of journalist-presenters in political television programmes, the overall social identity of “media professional” (e.g. Carpentier, 2005, 2011) necessarily comes to the fore. The concept of media professional is specifically useful for including the journalist-presenters’ wide array of professional responsibilities in the encounter, which clearly reach beyond traditional journalistic obligations, as well as for taking account of the backstage practices of the production team, which, although hidden for the viewers, play a crucial role in the frontstage identity construction of journalist-presenters. While I will deal with this latter aspect later on in this chapter (see 4.4.3), it is of relevance here to zoom into the former aspect, namely the journalist-presenters’ complex roles and attached responsibilities as part of their identity as media professional. Just like politicians, journalist-presenters have significant representational duties to fulfil. The journalist-presenters’ dual membership of the institutions of journalism and broadcasting implies a complex set of tasks and associated
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roles that they are normatively expected to achieve in their on-air interactions with politicians. Overall, journalist-presenters are required constantly to prove themselves as competent professionals able to master a diversity of specialised performer skills that are inherent to their institutionalised positions as representatives of journalism and broadcasting: from critical questioning and managing balanced turn-allocations, to more media-related skills such as introducing the programme and effectuating pre-produced scripts. Each of these skills can be seen as part of a set of roles that journalist-presenters are expected to play out in order to accomplish a credible performance of their overall “chameleon identity” (Economou & Svensson Limsjö, 2006: 142) as a media professional. Three roles stand out in this respect: journalist-presenter as interactional manager; political journalist; and television producer. While the first is related explicitly to the interactional responsibilities of journalist-presenters as questioners and moderators in the encounter, the latter two are connected to the journalist-presenters’ representational and, thus, institutional positions. In order to be perceived as professional actors and, therefore, successfully to achieve an identity as media professional, journalist-presenters need to demonstrate competence to deal with this multitude of roles in the interactional development of the programme. Figure 4.1. maps how the identity of media professional is related to and can be accomplished through local enactment of the journalist-presenters’ structurally defined and expected roles and according sub-roles. The figure presents the roles of interactional manager and political journalist as closer to the identity of media professional than the television producer role is. However, this is not to say that the journalist-presenter roles of interactional manager and political journalist are somehow more important or more relevant to the accomplishment of a media professional identity. Rather, these roles most commonly come to the fore in discussions of participant roles in political television talk (e.g. Clayman, 1988, 1991, 1992, 2002a, 2002b, 2007; Clayman & Heritage, 2002; Ekström, 2001, 2009; Greatbatch, 1988; Heritage, 2002; Heritage & Greatbatch, 1991; Montgomery, 2007). This study argues that the journalist-presenters’ duties as television producer are of as much relevance for the accomplishment of an overall professional identity. Partly anticipating the empirical research results of this doctoral research and partly
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based on the indications in some recent studies (Carpentier, 2005; Ytreberg, 2004, 2006), the journalist-presenters’ non-journalistic duties as television producer constitute an intrinsic part of their professional performances and, as such, should be integrated in any reflection on identity construction in political television talk.
Figure 4.1: The journalist-presenter’s identity as media professional
The merging of these roles and sub-roles in the same single participant makes the overall identity of journalist-presenters as media professionals rather complex, especially because of the difficulties involved. On the one hand, journalist-presenters are expected to demonstrate their capacities as ‘good political journalists’ by fulfilling their more traditional journalistic duties of being critical, objective and impartial (e.g. Clayman, 1988, 2002a, 2002b, 2007; Clayman & Heritage, 2002; Ekström, 2008, 2009; Greatbatch, 1988; Heritage,
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2002); on the other hand, they are required to act as television producers working within a context where a market- and audience-driven logic is ever more prevalent and in which they too must strive to attract, optimise and engage audiences (e.g. Burger, 2006; Carpentier, 2005; Ekström, 2011; Fetzer & Johansson, 2008; Hutchby, 2011; Lauerbach, 2004; Tolson, 2001, 2006). Moreover, while the roles of interactional manager, political journalist and television producer and their according sub-roles are closely connected to a series of discursive resources over which journalist-presenters can exercise powerful legitimacy – such as posing challenging questions, polarising positions, setting agendas and controlling the interactional development (see Chapter 5), they can only be ‘brought into being’ through collaboration and interaction with politicians. As a consequence, the journalist-presenter’s successful performance of a media professional identity is strongly dependent on the willingness of politicians to cooperate in this performance. Like the journalist-presenters, the politicians come to the debate with specific goals and agendas and are free to resist the role claims of the journalist-presenters (e.g. Clayman, 2001; Clayman and Heritage, 2002; Heritage, 2002). How journalist-presenters actually accomplish the above described roles and sub-roles through the exploitation of a multitude of strategic resources, can only be fully understood by taking account of the ways these roles are handled – i.e. oriented to, negotiated, reproduced or transformed – during the local practice of interactions. This dynamic aspect of journalistic identity construction in political broadcast talk is covered in detail in the empirical chapters. But first, it is of relevance to describe in more detail how the in Figure 4.1 depicted roles and sub-roles of journalist-presenters in political television talk are structurally organised; i.e. which duties, legitimate entitlements and expectations can be expected to be inscribed into the performance of these roles and sub-roles.
MANAGING THE INTERACTION
From the general interactional and turn-taking organisation of political television interactions it follows that journalist-presenters are expected to behave as interactional managers, responsible for posing questions, moderating discussion, and ensuring balanced and clear presentation of the politicians’
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standpoints. Against the backdrop of their membership of the institutions of journalism and broadcasting, and for the sake of the overhearing audience, it is the responsibility of journalist-presenters to create an interactional environment in which studio guests are welcomed and even encouraged to provide information and outline their views on the topics discussed (Clayman & Heritage, 2002: 176). Since politicians generally will try to ‘milk’ their individual turns, the interventions of the journalist-presenter to achieve a balanced and clear presentation of opinions becomes an intrinsic part of the smooth development of political broadcast talk. Overall, the interactional management capacities of journalist-presenters are reflected in their duties as ‘questioner’ and ‘moderator’, both of which are pre-allocated on the basis of the earlier described interactional organisation and turn-taking procedures in political television interactions (e.g. Bilmes, 1999; Clayman, 1988; Clayman & Heritage, 2002; Ekström & Patrona, 2011; Greatbatch, 1988; Heritage, 1985; Heritage & Greatbatch, 1991). As questioners in the interaction, journalist-presenters are determined to elicit opinions and information from politicians. At the same time, their responsibility as moderators of the interaction arranges that they prevent the interaction from deteriorating into incomprehensible, repetitive and disorderly chatter. Related to the ideal standards of fairness and balance in public speech situations, is the general assumption that the participants in political broadcast talk should be given equal speaking time to set out their positions (Bilmes, 1999: 217; Clayman & Heritage, 2002: 156; Greatbatch, 1992; Hutchby, 2006: 127). Consequently, as moderators of the interaction, journalist-presenters typically have the interactional duty to distribute speaking turns and manage their time spans (e.g. Charaudeau & Ghiglione, 1997: 49). These, what may be described as the ‘sub-roles’ of ‘questioner’ and ‘moderator’, endow journalist-presenters with a powerful legitimacy to control the agenda, decide on the course of the interaction and influence the meaning and terms of the politicians’ answering sequences (e.g. Bell & Van Leeuwen, 1994: 7; Ekström, 2001: 565; Hutchby, 2006: 33; see also Chapter 5). In their role as interactional managers, then, journalist-presenters are not only entitled but also expected to organise the interaction, decide on the distribution and length of turns, manage the framing and interpretation of the contributions, and control the quantity and quality of turns, utterances and
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topics. As such, the journalist-presenters’ overall normatively determined role as managers of the interaction decides their privileged access to turn-allocation within and the agenda and framing of the interaction. Of course, and in line with the social constructionist approach taken in this study, this legitimate entitlement is not static and can only emerge and be operationalized in the actual interactions with politicians. For the politicians, just as much as the journalist-presenters, come to the interaction with particular agendas, which results in continuous and complex struggle over ownership of the floor and management of frames and topics (e.g. Bilmes, 1999: 234; Ekström, 2007a; Thornborrow, 2002: 27).
‘DOING’ POLITICAL JOURNALISM
In most forms of political television discourse (Ekström, 2008), journalist-presenters are not simply managers of the interactions, they are also political journalists, acting on behalf of a particular social context, i.e. from the position of both representative of the institution of journalism and deputy for the audience. From this representational position follows a structural expectation that journalist-presenters will comply with the basic values of the journalistic profession such as public service, objectivity, immediacy, and autonomy, among many others (e.g. Bogaerts & Carpentier, 2012; Carpentier, 2005; Deuze, 2005: 447). This ensemble of commonly accepted principles of (political) journalism demands of journalist-presenters a professional skill to act on behalf of the public, be impartial, objective and ‘formally neutral’, and take a critical stance towards politicians’ utterances (e.g. Clayman, 1988, 2002a, 2002b, 2007; Clayman & Heritage, 2002; Ekström, 2009; Greatbatch, 1988; Heritage, 2002). The need to combine these journalistic skills into, often, one and the same questioning turn, substantially complicates the successful performance of professional (journalistic) identity. As journalist-presenters need to distance themselves from their personal opinions or the assumption of a personal stance, they constantly are confronted with the need to find a balance between, on the one hand, being impartial, objective and neutral in their questioning of politicians and, on the other hand, competently playing
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out their journalistic roles as critical ‘watchdog’. Hutchby (2011: 115) recognises a shift in journalists’ roles in news interviews from journalist-as-chronicler to journalist-as-advocate or journalist-as-inquisitor, as the discursive practices connected to the journalist-presenters’ institutional role as political journalist often involve the production of adversarial questions or assertions, which risks their being seen as exceeding the confines of neutrality, and being openly criticised by the interviewees for their intolerant stance. Important as it is for interviewees to present themselves as attractive, likeable and competent stance-taking individuals, it is crucial for the journalist-presenter to display an overall presentation of a distancing stance. In the literature, the question “how do interviewers manage to assert themselves in an adversarial manner while maintaining a formally impartial or neutralistic posture?” (Clayman & Heritage, 2002: 151) has been addressed by several scholars (Clayman, 1988, 1992, 2002a, 2002b 2007; Clayman & Heritage, 2002; Greatbatch, 1988; Heritage, 1985; Heritage & Greatbatch, 1991). These works find that journalist-presenters generally can circumvent overt breaches of their neutralistic stance through the basic question-answer turn-taking design of political interviews. As information-eliciting devices, questions have the interactional advantage of creating a distance between the words being uttered and the speaker’s personal beliefs. Also, the distinctive participation framework of political television debates – or “panel interviews” (Clayman, 2002b) – carries the potential for overcoming the often-conflicting journalistic ideals of being critical and being neutralistic. The inherent organisation of the format, which foresees direct confrontation among multiple politicians, can be said to allow for the “diminished involvement” of the journalist-presenter (Clayman, 2002b: 1399). However, journalist-presenters’ interactional conduct in news interviews and political television debates is not always restricted to asking informative questions. Media scholars have recognised an increasing shift in political television programmes from deferential and formal interviews with politicians, to interviewing styles that are often either critical, highly adversarial and conflictual, or informal, with therapeutic and light-hearted discourse styles (Hamo et al., 2010; Neveu, 2002). Under the influence of these tendencies, the journalist-presenter has become an ever more active player, holding politicians accountable by assuming not only the sub-role of ‘public
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servant’– or as Clayman (2002a) conceptualises a “tribune of the people”, but also that of “arbiter of truth” (Montgomery, 2007: 216), on which basis it is seen as legitimate to make sweeping evaluations of politicians’ utterances. In order to perform their political journalist role in political television talk, journalist-presenters often resort to strategic interactional practices that allow them, selectively, to protect their position of formal neutrality and to legitimise their conduct (Clayman, 1988, 1992, 2002a, 2002b, 2007; Heritage, 1985). One of the most common strategies in this respect is the concept of footing shift, proposed by Erving Goffman (1981) to explore the degree of involvement in social interaction. By breaking down the notion of “speaker” into “animator”, “author” and “principal”, Goffman emphasises the changing forms of participation and alignment in social interaction: “a change in footing implies a change in the alignment we take up to ourselves and the others present as expressed in the way we manage the production or reception of an utterance” (Goffman, 1981: 128). In his distinction between “animator” (i.e. “the talking machine” (Goffman, 1981: 144), the person who currently produces utterances), “author” (i.e. the person whose words are being uttered) and “principal” (i.e. the person whose position, belief or sentiment is being ventilated), Goffman (1981) suggests that at any moment in a given interaction, an animator can take up different degrees of authorship and principalship towards the utterances he produces. In the context of political broadcast talk, footing shifts are powerful resources for journalist-presenters to demonstrate a sense of professionalism and accomplish successful self-presentations. By formulating a question in the name of or on behalf of a relevant category – such as the public, relevant experts, or anonymous collectivities – journalist-presenters can neutralise their interactional conduct and utter critical assertions without being seen as responsible for the opinions they represent (Clayman, 1988, 1992, 2002a, 2002b, 2007). Footing shifts can, thus, be a strategic means for journalist-presenters to “smuggle their own beliefs into the discussion while claiming that they belong to someone else” (Clayman, 1992: 194). Moreover, reference to other relevant parties in a journalist’s question or assertion legitimises the line of enquiry and exerts pressure on the interviewee to answer the question (Clayman, 2002a: 201). Shifts in footing, then, are strong strategic practices to
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which journalist-presenters turn very selectively so as to create and accomplish a successful presentation of their journalistic, distancing self:
Thus, far from being a straightforward reflection of unadulterated professionalism, this practice is best understood as a mode of self-presentation - a style of questioning employed methodically to manage specific contingencies and problems that arise in the course of the interviewer’s work. (Clayman, 2007: 224)
Hence, footing shifts are routinely appealed to by journalist-presenters as a strategic means for dealing with the “occupational hazards” that typically coincide with the critical questioning of politicians “in the glare of the media spotlight” (Clayman, 2002a: 213). Generally, Clayman (1988, 1992, 2002a, 2002b, 2007) recognises three interactional moments when journalist-interviewers tend to fall back on footing shifts in order to make opinionated statements while maintaining a neutralistic stance: (1) when initiating a topic; (2) when engaging in sensitive or aggressive questioning; and (3) when defending against criticism. While this categorisation is relevant to and is illuminating about the journalistic achievement of a neutralistic posture in broadcast talk, it remains strongly focused on local interactional conduct and does not take wider account of television production and the potential influence of production teams. The journalist-presenters’ membership of a broadcasting institution and a broader team of media workers, together with some new tendencies within the broadcasting landscape, persistently demand a reconsideration of these traditional strategic practices (cfr. Chapter 8).
PRODUCING A FLUENT TELEVISION SHOW
Alongside these two, quite traditional roles, journalist-presenters need also to show themselves to be competent television producers. Stemming from their membership of the media organisation that employs them, journalist-presenters are necessarily compelled to take account of the broadcast institution’s imperatives and expectations (Ekström, 2008). Alongside the duties attached to their roles as interactional manager and political journalist, journalist-presenters need to display additional professional competence to
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construct a ‘decent’ media product and control the numerous production facilities that are inscribed in the programme’s format (Carpentier, 2005). Recent tendencies in the production of news and political programmes have come to challenge the traditional conventions of ‘doing an interview’ and substantially alter the complex identity performances at stake in political broadcast talk. In many contemporary broadcasting policies and programming strategies, there seems to be an assumption that the attention span of audiences is limited and attenuated (e.g. Thussu, 2007). The past decades have seen an ongoing transformation from “paleo-television” to “neo-television” (Casetti & Odin, 1990; Eco, 1992: 247), in which entertainment and light-heartedness have become ever more present features of televisual programming (Hamo et al., 2010; Neveu, 2002). Media producers often attempt to attract audiences and awaken their curiosity through the use, for instance, of particular formats, variety, and avoidance of too elaborate arguments. Information provision on public service television has adapted to the changing media landscape by changing its forms, styles and content in order to attract a broader audience and persuade the public to stay tuned. As far as concerns television talk, the use of catchy, rapid and stringent formats has not only become widely accepted within the talk show genre (Talbot, 2007; Tolson, 2001, 2006), it also appears to be percolating current affairs and political television programmes (Karvonen, 2009; Thussu, 2007; Turner, 2005).24 Political interviews and television debates are not only beginning to appear in so-called hybrid forms that mix traditional accountability interviewing practices with more tendentious interviewing styles and informal small-talk (Ekström, 2011; Fetzer & Johansson, 2008; Hutchby, 2011; Lauerbach, 2004), but the more traditional accountability interview and debate programmes are being modernised and becoming increasingly centred on rapid alternation through numerous programme segments, short interactions, colourful decor and extra-situational material such as instigating reportages (Hamo et al., 2010; Montgomery, 2007). The content of news and political programmes has broadened from being purely political coverage and debate, to include sport, human interest, hobbies, consumerism, etc. In an 24 This process has been variously described as a tendency towards “conversationalisation” (Fairclough, 1995; Fetzer & Weizman,
2006), “informalisation” (Montgomery, 2007), “entertainmentisation” (Karvonen, 2009), and “confrontainment” (Lorenzo-Dus, 2009).
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attempt to attract bigger audiences, these programmes are delivered in formats that tend to pay less attention to in-depth content and background elaborations, and more to the presentation and form of the political discussion (Fetzer & Johansson, 2008; Montgomery, 2007: 184; Tolson, 2001: 13; Tolson, 2006: 57). The imagined audience is no longer perceived merely as a group of critical citizens, it is seen as including consumers demanding good quality and appealing content. The extraordinary and expert opinion is having to make space for the stories and testimonies of ‘ordinary people’, the ‘average Joe’, or ‘the man in the street’ (Livingstone & Lunt, 1994). It is in this respect that Turner (2010) recognises a so-called “demotic turn” in many contemporary media content, through which ‘ordinary people’ have gained increasing visibility in, amongst others, news and current affairs journalism. Evidently, such tendencies have repercussions for the identity performances of journalist-presenters in contemporary forms of political television talk. As representatives of the broadcasting institution, it is the journalist-presenters’ exclusive responsibility to put these unspoken laws into practice in the interactional achievement of their institutionalised role as television producer. It seems that their role as television producer requires journalist-presenters to display competence in performing two sub-roles: being an ‘entertainer’ and being a ‘master of ceremony’. Based on their sub-role of entertainer, journalist-presenters show particular skills as “‘creator’ of an entertaining show” (Burger, 2006: 52), from which they are expected to maintain momentum, make interruptions, build tension and provoke conflict. As entertainers and producers of a television product, it is the journalist-presenters’ responsibility to promote the production of so-called “conflict talk” (Grimshaw, 1990). Rather than being invited randomly, invitations to politicians are given a great deal of thought, and they are selected and invited on the basis of their differing standpoints to a particular topic (Greatbatch, 1992). In this respect, Örnebring (2003: 518), in his historical study of current affairs debate programmes on Swedish television, recognises the growing importance of “a conflict narrative constructed beforehand by the producers”. Others as well have recognised the “packaging of debates” (Stanyer, 2001: 137), through which television debates are constructed as a clash of clearly opposed political actors, as an increasingly applied method in the production
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of political broadcasts (see also Croteau & Hoynes, 1994: 53-54; Dahlgren, 1995: 63). In addition, journalist-presenters need to be able to perform a second sub-role inscribed in their role as television producers – one of ‘master of ceremony’, responsible for putting the pre-planned aspects of the programme such as scripts and pre-produced reportages into the practice of the on-air broadcast and bring discussions to a close at predetermined moments. Journalist-presenters are responsible for the construction of a programme as a fluent television show; it is they who need to show a “specialized performer’s competence to produce on cue an extemporaneous stream of fluent talk according to a given format or genre’s requirements” (Ytreberg, 2006: 424). Thus, it is not surprising that Ytreberg (2004: 685, original emphasis) concludes “the host in many ways is the format”. At all times, journalist-presenters need to parade their competence to “incarnate the format” (Ytreberg, 2004: 684) and produce a fluent, spontaneous and continuous “ribbon of broadcasting” (Goffman, 1981: 262). While the other participants are expected to perform within the boundaries of the format, the journalist-presenters are required to actually embody “the format’s norms of performance and interaction” (Ytreberg, 2004: 685). In the next section, I show how local management of these aspects of the journalist-presenters’ media professional identity are handled through extensive pre-planning and preparatory activities in the backstage areas of political broadcast talk.
4.4 THE PRE-PLANNED NATURE OF TELEVISION PERFORMANCES
The journalist-presenters’ on-air performance of their media professional identity is inherently complex and multi-faceted in the sense that journalist-presenters are required simultaneously to play out a vast portfolio of interactional and institutional roles while depending on the cooperation of politicians for an unproblematic display of their professional competences. A number of mostly CA inspired studies has dealt with how journalist-presenters deal interactionally with the structurally defined performative demands and expectations of political broadcast talk (e.g. Clayman, 2001; Clayman & Heritage, 2002; Heritage, 2002). While conversation analysts generally recognise that “in some forms of institutional interactions – debates,
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ceremonies, and many kinds of meetings – the topics, contributions, and order of speakership are organized from the outset in an explicit and predictable way” (Heritage, 2005: 115, emphasis added), they nevertheless seldom explicitly account for this pre-planning in their analyses. As a consequence, the overly interactional focus of these micro-studies tends to assume that the construction of journalistic professionalism is situated at the level of the moment-to-moment unfolding of the broadcast talk. However, performances on television do not ‘occur naturally’, but are, in large part, pre-planned and take place within a specific programme format (e.g. Carpentier, 2011; Goffman, 1981; Kroon Lundell, 2009, 2010a; Ytreberg, 2002, 2006). Kroon Lundell (2010a: 182) claims repeatedly that the on-air performances of journalist-presenters and politicians in political broadcast talk “are not produced in a vacuum, decontextualized from a social setting without a ‘before’ and an ‘after’”. Rather, political interviews and television debates occur within a broader contextual framework of preceding, following or simultaneously unfolding backstage activities. In studies of media talk, the significance of off-screen preparatory activities and their role in creating a context for behaviour in on-air interactions has been a largely understudied and underestimated aspect (e.g. Ekström, 2001: 566; Ytreberg, 2006: 423). Yet, as Goffman (1981) emphasises, the concepts of front- and back-regions25 are highly interdependent and, therefore, cannot be separated from one another. Or as Ytreberg (2002: 491) argues along similar lines: “using one without the other is like clapping with one hand” (see also Sarangi & Roberts, 1999: 23). Whereas in the front-regions of social life, performers’ behaviour generally conforms to the well-established norms of conduct inscribed in the particular interaction order of the situation, the back-regions enable them to relax and prepare for future performances out front (MacCannell, 1990: 30; Meyrowitz, 1990: 69). As Goffman (1959: 128) points out, people typically tend to adjust their (body) language behaviour as they move from one region to another:
The backstage language consists of reciprocal first-naming, co-operative decision-making, profanity, open sexual remarks, elaborate griping,
25 While in his early work, Goffman uses the metaphor of “regions”, his later work focuses more on the concepts of “framing” and
“frame space” in the context of mass media.
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smoking, rough informal dress, “sloppy” sitting and standing posture, use of dialect or sub-standard speech, mumbling and shouting, playful aggressivity and “kidding”, inconsiderateness for the other in minor but potentially symbolic acts, minor physical self-involvements such as humming, whistling, chewing, nibbling, belching, and flatulence. The frontstage behaviour language can be taken as the absence (and in some sense the opposite) of this.
While social life is permeated by front- and back-region performances, the partition between the regions becomes important in the context of televisual performances. In broadcast settings, “back-region tends to be defined as all places where the camera is not focused at the moment or all places out of range of ‘live’ microphones” (Goffman, 1959: 119). While back-region behaviour is, thus, partly linked to the backstage settings, and front-region behaviour to the frontstage settings, Kroon Lundell (2010a: 169) warns against too easily equating the one with the other (see also Sarangi & Roberts, 1999: 23). She does not take front-region performances in television talk as synonymous with on-air performances, nor does she regard back-region activities exclusively as those activities occurring off-camera. Rather than relating the distinction between front- and back-region performances to a shift in spatial contexts, she opts to see it in relation more to changes in behavioural patterns. Whereas in the front-regions, performers are expected to project a set of normatively defined roles in the presence of an audience, back-region performances are more open to a sense informality and display of a private self that is “not necessarily in line with the person’s professional role” (Kroon Lundell, 2010a: 169). Given the performative nature of broadcast interactions, a lot of backstage work is necessary to ensure an unproblematic unfolding of the frontstage performance. Technological requirements, format-related peculiarities and pre-planned scripts form the encompassing framework within which participants can accomplish their performer roles and negotiate presentations of their professional selves (Kroon Lundell, 2009, 2010a; Ytreberg, 2002, 2006). Topics, participants and questions are often carefully discussed and selected in advance by a team of media professionals. Through their daily preparatory activities, the media professionals in the newsroom
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are jointly oriented to the production of a successful and smooth-running television show (Ytreberg, 2004). As such, the work done in the backstage settings has the power to reduce potential aberrations in the frontstage broadcast and, by extension, to assure and facilitate an unproblematic demonstration of the journalist-presenters’ professionalism. In this sense, integrating the production context into the study of political broadcast talk would seem inevitable given its repercussions for journalist-presenters’ on-air management of and negotiation over their institutionally defined roles as part of their media professional identity. The following sub-sections deal with three activities that typically occur in the back-regions of political television discourse: pre- and post-interview interactions between journalist-presenters and politicians, scripting and formatting practices, and teaming activities in the newsroom and control room.
4.4.1 OFF-AIR INTERACTIONS BETWEEN JOURNALIST-PRESENTERS AND
POLITICIANS
While the on-air opening sequences of political television programmes might suggest otherwise, journalist-presenters and politicians have often already met before the cameras begin to roll. Most broadcast organisations reserve a lounge area – in this study called the ‘foyer’ – in their backstage areas that is mostly adjacent to the studio setting and is set up specifically for the purpose of welcoming guests (Kroon Lundell, 2010: 173). The encounters between journalist-presenters and politicians within this backstage setting include the essential moments when they first meet, which possibly spill over into their upcoming performances in the frontstage area. While studies of these specific forms of off-air interaction are noticeably lacking, an analysis of the off-camera interactions between journalists and politicians might provide new insights into the interactional specificities of political broadcast talk as well as into the behind-the-scenes negotiation of their reciprocal relationship (Kroon Lundell, 2010a; Voltmer & Brants, 2011: 143). Kroon Lundell (2010a: 168) in this respect recognises such backstage interactions as “an exciting new arena for researchers interested in the ways in which journalists and politicians interact and organize their activities in an institutional setting”. Her analysis of the backstage encounters between journalists and politicians particularly
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brings to light that while the rules and norms guiding their backstage behaviour are organised in a less strict manner than for frontstage performances, pre- and post-interview interactions are nevertheless guided by social requirements, routines and impression management strategies. For, in the backstage setting too, journalist-presenters and politicians appear to be organising activities and negotiating roles in order to reach their joint communicative goals. What is more, they seem to be cooperating – as a team – in sustaining the definition of the situation “in such a way that the broadcast interview comes across as a cohesive and successful on-air performance in front of the audience” (Kroon Lundell, 2010a: 182). In this regard, the typical “loosening of standards” in back-region performances must also be seen as a completely “social requirement” (MacCannell, 1990: 30). Performance and staged-ness then would seem to be as much features of frontstage interactions as of backstage interactions (Goffman, 1959: 130; Kroon Lundell, 2010a: 169; MacCannell, 1990: 30; Meyrowitz, 1990: 70; Ytreberg, 2002: 491).
4.4.2 PRE-PLANNING MEDIA PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY: SCRIPTING
Similar to theatrical performances, interactions on radio and television are, to a large extent, guided by institutional pre-planning (e.g. Carpentier, 2011; Goffman, 1981; Kroon Lundell, 2009; Montgomery, 2007: 30-32; Ytreberg, 2002, 2006). The production of political broadcast talk typically involves comprehensive procedures of selecting, formatting, scripting and editing; procedures that call for specialised professional know-how, to pre-plan and prepare for (aspects of) later on-air broadcasts (e.g. Ytreberg, 2006). The specificity of television broadcasting, with its technological demands, tight scheduling, programme segments and ubiquity of the overhearing audience, brings journalist-presenters to develop, memorise and implement pre-planned scripts to guarantee the maintenance of a coherent and unitary flow of broadcasting (Goffman, 1981: 262; Montgomery, 2007: 31; Ytreberg, 2002: 489; Ytreberg, 2006: 423). Moreover, scripting practices can facilitate journalist-presenters’ handling of the requirements and professional standards of (political) journalism. From a motivation to treat participants on an equal footing, from an objective, impartial and balanced stance, media professionals are inclined extensively to prepare their on-stage performances
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(Kroon Lundell, 2009: 271). Scripting, thus, “is a way of reducing risks of various kinds” (Montgomery, 2007: 31), from both the imperatives of broadcasting and the professional standards of journalism. Erving Goffman (1981) identified the process of scripting as a basic characteristic of producing broadcast talk. Broadly, the notion of ‘script’ captures that piece of production text documenting in detail an aspect of the upcoming performance. While verbatim forms of scripting (Goffman, 1981: 227; Ytreberg, 2002: 490) – on the basis of which prepared text is literally read aloud from an autocue – are still very common in monological forms of broadcasting such as news programmes, they are rarely used in interactionally based formats. As Ytreberg (2002: 490) explains, the broadcasting of social interaction often involves the use of other, less stringent, forms of talk management such as “topic/turn” and “intro/outro” scripting, and memorisation of a number of set phrases. Each of these “loose” (Montgomery, 2007: 31) scripting practices is routinely produced as a means of directing and setting up forthcoming performances and, as such, reducing as many potential “faultables” (Goffman, 1981: 225) in the later frontstage setting as possible (Montgomery, 2007: 31; Ytreberg, 2006: 424). Rather than straightforwardly dictating performances, scripts are intended to set the parameters for the ways topics should be introduced and concluded, turns should be taken and allocated, and time slots should be organised into a flow of distinctive segments. Thus, the backstage production work of media professionals plays a crucial role in determining the organisation and development of broadcast talk. As Kroon Lundell (2009: 286) asserts: “very little happens during the interview that is not planned and approved in advance”. Paradoxically, underlying this routinised process of scripting and pre-planning of performances is a general belief among media professionals that viewers want authentic, informal and spontaneous talk. There seems in broadcasting to be an ideal that performances on television should appear immediate, informal and uncontrolled. This “liveness-as-ideology” (Kroon Lundell, 2009: 273) or “rhetoric of liveness” (Ellis, 2000: 33) typically entails a promise of authenticity and vivacity (Couldry, 2003: 96; Kroon Lundell, 2009: 272; Ytreberg, 2006: 424). Evidently, the combination of scripting as a routine professional activity for controlling performances and the general pursuit of
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spontaneity among media professionals results in a continuous “struggle to satisfy both the professional desire for control and the absent viewer’s alleged desire for ‘liveness’ in the production process” (Kroon Lundell, 2009: 271). The actual management of this struggle has considerable implications for the journalist-presenters’ on-air performances of their identity as media professional. As part of their role of television producer and their sub-role as master of ceremony, the journalist-presenter must become the conductor (“conducteurs”, Bovet, 2007: 183) of the television show, endowed with the paradoxical professional duty to perform a pre-planned script in accordance with the assumption of liveness. Clayman and Heritage (2002: 73) equally build further on this metaphore in thinking of journalist-presenters as occupying “the interactional driver’s seat, launching all sequences of action”. The television producer role thusly demands of journalist-presenters specific professional competence to create a simulation or illusion of seemingly authentic, immediate and unscripted ‘fresh talk’ (Bull & Mayer, 1993: 651; Ellis, 2000: 33; Goffman, 1981; Isotalus, 1998; Kroon Lundell, 2009; Ytreberg, 2002, 2004, 2006). Journalist-presenters are required to create an illusion, in which the different pre-planned segments are presented as one coherent unit or social interaction. According to Kroon Lundell (2009: 271), this is largely the result of a “struggle to satisfy both the professional desire for control and the absent viewer’s alleged desire for ‘liveness’ in the production process”. While they might appear to be talking fluently and without pre-planning and pre-scripting, “what actually happens is the rehearsed and nearly unfaultable performance of a planned script” (Ytreberg, 2002: 489). According the Kroon Lundell (2009: 282), the integration of the pre-produced scripts into nearly invisible cue cards, is closely related to this paradox of control versus spontaneity: “they [the scripts] are transferred onto cue cards to hide the existence of a manuscript on-air, and the interviewers try to memorize as much as possible for the sake of liveness”. Hence, the professional identity of journalist-presenters is demonstrated not only in the way they deal interactionally with the demands of their institutionally inscribed roles but also in the way they demonstrate ability in the back-regions to routinely pre-plan a broadcast and memorise scripts so as to facilitate accomplishment of a complex professional role in the later frontstage performance (Goffman, 1981: 198; Kroon Lundell, 2009: 286;
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Ytreberg, 2002: 489; Ytreberg, 2006: 423). Or, as Goffman (1959: 31) further elucidates in the context of radio talk: “to give a radio talk that will sound genuinely, informal, spontaneous, and relaxed, the speaker may have to design his script with painstaking care, testing one phrase after another, in order to follow the content, language, rhythm, and pace of everyday talk”. It is in this respect that Kroon Lundell (2009: 286) proposes the notion of “staged liveness” to indicate the contraction between authenticity/spontaneity and the need for control and preparation through which the very fundaments of liveness are being undermined. Accordingly, the inclusion of reflections on the backstage production activities of media professionals in the analysis of identity within political broadcast talk forces us to broaden the notion of media professionalism to include the back-region competences of pre-planning, scripting and memorising performances, as specialised performance skills of the journalist-presenter. What’s more, attention to the backstage settings of political television production also requires us to broaden our understanding of the media professional to not only include journalist-presenters but also other types of media professionals that are involved in the production of political television talk. The following zooms into the activities of a whole of team of media professionals in the backstage newsroom and control room.
4.4.3 THE PRODUCTION TEAM AS BACKSTAGE FACILITATORS
To depict the construction of a media professional identity in political television talk as the sole responsibility of journalist-presenters, would seriously misconceive the professionals efforts of the production team. As Hudson and Rowlands (2007: 346) metaphorically elucidate, journalist-presenters can best be thought of “as swans gliding effortlessly across the surface of a pond, with the unseen production team paddling furiously beneath the water”. In the backstage settings of political television programmes, a constellation of media professionals is jointly oriented to the shared goal of creating a successful television programme (Rau, 2010: 69 in Bednarek & Caple, 2012: 23). To use Goffman’s (1959: 79) terminology once again, the behind-the-scenes media professionals put down a joint “team performance” so as to collaboratively produce an instance of political
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television talk and ensure an unproblematic unfolding of the broadcast. As a “team”, journalist-presenters, reporters, researchers, editors, directors and technical staff, form a “cast of players” (Goffman, 1959: 78) “whose intimate co-operation is required if a given projected definition of the situation is to be maintained” (Goffman, 1959: 104). These media professionals engage in a joint “communicative project” (Linell, 1998a: 232) and are reciprocally dependent on each other for the accomplishment of a recognisable instance of political broadcast talk (Goffman, 1959: 82). Each of the players in the team has a professional task to fulfil and is dependent on the others for its successful accomplishment. This contributes to a general atmosphere of co-membership and collegiality in which the team members create and share particular ‘secrets’: “they form a secret society, a team, in so far as a secret is kept as to how they are co-operating together to maintain a particular definition of the situation” (Goffman, 1959: 105, emphasis added). In political television discourse, this ‘secret society’ tends to operate in two relevant spatial settings that are in itself highly “hierarchical social spaces” (Schultz, 2007): the newsroom and the control room. Each of these backstage settings entails different intraprofessional co-operative modes with different ‘rules of the game’. For media professionals to professionally work, as team, within these settings, they are expected and required to understand the professional game that is implied in each of these settings and to master and effectuate the rules that underlie that game (Bourdieu, 1993: 163; Schultz, 2007: 193). These ‘rules of the game’ constitute, what Bourdieu (2005: 37) would call, the “doxa”, i.e. “the universe of the tacit presuppositions that we accept as the natives of a certain society”, i.e. in this case of the newsroom and the control room.
THE NEWSROOM
In the preparatory phases of political television broadcasts, journalist-presenters are expected to co-operate with fellow media professionals in the newsroom in order to jointly give shape to the forthcoming broadcast and, thusly, also to aspects of their frontstage media professional identity. To professionally participate in the newsroom practices, media professionals are required to have knowledge about the occupational routines that structure
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daily newsroom practice, as well as about the professional norms and internal role relationships that underlie these routines. As Schultz (2007: 192) observes, “news work is highly routinised and follows recognisable patterns from day to day”. Typically, journalistic practice is organised around a number of professional norms and beliefs that tend to appear as taken-for-granted. In the newsroom, media professionals routinely follow a shared and self-explaining set of presuppositions in giving shape to news stories (Cotter, 2010: 31). This shared set of judgements and presuppositions is often captured by the concept of news values, which stipulates the particular occupational or professional values that routinely guide media professionals in determining what counts as news. News values are related to the question “what takes it from being new to becoming news?” (O’Neill & Harcup, 2009: 1) and provide media professionals with a set of rules from which to give concrete shape to the news production process. Especially news ethnography studies have been pre-occupied with uncovering the self-explaining values governing production activities in the newsroom. Already from the 1970s onwards, news ethnographers attempt to get a grip on how news stories come into being by exploring the routinised and seemingly natural set of professional presuppositions that underlie this constitution (e.g. Galtung & Ruge, 1965; Gans, 1979; Golding & Elliott, 1979; Schlesinger, 1978; Schudson, 1978; Tuchman, 1978). Although this body of work has played a crucial role in the development of news production studies, especially in relation to showing the analytic relevance of approaching journalistic texts as the outcome of a series of work practices, its empirical locus tends to be centred predominantly upon the structural and bureaucratic aspects of journalistic practice. This is why, more recently, we see that a “’second wave’ of news ethnography” (Cottle, 2000) is emerging, with a more dynamic and constructionist view on news production activities and news values (e.g. Cotter, 2010; Macgilchrist & Van Hout, 2011; Perrin, 2011; Van Hout, 2010; Van Hout & Jacobs, 2008; Van Hout & Macgilchrist, 2011). At the heart of these newsroom ethnographies is the conviction that news production is a constructive and collaborative process through and through. They propose an approach to news production “in which agency is promoted within the larger structural embeddedness of cultural production” (Van Hout & Jacobs, 2008: 66). From such a perspective, news values are far
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from fixed and decontextualised platitudes, or ready-made categories, available for use by journalists (e.g. Bednarek & Caple, 2012: 44; Hall et al., 1978; Masterton, 2005; Schultz, 2007). Rather, the professional values that underlie the routine production of news need to be thought of as discursive constructs that are contingent upon everyday collaborative activities in the newsroom (Bednarek & Caple, 2012: 44; Schultz, 2007: 190).
Taking the inherent contingency of news production practice and news production standards as a bedrock, we can try to grasp and conceptualise the values on the basis of which media professionals recurringly tend to make sense of everyday activities, without reducing these values to a universal set of credentials. Deuze (2005: 446), for instance, identifies public service, objectivity, autonomy, immediacy, and ethics as the “five ideal-typical traits or values” that are routinely inscribed in the production of news. Similarly, Cotter (2010: 69) mentions timeliness, proximity, prominence, conflict, and impact to be the key values most commonly referred to in journalism textbooks. In addition, in the context of television journalism, this set of traditional journalistic news values tends to be supplemented by a concern for, what might called, “aesthetic balance” (Brighton & Foy, 2007: 4). In the production of television news, stylistic and format-related factors, such as a concern with “emotion and good pictures” (Frost, 2010: 10) or with “the overall ‘shape’ of the programme package” (Brighton & Foy, 2007: 4), tend to be decisive supplementary criteria in determining both the selection and treatment of stories. Given the obvious centrality of considerations of style and format to the operation of television journalism and the production of television news stories, it is remarkable, to say the least, that such considerations have attracted only sporadic academic attention (Brighton & Foy, 2007: 35). Certainly in the context of political television discourse, such an account of how both journalistic and televisual standards tend to guide the production of political television programmes and the preparation of political television, seems to be generally lacking in academic literature.26 Whether stipulated as news values, professional traits or production standards, the set of judgements and presuppositions that guide the
26 Chapter 9 in this work explicitly tackles this deficiency in news production studies by directing empirical attention towards the
assembly of production standards on the basis of which media professionals routinely tend to structure their everyday situated
practices and processes in the newsroom and other backstage settings of political television production.
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newsroom activities, have been argued to function as the essential building blocks of a journalistic “craft ethos” (Cotter, 2010: 31) or “doxa” (Bourdieu, 2005: 37), which media professionals in the newsroom (and possibly in other relevant production settings as well) are expected to manage and pursuit. Rather than being explicitly acknowledged or oriented to, such a craft ethos mostly is embedded within and emerges from an instinctive and routine internalisation of professional values (Cotter, 2010: 77). It is in this respect that some have pointed at a typical “journalistic gut feeling” (Schultz, 2007: 190) or a journalist’s “nose for news” (Allan, 2004: 72) to stipulate the self-evidence and intuitiveness with which media professionals generally tend to bring into play their understandings in local news production practices and processes.
In this sense, the prevalence of a craft ethos in the newsroom is closely linked to matters of identity and performance. As Cotter (2010: 68) argues, news values “play a role in governing practice as well as promoting journalistic identity”. The tacit existence of news production standards in the newsroom demands of media professionals a particular professional competence to routinely bring these values into the practice of their everyday activities. As such, the routine performance of professional values dynamically contribute the construction of media professional identities in the newsroom: media professionals can build upon aspects of their shared craft ethos, in the form of professional values, to legitimate the professionalism of particular activities or decisions, either in anticipation or in evaluation of their proper performances (e.g. Bednarek & Caple, 2012: 139; Cotter, 2010: 76).
THE CONTROL ROOM
In the context of political television programmes, the media professional team is expected not only to cooperate in the phases before the live airing of its broadcasts, but even so during the on-air effectuation of the broadcast. This potentially has major implications for the journalist-presenters’ construction of a media professional identity: while playing out their normatively expected roles and accompanying tasks in the studio interaction, journalist-presenters are supported by a production crew working behind the scenes and carefully
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observing and not seldomly steering the journalist-presenters’ on-stage actions (Bovet, 2007; Goffman, 1981: 267; Hudson & Rowlands, 2007: 346; Kroon Lundell, 2009; Ytreberg, 2006). In the backstage control room, the editor, director and technical and production assistants monitor the activities of their fellow media professionals in the studio and provide guidance where necessary. The control room functions as “a highly specific setting, functioning both as a vantage point from where it is possible to ‘see into’ the studio and as a center of coordination for the activity of the crew” (Broth, 2009: 2001, original emphasis). It is through a set of cameras, microphones, earphones and television screens, i.e. a “technology system” (Broth, 2008a: 87), that journalist-presenters and camera operators in the studio are connected to the production crew in the control room (Broth, 2008a: 87). While the director and technical personnel in the control room are generally preoccupied with assisting the camera operators in the studio, it is the editor who is mostly in direct contact with the journalist-presenter through a talkback system. The editor is generally responsible for consulting the script and directing the journalist-presenter’s performance through hidden earphones. Earphones make it possible for the editor to communicate reminders about time limits, suggest topic lines or give guidelines on turn-allocation to the journalist-presenter in the studio. As a rule, this ‘cueing’ practice is hidden from the overhearing audience, but nevertheless is very common and routine practice in live broadcasting (Ytreberg, 2006: 425). By means of occasional staging cues, which Goffman (1959: 177) lists on the same line as for instance kicking a friend under the table or whispering in the presence of others, the journalist-presenter and the editor are in hidden communicative connection with each other during the performance. These staging cues form a particular “system of secret signals” or “a subterranean language” (Goffman, 1959: 177) through which the journalist-presenter and editor, as a team, are in a close backstage relationship. In fact, these secret exchanges contribute to a particular form of “team collusion” (Goffman, 1959: 177) by means of which the journalist-presenter and editor can show out-of-character behaviour during the frontstage performance. At the same time, these colluding exchanges with an editor in the backstage control room demand an additional performer skill of journalist-presenters to absorb backstage information while still maintaining their frontstage performance.
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Consequently, for journalist-presenters to successfully stage a media professional identity, they need to show a particular professional competence to communicate “not just to absent audiences but also to production personnel who are present in the stage wings, hidden from the absent audience” (Ytreberg, 2006: 425).
4.5 SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS
The initial question posed in this chapter of how identities tend to reside in the institutionally grounded interactional context of political television talk, is also a question about how participants manage jointly to create an identifiable instance of ‘doing’ a political interview or television debate. In line with the integrated discursive approach to identity, the answer to this question is necessarily complex and dialogic, involving the constant interplay between the predetermined structural arrangements of the setting and the concrete interactional activities of the participants in local instances. While the empirical parts of this work account extensively for these latter emerging aspects of identity formation in political television talk, this chapter has, on a more theoretical level, dealt with how wider social contexts provide the structural conditions under which identities are normatively expected to be articulated in these types of interactions. Overall, three social contexts appear to be relevant for pre-establishing the structural arrangements of journalistic identity formation within political interviews and television debates: the institutional, the performative and the production context.
Conversation analytic research has dealt extensively with how the institutional context of political broadcast talk arranges a powerful set of mutual expectations regarding the roles, rights and obligations of journalist-presenters and politicians in the encounter. In this respect, the recurring sequencing of questions and answers in political television talk has been argued repeatedly to be the fundamental system upon which participants base their actions and within which their interaction becomes recognisable as a political interview or television debate, both to the participants and to the overhearing audience. However, bearing in mind some of the issues tackled in this chapter, the overly interactional focus of CA may fall short in fully capturing the complexities typically involved in (journalistic) identity
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formation processes in political television talk. In addition to being embedded within a context that is manifestly institutional in character, identity formation in political television talk needs also to be considered as being deeply rooted in a setting that is guided by media-specific traits and logics. In contrast to many other forms of institutional discourse, political television talk is integrally designed for consumption by an audience of unknown recipients. As organisers of the interaction, broadcasters anticipate this distinctive performative nature of broadcast talk through careful production activities. In this sense, identity construction in political broadcast talk should not be seen as taking place only within an institutional context, it occurs also in a performative and production context. Those are aspects that the by conversation analytic research dominated field of broadcast talk has been insufficiently able to integrate in its analyses. Therefore, this study argues for the analytic value of reaching beyond the directly observable encounters in on-air broadcast talk to also include the ways in which these on-air encounters are intrinsically embedded within broader relevant performative and production contexts. What has remained untouched so far is how the complex construction of a media professional identity in political television talk relates to the notion of power. Inevitably, questions of identity go hand in hand with questions of control and power: within every social setting, different participants simultaneously make different efforts to establish their identities. The fact that, in political television talk, journalist-presenters and politician have a joint interest in maintaining professional “face” (Goffman, 1959, 1967) in front of the overhearing audience, makes the dynamics, subtleties and negotiations in these interactions thought-provoking, not at least in terms of the power relationships that circulate in them. As institutionalised participants, journalist-presenters and politicians each have their own motives for and interests in creating a positive self-image. ‘Doing’ political television talk is an inherent strategic performance requiring the use of a repertoire of interactional strategies and involving pertinent questions about the playing out and negotiation of power. Therefore, the following chapter tackles and conceptualises ‘power’ from an integrated discursive perspective and shows how the notion is crucial to the context of political television talk and to the construction of professional identities in this institutional setting.
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CHAPTER 5
THE POLITICS OF POLITICAL TELEVISION
DISCOURSE
The analysis of roles and identities in the institutional setting of political television programmes enables a better understanding of media professionalism within this setting and adds to the knowledge on the reciprocal co-dependency relationships between participants. When participants in an interaction play out roles and accomplish identities, they rely upon a wide range of interactional rights, obligations and legitimate entitlements that are typically differentially distributed. Therefore, questions on identity are inevitably related to questions on power (Aronsson, 1998: 87; Diamond, 1996: 152-153; Drew & Heritage, 1992: 49; Harré & van Langenhove, 1999: 1-2; Weizman, 2006: 161). Understanding identity in a given social context also means to understand how power positions and power relationships are inherent in this context. For this reason, any analysis of (professional) identity construction processes in discourse must take account also of how power resides in and operates in this construction process. This chapter turns to the notion of power and departs from the idea that power, and the dynamics of struggle and resistance that come with it, are ubiquitous features of identity construction. The concept of power has many ‘faces’, some of which are more visible than others (Molotch & Boden, 1985: 273). In the sociology literature, there is little agreement about what power is or should be. In studies of journalism and politics, power is often conceived as a ‘big’ phenomenon, as a macro phenomenon operating on the largest scale within these social formations. As a logical derivative of the overall interest in this study in interactional dynamics, I start from the assumption that, to arrive at an understanding of the power relationships between journalism and politics, it is necessary to pay
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attention also to the micro encounters between these two actors. Critical discourse analysts in particular emphasise that connections between language use and the exercise of power are too often ignored (Blommaert, 1999; 2005; Fairclough, 1995, 1997, 2001; Weiss & Wodak, 2003). Hence, this study scrutinises that ‘face’ of power circulating within the actual interactions between journalist-presenters and politicians. This chapter builds further on the presented social constructionist approach, and departs from the conviction that power is neither situated solely at the structural level, unilaterally determining what may be happening in the smaller local contexts, nor is merely a matter of local actors vying for control and dominance in an interaction. Rather, in talking about the ubiquity of power in institutional interactions, it is more appropriate to consider power as partly dependent on the structural organisation of the context and as needing, in order to be effectuated, to be achieved interactionally and ‘brought into being’ dynamically by the local actors. The tacit procedures and dynamic power negotiations in political television talk can only be revealed by taking account of the participants’ local orientations to their mutual positions of autonomy and dependence and not being blind to the structuring power of institutions. Overall, the central question in this chapter is: how is power structurally arranged and distributed in political television talk? While every interactional setting, both institutional and ‘ordinary’, is pervaded by asymmetrical interrelationships, the context of political television talk especially, provokes questions about the accomplishment of and negotiation over power. As mentioned in Chapter 4, talk in political television programmes involves the interprofessional meeting between representatives of two powerful and mutually dependent institutional settings, i.e. journalism and politics. Relying both on a high external institutional status, journalist-presenters and politicians mutually interact to pursue their proper, not always complementary, goals. The studio setting provides a platform for bringing journalist-presenters and politicians together, in front of an audience, whose members both journalist-presenters and politicians are expected to represent. Inevitably, this results in a strategic interaction that induces the main members of journalism and politics to draw on a number of powerful interactional practices to accomplish their objectives and perform their normatively expected roles and broader identities. Also,
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political television programmes do not only provide a platform for journalistic and political institutions, they constitute an institution in its own right (Clayman, 2006: 244). Thus, the fact that this platform is being made available by a broadcasting institution and production team of which the journalist-presenters are an intrinsic part, adds an additional complexity to the operation of power within these settings. Journalist-presenters get to organise and set up the performance framework in advance of the interaction and are, thus, able to create the conditions under which the studio interactions can take place, which endows them with an advantageous position to control the setting. From an intention to develop a comprehensive understanding of power as a constitutive and productive phenomenon, Chapter 5 begins by introducing Michel Foucault’s and Anthony Giddens’s conceptualisations of power. Through their ‘microphysics of power’ (Foucault) and ‘dialectic of control’ (Giddens), both attempt to develop a model that allows for power to be intrinsically related to human local activities. In the second part of this chapter, I extend these arguments by pointing to the inevitable situatedness of power within discourse It was Foucault who made specific efforts to demonstrate the interconnectedness between power and discourse. In particular, institutional forms of discourse appear to entail a considerable asymmetrical distribution of resources among participants. In this respect, the interactionist discursive framework of CA provides analytic tools for exploring how such asymmetries are made relevant through the participants’ local orientations. After elaborating the typical asymmetries in institutional discourse, the aptness of the term ‘asymmetry’ as a notion for appointing distinct control positions among participants is questioned and it is subsequently argued that it should be replaced by the more loaded concept of ‘power’. I suggest that a social constructionist approach allows for a theoretical as well as analytical and methodological approach to power in institutional discourse. In the chapter’s final section, I apply a dialogic view of power in institutional settings to the context of political broadcasting. In order to properly capture the complexities of power in political television talk, the changing and developing relationships of mutual dependency between the institutions of journalism (news) media and politics are accounted for. The institutional context of political television interviews is discussed along with
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why journalist-presenters can structurally be expected to have a more privileged and powerful position in these interactions than politicians. At the same time, however, there seem to be a number of reasons for putting this alleged power position of journalist-presenters into perspective. Chapter 5 concludes by explicitly relating the social constructionist approach to power to the differential distribution of power in political television talk.
5.1 POWER AS CONSTITUTIVE PHENOMENON
Traditionally, power is seen mostly as embedded in hierarchical relations; as a resource used to influence and determine others’ behaviour (see, e.g. Marx, 1976; Weber, 1978). From the underlying assumption of power as a resource that can be owned and possessed in order to exert influence over others, these so-called “resource theories” (Heiskala, 2001: 242) tend to relate the concept of power directly to material variables. However, within a social constructionist framework, power is proposed as a constitutive phenomenon that is deeply embedded in a complex web of social relationships. In order to arrive at an adequate social constructionist conception of the notion, I introduce Michel Foucault’s and Anthony Giddens’s conceptions of power. Both Foucault and Giddens recognise the contingent and productive aspects of power, while not being blind to its structuring capacities.
5.1.1 FOUCAULT AND THE “MICROPHYSICS OF POWER”
From a conviction that “power relations are rooted in the whole network of the social”, Foucault (1982 [2001]: 345) refuses to conceptualise power as a repressive concept and opts to move away from the traditional sovereign understandings of power. In his theorising on the “microphysics of power”, Foucault (1977, 1980) chooses instead to emphasise the innate complexity of the concept.27 More concretely, he proposes an analytics of power through
27 In parallel with his turn to genealogy, Foucault started to deal with the concept of power at the end of the 1970s and beginning of
the 1980s (see especially Discipline and Punish (1977), The History of Sexuality (1978), Power/Knowledge (1980) and The Subject and Power
(1982)). This is not to say that he did not consider power issues in his earlier works. Rather, the genealogical phase brought a new
vocabulary that allowed a more explicit account of the concept. As Foucault (1980: 115) asserts: “When I think back now, I ask myself
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which a more dynamic view on the notion is being presented: “What makes power hold good, what makes it accepted, is simply the fact that it doesn’t only weigh on us as a force that says no, but that it traverses and produces things, it induces pleasure, forms knowledge, produces discourse” (Foucault, 1980: 119). As such, Foucault proposes power as a ubiquitous feature of human interaction, created through dynamic processes of local interpersonal conduct (Hindess, 2001). It is through the local enactment of a set of underlying rules of discourse - so-called “cautionary prescriptions” (Foucault, 1978: 98) - that discourses can be (re)produced and power relationships (re)created. Consequently, power is not some isolated feature external to discourse, but is all-pervasive, going “right down into the depths of society” (Foucault, 1977: 26). To Foucault (1982 [2001]: 340), power is a process that is always embedded in human activity: “what defines a relationship of power is that it is a mode of action that does not act directly and immediately on others. Instead, it acts upon their actions: an action upon and action, on possible or actual future or present actions”.
Foucault (1977) also presents power as a mobile phenomenon that circulates in everyday social practices. As such, he develops an understanding of the concept as being exercised rather than possessed; as a strategy rather than a property (Foucault, 1982 [2001]: 341). Power can never be a simple property belonging to some and not to others. Instead, individuals are constantly involved in a struggle for the exercise of power while at the same time also undergoing power: “in other words, individuals are the vehicles of power, not its points of application” (Foucault, 1980: 98). For this reason, Foucault is interested in the local techniques and processes through which power is created and negotiated by individuals. It is not surprising, then, that Foucault (1980: 99, original emphasis) argues for “an ascending analysis of power”, in which power is analysed first and foremost in “its infinitesimal mechanisms”. This emphasis upon the local situatedness of power is accompanied by an insistence on resistance and struggle as inherent aspects of power. Power, in Foucault’s terms, is a profound collaborative process that can only exist when being ratified by other participants. Therefore, he leaves ample room what else it was that I was talking about, in Madness and Civilisation or The Birth of the Clinic, but power? Yet I am perfectly aware that
I scarcely ever used the word and never had such a field of analyses at my disposal”.
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for the possibility of conflict and resistance. Just as power is everywhere, so is resistance. For Foucault, there can be no relationships of power when there is no possibility of resistance to that power (Foucault, 1982 [2001]). Since power can only exist when there is a possibility of struggle, the connection between power relationships and local collaboration cannot be neglected (Foucault, 1982 [2001]). Power must not be understood, then, as an obligation or prohibition exercised ‘over’ individuals, but as productive, in that it suggests real opportunities for resistance and change (Foucault, 1977). In order to identify on-going strategies of power and resistance, we need to pose “flat empirical questions” such as “How is power exercised?” and “What happens when individuals exert (as we say) power over others?” (Foucault, 1982 [2001]: 336).28 The analysis of resistance strategies is especially instructive, since it can “bring light to power relations, locate their position, find out their point of application and the methods used” (Foucault, 1982 [2001]: 329).
5.1.2 GIDDENS AND THE “DIALECTIC OF CONTROL”
Although Foucault clearly draws attention to the productive aspects of power, he has been criticised for insufficient attention to how exactly the ‘microphysics of power’ comes into being (e.g. Elliott, 2008: 91). In this context, Anthony Giddens’ interpretation of power permits to more concretely explore the concept in relation to human behaviour. While Foucault generally “prefers a bird’s-eye perspective to social phenomena”, Giddens explicitly takes human action as the analytic starting point of departure for the study of power (Carpentier, 2001: 213). Anthony Giddens counts as a major theorist in developing an understanding of power as situated at the dual level of both structure and agency. In Giddens’s structuration theory, structure and interaction are approached as a mutually constitutive duality (see Chapter 2). Far from being permanent and stable, social structures exist only virtually since it is only through active
28 This is why Foucault (1978: 82) suggests developing an “analytics of power”, rather than a “theory” of power. He argues for the
employment of “theory as a toolkit” in the sense that theory should be treated as an instrument, rather than as an abstraction
(Foucault, 1980: 145). So, instead of attempting to find out what power is, Foucault prefers to show how it operates in concrete, situated
contexts.
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reproduction in everyday social action that social order can be generated and maintained (Haugaard, 2002: 147). Applied to the concept of power, this duality between structure and agency implies that power depends as much on structural arrangements of context, as on concrete human action. Every social setting, or “social system” in Giddens’s terminology, encompasses a specific asymmetrical distribution of so-called “resources”, upon which people can call to achieve outcomes and, as it were, yield power (Giddens, 1982: 38). These resources tend to occur in either allocative or authoritative forms and typically comprise “the structural properties of social systems” (Giddens, 1987: 7). Whereas allocative resources manage control over material facilities, authoritative resources have to do with control over practices in a given social setting. These resources are not fixed, but are the media through which power can operate (Haugaard, 2002: 152). Resources allow for social structures to be reproduced over time and place only in so far as people draw upon them in their day-to-day routines and activities (Giddens, 1987: 8). Once again, repetition comes to the fore as a crucial factor for guaranteeing the preservation of social structures.29 As Giddens (1987: 9) argues, power “is typically at its most intense and durable when running silently through the repetition of institutionalized practices”. For Giddens (1982: 39, emphasis added), power relationships refer to “reproduced relations of autonomy and dependence in social interaction”. As such, power is never to be situated at the level of either structure or agency, but works as a reciprocal phenomenon in both directions. When engaging in social interaction, power is necessarily involved: “to be an agent is to have power” (Giddens, 1987: 7). Giddens (1982: 39, emphasis added) goes so far as to invert this statement and assert that “a person who is totally confined and controlled (…) is then no longer an agent”. Consequently, every individual in a social structure always has, in some way or another, access to power. This is what Giddens (1982: 39) proposes as the “dialectic of control”: specific to every social order is a capability to claim autonomy and alter the situation, even of the most weak or dependent. As he states: “No matter how great the scope or intensity of control superordinates possess, since their power presumes the active compliance of others, those others can bring to bear
29 See especially Butler (1990, 1993) in Chapter 2 on the iterative character of social life.
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strategies of their own, and apply specific types of sanctions” (Giddens, 1987: 11). 30
In his discussion of how power relates to both structure - through the resources made available by social order - and agency - through the local reproductions of and negotiation over these resources, Giddens does not overlook the potentiality of ‘space’ in providing the overall framework in which power relationships are made relevant. The physical interactional settings, i.e. “locale” (Giddens, 1987: 12), involve a concentration of allocative and authoritative resources and, consequently, are key to the generation of power. Therefore, Giddens (1987: 13) introduces the concept of “power containers” to denote the territorially restricted arenas in social life where resources are manifestly drawn upon and where power is unavoidably generated. As an example, Giddens (1987: 13) refers to castles, universities, hospitals and prisons, but the bounded settings of - in this case - a newsroom, television studio, control room or foyer can, then, count just as much as delineated ‘containers’ for the dynamic generation of power.
5.2 POWER IN INSTITUTIONAL DISCOURSE
Whereas power is clearly an all-pervasive feature permeating all relationships within a society, the notion becomes particularly apt within institutional settings. In line with their proper conceptualisations of the power notion, both Foucault (1977, 1978, 1980) and Giddens (1982, 1987) acknowledge the relevance of studying power within social institutions, and consider institutional settings to be pre-eminent sites of power and struggle. From a general reluctance towards institutional determinism, through which institutions are seen as ‘fixed’ structures regulating human behaviour and social relationships, Foucault and Giddens tend to stress the dynamism with which individuals can reinforce, modify and reproduce the structural properties of institutions. However, while Giddens is first and foremost concerned with the levels at which power in institutions is potentially constituted - i.e. ‘structure’ and ‘agency’, Foucault draws more attention to
30 Giddens (1987: 7) in this respect also refers to power as “transformative capacity”, namely “the capability to intervene in a given
set of events so as in some ways to alter them”.
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the mutual functioning of these levels, namely to “how agency is denied to some and given to others, how structures could be said to have determined some things and not others” (Clegg, 1989: 158). So, unlike Giddens, Foucault redirects the focus from structure/agency to how the relationships between these levels and the power that circulates in them is discursively constituted. Throughout his work, Foucault (1977, 1978, 1980) repeatedly emphasised that discourse is never independent of power relationships, and vice versa. Rather, power and discourse are inextricably connected and mutually constitutive: “it is in discourse that power and knowledge are joined together” (Foucault, 1978: 100). Discourses are key to Foucault’s understanding of power, for it is through the dynamic bringing into being of discursive practices that power can operate and be sustained, challenged and legitimised. Power is always rooted in discourse in such a way that it is both a project and a product of discourse. For Foucault (1978: 101), “discourse transmits and produces power; it reinforces it, but also undermines and exposes it, renders it fragile and makes it possible to thwart it”. Viewed thus, “discourse can be both an instrument and an effect of power, but also a hindrance, a stumbling block, a point of resistance and a starting point for an opposing strategy” (Foucault, 1978: 101). Discourse, then, plays a vital role in the constitution and reproduction of power relationships. According to Foucault, institutions tend to limit and restrain discourse, but also bolster and renew it. The discourses that are typically circulating within institutions serve to sustain, but at times also challenge and resist the power relationships that are generally taken to be normative within these settings. In his analysis of different institutions, such as asylums, hospitals, prisons and schools (see Foucault, 1977, 1980, 1982 [2001]), and in accordance with his earlier mentioned plea for a bottom-up model of power, Foucault (1982 [2001]: 343) warns against gratuitously starting from institutions in the analysis of power: “This is not to deny the importance of institutions in the establishment of power relations but, rather, to suggest that one must analyze institutions from the standpoint of power relations, rather than vice versa”. In this view, power is not simply located in nor possessed by institutions, but instead operates in and through interpersonal relationships that are discursively constituted in dynamic ways. Institutional forms of discourse, then, do not automatically arrange a number of closed power relationships in
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which power is preserved only for some privileged few (e.g. Althusser, 1971), but rather allow for power to be displayed, sustained, produced, challenged and modified.
5.2.1 ASYMMETRIES AND PROFESSIONAL CONTROL IN INSTITUTIONAL
INTERACTIONS
While Foucault was concerned predominantly with how power comes to operate in state institutions (Clegg, 1989: 176), equally pertinent questions about power arise in other forms of institutional discourse. In this respect, it is especially conversation analytic research that has elaborated how interactions in institutional settings create distinctive organisational patterns that are characterised by structural asymmetrical relationships between participants (e.g. Antaki & Widdicombe, 1998; Drew & Heritage, 1992; Hutchby & Wooffitt, 1998; Zimmerman & Boden, 1991). Focusing on different kinds of institutional discourse, they generally have been preoccupied with how exactly institutional interactions differ from so-called ‘ordinary conversations’. Typically, and unlike everyday talk, institutional interactions occur within a broader structural framework that inherently produces unequal relationships between the social actors who dynamically engage in local encounters. Whereas participants in ordinary conversations generally share equal rights of speakership, “there might be quite striking inequalities in the distribution of communicative resources” in institutional forms of discourse (Drew, 1991: 22).31 As Drew and Heritage (1992: 49) point out, institutional interactions involve “a direct relationship between status and role, on the one hand, and discursive rights and obligations, on the other”. As discussed in Chapter 4, every institutional setting implies a number of underlying discursive roles providing participants with certain “default” positions which, in turn, unequally distribute the resources from which
31 While the characteristics of institutional interactions are indeed often defined in relation to ‘ordinary conversations’ - in so far as
one can speak of ‘ordinary’, one should be cautious about extensively dichotomising the two in terms of asymmetrical versus
symmetrical. Ordinary conversations, too, can imply relationships that are based on control and dependency (e.g. Drew & Heritage,
1992: 48; Hutchby & Wooffitt, 1998: 161; Thornborrow, 2002: 9). For example, as Ekström (2007: 967, emphasis added) indicates,
“power is … intrinsic to all kinds of social interaction”. However, while ordinary conversations are thus not free of power dynamics and,
indeed, lend themselves to questions of power, it is clear that interactions taking place within institutional contexts imply a more
‘obvious’ or ‘expectable’ distribution of power positions.
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participants are expected to operate (Haworth, 2006: 754). Consequently, the typical pre-allocation of participant roles in institutional discourse, brings about a set of asymmetries in terms of a differential access not only to turns and interactional resources, but also to knowledge (e.g. Drew & Heritage, 1992: 49). As Linell (1998a: 14) clarifies, “communication presupposes asymmetries of knowledge and participation of various kinds (…) In addition, many dialogues are built upon complementary, rather than symmetrical, roles of participation”. It should be no surprise, then, that institutional discourse is often described as “systematically asymmetrical” (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 1998: 160) or as “asymmetrical-and-co-operative types” (Linell, 1990: 169). This characteristic asymmetry in institutional interactions normatively furnishes participants with differential discursive resources for controlling the interaction, thereby allocating some participants with more advantageous positions compared to others (Silverman, 1997: 189). At the basis of this typical asymmetrical distribution of resources in institutional discourse is the presence of professional participants. Most forms of institutional talk involve a certain degree of “professional dominance” (Hak, 1994), which pertains to both the asymmetrical distribution of interactional tasks and the asymmetrical distribution of specialised knowledge. A professional’s status as representative of the organising institution typically arranges the right - and in a sense also the obligation - to take initiative and direct the interaction (see Chapter 4). Deriving from the characteristic question-answer turn-taking pattern in institutional interactions, professional participants are awarded preferential access to the discursive practice of questioning (e.g. Drew & Heritage, 1992: 49; Linell, 1990: 164). It has been argued that whoever is in the first position in such question-answer sequences, is in a more privileged interactional position since access to questions also implies access to other resources for controlling and framing what can be said in the second position as an answer (e.g. Bilmes, 1999: 228; Ekström, 2007a: 968; Heritage & Greatbatch, 1991; Sacks, 1992: 264). Thus, asking questions makes available a range of agenda-setting entitlements such as deciding which topics are dealt with and when topics need to be changed (Drew & Heritage, 1992: 50). Consequently, questioning appears to be a powerful discursive act that is normatively pre-allocated to professional participants in institutional forms of interaction. As Linell (1990: 164) further
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clarifies, “every time a question is asked, the answerer is put under constraint”. Moreover, professional participants in institutional discourse mostly have privileged access to turn-taking techniques and procedures; they can appeal to a legitimacy for deciding about who can speak at what moment in the encounter. Typically, turn-allocation plays a vital role in the distribution of rights and obligations in interactions and reflects vigorous demonstrations of power: “Turn-taking is a (uni)versalizing practice for locally and micro-practically producing, allocating and regulating power and desire” (Hawes, 1998: 282). Next to questioning turns and turn-taking practices, asymmetrical relationships in institutional discourse are also connected to differential states of knowledge. As organisers of the interaction, professionals have prior knowledge about the topics to be tackled and the time slots to be followed. Normally, the other participants lack access to this so-called “hidden agenda” of professionals and, consequently, have less a priori control of the situation (Drew & Heritage, 1992: 50). Asymmetry in institutional discourse is, then, obviously related to the participants’ roles in the interaction: “social roles better position some interactants to strategically use available resources to achieve their practical interactional ends, while restricting others’ strategic moves” (Silverman, 1997: 189). Of course, the professionals’ privileged position in institutional discourse does not necessarily have to imply that the weaker parties do not have resources at their disposal to influence or control the interaction. However, according to Linell (1990: 169), such attempts to counter the inscribed asymmetries instigate further controlling moves from the interactionally stronger positioned participants, thereby actually confirming the structural asymmetries:
In many cases, superior parties, e.g. professionals in institutional contexts, do provide some opportunities for subordinate parties to speak, but it is uncommon that these opportunities remain unexploited. This then forces the superiors to return to more dominant actions, and the whole interaction reverts to asymmetries again.
Stemming from their access to controlling discursive practices and specialised knowledge, professional participants can be assumed to be in more privileged
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positions than other participants in institutional discourse. Nevertheless, CA practitioners generally resist approaching institutional asymmetries as simply pre-existing talk. As a logical derivative of CA’s background as an interactionist discursive methodology (see Chapter 2), conversation analysts consider asymmetry not as a constant aspect of institutional discourse, but as needing to be analysed in the local relevancies of interaction. It is only when participants show a demonstrable orientation to their asymmetrical relationships, that one can take account of them. Rather than seeing asymmetrical relationships as unilateral relationships of power in which one party claims overall control over another party, CA emphasises the reciprocal and productive aspects of these relationships (e.g. Sarangi & Roberts, 1999: 7). In such a view, the differential distribution of roles and resources in institutional discourse are not fixed, but are dynamically ‘brought into being’ in the local practices and actions of individuals. As such, asymmetry is constantly reproduced and dynamically enacted in the situational context and is rooted in actions and sequences of action, rather than in structures, persons or relations (Peräkylä, 2004: 7). CA seeks to explore how participants orient to and reproduce asymmetries by negotiating control over each other’s actions to resist the pre-allocated dimensions of “domineeringness” (Linell, 1990: 159). As such, the overall aim is to analyse and describe the ways in which particular sequential implicative actions, such as questioning or requesting, restrict the possibilities of the next speaker’s actions (Schegloff & Sacks, 1973: 296).
5.2.2 CALLING A SPADE A SPADE: A CRITIQUE OF ‘ASYMMETRY’ IN
INSTITUTIONAL DISCOURSE
While many of its studies deal tacitly with power in interaction, CA has rarely explicitly accounted for such issues. From its roots in an interactionist discursive research tradition, CA has predominantly been reserved about the explicit use of ‘power’ and has opted for the more cautious term of ‘asymmetries’ (Hutchby, 1996; 1999a, 1999b; Silverman, 2007; Thornborrow, 2002). Traditionally, proponents of CA tend to associate the concept of power with determinist accounts of structural macro variables, controlling unilaterally what may or may not happen at the local levels of human
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interaction. In particular, CA practitioners’ extensive “procedural” approach to context (Schegloff, 1968, 1991; see also Chapters 2 and 6), in which context is seen as interactional accomplishment, has largely prevented them from accounting for power in their analyses of institutional interactions. Yet, as Hutchby & Wooffitt (1998: 164) assert, “many of the asymmetries in institutional discourse can be thought of in terms of the ‘power’ of institutional agents to establish the participation opportunities”. Consequently, the “aseptic use of the term ‘asymmetry’” in interactionist discursive research has increasingly been denounced since such an approach potentially could “mask what may be essential inherent inequalities in speakers’ access to, and effective use of discursive resources” (Thornborrow, 2002: 22). A similar conviction is entertained by proponents of the CDA approach, who made the topic of power in discourse their prime research focus (e.g. Fairclough, 1992, 1995; Wodak, 1989, 1996). Rather than elaborating about how asymmetries are distributed in interactional contexts, critical discourse analysts are explicitly concerned with how power, dominance and inequality reside in specific political, economic and social contexts (van Dijk, 2003). Through the analysis of ‘texts’ - in the very broad sense, CDA seeks to unmask the underlying ideological assumptions that govern the ways in which people think of reality (Carpentier & De Cleen, 2007; Fairclough, 1992; van Dijk, 1997). The concept of power is then invoked to study how people belonging to a hierarchical higher status tend to control other people (Fairclough, 1992, 1995). In contrast to CA, critical discourse analysts consider differential power relationships in talk and interaction as embedded within wider Discourses. Or as Foucault (1980: 131) similarly claims: “Power is already there as a regime of truth”. However, the risk that is intrinsically connected to such a critical discursive approach to power is an overly unilateral portrayal of the concept that tends to overlook Foucault’s initial ideas on the productive and circulating aspects of power. From an interactionist discursive point of view in particular, CDA is critiqued for interpreting power as being the direct and only result of broader structural phenomena such as hierarchical institutional status, gender, race, or ethnicity (Schegloff, 1999a, 1999b). CDA is said to overemphasise power as determining and constraining the local talk, while trivialising the
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powerfulness of talk and interaction itself: “One problem with the type of approach to discourse taken by Fairclough is that it imposes a pre-conceived institutional structure on the data, rather than dealing with it on a turn-by-turn basis” (Thornborrow, 2002: 18). Thus, power is too easily conceived of as a structural property that predetermines differential power relationships and endows certain individuals with more power than others. CDA’s account of wider contexts as predetermining hierarchical power imbalances tends to be at the expense of the dynamic aspects of power as negotiated features of proximate contexts.
5.2.3 POWER AS A DIALOGIC FEATURE OF INSTITUTIONAL DISCOURSE
How, then, should we approach the notion of power in institutional discourse in order to include both its productive and structuring aspects? Since Foucault’s and Giddens’s attempts to conceptualise power in relation to a general reconciliation of structure and agency (Giddens) and its co-constitutiveness in interpersonal relationships (Foucault), scholars influenced by social constructionism have made efforts to formulate a satisfactory answer to this question, thereby further advancing and more concretely developing an understanding of power as a structuring and flexible phenomenon in institutional settings (e.g. Aronsson, 1998; Diamond, 1996; Mininni, 2001; Thornborrow, 2002). From a social constructionist perspective, it can by no means be suggested that an asymmetrical distribution of, for instance, starting positions and professional expertise, is somehow imposed on the participants “by abstract, macro-institutional forces”, governing their local interactional conduct (Silverman, 1997: 187). While institutional discourse clearly positions certain participants with legitimate entitlements that are not necessarily afforded to others (see Chapter 4), it would be deterministic and credulous to think of power asymmetries as being merely shaped by discursive constructs (Guilfoyle, 2003: 336). Power relationships may be somehow fixed by the structural organisation of institutional interactions “in that individuals begin with different capacities”, but from there, they can dynamically negotiate and “manipulate the tacit procedures and architecture of talk” (Molotch & Boden, 1985: 285, emphasis added). Participants’ power positions may be
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asymmetrically fixed by discourse, but “what each manages to achieve from there is not” (Haworth, 2006: 754). As such, it is valuable to conceive of power as being partially ‘already there’ within the structural organisation of institutional contexts - a vision that is strongly endorsed within CDA, and is partially constructed through the orientations, negotiations and resistance moves of participants in their local encounters - a conception predominantly found in CA. As Guilfoyle (2003: 332) clarifies: “Dialogue, (…), invites participants to both influence and be influenced, to shape and be shaped by the interaction, and to be mutually involved in meaning construction”. Such a reflexive relationship between talk and institutional context acknowledges the significance of macro variables in the analysis of micro contexts, while avoiding seeing power as solely pre-allocated, one-sidedly influencing interactions from above. From a determination to develop appropriate frameworks for theoretically as well as analytically and methodologically dealing with such a dialogic understanding of power in institutional discourse, scholars have variously attempted to further conceptualise the social constructionist paradigm in relation to power. With her “consensual view of power”, Diamond (1996: 121), for instance, sets out to approach the notion as both a skill that needs to be vied for and a process in need of ratification and constant negotiation. When individuals “do” power in interactional instances - in the sense of taking the floor, controlling topical developments, interrupting, showing professional expertise and the like, they necessarily produce and present images of themselves that need ratification and acknowledgement by others. Therefore, power can never be simply presumed or reserved to the privileged few, but is always dependent on the support of others. One can easily recognise influences from Foucault’s ‘microphysics of power’ and Giddens’s ‘dialectic of control’ in this notion of “consensual power” (Diamond, 1996: 14). While one individual can be said to ‘have’ a higher institutional status or authority within an interaction - think of professional participants, this by no means suggests that the individual in a lower position is ‘powerless’. From the dynamic nature of power-in-interaction it follows that power can be achieved by any participant and that “even the participant said to possess lower rank has options, strategies and devices at his or her disposal to contest, dispute and challenge the roles
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assigned to him or her by others” (Diamond, 1996: 149). Likewise, Mininni (2001: 114-115) introduces the notion of “diatextual power”, which emphasises the irrelevance of referring to power as having “power over” other individuals or groups. Rather, it is more convenient to speak of having the “power to” negotiate and build on the interpretations and meanings of what is going on in discourse. From the same dialectic perspective, Aronsson (1998) advocates more attention to a “choreographic analysis” of power within discourse analysis, i.e. analysis of how power positions are dynamically changed and negotiated within situated contexts. Power, Aronsson (1998: 87) argues, can be deconstructed by analytically capturing the choreography of participants’ situated control and resistance practices in interaction. At a more analytical level, it is worth reflecting upon how to deal empirically with these diverse and sometimes confusing social constructionist claims of power as structuring-while-not-determining social action. In making a distinction between the structural and interactional levels of power in institutional forms of discourse, Thornborrow (2002) proposes a workable model through which the structural arrangements of the institutional context, on the one hand, and interactional relevancies, on the other, are interdependent and can be reflexively connected to each other.32 She starts from the assumption that a priori descriptions of power relationships within institutional contexts are relevant to the extent that they allow for account to be taken of the structuring capacities of power in institutional discourse. In this respect, Thornborrow (2002: 8) deems it useful to map out the broader framework of general expectations regarding participant identities, roles and according power positions, in a given institutional setting. However, inspired by Giddens’s theorising on the ‘duality of structure’, Thornborrow (2002: 8) argues also that an insight into the structural level of institutional discourse alone is not sufficient to gain a thorough insight into the operation of power in institutional discourse, which is itself utterly complex. Therefore, the interactional level of local, turn-by-turn orientations to and accomplishments of these assumed power relationships needs also to be taken into account. In this sense, power is approached “as a contextually sensitive phenomenon, as 32 Similarly, Sarangi and Roberts (1999: 43) portray the relationship between the structural level (in their words “institutional order”)
and the interactional level (in their words “interaction order”) as a “marriage” or close “partnership”.
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a set of resources and actions which are available to speakers and which can be used more or less successfully depending on who the speakers are and what kind of speech situation they are in” (Thornborrow, 2002: 8). By situating power at both the structural and interactional levels of institutional discourse, Thornborrow (2002: 8) pays attention to how power is inscribed in the pre-established structural arrangements of context, but is also dependent on the local negotiations and accomplishments at the level of the interactions, in order to be produced and reproduced.
Methodologically, Thornborrow (2002: 8) turns to the interactionist discursive framework of CA to analyse the interactional levels of institutional discourse. In doing so, she joins other rather scarce pleas for a more explicit inclusion of the notion of power in the conceptual framework of CA (e.g. Hutchby, 1996; Hutchby & Wooffitt, 1998; Silverman, 1997). In this respect, CA’s predominant interactional focus is maintained to contain the potentialities for exploring “how power is produced through talk-in-interaction, rather than being predetermined by theoretical features of the context” (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 1998: 166). As Hawes (1998: 282) further explains, analysis of routinised micropractices can reveal the reproduction of power relationships at the structural level: “turn-taking is a (uni)versalizing practice for locally and micropractically producing, allocating and regulating power and desire”. In this view, the micro-analytic framework of CA is valuable for uncovering how structural and pre-established power positions become relevant and oriented to the local relevancies of the participants in interactions (see also Chapter 6).
5.3 POWER IN POLITICAL BROADCASTING
In the remainder of this chapter, this social constructionist understanding of power is explored further within the concrete context of political broadcasting. In line with the conceptualisation of power as operating at both the structural and interactional levels of institutional discourse, the following introduces the structural level of power play in political television discourse. In the first instance, I build on reflections on the complex relationships between the institutions of journalism and politics in order to accommodate the
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broader framework within which the core object of this study, political television talk, is manifestly situated. Second, I narrow the focus to the specific context of political television talk to identify the multiple structural power positions of journalist-presenters and politicians. The study of power at the more concrete interactional level is discussed in it’s analytic investigation in the empirical chapters.
5.3.1 JOURNALISM AND POLITICS AS MUTUALLY DEPENDENT POWER
INSTITUTIONS
In mediatised democracies, the boundary between political institutions and mass media is considerably fluid. Politics and journalism are entwined in a functional, mutually dependent relationship (e.g. Blumler & Gurevitch, 1995; Schudson, 2003). On the one hand, journalists depend on the political field for their information gathering, and consider it their duty to adopt a critical posture towards political leaders and to hold them accountable. On the other hand, for the political field to safeguard its democratic functioning and ensure societal and political influence, politicians have to rely on journalists to get their messages across. Various metaphors have been used to try to capture and define this complex and symbiotic relationship, including its likeness to Siamese twins (Blumler, 2001: 203) and to dance partners in a tango (Gans, 1979). In relation to the question of who exactly gets to lead this tango, scholars are less unequivocal (e.g. Blumler & Gurevitch, 1981; Hjarvard, 2012; Strömbäck & Nord, 2006). The theories on the (macro) power relationships between journalism and politics are copious and diverse. Some studies indicate the high dependency of journalists upon political sources, and recognise politics as having the upper hand in this complex relationship (e.g. Bennett, 2003; Gans, 2003; Hall et al., 1978). As powerful elite sources, politicians are then claimed to have control over information and agenda-setting processes. These studies tend to uphold an understanding of politics as being the “primary definers” (Hall et al., 1978) of media content and news coverage, with journalists doing barely more than “reporting what these sources (i.e. politics) tell them” (Gans, 2003: 46). In this sense, journalists and politicians are positioned in a kind of adversary model in which these social actors are believed to be involved in a continuous ideological struggle over
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power and signification. Others, however, argue that media and journalism have widely distributed power over the field of politics (e.g. Altheide & Snow, 1979; Strömbäck & Nord, 2006). Returning to the dance metaphor, this view upholds that, overall, journalists get to take the lead: “On the dance floor, the political actors are doing what they can to invite the journalists to dance, but ultimately, it is the journalists who choose who they are going to dance with” (Strömbäck & Nord, 2006: 161). In between these two positions there is a number of studies dealing with the complex relationships of co-dependence and autonomy between journalism and politics, metaphorically and differentially treating journalists as either the ‘watchdogs’, ‘lapdogs’ or ‘junkyard dogs’ of democracy and politics (e.g. Patterson, 1997; Sabato, 1991; Schudson, 2002). Although opinions on the power relationships between politics and journalism are obviously divided, it is clear that media have become ever more important and influential in numerous societal realms, including politics (Hjarvard, 2013; Mazzoleni, 2008; Strömbäck & Esser, 2009, 2014). The prime task of media goes beyond the mere transmission of messages and information, i.e. so-called “mediation”; it consists also of the active ‘moulding’ of this information in accordance with the standards of contemporary news production – i.e. so-called “mediatisation” (Altheide, 1988, 1991; Mazzoleni, 2008; Strömbäck, 2005, 2011). Strömbäck (2011: 368) argues that the mediation of politics, namely “the situation where the media have become both the important source of information about politics and society, superseding face-to-face communication, and the primary channel of communication between political actors and citizens”, is a prerequisite for the mediatisation of politics. As Ekström (2001: 564) notes, the concept of mediatised politics, although “somewhat vague and lacking in definition, is frequently used to denote the dependency of politics on, and its adaptation to, mass media per se” (Ekström, 2001: 564). Especially since Mazzoleni and Schulz’s much-cited publication “Mediatization of Politics: A Challenge for Democracy?” (1999), the concept of a mediatisation of politics has gained increasing academic attention (e.g. Strömbäck & Esser, 2014: 243). Influenced by this process, politics is argued to have “become dependent in its central functions on mass media, and is continuously shaped by interactions with mass media” (Mazzoleni & Schulz, 1999: 250). Consequently, the concept of
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mediatisation helps in understanding the process of intensification that increasingly characterises the relationship between journalism/media and politics.
5.3.2 NEWS MEDIA PRODUCTION AS SINGLE INSTITUTION
News media in particular are often taken to be the most important forces behind this complex process of mediatisation (e.g. Strömbäck & Esser, 2014: 245). The question then arises of “how the news media and their coverage of political affairs have changed under the conditions of mediatization, and which implications this may have for the audience and for politics” (Strömbäck & Esser, 2014: 243). It is clear that the forms and styles of news media coverage in most Western European countries have changed substantially since the beginning of the 1990s (e.g. Blumler & Gurevitch, 1995; Collins, 1998; Humphreys, 1996). In television coverage, processes of deregulation, privatisation, commercialisation and, by extension, mediatisation have given rise to strict programme formats, contents and journalistic styles designed to attract new and broader audiences (e.g. Humphreys, 1996; Karvonen, 2009; Talbot, 2007; Tolson, 2006).33 According to Fetzer and Johansson (2008, n.p.), “political discourse in the media has undergone a process of hybridization”, in which the formal practices of traditional political news coverage increasingly are combined with discourse practices that are typical of other television genres such as talk shows (e.g. Hutchby, 2006; Tolson, 2001, 2006). In the attempt to attract bigger audiences, political television programmes are adopting formats that focus less on in-depth content and background reporting, and pay more attention to the presentation and form of the political discussion – often highlighting conflict and competition (Weizman, 2008: 44). In this sense, the “format logic” (Altheide & Snow, 1988: 201) that tends to prevail in contemporary television production, brings about a substantial power position for news media from
33 With the advent of commercial television stations, public service broadcasters in particular were forced to re-evaluate and re-
invent their programming strategies, management structures, traditions and missions (Blumler, 1992). They assumed different
positions on the so-called purification-popularisation continuum (Bardoel & d’Haenens, 2008) and the continuum from responsible to
responsive programming, striking different balances in their programming strategies between what the public needs to know and
what the public wants to know (Brants, 2003).
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which it is deemed legitimate to cover and define content according to the criteria of form. For Dahlgren (2010: 33), the current emphasis on modes of representation within news production on television leads to “a relative decline in the power of political elites”: “television cameras, soundbites, etc., compel the political elites to some extent to dance to a tune composed by the media”.
Alongside these changes and evolutions in broadcasting, news media gradually have become “a singular news media institution” (Strömbäck & Esser, 2014: 245); an institution in its own right, functioning relatively autonomously from political institutions, and operating according to a set of shared practices, professional ideals, rules, routines, norms and standards (e.g. Asp, 2014; Esser, 2013; Strömbäck, 2011; Strömbäck & Esser, 2009, 2014). As such, “the news media has [sic] become a more active, independent and explicitly scrutinizing actor” (Djerf-Pierre et al., 2014). The omnipresent struggle for the public’s attention has gradually brought news media and journalism to push traditional journalistic roles, such as watchdog and public accountability functions, to its boundaries. Journalists working within the news media have been granted progressively more latitude to adopt an overly critical approach to the reporting of politics and confronting politicians, and are exercising more interpretive forms of journalism (e.g. Djerf-Pierre et al., 2014: 325; Hallin & Mancini, 2004: 36; Neveu, 2002: 31). As McNair (2000: ix) observes, journalists no longer function merely “as reporters and analysts, but as participants in, and producers of what we all (…) experience as political reality”. For some, this situation where journalists increasingly adopt an over-critical and suspicious stance towards politicians, combined with a changing environment in which information programmes have almost become entertainment products, is testing the legitimacy of journalism. For instance, Dahlgren (2010: 33) argues that “the media have taken a more active watch-dog role, but they have been barking at too many shadows”. Also, Turner (2005: 89) posits that political television programmes often seek “to use the alibi of journalism’s democratic credentials while delivering a content that most of the time deserves no special protection at all”. The combination of entertainment and political discourse alongside the “marketisation” of broadcast journalism (Thussu, 2007: 1), and “the further mixing of
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information with drama, excitement, colour, and human interest in the topics, formats, and styles of most programmes” (Blumler and Kavanagh, 1999: 218) are often seen as being detrimental to the functioning of contemporary broadcast journalism and media’s democratic and political role. However, for others, the idea of enhancing citizenship and stimulating political participation and involvement through infotainment genres has democratic potential (e.g. Brants, 1998; Jones, 2005; Street, 1997; van Zoonen, 2005). It is in this sense that Hartley (1999), for instance, speaks of “democratainment” to stipulate the positive effects of a democratisation of the media. Moreover, with respect to the production of political news, it has been argued that the power of journalism should not be overestimated because politicians as well have plenty of options available to control news production, certainly in times of political intensity such as pre-election periods (Strömbäck & Nord, 2006; Walgrave & Van Aelst, 2006). Politics and its leaders have not operated in isolation from societal processes, but have became professionalised in dealing with the media and adapting to the process of mediatisation and its accompanying media logic (Dahlgren, 2010: 33; Strömbäck & Nord, 2006: 159).
5.3.3 POLITICAL TELEVISION AS A POWERFUL NEWS MEDIA INSTITUTION
In light of the changes and evolutions in news media, it is no revelation that the genre of political television talk has become an important component of contemporary news production and political communication (Clayman & Heritage, 2002; Ekström et al., 2006; Montgomery, 2010). While the practice of interviewing has always been prominent in the array of journalistic practices, it is only in the more recent decades that political television interviewing has come to be used “as a finished news product in its own right” (Clayman & Heritage, 2002: 1). As such, political television interviews are recognised increasingly as “a fundamental act of contemporary journalism” (Schudson, 1994: 565) and as “a key moment in the political news cycle” (McNair, 2000: 84). As Corner (1999: 37 in Montgomery, 2010: 186) states, “it is no exaggeration to say that the broadcast interview, particularly the television interview, is now one of the most widely used and extensively developed formats for public communication in the world”. The fundamental position
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assumed by political television interviews in broadcast journalism and political communication has attracted increasing academic attention to this genre, not least with respect to the particularity of the interactions and relationships within it (Bull, 2002: 116; Clayman & Heritage, 2002: 2). The set of interactional and institutional roles of journalist-presenters and politicians in political television interactions (see Chapter 4), typically furnishes, at a structural level, an inherent asymmetry of participant resources (e.g. Clayman, 1992, 1993; Clayman & Heritage, 2002; Ekström, 2007a; Greatbatch, 1988, 1992; Hutchby, 1996, 1999b; Thornborrow, 2002). More concretely, the politician’s role in the interaction as answerer and interlocutor, and the journalist-presenter’s role as interactional manager, political journalist and television producer, create “normative expectations for asymmetry” in political television interactions and, inevitably, generate complex power relationships (Weizman, 2008: 52). Overall, the structural arrangements of political television talk provide the journalist-presenters especially, with privileged resources to control and manage the situation – resources that are not available structurally to the politicians (e.g. Johansson, 2007: 140).
5.3.4 THE MEDIA PROFESSIONAL AS PRIVILEGED PARTICIPANT IN POLITICAL
TELEVISION TALK
The journalist-presenter’s media professional identity and the pre-allocation of interactional and institutional roles and sub-roles, typically afford a number of power positions that, in turn, entail a series of powerful legitimate entitlements and discursive practices to influence and control the course of the interaction. Considering the normative responsibilities of journalist-presenters in political television interactions leaves ample space to assume that, at a structural level, it is the journalist-presenter who ‘pulls the strings’. The merging of the roles of interactional manager, political journalist and television producer in an overall media professional identity suggests that journalist-presenters can be assumed to have a stronger interactional position than politicians. This ensemble of roles provides the journalist-presenter not only with access to a powerful set of resources to control the interactional development, but also with specialist knowledge about how the programme is formatted and structured, which issues will be tackled and in what time
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slots, and what format features will be exploited. In fact, each of the journalist-presenter’s roles implies a number of powerful discursive practices for controlling and “orchestrating”(Dingwall, 1980) the interaction.
As interactional managers, journalist-presenters structurally are furnished with a number of instruments for interactional control, described by Giddens (1987) as “authoritative resources”. From their interactional sub-roles as questioner and moderator follows that journalist-presenters are legitimated to control turn-taking patterns, introduce and preserve topics, set the agenda, establish speaking frames and influence the general framing of politicians’ positions. Overall, the role of interaction manager endows journalist-presenters with access to three powerful legitimate entitlements to control the interaction’s development: (1) procedural legitimacy, (2) topical legitimacy, and (3) framing legitimacy. Firstly, as questioners and moderators of the on-air studio interactions, journalist-presenters are legitimated and generally expected to arrange turn-taking and decide on interactional matters such as who is afforded the floor and for how long. Therefore, journalist-presenters can call upon a privileged access to so-called “interactional dominance” (Linell, 1990: 158) or, as further used in this study, “procedural-level” (Carpentier, 2001: 224) forms of power to organise and manage the interactional floor – i.e. the “territory” (Bilmes, 1999: 234). 34 Secondly, from the journalist-presenters’ responsibility for questioning turns, it follows that they are legitimated to introduce and preserve topics, and to set the agenda (Bilmes, 1999: 228; Ekström, 2001: 565; Ekström, 2007a: 968; Hutchby, 2006: 33). Such a topical legitimacy or, put differently, “topical dominance” (Linell, 1990: 158) or “pastoral power” (Carpentier, 2001: 227) typically assigns to journalist-presenters a privileged position in relation to politicians. As questioners of the encounter, journalist-presenters have a privileged access to questioning turns and can, therefore, lay claim on the agenda and initiate new major topical lines (e.g. Bilmes, 1999: 228; Ekström, 2001: 565; Ekström, 2007a: 968; Hutchby, 2006: 33). Moreover, since they are in first position in the question-answer sequence typical of political television debates, journalist-presenters can control what is said in the second position, in the
34 This concept of the interactional floor as a « territory », relates to what Thornborrow (2002: 27) calls a “territorial model of power in
interaction”, an idea picked up and further developed by Ekström (2007) in the specific setting of the press conference.
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response (e.g. Bilmes, 1999; Heritage & Greatbatch, 1991). Thirdly, and related to this, is the journalist-presenters’ framing legitimacy in political television talk. Their sub-roles as questioner and moderator entail a particular entitlement for journalist-presenters to define the speaking frames in which politicians can manoeuvre in their answering turns (e.g. Ekström, 2001: 565; Hutchby, 2006: 137). What’s more, access to questioning allows control not only over the introduction of speaking frames, but also, in a third turn, over the interpretation and framing of politicians’ answers (Bilmes, 1999: 234).
In political television talk, the authoritative resources of questioning, and turn-allocative practices, are strengthened by the journalist-presenter’s institutional role as political journalist. On the basis of their status as representatives of journalism, journalist-presenters are provided with legitimacy - and even a duty - not merely to ask informative questions, but to do this in a critical and challenging manner, on behalf of the overhearing audience. Their journalistic sub-roles as ‘watchdog’ and ‘public servant’, means that journalist-presenters can appeal to a set of powerful resources to control the on-going interaction, including adopting an adversarial questioning style, acting in the name of the audience and judging the politicians’ truthfulness (Clayman, 2002a, 2002b, 2007; Clayman & Heritage, 2002; Ekström, 2009; Heritage, 2002; Hutchby, 2011: 115; ). As mentioned before, footing shifts, through which uttered statements are attributed to others, can be a clever means for journalist-presenters to distance themselves from their utterances while at the same time carrying out their adversarial legitimacy as political jounalists (Clayman, 1991, 1992, 2002, 2007; Dillon, 1990; Clayman & Heritage, 2002; Heritage, 1985; Heritage & Greatbatch, 1991). Also, journalist-presenters are structurally empowered by their role as television producer to co-organise the interaction and control the setting in which the interaction takes place. Their membership of a broadcasting institution provides them with particular legitimate entitlements to act according to the working principles of that institution, including provoking conflict and stimulating a sense of concreteness. Thier sub-role as entertainers, endows journalist-presenters with a particular responsibility and legitimacy to generate polarisation, instigate conflict talk and simplify complex
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discussions (Bavelas et al., 1990; Grimshaw, 1990; Hutchby, 1996; Weizman, 2008). What’s more, as masters of ceremony, journalist-presenters are, as it were, “playing on their ‘home ground’ and provide the participants i.e. the politicians access to ‘their’ platform” (Carpentier, 2001: 214). This corresponds to Goffman’s (1959: 95) observation that whoever is in the position of organising and, thus, controlling the setting can count on “a sense of security”. He explains:
A customer in a shop, a client in an office, a group of guests in the home of their hosts - these persons put on a performance and maintain a front, but the setting in which they do this is outside of their immediate control, being an integral part of the presentation made by those into whose presence they have come. (Goffman, 1959: 92)
In this respect, Tolson (2001: 33) argues that the journalist-presenters’ power as co-organisers of the encounter is reflected in their mobility. As members of the production team, they are thoroughly acquainted with the studio space and are legitimised to occupy it and move in it. In their role as television producer, journalist-presenters have preferential access to and control over a diversity of “allocative resources” (Giddens, 1987), such as technological tools and format features. As a consequence of their responsibility to create a successful media product, journalist-presenters are given control over a number of powerful production facilities such as microphones,35 earpieces, scripts and pre-planned formatting aspects (e.g. Tolson, 2001: 33). This typically “leads to a sense of property” (Carpentier, 2005: 204) for the journalist-presenter that generally is not available to the politician in the encounter.
5.3.5 PUTTING THE MEDIA PROFESSIONAL’S POWER INTO PERSPECTIVE
In line with the overall social constructionist approach, and as Silverman (1997: 188) argues lucidly, it is important to remember that these characteristics “structure but do not determine what may be said in social 35 Holding a microphone, for instance, carries the power to invite someone to speak (by handing it over) or to put an abrupt end to
the exchange (by withdrawing it).
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settings, how it may be said, and who may say it”. What journalist-presenters accomplish at an interactional level is related to how they deal with these structural power asymmetries during the local practices of the interaction. As Foucault (1982 [2001]) repeatedly emphasised, the striving for power is never a straightforward process, but always and necessarily a struggle. It is only through interrelational acknowledgements and collaboration that structural power relationships, as embedded within discourse, can emerge and be effectuated (Foucault, 1982 [2001], 1977). In this respect, Fairclough (1998: 151) indicates that, in the context of political television interviews, politicians are all but powerless agents: “To take an example, not all professional politicians are willing to go along with more aggressive and contestatory styles of political interview which fit in with media priorities to make programmes more entertaining by subordinating political discussion to gladiatorial contest.” Given the specificity of political television talk, it would be too simplistic and would ignore its complexities to argue at a structural level that journalist-presenters are all-powerful compared to the dependent and powerless politicians. Taking account of (1) the general goal of the interaction, (2) the wider institutional roles of journalists and politicians and (3) the inherent equivocal nature of political television interactions, it soon becomes clear that the journalist-presenter’s power positions are not static or possessed. Firstly, it would be an oversimplification to assume that journalist-presenters are powerful and politicians powerless since the interview process centres on interviewees providing the information interviewers want to gain. However powerful the journalist-presenters’ “default positions” (Haworth, 2006: 754) might be, they will always be restricted in fully controlling the encounter by the wider purposes of the context. Since politicians are structurally expected to produce the major amount of talk in the interaction, they have access to what has been described as the “quantitative” dimension of control (Linell, 1990: 158). Therefore, the success of a television interview depends largely on the politicians’ willingness to cooperate and obey the ground rules. Secondly, the wider institutional roles of both journalist-presenters and politicians add further complexity to the operation of power in these forms of mediated interaction. While the asymmetrical distribution of the interactional
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roles of questioner and answerer structurally provides the journalist-presenter with a powerful starting position vis-à-vis the politician, this asymmetry is tempered by the institutional roles that both parties embody. Recalling the peculiarity of political television discourse as interprofessional discourse (see Chapter 4), the journalist-presenter is not the only participant that can claim to represent a formal institution. The politician, too, relies on high external social status in the interaction (Fetzer & Weizman, 2006). On the basis of their membership of the institution of politics, politicians can rely on their status to make claims on behalf of the public, or their particular expertise in avoiding answering a question or using the question as a valuable opportunity to get a particular message across (Matheson, 2005: 129). The journalist-presenters, for their part, are at all times bound to the values and standards of journalism, including the principle of neutralism (e.g. Clayman & Heritage, 2002). Their duty to safeguard an unprecedented neutralistic posture restricts the journalist-presenters’ interactional abilities and potentially mitigates their assumed power. Finally, the peculiarity of contemporary political television talk needs to be taken into account when considering the play of power in it. Especially the studies of Weizman (2008) and Hamo, Kampf and Shifman (2010) show that the apparently clear asymmetrical distribution of power in political television talk is much more subtle in “real-life practice” (Weizman, 2008: 50). While the structural organisation of this type of institutional discourse might suggest otherwise, it seems that both journalists-presenters and politicians have a more or less balanced access to challenge strategies. In fact, conflict and challenge are inherent to and “characteristic of interviews with politicians and other public figures” (Weizman, 2008: 44). Whereas there is the potential for conflict talk (Grimshaw, 1990; Hutchby, 1996) – in the sense of negotiating positions, roles and identities – in every social interaction (Diamond, 1996: 115), it constitutes an essential part of the structural organisation of political television talk, whose overall goal is to demonstrate conflict and struggle over meaning-making (e.g. Bavelas et al., 1990; Weizman, 2008). As such, the struggle over power in political television interactions should be considered in light of the intrinsic embeddedness of evasive behaviour and disputatious talk within the genre. Moreover, under the influence of recent processes of hybridisation (Ekström, 2011; Fetzer & Johansson, 2008; Hutchby, 2011;
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Lauerbach, 2004) and conversationalisation (Fairclough, 1995; Fetzer & Weizman, 2006), “politicians may have greater interactional freedom than they did in the traditional, highly institutional political interview” (Hamo et al., 2010: 252). Consequently, journalist-presenters and politicians can be said to have become more and more “equal participants in an entertaining interactional game” (Hamo et al., 2010: 249).
5.3.6 POWER RELATIONSHIPS IN PRE- AND POST-BROADCASTING
While the existence of power is clearly apt in on-air interactions between journalist-presenters and politicians, the question of how power is invoked in the construction of a media professional identity in political television talk cannot be restricted to on-air relevancies alone. As already touched upon, the production of political television discourse involves more physical settings than just the studio space, and involves more than just interactions between journalist-presenters and politicians. The web of spaces in the pre-broadcast and post-broadcast phases (e.g. Carpentier, 2011: 150; Kroon Lundell, 2010a), and the interactions produced therein are even so permeated with power relationships and resources to yield or resist power. Therefore, questions about the operation of power in the context of political television discourse should not be restricted to a mere attention of studio interactions, but should include also those interactions taking place in the newsroom, the control room, and other relevant backstage settings such as the lounge area.
OFF-AIR POWER RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN MEDIA PROFESSIONALS AND POLITICIANS
In her study of pre- and post-interview behaviour, Kroon Lundell (2010a) observes that the power relationships between media professionals and politicians strongly depend on the setting in which their mutual encounters and performances take place. She finds that the structural power relationships between journalist-presenters and politicians differ not only as they move from the off-air back-region in the broadcaster’s lounge area to the on-air front-region in the broadcast studio setting but also within the back-region settings, as they engage in pre- and post-interview exchanges. In pre-
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interview talk, journalist-presenters and their fellow media professionals from the production team clearly position themselves as being in control. As decent hosts, they are expected to welcome the politician and make him or her feel comfortable; they possess knowledge about the development and topical details of the ensuing frontstage interaction. Consequently, “there is an inequality of knowledge in favour of the editor, researchers and interviewers, which positions the politician in the role of a student, who needs to be informed and directed about what is going to happen” (Kroon Lundell, 2010a: 173). Although politicians can be considered to be already extensively familiar with the particularities of performing on television, they generally appear willing to follow the directions and information provided by the media professionals (Kroon Lundell, 2010a: 173). Thus, Kroon Lundell (2010a: 173) concludes that “the politician can be said to have the interactional lower hand” in pre-interview exchanges.
This apparent power imbalance seems to be overthrown and even swapped in the back-region interactions following the on-air studio performance (Kroon Lundell, 2010a: 180). While “the atmosphere is one of general relief” (Kroon Lundell, 2010a: 178), the journalist-presenter appears to be less in control of the situation than in the pre-interview and on-air broadcast talk. It seems that, after the broadcast interview, the journalist-presenter seeks a (preferably positive) evaluation of the just-concluded frontstage performance. For instance, journalist-presenters routinely invite the politician interviewees to engage in a joint evaluation of their finished performance. In so doing, the journalist-presenter is assuming a more vulnerable and dependent position than in the pre-interview back-region talk:
The norms for how to act after the interview seem to be for both parties to participate in the evaluation of the programme, where the politician is implicitly encouraged to say what he thought about the programme, but without challenging the interviewer’s professional stance. (Kroon Lundell, 2010a: 181)
Clearly, the apparent small talk in the back-region settings of political broadcasting is less innocent, and more loaded with power-relevant issues than it would seem at first sight. However, as Kroon Lundell (2010a: 182)
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points out, gaining access to these back-regions is “a challenging, if not impossible, task for researchers”. This organizational difficulty might explain the dearth of studies on this topic.
OFF-AIR POWER RELATIONSHIPS AMONG MEDIA PROFESSIONALS
As already mentioned, research on the construction of media professional identities in the backstage contexts of political television discourse is generally lacking. Yet, a number of interesting dynamics are going on behind the scenes, not only in terms of the relationships between media professionals and politicians but even so in terms of the relationships among media professionals. As Chapter 4 has shown, the news production process is a thoroughly collective process (Bednarek & Caple, 2012: 44; Cotter, 2010; Schultz, 2007: 190; Van Hout, 2010: 61), involving different types of media professionals working in close collaboration with each other in situated backstage production contexts, most prominently the newsroom and the control room. While little is known about the operation of power among media professionals in the control room, the newsroom has been put forward as an inherent “site of power” (Allan, 2004: 124). Particularly news ethnography studies of production processes in the context of written journalism have dealt with how particular hierarchies tend to shape media professionals’ everyday routine activities in the newsroom (e.g. Cotter, 2010; Van Hout, 2010). According to Cotter (2010: 92), “hierarchical divisions in newsrooms” are mostly dependent upon “job title and expertise based on proven record and on experience”. Within the newsroom, a team of media professionals is joined together in a shared performative project: the collaborative production of a finished media-product, be it a news broadcast, a political television broadcast, or a news paper article. From their respective performer roles within the team, each and every media professional is bound to contribute to this cooperative mission.
Traditionally, role patterns in the newsroom are centred on three broad role categories: journalists, editors and technicians (Bednarek & Caple, 2012: 22). Whereas journalists are often considered as ‘authors’ who are endowed with the task of producing drafts of stories and writing scripts, editors are
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structurally endowed with a legitimate position to modify and rewrite these drafts and scripts (Bednarek & Caple, 2012: 22). Technicians, from their part, “can be seen as responsible for transmitting the discourse to the audience” (Bednarek & Caple, 2012: 23). Within this traditional composition of media professional teams in the newsroom, it is the editor who can build upon a relatively high hierarchical position: he or she often adopts “a more detached perspective” (Cotter, 2010: 74) than the rest of the team members, generally ensures “awareness of the larger news context” (Cotter, 2010: 75), and has an overall crucial role to play in the ratification of professional production standards (Cotter, 2010: 92).
In the news production process, the relationships between the team members may vary according different phases of collaboration. Cotter (2010: 75, original emphasis) distinguishes four broad stages in news production: “story conceptualization, story construction, story position, and evaluation”. In the first, story conceptualisation stage – elsewhere also stipulated as the process of “story ideation” (Bantz et al. 1980), story ideas are launched and generated, either on initiation of journalists or editors. The ritually organised “story meetings” (Cotter, 2010; Van Hout 2015; Van Hout & Van Praet, 2011) play a crucial role in this stage. Story meetings, in which production team members daily (or sometimes more than once a day) gather to discuss potential news stories, have been identified as “a recurrent speech event where a great deal of professional activity is performed” (Cotter, 2010: 88). Through the interactional processes of negotiation that are inevitably involved in story meetings, media professionals bring into practice a variety of local understandings about production standards, interactional norms, media professional roles, and news culture in general (Brighton & Foy, 2007: 34; Cotter, 2010: 89; Van Hout 2015; Van Hout & Van Praet, 2011). For this reason, story meetings are of particular analytic value because they can bring to the surface crucial constitutive aspects of the newsroom’s craft ethos, including internal hierarchies and power relationships. In a second stage, the news production process typically centres on the actual construction of selected stories. This stage is mostly preserved for the journalists, who – often in consultation with the editors – make decisions on framing and potential interviewees, and produce scripts. A third stage involves decision-making about the positioning of stories within the broader media product. It is mostly
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the editors – often in consultation with the journalists – who ultimately get to determine the length of stories and their positioning within the overall structure (Cotter, 2010: 75). A final stage of the news production process involves media professionals reflecting on “how we did” (Cotter, 2010: 76). In this evaluation stage as well, media professionals tend to routinely bring into play a number assumptions about what it is that constitutes a good news media product, and about what it is that constitutes their team as a well-functioning or malfunctioning team. How these stages of the news production process are related to dynamic power relationships and teaming processes in the context of political television production, will pose a specific challenge for the empirical sections in this study.
5.4 SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS
Throughout this chapter, power has been proposed as a completely social phenomenon, constituted in and through human activities. The overall argumentation of power as generator of a complex web of relationships that is as heavily dependent on the wider social institutional context as it is on the negotiation and consent of participants in local encounters, is in line with the generally social constructionist and integrated discursive approach endorsed in this work. As applies to all explanatory concepts and aspects of social context, power cannot be invoked as a justification for social phenomena unless concrete analysis of social interactions demonstrates that the participants show an orientation to these aspects as relevant in their encounter. In such a bottom-up approach to power, the constitutive abilities of local situated conduct and interpersonal interaction are consistently emphasised. In rejecting a view of power as somehow caused by external social contexts, the dynamic aspects of power are acknowledged. The merging of Foucault’s and Giddens’s perspectives on power with more recent social constructionist claims for a focus on both the embedded and emergent aspects of the notion, provides an analytically valuable framework, not at least because it creates possibilities for recognising power as a vigorously dialogic feature that is as much dependent on structural arrangements as it is on local relevancies and interrelationships.
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Such a dynamic approach to power-in-interaction should be seen as a major ally of the, perhaps more widespread, views on power as a macro phenomenon. In relation to the specific domains of journalism and politics, both macro and micro studies indicate that their interrelationships are inherently complex and far from clearly delineated. However, while scholars are divided on the issue of the distribution of power between the broad institutions of journalism and politics, there tends to be more consensus about the mutual relationships of its key representatives at the micro level of interactional power in the specific setting of political broadcast talk. Judging from earlier studies on the normativity of the participants’ mutual behaviour and control positions in these contexts, it would seem that journalist-presenters especially, have privileged access to discursive controlling practices which are inherently embedded within the apparatus of the institutions of journalism and broadcasting. However, macro studies, in particular, indicate that politicians also have significant power allowing them to influence and ‘spin’ journalistic agendas. In the context of political broadcast talk, the power positions of politicians are seldom apparent from an analysis of only studio interactions since these processes tend to take place also in the backstage areas of political television production. Chapter 6 introduces a combination of methodologies by suggesting that micro study of political television interactions should be supplemented by ethnographic analytical approaches. This, I believe, properly meets Foucault’s (1982 [2001]: 336) appeal for foregrounding “flat empirical questions”.
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II Analysing the construction
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CHAPTER 6
DISENTANGLING THE CONSTRUCTION OF A
MEDIA PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY For the performance of a media professional identity in the context of political broadcast talk to be unravelled, a close investigation and explanation of the theoretical foundations serves the objective of providing the researcher with a number of different viewpoints from which to plunge into this empirical exercise. Throughout the theoretical part, the notions of power and identity have been put forward as inherently dialogic phenomena that are constituted by both the structural and interactional levels of social reality. I have proposed that an integrated discursive model, that borrows from the starting points of both the interactionist and the critical discursive research strands, provides an opportune theoretical framework for capturing how identity and power operate in sociocultural contexts. To operationalise this synthetic exercise, the notion of performance serves as a heuristic bridging concept: the iterability with which local practices are typically accomplished in social interactions not only allows for capturing the relatively ‘fixed’ and normative dimensions of the performance of identity and power but also suggests a possibility of subversiveness and resistance to this apparent fixity. This chapter may be considered as a stepping-stone connecting these theoretical presumptions with the concrete empirical analyses in order to reach an overall understanding of the construction of media professional identity in political television talk. The chapter presents the concrete methodological tools with which to analytically deal with the identified complexities at the level of macro and micro, structure and agency, institutional order and interactional order debates. The main challenge is to develop a methodological framework that embraces the study’s theoretical underpinnings to allow for these underpinnings to be bolstered further into
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the detailed analysis of the concrete performances of a media professional identity in political broadcasting. Rather than operating as some kind of fixed, generalised statements unilaterally directing the empirical analysis, the formulated theoretical starting points are taken as particular lenses from which to further explore and interpret the play of identity and power in political broadcast talk and its surrounding settings. The ensemble of theories and insights informing the specific social constructionist approach constitutes an overall orienting framework or “toolbox” for the following empirical analysis (e.g. Alasuutari, 1996: 372; Foucault, 1976 [2001]). In this way, the theoretical foundations of this study may be seen as encompassing the structural level of the study of political broadcast talk. Just as much as institutional interaction is partly established through the to-be-expected patterns and relationships that normatively guide participants’ encounters and is partly constructed through the moment-to-moment situated practices of those participants, the concrete research set-up in this work is partly defined by the pre-established theoretical presumptions on the operations of power and identity in institutional interaction and is partly articulated through the close, detailed and repetitive analysis of local conduct in concrete interactional settings.
The major issue now is to turn to the interactional level to see what participants in (the production of) political broadcast broadcasts, i.e. media professionals and politicians, effectively accomplish in those settings. Therefore, the study turns to the methodological tenets of CA and ethnography. This chapter argues that the value of such a combined methodological framework has to be found in its allowances for embracing the emergent aspects of identity construction and power play in participants’ local performances in situated contexts. More concretely, in relation to the study’s prime focus on the construction of a media professional identity in (the production of) political television discourse, a synthesis between the methodological principles of CA and ethnography opens up valuable possibilities for grasping the repertoire of discursive mechanisms that underlie this construction, not only in the frontstage studio setting, but also in the backstage settings of political television production. This chapter consists of two main sections. In the first section, I return to the study’s research intentions and formulate the (sub-)research questions
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that guide the empirical analyses. It will be argued that CA and ethnography provide the necessary methodological grounds to meet the research’s empirical objectives. In the second section, I set out how this analytic framework finds more concrete translation in the study’s data selection and data collection choices, as well as in its analytic procedures. The study’s corpus of data from the on-air and off-air settings in Flemish political television programmes will be introduced and legitimated. After an assessment of the quality of the research in terms of validity and reliability and a note on the study’s protection of confidentiality, this chapter concludes with a reflection on how the proposed methodological framework opens doors towards the concrete empirical exploration of media professional identity in (the production of) political television discourse.
6.1 RESEARCH AND SUB-RESEARCH QUESTIONS
In this research, I set out to analyse the diverse ways through which a media professional identity is articulated and constructed in the context of political television discourse. For this broad research intention to become operationalised into an analytically applicable research design, it is of relevance to ‘crumble’ it into more digestible pieces, in the form of research and sub-research questions. The (sub-)research questions guiding this study are, as Foucault (1982 [2001]: 336) would assert, “flat and empirical” in character. Rather than asking myself what a media professional identity exactly is, I prefer to foreground the general question “comment ça se passe?” (Foucault, 1994: 233): • How is a media professional identity constructed in (the production of)
Flemish political television discourse and how is this construction related to the dynamic operation of power?
The formulation of such a how-question permits bringing to surface the discursive mechanisms - i.e. the practices, norms, rules and routines - through which identities and power relationships are dynamically claimed, negotiated and resisted in and through interaction. Through the particular open
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formulation of the main research question, it becomes possible to account for the inherent social constructionist and performative nature of identity and power, as well as to pave the way for a further implementation of the developed integrated discursive and performative framework into actual empirical analysis. More particularly, the how-design of the question stresses the inherent emerging and interactional facets of identity construction and power play in (the production of) political broadcast broadcasts. Moreover, it foregrounds the research objective to disentangle the hybrid ways through which identity and power can be put into play in political television settings, rather than to define, in a closed manner, what identity and power are or why identity and power occur in these institutional settings. However, this empirical emphasis on the local construction of identity and power in political broadcasting by no means implies a denial of the potential role of pre-established arrangements in this construction. To the contrary, the search for performative practices through which a media professional identity and its according power positions are accomplished in political broadcasting, in my view, by definition involves considerations on the broader institutional structures within which interactions, and the identity and power relationships that are constructed in them, are intrinsically embedded. To further operationalise the main research question from such an integrated discursive perspective, the focus is on both the product – i.e. politicial television broadcasts – and the process – i.e. the production of political television broadcasts. On the one hand, the research analyses how journalist-presenters can achieve a media professional identity in their on-air interactions with politicians in concrete instances of political television talk. I therefore turn to transcripts of political interviews and television debates on Flemish public service television (see later) to scrutinise the interactional resources through which a media professional identity is not only performed and claimed by journalist-presenters, but also often challenged and resisted by politicians in the on-air unfolding of these televised interactions. The following sub-research questions guide this analysis of the on-air interactions between journalist-presenters and politicians:
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How is the construction of a media professional identity contingent upon the use of interactional resources in the frontstage setting of political television talk?
How is the construction of a media professional identity contingent upon format components in the frontstage setting of political television talk?
In order to answer this first set of sub-research questions, I draw on the methodological insights of CA. In its analytic attention to the fine details of talk-in-interaction, CA offers an appropriate set of analytic tools from which to analyse institutional interactions. Rather than turning to its ‘pure’ forms, I follow recent claims for a more nuanced or ‘applied’ version of the method that allows also for dealing with broader contextual issues such as questions on identity and power or the role of extra-situational material (Alasuutari, 1995: 108; Linell, 1998a: 59). In the analysis of on-air political television talk, I show a particular analytic interest in how journalist-presenters can strategically call upon interactional resources and format components to perform, defend or otherwise re-claim an appropriate professional identity. On the other hand, it would be ignorant of the actual complexity of media professional identity to situate its construction only at the level of frontstage interactional patterns. Since most discourse-analytic research on broadcast talk often focus exclusively on transcripts of the end product, little attention has been paid so far to studying underlying production processes (but see Ekström & Kroon Lundell, 2011; Kroon Lundell, 2009, 2010; Ytreberg, 2004, 2006). Still, an analytic account of the off-air settings of political broadcasting can offer valuable ways for a more integral analysis of identity performance. Political television broadcasts and the types of talk produced therein do not simply ‘occur’ but are always the result of underlying processes and practices. An integration of off-air practices and processes into the analysis can situate the construction of a media professional identity within a broader context and can offer a more comprehensive understanding of media professionalism in this context. Therefore, for a total of 6 weeks, I went backstage at Flanders’ perhaps most well-known political television programme, Terzake (Canvas) (see later), to find an answer to the following sub-research questions:
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How is the construction of a media professional identity contingent upon production standards in the backstage settings of political television programmes?
How is the construction of a media professional identity contingent upon dynamic team collaborations in the backstage settings of political television programmes?
A field-based and interaction-oriented ethnography serves as the methodological pivot around which this second set of sub-research questions is built. Through a close investigation of the collaborative processes and discursive practices through which a media professional identity is prepared for, facilitated and supported in the off-air settings of political broadcasting, the insights from and results of the conversation analytic study can be valuably supplemented and enriched in order to arrive at a broader reflection on how backstage processes potentially affect the frontstage performance of a media professional identity. The analytic focus here is specifically on how production standards, on the one hand, and team collaborations, on the other, play a role in the construction of and preparation for a media professional identity. As such, I gradually arrive at an overall analytic model foregrounding the study of the concepts of identity, roles and power in the context of political television talk through a comprehensive empirical approach that is product- and process-oriented in character (see Figure 6.1). This dual approach provides the basis for the narrative structure in the empirical chapters that are about to follow. The first two empirical chapters draw on the methodological framework of CA (orange circles) to study how interactional resources (Chapter 7) and format (Chapter 8) can be called upon by journalist-presenters to achieve an acceptable professional posture in their on-air interactions with politicians. In the next two chapters (Chapters 8 and 9), the insights from this product-analysis are further developed and extended to include considerations on how the frontstage accomplishment of a media professional identity is potentially affected by backstage production processes. Drawing on ethnography (green circles), these chapters bring to light how backstage production standards (Chapter 9) and team
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collaborations36 (Chapter 10) contribute, throughout a variety of off-air spaces, to the preparation and performance of a media professional identity. It should be noted that, far from being pre-set deduced categories, these four identified aspects of media professional identity are the reflection and direct result of iterative rounds of conversation analytic and ethnographic scrutiny. The issue of iteration is being dealt with further in this chapter (see 6.3.2).
Figure 6.1: Schematic overview of the research set-up and structure of the empirical part
36 Although the team collaborations that underlie political television broadcasts will be analysed from an ethnographic point of view,
the scope of these collaborations is not limited to the backstage settings alone. As will become clear in the respective empirical chapter
(Chapter 10), journalist-presenters can fall back on collaborative efforts of others, not only in the phases before and after broadcasts
but also during broadcasts, most prominently in the form of cueing instructions from the editor-in-chief in the control room.
Therefore, and as visualised in Figure 6.1, it is opportune to situate the scope of backstage teaming processes somewhere in the
floating space between on-air political television talk (product) and the off-air practices (process).
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6.2 METHODOLOGICAL PLURALISM: NUANCED CONVERSATION
ANALYSIS AND ETHNOGRAPHY
In order to account for how issues of identity and power emerge as local phenomena in (the production of) political broadcast broadcasts, I call upon the methodological insights of CA and ethnography. Although fierce CA-defenders would probably be dismissive of any form of collaboration between CA and other methodological approaches that look beyond the study of talk-in-interaction (e.g. Schegloff, 1991, 1992), the combination of CA and ethnography for the study of language and interaction is not new. Moerman (1988, 1990, 1992), for instance, counts as one of the fiercest advocates of a synthesis between the methodological tenets of both approaches. His argumentation is founded on the conviction that, while the sequential analytic focus of CA can bring to light the processes of human interaction, ethnography can contribute to this analysis by providing insights on the meanings that underlie these processes and the mise-en-scènes in which these processes inevitably occur (Moerman, 1988: 57). In a same vein, Maynard (1989) has as well defended a harmonisation of discourse studies and ethnographies of communication, in which ethnography can be used for complementing the detailed study of talk and vice versa. Also, Sarangi and Roberts (1999: 13) support a combination of CA and ethnography in workplace studies when they argue that “discourse and conversation analysis need to be embedded within an ethnographic project”. Such methodological exercises to merge CA and ethnography into a unified research project fit into the methodological challenge “to combine the intellectual rigour of our separate approaches with a willingness to reflect upon and to use what we may have in common” (Silverman, 1999: 420). From an overall intention to capture both the frontstage and backstage practices of media professionals in political broadcasting, this study acknowledges that being a media professional does not restrict itself to professionally interacting with politicians in front of cameras. In order to understand the construction of a media professional identity in this setting in a more comprehensive way, one should not stop at the analysis of frontstage activities but go beyond the publicly maintained identity performances and take account of backstage decision-making, problem-solving and other
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underlying processes as well. In a first research phase37, I turn to a nuanced form of CA to develop a more concrete understanding of how a media professional identity is constituted through particular common sense patterns and practices within the moment-to-moment unfolding of on-air televised interactions between journalist-presenters and politicians. I especially believe in the value of CA for uncovering how structural - i.e. pre-theoretical and theoretical - assumptions about identity and power become relevant and are oriented to in the local activities of journalist-presenters and politicians in their mutual on-air interactions. In a second phase, the scope of the study is broadened to include ethnographic considerations on the contextualised nature of these frontstage encounters. The ontological and epistemological assumptions of ethnography allow for considering how behind-the-scenes activities and interpersonal relationships as well play a key role in the successful performance of a media professional identity. The following sets out the methodological starting points and implications of each of these research strategies to show how their combination can contribute to a holistic analysis of media professional identity in the frontstage and backstage settings of political broadcasting.38
6.2.1 RESEARCHING THE FRONTSTAGE: CONVERSATION ANALYSIS
Inspired by Garfinkel’s (1967 [1984]) ethnomethodological research tradition and Goffman’s (1959, 1967, 1974) studies on interaction order, Harvey Sacks, Emmanuel Schegloff and Gail Jefferson (1974) were the first to develop a research agenda for CA in the beginning of the 1970s. One of the
37 Given the continuous back and forth processes that occurred between the detailed analysis of concrete excerpts of political
television broadcasts, the revision of the literature, the revision of CA in a more nuanced version, and the re-analysis of the data, it
actually majorly degrades the complexity of the research process to portray the conversation analytic parts in this study as a coherent
‘first phase’. However, in relation to the ethnographic analysis it does make sense to differentiate two research phases, with the
analysis of frontstage political television talk comprising a first stage and the examination of the backstage underlying processes
making up a second research stage.
38 Although the distinction between an analysis of the frontstage and backstage settings of political broadcasting is analytically
valuable, it bears repeating that this differentiation by no means implies neatly defined boundaries between these regions. In political
broadcasting, and in fact in any form of institutional interaction, definitions of frontstage and backstage are blurred and inevitably
overlap (e.g. Kroon Lundell, 2010a: 169; Sarangi & Roberts, 1999: 23). For example, the editor-in-chief’s instructions from the
backstage to the journalist-presenter in the frontstage during the on-air production of political broadcasts illustrate this
interconnectedness of frontstage and backstage. Also, the cue cards that journalist-presenters have produced in the backstage but take
with them in the frontstage are exemplary for the typical mixing of these categories.
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methodological characteristics that distinguishes CA from other research methods is that its analysis is based on transcribed audio or video recordings of so-called “naturally occurring” interactions rather than of interactions that are experimentally provoked for the purposes of social research (Ten Have, 2007: 68; Wooffitt, 2005: 40-41). This emphasis on the study of ‘real-life’ interaction originates from CA’s broader epistemological objective to ground analytic observations in human conduct; to study talk “as an object in its own right, and not merely as a screen on which are projected other processes” (Schegloff, 1992: xviii). Although the method was originally developed to be applied to studies on ‘ordinary conversation’ between people in everyday contexts, from the late 1970s onwards its methodological principles have gradually been applied also to language production in a variety of different institutional settings such as classrooms (McHoul, 1978), court rooms (Atkinson & Drew, 1979) and news interviews (Clayman, 1988; Heritage, 1985; Heritage & Greatbatch, 1991; Greatbatch, 1988). This is also why in most recent CA work - and as also repeatedly referred to in this work - CA is more and more referred to as the study of ‘talk-in-interaction’ rather than that of simply ‘conversation’: “To put it at its most basic, conversation analysis is the study of talk. More particularly, it is the systematic analysis of the talk produced in everyday situations of human interaction: talk-in-interaction” (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 1998: 13). As Sarangi and Roberts (1999: 21) observe, “the conversation analytic tradition has played a key role in developing our understanding of frontstage talk”. The theoretical premises of CA have already been extensively dealt with throughout the previous chapters. From an overall – predominantly critical discursive – critique on the method, I have proposed that a more nuanced form of CA, with more explicit accounts of the relevancy of identity and power as higher-level phenomena, make allowances for a more in-depth understanding of social reality that can take account of the reflexivity of text and context, theory and detailed empirical analysis, structure and agency, and institutional and interactional orders. However, at this point it remains to explore how CA’s principles can be used methodologically, as analytic instruments for the concrete study of media professional identities in political television talk. In the following, I focus on the method’s most prominent methodological principles and key concepts and elaborate on how the
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proposed nuanced version of CA can be of specific methodological value for analysing political television talk from below and above.
CA PRINCIPLES AND KEY CONCEPTS
According to Heritage (1984: 241), the conversation analytic framework is organised around three methodological principles: (1) interactions are structurally organised; (2) contributions to these interactions are contextually organised; and (3) no detail in interactions can be dismissed a priori as disorderly, coincidental or irrelevant. In pursuance of the implementation of these methodological fundaments, conversation analysts build upon a shared set of established concepts (hereafter in italics) to grasp what is going on in talk-in-interaction. The ensemble of these CA principles and key concepts constitute the necessary methodological basis for the moment-to-moment analysis of strips of talk.
THE STRUCTURAL ORGANISATION OF INTERACTION. From the conviction that talk is a socially constitutive activity, conversation analysts depart from the idea that social interactions are organised in an orderly way and that this organisation can be discovered through close analysis of the rules and structures that produce that orderliness. As such, their interest is in disentangling the social order of interaction and “in finding the machinery, the rules, the structures that produce that orderliness” (Psathas, 1995: 2). Therefore, conversation analysts turn to in situ relevancies in interaction to scrutinise in detail how participants in an interaction locally produce a particular level of orderliness. Through close analysis of the turn-by-turn unfolding of talk-in-interaction and, thus, of the immediate sequential context in which turns are produced, conversation analysts seek to find an answer to the question “in what ways are the parties reproducing the very structure that is commonsensically believed to be external and constraining?” (Psathas, 1995: 54-55). Underpinning this intention to grasp the structural organisation of interaction is a general concern with understanding how turns are taken, distributed and allocated in any particular interactional event. CA upholds that the ways in which participants take turns are far from random, but in fact
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constitute a recurring system that is consequential for the order of speakership and for turn design (e.g. Clayman & Heritage, 2002; Greatbatch, 1988). This turn-taking system is considered to be “the basic form of speech-exchange system” (Sacks et al., 1974: 730) and it is the analyst’s task to dismantle how this system is locally managed and adapted by participants in interaction. Turn-taking systems comprise two components: a turn-construction component that refers to the units by which turns are constructed, and a turn-distribution component that refers to particular turn-allocation techniques. First, participants can build upon turn-construction units (TCUs) such as sentences, clauses, phrases and words to constitute their turns at talk. These TCUs are not only crucial elements for speakers to organise turns and control the floor, but also are important markers for co-participants to estimate when turns are about to be finished, or when the design of particular turns is about to be changed. Upon completion of a TCU, a transition relevance place (TRP) - also called possible completion point - is reached: a point at which turn transition or change of speakership becomes possible (Psathas, 1995: 37; Ten Have, 2007: 52). This brings me to the second component of turn-taking systems, namely the mechanisms through which turns are distributed among participants. At any TRP, a transfer of speakership can be accomplished through three essential techniques: (1) the current speaker can select the next speaker; (2) the next speaker can self-select; or (3) the current speaker can continue speaking. However clear-cut this set of turn-allocation techniques might seem, interaction will actually often run much less clear-cut. Sometimes two or more participants simultaneously take turns or compete for turns, as is particularly the case in the turn-taking system typical of political broadcast talk, where disagreement is inherently entwined in the turn design (Greatbatch, 1992). In such cases of “overlapping” (Jefferson, 1986; Schegloff, 2000) or “interruptive” (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 1998: 57) talk, participants will mostly do efforts to repair39 the smooth operation of turn-taking (Sacks et al., 1974).
39 Because the notion of ‘repair’ is broadly defined as “the treatment of trouble occurring in interactive language use” (Seedhouse,
2005: 168), the scope of the notion is not strictly limited to rebalancing a problem situation as a result of overlapping talk. Repair
mechanisms also occur in relation to other turn-taking errors such as misarticulations, misunderstandings or incorrect language use
(Sacks et al., 1977).
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THE CONTEXTUAL ORGANISATION OF INTERACTION. Rather than simply assuming the pre-established nature of social order in interaction, conversation analysts support the view that social order is constituted in and through everyday social interaction and that it is their task, as analysts, to explore the ways in which this order is “talked into being” (Heritage, 1984: 290). Central in this exploration are the ways in which participants show an understanding or make relevant certain features of the setting in order to be able to produce statements on the structural organisation of that very setting. In its believe that social order is locally situated in and contingent upon talk and interaction, CA has been appointed as an opportune method “to uncover the organization of talk not from any exterior, God’s eye view, but from the perspective of how the participants display for one another their understanding of ‘what is going on’” (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 1998: 15). On the basis of such a bottom-up analysis of social structure is a conviction that turns in talk are doubly contextual (Heritage, 1984). A turn is always in relation to a preceding turn and therefore intrinsically context-shaped. In addition, a turn forms itself a primary framework for some next action in a following sequence and is, therefore, also context-renewing. At an empirical level, this context-sensitivity of social order finds expression in the analytic criterion of procedural consequentiality or procedural relevancy: aspects of context are only taken up in the analysis in so far as participants show a demonstrable orientation to the relevancy of such aspects in the procedural development of interaction (Schegloff, 1968, 1991, 1992, 1997). Instead of searching for some kind of ‘hidden’ meaning lying behind interactional practices, it is the conversation analyst’s aim to depart from “those observations that are available to all participants in the conversation” (Alasuutari, 1995: 102). As such, “the analyst’s task is not to decide what an action means, or even what it is, but to describe what it is taken to be in members’ work” (Packer, 2011: 195, original emphasis). Through the detailed analysis of how participants show orientations to context in their local, moment-to-moment conduct in interaction, the researcher can single out and specify how particular aspects of context - e.g. the role of institution, the play of identity, the operation of power - are relevant and consequential for interaction in a particular setting (e.g. Antaki & Widdicombe, 1998; Arminen, 2000). To achieve this empirical aim, conversation analysts fall back on the
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methodological tool of next turn proof procedure. That is, a turn at talk is taken as analytic resource for understanding a prior turn, and the production of a current turn is considered to be decisive for the choices available to the next speaker (Arminen, 1999: 252; Hutchby & Wooffitt, 1998: 14). Through systematic analysis of sequence organisation, conversation analysts can reveal the common-sense practices through which participants routinely make sense of each other and the situation they are in (Heritage, 2005). When discussing the procedural consequentiality principle and according next turn proof procedure, one cannot go round the concept of adjacency pairs and the closely related notion of preference organisation. Typically, interactional turns are organised according to so-called adjacency pairs (Greatbatch, 1988; Sacks, 1992; Schegloff & Sacks, 1973). An adjacency pair is a sequence of two adjacent turns produced by different speakers and ordered as a first action that requires the production of a particular second action. Examples of adjacency pairs include question-answer, offer-acceptance, assessment-agreement, and greeting-greeting. The initiation of a question, an offer, an assessment or a greeting in interaction arranges the conditional relevance for the production of a suitable second pair part in the form of an answer, an acceptance, an agreement or a re-greeting. Hence, whoever produces a first pair part creates a powerful normative and accountable framework for the production of a next turn and, in that way, significantly limits the interactional options available for the next speaker (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 1998: 43; Ten Have, 2007: 53). This normative character of adjacency pairs is further conceptualised through the conversation analytic notion of preference organisation (Heritage, 1984; Pomerantz, 1984). For many adjacency pairs, a number of second pair parts are possible of which some are more preferred than others. An invitation, for instance, can be answered either by an acceptation (preferred action) or by a refusal (dispreferred action). While preferred actions are mostly produced in a straightforward manner, dispreferred actions in the second pair part are often accounted for by participants as problematic in one way or another, for instance by performing such actions with a certain delay or by initiating them with particular hesitation markers like “well” (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 1998: 45). However, this is not to imply that particular actions are a priori categorised as either preferred or dispreferred. Rather, the distinction between these actions is
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meant as a specific resource for participants in interaction to portray their mutual interactional actions as problematic or non-problematic (Heritage, 1984). Overall, this set of concepts demonstrates CA’s general avoidance of a purely structural view of conversation to the advantage of an analytic focus on how regularities are dynamically produced and reproduced through participants’ local orientations. As Atkinson and Heritage (1984: 3) summarise: “For conversation analysts, therefore, it is sequences and turns-within-sequences, rather than isolated utterances or sentences, which are the primary units of analysis”. NO A PRIORI GENERALISATIONS. From this anchoring of social order in the empirical analysis of local participant orientations follows a general reticence of CA to blindly include background information at the outset of analysis. Precisely because of the method’s strong bottom-up and data-driven emphasis on procedural consequentiality and demonstrable orientations of participants, CA sets out to approach data from a perspective as open as possible – i.e. from a stance of “unmotivated looking” (Psathas, 1995: 45; cfr. Chapter 2). Therefore, conversation analytic studies are generally reluctant towards the inclusion of a priori knowledge, for instance about the setting or about assumed institutional identities, roles and power positions of participants. Rather than approaching the data from particular pre-established (pre-)theoretical assumptions about the potential relevancy of contextual macro-related aspects, conversation analysts choose to integrate such phenomena only in so far as those phenomena are shown to relevant in the details of interaction (Heritage, 1987; Zimmerman & Boden, 1991: 9). Or, as Hutchby (1996: 112) puts it, referring to Schegloff (1991): “If structure informs talk, and talk simultaneously constitutes structure, then those processes cannot simply be theoretically prescribed; they must be observable in the details of talk itself”. This principle also underpins the detailed transcription system used in CA, which includes many details of turn-taking such as gaps, pauses, overlaps, word stresses, and audible breathing. The purpose of such a specified transcription, as we will shortly see in more detail, is to represent what is said and how it is said in talk-in-interaction as accurate as possible in order to make video- or audio-recordings of naturally occurring talk
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optimally available for analytic consideration (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 1998: 80; Ten Have, 2007: 32).
TOWARDS AN APPLIED CA
Underlying these methodological principles is a highly inductive orientation of CA to data: any preconceptions about the objects under study are suspended to the advantage of an exclusively data-driven research logic; the local conduct of participants is treated as the central empirical resource upon which the development of analysis is based (Heritage, 1984: 243). From an analytic point of view, this procedure of “bracketing off” (Deacon et al., 1999: 307) local practices is particularly valuable for securing an in-depth and concentrated look on the data and for preventing just any external insight to be a priori treated as explanatory factor in the analysis. As Silverman (1997: 186) argues, CA’s bottom-up view on data provides the analytic means to account for “the reflexive social construction of social realities in social interaction” (Silverman, 1997: 186). Despite the analytic relevance of the method’s strong bottom-up focus on individual agency, there are equal reasons to challenge it. For instance, certainly in the beginning of my research, when I still tried to strongly hold on to CA’s core principles, I experienced quite some difficulties with the method’s extreme reluctance towards the inclusion of extraneous information of the setting and its participants into analysis. I had trouble with shielding not only everything I had been reading about political broadcast talk, social constructionism, power and identity but also basic background knowledge on, for instance, particular political matters underlying the televised political discussions or the political affiliation of interviewees. On the basis of this analytic obstacle lies, in my view, a sort of contradiction with doing social scientific research, which by definition is an interpretive activity with a set of pre-established research concerns and objectives. Therefore, one might call into question not only whether it is even possible, as a researcher, to escape from the play of specified concerns or theoretical categories into empirical analysis, but also whether CA’s concern with the local and sequential organisation of human conduct does not go at the expense of more
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comprehensive reflections about the embeddedness of this local behaviour within broader structural frameworks (e.g. Alasuutari, 1995: 108; Deacon et al., 1999: 307; Hutchby, 1999a; Linell, 1998a: 59; Wetherell, 1998). To treat talk as decontextualised from the setting in which it occurs and to treat the analysis of this talk as free from any external reflection might therefore seem somewhat idealistic. Rather than trying to squeeze oneself into a fairly unrealistic analytic position, one can perhaps better choose to depart from some of CA’s analytic principles to try and find a way to, as Foucault (1986: 9 in Alasuutari, 1996: 382) puts it, “free thought from what it silently thinks, and so enable it to think differently”. At a methodological level, I deal with this challenge in two ways.40 First, I develop and employ a hybrid methodological set-up, with a detailed interactionist discursive analysis of live political broadcast talk being complemented with an ethnographic analysis of the underlying practices and processes of political broadcast production. A combination of these methodologies allows for exploring how the performance of a media professional identity in political television broadcasts is both a matter of the journalist-presenters’ and politicians’ local accomplishments in the on-air studio setting and a matter of extensive backstage production activities by a team of media professionals in the backstage settings of political broadcasting. Second, I would argue that CA’s typical “‘data are enough’ perspective” (Ten Have, 2007: 75), with a purely sequential analysis and neglect of contextual matters, is perhaps ripe for some nuance. Certainly with respect to talk in institutional contexts, it would be fiercely limiting to somehow isolate utterances from the context in which they occur (Maynard, 1989: 139). Therefore, we should be able to define a workable CA model that still respects and values the method’s micro-analytic focus but also allows for relating this microscopic focus to more macroscopic considerations. It is in the light of this latter ambition that several scholars have advocated a revision of ‘pure’ CA applications, varyingly arguing for the use
40 How this issue can be dealt with at a theoretical level has already been amply elaborated in the theoretical chapters of this work.
More particularly, it has been suggested that an integration of the critical discursive and interactionist discursive frameworks might
provide for a feasible theoretical model to account for both the emergent and embedded aspects of social reality. In this way, we can
pave the way for macro-related notions such as identity and power to be accounted for in the analysis, rather than to be somehow
ignored up until the last phase of analysis. The challenge posed in this chapter is to establish a methodological framework that can
account for this dialogic construction in interaction.
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of more applied varieties of the method that can open doors for the integration of wider contextual considerations (Alasuutari, 1995: 106-108; Hutchby, 1999a; Kothoff, 1997; Maynard, 1989: 139; Moerman, 1988, 1990, 1992; Silverman, 1997; Thornborrow, 2002). Alasuutari (1995: 106), for instance, has argued that CA’s future exactly lies in taking “distance from the strictly inductive CA research programme” and instead conducting “applied conversation analysis” (Alasuutari, 1995: 108, original emphasis). In such an applied version, “the method is used to make further observations from qualitative data, to be then used as clues in addressing social and cultural phenomena” (Alasuutari, 1995: 108). While ‘pure’ CA-oriented studies examine the management of social interaction as an object of study in its own right, a more ‘applied’ form of the method can provide the tools for studying the management of broader contextual features in social interaction (Heritage, 2004: 104). In this way, the turn-by-turn analysis of CA obtains a temporary character, rather than a permanent one: the analysis departs from a number of social or cultural notions in order to then analyse how these notions “are put to use in real situations” (Alasuutari, 1995: 108). In his promotion of a so-called “culturally contexted conversation analysis”, Moerman (1988: 57) suggests to “connect the technical organization of conversation to richly experienced human reality”. As I see it, such initiatives to nuance some of CA’s basic principles do not necessarily have to be understood as a critique on the methodology, but rather as a possibility to enrich its scope. An applied CA maintains analytic focus on local accomplishments and in-situ relevancies in naturally occurring courses of action through close analysis of moment-to-moment turns at talk as included in the detailed transcriptions of audio or video recordings, and at the same time creates the methodological possibility of relating talk to institutional context. In this way, the researcher is empirically enabled to take a members’ perspective while not being blind for broader contextual phenomena, not to make judgements on members’ orientations, but rather to establish a notion of how such local sense-making practices work in constituting identity and power in social interaction. How this connects to and paves the way for constructivist grounded theory as pertinent research strategy, will be set out later in this chapter (cfr. 6.3.2).
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INVESTIGATING BROADCAST TALK FROM BELOW (AND ABOVE)
The question that might arise at this point is how this nuanced methodological CA framework relates to the concrete analysis of media professionalism in political broadcast talk with which we began this chapter. To answer this question, we cannot go round the copious voices that have argued for bringing CA’s methodological tenets into media and communication studies. As Ekström (2007: 972) postulates, “CA is a largely underestimated and unexploited approach in journalism and media studies”. Yet, given the centrality of broadcast talk in journalism and given the method’s focus on the organisation of talk-in-interaction, CA has been presented as a valuable “resource for understanding the media critically” (Arminen, 2005: 148). More specifically, CA’s sequential focus on ‘naturally occurring talk’ is believed to be essential for analysing the organisation of broadcast interactions and, by extension, for critically reflecting on the relationship between forms of broadcast talk and journalism and media. Or, as Arminen (2005: 148) continues: “in order to offer principled criticism of the media, we need to be sensitive to the details of media interactions in order to analyze its seamless ongoing construction of meaning”. Therefore, it should not surprise that CA has been put forward “as one of the most promising theoretical approaches to a talk and interaction perspective in journalism and media studies” (Ekström, 2007a: 971). Since the mid 1980s, an established body of work has turned to CA for the study of broadcast talk - from formal media discourse such as news and political interviews (Clayman & Heritage, 2002; Ekström, 2001, 2008, 2009, 2011; Heritage, 1985; Heritage & Greatbatch, 1991; Kroon Lundell, 2009; Greatbatch, 1988, 1992; Montgomery, 2007) to more informal television talk shows (Tolson, 2001) and talk radio shows (Hutchby, 1996, 1999b, 2006). Although differing in empirical focus, these studies have argued for the analytic relevance of CA for understanding the structures of interaction through which broadcast talk is achieved and talked into being. The careful focus of CA on the turn-by-turn unfolding of talk-in-interaction is especially valuable for shedding light on the metaphorical “interactional game” (Clayman and Heritage, 2002: 14) that is typically manifest in broadcast talk: the often taken-for-granted rules that structure the participants’ behaviour
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and the participants’ repertoire of strategic moves to deal with these rules. CA shows how participants in broadcast talk are allocated different roles, such as interviewer and interviewee, to achieve a variety of interactional tasks, such as opening and closing interactions, questioning, and answering. Consequently, CA is useful for studying broadcast talk from below. Applied to this study’s analytic focus, the method is particularly valuable for exploring how journalist-presenters accomplish a media professional identity in their televised interactions with politicians. A detailed focus on the micro features of these interactions should enable to grasp the well-established rules, norms and practices through which media professional roles and according entitlements are performed - i.e. claimed, negotiated, challenged and resisted - in political broadcast talk. Through a turn-by-turn analysis of concrete instances of political broadcast talk, CA can bring to light the routine patterns through which identities and power relationships are normatively built in the co-operative interactional exchanges between journalist-presenters and politicians. Evidently, this bottom-up approach brings with it some important analytic implications. As Ekström (2007: 971) points out, CA can only provide us with “partial explanations for how (…) institutions came to be and how these are legitimized”. For instance, using CA, we cannot answer why journalist-presenters or politicians do what they do in political broadcast talk. Or we cannot answer content-related matters such as which discussion themes are dominant at which moments in time, or to which proportion political parties get coverage. Rather, the use of CA as methodology implies these issues to be contingent upon the interactional development of the mediated exchanges between journalist-presenters and politicians in political broadcast talk. However, this does not have to mean that CA cannot account for any broader contextual consideration whatsoever. Provided that we use an applied CA framework to study how a media professional identity is constructed in political interview or debate programmes, we can in fact enrich CA’s traditional purely sequential bottom-up analysis with careful contextualised reflections from above. This study will bring contextual information to the interactionist analysis of concrete instances of political television talk in two ways. First, this study opts for the integration of contextual information into the process of identifying and interpreting the
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social organisation of political television talk. Instead of maintaining an exclusive sequential focus on the data and neglecting extrinsic information, the empirical analysis in the study will disclose information about participants’ identities in the reporting of its analysis. Pure CA-oriented studies will rarely identify participants by name, gender or any other identification category but will rather tend to resort to more broad, non-personal classifications that are usually related to the participants’ speaker roles, such as ‘interviewer’ or ‘interviewee’. However, given the institutional status of journalist-presenters and politicians, and given the public nature of political television broadcasts, I find it limiting and perhaps even pointless to make participants in political television talk anonymous in the process of analytic reporting. As Kothoff (1997: 144) puts it, “we need at least ethnographic information about the interlocutors”. Therefore, in the discussion of the on-air interactions (Chapters 7 and 8), the extracts will be accompanied with concrete information about the participants’ names, the politicians’ political affiliation, and sometimes also background information such as political context.
Second, it is useful to shortly reflect about CA’s methodological slogan of studying “recorded, naturally occurring talk-in-interaction” (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 1998: 14), especially vis-à-vis the thoroughly mediatised, scripted and formatted nature of political television interactions. To regard political television interactions as simple instances of “naturally occurring talk” (Psathas, 1995) taking place in “naturally occurring settings” (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 1998: 230), would be a serious disservice to the actual complexity through which these types of talk are typically articulated. Although political broadcast talk clearly is produced “independently of the actions of the researcher” (Potter, 2011: 190) and, in that sense, indeed is to a certain extent ‘natural’ in character41, it feels somehow problematic to straightforwardly categorise political interviews or television debates under the heading of ‘naturally arising talk’. Far from being accidental encounters between journalist-presenters and politicians, political television interactions are
41 Potter (2004: 512) proposes the “dead social scientist test” to determine the natural character of data: even “if the researcher got run
over on the way to the university that morning”, the interaction under study would still have taken place. Understood in this sense,
interactional data are ‘natural’ as far as they are not artificially set up by a researcher, in the way that for instance interviews or focus
groups are.
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highly prearranged and pre-established. Interactions in political television programmes by definition take place within the contours of a strict, pre-produced programme format. What’s more, both journalist-presenters (and their entourage) and politicians (and their entourage) extensively prepare for and pre-plan such media performances. As Ekström (2007: 971) remarks, broadcast talk typically is “characterized by a tension between scripted talk and natural talk”. Consequently, political television programmes do not exist in a vacuum, but to a large extent are managed and constructed within pre-established production frameworks of well-established studio designs, fixed participant positions, staging strategies, scripts and tacit agreements among media professionals and between media professionals and studio guests. With these considerations in mind, it is not only helpful but, in my view, also paramount not to neglect these context-related aspects in the details of a turn-by-turn CA analysis, but embrace them as integral constitutive aspects of political broadcast talk in general and, specifically, of the performance of media professional identities therein. By analytically accounting for underlying context-related matters in political television discourse, such as the role of format, backstage production standards, and backstage team collaborations, we can open valuable doors to relating micro-examinations of the interactional achievement of media professional roles in on-air talk to the highly formatted and scripted character of much contemporary political television.
6.2.2 RESEARCHING THE BACKSTAGE: ETHNOGRAPHY
A study on the on-air construction of identity in political television talk cannot be separated from an analysis of the interpretive processes that underlie this construction. To include these underlying processes and account for the backstage mechanisms, a shift in analytic focus from the fine-grained analysis of on-air studio interactions to an ethnographic analysis of the off-air processes is needed. At a purely methodological level, this implies defining and mastering the analytic procedures of ethnography in order to make in-depth observations of the routine practices, informal habits, ritual standards and conventions that are regularly hidden from the public but inextricably form part of the backstage settings of political broadcasting. The challenge
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thus is to move beyond the frontstage to capture also those interactions that occur “around the institutional ‘theatre’” (Sarangi & Roberts, 1999: 24, emphasis added). As Billig (1987: 15), already in the 1980s, proclaimed in a similar vein:
[T]he world of theatre itself cannot be understood in its entirety in terms of following a script in public. Much backstage work has to be done to produce the script and the stage directions, so that the actors can play their parts on stage.
Ethnography foresees the methodological tools for analysing how this “backstage work” actually occurs. The method’s roots are found in the nineteenth-century social and cultural anthropology and later, in the beginning of the twentieth-century, also in sociology (e.g. Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007: 1; Gobo, 2011: 17; O’Reilly, 2009: 3). Within these domains, ‘ethnography’42 was originally used as a particular methodological technique to empirically investigate and understand the social organisation of a community or culture. Ever since, ethnography has been used within a variety of social scientific disciplines and theoretical frameworks. Exactly because of its widespread application within social sciences, ethnography can be used for the investigation of a multitude of research forms: “from life stories to analysis of letters and questionnaires, from autobiography to narrative analysis, from action research to performance, to field research lasting from a few days to several years” (Gobo, 2011: 16). As an almost evident result of this heterogeneous application, ethnography is hard to capture within a single or neatly demarcated definition (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007: 2). What is clear, though, is that ethnographic researchers are predominantly driven by an intention to study groups of people that are, in some way or another, socially or culturally bounded. Ethnography borrows from the field of anthropology a general interest in the study of cultures and its ‘lived’ experiences by means of intensive fieldwork (Fetterman, 2010: 8; Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007: 199). Central to the method’s tradition is the study of those situations, behavioural patterns and interaction orders through 42 The term ‘ethnography’ puts together the words ‘ethno’ - meaning ‘folk’ or ‘culture’ - and ‘graph’ - meaning ‘writing’. Literally,
ethnography, then, refers to writing about specific folks in situated contexts (e.g. Silverman, 2013: 444).
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which particular social actors present their selves in the construction of their everyday world (O’Reilly, 2009: 114). For an extended period of time, ethnographers immerse in a particular culture or social domain to disentangle those practices and assumptions that are often taken for granted through observational techniques (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007: 23; O’Reilly, 2009: 53). As a result, ethnography provides the methodological means to grasp the local understandings through which people make sense of their life-world, be it either in private contexts or in more professional, workplace contexts.
ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH PRINCIPLES
OBSERVATIONAL RESEARCH: SEEING THE UNSEEN. Ethnography requires researchers to situate themselves in those settings where they can witness activities of social actors as they happen. Therefore, observation is counted as primary source of information in ethnography (e.g. Fetterman, 2010: 37; O’Reilly, 2009: 150). Observing people in their ‘natural settings’ enables researchers to develop an understanding of the meanings used by people in producing their everyday world or, as one of ethnography’s founding fathers formulates it, of “the imponderabilia of everyday life” (Malinowski, 1922: 18). Often, a distinction is drawn between non-participant observation, in which there is no interference with the subjects under study whatsoever, and participant observation, in which there is a direct relationship between the researcher and the subjects under study (Gobo, 2011). However, rather than using this relatively simple dichotomy, it is methodologically more valuable to use a more refined fourfold typology instead, in which a distinction is made between four possible observation roles: complete observer, observer as participant, participants as observer, and complete participant (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007: 82; Gold, 1958; Junker, 1960; Lindlof & Taylor, 2002: 144). Within each of these roles, the researcher’s involvement varies from no participation, to moderate participation, to active participation, to complete participation. Some have opted to also make a distinction in overt and covert observer roles, according to the researcher’s level of openness regarding his/her identity as a researcher and the reason of study (Deacon et al. 1999: 268; O’Reilly, 2009: 10).
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My observations for the purposes of the present study fall into the complete and overt observer role: I observed the off-air activities of media professionals, as well as their off-air relationships with studio guests, at the backstage settings of the political television programme Terzake in close proximity of their ongoing interactions and I was clear about my research purposes at the point of gaining access to the backstage settings of the programme. Later in this chapter, I will go more deeply into how this particular observer role took concrete form in my observations at Terzake, but it suffices for now to shortly stipulate the pro and cons of such an active observer role. Most prominently, complete participant observation provides the researcher with an opportunity “to capture interaction as it occurs in its natural context” (Keyton, 2006: 286). Through participant observation, the ethnographer has a powerful access to first-hand indications of what is actually happening on-scene; it gives an opportunity for the researcher to capture and describe not only people’s activities, but also the conceptual categories with which these activities are produced and the meanings and cooperative processes underlying this production (O’Reilly, 2009: 210). Through the observational method of “being there” (Fetterman, 2010: 9), ethnographers have access to practices that are mostly not accessible through any other form of research. However, every advantage comes with its downside. Precisely because of the researcher’s close engagement in the observed setting, there are some potential “dangers of distortion” (Deacon et al., 1999: 266) to be taken into account. On the one hand, the researcher’s observation might hinder the local activities of the observed. When people know they are being observed, there is a fair chance they will alter their behaviour. As such, the presence of the observer might disturb or even mute behavioural patterns. On the other hand, the researcher’s participation in the setting might also hinder observation. The researcher’s engagement in a particular social context for an extended period of time might generate a certain familiarity with the observed activities: they become taken for granted by the analyst “not least because they are taken for granted by the observed” (Deacon et al. 1999, 262).
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UNDERSTANDING THE ROUTINE: A REGIONAL ONTOLOGY. The overall analytic goal of observation as ethnographic method is to notice and appoint the routines and patterns that lie behind the apparently commonsense activities of participants in a social setting. Through observation and the production of fieldnotes, ethnographers set out to identify recurring actions, norms, values, and relationships; all to identify a larger framework for a closer and more in-depth understanding of a behavioural patterns within a particular social context. As O’Reilly (2009: 17) puts it from the perspective of the ethnographer: “we look to identify structured routines and relationships in the hope of identifying a framework that might be relevant to understanding similar settings or which, in some cases, may be broadly generalisable”. In order to capture “naturalized” (Morley 1992: 186) routine practices in a given social setting, ethnography shares with CA a particular eye for detail in local life. Like CA, ethnography sets out to get a grip on what is often taken to be “normal” within a particular situated context. As Silverman (2006: 96) notes, ethnography, just as CA, “is fundamentally about understanding the routine rather than what appears to be exciting”. Therefore, ethnography departs from a so-called “regional ontology” (Packer, 2011: 11) to describe how people locally interpret their life-world: “rather than try to describe structures behind everyday life, they ((ethnographers)) need to focus on the order that has been constituted in a form of life” (Packer, 2011: 11). By means of such an ontology, ethnographic fieldwork intends to understand social practices from within, i.e. from the social actors’ own sense-making activities and orientations. In other words, the analyst is supposed to be learning from the observed ones, rather than only learning about them” (Peterson, 2003: 9). Or, as Prus (1996: 143) puts it: “rather than viewing people as the (depersonalized) agents through which ‘external’ or ‘internal’ forces (‘factors’) exert their impact on group life, we assume a conceptual approach that envisions group life as an ongoing series of constructions shaped by the active, living, thinking beings”. In other words, ethnographers describe events from an insider’s perspective, through the eyes of local actors, as a means to show these actors make sense of and ‘construct’ their lifeworld in particular social contexts (Fetterman, 2010: 20; O’Reilly, 2009: 114).
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AN EXPLORATORY RESEARCH APPROACH. Typically, “the ethnographer enters the field with an open mind, not an empty head” (Fetterman, 2010: 1): while the research interests and research questions may be gradually sharpened and reformulated as the analysis proceeds, the research mostly starts from a preformulated problem, theoretical notions, and a specific research design. Yet, given the strong embeddedness of ethnographic research in local situated relevancies, the method’s research trajectory is inherent exploratory in character (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007: 3; O’Reilly, 2009: 15). The set-up of ethnographic research is flexible and reflexive: “the aim is to narrow the scope of our enquiry to the most significant issues, whilst constantly retracing our steps where something of interest becomes evident and where greater exploration might provide dividends” (O’Reilly, 2009: 15-16). This implies that, certainly in the beginning of the research, it will not be very clear to the ethnographer where observation should begin; which settings, actors, events or activities should be observed (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007: 4). Therefore, Fetterman (2010: 8) proposes to start the analytic process with learning the so-called “basics” of the observed social context: trying to map out the relationships between people, as well as how these people orient and accomplish their roles through a variety of settings (Lindlof & Taylor, 2002: 154). As the research progresses, the ethnographer can, little by little, arrive at what is probably “the most creative step of ethnographic research” (Fetterman, 2010: 10): the reconfiguration of all the data collected during the observational period - i.e. the fieldnotes, digital recordings, documents, etc. - to uncover insights into people’s day-to-day routine activities and make “sense of it all” (O’Reilly, 2009: 13) in the form of recurring categories (Atkinson, 1992: 455). Such an explorative research track allows “the ethnographer to explore rich, untapped sources of data not mapped out in the research design” (Fetterman, 2010: 1). In other words, the grounded character of ethnography creates valuable possibilities for the conceptual framework and research questions to be dynamically reshaped, in function of the analytic process.
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INVESTIGATING BROADCAST TALK FROM WITHIN
Traditionally, media researchers have focused on texts as the end products of media discourse (Van Hout, 2007: 325; Cotter, 2010: 4). When considering the field of political broadcast talk studies, this indeed holds true: recorded and transcribed instances of broadcast talk have served as the prime data for discovering how on-air interactions in political and television news programmes are distinctively organised (e.g. Ekström & Kroon Lundell, 2011: 172). Despite the recent claims of especially a Scandinavian group of scholars in broadcast talk studies to complement the micro-analysis of frontstage talk with ethnographic insights from backstage (e.g. Ekström & Kroon Lundell, 2011; Kroon Lundell, 2009, 2010a; Ytreberg, 2004, 2006), few studies exist that actually take account of the behind-the-scenes processes and practices in the analysis of political broadcasting. Nevertheless, as Kroon Lundell (2009: 273) legitimately assesses, “there is still much to learn about how the interview is managed throughout its process of production”. According to her, the hitherto lack of production studies in the field of political broadcasting mainly has practical grounds: the backstage settings of media organisations simply are “sensitive interactional arenas” (Kroon Lundell, 2010a: 171) and, therefore, difficult in gaining access to, as well as in gaining its personnel’s trust (Deacon et al., 1999: 268). Kroon Lundell (2010a: 182-183) goes as far as asserting that gaining access to these off-camera arenas is “a challenging, if not impossible, task for researchers”. Yet, approaching political television talk from a production perspective has the valuable strength of creating the possibility to develop a more in-depth understanding of the dynamic ways in which political television talk and the performance of media professional identity therein are prepared for and produced in off-air settings of political broadcasting. As Ekström and Kroon Lundell (2011: 173) note, not all of the professional practices “are produced for an overhearing audience but are performed in the backstage production of news”. In this respect, Peterson (2003: 164) argues that an ethnographic perspective to media production “is an emergent effort to bridge mediacentric and sociocentric perspectives, to talk about the agency of media producers within a cultural system while still recognizing their embeddedness in larger structures of power”. Consequently, an immersion into the backstage production settings of
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political broadcasting through the use of ethnographic methodologies allows the media researcher for studying the genre from within. Although studies on political broadcast talk generally lack knowledge about questions on backstage production processes, there is much to learn from a number of scholars who have argued for an ethnographic analysis of workplace settings (e.g. Goodwin, 1994; Gumperz, 1999; Heath, 1984, 1986; Roberts & Sarangi, 1999: 389), as well as from recent ethnographic studies of news production (e.g. Cotter, 2001, 2010; Perrin, 2011, 2013; Van Hout & Jacobs, 2008; Van Hout & Van Praet, 2011). Influenced by ethnomethodology and CA, a specific branch of ethnographic studies emerged in the late 1980s that have become captured under the flag of ‘workplace studies’ (Goodwin, 1994; Heath, 1984, 1986). Workplace ethnography sets out to analyse professional expertise in situ, i.e. as it is locally situated in concrete institutional workplace settings. The approach borrows from interactionist discursive research strands an interest in the local accomplishment of actions. Rather than relying upon external accounts, workplace ethnographers appeal to participants’ own local actions to understand the “communicative ecology” of particular institutional settings (Gumperz, 1999; Roberts & Sarangi, 1999: 389). As such, workplace ethnography sets as its prime goal to understand “the ‘apparatus’ through which members’ descriptions are properly (i.e. locally) produced” (Silverman, 1999: 418). Methodologically, scholars in this field of workplace studies build upon “non-romantic” (Silverman, 1999: 418) or “postethnomethodological” (Hak, 1999: 448) forms of ethnography in their plea for combining ethnographic research techniques with an analytic attention to the linguistic means through which participants construct their professional lifeworlds (Hak, 1999; 448; Roberts & Sarangi, 1999: 389). Concretely, this means that ethnography’s regional ontology is brought into line with the ethnomethodological and conversation analytic principle of demonstrable orientations to ultimately show how participants in workplace settings locally accomplish their actions. These observable orientations are then enhanced with the researcher’s observations of the participants’ activities, acquired through fieldwork and interviews. Such a defense of an integration of interaction and ethnography is also to be found in a particular body of news production studies, which have taken the analysis of backstage workspaces of written journalism as prime
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analytic locus (Cotter, 2001, 2010; Perrin, 2011, 2013; Van Hout & Jacobs, 2008; Van Hout & Van Praet, 2011). Whilst diverse in research topic, these linguistically oriented studies share a defense of an ethnographic approach to the analysis of written news production and support an ethnographic project that integrates an analysis of text, practice, and interaction. Starting from the assumption that news production is “a discursive process” and that journalists “are interpretive agents” (Van Hout & Jacobs, 2008: 64), this body of news production studies focuses on how journalists and relevant others actively construct their lifeworld in the production of news. Their shared analytic goal is to grasp the ‘apparatus’ of processes and practices that occur in the versatile context of news production:
The process of news production involves all the steps involved in reporting, writing, editing, and disseminating a news story, and all the individuals who accomplish these steps. Practice is the complement of activities, actions, routines, conventions, and interactions that initiate, motivate, maintain, and orient newsroom employees to the news process. (Cotter, 2010: 23, original emphasis)
An ethnographic analysis of journalistic processes and practices in news writing furnishes the methodological and empirical grounds for developing an understanding of the routines of news production. In Cotter’s (2010: 20) words, “an ethnographic approach to the study of news language (…) provides fundamental insights into journalistic ways of being”. Schultz (2007: 191, emphasis added) makes a similar point when argues that “in an international context, the tradition of newsroom studies where ethnographers have studied journalistic practices in news organisations and on newsbeats have provided media and communication research with important insights on the inner workings of media newsrooms”. More specifically, ethnography allows for grasping the routine practices and collaborative processes through which journalists and their team members give shape to media texts. Applied to the present research focus, an ethnographic view to political television production creates valuable opportunities for the researcher to establish those practices and processes through which political television programmes routinely come into being. It provides the methodological tools for “seeing
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the unseen” (Deacon et al., 1999: 258) so that considerations on the role of pre-plannings, teamwork43, and professional standards in the production of political television programmes can be included in the analysis. In order to fully grasp these underlying relevancies, a number of backstage contexts are eligible for scrutiny: the newsroom, but also the control room (e.g. Broth, 2008a, 2008b, 2009), the broadcaster’s formal lounge area (e.g. Kroon Lundell, 2010a), and more informal backstage settings such as coffeemachine areas or cafetarias. By zooming in on the interpretative practices and processes that constitute the production of political television broadcasts in such a variety of backstage settings, it becomes able “to examine practice in media production without either reducing it to a structural epiphenomenon or reifying it as monological, authoritative and transparent” (Peterson, 2003: 186).
6.3 ANALYSING MEDIA PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY IN PRACTICE:
DATA AND ANALYTIC PROCEDURES
With the study’s focus made clear in terms of its research set-up and (sub-)research questions, and with the specification of how these questions are methodologically met, it is opportune at this point to elaborate on how this finds concrete expression in the study’s data and analytic procedures. The empirical data in this work all pertain to political television programmes produced and broadcast by the Flemish public service broadcaster, VRT - i.e. Flemish Radio and Television Network Organisation. The reason for this exclusive analytic attention to political broadcast talk on public service television has to do with a general lack of politically oriented television programmes on the commercial alternatives in the Flemish television landscape. Besides a few short-lived exceptions, the Flemish commercial television channels never really engaged in the production of political television formats. In times of elections, the commercial station VTM – i.e. Flemish Television Company – does tend to produce one or two election shows, but to include these rather exceptional cases into the present corpus 43 As Sarangi & Roberts (1999: 22) note, ethnography allows the researcher “to include those workers deemed to have only a
servicing role in the institutional order”. In this respect, the present ethnographic study specifically allows for deepening the analysis
of the construction of a media professional identity by journalist-presenters to also include the practices of other types of media
professionals, such as editors, researchers and reporters.
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would not outweigh the comprehensive range of political programmes on public service television, whether it is election or non-election time.
The included political television programmes share a centrality of political interviews and/or political television debates in their respective formats. Given the study’s double-sided empirical focus on media products and underlying media processes, these programmes are analysed from different empirical angles and analytic interests. In the following, I elaborate in more detail on this diversity, as well as on how this finds concrete reflection in the processes of data selection and data collection. I will then go into the study’s research process and introduce the ideas of constructivist grounded theory to account for the iterative aspects of research construction. After this, I briefly dive into the study’s value in terms of issues of validity and reliability and make a note on the issue of confidentiality.
6.3.1 A CORPUS OF ON-AIR AND OFF-AIR DATA
This study introduces the reader into two broad datasets. Firstly, it builds upon a set of transcripts of concrete instances of on-air political television talk on Flemish public television to establish how journalist-presenters can achieve an appropriate professional posture in their local managing of political television talk. The insights of the analysis of this first dataset provide a relevant analytic basis for extending the study towards grasping also those practices and procedures that underlie the construction of a media professional identity in the production of political television programmes. Therefore, secondly, the study relies on detailed fieldnotes of participant observations in the backstage settings of political television production, as well as on journalist-presenters’ cue cards and a small stock of photographs.
EXAMINING ON-AIR POLITICAL TELEVISION TALK
Within CA, data selection counts as one of the most vital aspects of the research set-up, for it is in this phase that reality is reduced to a representative assemblage of cases (Ten Have, 2007: 70). For the analysis of political television talk, the study builds upon transcripts of a total of 29 broadcasts
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from 6 different political television programmes at two broad moments in time (see Figure 6.2).
POLITICAL BROADCASTS 2006 PROGRAMME - TV STATION - DATE
PRE-ELECTION BROADCASTS 2009 PROGRAMME - TV STATION - DATE
De Zevende Dag - Eén - 22 January 2006 Vlaanderen 09 - Eén - 17 May 2009
De Zevende Dag - Eén - 19 February 2006 Europa 09 - Eén - 24 May 2009
De Zevende Dag - Eén - 26 March 2006 Het Groot Debat 09 - Eén - 31 May 2009
De Zevende Dag - Eén - 30 April 2006 Terzake 09 - Canvas - 18 May 2009
De Zevende Dag - Eén - 21 May 2006 Terzake 09 - Canvas - 19 May 2009
De Zevende Dag - Eén - 11 June 2006 Terzake 09 - Canvas - 20 May 2009
De Zevende Dag - Eén - 17 September 2006 Terzake 09 - Canvas - 21 May 2009
De Zevende Dag - Eén - 22 October 2006 Terzake 09 - Canvas - 22 May 2009
De Zevende Dag - Eén - 5 November 2006 Terzake 09 - Canvas - 25 May 2009
De Zevende Dag - Eén - 10 December 2006 Terzake 09 - Canvas - 26 May 2009
/ Terzake 09 - Canvas - 27 May 2009
/ Terzake 09 - Canvas - 28 May 2009
/ Terzake 09 - Canvas - 29 May 2009
/ Terzake 09 - Canvas - 1 June 2009
/ Terzake 09 - Canvas - 2 June 2009
/ Terzake 09 - Canvas - 3 June 2009
/ Terzake 09 - Canvas - 4 June 2009
/ Terzake 09 - Canvas - 5 June 2009
/ Kopstukkendebat - Eén - 8 June 2009 Figure 6.2: Conversation analytic corpus: transcripts of political television broadcasts in 2006 and 2009
On the one hand, the conversation analytic corpus integrates a set of 10 political television debates from De Zevende Dag in 2006. De Zevende Dag is a current affairs programme broadcast live weekly on Sunday mornings on the first channel of Flemish public service television (Eén). Since its first broadcast in 1988, the programme is an established value on Flemish television. Over
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the years, its format has changed from a purely political programme to a current affairs programme that includes discussions on a diversity of topics, including politics, sports, culture and music. Mostly, the programme involves at least one extensive political television debate with the prime stakeholders of Flemish politics, under the moderation of a journalist-presenter. In 2006, two anchors, Alain Coninx and Frieda Van Wijck, who mostly appealed to specialised journalists for leading the political television debates, co-presented the programme. The studio setting was designed around a central ‘arena’ of seats, with the journalist-presenter being seated in the middle and the studio guests at the sides (cfr. Figure 6.3). The presence of a studio audience formed an integral part of De Zevende Dag’s format. The political television debates occurred as so-called “debate interviews” (Emmertsen, 2007: 572): “a multi-party interview featuring one IR [interviewer] and two or more IEs [interviewees]. The debate interview is opened by IR’s questions to the IEs and closed by the IR.”
Figure 6.3: The setting of De Zevende Dag in 2006
On the other hand, the corpus of on-air talk builds upon a set of political television programmes broadcast by VRT in the run-up to the regional and European elections in 2009: Vlaanderen 09 (Flanders 09, one-off broadcast, Eén), Europa 09 (Europe 09, one-off broadcast, Eén), Het Groot Debat 09 (The Great Debate 09, one-off broadcast, Eén), TerZake 09 (To the Point 09, a series of 15 broadcasts, Canvas), and Kopstukkendebat (Leading Figures Debate, one-off broadcast, Eén). 44 Whilst slightly different in their formats and studio
44 There was a sixth VRT pre-election programme, De Stemming 09, which was mostly pure entertainment, and professional
journalistic stances were less at stake because of the explicit light-heartedness of the programme. Given the present study’s focus on
more ‘hard’ forms of political interviews and television debates, the broadcasts of De Stemming 09 are not included in the corpus.
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settings, the pre-election programmes all centred around the organisation of short, studio-based debate interviews: each programme included either one major debate among the same politicians (TerZake 09 and Kopstukkendebat 09) or a series of smaller debates among alternating politicians (Vlaanderen 09, Europa 09, Het Groot Debat 09) in the presence of a studio audience. The 2009 pre-election programmes were managed and steered by two well-known (sometimes different) television journalists. Overall, and as will become clear more extensively in Chapter 8, the Flemish public service broadcaster’s 2009 pre-election programmes favoured alternation and variety. In Vlaanderen 09 and Europa 09, the debates were interspersed with a variety of ‘eye-catchers’ such as musical interventions, expert evaluations, and a presentation of survey results. The format of Vlaanderen 09 (see Figure 6.4) was centred on the presentation of the results of a public survey conducted by VRT (cfr. Chapter 8), and on the confrontation of politicians with these results – by the political journalist Ivan De Vadder – through the organisation of smaller debates with alternating politicians. Europe 09 was entirely centred on European topics and included debates around a studio table, which were managed by Rob Heirbaut, a political journalist with specific expertise on the topic of European politics. In Het Groot Debat 09, eight leading politicians were invited to alternate in debates that lasted approximately ten minutes. The debates were facilitated by two political journalists – Ivan De Vadder and Goedele Devroy – and consisted of three politicians discussing a specific topic. Following this, other politicians were incited by a third journalist – Siegfried Bracke – to comment on the debate. In contrast, the emphasis on alternation in TerZake 09 (see Figure 6.5) was based not so much on a series of short debates involving different politicians, as on the presence of an academic expert commentator, pre-arranged and on-screen visualised topics and pre-produced reportages. Three invited politicians debated three or four topics, visualised on-screen and contextualised either by an academic expert at the studio table or by a three-minute pre-produced reportage. Terzake 09 was a revised version of the existing programme Terzake: the broadcasts followed the for Terzake classic formula of political interviews and television debates, but were aired from a different location – the roof garden of the Flemish Parliament – in the presence of a studio audience, involved the exceptional co-presentation of the regular Terzake journalist-presenters – Kathleen Cools and Lieven Verstraete,
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and the topics were exclusively centred on election matters. Finally, the series of VRT’s 2009 pre-election programmes was closed by a leading figures debate in the programme Kopstukkendebat, which was organised the day after the elections. Kathleen Cools and Lieven Verstraete, Terzake’s journalist-presenters, accounted for the programme’s presentation and the debates’ moderation.
In what follows, I give more details about how this conversation analytic corpus was selected and subsequently collected.
Figure 6.4: The setting of Vlaanderen 09 Figure 6.5: The setting of Terzake 09
DATA SELECTION. These data were selected on a number of grounds. The integration into the corpus of the first dataset in 2006 is directly related to the start of my PhD trajectory. As a follow-up on the topic of my master thesis45, I wanted to delve into concrete data to test, apply and further develop the ideas around the operations of power in institutional interaction with which I was theoretically dealing at the beginning of my research, in 2007. Since the transcripts of the De Zevende Dag broadcasts were available from my master thesis, I selected the at the time most recent series of the included broadcasts in 2006. This series of broadcasts consisted of the inclusion of one broadcast every month in 2006 and followed this sampling logic: in January the first week, in February the second week, in March the third week, in April the fourth week, in May again the first week, etc. July and August are not included in the analysis since the programme takes a summer break during these months. In those selected cases where the programme did not cover any political discussion, the just-mentioned sampling strategy of selecting the
45 My master thesis dealt with the evolution of interactional dynamics between journalists and politicians in De Zevende Dag in the
period 1994-2006.
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first, second, third and fourth week was adjusted so that the next following broadcast with a political debate could be included in the data. Despite the relatively small scope of this total of 10 political television debates, it provided me with a good basis for exploring and narrowing down the subject of my doctoral research, and now continues to prove its relevance, particularly in relation to establishing an understanding of the repertoire of interactional resources to which journalist-presenters and politicians can strategically appeal in their televised encounters with each other (see Chapter 7). The analysis of these political television debates, and the subsequent finetuning and unfolding of the theoretical framework, led me to collect more transcripts in 2009. In that year, on 7 June 2009, Belgium held regional elections to the Flemish Parliament, Walloon Parliament, Brussels Parliament and the Parliament of the German-speaking Community. These elections coincided with the European elections to choose the Belgian delegation to the European Parliament. In the run up to these regional and European elections, the Belgian public service broadcasters - VRT and RTBF - organised a series of political television debates on its television channels. For the purposes of my research, I focused on those organised by the Flemish public service broadcaster, VRT, to eventually include 19 pre-election broadcasts from 5 different programmes (Vlaanderen 09, Europa 09, Het Groot Debat 09, Terzake 09, and Kopstukkendebat).46
DATA COLLECTION. To assemble this selected set of 2006 and 2009 broadcasts, I partly relied upon VRT’s video archive and partly upon the Internet. While most of the 2009 pre-election programmes were integrally published on VRT’s special campaign coverage website (i.e. www.09.een.be) and, as such, could be digitally consulted, the broadcasts of De Zevende Dag from 2006 were only available through the public service broadcaster’s video archive, to which I obtained access by means of a formal application. Although the 2009 pre-election coverage was available online, I regularly returned to VRT’s video archive for consulting the recordings of these
46 For an account of how RTBF covered the pre-election period in 2009, and how this compares to VRT’s coverage, I refer to the article
I wrote together with Anouk Bouckaert (ULB) on “Public service television’s different ways of dealing with a changed media landscape: A
comparison of pre-election programmeformats on Dutch-speaking and French-speaking Belgian public television” (2011).
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broadcasts as well, because the on-site professional material for watching the broadcasts provided me with some technological tools, for instance for easy rewinding and fast-forwarding, that were otherwise not at my disposal. It is on the basis of these recordings, that I started the transcription process. CA is a largely transcript-based methodology that highly values the production of detailed transcripts. Conversation analysts have devoted considerable attention to the question of how talk should be displayed in transcripts. This has resulted in a number of attempts to capture in detail the procedures that are used by speakers to make sense of their interaction (Heritage, 1984; Sacks et al., 1974). It is the transcription system as developed by Gail Jefferson that is often taken as the general guideline for transcript production within CA (Sacks et al., 1974: 731-733). This system of notational symbols captures not only the words uttered by the participants, but also includes how they were pronounced, including overlapping talk, intonations, self-corrections, silences, pauses, and other nuances of speech. In this research, I follow a simplified version of this set of annotation conventions (see appendix 1). For the transcription of the selected interactional data, I fall back on two software programmes. Whereas the recordings of the 2006 data of political television talk are transcribed using Microsoft Word, the dataset of 2009 is transcribed via Transana, a computer programme that provides specialised software for video transcription and analysis. I find that this software is most useful for its support of Jeffersonian notations, and for its possibility to connect transcripts to video and, as such, re-situate clips in the original recordings on the basis of a selection of sequences in the transcript.
For conversation analysts, the preparation of transcripts is not just some practical futility prior to the analysis. Rather, the production of transcripts is thought of as “a procedure at the core of analysis” (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 1998: 73); as a “craft process” (Ashmore & Reed, 2000) that in itself is an essential research strategy (Atkinson & Heritage, 1984). This is clarified by Ten Have (2007: 96), who points out that transcribing is “an important analytic tool, providing the researcher with an understanding of, and insight into, the participants’ conduct”. The close, iterative listenings to recordings that are involved in the production of transcripts can alert the researcher – already in that early research stage – on certain remarkable or recurring features of talk-in-interaction that, at first sight or hearing, might have come
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over as ‘irrelevant’ or ‘obvious’ (Heritage, 1984: 237). Indeed, in my analysis it appears that a lot of my informal notes and ideas during the transcription process eventually turned out to be crucial analytic issues.47 It should also be noted that, in the actual process of analysis, I consulted the transcripts and the video recordings in conjunction with one another. This fits into the observation of Pomerantz and Fehr (1997: 70-71) who argue:
[T]he best way to develop analyses is to use both a tape and a transcript. It is harder to isolate and study phenomena when working only with a tape, and much information is lost when working only with a transcript.
As a last point, it bears mentioning that the selected broadcasts were transcribed in their original language (Dutch) and then partly translated in English. For reasons of clarity, the presentation of the research results in the empirical chapters will not include Dutch extracts and will be solely based upon translated extracts.
EXAMINING OFF-AIR PRODUCTION PROCESSES
The second dataset of this study relates to the examination of off-air production process in political television discourse. For three periods of two weeks in 2012 (see Figure 6.6), I observed how the Terzake media professionals routinely work up towards the production of successful broadcasts. I had access to as good as every backstage production setting, including the newsroom, the control room, the studio, and the so-called ‘foyer’ - i.e. a leisure area where media professionals and studio guests meet before and after broadcasts. The corpus of the ethnographic case study falls back on an inventory of three types of material: approximately 90 pages of fieldnotes, 15 sets of journalist-presenters’ cue cards (see Figures 6.7 and 6.8) and a set of 31 photographs.
47 It is in this respect that Charmaz & Mitchell (2001: 167) recognise the analytic relevance of “memo-making” as “the crucial step
between coding and a first draft of a paper”.
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OBSERVATIONS TERZAKE PERIOD 1
OBSERVATIONS TERZAKE PERIOD 2
OBSERVATIONS TERZAKE PERIOD 3
5 March - 16 March 2012 16 April - 27 April 2012 1 October - 15 October 2012
Figure 6.6: Ethnographic corpus: Three periods of observation
Figure 6.7: Journalist-presenters’ cue cards
CUE CARDS
12 March 2012 (Kathleen Cools)
1 October 2012 (Kathleen Cools)
4 October 2012 (Lieven Verstraete)
13 March 2012 (Kathleen Cools)
2 October 2012 (Kathleen Cools)
9 October 2012 (Kathleen Cools)
17 April 2012 (Lieven Verstraete)
2 October 2012 (Lieven Verstraete)
10 October 2012 (Kathleen Cools)
18 April 2012 (Kathleen Cools)
3 October 2012 (Kathleen Cools)
12 October 2012 (Lieven Verstraete)
24 April 2012 (Lieven Verstraete)
4 October 2012 (Kathleen Cools)
15 October 2012 (Kathleen Cools)
Figure 6.8: Ethnographic corpus: Cue cards of journalist-presenters
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Before moving on to the how’s and why’s of this ethnographic corpus, it is of relevance to briefly introduce Terzake’s format. As mentioned before, Terzake is a political television programme48 broadcast on the second channel of Flemish public service television (Canvas). Since the programme’s first broadcast in 1994, Terzake is centered on two basic format aspects: reportages and studio interactions with one or more studio guest(s) (Carpentier, 2001: IV-8; Carpentier, 2005: 210). The programme is broadcast live on a daily basis and involves no studio audience. Its emphasis is mainly on providing interpretation and background on (predominantly political) events by means of reportages and interviews. A journalist-presenter is responsible for the opening and closing sequences of the broadcasts, for the transition texts in between different format components and different items, and for interviewing studio guests and moderating multi-party discussions (Carpentier; 2005: 210). Over the years, the programme occasionally went through minor adjustments to this basic format, such as changes in the programme’s decor, scheduling and airtime, and temporary experiments in election times. For instance, as already mentioned, the pre-election programme Terzake 09, as incorporated in the conversation analytic corpus, was a revised version of Terzake’s basic format. Also, the third period of the ethnographic data collection coincided with the production of a series of Terzake pre-election broadcasts – under the heading of ‘Terzake 2012’ (cfr. Figure 6.9) – on the occasion of the Belgian provincial, municipal and district elections on 14 October 2012. For the occasion of these pre-election series, Terzake enlarged its airtime from 30 minutes to 45 minutes and included a studio audience. Each pre-election broadcast was focused on one central election-related theme instead of on a variety of different topics, as is the case in regular Terzake broadcasts. It was the programme’s ambition for these 2012 pre-election broadcast to provide “thoroughness and profundity that is characteristic to the programme, with reportages that zoom in on the problem to the finest detail and with sharp debates” (VRT press release, 28 September 2012, cfr. appendix 2). As an exception, the two journalist-presenters of Terzake, Kathleen Cools and Lieven Verstraete, who were used to alternating
48 Although its topics our not always strictly political in nature, political topics clearly prevail in Terzake’s reportages and studio
interactions. Therefore, I choose to categorise it under the genre of political television programmes, rather than under the broader
genre of current affairs programmes.
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responsibility over the programme’s presentation, co-presented Terzake 2012 and co-moderated its political debates (cfr. Figure 6.10). The pre-election format was arranged such that each broadcast included a discussion among three politicians around the studio table, together with an expert on the topic “who follows and comments on the debates and makes proper contributions to the discussion” (VRT press release, 28 September 2012, cfr. appendix 2).
In Chapter 10 (cfr. 10.1) of this work, I deal more extensively with the composition of the Terzake team in terms of its participant roles and task divisions in the programme’s backstage settings. For now, it remains to elaborate on how I got entry into Terzake (data selection) and on how I operated in its backstage contexts (data collection).
Figure 6.9: Terzake 2012 studio Figure 6.10: Duo-presentation in
Terzake 2012
DATA SELECTION. While access to back-region settings is never easy to obtain and often forms the main obstacle in any sort of ethnographic research (e.g. Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007: 4), the typical “closed” character of media organisations appears to be making it especially complicated for media researchers to negotiate entry and gain trust (Deacon et al., 1999: 268; Kroon Lundell, 2010a: 171). As Sarangi and Roberts (1999: 23) clarify: “Hanging around an institution and observing the everyday practices which go on behind the scenes may be much more threatening for those working there than collecting data from the more formal bounded encounters frontstage”. Indeed, obtaining entry, as a researcher, into the off-air settings of political television programmes was no sinecure. At first, I targeted De Zevende Dag for carrying out ethnographic research for the simple reason that one of the
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programme’s production assistants was an acquaintance of mine. It generally shows that “an introduction by a member is the ethnographer’s best ticket into the community” (Fetterman, 2010: 36), so I believed in my chances of getting a foot into the door. The production assistant put me into contact with the programme’s editor-in-chief who, despite my repetitive efforts, very clearly kept refusing participation in my project. While I was almost at the point of giving up my intentions to go behind the scenes in my research, there was an unexpected opportunity very soon hereafter. As Deacon et al. (1999: 270) point out, entry to the backstage mostly is “a matter of chance contact”. Eventually, it was an informal meeting with the Antwerp professor Jef Verschueren who facilitated my research to proceed to the next empirical level. He appeared to personally know a key journalist-presenter of Terzake and proposed to bring me into contact. Hereafter, the fundaments of my ethnographic study swiftly progressed. In January 2012, I had a first meeting with the Terzake editors and in April 2012, I started my first period of observations at the backstage settings of the programme. During the initial meeting with the editors-in-chief at Terzake’s newsroom in January 2012, the editors showed to be very willing to participate in my research and agreed - a bit against my expectations - upon almost everything I suggested: they allowed me to fully observe the media professionals’ activities not only in the newsroom, but also in any other backstage space that potentially was of relevance to my research, such as the control room and the foyer. In consultation with Terzake’s two editors, I decided to immerse myself into the backstage settings of the programme for a total of six weeks, spread across three moments in time. This specific set-up, with two intervals in between the periods of observation, would allow me to revise and modify my analytic framework and narrow down my research focus as I went along. Apart from the third and last period, which is selected intentionally because it coincided with the programme’s coverage of the run-up to the Belgian’s provincial, municipal and district elections in 2012, the selection of the other two periods is based on a random sample, with an episode of two uninterrupted weeks of observation as the only condition. I started my observations at Terzake with a rigorous but flexible planning about the questions to be asked, issues to be clarified and things to bear in mind. This initial planning formed the guideline throughout my observations, but was,
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evidently, open to modification as the research progressed. For instance, during the first two observation periods, my research focus mainly was on getting familiarised with the media professionals’ daily routines in the production of political television broadcasts. By the time I arrived at the third observation period in October 2012, I decided I needed more information about the role of collaboration and teaming - both among the media professionals and between the media professionals and the studio guests - in the preparation and construction of a media professional identity. Therefore, I concentrated more on matters such as how editors intervene in the on-air broadcasts, and how media professionals relate to the invited studio guests, both before and after broadcasts.49 DATA COLLECTION. It was my main intention to follow the media professionals through a spectrum of backstage interactions so that I could get a grip on their preparatory practices and the internal processes that lie behind political television production. In order to effectuate this main goal, I tried to assume an appropriate observer role and register as much potentially relevant information as possible. In relation to the transparency of the data collection process, it is useful to shortly deal with these two issues. Within ethnography, the researcher can adopt different roles, varying from a very active involvement in the observed activities to complete detachment (Atkinson & Hammersley, 1994: 248; Lindlof & Taylor, 2002: 144). Each available observer role - i.e. complete observer, observer-as-participant, participant-as-observer, or complete participant - entails a distinguished “mode of being-in-the-world” (Atkinson & Hammersley, 1994: 249). The role I established during my observations can best be described as ‘observer-as-participant’: I entered the setting with an openly acknowledged research purpose with an intention to generate a more complete understanding of the media professionals’ activities, and the media professionals were aware of me observing them and were willing to give information whenever necessary. As Adler and Adler
49 During the pre-election edition of Terzake in the third observational period (1 October - 15 October 2012), the broadcast agenda was
established already long beforehand. Therefore, this period was less interesting in terms of capturing collective agenda-setting
processes. However, given the crucial period of elections and given the daily invitation of a number of prominent politicians to the
studio, the period was all the more interesting in terms of the off-air interprofessional relationships between journalists and
politicians right before and right after the broadcasts. There was extra excitement in the foyer area before the broadcasts, and
politicians used to linger longer than usual after the broadcasts.
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(1994: 380) indicate, an observer-as-participant role allows the researcher to “observe and interact closely enough with members to establish an insider’s identity without participating in those activities constituting the core of group membership”. In the beginning of my observations, it took me some time to achieve such an “insider’s identity”. Despite the fact that the media professionals at Terzake were very accessible for obtaining information and were relatively open about their activities, I had the impression that my presence in the newsroom influenced their normal activities. For instance, in the first days of my observations, the journalist-presenters and editors regularly withdrew collectively from the newsroom to have meetings outside my reach, or the media professionals often became aware of my presence when things became delicate or when something happened that was out of the normal pattern. This probably had something to do with them needing time to become accustomed with my presence as an ‘outsider’, but I also realised that I had to take a more discrete position if I wanted to be seen as ‘one of them’. Whereas in the first few days, I regularly approached the media professionals to ask questions about their activities and was seated, with a notepad, at the newsroom’s conference table to have a good overview of everybody’s activities, after a couple of days I tried to avoid being too intrusive and arranged a position in the newsroom’s open plan office, in direct proximity of the media professionals. Instead of my notepad, I took my computer to, just as everybody else in the newsroom, work myself through the day. I felt that this method worked better for me, as well as for them: I could easily make detailed – and often literal – on-the-scene notations on my computer without appearing conspicuous, while at the same time gaining confidence of the media professionals, who gradually started to integrate me into their team. For instance, relatively quickly after my new position in the newsroom, they started to invite me to join them for lunch, or they even invited me to teambuilding activities outside the professional context. Making sure that, certainly in the beginning of my observations, I arrived in the morning and left in the late evening, after the broadcast, together with the media professionals, probably also helped in this process of gaining trust.
To some extent, this data collection method is inconsistent with what is generally upheld in ethnographic research, namely the advice to “record everything” (Deacon et al. 1999: 272). Obviously, tape-recorded interactions
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enable the ethnographer to scrutinise practices, processes and interpersonal relationships in much more detail than would be possible when observed only once in real time (Clayman & Heritage, 2002: 18 in Kroon Lundell, 2010a: 182). The absence of audio- or video-recordings in this case implies the reader to “depend on the ethnographer’s skills and capacities for reliable note taking, at the very least” (Maynard, 1989: 130). While this indeed holds true, there are a couple of issues to be aware of that motivate the choice for not recording the observations. First, the use of cameras or any other recording device might form a major stumbling block for media workers, who generally are resistent towards providing access to their behind-the-scenes activities (cfr. supra). As Kroon Lundell (2010a: 171) observes, “a note-taking observer at the scene may cause considerably less impact on what is observed than if cameras were set up to register activities that normally take place off-camera”. She goes on to argue that “if indeed off-camera interactions can only be accessed if observed and recorded by being on the scene with a note pad in hand and eyes and ears alerted, it must surely be better than not paying them any attention at all” (Kroon Lundell, 2010a: 183). The awkward atmosphere at the newsroom during my first days of observation, when I was seated at a distance from the media professionals and taking notes on my notepad, and the atmosphere of familiarity that followed after I installed myself with my computer among the media professionals in the open plan office, support this believe that unnoticed note-taking forms a lesser inhibition to the behaviour of those observed. The media professionals were already uncomfortable with me taking visible notes, let alone with recording devices in their proximity. Second, the presence of a camera or tape recorder might intervene with the researcher’s alertness on the scene, because the data are safely stored “for later digestion” (Deacon et al., 1999: 273). What’s more, Deacon et al. (1999: 273) point at the fact that “no audio tape recorder, however sophisticated, has the researcher’s eye for body language or the sensitivity to switch attention to the key speakers in what may, on tape, turn out to be very confused and multi-layered conversations”. I believe that the absence of recording material allowed me to reduce potential dangers of distortion that undoubtedly come along with taping or filming interactions.
Overall, I collected three types of material during my time being at Terzake’s backstage settings: fieldnotes, cue cards and photographs. First, I
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registered my observations in the newsroom, control room, foyer and more informal, settings such as the broadcaster’s cafeteria and hallways, in detailed fieldnotes. The writing of fieldnotes counts as key activity in ethnography (e.g. Emerson et al., 2001: 353; Geertz, 1973: 19; O’Reilly, 2009: 70). Fieldnotes can be understood as “close-to-the-scene recordings of people, places, talk and events” (Emerson et al., 2001: 365) that include descriptive accounts of the ethnographer’s observations. As such, fieldnotes are powerful analytic tools for representing aspects of the observed social world into written accounts and play an important role in registering observed events for later analytic digestion: “fieldnotes (re)constitute that world in preserved forms that can be reviewed, studied and thought about time and time again” (Emerson et al., 2001: 353). During my observations in Terzake’s newsroom, I was able to write down full notes directly on my computer in a word processing programme because I could sit in the open plan office and, therefore, was in very close proximity of the media professionals’ activities and interactions. When observing in the control room during broadcasts, or in the foyer before and after broadcasts, I brought along a notepad to make so-called “scratch notes” (O’Reilly, 2009: 73) or “jotted notes” (Emerson et al., 2001: 356) of relevant activities, or I mentally recorded remarkable issues in the form of so-called “mental notes” (Emerson et al., 2001: 356) or “aides-mémoire” (O’Reilly, 2009: 74). I tried to adapt to the group as much as possible and avoided bringing out my notepad too ostentatiously. I took it as a routine to enhance these scratch and head notes with more substantial information, based on what was still fresh in mind, on my way back home. By definition, fieldnotes are only selective representations of what is going on in the observed social settings and depend upon the researcher’s estimation of what counts as noteworthy in relation to the analysis (Emerson et al. 2001, 353; O’Reilly, 2009: 76). However, in line with ethnography’s regional ontology and with what is generally advised in most ethnography textbooks (e.g. Lindlof & Taylor, 2002: 159), I aspired to accumulate as much information about the observed activities as possible into the fieldnotes. The observed events were broken down into detailed descriptions of “how participants do things” (Maynard, 1989: 144), i.e. of what the observed are doing, how they are doing it, what they try to achieve, and how they show orientations to each other.
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Second, I occasionally got hold of of the cue cards of the journalist-presenters - Kathleen Cools and Lieven Verstraete, who used them during the on-air broadcasts as mnemonic devices for following pre-planned scripts. Cue cards are printouts of the scripts that journalist-presenters, in collaboration with their fellow media professionals, have produced in the newsroom. The majority of the cue cards in the corpus have been collected during the third observational period of Terzake. This is because by the time I returned to Terzake for the third time, I felt confident enough to frequently ask the journalist-presenters for their cue cards after the live pre-election broadcasts. A bit to my own surprise, the journalist-presenters made no objections at all to handing me over these cards.50 The cue cards are of specific empirical relevance for this study because they allow to obtain a deeper insight into how journalist-presenters pre-plan their media professional roles in the form of scripting intro/outro texts, questioning lines and turn-taking patterns.
Third, the ethnographic analysis falls back on a small number of photographs, which were occasionally taken to capture images of those aspects that might be related to the construction of a media professional identity: the design of the newsroom and the control room, the studio, the screensaver pictures on the broadcaster’s computers and even the toilets. Chapters 9 and 10 will intermittently include some of these photographs to demonstrate or substantiate particular observations in relation to media professionalism.
6.3.2 AN ITERATIVE ANALYTIC PROCESS
While every research starts with a particular initial idea of what needs to be examined, a close reading of existing literature and collection and analysis of data necessarily call for a revision of questions, theoretical frameworks, analytic focuses and methods that in turn require the researcher to adjust research objectives, data collection, data analysis and theoretical and methodological premises. In qualitative research in general, and CA and ethnography in particular, the processes of data collection and data analysis
50 See also Chapter 9 for an account of how this potentially relates to the ubiquity of spontaneity as a steering value in the media
professionals’ production activities.
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are often closely linked and mutually inform each other (Charmaz, 2011: 361). Indeed, in CA, the researcher engages in analytic reflections already in the process of transcribing video recordings, and the ethnographer often notices recurring categories already during and in between observations.51 Analysis is generally understood as “the process of labelling and breaking down raw data to find patterns, themes, concepts, and propositions that exist in the dataset” (Keyton, 2006: 290). The challenge for the researcher exists in moving from so-called “first-order concepts”, i.e. the concepts used by participants, to “second-order concepts”, i.e. the concepts of the researcher (Deacon et al., 1999: 276-277); in short, to shift from the descriptive level to the level of exploring underlying structures (Rapley, 2011: 278).
Far from occurring in a linear process, these shifts are the result of cyclical and constant comparative processes that include the constant moving back and forth not only between data collection and analysis, but also between data collection/analysis and theory construction (Charmaz, 2011: 361; Charmaz & Bryant, 2011: 292; Silverman, 2013: 290). In the following, I first deal with how this inherent dynamism can be accounted for through the use of constructivist grounded theory as an appropriate research strategy, and then go on to show how the iterative analytic process of doing research has been reflected in the concrete development of the present study.
CONSTRUCTIVIST GROUNDED THEORY
As argued before, this research rejects the idea or even the possibility of a neutral researcher who can approach the data from a decontextualized perspective. Instead, it subscribes to the view that research is an inherently flexible and iterative process that involves constant mutual infusions between research focuses, theoretical concepts, data collection, data analysis and category developments (Alasuutari, 1996: 378; Charmaz, 2014: 15). In order to conceptualise this reciprocal fertilisation between theory and empirical
51 It is in this respect that Charmaz & Mitchell (2001: 167) recognise the analytic relevance of “memo-making” as “the crucial step
between coding and a first draft of a paper”.
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analysis, constructivist52 grounded theory, as especially supported by the works of Kathy Charmaz (e.g. 2011, 2014), can be put forward as a valuable research strategy that allows for capturing the intrinsic complexity of ‘doing’ research. Constructivist grounded theory adopts the methodological imperatives of induction and comparison as initially developed in grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss, 1967). It aligns with grounded theory in its rejection of an objective external reality and in foregrounding “the assumption that social reality is multiple, processual, and constructed” (Charmaz, 2014: 13). The prevailing idea is that research by definition is a construct and the dynamic result of “what researchers and participants bring to it and do within it” (Charmaz, 2014: 13). As a nuance to the traditional grounded theory, the constructivist approach to the research strategy allows for a particular theoretical sensitivity in its acknowledgment that research occurs under specific conditions, with specific topics of interest and with specific concepts of interest, but which, under influence of empirical research and coding processes, might alter as the research progresses (Charmaz, 2011, 2014; Charmaz & Mitchell, 2001).
The question that necessarily comes to the fore, then, is how theoretical preconceptions shape analysis and vice versa. Figure 6.5 proposes an answer to this question by visualising the iterative processes through which theory construction and iterative rounds of analysis mutually inform one another.
52 Here, I exceptionally use the terminology ‘constructivist’ instead of ‘constructionist’, because the descriptions in this section
pertain to the particular approach of « constructivist grounded theory ».
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Figure 6.11: The iterative analytic process
In a constructivist grounded theory approach, theory development is being necessarily required to collect and dive into particular data sets. Preconceptions about the field under study can help in problematising and justifying the research focus as well as putting it into context. As Alasuutari (1996: 374, emphasis added) notes, “theoretical frameworks should be considered as additional lenses enlarging and contextualizing the natural attitude, not as blinders that may systematize but nonetheless only amplify the everyday life view of the world”. This connects to Foucault’s (1976 [2001]) idea of theoretical concepts as providing a “toolbox” for empirical analysis. Viewed thusly, theory informs data collection – i.e. in the form of theoretical sampling, a process through which data are collected from category development and theory development (e.g. Charmaz, 2014: 205; Silverman, 2013: 153) – and informs data analysis, but is in itself a constant process of further development, redirection and modification as new categories emerge from analytic coding. By using theoretical categories only as “initial categories” (Keyton, 2006: 293, emphasis added), the analysis can stay open for new category development.
RESEARCH FOCUS
THEORY DEVELOPMENT
DATA COLLECTION
INITIAL CODING
FOCUSED CODING
CATEGORY DEVELOPMENT
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Coding has been purported to be the bedrock of this cyclic process; coding is “the pivotal link between collecting data and developing an emergent theory to explain these data” (Charmaz, 2014: 113). Broadly, coding refers to the particular analytic practice that disaggregates the text (notes or transcripts) into a series of fragments, which are then regrouped under a series of thematic headings” (Atkinson, 1992: 455). Coding should lead the researcher to “‘distil’ essence, meaning, norms, orders, patterns, rules, structures etcetera (the level of concepts and themes)” (Silverman, 2011: 9). Ideally, the analyst should first engage in iterative and line-by-line readings of the entire corpus “to have a sense of the whole” (Keyton, 2006: 290) – i.e. “initial coding” (Charmaz, 2014: 124), before immersing in the details and establishing broader categories and relationships – i.e. “focused coding” (Charmaz, 2014: 138). The interplay between initial coding and focused coding leads the researcher to gradually distill categories and see recurring processes from the data. In order to discover such ‘emergent categories’, the researcher is required to keep close to the material and inspect the data for broader categories through shorthand defining and labelling (e.g. Rapley, 2011).53 Or, as Charmaz (2014: 3) argues: “whatever constitutes our data (…) we bring an open mind to what is happening, so that we can learn about the worlds and people we study” (Charmaz, 2014: 3). At the heart of this inductive, open-ended and emergent coding process is comparison and the search for alternative cases. As Silverman (2013: 290) explains, the constant comparative method involves the dynamic analytic operations of “finding two or more things that are alike in some important ways yet differ in other ways, looking for the further differences that create those you first noticed, looking for the deeper processes these surface differences embody”. The search for normalities and abnormalities that is implied in this comparative analytic strategy is particularly instructive for fine-tuning and revising initial analysis so that broader categories can slowly but gradually emerge and the circle can start again.
53 While there exist a number of computer software programmes, such as Nvivo or Dedoose, to assist the researcher in the data-
coding process, the analyses in the present research are based on the ‘old-fashioned’ coding method of highlighting, underlining,
scribbling on and crossing out text on paper and thereby follows Rapley’s (2011: 280) preference for “a paper and pen over a
computer” for the simple reason that those tools allow you to mark-up and scrawl on the data in ways that software cannot.
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FROM MESSY BUSINESS TO CONCRETE RESEARCH SET-UP
It remains to elucidate how this overall logic of constructivist grounded theory, with its constant moving back and forth between the research focus, theory development, data collection, initial and focused coding and category development, has found concrete reflection in this study’s research development. However, rather than doing this in a formal way, through a descriptive identification of the codes, labels and categories that came out of the analysis, I opt to map the reflexivity and dynamism with which this research has developed into its current state by writing a brief so-called “natural history” (Silverman, 2013: 349) that engages the reader to take an insider’s view on the iterative research progress.
By definition, social research involves elements of disorder, instability and flexibility (e.g. Alasuutari, 1995; Silverman, 2013). Therefore, it is not exaggerated to argue that social research has “something of a messy business” (O’Reilly, 2009: 13) that can only make sense through repetitive interpretation, restructuring and analytic practice. Instigated by an intention to grasp (aspects of) the relationship between journalism and politics in Western democracies, my research began as a study of political interviews and television debates from a comparative geographic and historic perspective. It was my objective to find out how the evolution of interactional dynamics between journalists and politicians diversely occurred in Belgium, the Netherlands and Great Britain. I was mainly interested in how the communication styles of particular political key figures such as Guy Verhofstadt in Belgium, Pim Fortuyn in the Netherlands and Tony Blair in Great Britain instigated, in their own particular ways and in their own particular contexts, a new political communication culture. At the same time, at a more theoretical level, I was determined to develop a workable framework based on critical and interactionist discursive research approaches for operationalising the concepts of identity and power and applying it to the context of political broadcast talk. Through exploration of the topic, reading existing studies and working with some preliminary data from the Belgian context, I realised that the magnitude of the empirical research and the theoretical and methodological challenges of combining CA and CDA caused a substantial risk of
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overreaching myself and getting lost in superficiality. I decided to temporarily step aside from the empirical track of doing an international comparative study and started to immerse myself into a theoretical question that has ever since captivated me: how can we, as researchers, appoint and analyse issues of identity and power in interaction without falling into the trap of either a priori determining its constellations or ignoring its actual operations in interpersonal contact? From this theoretical exploration followed an increasing interest into the smaller, but perhaps also deeper empirical question as to how journalists and politicians mutually shape their identities and negotiate power positions in political broadcast talk. In 2009, I took the organisation of the regional and European elections to heart to collect a dataset from the pre-election broadcasts on the two channels of Flemish public service television (Eén and Canvas) to analyse how – i.e. through which interactional strategies – journalists and politicians perform – i.e. accomplish, negotiate, challenge and resist – mutual identities, roles and power positions in their mediated interactions with each other. The analysis of these televised pre-election interviews and debates formed a major turning point in my research. Because of the highly formatted nature of the 2009 pre-election broadcasts, I started to explicitly call into question the role of the journalist in the management of formatted political broadcast talk: if journalists are responsible for the outcome of political broadcast talk and if journalists have a variety of roles and according tasks to fulfil in order to accomplish this overall responsibility, which role do formats potentially play in this accomplishment and which consequences do these formats have for the operations of identity and power in political broadcast talk? These new questions required me to return to the literature and reconsider the roles of journalist-presenters in political broadcast talk. While most studies on media talk take account of the interactional management and journalistic duties of journalist-presenters in political broadcast talk, I noticed that much of this existing body of research actually either overlooked or underestimated the televisual and production aspects of journalistic identity performance in these types of talk. My research gradually took a different shape, with a less prominent focus on the interrelationships between journalist-presenters and politicians, and a more explicit one on the versatility of journalistic identity construction in political broadcast talk. I started to
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consistently use the term ‘journalist-presenter’ instead of simply ‘journalist’ in order to capture not only the journalistic but also the televisual duties of journalists in political broadcast talk. Through a continuous interplay between theory and analysis, I worked, bit-by-bit, towards a typology of three distinct but interrelated roles of journalist-presenters in the development of political broadcast talk: those of interactional manager, political journalist and television producer. This renewed interest in the performance of a media professional identity by journalist-presenters incited me to continue analysis of how media professionalism is accomplished in the on-air contexts of political broadcasting, but at the same time also triggered my interest into the meaning-making processes that lie behind these on-air accomplishments, in the off-air contexts of this institutional setting.54 From a determination to study the backstage settings of political broadcasting as well, I started to immerse myself into the field of news production studies and workplace ethnography. After some minor obstacles (cfr. supra), I relatively quickly managed to obtain access to the off-air settings of Terzake. Already during the first days of observations in the backstage settings of Terzake, I was confronted with the limits of my theoretical framework, in the sense that new concepts and questions, for instance around the notion of team collaborations, story meetings and the issue of production standards, emerged out of the process of data collection and, later, data analysis. The theoretical exploration of these aspects, in turn, affected my observations, especially during the second and third periods of the ethnographic fieldwork at Terzake. It is through this ensemble of theoretical, methodological and empirical paths that my research gradually came ‘into being’. However long I struggled with finding and defining my way in the web of theories, perspectives, approaches, methods and sorts of data, I arrived slowly but surely at a fairly peaceful level of relative saturation and coherence between the study’s
54 It was Professor Michael Bruun Andersen’s comment on my research during the 2009 ECREA Doctoral Summer School in Tartu
that triggered me gradually to start thinking about integrating an analysis of the backstage into my research project. I will never
forget his words about my research potentially “missing the deal” because not taking account of the underlying processes that
nevertheless form an intrinsic part of how media professionalism is constituted in television journalism. Since then, I clung to the idea
of going backstage and it was not until almost three years after that, that I managed to get access to the off-air settings of political
broadcast talk.
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objectives, the research questions, the methods and approaches used and the data collected.
6.3.3 ISSUES OF VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY
With the research focus, data sets and the study’s natural history being concretised, it remains to address the objectivity and credibility of the research findings (e.g. Kirk & Miller, 1986: 11; Peräkylä, 2011: 366; Silverman, 2001: 219). In this respect, validity and reliability count as the prime parameters for assessing the quality of qualitative social research. Although a number of related points have already been touched upon throughout this text, it is useful to briefly spell out some concerns regarding the research’s validity and reliability.
The validity of research is generally addressed in the accurate relationship between the social phenomena under study and the collected data (Kirk & Miller, 1986: 69). The validation of the present study is to be situated at three broad levels: (1) method and data triangulation; (2) attention to participant orientations; and (3) the constant comparative method. First, the research falls back on method triangulation and data triangulation (e.g. Silverman, 2013: 288). One the one hand, the combination of the methodological principles of CA and ethnography allows for a more holistic analytic approach to how media professional identities are constructed (in the production of) political television discourse. On the other hand, the mixing of different types of data, including transcripts on on-air talk, fieldnotes of backstage observations, journalist-presenters’ cue cards and photographs, creates valuable possibilities for the grounding this holistic analytic approach into concrete empirical research in both the frontstage and backstage settings of political television discourse. While the usefulness of such method and data triangulation for effectively validating social research has been disputed (e.g. Silverman, 2013: 289), the multi-method and multi-layered empirical approach as adopted in this research has been severally argued to add to accuracy, clarity and credibility (e.g. Keyton, 2006: 299; Lewis et al., 2014: 358).
Second, empirical attention to participant orientations can further strengthen the research’s validity and safeguard against subjective analysis (Silverman, 2006: 43). Since both CA and ethnography attach great
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importance to the search for local explanations, both methods can claim a high validity (Hak, 1999: 444). More particularly, CA’s next turn proof procedure and ethnography’s regional ontology (cfr. supra) allow the analyst for taking an insider’s perspective and for grounding interpretations into the local orientations of participants (Peräkylä, 2011: 368). CA, on the one hand, requires the analyst to indulge in repetitive rounds of detailed, moment-to-moment sequential analyses of a set of transcripts of naturally occurring data. Ethnography, on the other hand, involves the analyst staying in close proximity of those observed for a period that is sufficiently long to check for distortions. This close engagement with the local interactions within both CA and ethnographer provides for a particular level of empirical profundity that permits the analyst to arrive at interpretations that are consistent with those of the participants themselves, as well as to continuously refine established patterns and self-monitor research processes (LeCompte & Goetz, 1982: 43). What’s more, through the researcher’s in-depth engagement with the situated interactions, the conversation analyst and ethnographer are enabled to develop a profound sense of the interactional context, as well as to test established patterns for any discrepancy (Keyton, 2006: 298).
Third, the validation of the study can be found in the earlier mentioned analytic procedure of the constant comparative method (Silverman, 2013: 290). Because of the iterative treatment of the data, and the constant moving back and forth between different sections of the corpus, developed categories can be tested, further explored and, if necessary, adjusted, until saturation is achieved. Consequently, this procedure ensures that the developed categories are supported by and grounded in the corpus (Lewis et al., 2014: 360). As far as reliability is concerned, the main issue is to what extent the study could be reproduced under similar circumstances (e.g. Kirk & Miller, 1986: 72). The conventionalisation of documentation procedures, either through systematic transcriptions or through tape recordings, generally counts as the main criterion for assuring reliability (Silverman, 2006: 287). The availability of systematically produced and detailed transcripts within CA research “permits other researchers to have direct access to the data about which claims are being made, thus making analysis subject to detailed public scrutiny and helping to minimise the influence of personal preconceptions or analytical biases” (Heritage, 1984: 238). In a similar way, Clayman & Heritage
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(2002: 19) recognise the reliability of CA research since its transcripts “provide readers with independent access to the events in question, so that they can check what the author is claiming against an actual record of what transpired”. For ethnographic research, by contract, the issue of reliability is less obvious. Ethnography typically pertains to unique local processes in natural settings and is, therefore, rather difficult to reconstruct or accurately replicate. Gobo (2011: 28) however refutes the argument that ethnography would depend upon the researcher’s individual perceptions and points at the relative stability of routines and patterns over time. Therefore, he arrives at the (contested) observation that ethnography “is anything but a highly subjective methodology (even if subjectivity is ever present, as in all methodologies)” (Gobo, 2011: 28). As mentioned earlier, the present study’s ethnography of Terzake's backstage settings does not include recorded data for reasons that are already amply discussed elsewhere in this chapter. This lack of recordings might be considered as potentially in conflict with the reliability of the research. However, as already stipulated, the produced fieldnotes are far from superficial but in fact include extensive verbatim quotations of what people say and in-depth descriptions of behaviour and activities.
6.3.4 A NOTE ON CONFIDENTIALITY
As a last section in this methodological chapter, it is useful to shortly deal with how this study deals with the ethical implications of doing research, particularly in terms of confidentiality. Confidentiality pertains to the treatment of observed information in relation to the right to privacy and the preservation of anonymity (Murphy & Dingwall, 2001: 341; O’Reilly, 2009: 57; O’Reilly, 2012: 69). As far as concerns the discussions of the research findings of the conversation analytic corpus, there is no real issue of confidentiality to be addressed, given the explicit public and generally accessible nature of political television broadcasts. However, in relation to the results of the ethnographic analysis from the observations at Terzake, things are different and ask for clarification about how confidentiality regarding the observed participants and the observed setting is protected. Given the “intimate and long-term nature” of ethnography (O’Reilly, 2009: 57), the researcher should take into account the confidential implications of doing research ‘in the field’
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and consider how the research results might impact on those under scrutiny, as well as on other actors that are less directly involved in the research (Murphy & Dingwall, 2001: 341; O’Reilly, 2009: 57). This often results in a balancing exercise for the researcher to consider those measurements deemed necessary “to avoid harm to, and respect the rights of, all participants and to consider the consequences of all aspects of the research process” (O’Reilly, 2009: 57). Consequently, as Davies (2008: 61) notes, “it behoves to the researcher to take into account any possible effect either immediately or stemming from future publications drawing on the data that could adversely affect a larger collectivity”. In this research, this balancing exercise has resulted in a relatively open policy as regards anonymity in the Terzake case study. To be more precise, I undertook to evade explicit naming as much as desirable, but did integrate background information, such as team roles, gender and dates of fieldwork. On the one hand, the data’s confidentiality and the participants’ anonymity are protected by, in most cases, the omission of participants’ names. I instead opted to refer to the participants’ roles within the Terzake team when describing their activities. On the other hand, I felt that it was rather pointless and even unworkable in practice to remove any identifiable information of the setting and therefore decided to be explicit about the participants’ gender roles and about the dates of fieldwork. Only in those exceptional instances when I felt that things might got tricky or sensitive, did I choose to resort to full anonymity by using an ‘X’ instead of making reference to the participant’s role. The reason for adopting such an approach to the issue of anonymity is grounded in two broader argumentations. First, as Murphy and Dingwall (2001: 341) note, ethnographic research mostly occurs in a single context, with the same recurring participants. Therefore, it becomes “difficult to ensure that data are totally unattributable: fieldnotes and interview transcripts inevitably record sufficient detail to make participants identifiable”. This was the case for the ethnography at Terzake, where I was surrounded with a recurring team of media professionals. Since the Terzake team is relatively small - i.e. 17 production team members - and since this team is divided into a diversity of participants roles - i.e. journalist-presenters, editors, researchers, reporters, production assistants and a director (see Chapter 9 for a more extensive
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account of the Terzake team set-up), the descriptions of the participants, whether made fully anonymous or not, would anyhow entail identifiable information. Second, given the fact that many of the observed participants in the backstage settings of Terzake carry a high public status and given the fact that many of the activities and encounters in the backstage settings of Terzake are directly related to forthcoming or finished on-air performances, a full anonimisation would be rather superfluous. In this, I am backed up by Davies (2008: 60), who remarks that “anonymity is not always possible to provide when doing research on public figures”. For instance, it would be redundant to conceal every identifiable aspect of the journalist-presenters, because it requires only minor searches on the Internet to discover who were the Terzake journalist-presenters during my observations in the year 2012 - i.e. as already mentioned, Kathleen Cools and Lieven Verstraete. Equally, it makes little sense to consistently leave out identifications of studio guests, as the references to the date of fieldwork that accompany the in-text examples make it possible to easily trace back who was invited when into Terzake’s studio. On a final note, it bears mentioning that, in light of the general safeguarding of confidentiality, the fieldnotes are not integrated into this work’s attachments, but are safely stored for long-term security.
6.4 SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS
This research crosses methodological boundaries for the study of how a media professional identity is constructed in political television discourse. This chapter proposes a methodological framework that allows for examining both the on-air and off-air settings of this institutional context. The approach taken to analyse these settings is a qualitative one that draws on the analytic procedures and methodological principles of a nuanced or applied form a CA and ethnography. Applied CA is drawn on to examine the interactional processes through which a media professional identity and related power positions are dynamically ‘brought into being’ in the on-air interactions between journalist-presenters and politicians. CA’s fine-grained analytic procedures are particularly valuable for analysing how identity and power are accomplished in the local development of these frontstage encounters.
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However, in line with the study’s overall integrated discursive perspective, questions on identity and power are not to be limited to their construction in frontstage interactional contexts alone. CA’s methodological premises, for instance, do not allow to take account of how wider contextual relevancies, such as the production of pre-planned scripts or backstage teaming processes, intervene in this construction process. This study however opts to fully integrate these underlying process in order to arrive at a more complete understanding of the complexities of professional identity construction in (the production of) political television broadcasts. Therefore, this chapter has explored a methodological track that allows for embedding a CA approach within a broader ethnographic approach. Rooted in the body of work in the analytic fields of workplace studies and newsroom ethnographies, this study believes in the relevance and actual necessity of integrating detailed interactional analyses of frontstage conduct into a broader ethnographic project. Such a methodological collaboration is particularly valuable for developing a deeper understanding of the performance of identity and power in institutional contexts, not only in relation to the frontstage and directly observable situational contexts, but also in relation to the interpretive practices and processes that underlie these frontstage performances. The mutual focus on local relevancies within CA and ethnography provides valuable empirical opportunities for disentangling the performative routines through which a media professional identity can be normatively constructed in political broadcasting, both in its on-air and off-air contexts. The following chapters (Chapters 7, 8, 9 and 10) build upon this proposed methodological framework to put the established theoretical concepts of especially power and identity to empirical work in the context of political broadcasting. Chapter 7 kicks off with an empirical account of how journalist-presenters and politicians, in their mediated interactions with each other, can build upon an arsenal of strategic interactional resources to maintain, claim, negotiate, resist, or otherwise defend power in political television programmes.
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6 7 8 9 10 11
Ι
CHAPTER 7
THE ROLE OF INTERACTIONAL RESOURCES IN
THE CONSTRUCTION OF A MEDIA
PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY
On Sunday 5 December 2010, Yves Leterme, the at the time outgoing prime minister, and Ivan De Vadder, journalist-presenter of the political television programme De Zevende Dag (Eén, VRT), are jointly responsible for the production of a remarkable piece of television. What was supposed to be a classic one-to-one televised interview quickly became an awkward conversational instance, which resembled a monologue more than a dynamic institutional interaction. After the Prime Minister’s repeated evasion of the journalist-presenter’s questions and interruptions, the latter, somewhat radically, suggested he should leave the scene to allow the Prime Minister to get his message across without interruption: “Shall I just disappear, so you can go on in peace? There is the camera”. The Prime Minister then continued his turn for another two minutes, somewhat awkwardly addressing the camera in front of him. Remarking that “this really isn’t a government announcement”, De Vadder returned to his seat, waited for the Prime Minister to bring his turn to a close and then put an end to the encounter by briefly (and rather cynically) “thanking” the Prime Minister for his contribution to the programme. This case illustrates the flexibility of supposedly structural power relationships in political broadcast talk. While institutional forms of interaction are typically asymmetrically distributed in terms of identities, roles and related turn-taking patterns and power positions (see Chapter 5), it is the responsibility of the participants to produce and reproduce these asymmetries at the local level, through their mutual interactions. While partly pre-determined by the institutional arrangements of the setting, the power
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relationships between participants can – at any time – be challenged or pushed to their limits. This chapter investigates how these power asymmetries are locally distributed and produced in political television talk. It considers political television programmes as “power containers” (Giddens, 1987: 13); as manifest sites in which power relationships are generated and made relevant. More specifically, Chapter 7 argues that the ways in which political television interactions are constructed and performed as a type of power talk depend on the ways in which journalist-presenters and politicians make relevant their structurally determined identities, roles and power positions in the interactional development of their on-air performances. The theoretical chapters in this work established that the structural set-up of political television arranges advantageous positions for particularly journalist-presenters in these interactions. Their overall identity as media professional brings with it a number of interactional and institutional roles, which, in turn, provide them with powerful structural resources to control and guide the interaction. In addition, their roles of interactional manager, political journalist and television producer endow them with a number of privileged entitlements to achieve, maintain and negotiate professional dominance. Although pre-established by normative expectations at a structural level, the power asymmetries between journalist-presenters and politicians in political television debates are open to negotiation at the interactional level. In their mutual interactions, both journalist-presenters and politicians can bring into play a number of interactional strategies and techniques – i.e. “resources” in Giddens’ (1982, 1987) terminology – to reproduce, challenge, negotiate and resist the pre-established structural power asymmetries (Ekström, 2007b; Thornborrow, 2002). In this chapter, this interactional level of local relevancies is central. Therefore, it departs from the journalist-presenters’ structural power positions described in Chapter 5 and analyses how these positions are created, negotiated and performed in and through the journalist-presenters’ and politicians’ local interactions. More specifically, it analyses how structural power relationships operate at the micro level, within the concrete sequential development of political television interactions. In line with Foucault’s (1982 [2001]) epistemological claim that circulating power relationships can only be brought to light through scrutiny
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of acts of resistance, the analysis in this chapter pays particular attention to those instances where routine practices and normative conventional patterns, rules and procedures are disrupted and rendered out of balance. Through a constant comparative method (Silverman, 2013: 290), the focus in on the interplay between power and resistance and the resources available to both journalist-presenters and politicians to strategically gain, challenge and negotiate interactional control over their on-air interactions. In the attempt to unravel how the interactional struggles between journalist-presenters and politicians are related to and generate power outcomes, the analysis is aimed specifically at identifying instances where the conventional – i.e. ‘structural’ – norms, rules and procedures are disrupted or otherwise negotiated. This allows deeper exploration of the notion of power and its conception as an entirely collaborative process and one that is in constant need of ratification by others. The central question in this chapter is: How is the construction of a media professional identity contingent upon the use of interactional resources in the frontstage setting of political television talk? The objective is to develop an understanding of the interactional resources brought into play by journalist-presenters and politicians, to obtain, sustain, negotiate and resist structural control positions and, by extension, to gain further insights into the normativity of power within political television talk. The interest also is in whether these resources or discursive practices can be analysed as actual power strategies, to accomplish and uphold a professional identity. The analysis in this chapter builds upon a selection of the conversation analytic corpus (cfr. Chapter 6) and includes transcripts of a total of 25 political television debates aired on Flemish public service television in 2006 and 2009. On the one hand, it uses the transcripts of the 10 broadcasts of De Zevende Dag in 2006. On the other hand, the analysis relies upon the transcripts of the 15 broadcasts of Terzake 09 in the two weeks prior to the 2009 elections.55 55 The other four 2009 one-time pre-election programmes are not included in this chapter because their formats, with smaller debates
and interviews with constantly alternating politicians, are less suitable for mapping the ‘traditional’ interactional resources of
journalist-presenters and politicians in political television talk. However, these programes (together with Terzake 09, which was also
heavily formatted, but which included longer debates with the same politicians within one broadcast) are all the more interesting in
terms of how format components can intervene in the participants’ use of these ‘traditional’ interactional resources. Therefore, the
following chapter (Chapter 8) is fully dedicated to unravelling this matter.
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7.1 POLITICAL TELEVISION PROGRAMMES AS MULTIDIMENSIONAL
POWER CONTAINERS
When journalist-presenters and politicians engage in broadcast interactions in political television formats, they are inevitably engaged with generating power. Within the institutional setting of political broadcast talk, this dynamic generation of power for a large part is related to the pre-allocation of participation roles. Both journalist-presenters and politicians have everything to gain from trying to establish a control position in the interview or debate, so as to realise their proper professional goals. In this sense, political television talk can be thought of as a “power container” (Giddens, 1987: 13) full of struggles and collaborations and accomodating a complex web of power positions, legitimate entitlements and interactional resources available for participants to selectively draw upon in the course of their mutual encounter. The following analysis puts a microscopic lens on this “container” in a dual attempt to grasp the dynamic operation of power in political television talk and to show how power is an interactionally sensitive phenomenon. Starting from the structurally powerful positions of journalist-presenters in this interactional setting, the analysis will bring to light how these power positions are anything but a certitude and thoroughly contingent upon local performances of both journalist-presenters and politicians. In order to map out this reciprocity between the structural and interactional level of the institution of political broadcasting and the accomplishment of a media professional identity therein, the analysis departs from three distinctive power dimensions - or, so to speak, container ‘departments’ – on which journalist-presenters, from their identity as media professionals and assumed roles as interactional manager, political journalist, and television producer, can lay a privileged claim in political television talk: (1) interactional power; (2) public power; and (3) media-cultural power. Within each of these power dimensions, journalist-presenters can rely upon a repertoire of legitimate entitlements and strategic resources in the interaction to accomplish these entitlements and secure their control over the development of the talk. Also within each of these power dimensions, politicians, from their side, can appeal to a number of interactional resources to strategically counter – i.e. manipulate, negotiate or resist – these entitlements to pursuit their own goals
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and themselves obtain control over the encounter. As such, the analytic challenge is to map these tangled resources and counter-resources, legitimate entitlements and power dimensions to obtain a more in-depth understanding of the dynamic operation of power in political television interactions. Rather than intending to be exhaustive in this exercise, the subsequent analysis is driven by an intention to spell out how power expresses itself as a dynamic and indispensable phenomenon in political broadcast talk, that is in constant need of performative activity, collaboration and even resistance in order to be generated.
7.2 JOURNALIST-PRESENTERS AS INTERACTIONAL MANAGERS:
INTERACTIONAL POWER
The turn-taking system in political television interactions involves considerable restrictions on which party can speak and at what moment in the interaction (e.g. Clayman & Heritage, 2002; Greatbatch, 1988). As interactional managers, journalist-presenters are structurally expected to take responsibility when it comes to arranging this turn-taking process in the form of both moderating the discussion and steering its topical development through active questioning turns. From their interactional sub-roles as moderator and questioner, journalist-presenters are endowed with a number of duties and entitlements to control and arrange the interactional floor. First, journalist-presenters are legitimated to control the procedural development of the interaction in terms managing the structural and sequential organisation of the interaction. Second, through the questions they pose, journalist-presenters have an almost automatic authority to determine the topical course of the interaction. From this procedural and topical legitimacy follows a third interactional entitlement of journalist-presenters, namely the legitimacy to control the framing of politicians’ contributions and, by extension, of the whole interaction. In order to accomplish these structurally determined privileges, journalist-presenters can exploit a variety of concrete interactional resources in the local development of political television talk. Only when strategically effectuating such resources into the practice of political television talk and only when politicians are co-operative in their compliance to these
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resources, will journalist-presenters be able to successfully perform their role as interactional manager and contribute to the construction of a media professional identity.
7.2.1 PROCEDURAL LEGITIMACY
Journalist-presenters have an exclusive responsibility for giving and taking turns in political television talk and can, therefore, claim powerful legitimacy to arrange the interactional floor or “territory” (Bilmes, 1999: 234; Ekström, 2007b; Thornborrow, 2002: 27) in terms of turn-allocation and turn-distribution. To accomplish this procedural aspect of their interactional manager role, journalist-presenters routinely appeal to a set of interactional resources to arrange how turns are taken and distributed. Although the participation framework of political television talk arranges this privilege of turn-allocation and turn-distribution to be a structural legitimacy and even duty for the journalist-presenters, this does not mean that politicians are powerless when it comes to negotiating interactional space. To the contrary, as will become clear, throughout the interactional process, politicians are almost constantly preoccupied with employing strategies to gain or maintain the interactional floor and, thusly, negotiate procedural legitimacy. The analysis shows hat journalist-presenters can rely upon particular interactional resources to manage their procedural task in political television talk. Most prominently, journalist-presenters appear to be routinely turning to three resources to strategically accomplish their procedural power position in the interaction: (1) turn-allocating markers, (2) “one-at-a-time” pleas, and (3) equal turn distribution claims. First, and perhaps most obviously, the production of turn-allocating markers allows journalist-presenters to arrange both who gets to speak and for how long. (7.1) De Zevende Dag, 30 April 2006
JP: Guy Janssens
1 JP: Shortly Mr Vande Lanotte and then Mr Somers
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(7.2) Terzake 09, 27 May 2009
P: Gerolf Annemans (Vlaams Belang)
JP: Kathleen Cools
1 P: …which attracted more than twenty thousand hh:: primitives on=
2 JP: [yes] [o::ka::y Mr Annemans=
3 P: =a yearly basis and you have to combat that with three thousand=
4 JP: =I sho:::rtly give] [ve::ry shortly]
5 P: =of those certificates hh:: medals for their attendance on a
6 language course hh: I am sorry those are not proportions
7 JP: [yes hh:: MR KEULEN I shortly give you the floor and then] we
8 proceed to the following
In the extracts above, the journalist-presenters rely on their sub-role as moderators to allocate answering turns. In the first extract, the journalist-presenter indicates his intention to first let the social-democratic politician Vande Lanotte “shortly” react before he gives the floor to the liberal politician Somers. Somewhat similarly, the journalist-presenter in the second extract appeals to his legitimacy over the procedural course of the interaction to interrupt the extreme-right politician, Gerolf Annemans, to “very shortly” (line 4) “give the floor” (line 7) to the other, liberal, politician (“Mr Keulen”, line 7) before proceeding “to the following” (line 8) topic on his agenda. Although these extracts might seem quite banal and rather standardised, taken-for-granted aspects of ‘doing a political television debate’, these examples do show a clear orientation of the journalist-presenters toward their proper power over the floor: through the use of turn-allocating markers, it is they who decide whoever gets access to the interactional territory and for how long. The extract below shows how this procedural legitimacy of journalist-presenters often is also acknowledged and even supported by the politicians. The journalist-presenters repeatedly interrupt Annemans to give the floor to Keulen (lines 2, 4, 7, 8, 10). At first, the journalist-presenters’ procedural power claims in the form of turn-allocating markers are ignored by Annemans, who simply ploughs on with his speaking turn with no acknowledgement whatsoever of the journalist-presenter’s power claims. At line 6, the second politician, Keulen, chooses not to wait for Annemans’ turn-completion, and intervenes to express his disapproval of the latter’s behaviour. In so doing, he actually acknowledges the journalist-presenters’
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power as procedural floor managers. In twice uttering that Annemans should “let other people talk” (lines 6 and 9), Keulen orients to the deviancy of breaching – or, actually, ignoring – the procedural arrangements of doing a television debate.
(7.3) Terzake 09, 27 May 2009
P1: Gerolf Annemans (Vlaams Belang) P2: Marino Keulen (Open VLD)
JP1: Kathleen Cools JP2: Lieven Verstraete
1 P1: … it is not the Europeanisation of Islam that is taking over=
2 JP1: [yes] [Mr Keulen]
3 P1: =it is the Islamisation of Europe that is happening and that is=
4 JP1: [Mr Keulen]
5 P1: =a good example that is a good exa- in the city of Antwerp hh::
6 P2: [(But you have to let other people talk) hh:: our society]=
7 JP1: [Mr Keulen] [Mr Keulen]
8 JP2: [no no Mr=
9 P2: =is a hh:: BUT PLEASE let other people talk as well h:: our=
10 JP2: =Keulen Mr Keulen Mr Keulen]
11 P2: =society is a mixed society and that has to be the message hh::
12 … ((answer continues))
Second, the journalist-presenters’ management of the procedural development of political television talk often appears to be instigated by the intentions to ensure a clear discussion, as well as a balanced one; duties that are both related to their interactional manager role. Partly also against the background of their television producer role, journalist-presenters demonstrate responsibility for making the political television talk easy to follow, and intervene when the politicians start producing overlapping talk. It has been argued that, for the sake of the overhearing audience, journalist-presenters have a duty to prevent the conversation from deteriorating into incomprehensible, overlapping chatter (Clayman, 2001; Clayman & Heritage, 2002; Ekström, 2001). This is particularly manifest in the routine production of, what we could call, “one-at-a-time” pleas when politicians engage in overlapping talk.
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(7.4) De Zevende Dag, 22 January 2006
P1: Frank Vandenbroucke (sp.a) JP: Goedele Devroy
P2: Jean-Marie Dedecker (VLD)
1 P1: …You have to know that of all vacancies hh:: yes yes but but Mr=
2 P2: [( )you have made labour so expensive=
3 P1: =Dedecker I did not interrupt you:: hh:: I did not interrupt=
4 P2: =that it becomes a luxury product]
5 P1: =you:: hh:: you said a lot of things that were wrong hh::
6 incorrect figures hh:: false information I did not interrupt=
7 P2: [I have not said anything wrong]
8 P1: =you:: you do not even give me the time to correct it hh:: LET=
9 P2: [You cannot correct it]
10 P1: =ME FINISH let me finish it is you::r liberal prime minister=
11 JP: [Let the minister speak for now thank you]
12 P1: =who says the people should work more hh:: then I:: say let us
13 ensure that there are vacancies for those elderly people as well
14 … ((answer continues))
Extract 7.4 shows that self-selection and mutual interruptions by politicians are constructed jointly as a problem situation whose resolution requires the intervention of the journalist-presenter. When the liberal politician Jean-Marie Dedecker56 (P2) interrupts the social-democratic politician Vandenbroucke’s (P1) turn as from line 2, the latter demonstrates violation of his right to expound on his argumentation, and his interpretation of Dedecker’s interruptive behaviour as disturbing, as shown in his repeated production of utterances such as “I did not interrupt you” (lines 3 and 6), “let me finish” (line 8 and line 10), and “you do not even give me the time to correct it” (lines 6-8). It is not until the journalist-presenter intervenes with a procedural power claim (“let the minister speak for now thank you”, line 11) that the politicians re-establish the situation and step back into the normative pattern of non-overlapping talk. Apart from securing a clear, non-overlapping discussion, journalist-presenters seem to claim procedural power for the sake of guaranteeing a balanced discussion, in which all of the participants have an equal chance to 56 At that time, Jean-Marie Dedecker was still a member of the liberal party VLD. Later in 2006, Jean-Marie Dedecker would be
expelled from VLD, join and then again leave the Flemish nationalist party N-VA (see later in this chapter). In the beginning of 2007,
Dedecker eventually establishes his own party, Lijst Dedekcer (LDD), which has been qualified as « a neoliberal populist party »
(Pauwels, 2014: 97).
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express their opinions. As part of the journalist-presenters’ sub-role as moderators, journalist-presenters are expected to distribute speaking turns in a more or less proportionate manner (Charadeau & Ghiglione, 1997; Clayman & Heritage, 2002). The extract below exemplifies how journalist-presenters invoke equal turn-distribution claims so as to re-balance politicians’ speaking turns. In the extract, the journalist-presenter first calls for the politicians to stop producing overlapping talk (“one at a time”, line 3) and then decides to bring the current speaker’s turn to an end, to allow the other politician to respond (“a rejoinder Mr Vanhecke, Mr Vanhengel”, line 5).
(7.5) Terzake 09, 20 May 2009
P1: Guy Vanhengel (Open VLD) JP: Kathleen Cools
P2: Frank Vanhecke (Vlaams Belang)
1 P1: … and so people who::: get mad get angry over injustice should=
2 P2: [( ) but that is not necessary, that is bad for my heart]
3 JP: [one::: at a time]
4 P1: =understand how hard I find that
5 JP: [a rejoinder Mr Vanhecke hh::: Mr] Vanhengel
6 P2: [Mr Van]hengel if you lie
7 then that is bad for my heart hh:: the Vlaams Belang is an
8 independence party (.) everyone knows that … ((answer
9 continues))
NEGOTIATING PROCEDURAL LEGITIMACY: POLITICIANS’ COUNTER-RESOURCES
Considering their institutional status, politicians have everything to gain from negotiating and acquiring as much airtime as possible to get their arguments across. Consequently, and almost as a rule, they resort to strategies designed to challenge and resist the journalist-presenters’ procedural power position. The data show that it is especially at those moments when journalist-presenters interrupt or are about to interrupt a politician’s speaking turn to bring the politician back to the initial agenda, ask a new question, give the floor to another politician, or move on to another part in the programme, that politicians exploit several strategies to negotiate the interactional territory. I found that these strategic resources of politicians in some cases are more subtle and covert than in other cases, when politicians are more
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explicit and overt in resisting the normative pattern. Therefore, it is useful to make an analytic distinction between what I would describe as ‘covert’ and more ‘overt’ forms of resistance. ‘Covert’ interactional resistance strategies are those strategies used by politicians which are focussed on resisting the journalist-presenters’ power position while simultaneously also acknowledging this power position. Somewhat ironically, politicians then orient to the rules of the game precisely as a strategy to challenge these established rules. ‘Overt’ interactional strategies, by contrast, entail a more explicit departure from the structural power relationships. Instead of trying to cover their resistance, politicians then openly challenge the established pattern to directly pursue their own goals. When politicians use covert resources to circumvent the journalist-presenters’ procedural legitimacy, they either orient to the journalist-presenters as mediators of and controllers over the interaction to negotiate interactional space, or they strategically package their answering turns so that they actually appear to be in line with the normative pattern. With respect to the former, rule-orientation appears to be a commonly used strategy for politicians to claim prolongation and completion of their turn while still acknowledging the journalist-presenters’ position as controllers of the procedural development of the interaction. Politicians then selectively orient to the normativity of the rules of the game, precisely as a strategy to strengthen their proper position in the interaction. Politicians can, e.g., request the journalist-presenters’ permission to continue their turn, or point to the unequal and, thus, unfair distribution of turns. In both such cases, politicians anticipate a turn continuation through ambiguous negotiation of the journalist-presenters’ procedural power position. Clayman and Heritage’s (2002: 258) already observed that permission requests for turn continuation indicate “some degree of deference to the interviewer”. While this certainly holds true, I would add that is perhaps somewhat more complex than that. In requesting permission or reminding the journalist-presenters of their responsibility to ensure a balanced debate with equal turn distributions, politicians do not simply abide by the journalist-presenters’ power position, but actually employ this power position so as to appropriate a proper turn or persisting with an ongoing turn and, thus, gain control over the interactional floor themselves. In other words, the strategy
232
of rule-orientation allows politicians to cleverly show orientations to the structurally established power relationships while at the same time circumventing the journalist-presenters’ authority as interactional manager. The following extract counts as an example.
(7.6) De Zevende Dag, 22 January 2006
P: Jean-Marie Dedecker (VLD)
JP: Goedele Devroy
1 P: … immigrants with the same educational degree than migrants can
2 get as much employment as immigrants with a higher degree hh::=
3 JP: [( )]
4 P: =can I just complete my argument Mrs Devroy hh: Mr Vandenbroucke
5 was also permitted to go on for a while hh:: (.) in Antwerp …
6 ((answer continues))
In this extract, the politician orients to the journalist-presenter’s interruption in line 3 as a violation of his interactional speaking rights by requesting if he can “just complete” his argument (line 4). This request seeks permission from the journalist-presenter to continue his turn. In doing so, the politician is acknowledging both his proper departure from the procedural turn-taking pattern and the journalist-presenter’s power as interactional manager to decide on the procedural partition in the debate and manage turn distribution. In this extract, the counter-resource of rule-orientation seems to be effective since the politician subsequently succeeds in completing his turn. In the extract above, the politician’s request for turn-completion can be seen as “token” (cfr. Greatbatch, 1988; Heritage & Greatbatch, 1991) or symbolic in character, because the politician proceeds immediately, without waiting for the journalist-presenter to grant or deny permission. In many other cases, however, journalist-presenters often make use of a reaction in a ‘third turn’ to either grant or deny a politician’s request. This use of a ‘third turn’ not only shows the journalist-presenters’ orientation to their own position as effectively being in control of the procedural development of the interaction, but also provides journalist-presenters with a chance to to interactionally re-negotiate the participants’ power relationships and, certainly in the case of denial, to reaffirm their own power position as interactional managers. The following extract, for instance, shows strong
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negotiation over procedural power through the repeated use of permission requests by the politician and the subsequent denial of this request by the journalist-presenter.
(7.7) Terzake 09, 19 May 2009
P: Frank Vandenbroucke (sp.a)
JP: Kathleen Cools
1 P: …But (.) socialism (.) that is always starting over may I just=
2 JP: [o::ka:::y]
3 P: =hh:: I was once minister of pensions and it would be useful to
4 have a look at the studies of professor Cantillon because may I=
5 JP: [right we will:::]
6 P: =just yes but professor Cantillon has been cited
7 JP: [no::: Mr Vandenbroucke we will immediate]ly continue on
8 that hh:: I first want to call in Geert Geert Lambert (.) today=
9 P: [may I just continue okay]
10 JP: =I read in the newspaper your slogan every vote for the
11 socialists can damage your social security … ((answer
12 continues))
In the extract, Vandenbroucke clearly does not intend to relinquish his answering turn despite the several interruptive attempts by the journalist-presenter to allocate a turn to another debater, the social-liberal Geert Lambert. While Vandenbroucke’s first attempt to continue laying claim to the floor in line 1 (“may I just”) concerns a token request for permission, his second request in lines 4-6 (“may I just”) receives a firm denial from the journalist-presenter (“no Mr Vandenbroucke”, line 7) who subsequently expresses her wish to give the floor to Geert Lambert (“I first want to call in Geert Lambert”, line 8). At this point, one might assume that the initial power relationships between the politician and the journalist-presenter have been restored since the former brings an end to his resisting behaviour and the latter claims the floor to pass it to another politician. While this may be true to some extent, Vandenbroucke’s “okay” in line 9 could be interpreted as acknowledging the journalist-presenter’s claim to the floor, going against the normative situation, and potentially positioning the politician as the one controlling the procedural state of affairs. Beside rule-orientation, such as permission requests and unequal distribution remarks, the data show that politicians make use of other covert
234
counter-resources to claim the floor, such as enumerating, integrating a question in an answer turn, or use of body language. In indicating an enumeration in their answers, politicians can manage skilfully to create a situation where an interruption would be perceived interactionally as inconvenient. Extract 7.8 is illustrative of how politicians invoke this resource to lay claim to completion of their turn. (7.8) De Zevende Dag, 19 February 2006
JP: Goedele Devroy
P: Marianne Thyssen (CD&V)
1 JP: Mrs Thyssen (.) you want to react
2 P: I would like to react on two things hh::: One (.) there is no
3 legal uncertainty and two on the water distribution and so on
4 hh:: the member states can no longer impose their own protective
5 measures (.) Well hh:: those two things are incorrect hh:: One
6 because… ((answer continues))… two:: … ((answer continues))
By pointing out that there are two points to be made (“I would like to react on two things”, line 2), the Christian-democratic politician Marianne Thyssen indicates already at the outset of her answering turn that she will build up a many-sided argument. In doing so, she can manage to create a situation in which interruptions would interactionally be deemed inappropriate. Politicians often resort to this enumerating resource as a strategy for keeping the floor when their turn is being jeopardised. In the following extract, the politician uses similar covert, though powerful, procedural-resisting moves in order to persist with his argument and claim a continuation of his turn.
(7.9) Terzake 09, 19 May 2009
P: Frank Vandenbroucke (sp.a)
JP: Kathleen Cools
1 P: …and that’s not yet completely resolved (.) hhh and secondly=
2 JP: [o::ka:::y]
3 P: =hh:: my second concern is (.) making sure that people who have
4 become unemployed find a job and can I just be specific? Hh::=
5 JP: [hh::] [no:::]
6 P: =because I speak about specific people (.) hh::: no no but can=
7 JP: [no::: because we want to discuss other things]
8 P: =I just be specific we hav- I have (.) with the limited Flemish=
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9 JP: [ve::::ry shortly Mr Vandenbroucke]
10 P: =competences I have on this matter introduced a system of
11 … ((answer continues))
In this extract, the journalist-presenter indicates that she wishes to move on in the debate by twice interrupting the politician’s turn (“ okay”, line 2; “hh::”, line 5). The politician – Frank Vandenbroucke – orients to these interruptions as disruptive since he adopts two powerful resources to prevent the journalist-presenter from wielding her power to control the interactional development of the discussion. In the first instance, Vandenbroucke uses an enumerating strategy, as he starts to signpost that he has more points to make (“secondly”, line 1; “my second concern”, line 3). Further on in this same answering turn, he uses a second strategy, to negotiate a completion of his turn, by requesting the journalist for permission to “be specific” (“can I just be specific?”, line 4). However, the journalist-presenter clearly denies Vandenbroucke permission to continue his turn, thus re-negotiating through this denial, and indicating her intention to move on to another topic in the discussion (“no because we want to discuss other things”, line 7). What happens next, is peculiar. Instead of complying with the journalist-presenter’s explicit power claim to discuss a different topic on her agenda, Vandenbroucke persists in resisting the journalist-presenter’s normative procedural power position by again insisting on the continuation of his turn, and permission to be specific (“but can I just be specific”, lines 6-8). The journalist-presenter again rejects Vandenbroucke’s attempt to keep the floor and shows that she is the one who decides on the turn-taking in the interaction. In finally allowing Vandenbroucke to proceed his turn “very shortly” (line 9), it appears that the journalist-presenter and politician have achieved a mutual negotiation of a more symmetrical power relationship: the politician has succeeded in his objective and the journalist-presenter has partly maintained her turn-allocating power.
Similarly, politicians can avoid journalist-presenters’ procedural legitimacy by asking questions of their own and, in doing so, creating an interactional situation that allows them to continue to keep the floor. The following extract is one of many examples in the data of a politician exploiting a question-in-answer strategy when their turn is threatened.
236
(7.10) Terzake 09, 28 May 2009
P: Kris Peeters (CD&V)
JP: Lieven Verstraete
1 P: [Yes I] say very specifically for the automobile industry those
2 who say that it has no future in Flanders are wrong why WHY do=
3 JP: [yes] [but]
4 P: =I say that? ((puts a finger in the air and addresses JP2))
5 Because we not only have car-manufacturing factories but we also
6 have more than 200 suppliers with a lot of know-how and
7 innovation hh:: I am convinced that … ((answer continues))
When the journalist-presenter interrupts the Christian-democratic politician Kris Peeters in his answering turn (“yes…but” line 3), the latter produces a question to himself as a means of maintaining control over the floor (“why do I say that? Because…”, lines 2-4). He lays further claim to turn continuation by putting his finger in the air while voicing this question. The use of such body language in other cases is another potential strategic means for politicians to deal with the journalist-presenter’s procedural power, as shown in the following extracts.
(7.11) Terzake 09, 29 May 2009
JP: Lieven Verstraete
P: Hilde Crevits (CD&V)
1 JP: Mrs Crevits I see you nodding enthusiastically
2 P: Yes because there is a point that is really important here …
3 ((answer continues))
(7.12) Terzake 09, 21 May 2009
JP: Lieven Verstraete
P: Marianne Thyssen (CD&V)
1 JP: Mrs Thyssen you are shaking your head?
2 P: No I am not pessimistic I just say that … ((answer continues))
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(7.13) Terzake 09, 26 May 2009
JP: Kathleen Cools P2: Bart De Wever (N-VA)
P1: Bart Staes (Groen!)
1 P1: … we are the only region where there is no discussion of what we
2 are going to do to temper the crisis (.) we cannot solve it but=
3 JP: [yes I urgently want to] [I urgently want to go to Bart De=
4 P1: =we can temper it
5 JP: =Wever because he] is making the most worrying faces in a row
6 hh::: ((laughter))
7 P2: Well hh:: yes this all passes me by (.) this illustrates what I
8 just said … ((answer continues))
In the above extracts, the journalist-presenters use the politicians’ facial expressions and body language as the main motive to re-organise the floor and re-allocate turns. These examples show that non-verbal actions, such as nodding and grimacing, tend to attract the journalist-presenters’ attention and, therefore, can be seen as potentially effective resources for politicians to strategically seize the interactional space. Alongside these subtle counter-strategies, politicians can also negotiate the procedural legitimacy of the journalist-presenters in more overt ways. By straightforwardly self-selecting, or by ignoring the journalist-presenters’ interruptions, politicians more explicitly depart from or even repudiate journalist-presenters’ turn-allocating moves. Although such strategies are more directly resisting in the sense that they explicitly depart from the normatively established pattern, they seldom comprise a fundamental criticism of the journalist-presenters’ legitimate power positions. Rather, these direct moves are resources exploited by politicians to circumvent the actual exercise of the journalist-presenters’ normative power positions. The following extract is an example of a dynamic negotiation over the journalist-presenters’ powerful structural entitlement to allocate and distribute turns at talk. In the extract, the journalist-presenters interrupt a politician several times, in their attempts to stop his argumentation and re-balance the procedural power relationships. Specifically, the journalist-presenters’ objective is to discover whether the extreme-right politician, Gerolf Annemans, would approve of the idea of organising dedicated hours for Muslim women to use the municipal swimming pool in the city of Antwerp.
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(7.14) Terzake 09, 27 May 2009
JP1: Kathleen Cools P1: Gerolf Annemans (Vlaams Belang)
JP2: Lieven Verstraete P2: Marino Keulen (Open VLD)
1 P1: … the:: reasons why I think that we a::re adjusting ourselves
2 and not only me I::: am not talking about Afgha::nistan and so=
3 JP1: [yes:::]
4 JP2: [but but is there any=
5 P1: =on (.) do not interrupt me all the ti::me hh:: hh:: it is not=
6 JP2: =objection? Is there any obje::ction? Is there any objection?]
7 P1: =only about hh:: I am not suspicious about the Islam in
8 Afghanistan (.) I am suspicious for a::- for the Isla::m in=
9 JP1: [yes:: but do you think it should be=
10 P1: =my own neighbourhood hh:: if the city education (.) Mrs if=
11 JP1: =possible? Mr Annemans? This concrete exa::mple this concrete=
12 P1: =there are subsidie::s to open a swimming pool in the city of=
13 JP1: =example? Should it be possible?]
14 P1: =Antwerp (.) and this city city of Antwerp will organise=
15 JP1: [ye:::s?]
16 P1: =separate hh:: separate swimming hours for Islamic only Islamic
17 women then I say that we::: are adjusting ourselves to Isla::m=
18 JP1: [hh::: yes::]
19 P1: =and not the other way around (.) the hh:: Islam is penetrating=
20 JP1: [Yes?]
21 P1: =and the Europeanisation of Islam is not occurring the=
22 JP2: [And tha:::t]
23 JP1: [yes:: Mr Keulen]
24 P1: = the Islamisation of Europe is occurring AND THAT IS A GOOD
25 EXA::MPLE that is a good examp- in the city of Antwerp
26 JP1: [Mr Keulen] [Mr Keulen]
27 JP2: [no no Mr Keulen] Mr Keulen
28 P2: [( ) other people spea::k in our society but] PLEASE
29 let other people speak as well (.) our society is a mixed
30 society … ((answer continues))
In this excerpt, the normative procedural power relationships between the journalist-presenters and politicians are countered. The journalist-presenters repeatedly interrupt Annemans’ turn to claim control over the procedural development of the interaction. First, they co-operate in trying to bring an end to Annemans’ evasive conversational behaviour by bringing him back to their initial question (lines 3-22) and then, in a second instance, attempt to deny him his answering turn and allocate it to another debater, Marino Keulen (lines 23-27). However, Annemans persists with his speaking turn showing
239
little orientation to or acknowledgement of these actions as power claims. To the contrary, he orients himself to the journalist-presenters’ interruptive interventions as violation of his speaking rights, by making a very strong claim for turn continuation (“do not interrupt me all the time”, line 5). Based on this extract, which shows an overt departure by Annemans from the normative power relationships, one might consider that the politician had the upper hand in deciding over the sequential organisation of the interaction, despite the several power claims of the journalist-presenters. However, based on the rather irritated reaction of the other politician, Marino Keulen (from line 28 onwards), Annemans’ behaviour comes across as a departure from the normative system. Twice Keulen urges Annemans to “let other people speak”(lines 28 and line 29) and, in doing so, orients to Annemans’ behaviour as disturbing and as violating the ‘normal’ interactional relationships and underlying rules of ‘doing a debate’. When taking these counter-resources, both covert and overt, into account in the question of how the structurally determined procedural legitimacy of journalist-presenters is performed at an interactional level, it quite rapidly becomes clear that the issue of power in political television talk is much more complex than merely the journalist-presenters straightforwardly pushing through their normative power positions. Figure 7.1 illustrates this clearly, by showing how both journalist-presenters and politicians have a number of interactional options available to accomplish, negotiate, or resist control over the procedural development of their on-air interactions. Rather than serving the purpose of providing an exhaustive and closed list of possible resources and counter-resources for journalist-presenters and politicians to perform or negotiate procedural control in political television talk, the figure furnishes the observation that politicians are far from powerless social actors in political television talk but can, through the strategic management and performance of a number of interactional practices, gain control over the interactional development themselves. Just as much as journalist-presenters can call upon a repertoire of interactional resources (i.e. turn-allocating markers, “one-at-a-time” pleas, and equal turn-distribution claims) to perform the procedural aspects of their interactional power, so can politicians draw on a number of counter-resources that allow them to – either covertly or overtly – challenge, negotiate or resist
240
the journalist-presenters’ floor-control and, thusly, to strategically sidestep the structural asymmetries.
Figure 7.1: Journalist-presenters’ and politicians’ procedural (counter-)resources
7.2.2 TOPICAL LEGITIMACY
In some of the above extracts, the journalist-presenters interrupt not only to (re-)claim power over the procedural development of the talk, but also to (re-)claim control over its topical development. Next to giving access to procedural entitlements in the interaction, the journalist-presenters’ role as interactional manager also provides them with powerful legitimacy to control the topics under debate. From their sub-role as questioners, journalist-presenters can control the interactional agenda through their privileged access to questioning turns and according third turns (e.g. Bilmes, 1999: 228; Ekström, 2001: 565; Ekström, 2007a: 968; Hutchby, 2006: 33). In the data, journalist-presenters routinely appear to be making use of two interactional resources to (re-)claim control over the agenda and keep all involved attuned to the subject: agenda-orientation claims and agenda-anticipation claims. Agenda-orientation claims can be thought of as those assertions made by journalist-presenters by which they intend to urge politicians to stick to the
INTERACTIONAL POWER
PROCEDURAL LEGITIMACY
RESOURCES JOURNALIST-PRESENTERS
TURN-ALLOCATING
MARKERS
"ONE-AT-A-TIME" CLAIMS
EQUAL TURN-DISTRIBUTION
CLAIMS
COUNTER-RESOURCES POLITICIANS
COVERT
RULE-ORIENTATION
ENUMERATION
QUESTION-IN-ANSWER
BODY LANGUAGE
OVERT
SELF-SELECTING
IGNORING INTERRUPTION
S
TOPICAL LEGITIMACY
FRAMING LEGITIMACY
241
subject. Through agenda-anticipation claims, journalist-presenters make reference to the pre-established agenda and indicate the pre-planned nature of the topical organisation of the television talk, as a resource to signpost their agenda-setting authority and hold control of the topical development of the interaction. These resources are not seldom combined into one and the same turn-at-talk. The extracts below are examples of how journalist-presenters can accomplish their topical legitimacy through the combined use of agenda-orientation and agenda-anticipation claims.
(7.15) De Zevende Dag, 26 March 2006
JP: Marc Van de Looverbosch
1 JP: [yes we immediately] continue on with the law on flying or
2 otherwise we fly away from the subject I think (.) hh:: Luk Van
3 Biesen VLD Member of Parliament hh:: you also live in the
4 neighbourhood you know the problem (.) a quick decision is
5 necessary (.)
(7.16) De Zevende Dag, 22 January 2006
JP: Goedele Devroy
1 JP: We will deal with the recruiting system la::ter on but let me
2 now come to the bo::nus that is given to employers who recruit
3 persons over fifty hh:: a bonus from four hundred to hundred
4 euro per month net hh:: that is what your prime minister always
5 wanted
In these extracts, the journalist-presenters attempt to orient politicians to their agenda by controlling the current topic – agenda-orientation – as well as giving markers about subsequent topics – agenda-anticipation – (e.g. the law on flying in extract 7.15 and the recruiting system in extract 7.16). In doing so, journalist-presenters give the impression that the overall topical organisation of the interaction is pre-arranged, closed and exclusively under their control. In the next extract, the journalist-presenter makes concrete reference to the pre-established order of the topics - “points” - to be dealt with (“the second point”, line 1; “the last point”, line 5). This is a clear indication within the interaction that topics are pre-established and that it is the journalist-presenter’s role to tackle each and every one of them, preferably in the predetermined order.
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(7.17) De Zevende Dag, 30 April 2006
JP: Guy Janssens
1 JP: Okay hh::: we proceed to the second point (.) We shortly look
2 fo::rward hh:: tomorrow is the first of May hh:: the red
3 he::yday hh:: Mr Vandelanotte you will turn healthcare into a
4 hot issue in your speech hh:: I hear (.) why::?
… ((politician answers))
5 JP: I go to the last point (.) Mr Vandeurzen hh:: yesterday you have
6 … ((question continues))
NEGOTIATING TOPICAL LEGITIMACY: POLITICIANS’ COUNTER-RESOURCES
By asking questions, journalist-presenters establish a normative obligation for politicians to answer these questions properly, and to adhere to the pre-set topic. Consequently, politicians are normatively rather restricted in their role as respondents and, often, are in the difficult interactional situation of finding a balance between providing a proper answer to a question, while also making a good impression on their electorate. However, rather than creating a simple powerful-powerless dichotomy, this situation can generate a curious dynamism in the negotiation of topical power. This is because, far from being a static certainty, the politicians’ production of appropriate answers is a completely local accomplishment (e.g. Ten Have, 2004: 67). As discussed earlier (cfr. Chapter 4) and as a derivative of their wider institutional objectives in the interaction, politicians are routinely equivocal in the production of their answers (e.g. Bavelas et al., 1990; Bull, 2002; Bull & Fetzer, 2006; Harris, 1991; Martel & Turbide, 2005). They exploit a number of strategic resources to negotiate, resist or reproduce the journalist-presenters’ agenda-setting legitimacy. Yet again, it would seem that politicians can appeal upon both covert and overt ways to counter the journalist-presenters’ legitimacy to, in this case, control the topical development of the talk. Three resources stand out in this respect: shortly meeting the question, irrelevancy claims, and explicit distancing. In a covert manner, politicians may respond briefly to the question before realising an agenda-shift or voicing claims of irrelevancy. By shortly meeting the question put by the journalist-presenter before changing topic,
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politicians can challenge the journalist-presenters’ topical power in an often-unnoticed manner. They then address the question in just a few words, using the rest of their turn to get their preferred message across. Remarkably, politicians almost habitually make use of irrelevancy claims in order to make this shift from appropriately answering the question, to changing the topic. They then typically challenge the relevance of a journalist-presenter’s question to the topic under discussion, as the main motivation for shifting the agenda. Irrelevancy claims are described in Muntigl and Turnbull (1998: 129) as a particular “type of disagreement by which a speaker asserts that the previous claim is not relevant to the topic at hand”.57 The following extracts are examples of the intertwining of a very brief response to a question and relevancy challenges, as strategic resources for negotiating topic control.
(7.18) Terzake 09, 18 May 2009
JP: Lieven Verstraete P2: Geert Bourgeois (N-VA)
P1: Hans Verreyt (Vlaams Belang)
1 JP: Is a correctional slap acceptable?
2 P1: Yes hh:: I think that indeed from time to time hh:: a correction
3 from time to time does not do any ha::rm and for a child that is
4 a slap on the wrist and for a somewhat older person it will be
5 another punishment
6 JP: [Mr Bour]gois?
7 P2: But I::: of course that still has to be acceptable but that is
8 not what it is about I think that if we are talking about
9 decency that it is mainly about teaching an attitude from an
10 early stage respect for the other (.) … ((answer continues))
In this debate on the central theme of ‘decency’, the journalist-presenter wants to find out the politicians’ standpoints on the acceptability of a correctional slap administered by a teacher. First, the journalist-presenter addresses Hans Verreyt, a member of the extreme-right party Vlaams Belang, to sound him out. After Verreyt’s clear approval (lines 2-5), the journalist-presenter relies on his procedural control position as moderator to allocate a turn to Geert Bourgeois, a member of the Flemish nationalist party N-VA, to allow him to take a position on the issue (line 6). However, Bourgeois clearly has more
57 Similarly, Goodwin (1990: 153) speaks of “disclaimers” to appoint those interactional practices that contain a denial of the
relevance of a prior action or prior contribution.
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difficulty with providing a clear-cut answer, and relies on the strategy of a relevance challenge to shift attention away from a question that potentially will be damaging to his reputation. After a very short response to the question (“of course that still has to be acceptable”, line 7), Bourgeois strategically shifts the agenda by focusing on the irrelevance of the question (“but that is not what it is about”, lines 7-8) and then redefining its essence (“I think…that it is mainly about…”, lines 8-9). The next extract is similar, but in this case the politician’s evasive behaviour is attacked by the journalist-presenter, who urges the politician to provide an answer to her question.
(7.19) Terzake 09, 19 May 2009
JP: Kathleen Cools
P: Geert Lambert (SLP)
1 JP: [just a moment I] want to hear you now (.) with the words of
2 Frank Vandenbroucke about whether or not to participate in the
3 policy hh:: does it actually makes a difference if sp.a is in
4 government?
5 P: But I would I would want to paraphrase Frank Vandenbroucke hh::
6 I would like to support his policy as he expressed it just
7 earlier and his opposition to tha:::t hh:: tax reduction that is
8 unjust as he announces but what is fundamentally the question on
9 June 7 is if we are also going to have a presence of creativity
10 in Parliament (.) I notice that in my::: party we came forward
11 with proposals three years ago to for instance lower the age of
12 compulsory educa::tion hh::: that was resisted at that time from
13 your side hh:: today hh:: fortunately, I see it is in your
14 manifesto (.) that is a good thing there are renewing ideas=
15 JP: [Yes Mr Lambert Mr=
16 P: =required in the debate and that
17 JP: =Lambert is sp.a:::: necessary] in government?
18 P: We- an sp.a of which you do not know what you are buying from it
19 is unfortunately not necessary … ((answer continues))
The journalist-presenter, Kathleen Cools, is determined to find out whether or not Geert Lambert, the leading figure at the time in the Flemish social-liberal party (SLP)58, supports the social-democratic party’s (sp.a) participation in government after the 7 June 2009 elections (lines 1-3). In his answering turn, 58 At the end of 2009, SLP merged with Flemish green party Groen! into one party.
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Geert Lambert achieves a topic shift by first briefly responding to the question (lines 5-8) and then producing an implicit irrelevance claim by working on and re-defining the question (“but what is fundamentally the question”, line 8). By re-formulating the question into whether or not there will be enough “creativity” (line 9) in government, Geert Lambert seizes the opportunity to highlight the strength of his own party as a “creative” party, and to re-locate attention from the social-democratic party to his and his party’s achievements in parliament. His shift in focus does not go unnoticed, and the journalist-presenter interrupts the politician to confront him with a reformulation of her initial question (lines 15-17). Eventually, the politician produces a straightforward answer in which he claims that social-democratic participation in government is “not necessary” (line 19). More overt strategies for resisting the journalist-presenters’ topical legitimacy involve the explicit distancing of politicians from the journalist-presenters’ agenda and blatant pushing of their own topics, thereby straightforwardly resisting the journalist-presenters’ intended agenda. The data provide few examples of politicians resorting to such direct resisting moves. However, the following extract shows a politician explicitly refusing to face the journalist-presenters’ question and continuing with his own agenda.
(7.20) De Zevende Dag, 22 January 2006
P: Jean-Marie Dedecker (VLD)
JP: Goedele Devroy
1 P: …the problem is the educa::tional levels hh:: the problem is
2 hh:: your figures show it Mr Vandenbroucke (.) you said it
3 yourself fo::rty two of the immigrants leave school withou::t a
4 diplo::ma hh:: I have figures of the
5 JP: [there are also a lot of] people who do have a
6 diploma and yet cannot find work
7 P: [No Mrs I will] not answer that hh:: figures
8 of the CBS Netherlands show that immigrants of the same
9 educa::tional level … ((answer continues, cfr. extract 7.6))
The above extract shows the politician, Jean-Marie Dedecker, clearly refusing to answer the journalist-presenter’s statement-question. The journalist-presenter interrupts his turn, to refute his position with a counter-argument.
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While Dedecker could have evaded the journalist-presenter’s intervention using other, more subtle resources, he explicitly refuses to answer (“No Mrs I will not answer that”, line 7) and continues with his argumentation. Judging from the journalist-presenters’ lack of the use of a ‘third turn’, the politician’s overt refusal to answer is quite effective in this case. As such, we can arrive at the following model (Figure 7.2), which shows that that both journalist-presenters and politicians can call upon a repertoire of interactional resources to negotiate topical control. In order to accomplish their agenda-setting duties in political television talk, journalist-presenters can fall back on a number of resources to steer and manage the interactions’ topical agenda. Through the repeated use of agenda-orientation and agenda-anticipation claims, journalist-presenters can keep politicians attuned to their intended and largely pre-established agenda and, thusly, can secure their grip on the conversational agenda of the broadcast talk. Almost as an inherently inscribed aspect of the organisation of political television talk, politicians have a number of strategic options available to configure the journalist-presenters’ topical authority into their own advantage to get the most out of their answering turns. As such, the journalist-presenters’ structurally determined legitimacy over the topical organisation of political television talk, as part of their role as interactional manager, is not simply to be reduced to an overall powerful position of journalist-presenters, but is contingent upon the interactional conduct and collaboration of politicians.
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Figure 7.2: Journalist-presenters’ and politicians’ topical (counter-)resources
7.2.3 FRAMING LEGITIMACY
When journalist-presenters introduce topics and ask questions, they inevitably bring into play a diversity of frames from which topics and contributions are proposed for interpretation. In posing questions, journalist-presenters have almost automatic legitimacy to decide about speaking frames and, by so doing, can exert considerable constraint on the domains in which politicians can act (e.g. Ekström, 2001: 565; Hutchby, 2006: 137). Also, against the background of their moderator sub-role, and with the overhearing audience in mind, journalist-presenters are responsible for keeping the debate and the positions taken, quite clear. Generally, the analysis indicates that journalist-presenters routinely appeal to three framing resources to facilitate, extract or define politicians’ standpoints: the use of contextualisations, supporter-versus-opponent frames, and simplified reformulations.
First, journalist-presenters regularly resort to contextualisations in their questions so as powerfully to pre-determine the politicians’ position on the particular topic.
INTERACTIONAL POWER
PROCEDURAL LEGITIMACY
TOPICAL LEGITIMACY
RESOURCES JOURNALIST-PRESENTERS
AGENDA-ORIENTATION
CLAIMS
AGENDA-ANTICIPATION
CLAIMS
COUNTER-RESOURCES POLITICIANS
COVERT
SHORTLY MEETING THE QUESTION
IRRELEVANCY CLAIMS
OVERT EXPLICIT DISTANCING
FRAMING LEGITIMACY
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(7.21) Terzake 09, 18 May 2009
JP: Kathleen Cools
1 JP: Yes Mr Dedecker (.) you as a true liberal
(7.22) Terzake 09, 20 May 2009
JP: Lieven Verstraete
1 JP: Yes Mr Vanhecke a citizen of Bruges who comes to work in
2 Brussels and who is Flemish nationalist (.) what is that person
3 to think he hears this?
(7.23) Terzake 09, 3 June 2009
JP: Lieven Verstraete
1 JP: hh:: Mrs De Baetzelier I start with you as hh:: starting
2 politician and as a mother hh:: do you agree with that
3 proposition or that fea::r that our children will have it harder
4 than us hh:: will be less fo::rtunate?
In providing the overhearing audience with background information on one or more aspects of the next speaker’s identity - i.e. “a true liberal” in extract 7.21, a “Flemish nationalist” who lives in Bruges and works in Brussels in extract 7.22, and a “starting politician” and “a mother” in extract 7.23, the journalist-presenter succeeds in immediately positioning that speaker’s standpoint in relation to the topic of the debate, whilst at the same time creating an a priori powerful contextual frame for that politician’s answer. Second, and similarly, journalist-presenters often rely on their framing legitimacy to create a supporter-versus-opponent frame in their questioning turns. They then attempt explicitly to frame the politicians’ standpoints as being either for or against the topic of the question or that central to the broader discussion.
(7.24) De Zevende Dag, February 19 2006
JP: Goedele Devroy
1 JP: Yes I go to Mr Verboven from the ABVV (.) The European
2 association of trade unions has called this Directive a major
3 victory for the employee but you are still against it hh::
4 why:::?
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The journalist-presenter integrates a strong framing claim in her question by a priori presenting the politician’s standpoint as being against a particular European Directive and then immediately confronting it with the position of an elite source, the European association of trade unions. In this way, she powerfully pre-sets the politician’s position while also creating a conflict narrative even before the politician has had the chance to take a position. As will become clear later in this chapter, the construction of a supporter-versus-opponent frame in political television talk is also related to the journalist-presenters’ responsibility as television producers to ensure a lively and entertaining television debate. Third, while the above examples show journalist-presenters pre-defining politicians’ positions as a part of their questioning turn, it appears that journalist-presenters also a posteriori can rely on their framing legitimacy as moderators to get positions straight and bring particular matters back into focus. More specifically, they can make use of their interactional right over a ‘third turn’ to make inferences and produce simplified re-formulations of politicians’ positions. Journalist-presenters then routinely interrupt politicians with utterances such as “in other words”, “so you say”, “so you plead for” to sharpen positions and frame standpoints.
(7.25) De Zevende Dag, 26 March 2006
P: Adelheid Byttebier (Groen!)
JP: Marc Van de Looverbosch
1 P: … so toda::y it is the politicians’ turn to take decisions and
2 JP: [So you clearly call for]
3 restarting the negotiations on a new distribution plan now
4 P: [But yes of course if we] are
5 going decide now to do nothing for two years...
(7.26) Terzake 09, 22 May 2009
P: Mieke Vogels (Groen!)
JP: Kathleen Cools
1 P: … I don’t think that we can afford fewer teachers at this moment
2 hh::: on the co::ntrary
3 JP: [So you] sa:::y actually we cannot economise (.)
4 in government?
5 P: Hhh::: I want to talk to everyone who can make a concrete
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6 proposal but I refu::se (.) to talk in empty words … ((answer
7 continues))
(7.27) Terzake 09, 29 May 2009
P: Hilde Crevits (CD&V)
JP: Kathleen Cools
1 P: ...our road network is not modern today hh:: the highways in
2 Flanders the ring roads in Flanders do not have real time signs
3 which means that if for instance there is heavy traffic you
4 cannot decide to lo::wer speed to avoid a kind of forced flow
5 of traffic to encourage a smoo::ther movement that is not yet
6 possible because it is not yet
7 JP: [Do you perhaps mean] that costs should be
8 redistributed and that sp.a has perhaps invested too::: much in
9 public transport?
10 P: No:: I think that good results have been achieved (.) when I
11 look at for instance the success story of the coastal tram that
12 is absolutely fantastic … ((answer continues))
In each of these extracts, the journalist-presenters routinely interrupt to interpret the politicians’ contributions by re-formulating the politicians’ positions in rather simplified versions – “so you clearly call for” (extract 7.25, line 2), “so you say” (extract 7.26, line 3), “do you perhaps mean” (extract 7.27, line 7). In doing so, they are able to claim a powerful control over the framing and interpretation of politicians’ contributions. Of course, this power is all but absolute since politicians have the possibility to either confirm (cfr. “but yes of course”, extract 7.25, line 4), evade (cfr. “I want to talk to everyone…”, extract 7.26, line 5) or deny (cfr. “No, I think that…”, extract 7.27, line 10) the journalist-presenters’ interpretations of their position.
NEGOTIATING FRAMING LEGITIMACY: POLITICIANS’ COUNTER-RESOURCES
Journalist-presenters’ interactional access to questioning turns, and follow-up or so-called ‘third’ turns, automatically also endows them with powerful and privileged access to framing resources within which to guide and influence interpretation and meaning-making processes. Politicians, as answerers, are normatively in a situation in which they will always be ‘second’ and,
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consequently, will always have to manoeuvre within an already established frame. Before exploring their more concrete manoeuvring possibilities, it should be noted that the framing power claims of journalist-presenters are not necessarily always disadvantageous for politicians. On the contrary, irrespective of whether politicians agree or disagree with the journalist-presenter’s framing moves, the latter’s attempts to frame and re-formulate politicians’ positions can create opportunities for politicians to their points of view and demarcate it from the views of interactional peer opponents. When politicians do not agree with the journalist-presenters’ constructed frame, they resort to various resources to negotiate, challenge or resist it. Overall, three resisting moves can be identified in the data: frame-negotiation, frame-correction and frame-opposition. While the boundaries between these forms of resistance are not always clearly delineated and often overlap, I choose to distinguish them here to show the different ways that politicians can negotiate pre-constructed frames as a clever means not only of clarifying their particular point of view, but, and in most cases, of negotiating and shifting the agenda. As a first covert interactional counter-resource, politicians can work on the underlying meaning of a proposed frame by means of frame-negotiation, as a subtle strategy to express disapproval and defend their position. The extract below makes it clear that the negotiation of framing legitimacy is necessarily closely connected to the negotiation of topical legitimacy. Not only does the journalist-presenter depend on her entitlements as questioner and moderator to claim both topical and framing power to press the politician to take a clear-cut position, the politician also employs a negotiation strategy that is directed to simultaneously resisting both this topical and framing legitimacy. At the moment of this debate, tempers were heated among Flemish right-wing politics. The interviewee, Jean-Marie Dedecker, is a liberal politician who, at the time, was in search of new political options because he had just been accepted (and was not long after rejected) as a member of the Flemish nationalist party N-VA. The journalist-presenter in this extract is determined to delve into what these options are, and highlights one, namely joining the extreme-right party Vlaams Belang. In the extract, the journalist-presenter’s agenda is clearly oriented towards letting the politician take a direct position towards this specific alternative and, therefore, exploits her
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topical and framing power positions. For the politician, providing a clear-cut answer to the rather challenging proposition of his joining Vlaams Belang could threaten his reputation and, potentially, could trigger political disaster. So Dedecker refuses to provide a direct answer to this yes/no-question and invokes strategies to side-step the journalist-presenter’s agenda and accompanying framing attempts. (7.28) De Zevende Dag, 10 December 2006
JP: Kathleen Cools
P: Jean-Marie Dedecker (N-VA)
1 JP: [yes indeed you are ho::meless now and] you have a big trauma
2 behind you (.) hhh:: do you still say you will never ever ever
3 join Vlaams Belang?
4 P: [I have I have] hhh::: I have some scars but I am not
5 traumatised (.) I come from the spo::rting world and I am a
6 strong person (.) …((answer continues))
7 P: … But I am absolutely not knocked out (.) I am disappointed=
8 JP: [no::]
9 P: =but I believe hhh:: I belie- and what I do believe in is that=
10 JP: [yes but answer the question now] [never joining Vlaams=
11 P: =centre-right changes hh: that there is a large market and that=
12 JP: =Belang Mr Dedecker?] [hhh:::]
13 P: =we instead of fighting must find each other in a positive way
14 JP: [Oka::y]
15 I’ll ask it again because I don’t get an answer (.) never ever
16 join Vlaams Belang?
17 P: Hhh::: I said never join Vlaams Belang … ((answer continues))
The journalist-presenter starts out with a provocative questioning turn. In the first part of the question, she creates a preliminary contextual frame in which she states, on her own initiative, that the politician is “homeless” now and has suffered “a big trauma” (line 1). In this way, she skilfully creates a framework for the subsequent part of her questioning turn: now that he has been tormented by his previous party and is left isolated, the politician might want to consider joining the extreme-right Flemish political party Vlaams Belang (“do you still say you will never ever ever join Vlaams Belang?”, lines 2-3). Through this question, the journalist-presenter exploits not only her topical power to make a legitimate evaluation of the politician’s situation and
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constrain the politician’s options in his answering turn by asking a challenging yes/no question, but also her framing power to pre-define the politician’s current state as homeless and traumatised. In answering, the politician had a number of possibilities to cope with this question. He could have answered straightforwardly – with a yes or a no; he could have refused to answer, stating it was both too early and inappropriate to voice a decision on this topic; or he could have criticised the journalist-presenter for violating her journalistic neutrality in the first part of her question. In this case, however, Dedecker chose to resist the journalist-presenter’s question by only shortly meeting the question: he briefly addresses the first part of the questioning and evades the more face-threatening second part: after refuting the frame created by the journalist-presenter of his being traumatised (“I have some scars but I am not traumatised”, lines 4-5), the politician attempts to make a topic shift in his answering turn by generalising the discussion to what centre-right politics means to him (from line 9). In this way, Dedecker skilfully negotiates and resists the journalist-presenter’s agenda-setting power and framing power. However, in lines 8 and 10, the journalist-presenter tries to re-negotiate her topical and framing power, and to re-balance the power relationships by interrupting Dedecker to press him to stick to her agenda and formulate a proper answer to her question. She does this by explicitly holding him accountable for not answering her question (“answer the question now”, line 10) and subsequently repeating her question (“never joining Vlaams Belang Mr Dedecker?”, lines 10-12). The politician seems to ignore both this re-orientation of the power asymmetries by the journalist-presenter, and her intervention, as he simply continues his resisting answering turn. In line 15, the journalist-presenter intervenes again, and in a more compelling manner. By producing the statement “I’ll ask it again, because I don’t get an answer” (line 15), she not only demonstrates that her questions have a powerful binding force with sequential implications, she also shows an orientation to the politician’s behaviour as departing from the normative. She presses the politician to address her yes/no question, which she reformulates in lines 15-16. The way that her interruptive turn in lines 15-16 is framed puts considerable constraints on the politician’s answering possibilities, not at least because she puts the politician in a position where further evasion would be damaging to him. Indeed, eventually, the politician
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resigns himself to the journalist-presenter’s power claim over the agenda and framing, and provides a straightforward and clear answer, confirming that he will never join the extreme-right party, Vlaams Belang (line 17). Politicians also can counter the journalist-presenters’ framing legitimacy through frame-correction. The politician then criticises the proposed frame and subsequently makes use of his or her answering turn to correct it. For instance, in the example below, the journalist-presenter builds up his questioning turn in such a way as first to introduce a new agenda-topic on nuclear energy (topical legitimacy) and then immediately to pre-define the politician’s position on the matter by exploiting a supporter-versus-opponent frame (framing legitimacy), by contrasting the government’s general position with that of the Christian-democratic politician, Jo Vandeurzen (“you say no, we cannot afford that”, lines 4-5). Judging from Vandeurzen’s ensuing turn construction from line 6 onwards, he resists this portrayal of his position as being against the closing down of nuclear plants and chooses to oppose it first by implicitly criticising the journalist-presenter for misinterpreting his position, and then shifting the agenda.
(7.29) De Zevende Dag, 30 April 2006
JP: Guy Janssens
P: Jo Vandeurzen (CD&V)
1 JP: ...Mr Vandeurzen (.) you said yesterday at a conference on
2 energy that we cannot just throw nuclear energy overboard
3 preci::sely what this purple government wants hh:: from 2015
4 onwards the plants should close down (.) you say no::: we cannot
5 afford that
6 P: That is what the press pulled out of it (.) it is about the
7 question of how we can keep the energy bill affo::rdable for the
8 customers the companies the individuals hh:: how we can
9 guarantee energy security how we can pursue an environmentally
10 ecologically intelligent energy policy and … ((answer
11 continues))
In line 6, Vandeurzen subtly criticises the journalist-presenter for misinterpreting his position and presenting an incorrect frame when he states that “the press” made some inferences from his position that apparently do not correspond to reality. How such a critique of a general collectivity to which the journalist-presenter is closely allied, can be used as a strategy for
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offering resistance, is discussed in more detail elsewhere in this chapter. It suffices for now to mention that it counts in this case as an indirect critique of the journalist-presenter’s comment and, as such, is an effective means for re-negotiating the established frames. Then, in a second instance, Jo Vandeurzen makes a topic shift by re-defining the discussion’s essence, and formulating a question himself (“it is about the question how we can…”, from lines 6 onwards). In so doing, he is invoking an irrelevancy claim to to lay claim to a turn continuation and to change the topic. While the politicians in the above extracts rely on more covert strategies to resist the journalist-presenter’s framing legitimacy, they can also more overtly challenge the frame that is being put forward, through frame-opposition. In that case, politicians not only criticise the image being portrayed of them but also hold the journalist-presenter directly accountable for misinterpretation or incorrect framing. Frame-oppositions by politicians can put journalist-presenters in difficult situations that potentially are damaging to their professional stance. In the following extract, for instance, two politicians resist the image as if they were (extreme-)right politicians. The first politician, Jean-Marie Dedecker, opposes the framing of him as an extreme-right politician; later, the second politician, Bart De Wever, who was and still is the chairman of the nationalist party N-VA, refuses to be framed as a right-wing politician.
(7.30) De Zevende Dag, 21 May 2006
JP: Ivan De Vadder P2: Bart De Wever (N-VA)
P1: Jean-Marie Dedecker (VLD)
1 JP: [yes because indeed] you very often get th- you are the
2 precursor of Vlaams Belang you are halfway you have one foot in
3 there some people say
4 P1: [No I am not halfway no] hh:: no Mr De Vadder because it is very
5 easy for your opponents hh:: because if you get Dedecker in that
6 extreme-right corner then you don’t have to give any arguments
7 anymore (.) then you can club him to death like people do with
8 Vlaams Belang (.) No I do::: propose solutions for … ((answer
9 continues))
10 JP: Mr De Wever hh:: did you from within your party have to make an
11 appeal to ban extremists?
12 P2: No (.) because I do not think we have extremists I am also
13 portrayed here as being a right wing politician but I would like
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14 to say that my party is a mainstream party … ((answer
15 continues))
In this extract, Dedecker and De Wever explicitly contest the frames presented by the journalist-presenter and take advantage of the moment to reframe their own position. In lines 1-3, the journalist-presenter creates an interactional frame in which the first politician, Jean-Marie Dedecker, is portrayed as having “one foot in” (line 2) the Flemish extreme-right party Vlaams Belang. In his answering turn, Dedecker explicitly resists the frame created by the journalist-presenter as if he would be at home “in that extreme-right corner” (lines 5-6). After the politician’s frame rebuttal, he exploits his turn to set out what his position actually is. It is not until Dedecker’s turn is completed, that the journalist-presenter again takes the floor to address the other politician, Bart De Wever, and ask whether he, from within his Flemish nationalist party (N-VA), had “to make an appeal to ban extremists” (lines 10-11). In his subsequent answering turn, De Wever, much similar to Dedecker’s frame-opposition, De Wever resists the portrayal as if he would be “a right wing politician” and negotiates a frame for his proper positions as belonging to “a mainstream party” (line 14). In short, the politicians’ frame oppositions in this extract are exemplary of how politicians can resist the framing power of journalist-presenters in a relatively explicit way and even use it as an opportunity to put their ‘genuine’ political positions or standpoint in the spotlights. In that way, politicians can counterbalance the established power positions in political broadcast talk and construct an interactional situation that is more advantageous for them. Figure 7.3 outlines the diverse ways in which the journalist-presenters’ structural framing legitimacy is claimed, vied for, negotiated and opposed at an interactional level by journalist-presenters and politicians in the present data. On the one hand, it appears that journalist-presenters can powerfully frame politicians’ contributions and positions in political television talk through the integration of contextualisations, supporter-versus-opponent frames, and simplified re-formulations in their questioning turns. On the other hand, these framing attempts by journalist-presenters must perhaps not be seen as necessarily disadvantageous to politicians, but might be a welcome opportunity for politicians to make known their viewpoints and sharpen their
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positions. The analysis shows that particularly frame-negotiation, frame-correction, or otherwise the more direct frame-opposition in that respect count as the prime resources for politicians to negotiate or resist established frames and re-frame proper positions.
Figure 7.3: Journalist-presenters’ and politicians’ framing (counter-)resources
Overall, it seems that the journalist-presenters’ role as interactional manager and their according sub-roles as questioner and moderator clearly arrange particular procedural, topical and framing entitlements to which journalist-presenters can claim privileged access to interactional power. While this might seem quite clear-cut at a structural level, the performance of these entitlements at an interactional level are very much contingent upon what journalist-presenters and politicians accomplish in their mutual interactions. Both of these participant types have a range of options available to either achieve or circumvent these structural power positions; options which probably even reach beyond the limited number of resources listed here. The next section examines how journalist-presenters and politicians interactionally deal with the journalist-presenters’ power as members and representatives of political journalism.
INTERACTIONAL POWER
PROCEDURAL LEGITIMACY
TOPICAL LEGITIMACY
FRAMING LEGITIMACY
RESOURCES JOURNALIST-PRESENTERS
CONTEXTUALISATIONS
SUPPORTER-VERSUS-OPPONENT FRAME
SIMPLIFIED RE-FORMULATIONS
COUNTER-RESOURCES POLITICIANS
COVERT
FRAME-NEGOTIATION
FRAME-CORRECTION
OVERT FRAME-OPPOSITION
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7.3 JOURNALIST-PRESENTERS AS POLITICAL JOURNALISTS:
PUBLIC POWER
Not only are journalist-presenters normatively responsible for a sound interactional management of the studio-based interactions, their professionalism also entails a duty to behave in line with the working principles of journalism. As political journalists, journalist-presenters need constantly to mediate between upholding a critical, adversarial and challenging stance towards politicians’ utterances and policies, and meeting the general ideological journalistic principle of neutrality. Their membership of the institution of journalism gives journalist-presenters a powerful legitimacy to take an adversarial stance towards politicians: they are legitimated to be critical in their questioning lines, to judge on the politicians’ truthfulness, and to hold them accountable in front of the overhearing audience. In terms of power, this legitimacy to be adversarial may be captured under the umbrella concept of ‘public power’. The journalistic neutrality-principle places an important restriction on the performance of this dimension of power: journalist-presenters have at all times to be careful in how they frame questions and moderate the debate, and are heavily dependent on the politicians’ collaboration to maintain their highly-valued neutrality.
7.3.1 LEGITIMACY TO BE ADVERSARIAL
To facilitate the accomplishment of their legitimacy to be adversarial and to facilitate management of the complex balance between being adversarial and being neutral, their political journalist role gives journalist-presenters access to a range of interactional resources. The analysis shows that journalist-presenters tend to fall back on third-party attributions as a strategic means of disassociating themselves from their utterances while continuing to adopt a critical posture. The relevance of attributions to safeguard journalistic neutrality, and the protection of a legitimate journalistic stance, have been acknowledged (see for instance Clayman, 1991, 1992, 2002, 2007; Dillon, 1990; Clayman & Heritage, 2002; Heritage, 1985; Heritage & Greatbatch,
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1991). Questions based on attributions have the potential particularly to present value-laden interpretations as neutral, commonsensical, or otherwise unavoidable. In the present data, I found that journalist-presenters perform their role requirements as political journalists and the inscribed legitimacy to be adversarial through the routine attribution of controversial opening statements or critical questions to other parties and, as a consequence, framing them as being raised by a relevant source such as another interactant, a relevant societal source or an anonymous collectivity. The extract below is an example of how journalist-presenters routinely and cleverly turn to previous speaker attributions as a means of critically challenging politicians and holding them responsible, while safeguarding their own neutralistic posture.
(7.31) Terzake 09, 22 May 2009
P1: Mieke Vogels (Groen!) P2: Steven Vanackere (CD&V)
JP: Kathleen Cools
1 P1: …But should there exist already at this moment a personal budget
2 hh:: and the CD&V has postponed it for the past five years then
3 you could give those two thousand hundred people with very
4 complex care requirements a budget and they would be able to
5 search for it themselves in order to meet their demands
6 JP: [Yes Mr Vanackere] you
7 have promised ve::ry much but did not deliver hh::
8 P2: [Yes but what I] cannot
9 leave unsaid is that of cou::rse Mieke Vogels has the honour to
10 … ((answer continues))
In lines 1-5, Mieke Vogels, a politician in the Flemish ecological party Groen!, denounces her debate opponent’s and his Christian-democratic party’s (CD&V) lack of action in outlining a concrete policy on personalised budgets.59 In line 6, the journalist-presenter interrupts to integrate this critique in her agenda and make it the topic of her interactional turn: she not only passes on Mieke Vogels’s challenge to the politician concerned, Steven
59 A personal budget (in Dutch, « persoonsgebonden budget ») is a form of subsidy through which persons with disability can
receive a funding to pay the services that assist them in their daily life. At the heart of this concept is the idea that disabled people can
be empowered to spend their budget as they choose, rather than receiving standardised support services commissioned by higher
authorities.
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Vanackere, but, judging from her choice of language, also holds Vanackere explicitly accountable for his past deeds. More specifically, the journalist-presenter relies on her journalistic sub-role as watchdog in confronting Vanackere with the critical observation that he has “promised very much but not delivered” (line 7). Since she merely builds on a critique already voiced by another of the politicians present, the journalist-presenter succeeds in directly challenging Steven Vanackere while disassociating herself from the actual statement. Similarly, journalist-presenters can attribute critical statements to other actors such as non-present societal actors as a means of meeting their institutional journalistic duties.
(7.32), Terzake 09, 20 May 2009
JP: Kathleen Cools
P: Guy Vanhengel (Open VLD)
1 JP: [Yes Mr Vanhengel Mr Vanhengel] may I submit a quote from the
2 well-known Louis Tobback hh:: Brussels is a bottomless barrel=
3 P: [YE::S]
4 JP: =and the Flemish people in Brussels are only Flemish people in
5 Brussels when we have to pay and when that happens they suddenly
6 are inhabitants of Brussels
7 P: But no (.) Brussels is not a bottomless barrel hh:: Brussels is
8 being financially governed in the same way as the rest of the
9 country … ((answer continues))
In this extract, the journalist-presenter presents the politician Guy Vanhengel with a quote from another, non-present politician, Louis Tobback. The quote, which challenges the financial dependence of Brussels on Flanders, is potentially damaging to the reputation of Guy Vanhengel, the then Brussels Minister of Finance. In quoting and confronting the responsible policy-maker with this critical statement, the journalist-presenter succeeds in making a shift and creating a distance between her uttered words and her personal opinion while, at the same time, fulfilling her journalistic sub-role of watchdog. In the subsequent response, the politician goes further into the premise of the involved citation, thereby confirming the journalist-presenter’s non-involvement and collaborating in the journalist-presenter’s performance of a neutral-but-critical professional identity.
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As a third variant of the third-party attribution strategy, journalist-presenters make regular use of anonymous collectivity attributions, through which they make reference to non-specified, anonymous collectivities in order to achieve and maintain a professional journalistic stance. In most cases, this collectivity pertains to “the people”, in whose name the journalist-presenters have the power and legitimation to speak from their sub-role as public servant (Clayman, 1991, 2002; Clayman & Heritage, 2002: Chapter 3). In extract 7.30 above, for instance, the journalist-presenter makes the highly critical observation that one of the politicians, Jean-Marie Dedecker, would correspond to the profile of a typical extreme-right politician and ultimately refers to “some people” (lines 2-4) who apparently agree with this opinion. Had this utterance been produced without this safeguard, the journalist-presenter would have run the risk of violating her journalistic neutralistic stance and would have opened the door for the politician to criticise her biased question and, by extension, to challenge the her performance of an appropriate media professional identity. Remarkably, and somewhat in contrast to the results of existing research on political broadcast talk, it would seem that the journalist-presenters in the analysed corpus do not always resort to such footing shifts in the form of third-party attributions when producing challenging or critical questions and statements. In fact, it seems to be a common and even legitimate act for journalist-presenters to take proper responsibility for their utterances by making own initiative statements. In the data analysed, the journalist-presenters regularly produce non-attributed provocative statements to incite politicians to speak out and demonstrate inconsistencies in their policies. The following is an extract from a debate on health care waiting lists. At this point, the discussion is about whether or not private initiatives for disabled persons could reduce waiting lists. When the Christian-democratic politician, Steven Vanackere, positions himself as opposed to this suggestion, the journalist-presenter appeals to her power as political journalist to call his opinion personally into question.
(7.33), Terzake 09, 22 May 2009
JP: Kathleen Cools
P: Steven Vanackere (CD&V)
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1 JP: [But then again Mr Vanackere] I think you have an extraordinary
2 problem (.) the waiting lists (.) this could be incredibly
3 helpful couldn’t it? And you just throw it away
4 P: [No:: because] those special
5 to put it that way (.) hh::: those people who are closest
6 … ((answer continues))
Judging from the general construction of her answering turn in this extract, the journalist-presenter is exploiting the power of her journalistic entitlements to call the politician’s opinion into question, in a very critical and adversarial manner. First, the journalist-presenter chooses to counter the politician’s position by making the provocative observation that he has an “extraordinary problem” (lines 1-2) in the form of existing health care waiting lists. She could have chosen to attribute this opinionated statement to, for instance, a general collectivity of ‘some people’ who think that way; however, she opts for personal responsibility regardless of potential breaches of her journalistic neutrality (“I think you have an extraordinary problem”, lines 1-2). Then, as a second part to her questioning turn, she pushes even further and constructs an adversarial challenge: when the alternative private initiative could be “incredibly helpful” (lines 2-3), the politician “just throw[s] it away” (line 3). Thus, she manages to create a powerful pre-constructed and adversarial journalistic frame that automatically places the politician on the defensive. In this extract, the politician collaborates with the journalist-presenter, in the sense that his answer does not criticise or attack the journalist-presenter for exceeding the limits of her professional neutrality and, instead, continues with a defence of his argumentation.
NEGOTIATING ADVERSARIAL LEGITIMACY: POLITICIANS’ COUNTER-RESOURCES
Accomplishment of a defensible journalistic stance involves the journalist-presenters not just drawing on different interactional resources; it also depends on the politicians collaborating in its achievement and maintenance. At an interactional level, politicians can, at any time, question the journalist-presenters’ legitimate position, and breach the journalist-presenters’ successful performance of their political-journalist-role. While the principle of neutrality constrains the journalist-presenters’ power positions, it appears
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that politicians can use it as an effective means for negotiating the pre-established power asymmetries in interaction. Politicians usually contribute to the maintenance of the journalist-presenter as neutral political journalist. However, precisely at those moments when the politicians resist the prevailing co-construction process, the importance to the journalist-presenter of achieving journalistic neutrality, and the concrete consequences for the power relationships between journalist-presenters and politicians become clear. For politicians, straightforward answers to unflattering, adversarial or hostile questions risk damage to their political and personal reputations, and they draw on particular strategic resources to reject offensive lines of questioning from journalist-presenters. Apart from the counter-resources already discussed in the previous sections, politicians often challenge the journalist-presenters’ neutrality and objectivity to evade adversarial questions and comments from journalist-presenters and destabilise the journalist-presenters’ structural and legitimated watchdog-role. The analysis shows that challenges to journalistic neutrality can occur within covert or more overt strategies of resistance. Both forms of resistance, aimed at evading the journalist-presenters’ adversarial comments or questions, can potentially counter and destabilise their professional stance. Covert resistance to the journalist-presenters’ institutional power, involves not direct accusations of bias or non-neutrality but critique of an anonymous collectivity such as “the press”, “the journalists” or “the media”. Politicians then can blame these collectivities for the continuing misrepresentation of the topic at hand or the misinterpretation of their position. In referring to such collectivities, politicians indirectly are accusing the journalist-presenters as members of these collectivities, for not representing a truthful version of the reality and, thus, violating their neutralistic stance. In the extract below, Filip Dewinter, a leading figure in the Flemish extreme-right party, Vlaams Belang, is confronted by an adversarial question from the journalist-presenter. In his subsequent answering turn, the politician resists the journalist-presenter’s public power by implicitly criticising the journalist-presenter’s neutrality. It is especially in the ‘third turn’ that the underlying power relationships and sensitivities at the level of journalistic neutrality become apparent, through the orientations of the journalist-presenter.
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(7.34) De Zevende Dag, 10 December 2006
JP: Kathleen Cools
P: Filip Dewinter (Vlaams Belang)
1 JP: Yes hh::: well hh:: (.) Mr Dewinter (.) hh:: you made that
2 proposal (.) I just want to come back to that (.) of that big
3 Flemish front (.) but again then you just kno::w what to do (.)
4 you have to hh:: hh:: yes to make it clear for everybody you
5 have to let go (.) yes:: your migrant discourse for instance
6 but then you have problems with your grass roots
7 P: I don’t have to do anything (.) I certainly I certainly don’t
8 have to do what politicians of other partie::s want me to do
9 (.) or what journalists think I should do (.) or what people
10 who don’t belong to my party think I should do hhh:::: I have=
11 JP: [I’m just playing devil’s=
12 P: =to do what the voters ask of me (.) there are one million=
13 JP: =advocate]
14 P: = Flemish people that vote for us … ((answer continues))
In the first turn, the journalist-presenter confronts the politician with a provocative statement on her own initiative. Instead of attributing responsibility for her question to a relevant ‘other’, such as another politician, an expert or the public, the journalist-presenter claims on her own initiative that the politician will have to refrain from his traditional “migrant discourse” (line 5) if he wants to effectuate his ambition to form a single Flemish front (lines 1-6). The term “migrant discourse” is threatening to the maintenance of the journalistic norm of objectivity, as can be detected in the journalist-presenter’s orientation to this term, since she clearly hesitates before articulating the term (“hh::: h:: yes::”, line 4). This might be an example of an attempt at self-repair, of the journalist-presenter attempting to select a different, more appropriate and less risky, term. However, in order to “make it clear for everybody” (line 4), she uses the loaded term on her own initiative. As an alternative to searching for a ‘softer’ version of the term “migrant discourse”, the journalist-presenter could have opted to assign it to an undefined group of ‘some people’ who estimate the politician’s party using “migrant discourse”. Just as the journalist-presenter can choose among different options, the politician as well has a range of powerful choices in his answering turn. For instance, he could have opted to deny or ignore the underlying adversarial tone of the question, and capitalise on it in his
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answering turn. He could have openly countermanded the journalist-presenter’s neutrality and criticised her personally. However, the politician chooses not to make it personal and broadens his critique to “politicians of other parties” (line 8) and “journalists” (line 9) who are not in the appropriate position to dictate what he or his party should do. In referring to the general collectivity of “journalists” who are not in a position to judge him, and contrasting this with his party’s large electorate (“I have to do what the voters ask of me”, “there are one million Flemish people that vote for us”, lines 10-14), the politician succeeds in constructing a legitimate position from which he can circumvent the question without criticising the journalist-presenter personally. This strategy of creating a bad image of the journalist-presenter and contrasting it with a positive one of oneself by referring to the party’s members and voters, seems to be typical of the behaviour in interview of extremist politicians (cfr. Simon-Vandenbergen, 2008: 356). When taking account of the journalist-presenter’s reaction to the politician’s adversarial turn, it becomes clear that the journalist-presenter also perceives or orients to that turn as intimidating to her neutrality. In a ‘third turn’, the journalist-presenter defends herself by referring to her structural role of ‘watchdog’ or “devil’s advocate” in an attempt to legitimate her accusatory questioning line (lines 11-13), bringing the implicit negotiation of power to an explicit and manifest level. In other words, by presenting herself as just a representative of the institution of journalism, the journalist-presenter can create a certain institutional authority from which to support and defend her actions in the debate. Besides criticising an anonymous collectivity for its alleged misinterpretation, politicians can also choose to critique the journalist-presenter’s personal misinterpretation more directly. In that case, they resist the journalist-presenter’s power position as political journalist by more straightforwardly calling the journalist-presenter’s neutrality into question.
(7.35) De Zevende Dag, 11 June 2006
JP: Kathleen Cools
P: Fons Borginon (VLD)
1 JP: hh:: Fons Borginon group leader for VLD in the House of
2 Representatives (.) hh:: Herman Van Rompuy already said it (.)
3 the most striking upsurge came from you::r chairman Bart Somers
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4 about restricting unemployment benefits over time (.)
5 increa:sing them a bit but restricting them over time (.) small
6 detail the Prime Minister blew the whistle on him (.) painful
7 P: Well no:: I think you misunderstood that hh: the Prime Minister=
8 JP: [Yes?]
9 P: =only made clear tha- that no no that that the government=
10 JP: [Then I and many others have misunderstood it]
11 P: =already has some plans today and that of course the plan of Mr
12 Somers … ((answer continues))
In this debate, the journalist-presenter is criticised by the politician following the former’s reference to existing inconsistencies among members of the latter’s party. Specifically, the journalist-presenter makes use of a footing shift by challenging the politician with a third party attribution (“Herman Van Rompuy already said it”, line 2) to Fons Borginon, who is in an allegedly “painful” (line 6) situation within the politician’s liberal party, also the party of the prime minister. Rather than immediately addressing and refuting this observation, Borginon chooses first to criticise the journalist-presenter for having “misunderstood” (line 7) the situation. By so doing, he is challenging the journalist-presenter’s competence to make truthful observations and, consequently, her professional journalistic posture. As is blatantly obvious from the journalist-presenter’s subsequent reaction, the politician has managed to counterbalance the journalist-presenter’s legitimacy to be adversarial. For example, in line 10, the journalist-presenter orients to Borginon’s remark as a challenge to her neutralistic posture, by claiming defensively that she is not alone in her opinion, and pointing out that “many others” (line 10) share her views, thereby legitimating her earlier comment. To recapitulate, from their institutional role as political journalists, journalist-presenters can appeal to a particular public power when interacting with politicians: they have a normative legitimacy to adopt an adversarial stance towards politicians in their questioning turn. As shown in Figure 7.4, journalist-presenters can appeal upon a variety of interactional resources to accomplish and defend their public power position in political television talk. They can afford to adopt a critical posture towards politicians and hold them accountable through the production of adversarial questions and statements that are either attributed to other parties – i.e. previous speakers, non-present societal actor, or anonymous collectivities – or more directly prompted on
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own initiative. However, at the same time, it is important to acknowledge that, from all the identified power dimensions in political talk, this is perhaps the most vulnerable one for journalist-presenters for two reasons. First, journalist-presenters are bound to the principle of journalistic neutrality, which clearly arranges a couple of restrictions to the journalist-presenters’ straightforward performance of public power in political television talk. Second, given the politicians’ high external status and membership of the institution of politics, journalist-presenters are certainly not the only ones who can appeal upon public power in the debate. Politicians as well can call upon an affiliation with a highly valued public institution to justify and defend their position within the broadcast talk. Consequently, politicians are relatively well equipped when it comes to negotiating public power in the interaction. This is also evident from the interactional analysis, which shows that politicians do not shrink from directly criticising journalist-presenters for overstepping the boundaries of their journalistic professionalism, either through covert – i.e. directing critique towards an anonymous collectivity – or more overt – i.e. directly accussing the journalist-presenter of a personal misinterpretation – interactional practices. Remarkably in that respect is that politicians appear to be resorting to more or less the same strategic resources to challenge the journalist-presenters’ legitimacy to be adversarial, than journalist-presenters do to yield that legitimacy. Just as journalist-presenters can refer to collectivities as a means to critically question politicians while protecting a neutralistic stance, so can politicians refer to collectivities to critically question journalist-presenters’ professional stance; and just as journalist-presenters can take personal responsibility to critically question politicians, so can politicians take personal responsibility to critically question journalist-presenters.
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Figure 7.4: Journalist-presenters’ and politicians’ adversarial (counter-)resources
7.4 JOURNALIST-PRESENTERS AS TELEVISION PRODUCERS:
MEDIA-CULTURAL POWER
Their membership of a broadcasting institution means that journalist-presenters function largely according to the working principles and methods of a particular broadcaster. Whether the broadcaster has a private or public mission, the production and airing of a media product cannot be separated from interest in reaching the maximum audience. Much of this responsibility in media talk shows rests on the journalist-presenter’s ability to act as a television producer who can maintain the programme and make it attractive and interesting. The journalist-presenters’ role as television producer gives them access to, what we could call, a ‘media-cultural power’, i.e. a power to act according to the working principles of our contemporary media culture. The present analysis shows that the journalist-presenters’ of De Zevende Dag and Terzake 09 accomplish this media-cultural power through their routine orientation to two entitlements: (1) a legitimacy to search for conflict; (2) a legitimacy to search for simplification. The ensemble of these entitlements seems to facilitate opportunities to make an impact and put a mark on the progress of the interaction and has, therefore, high potential for strengthening the journalist-presenters’ power position in the studio interactions.
PUBLIC POWER LEGITIMACY TO BE ADVERSARIAL
RESOURCES JOURNALIST-PRESENTERS
PREVIOUS SPEAKER ATTRIBUTIONS
NON-PRESENT SOCIETAL ACTOR
ATTRIBUTIONS
ANONYMOUS COLLECTIVITY ATTRIBUTIONS
OWN INITIATIVE STATEMENTS
COUNTER-RESOURCES POLITICIANS
COVERT ANONYMOUS COLLECTIVITY
CRITIQUE
OVERT PERSONAL
MISINTERPRETATION CRITIQUE
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7.4.1 LEGITIMACY TO SEARCH FOR CONFLICT
First, journalist-presenters often search for contradiction and conflict, not only in the reciprocal relationships among the politicians in the studio but also in the politicians’ respective policies and activities, and the politicians’ relationships with fellow, non-present party members. As already touched upon in the framing part of this chapter, it is the journalist-presenters’ duty as moderators to demarcate the different positions in the debate, and to facilitate this positioning through questioning and turn-distributing activities. In their role as television producers and the underlying responsibility to attract and sustain audience attention, journalist-presenters have everything to gain from generating polarised positions and conflict. Through the active endorsement of “conflict talk” (Grimshaw, 1990; Hutchby, 1996), journalist-presenters can build tension, demarcate positions and provoke lively discussion, all aspects that entertain audiences. In their interactions with politicians, journalist-presenters appeal to a number of resources to stimulate contradiction and conflict in the broadcast talk. Recognition of emotional expressions and body language, also discussed as a counter-resource in the section on procedural power, works as a useful means to achieve this clear-cut positioning. In describing a politician as ‘nodding enthusiastically’, ‘shaking his head’, or ‘making the most worrying faces’ (cfr. extracts 7.11, 7.12 and 7.13), journalist-presenters exert their power to pit the politicians against each other. The same counts for the already-dealt-with resource of simplified re-formulations. By re-formulating politicians’ positions in rather simplified versions, journalist-presenters exert not only their interactional power to influence the framing of politicians’ standpoints but also their media-cultural power to stimulate contradiction and conflict in the debate by demarcating sharp positions. Also, the ritually adopted supporter-versus-opponent frame, which was discussed in relation to the journalist-presenters’ framing resources, can be seen as a skilful means for journalist-presenters to frame the politicians’ positions, and to frame them in such a way that the interaction is presented as a discussion between clearly demarcated supporters and opponents. By so doing, journalist-presenters not only accomplish their framing responsibility as moderators, they also fulfil their media-cultural responsibilities as television producers by creating a
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conflict narrative and fostering lively discussion. In the following extracts, the journalist-presenters facilitate conflict talk by positioning the politicians into neatly defined camps of either “opponents” (extract 7.36, line 1) or “supporter(s)” (extract 7.37, line 1).
(7.36) De Zevende Dag, 22 January 2006
JP: Goedele Devroy
1 JP: Okay, I now go to the opponents
(7.37) De Zevende Dag, 22 October 2006
JP: Guy Janssens
P: Geert Lambert (SLP)
1 JP: [So] you are a supporter of such a crisis manager?
2 P: I am a supporter of someone who screens things externally, but
3 at the same time … ((answer continues))
As the next example demonstrates, the creation of such conflict frames does not always have to be this explicit. The extract involves a discussion around the central theme of decency in Flemish politics. The journalist-presenter is determined to sound out the position of one of the present politicians, Geert Bourgeois, on some recent actions of the other present politician, Jean-Marie Dedecker. The journalist-presenter more specifically wants to know whether Bourgeois thinks Dedecker is “doing politics in a decent manner” (lines 2-3) when the latter called upon a private detective for shadowing a politician from another party.
(7.38) Terzake 09, 18 May 2009
JP: Lieven Verstraete P2: Jean-Marie Dedecker (LDD)
P1: Geert Bourgeois (N-VA)
1 JP: Mr Bourgeois, let I start with you with a bit of a personal
2 question hh:: do you deem Jean-Marie Dedecker to be doing
3 politics in a de::cent manner?
4 P1: But then you are undoubtedly talking about what happened
5 recently with with the case hh:: Vynck with with the::: private
6 detective yes the case Vynck one of his parliamentarians was
7 bought away in a manner that I absolutely reject. That that
8 that defies every decency that they do not only promise that man
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9 an electable position what is actually common in politics but
10 also ( )
11 JP: [hh:: yes but now you say that Bart Somers isn’t decent] is
12 Jean-Marie Dedecker decent then?
13 P1: Well hh:: I can hh:: I think that you are talking about those
14 two cases and if I mention the private detective then I say
15 those are not ou::r our forms of action that is not our style
16 (.) He has the right he has the duty the duty to::: control the
17 executive power he delivers a dossier of which he says this is
18 not correct this has to be examined (.) When you do this as a
19 parliamentary by means of a private detective hh:: well he ma::y
20 it is legal but it is not my style I think that is hh:: I think
21 that is exaggerated
22 JP: [Yes hh:: and] yet yet Mr Dedecker you are often accused of
23 scandal hunting hh:: eventually that is no longer decent
24 P2: O:: but I hh::: ((laughs)) I I do not cause scandals (.) let-
25 look in the case Moerman I didn’t gave the consultancy
26 assignments I brought them to light hh:: … ((answer continues))
Judging from the journalist-presenters’ sequence constructions, he leaves little or no room for refinement from the politician’s part: when Bourgeois evades the conflict-seeking question (lines 4-10 and lines 13-21), even after the journalist-presenter has interrupted him to re-formulate the initial question (lines 11-12), the journalist-presenter addresses the other politician, Dedecker, to confront him with the critical assertion that, “yet”, he is “often accused of scandal hunting” and the observation – on the journalist-presenter’s own initiative – that that “is no longer decent” (lines 22-23). Clearly, the journalist-presenter’s construction of his questioning turns in this extract is oriented towards the creation of an internal conflict situation among the two present debaters. The journalist-presenter therefore calls upon his media-cultural power through which it is ought legitimate to be this confrontational and push his journalistic legitimacy to be adversarial to its limits.
NEGOTIATING CONFLICT-SEEKING LEGITIMACY: POLITICIANS’ COUNTER-RESOURCES
Politicians have a number of options available to resist the journalist-presenters’ legitimacy to search for conflict, most of which have already been dealt with in relation to the previous power dimensions. In covert ways,
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politicians can negotiate or correct the conflict frame that is constructed for them by the journalist-presenter. For instance, in extract 7.38 above, Dedecker refuses to accept the image constructed by the journalist-presenter as if he would lack political decency because of his “scandal hunting” (line 23) through the use of frame-correction. At the start of his answering turn, Dedecker mentions that he does “not cause scandals” (line 24) but instead brings “them to light” (line 26). In that way, the politician can resist the constructed conflict-frame and take it as a welcome chance to defend and expound on his proper position. Also, in that same extract, the other present politician, Geert Bourgeois, is reluctant to cooperate in the conflict frame that the journalist-presenter raises of his debate opponent. In both of his answering turns, Geert Bourgeois resorts to, what we might call, a frame-evasion strategy to circumvent the conflict situation to which the journalist-presenter is alluding: he first shifts focus to the political behaviour of another, non-present politician – Bart Somers (lines 4-10) and then, after the journalist-presenter has brought him back to the case of Dedecker, at best distances himself from the actions of Dedecker by asserting that those are not his or his party’s “style” (line 15 and line 20) and perhaps are “exaggerated” (line 21). In this way, Bourgeois evades to go along in formulating explicit critiques on the political actions of his fellow debater, despite the journalist-presenter’s several conflict-seeking attempts. In a more overt way, politicians can resist the journalist-presenters’ media-cultural legitimacy to provoke conflict through frame-opposition. They then explicitly contest the proposed conflict frame, as is for instance clear from the following example. In the extract, the journalist-presenter clearly intends to fish for potential internal contradictions within the Flemish liberal party, Open VLD of which the interviewee, Fientje Moerman, is a member. When the journalist-presenter confronts Moerman’s positions with that of her fellow party member, Karel De Gucht, Moerman quite fiercely opposes the journalist-presenter’s attempt to juxtapose positions within the liberal party. (7.39) Terzake 09, 25 May 2009
JP: Lieven Verstraete
P: Fientje Moerman (Open VLD)
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1 JP: Mrs Moerman you just said the voter will have to decide but if
2 Karel De Gucht then says this weekend (.) if it is with the
3 socialists you can keep it hh:: isn’t it so then that in
4 practice the party leaders have already decided?
5 P: No no the voter will decide on June 7 what will happen and let
6 us then look wha- what will effectively happen in the end
7 JP: [O:::r did Karel De] Gucht
8 didn’t speak in name of the party leaders?
9 P: Yes no you certainly cannot put these words in my- in my mouth
10 hh::one may wish for lots of things but let us wait until June 7
11 to see what the results are hh:: I am very cautious on that
12 point … ((answer continues))
As is common in times of elections, the journalist-presenter in this extract is determined to find out the preferable post-electoral tracks for Open VLD, Moerman’s liberal party. He more specifically calls into question Moerman’s earlier statement about “the voter” having “to decide” (line 1) the composition of the Flemish political landscape and contradicts it with a re-formulation of a statement of the non-present liberal, Karel De Gucht, who already made explicit his reticence about a coalition with the Flemish social-democratic party (“if it is with the socialists you can keep it”, lines 2-3). In creating this opposition between Moerman’s statements and those of her direct party colleague, the journalist-presenter not only challenges the reliability of the politician’s statements against the background of his political journalist role, but also creates a powerful in-party conflict frame for the liberal party by means of which he can both critically challenge the politician and provoke tension. In first instance, Moerman tries to evade the assumption as if there is a disagreement within her party, but when the journalist-presenter interrupts to make this assumption explicit (“or did Karel De Gucht didn’t speak in name of the party leaders?”, lines 7-8), she doesn’t hesitate to overtly oppose the journalist-presenter’s insinuation. By stating that the journalist-presenter “certainly cannot put these words in my [her] mouth” (line 9), she formulates a direct critique at the address of the journalist-presenter. Figure 7.5 schematises the analysed repertoire of interactional options available to journalist-presenters and politicians to provoke or otherwise resist a conflictuous atmosphere in political television talk. As television producers, journalist-presenters regularly call upon a legitimacy to trigger
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contradiction and conflict in the debate, either among the participating politicians or among a participating politician and his or her non-present party member(s). In that respect, the present analysis shows that journalist-presenters can fall back on references to emotional expressions and body language, simplified re-formulations and supporter-versus-opponent frames as strategic resources to accomplish this legitimacy. In that way, they can sow the seeds for a lively and entertaining debate that meets the media-cultural imperatives. Politicians, from their side, have a number of options available to negotiate, correct, evade or otherwise oppose the journalist-presenters’ proposed conflict frames. In terms of power, it would be restrictive to think of the journalist-presenters’ structural legitimacy to search for conflict as essentially disadvantageous for the politicians’ interactional position. For, it seems that politicians regularly take the journalist-presenters’ conflict-seeking attempts to heart to strategically turn to a set of interactional resources to work on the suggested conflict frame, which ultimately provides them with an opportunity to rectify, stake out and defend their proper position in an answering turn.
Figure 7.5: Journalist-presenters’ and politicians’ conflict-seeking (counter-)resources
MEDIA-CULTURAL POWER
LEGITIMACY TO SEARCH FOR CONFLICT
RESOURCES JOURNALIST-PRESENTERS
REFERENCE TO EMOTIONAL
EXPRESSIONS AND BODY LANGUAGE
SIMPLIFIED RE-FORMULATIONS
SUPPORTER-VERSUS-OPPONENT
FRAME
COUNTER-RESOURCES POLITICIANS
COVERT
FRAME-NEGOTIATION
FRAME-CORRECTION
FRAME-EVASION
OVERT FRAME-OPPOSITION
LEGITIMACY TO SEARCH FOR
SIMPLIFICATION
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7.4.2 LEGITIMACY TO SEARCH FOR SIMPLIFICATION
A second aspect that stands out in relation to the journalist-presenters’ media-cultural responsibilities is the search for simplification. The analysis indicates that journalist-presenters have a clear preference for being specific and reducing abstractions to an explicit level. In the following extracts, for example, a journalist-presenter intervenes in the discussion to urge for concretisation (“to be very definite, very precise”, line 1, extract 7.40; “but just be specific”, line 1, extract 7.41).
(7.40) Terzake 09, 22 May 2009
JP: Lieven Verstraete
P: Güler Turan (sp.a)
1 JP: [Mrs Turan to be VERY definite] very precise what went wrong
2 with private childcare hh:: if that costs eighteen times less
3 then you could do eighteen times mo::re with the same money?
(7.41) Terzake 09, 1 June 2009
JP: Kathleen cools
P: Filip Dewinter (Vlaams Belang)
1 JP: [But just be specific Mr Dewinter] hh:: Ho::w exactly
2 would you do that?
The search for simplification tends to express itself in the journalist-presenters’ use of a number of strategic resources such as the use of concrete cases and visual language. The following two extracts are exemplary for the journalist-presenters’ endorsement of simplification through the use of and demand for concrete cases. In extract 7.42, the journalist-presenter repeatedly interrupts the politician to press him to be specific by requiring him to specify concrete figures about his parliamentary interventions.
(7.42) Terzake 09, 25 May 2009
JP: Lieven Verstraete
P: Tom Dehaene
1 P: …then that doesn’t mean that you are compliant I discuss=
2 JP: [But can I can I make that very concrete]
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3 P: =internally it is my duty to effectuate my::: standpoints and=
4 JP: [how many interpellations do you have? How many=
5 P: =for that you need a strong parliament
6 JP: =how many interpellations do you have?] So official critical
7 questions to the minister
8 P: Interpellations? Not many hh:: why::?
9 JP: [No]ne
10 P: None but how many questions how many questions do I have? I’ve
11 got more than 600 parliamentary initiatives …((answer
12 continues))
In this extract, the journalist-presenter repeatedly urges the politician to make it “very concrete” (line 2) and give information about the exact number of questions the politician has asked in parliament (“how many interpellations do you have?” (lines 4-6). In doing this, the journalist-presenter seems to be relying on his legitimacy as a political journalist to adopt a critical posture to the politician’s activities in parliament. However, his repeated interruptive demands for concreteness, through which the journalist-presenter reduces a potentially complex and loaden topic – in this specific case, the controlling function of the Flemish parliament – to a “very concrete” (line 2) and tangible level – in this case, the number of interpellations of a single politician in parliament, fits equally with the journalist-presenter’s media-cultural duty to attract and retain audiences and produce a vivid talk show. The following extract is a similar example of a journalist-presenter’s preference for concrete cases, albeit not through the use of and demand for figures, but through the use of and demand for concrete examples. (7.43) Terzake 09, 27 May 2009
JP: Kathleen Cools
1 JP: [Yes hh:: just a moment gentlemen] I want to present something
2 ve::ry concrete hh:: because you could sa::y maybe we also have
3 to emphasise the positive image and is not true:: that we
4 Flemish people and immigrants or Muslims should grow clo::ser
5 together (.) take for instance the question of Muslim women I
6 take the very concrete example of organising separate swimming
7 hours (.)does this have to be possible? Is this something that
8 we:: as a concession could give to them?
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In this questioning turn, the journalist-presenter builds up towards the introduction of a “very concrete example” (line 6), namely the topic of separate swimming hours for Muslim women, within a broader debate on the integration of Muslims in Flanders. This particular turn construction, with the repetitive use of seeming warning signs (“I want to present something very concrete”, lines 1-2; “take for instance”, line 5); and “I take the very concrete example”, lines 5-6)), gives the impression of the journalist-presenter wanting to justify, in one way or another, the level of reality that she wants to introduce. The endorsement of simplification does not need to be so literal. Journalist-presenters’ use of lively vocabulary can achieve a similar sense of tangibility in the on-air talk.
(7.44) De Zevende Dag, 11 June 2006
JP: Kathleen Cools
1 JP: Yes and to remain in the same atmosphere I start in a somewhat
2 different manner hh:: with a haiku of Minister of State Herman
3 Van Rompuy and member of Parliament for CD&V (.) yesterday I
4 read it in the paper hh:: singing birds do not disturb the
5 si::lence but lawn mowers do::
(7.45) Terzake 09, 26 May 2009
JP: Lieven Verstraete
P: John Crombez (sp.a)
1 JP: [And yet it was Steve Stevaert] who said the colour of the cat
2 does not matter as long as he catches mice hh:: in other wo::rds
3 he actually gave up on the ideological discourse
4 P: That is not true hh:: that concerns the goa::ls and if I may
5 give another example hh:: actually there is an important
6 ideological difference in this election … ((answer continues))
In these extracts, the journalist-presenters manage to make their topical agendas concrete by formulating their questions in metaphoric and self-explanatory language. The journalist-presenter’s use of animated language, such as the haiku in extract 7.44 and the metaphor in extract 7.45, allows them to underline the relevance of the topic and, potentially, focus audience attention. Also, in quoting an expressive statement from one of the politician’s fellow party members (“Steve Stevaert”, line 1, extract 7.44), the journalist-
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presenter succeeds in simultaneously concretising the debate and stimulating a conflictual atmosphere.
NEGOTIATING SIMPLIFICATION-SEEKING LEGITIMACY: POLITICIANS’ COUNTER-RESOURCES
Remarkably, the use of such simplification-seeking resources can not only be found in the journalist-presenters’ turns at talk, but even so in those of politicians. Politicians as well regularly turn to concrete cases and lively vocabulary in their answering turns. While such an implementation of ‘media language’ in some sense may be seen as somehow compliant to the journalist-presenters’ media-cultural power, in fact it turns out to be a powerful resource for politicians to negotiate interactional power. Through the selective use of a simplified discourse in their answering turns, politicians in a sense show orientations towards the media-cultural rules of the game, as a potential strategic resource to pursue own agendas, direct the journalist-presenter’s agenda into a preferable direction, or negotiate floor space. In short, to talk in the same ‘media language’ as journalist-presenters can help politicians to effectuate own goals in the interaction. This becomes clear when considering some concrete cases. For instance, in extract 7.45 above, the politician requests the journalist-presenter if he “may give another example” (lines 4-5) and in extract 7.9, in the beginning of this chapter, a politician makes two attempts to claim floor-continuation by requesting if he can “just be specific” (extract 7.9, lines 4 and 8). Such demands for being specific seem to be very effective resources for politicians to negotiate interactional space and postpone the journalist-presenters’ procedural power claims. In the following extract, the politicians’ use of lively vocabulary and reference to concrete examples appear to be effective in influencing the journalist-presenter’s control over the debate. More specifically, the extract demonstrates that the use of ‘media language’ can be a powerful means for politicians to work upon the journalist-presenter’s interactional power, both in terms of topical and procedural control. (7.46) Terzake 09, 25 May 2009
P1: Marie-Rose Morel (Vlaams Belang) P2: Tom Dehaene (CD&V)
JP: Kathleen Cools
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1 P1: …At that moment a parliament is totally excluded and is nothing
2 more than a voting machine and then the question arises what are
3 we actually still doing here hh::
4 JP: [Yes Tom] Dehaene (.) a voting machine?
5 P2: I do not agree with that (.) If hh:: as Mrs Moerman says if
6 there are parliamentarians who know their cases who know their
7 dossiers certainly within the majority then it is my experience
8 that you can in fact influence decrees influence proposals from
9 the government hh:: and I give you one example hh:: the the=
10 JP: [hh:: Ye:::s]
11 P2: =learning support decree of hh:: Mr Vandenbroucke we blocked
12 that because there were too many aspects in it that we couldn’t
13 support hh:: just to give you one example what happened last
14 week or two weeks ago in Hoegaarden hh:: they want to fully
15 integrate students with difficulties int- into a class yes (.)
16 that is that is not easy for that student, that is not easy for
17 the rest of the class (.) hh:: certainly not for the teachers
18 hh:: and so we had questions about tha::t and we said sorry::
19 but that is not an option for us even though that was decided
20 upon within government
21 JP: Yes hh:: Mrs Moerman … ((question continues))
This extract is a good example of how politicians potentially can direct the procedural and topical development of the talk through the use of simplification-seeking resources. As a critique of the political elite in Flanders, the first politician, Marie-Rose Morel, mentions that the Flemish parliament is “nothing more than a voting machine” (lines 1-2). Clearly, this phrase catches the journalist-presenter’s attention, as is clear from her interruption in line 3, in which the journalist-presenter repeats the lively catchword of “voting machine” to confront the other politician, Tom Dehaene, with. Regardless of whether or not Morel intentionally used the buzzword as a strategy to influence the debate’s topical development, this example shows how the use of lively vocabulary can be a powerful resource for politicians to steer the journalist-presenter’s agenda: it potentially awakens the journalist-presenter’s attention and can serve as a catalyst for accomplishing an agenda-shift. Somewhat later in the extract, the other politician, Tom Dehaene, uses another simplifying resource that appears to be efficient in negotiating interactional power as well. When the journalist-presenter is about to interrupt Dehaene in line 10 (“hh:: yes”), the latter signposts that he will become concrete by using
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a real example: “I give you one example” (line 9). Hereupon, the journalist-presenter refrains from further interrupting the politician. Later in his turn, the politician again refers to the use of an example (“just to give you one example”, line 13). On the whole, it seems that the politician is attributed an exceptionally long and uninterrupted answering turn, as the journalist-presenter waits for turn-completion to lay claim to the floor again. However, politicians are not always keen on going along in the journalist-presenters’ preference for simplification and sometimes express their dissatisfaction with the simplification-seeking legitimacy of journalist-presenters. By means of a direct critique, they then openly challenge the journalist-presenter’s media-cultural power. In the extract below, the politician uses such a critique to negotiate not only the journalist-presenter’s media-cultural entitlement to urge for simplification but also the journalist-presenter’s journalistic legitimacy to be critical.
(7.47) Terzake 09, 19 May 2009
JP: Kathleen Cools P2: Geert Lambert (SLP)
P1: Frank Vandenbroucke (sp.a)
1 JP: [First first Mr] Vandenbroucke because what is being said=
2 P1: [Yes but wait can I just refer=
3 JP: =he::re is that you let down on your basis
4 P1: =to Cantillon] [Yes but can I ju::st] refer to (.)
5 professor Cantillon (.) It is ve::ry regrettable that we cannot=
6 JP: [hh:::]
7 P1: =project this here (.) because the study from which one quotes
8 has a ve::ry nice graph such a li::ne hh:: in the year two:::=
9 JP: [Yes?]
10 P1: =thousand that line that indicates what the minimum pensions are
11 the minimum invalidity benefits suddenly jumps (.) At that time=
12 JP: [Ye::s]
13 P1: =I became Minister of Pensions that’s a bit pretentious to say
14 isn’t it but the first thing that I have ye:::s just have a=
15 JP: [So you say I di::d do] [I di::d do=
16 P1: =look at that line yes but ha::ve a look at that line yes but=
17 JP: =everything?]
18 P2: [But but Frank]
19 P1: =may I may I ha::ve a look at that line the first thing …
20 ((answer continues))
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In this extract, the politician Frank Vandenbroucke is confronted with the critical observation that he would “let down on your [his] basis” (journalist-presenter in line 3). To counter this face-threatening remark and to defend his proper position, the politician makes clear his wish to refer to the results of an academic study and immediately also criticises the lack of room for profundity in the debate: “it is very regrettable that we cannot project this here” (lines 5-7). By openly criticising the journalist-presenter in this way, the politician challenges the former’s legitimacy to facilitate and endorse simplified discourse in political television talk, as a potentially strategic way to get his message across. The politician only partly succeeds: he makes his point about the study’s results supporting the success of his past deeds, but is nevertheless often interrupted by the journalist-presenter, who severally attempts to summarise his position in a simplified frame: “so you say I did do everything?” (lines 15-17). Overall, the politician’s overt critique at the address of the journalist-presenter in this example turns out to be a resource for countering both the journalist-presenter’s public and media-cultural power positions. The politician would seem to be using the overt critique on the lack of room for complexity in the debate as a strategy to refute the journalist-presenter’s critical question and negotiate interactional space to defend his proper position. Overall, as shown in Figure 7.6, we can arrive yet again at a set of interactional resources upon which journalist-presenters and politicians can strategically and selectively call to accomplish or counter simplification-seeking legitimacy. As part of their power as television producers to effectuate media-culture principles, journalist-presenters routinely draw upon a number of interactional resources to pursuit conflict (see 7.4.1) and simplification in political television talk. Their professional legitimacy to search for simplification more specifically finds expressions in the journalist-presenters’ frequent use of concrete cases or lively vocabulary, and in their demands to politicians to uphold an uncomplicated discourse in their answering turns. Interestingly, politicians often appear to be using this strive for simplification to their own advantage, to accomplish individual goals and negotiate power in other domains. By resorting to concrete cases or lively vocabulary themselves, politicians can respond to the media-cultural requirements of the debate, while simultaneously manoeuvring within other
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power dimensions. In other words, by complying to the journalist-presenters’ media-cultural power, politicians can negotiate control over interactional development (i.e. interactional power) or defend their position at those moments when it is critically called into question (i.e. public power). As such, the politicians’ use of concrete ‘media language’ should perhaps not so much be interpreted as ‘counter-resources’ challenging the journalist-presenters’ media-cultural power, but rather as compliant resources that can be strategically deployed as powerful means to gain authority at other levels. It seems to be rather exceptional for politicians to directly challenge the level of simplification in political television talk. In the present data, only one instance could be found of a politician overtly criticising the lack of profundity in the debate (see extract 7.47).
Figure 7.6: Journalist-presenters’ and politicians’ simplification-seeking (counter-)resources
MEDIA-CULTURAL POWER
LEGITIMACY TO SEARCH FOR CONFLICT
LEGITIMACY TO SEARCH FOR
SIMPLIFICATION
RESOURCES JOURNALIST-PRESENTERS
USE OF AND DEMAND FOR
CONCRETE CASES
USE OF LIVELY VOCABULARY
COUNTER-RESOURCES POLITICIANS
COVERT
USE OF CONCRETE CASES
USE OF LIVELY VOCABULARY
OVERT DIRECT CRITIQUE
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7.5 SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS
In political television interactions, journalist-presenters and politicians are in a mutual and permanent struggle for signification. While the generic organisation and the specificity of the context pre-establishes an unequal distribution of legitimate entitlements and default power positions that favours the journalist-presenters, a detailed examination of political television talk from an interactional level demonstrates that the normative arrangements and the power relationships involved are far from ‘fixed’ contextual properties. In order for journalist-presenters to successfully perform a media professional identity in political television talk, they are required to master a set of interactional resources within a variety of power dimensions, as well as to show a competence to integrate this set of resources into the course of the interaction. The analysis indicated that journalist-presenters fall back on a repertoire of interactional moves to effectuate their legitimate entitlements and to accomplish their roles as interactional manager, political journalist and television producer. In analysing the repertoire of strategic interactional resources that allow politicians to depart from the structurally determined interactional, public, and media-cultural power positions of the journalist-presenters, I have demonstrated that the achievement of power within these contexts requires continuous collaboration and ratification in the dynamic interactional unfolding of televised interactions. Politicians are free to destabilise or shift the pre-established power relationships, and challenge or undermine the journalist-presenters’ structural more privileged control positions, at any moment in the interaction. In fact, it appears that politicians can appeal, very selectively, to the structural predetermined arrangements of the situation, as a strategy for strengthening their proper position in the interaction. Such ‘covert’ strategies become powerful means for challenging and shifting structural power imbalances while at the same time giving the appearance of compliance with these pre-established asymmetries. In this respect, these subtle resisting-but-confirming strategies are perhaps more efficient and, thus, more powerful for redefining the structural conventions, than the more ‘overt’ evasion strategies, which are often noticed and sanctioned by the journalist-presenters. Consequently, for journalist-presenters to successfully perform a media professional identity and, thus,
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accomplish their structurally determined power positions, they need to constantly negotiate their legitimate entitlements in the dynamic interaction with politicians. To a large extent, these interactional difficulties for journalist-presenters can be facilitated in the ways the broadcast talk is formatted and produced. The following empirical chapters plunge into this role of formatting and production processes to further our insights into the dynamic performance of a media professional identity in political television talk. As Giddens (1982, 1987) points out, the typical asymmetrical distribution of resources in social settings pertains not only to differential access to privileged controlling practices – i.e. resources of the ‘authoritative’ sort, but also to differential control over material facilities in a given social setting – i.e. resources of the ‘allocative’ sort. Chapter 8 examines those resources that are made available to journalist-presenters through prearranged formatting processes. It shows that such formats can have considerable relevance for the journalists’ achievement of their complex tasks, roles and legitimate entitlements in political television talk.
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1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11
Ι
CHAPTER 8
THE ROLE OF FORMAT IN THE CONSTRUCTION
OF A MEDIA PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY
This chapter builds on and further extends the scope of the insights on the operation of power in political broadcast talk by relating considerations of the interactional achievement of power positions and journalistic roles and identities, to the highly formatted character of much contemporary political television.60 Since the mid 1990s, the style, content and format of political television programmes have changed considerably, influenced by processes of deregulation, commercialisation, privatisation and democratisation (e.g. Hartley, 1999; Humphreys, 1996; Karvonen, 2009; Talbot, 2007; Tolson, 2006). Traditional political interview and debate formats have made way for newer, more attractive formats that are able to reach larger and more diversified audiences. In most Western countries, political television programmes no longer centre solely around in-depth, sober, and purely political elaborations; there has been a shift towards more accessible modes of presenting political talk (e.g. Karvonen, 2009; Thussu, 2007; Tolson, 2006; Turner, 2005). The innovation and modernisation of formats have fundamentally restructured the conditions of local-on-air interactions and, as a consequence, have had implications for the interactants’ mutual relationships. For the journalist-presenters hosting and presenting these television programmes, the pre-established structural organisation of the programmes requires and encourages mastery of a wide range of different, professional practices
60 Chapter 8 is based on De Smedt, E., & Vandenbrande, K. (2011). Political television formats as strategic resources in achieving
journalists' roles. In: Ekström, M. & Patrona, M. (Eds.), Talking Politics in Broadcast Media (pp. 75-92). Amsterdam: John Benjamins
Publishing Company; and on De Smedt, E. (2012). Professionalism in political broadcast talk: The performance of a distancing
journalistic self in formatted pre-election debates. Discourse, Context & Media, 1(2-3), 114-122.
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including the putting into practice of format elements at predetermined moments. In this chapter, I set out to find an answer to the following sub-research question: How is the construction of a media professional identity contingent upon format components in the frontstage setting of political television talk? The main challenge is to find out how political television formats achieve relevance in the interactional development of political television talk and how these formats are mobilised by journalist-presenters who can use them as strategic resources facilitating the performance of their complex roles and their identity as media professionals. The empirical focus of this chapter will lead me to reconsider the ‘traditional’ interactional resources for performing a media professional identity, as discussed in Chapter 7, in the light of format considerations. I am interested specifically in how the interactional strategies and power positions of journalist-presenters and politicians apply in the context of highly formatted political television programmes. To analyse this, the chapter builds on the series of VRT pre-election programmes in 2009 (a total of 19), which, as mentioned, were characterised by a for the VRT rather exceptional far-reaching formatting.
The chapter starts with providing a brief sketch of some necessary contextual specificities, of about the evolutions in VRT’s political television production and then of VRT’s concrete coverage of the 2009 pre-election campaign. After this, the chapter takes the threefold of structural performer roles of the journalist-presenter as the basis for examining how format can have a powerful role to play in the journalist-presenter’s overall construction of a media professional identity. The chapter concludes with critical reflections on the far-reaching embedding of pre-produced format components within political television programmes.
8.1 POLITICAL TELEVISION FORMATS IN THE FLEMISH CONTEXT
The intensive use of programme formats and production components in political television debates is a quite recent phenomenon in Flanders. For decades, Flemish television’s hosting of political television debates was based mainly on assigning turns – guaranteeing a speaking time that was
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proportional to the electoral weight of the particular party and trying to avoid too many interruptions and simultaneous talking – and demonstrating expertise as a critical political journalist. It was broadcasting time that respected political ratios and traditional journalistic roles, but involved little consideration of other aspects of television production (Van Aelst, 2007). It was not until the end of the 1990s, several years after the Flemish television market had been deregulated (starting in 1989 with the foundation of Flanders’ first commercial station, VTM), that major changes occurred. The initial absence of major changes in the public service broadcaster’s news offer in the beginning of the 1990s was mainly due to the still strongly politicised and hierarchical structures of the broadcaster (Desmet, 2007; Van Aelst, 2007). Despite the undeniable success of the commercial station, VTM’s more popular, less top-down, less institutionalised journalistic approach, the public service broadcaster’s, VRT’s, then managerial board continued its traditional and “self-confident” (Van Aelst, 2007: 237) journalistic style. It was not until 1997 that the public service broadcaster was structurally reorganised and a “new television concept” (Desmet, 2007: 207) gradually emerged. The changes were mainly instigated by the conclusion of a management contract between VRT and the Flemish Community in 1997.61 This contract, which regulated ambitious performance criteria and concrete measurable objectives, forced VRT to re-evaluate and re-invent programming strategies, management structures, traditions and missions, and to make news programmes that would reach a larger and more differentiated audience. It was no longer possible to continue with an offer that was attractive only to those already interested in and familiar with politics: something new was needed that would intrigue the citizens (Desmet 2007; Dhoest 2007; Dhoest and Van den Bulck 2003; Vandenbrande 2007). The new generation of journalists that gained control of the editorial line of the news service within a reorganised VRT gradually began to question traditional methods and to reflect on how to increase the popularity of the station’s offer while retaining public service ideals and on how to create constancy and build loyalty by offering regular, identifiable, formatted programmes (Dhoest 2007; Van Aelst 2007). In 2002, the broadcaster’s new direction found reflection in the so-called “News 61 Since 1997, VRT concludes management contracts with the Flemish Community every four years. These contracts define the tasks
of the public broadcaster and fix the level of public funding for the following years (d’Haenens et al., 2009).
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Project 2002”, which entailed a restyling and further reconceptualization of the news programme (Het Journaal) and other news service productions (Desmet, 2007: 207).
8.2 VRT’S COVERAGE OF THE 2009 PRE-ELECTION CAMPAIGN
Since the establishment of the “News Project 2002”, VRT has played a central and active role in electoral campaigning in Flanders (Van Aelst, 2007). In times of elections, VRT commits itself to the production of specialised pre-election programmes, either in the form of a reconceptualization of already existing news programmes or in the form of totally new programme concepts. Prior to the 2009 regional and European elections, which forms the focus of this case study, VRT decided to produce a number of specialised election programmes that were remarkably strongly formatted: the broadcasts were characterised by modern formats and tightly controlled programme structures, which influenced how the interactions developed; the election debates were set against colourful backdrops, and were interrupted at regular intervals by miscellaneous interludes including musical performances, animated reportages, survey results and informative interviews with academic experts. In the following, I first shortly situate how the audience and the press received the programmes’ formats and then introduce the programmes’ prime format components in more detail.
8.2.1 PUBLIC CRITICISMS OF PROGRAMME FORMATS
The formatted and animated character of VRT’s 2009 pre-election programmes provoked numerous criticisms from members of the audience as well as from journalists and other opinion makers.62 Audience members aired their worries publicly in reaction posts on the programmes’ websites: they criticised the tight formatting, lack of in-depth elaboration, over-active role of the journalist, and the emphasis on form at the expense of content. The 62 This observation is based on a screening of the audience reactions on VRT’s election programme websites (www.09.een.be and
www.terzake09.canvas.be), on the one hand, and the articles published in Flemish journalism outlets about the VRT election
campaign, on the other. I made snapshots of and screened the public reactions on the programmes’ websites, and I searched for
published articles about the VRT election programmes through the digital press database Mediargus.
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following quotations give a flavour of the predominantly negative audience reactions to the broadcasts: “An exercise in superficiality” (viewer’s comment on Europe 09’s website, 24 May 2009, cfr. appendix 3), “it is particularly regrettable that [the journalist-presenters] needed to be present to interrupt and steer the debate and keep it into the format” (viewer’s comment on Terzake 09’s website, 5 June 2009, cfr. appendix 4), “the VRT seems to attach more importance to being ‘hip’ and ‘trendy’ than to bringing content” (viewer’s comment on Europe 09’s website, 25 May 2009, cfr. appendix 3). Also, several newspapers and news magazines expressed disapproval of the style, and published articles and journalists’ comments accusing the programmes of being too heavily formatted, and the public service broadcaster of being too driven by market logic: “the election programmes on VRT irritate, rather than inform” (De Ceulaer, Knack, 3 June 2009, cfr. appendix 5), “the politicians are the formats’ food” (De Ceulaer, Knack, 3 June 2009, cfr. appendix 5), “the viewer, as if he was a goose compelled to produce foie gras, is mercilessly being overfed with to the elections connected infotainment” (Hanot, De Morgen, 5 June 2009, cfr. appendix 6), “politics as show” (De Foer, De Standaard, 6 June 2009, cfr. appendix 7). Remarkably, this ensemble of critical voices was in sharp contrast to the VRT’s press release on the day after the elections, which stressed the broadcaster’s satisfaction with the approach, since people had “en masse chosen VRT to follow the elections” (VRT press release, 8 June 2009, cfr. appendix 8). The public broadcaster emphasised also that it had the chance to “fully play out its information function”, which, judging from the ratings, was clearly appreciated by the audience. As such, VRT’s press release concluded that the public had clearly trusted the public broadcaster to deliver “information, interpretation and analysis of the election campaign” through its “major and diversified election offer”.
8.2.2 THE USE OF PREDEFINED FORMAT COMPONENTS
In the election programming in the three weeks prior to the 2009 elections in Flanders, a number of production aspects inherent in the institutional character of these programmes, repeatedly interspersed the studio-based interactions and were exploited to influence the interactional organisation of
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the encounters between journalist-presenters and politicians. Four elements stand out in this respect: (1) the central role of the broadcaster’s public survey; (2) the introduction of visualised propositions; (3) display of three-minute reportages; and (4) contributions from academic experts. Just prior to the election campaign, the Flemish public service broadcaster had carried out a large-scale public survey to evaluate the political concerns of the Flemish people.63 The outcomes of this public survey provided an important framework and a starting point for many of the debates: not only did the survey legitimate the topics under discussion, it was invoked very selectively by the journalist-presenters and used as a powerful strategic resources form legitimating their interactional positions. As one of the journalist-presenters of the election programme series expressed it with great feeling on the public broadcaster’s election campaign coverage website:
As television producers, we have dreamt of this for years, to be able to make use of a study that really shows what the people think, what they are concerned about, and to confront the politicians with these facts. This should be the core of any election broadcast, but for the first time, as television producers, we are strongly backed up by the results of a large-scale study. (Ivan De Vadder on the VRT campaign coverage website www.09.een.be, 11 May 2009)
With this statement, the journalist-presenter already relates the existence of a pre-produced format component to the accomplishment of his professional identity. He more specifically refers to the fact that he feels “backed up” in his journalistic role as public servant through the presence of tangible survey results that “really” reflect the concerns of “the people”. With “these facts”, they - “as television makers” – hold the concrete tools in their hands “to confront the politicians with” and, thus, to truly legitimate possible adversarial questions.
63 The public service broadcaster’s election campaign coverage started with the one-off programme Vlaanderen 09, in which
journalist-presenters confronted political figureheads with the results of this large-scale public enquiry conducted by the
broadcaster’s news service immediately preceding the election campaign. The survey included the responses of more than 5,500
Flemish people and asked about their political concerns in an attempt “to map out the gap between the Fleming and his politician”
(VRT campaign coverage website, 2009).
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A second element of the programme formats was the use of predefined propositions. In the programmes Terzake 09 and Kopstukkendebat 09, each of the political television debates was guided by a triad of propositions, which had to be introduced by the journalist-presenters at specific moments in the discussions, and which were aimed at encouraging lively debate. The propositions were briefly displayed on-screen as short, simple, and provocative statements (e.g., “Flemish people want more decency”, Terzake 09, 1 June 2009; “Super people are entitled to super wages”, Terzake 09, 18 May 2009; and “Stop state reform!”, Terzake 09, 21 May 2009). This device allowed the journalist-presenters to stop the on-going discussion and shift to another subject. Thirdly, in the programmes TerZake 09 and Europa 09, the studio-debates were regularly interrupted by short, three-minute pre-recorded reportages, setting the context for a new sub-topic for debate. These reportages represented either lay-persons directly affiliated to the topic to be discussed, or directly relevant societal actors who expounded their personal viewpoints and opinions on or experiences with the topic. The content of these pre-produced reportages was often constructed in such a way that at least one of the politicians could be expected to disagree with it. Finally, academic experts (mostly political scientists) were a manifest part of the formats in the programmes Vlaanderen 09, Terzake 09, Europa 09 and Kopstukkendebat 09. Their task was mainly to comment and elaborate on the next topic or evaluate a previous discussion, and provide the viewer with background information. Their interventions appeared to be well prepared and pre-scripted, since their discourse and argumentation always blended seamlessly with the journalist-presenters’ turns. The academic experts often were appealed to in the opening and closing phases of the debates and occasionally were called on during a debate, to introduce a new major sub-topic. Each of these components was a pre-planned aspect within the programmes’ formats, and enabled sequential development in the programmes. They served mainly to give relevance to the prearranged programme topics, and had a strong structuring effect on how the interactions developed. In contrast to other format aspects, such as the studio design or camera positions – also pre-planned, but to a large extent fixed
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during the broadcast - the above mentioned format-aspects needed to be ‘brought into being’ in the local development of the interaction. As a consequence, the large-scale public enquiry and the prearranged topic shifts in the form of visualised propositions, reportages and expert comments can be considered as format components. It was the exclusive task of the journalist-presenter to integrate these format components in the on-going interaction and make them meaningful in situ. The journalist-presenter was responsible for controlling the pre-planned and pre-produced format components of the programme, and introducing them at the appropriate moments during the interaction. As Ytreberg (2004: 684-685) emphasises, it is part of the journalist-presenters’ role as television producer to manage “a set of production-logistic factors” while also mastering the more purely interactional aspects such as asking questions, moderating the discussion, and allocating turns.
8.3 THE RELEVANCE OF FORMAT IN THE PERFORMANCE OF A
MEDIA PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY
In the following analysis, it is my intention to show how these pre-produced format components can be of strategic use for journalist-presenters to reach, defend and legitimise a professional identity. I will show how journalist-presenters master their interactional and institutional roles in relation to these four format components. The analysis subsequently departs from the journalist-presenter’s roles as interactional manager, political journalist and television producer to analyse the potential impact of formatting processes on the journalist-presenter’s construction of a media professional identity. As will become clear throughout the analysis, there is a close relationship with the analysis in the previous chapter. Whereas the previous chapter developed an understanding of the power positions and legitimate entitlements of journalist-presenters in political television talk through an examination of the interactional resources used by journalist-presenters and politicians in their mutual interactions, the present analysis might be seen as a further addition to this exploration in the sense that it will become clear how pre-produced
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format components can help journalist-presenters to negotiate power in interaction and achieve a legitimate position as competent media professionals.
8.3.1 THE JOURNALIST-PRESENTER AS INTERACTIONAL MANAGER
In political television talk, journalist-presenters have a responsibility and legitimacy to control the interaction in terms of its topical and procedural development, as well as in terms of its framing (see Chapter 7). Their interactional manager sub-roles as questioner and moderator arrange that they, among others, can set the agenda, control turn-taking, influence interpretations, and initiate propositions, with which the politicians can agree or disagree. In the case of the 2009 election programmes, the strongly formatted character of the interactions seems to support the journalist-presenters’ successful achievement of their role as interactional manager. The use of survey results, visualised propositions, reportages and expert contributions, not only seems to relate to but also underpin and strengthen the journalist-presenters’ interactional power, i.e. the legitimacy to decide on what can be handled, by whom, at which moment in the debate, and from which perspective. As far as concerns the journalist-presenters’ topical legitimacy, the pre-produced format components allow journalist-presenters to realise real shifts from previously discussed topics, and at the same time bar the politicians from resisting their intended topic shifts. The format components then appear to be powerful means for journalist-presenters to fix the topic and prevent politicians from sidestepping their agenda. For instance, each new predefined proposition is not just simply formulated by a journalist-presenter but also is presented visually on-screen, and introduced by a short reportage or discourse from an academic expert. The journalist-presenter will then often take the contents of the reportage or expert commentaries as the starting point and cornerstone of the next topic and its accompanying lines of questioning. The extract below is typical of how the use of reportages and predefined propositions can facilitate journalist-presenters in maintaining control over the interactional unfolding of the debate. Just before this extract, a reportage was shown about the very concrete case of a train ticket collector
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who wanted to take early retirement at the age of 55. The journalist-presenter takes the content of this reportage as a trigger to orient the politicians to the next scripted topic: “working longer is leftwing” (lines 3-4)
(8.1) TerZake 09, May 19 2009
JP: Kathleen Cools
((Reportage: a camera crew follows a 55-year old train ticket collector who
wants to take early retirement))
((Back to the studio setting))
1 JP: I’ve worked hard enough and I want to stop says this fifty-five
2 year old man and he will certainly not be the only one to think
3 this way (.) this brings us to:: our second proposition (.)
4 (.) WORKING LONGER IS LEFTWING (.) and gentlemen I want to go
5 round and hear from each of you hh::: what you think about this
6 (.) Frank Vandenbroucke do you dare to say to this man that he
7 can stop at fifty-five?
Figure 8.1: On-screen visualisation of the predefined proposition “Is working longer leftwing?” (“Langer werken is dat links?”)
In this turn, the journalist-presenter leads up to the first question by producing a ‘pre-headline’ (lines 1-3) and then formulating the actual headline, the pre-produced and on-screen visualised proposition “working longer is leftwing” (line 4). While these practices are very typical of opening sequences in political interviews (Clayman 1991; Clayman & Heritage 2002: Chapter 3), the presence of prearranged production components in this case enforces the main interactional ends of these kinds of introductory accounts,
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respectively showing the encounter to be organised on behalf of the viewing audience, and setting the agenda for the discussion (Clayman 1991: 71). By accentuating the relevance of the reportage for the forthcoming discussion (e.g. “and he will certainly not be the only one to think this way”, lines 2-3) and referring to the fact that “this brings us to” the next topic for debate (line 3), the journalist-presenter makes a deft transition from the just-shown reportage to the actual studio interaction. The journalist-presenter does not seem to see these prearranged components as limiting her interactional role (as for instance exemplified by the absence of statements as “we have to move on”), but instead is able to use them so that they seem to support her role as interactional manager. This fits clearly with Clayman’s (1991: 55) observation that the typical agenda-setting shape of opening sequences “provides in part for the ‘staged’ quality that is such a familiar attribute of the broadcast news interview”. The fact that, in this case, every topic shift in the interaction involves a separate opening sequence, with an extended ‘pre-headline’ – in the shape of a reportage or an expert opinion – and a visualised ‘headline’ – in the shape of an on-screen displayed proposition – reinforces the journalist-presenter’s interactional role as interactional manager, maximising successful topic shifts and minimising resistant acts from politicians. In none of the cases did I find an example of a politician returning to or attempting to return to the subject that was being discussed immediately before the presentation of a reportage or the academic expert’s introduction. In a setting in which there are no prearranged format components to structure the interaction in this kind of way, politicians can more easily resist the transition to another topic or negotiate a return to an already discussed topic. Since the journalist-presenter’s general agenda is spelt out, and is visualised by means of a pre-produced format component, explicit resistant behaviour from the politicians to these topic shifts would be very noticeable and inappropriate given the normative and underlying turn-taking rules of political television debates and other forms of political discourse. Still with respect to the journalist-presenters’ topical legitimacy, format components not only facilitate the realisation of topic shifts, but also help journalist-presenters in pressing politicians to (keep) meet(ing) their intended agenda. More specifically, it appears that the subjects spelt out in the reportages or expert commentaries can assist journalist-presenters in pushing
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through agenda-orientation and agenda-anticipation claims and, thusly, keep politicians aligned to their pre-established agenda. In the above extract, for instance, the journalist-presenter challenges the politician Frank Vandenbroucke, who at the time was Employment Minister, with the real life situation presented in the reportage of the train ticket collector, as a means of establishing Vandenbroucke’s position on early retirement, at the age of 55 (“Frank Vandenbroucke do you dare to say to this man that he can stop at fifty-five?” (lines 5-7, extract 8.1). A straightforward response to this challenging and provocative question could have had major consequences for the Employment Minister, not least because the journalist-presenter would likely generalise his response to this actual example. Consider how, in a subsequent turn, the journalist-presenter systematically refers to the format component as a means for attacking the politician’s evasive responses and keep the politician alligned to her intended agenda.
(8.2) TerZake 09, 19 May 2009
JP1: Kathleen Cools P: Frank Vandenbroucke (sp.a)
JP2: Lieven Verstraete
1 JP1: … Frank Vandenbroucke do you dare to say to this man that he can
2 stop at fifty-five?
3 P: Hh:: But I find this a peculiar situation (.) left politics that
4 is to make sure that people who become fifty-five and want to=
5 JP1: [hmhm:::]
6 P: =keep on working aren’t cast aside and if they are out of work
7 to make sure that they have a job … ((answer continues))
… ((some lines removed))
8 JP1: [but in] [in this particular] case
9 because there are a lo::t of people who say I’ve had enou:::gh
10 of it while in the active welfare state no
11 P: [but that I I don’t find that man a free ri]der I don’t find
12 that man a free rider (.) that man has wo::rked- that’s also not
13 an easy job if he is an engine driver if I understood it well
14 or-or a ticket collector these aren’t evident jobs hhh:: the=
15 JP1: [yes]
16 P: =bi::g: challenge today is to
16 JP1: [but you are ve::ry careful] now aren’t you?
17 P: No:::: I am I am clear on another point we are in an economic
18 cri:::sis and the bi:::g challenge no:::w (.) is to make that
19 people who are unemployed above the age of fifty-five fi::nd a
20 job and I’m working on this I also have taken measures on this
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21 JP1: [hhh::: yes but he::: can go]
22 he::: can go
23 P: For me this man can go::: hh:: honestly I don’t think that’s=
24 JP2: [mister Lambert]
25 P: =a topic of debate
26 JP2: [mister Lambert can] can thi::s man (.) retire?
In his first answering turn, the politician resists the question through production of an irrelevancy claim: he tries to broaden the topic and assess the case as “peculiar”, implicitly criticising the question and case for being too narrow (line 3). After a while, the journalist-presenter interrupts, for the first time, in an attempt to force him to address this “particular” case (line 8) and attaches a reason for why he should respond to it. In claiming that “a lot of people” (line 9) are in the same situation, she devalues the politician’s antecedent and implicit criticism that the case is too specific, is “peculiar”, and in that way renegotiates the relevance of the reportage, putting pressure on the politician to answer directly this time, and reinforcing her powerful role as interactional manager. The politician continues to provide evasive responses, and tries repeatedly to broaden the subject. However, the journalist-presenter is determined to establish the politician’s position on this specific case before addressing the same question to the next politician in the debate. In lines 21-22, the journalist-presenter builds on her framing legitimacy to formulate a simplified presupposition of the politician’s position on this case (“he can go”). This is a clear, straightforward statement that cannot be ignored, and forces the politician, somewhat reluctantly, to confirm it, and to close his turn with another reference that devalues the relevance of the topic (“I don’t think that’s a topic of debate”, lines 23-25). Overall, the fact that the journalist-presenter can repeatedly refer to a concrete case as it was covered in the pre-produced reportage, attributes her with a powerful position: it places her in a position from which she not only can reinforce her own agenda-anticipation claims, but also play down the repeated irrelevancy claims made by politicians as a resource to counter the journalist-presenters topical power position. What’s more, the coupled use of format team collaborations, with the introduction of visualised propositions following a reportage or expert commentary, also has a strong potential of facilitating the journalist-presenters’ procedural control over the interaction: in line with their sub-role
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as moderators, the journalist-presenters often revert to the content of the reportage or the expert commentary to open the debate and stake out the politicians’ positions to underpin their interactional manager turn-allocating task. For instance, journalist-presenters always use the format team collaborations to organise a routine ‘round’ of questions to each of the politicians. This is clear in extract 1, in which the journalist-presenter mentions her intention “to go round and hear from each of you” (lines 4-5) to control the interaction’s turn-taking.
8.3.2 THE JOURNALIST-PRESENTER AS POLITICAL JOURNALIST
The format team collaborations seem also to facilitate achievement of the journalist-presenters’ requirements attached to their institutional role as political journalists. The previous chapter has already shown how journalist-presenters can appeal to a number of interactional resources to legitimate adversarial questions and maintain a neutralistic posture. By attributing questions to a relevant third party such as a previous speaker, a non-present societal actor or an undefined collectivity, journalist-presenters can enact their role of critical political journalist while maintaining a stance of formal neutrality. In this respect, the analysis in this chapter indicates that the presence of pre-produced format arrangements provides the journalist-presenters with powerful means to act out and defend their political journalist sub-roles as watchdogs and public servants, and carry out their according legitimacy to be adversarial. More specifically, the format team collaborations create opportunities for journalist-presenters to make provocative statements, critically challenge politicians and hold them accountable, and all without breaching their professional neutralistic stance. In extract 8.2, for instance, the journalist-presenter was able to use the reportage content to adopt a critical position and force the politician to pronounce judgement on the specific topic of early retirement. Overall, it appears that especially the reportages and the presentation of public survey results in VRT’s 2009 election programmes can be used strategically by journalist-presenters in two ways: (1) to legitimise sensitive and aggressive questioning lines, and (2) to defend and uphold an acceptable neutralistic
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stance when confronted with resistant moves from the politicians. The pre-produced format team collaborations may then enforce the journalist-presenters’ ‘traditional’ legitimation resources.
SENSITIVE AND AGGRESSIVE QUESTIONING
The contents of the reportages are often constructed such that the journalist-presenters are able to invoke aspects of them, using them as strategic resources for posing later accusatory and challenging questions from an apparently neutral position. They then resort to re-formulations of this content to confront the politicians with opposing viewpoints represented in the reportages. The format team collaborations provide the journalist-presenters with a pool of third-party opinions to which they can attribute provocative statements and with which they can confront politicians. Hence, format team collaborations can be effective in enabling the journalist-presenters to legitimate an adversarial posture in their questioning turns. The following extracts illustrate how journalist-presenters routinely based their third-party attributions on prior content in format team collaborations. Extracts 8.3, 8.4, and 8.5 are taken from a debate on traffic and economy and follow the presentation of a reportage, in which a managing director of a large international company (“Mr Steimler”) is shown demanding the broadening of a Belgian canal to enable international transport, and accusing the Belgian politicians for not daring to take decisions. Afterwards, the cameras return the viewers to the studio-interaction in which one of the two journalist-presenters repeatedly pounces on this accusation, using it to not only introduce a new topic but also to challenge one of the politicians, Kris Luyckx. The journalist-presenter repetitively takes the formulated and displayed critique of Mr Steimler in the reportage as a strategic means to critically call the politician into account for lacking the mettle to take decisions and for being too compliant while maintaining a neutralistic stance. (8.3) TerZake 09, 29 May 2009
JP: Kathleen Cools
P: Kris Luyckx (Open VLD)
((Display of three-minute reportage))
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((Back to the studio setting, JP’s gaze is directed to the camera))
1 JP: The::y are not walking they ta::lk hh:: It is pitiable that
2 Flemish politics does not show courage hh:: we hear here hh:::
3 while that is precisely what we nee::d (.) and that brings us to
4 proposition number two:: hh::: bi::g works (.) dare to say ye::s
5 (.) ((proposition appears on the screen, JP’s gaze is now
6 directed to P)) hh:: Kris (.) Luy:::ckx (.) no:: guts or courage
7 when it comes to making decisions?
8 P: Well I think hh:: that your question is not directed a the right
9 person hh:: if there is one party that actually did make choices
10 at this point then it would be Open VLD … ((answer continues))
In this opening sequence, the journalist-presenter re-formulates the upshot of the managing director’s position in the reportage (lines 1-3) and exploits it as a passage to enable the move to the next pre-planned topic and to introduce the predefined proposition “big works, dare to say yes” (line 4), which is visualised on screen for the viewers. She thereafter skilfully uses the managing director’s critiques of Belgian policy makers to confront the politician with a challenging and adversarial opening question (“no guts or courage when it comes to making decisions?”, lines 6-7) and realise a footing shift. As is clear from extracts 8.4 and 8.5, the journalist-presenter continues to refer to the managing director’s opinion throughout her questioning of the politician.
(8.4) TerZake 09, 29 May 2009
P: Kris Luyckx (Open VLD)
JP: Kathleen Cools
1 P: …the mayor of ( ) but ve::ry=
2 JP: [But what but what Mr Stei-Mr Steimler says is what Mr=
3 P: =concrete hh::
4 JP: =Steimler says] is that the political field under pressure of
5 action groups doesn’t da::re to take essential decisions
6 P: Deciding not to do something is also a decision and we:: …
7 ((answer continues))
(8.5) TerZake 09, 29 May 2009
JP: Kathleen Cools
P: Kris Luyckx (Open VLD)
1 JP: But his ((Mr Steimlers)) point is (.) before the elections=
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2 politicians don’t da::re anything other than follow public=
3 P: [oo:::h but we do:: dare this and=
4 JP: opinion
5 P: =that’s] why we decided this at the congress … ((answer
6 continues))
In extracts 8.4 and 8.5, the journalist-presenter continues to refer to the sayings of the managing director in the reportage to keep confronting Kris Luyckx, a member of the Flemish liberal party Open VLD, with the critical observations “that the political field (…) doesn’t dare to take essential decisions” (lines 4-5, extract 8.4) and that “politicians don’t dare anything other than follow public opinion” (lines 2-4, extract 8.5). The reportage thus gives the journalist-presenter a powerful resource for critically questioning Luyckx’s policy while protecting her required journalistic neutrality. Had the reportage not have been aired, the journalist-presenter’s third-party attribution probably would have been much less solid and direcly accountable for the politician. As such, the content presented in the reportage allows the journalist-presenter to challenge the politician’s actions and policies with a concrete, displayed critique of a relevant societal actor and, by so doing, to demonstrate her sub-role as journalistic watchdog. Next to societal actors, the reportages also often show images of ‘ordinary people’ whose opinions, in one way or another, are closely connected to the subject matter under discussion. It appears that the frequent representations of ‘ordinary people’ in the reportages are of particular value for the journalist-presenters’ interactional achievement of their political journalist role, as journalist-presenters can more easily align themselves with the public they are supposed to represent. Instead of attributing critical assertions to some general collectivity such as ‘the people’, the display of concrete persons with concrete problems and with concrete lamentations in the reportages give the journalist-presenters a tangible backbone for holding politicians accountable and pressing them to face their questions. They then often underline that the people in the reportages are not ‘unique’, but rather are representative of a large part of the audience. In this way, the journalist-presenters not only make the reportage relevant, but also are able to put a higher value on their legitimacy to represent the public and ventilate their concerns to political representatives. This for instance applies to extracts 8.1
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and 8.2, where the journalist-presenter repeatedly points out that the man in the reportage just shown “will certainly not be the only one to think this way” (lines 2-3, extract 8.1) and that “there are a lot of people who say I’ve had enough of it” (lines 9-10, extract 8.2), as a means of legitimating her critical question (extract 8.1) and as a means of urging the politician to answer the question (extract 8.2). Consider the introduction to the reportage referred to in the next extract. The journalist-presenter is directly addressing the audience at home and explicitly aligning herself with “ordinary citizens” (line 2), “people like you and me” (line 3). By articulating the public’s joint concerns before moving to the reportage, the journalist-presenter can underline her position as journalist representative of the public, ready to tackle people’s concerns and confront the politicians with them.
(8.6) Terzake 09, 19 May 2009
JP: Kathleen Cools
1 JP: Oka::y hh:: gentlemen I want to carry on with these pensions
2 hh::: because ((gaze directed to the camera)) ordinary citizens
3 hh::: people like you and me (.) we all want a good job and a
4 decent pension but first we all have to work harder and longer
5 (.) Jasmien Dielens talked to a man of fifty-five who thinks
6 that he really has worked for long enough
Similar to the reportages, the public survey format component carries potential for strengthening the public service duty attached to the journalist-presenters’ role as political journalist. The results of this survey were often the basis of challenging questions on behalf of “the” public, or at least on behalf of “the bulk” of the public, as evidenced by the public survey results. While the previous chapter has already brought to light how general collectivity attributions are a ritualised and routinely adopted resource to introduce aggressive or accusatory questioning lines, the presence of measurable audience opinions in the form of public survey results in the 2009 pre-election broadcasts allowed journalist-presenters to give concrete form to this general collectivity. On the basis of the public survey results, journalist-presenters could not only to claim to know what the audience was concerned about but also to achieve a legitimacy that allowed these concerns to be represented as a kind of certainty or as truthful ‘facts’. As a consequence, the journalist-
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presenters were able to appeal to concrete survey results to reinforce the defensibility of their questions, hold politicians accountable and avoid breaches of their neutralistic posture. In the following extracts, the journalist-presenters strongly challenge the politicians’ viewpoints or argumentations by turning to footing shifts that are intrinsically embedded within the format. On the basis of the public service broadcasters’ public survey results, the journalist-presenters claim legitimacy to know what “the ordinary man” (line 4) or “the ordinary Fleming” (lines 2-3) thinks, wants and disapproves of. The pre-conducted public survey allows the journalist-presenters to back up their traditional public servant sub-role and legitimacy to speak on behalf of the public by referring to concrete, verified data on that point.
(8.7) Terzake 09, 18 May 2009
JP: Lieven Verstraete
P1: Jean-Marie Dedecker (LDD)
P2: Geert Bourgeois (N-VA)
1 JP: [But Mr] Dedecker if the:: survey of Vlaanderen 09 has taught us
2 one thing then it is that the o::rdinary Fleming hh::: no longer
3 tolerates those top wages (.) is the ordinary man wrong then?
4 P1: hh::: ( )
5 P2: [hh::: but I think] I think that’s logic because people hh::
6 JP: [no:: hh:: yes]
7 P1: [but the question]
8 the question is not about not tolerating it- the question is
9 ho::w- what are you going to do:: about it hh:: and I think it
10 is extremely odd that one accepts it from an artist that one
11 accepts it from a cyclist hh:: that our lady number one …
12 ((answer continues))
The journalist-presenter’s questioning turn in the above extract follows Dedecker’s argumentation defending high wages for top managers in the private sector. Before posing his question, the journalist-presenter confronts the politician with a provocative statement claiming that “the ordinary Fleming” (line 2) clearly holds a different opinion, since the broadcaster’s public survey shows unambiguously that the Flemish people will “no longer tolerate those top wages” (lines 2-3). The subsequent question fits with the journalist- presenter’s duty to hold politicians accountable in front of the public, but is formulated in such a way that it becomes very difficult for the
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politician properly to account for his position (“is the ordinary man wrong, then?”, line 3). Not only is it formulated as a yes/no question, the fact that the journalist-presenter invokes the results of the public survey in such a way that they are presumed to be a legitimate and factual foundation for raising the question (“if the survey… has taught us one thing then it is that…”, lines 1-2), and constructs it as highly damaging to the politician. We see that Dedecker adopts a classical resistance strategy in the form of an irrelevancy claim by working on the question (“the question is not about…”, line 8) and shifting the agenda subtly in a way that is more favourable to him (lines 9-11). In extracts 8.8 and 8.9, the journalist-presenters directly confront the politicians with the contradictory positions of the general public, on the basis of the survey results. Extract 8.8 shows a journalist-presenter’s opening question after the presentation of some survey results for the public’s view on trust and leadership within the political field. The journalist-presenter immediately addresses one of the two politicians, the Christian-democrat Kris Peeters, to confront him with “the” Fleming’s opinion about his party. (8.8) Vlaanderen 09, 17 May 2009: debate on leadership
JP: Ivan De Vadder
P: Kris Peeters (CD&V)
((JP cites the most relevant public survey results on political leadership and
then moves, together with the debaters, to the debate arena))
((Jingle))
1 JP: Mr Peeters (.) your party is no::t associated with leadership
2 although this is exactly what the Fleming expects within these
3 uncertain times of crisis
4 P: Ye:::s but what is leadership hh:: I think that hh::: we a::re
5 actors (.) I tackle issues I solve dossiers hh:: I think that
6 that is very important … ((answer continues))
Straightforward statements such as these are powerful means for journalist-presenters to stake out the debate and attach relevance to its topic. By virtue of a footing shift, the journalist-presenter is able immediately to confront the politician with a challenging observation without assuming responsibility for the position being aired (Clayman, 1992: 175). The preceding presentation of tangible survey results about the percentage of the public that attaches importance to leadership within political parties, further protects the
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journalist-presenters’ neutralistic position: had no results been presented, the journalist-presenter’s position as public servant and his legitimacy to decide what the people (“the Fleming”) “expect” (line 2) or need, would have been much less binding and powerful. As one of the main leaders of the party being addressed, Peeters tries subtly to circumvent the challenging statement by fastening on the meaning of the word “leadership” (line 4). In extract 8.9, the journalist-presenter relies on the public survey results to call Dedecker to account for past deeds, such as when he hired a detective to shadow a politician from another party – a topic which has also been tackled with in the previous chapter. (8.9) Vlaanderen 09, 17 May 2009: debate on political ethics
JP: Ivan De Vadder
P: Jean-Marie Dedecker (LDD)
1 JP: Yes Mr Dedecker (.) calling on detectives hh::: you heard it
2 people no longer find this credible
3 P: I shall explain it agai::::n Mr De Vadder hh::: if I see:: (.)
4 that the government sells a million government buildings to
5 fiscal paradises to off-shore companies then I scru::tinise that
6 (.) and if I then notice that there are politicians involved
7 then I scru::tinise that hh:: and I think that that is my:: job
8 hh:: I think that that is my job
9 JP: [that’s perfectly] [B::ut] you understand that the
10 perception is … ((answer continues))
In lines 1 and 2, the journalist-presenter refers to his earlier presentation of some specific survey results on citizens’ views of honesty and reliability in Flemish politics, as a means to criticise the credibility of the politician on behalf of the general public. The format’s structure, in which every small debate is preceded by the journalist-presenter’s presentation of some relevant (in terms of percentages) survey results, provides the journalist-presenter with a powerful resource, making his claims on behalf of the public tough and tangible and allowing him to confront the politician with “the perception” (lines 9-10) of the citizens while still maintaining a defensible neutralistic posture.
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DEFENDING CRITICISM
The pre-arranged format team collaborations seem to be powerful resources for journalist-presenters not only to be offensive during the interactional process, but also to be defensive in the face of the politicians’ criticisms of their conduct. As the previous chapter has demonstrated, the maintenance of journalistic neutralism is as much a matter of the journalist-presenters’ using strategies to conform to that basic journalistic ideal, as of the politicians co-operating and collaborating in this construction of neutrality. The analysis of the 2009 pre-election VRT-broadcasts shows that the pre-arranged format team collaborations of these programmes deliver important resources for journalist-presenters to maintain professionalism when their neutrality is in jeopardy. The format team collaborations are then invoked strategically, as a resource to uphold the journalist-presenters’ legitimate position as a neutral political reporter. There are several examples of journalist-presenters defending themselves against politicians’ critical attacks by invoking the survey results.
(8.10) Vlaanderen 09, 17 May 2009: debate on state reform
JP: Ivan De Vadder P2: Bart De Wever (N-VA)
P1: Filip Dewinter (Vlaams Belang)
1 P1: We need to stop with state re::forms hh:: we need to strive for
2 state fo::rms (.) Flanders is ready for it ce::rtainly after the
3 impasse that you::r party ((points at P3)) together with that of
4 Mr De Wever ((points at IE2)) organised for four to five years
5 JP: [But] [M-mister] De
6 Wever did achieve something that you:: never achieved
7 credibility on this domain hh:: this is his subject matter
8 P2: [Yes] ((rolls his eyes))
9 P1: The voter hh:: will judge that (.) who is credible and who is=
10 JP: [This is what the survey says]
11 P1: =not … ((answer continues))
In this extract, the extreme-right politican Filip Dewinter challenges the journalist-presenter’s neutrality by criticising and delegitimising the journalist-presenter’s right to pass judgement on his credibility (“the voter will judge that, who is credible and who is not”, lines 9-11). This criticism of the journalist-presenter could seriously threaten the journalist-presenter’s
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presentation of his neutral and competent professional self. In a third turn, the journalist-presenter shows he was indeed challenged by the politician’s turn as immediately he intervenes, and refers to the public survey in order to defend and protect his neutralism and re-establish the distance between his personal position and his previously formulated critical line of questioning (“this is what the survey says”, line 10). Without an integration of the survey results into the programme’s format, it would have been more difficult for the journalist-presenter to defend his position. The immediate availability of the survey results, in this case, allows the journalist-presenter to resume presentation of his professional self. In the next extract, the journalist-presenter similarly steers the dialogue towards the results of the enquiry in order to legitimise an adversarial line of questioning that is challenged by a politician. The extract is from a debate with the extreme-right politician Bruno Valkeniers, who is criticised for ignoring the topic of green energy in his party election manifesto.
(8.11) Vlaanderen 09, 17 May 2009: debate on energy
JP: Ivan De Vadder
P: Bruno Valkeniers (Vlaams Belang)
1 P: … it was the government hh:: that u:::rged t:::-to a flow of=
2 JP: [yes but I just just hh:: go=
3 P: =our energy:::
4 JP: =o::n it is not] a subject (.) you are concerned with the safety
5 of migrants but you are not concerned (.) with green energy:::
6 P: That is what you:: say if you take a look at our manifesto there
7 is a ve:::ry (.) large part partaken indee:::d for the=
8 JP: [yes but the research=
9 P: =envi:ronment
10 JP: =here shows] that the Fleming doesn’t associate you with that at
11 all
12 P: Of course we have a number of other central themes that are
13 equally important as far as we’re concerned hhh::: that’s true …
14 ((answer continues))
After the journalist-presenter formulates the critical assertion that Valkeniers is “concerned with the safety of migrants” rather than with topics on “green energy” (lines 4-5), the latter challenges the journalist-presenter’s neutrality by referring to the journalist-presenter’s misinterpretation of his party
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election manifesto (“That is what you say”, line 6). This subtle resistance by the politician can be threatening to the journalist-presenter’s professional position as neutral and competent. In a third turn, the journalist-presenter is shown to be challenged by the politician’s turn and quickly tries to distance himself from this adversarial line of questioning and defend his neutralism. He invokes the results of the enquiry and refers to the concerns shown by the public as the direct and only reason for posing the question (“yes but the research here shows that the Fleming doesn’t associate you with that at all”, lines 8-11). This allows him to defend his position as political journalist while at the same time urging the politician to respond to the question. We see that the journalist-presenter succeeds in legitimising his line of questioning, thereby safeguarding his role as political journalist and pressing the politician for a straightforward answer: in lines 12-13, the politician adjusts his initial criticism, to provide a more temperate response, constructing the appearance of agreement with the journalist-presenter’s challenging question (“that’s true”, line 13). Note that this legitimacy of the journalist-presenter to act selectively as public servant or ‘tribune of the people’ (Clayman 2002, 2007) is traditional, but in this instance is strengthened by the presence of a format component of real and ‘evident’ data about the audience’s concerns. In claiming to know what the public effectively thinks, journalist-presenters find support for and may even bolster their traditional professional public servant sub-role.
8.3.3 THE JOURNALIST-PRESENTER AS TELEVISION PRODUCER
The fact that this series of political television programmes was so heavily formatted is closely connected to the journalist-presenter’s responsibilities as television producer. Clayman and Heritage’s (2002: 73) description of journalist-presenters as occupying “the interactional driver’s seat, launching all sequences of action” or Bovet’s (2007: 183) similar metaphor of journalist-presenters as the “conductors” of a television show, is very apt in this context. Journalist-presenters not only have to manage the interactional development of the discussion in terms of critical questioning and moderating, they are also responsible for tackling each of the predefined propositions and their supporting reportages and commentaries at appropriate moments in the
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debate.64 The alternate use of public survey results and clear-cut propositions, short reportages and expert contributions as a structuring format within the public broadcast service election programmes, can be situated within a more general trend towards discontinuity in contemporary television, which “is mostly no more than an acknowledgement of the discontinuous attention which domestic viewers tend to give to most television” (Ellis 2000: 82 in Kroon Lundell 2009: 275). The presentation of public survey results and the announcements of the propositions and accompanying reportages and expert accounts, serve not only to inform the overhearing audience about the flow of the interaction, but also to grab the audience’s attention, stimulate its curiosity and keep people tuned in based on anticipation of subsequent topics. Extract 8.5 is a good example of how the journalist-presenter ‘warms up’ the public for the next topic in the debate, by building tension and accentuating the connections with the audience’s concerns and the real life world. In addition, the predefined format team collaborations can enable certain other ‘unspoken’ televisual practices, such as speeding up, stimulating conflicting positions, introducing appealing topics, and keeping it simple. For instance, the content of the reportages often is a one-sided opinion and often is constructed in such a way that at least one of the politicians can be expected to disagree with it. From their role as television producer, journalist-presenters can build upon a particular media-cultural power to stimulate conflict talk and endorse simplification in the discussions. As far as concerns the legitimacy to search for simplification, the format team collaborations have clear potential of simplifying otherwise complex matters: by relating weighty political topics to concrete cases in the form of reportages about ‘ordinary people’, or by moulding complex themes into simplified propositions, the journalist-presenters – and the team of media professionals behind them – can a priori integrate a high level of concreteness in the programmes. What’s more, the presence of such simplified format features provides journalist-presenters
64 However, it is worth mentioning that journalist-presenters are not totally alone in accomplishing this complex task but are backed up
by a team of media professionals in the backstage. In one of the episodes of TerZake 09 it is clear that the journalist-presenters wear
earphones which keep them in direct contact with the direction room and that they are prompted by the programme producer to cut
interactions, and to shift to the next prearranged topic by presenting a new proposition. Chapters 9 and 10 will look into more detail at
this role of the backstage team of media professionals in the journalist-presenters’ on-air achievement of media professionalism.
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with a powerful resource for legitimising the endorsement of simplification. This is for instance clear from extracts 8.1 and 8.2, in which the reportage on the concrete case of the 55-year old train conductor who wants to retire furnishes a powerful resource for the journalist-presenter to promote concreteness in the interaction and press the politician to evade complexity. Just as much as the format team collaborations help the journalist-presenters in legitimising their search for simplification, so do these team collaborations also have potential for accomplishing the journalist-presenters’ legitimacy to search for conflict in the interaction. In extracts 8.3, 8.4 and 8.5 for instance, the journalist-presenter builds upon a managing director’s opinion as shown in the reportage to stimulate a conflictual atmosphere in the talk. The following extract is an example of how the results of the broadcaster’s public survey can be used by journalist-presenters to introduce the debate’s subject matter as particularly controversial.
(8.12) Het Groot Debat 09, 31 May 2009
JP: Siegfried Bracke
((JP’s gaze directed to the camera))
1 JP: Research shows that you are not only concerned with the crisis
2 (.) you are also worried about the future of the cou:::ntry hhh
3 while at the same time the group that thinks that Flanders should
4 proceed alo:::ne is ever increasing hhhh at least it is certain
5 that the Belgian system (.) risks coming to a dead end hhhh also
6 because the will to ta:::lk doesn’t seem to be very great hh and
7 thus you hear e::verywhere although with a lo::::t of different
8 meanings STOP the state reform (.)with Goedele Devroy and Ivan
9 De Vadder are FRANK Vandenbroucke and Filip Dewinter
In claiming to know what the audience is concerned about and taking these concerns as the starting point in the organisation of the ensuing debate, the journalist-presenter, in this example, is playing out a professional sub-role as public servant, providing the audience with the information they want. At the same time, this can be seen as an effective journalist-as-television-producer technique to grab the viewers’ attention. In referring to the contradictory nature of the audience’s positions (lines 1-4), the reluctance of politicians to talk about a particular subject (lines 5-6), and the multiple meanings of their
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positions (line 7), the journalist-presenter is ‘warming up’ the audience and persuading them that the subsequent debate is not to be missed. Also, the input from the academic experts as part of the election programmes’ formats appears to be strengthening the journalist-presenter’s role as television producer, since it frequently serves to provoke lively discussion. It is the role of the academic expert to give relevance to the pre-planned topic, i.e. contextualise it, emphasise its importance, raise some relevant questions for debate and stress potential conflict issues. In the extract below, for instance, the expert depicts an image of Flemish politics as an “art of destroying” (lines 5-6), “in search of confrontation” (lines 7-8), and “a source of unhappiness” (line 10). This introduction by the academic expert provides the journalist-presenter with concrete tools for gradually building up towards the provocative and somewhat blunt proposition that “politics frightens people” (lines 13-14). (8.13) TerZake 09, 1 June 2009
JP: Lieven Verstraete
EXP: Carl Devos
P: Veerle Heeren (CD&V)
1 JP: Professor (.) politics has to aim for the happiness of the people
2 that is our proposition hh:: but nowadays you see more and more
3 that politics itself frightens people doesn’t it?
4 EXP: Absolutely (.) look politics is a hard business hh::: a while ago
5 Jean-Marie Dedecker already said that politics is the art of
6 destroy::ying more than it is the art of defeating hh:: (.)
7 parties contrast themselves with each other hh::: they are in
8 search of confrontation…
((expert’s turn continues))
9 EXP: …and that’s why so many people are disappointed in politics
10 and why politics thus also becomes a source of unhappiness
11 JP: Yes hh:: so in order to sco::re hh:: politics often creates an
12 image of the enemy and this at once brings us to our third
13 proposition hh::: which very simply goes as follows (.) politics
14 frightens people ((proposition appears on the screen)) hh::: Mrs
15 Heeren for once I want to start with you and-and hand it over to
16 the other side (.) hh::: how do you think Lijst Dedecker
17 frightens people?
18 P: I need to say that fear is a very bad guidance … ((answer
19 continues))
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The presence of the academic expert and his extensive contextualising turn about why contemporary Flemish politics is disappointing and frightening to Flemish citizens, creates a number of possibilities for the journalist-presenter to achieve his professional tasks in the encounter without endangering his required neutralistic stance. The fact that the academic expert is seated at the debating table, positioned somewhere in between the journalist-presenter and the politician, not only makes the launched proposition completely warrantable and less easy to resist by the politician, it also allows the journalist-presenter to arouse the curiosity of the audience through the promotion of lively discussion. Although it might seem a bit odd to treat the expert commentaries in the same way as the thoroughly pre-produced presentation of public survey results, visualised propositions, and reportages, and, thus, to consider the academic expert’s accounts as a real ‘format component’, a short look at the journalist-presenter’s and expert’s collaborative turn constructions is enough to realise that this categorisation is certainly not unfounded. In the extract above, it stands out how the journalist-presenter’s and the expert’s turns seem to be produced in almost perfect harmony, expressed by the fluency with which their turns tail off and feed into each other (e.g. “politics itself frightens people doesn’t it?” (closing line JP, line 3), “absolutely” (opening line EXP, line 4), “politics thus also becomes a source of unhappiness” (closing line EXP, line 10), “this at once brings us to our third proposition which very simply goes as follows: ‘politics frightens people’” (opening line JP, lines 12-14)). This co-operative and apparently pre-arranged construction of an extensive interactional sequence by the journalist-presenter and expert was not a one-off case, but in fact returned in every single broadcast of Terzake 09. The interactions between the journalist-presenter and the academic expert typically followed the basic sequential structure of (1) a journalist-presenter addressing the academic expert with a question or statement; (2) the academic expert answering the question or elaborating on the statement; and (3) a journalist-presenter emphasising the relevance of the expert’s discourse to the forthcoming debate, launching a first proposition and addressing one of the politicians present in the form of an opening question or statement. The repetitiveness with which this structured sequence consistently recurred throughout the broadcasts and the smoothness with which the beginning of
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the journalist-presenters’ turns always flowed smoothly on from the end of the academic expert’s turn, at least creates the impression that the academic, in some way or another, is an essential part of the format. The interactional role of the academic expert might, then, be best described as the journalist-presenters’ ‘sidekick’: a habitué to whom the journalist-presenters can appeal at fixed and well-anticipated moments in the interaction to be assisted in their television producer responsibilities – e.g. keeping tension, becoming concrete, promoting conflict talk and alternation, etc. In the extract below, this collaboration between the journalist-presenter and the academic expert is exceptionally brought to the surface, through the journalist-presenters’ and expert’s joint orientations to their accounts as effectively pre-scripted.
(8.14) TerZake 09, 5 June 2009
EXP: Carl Devos
JP: Lieven Verstraete
P: Jean-Luc Dehaene (CD&V)
1 EXP: … the gentlemen have a dream about Europe (.) do they also have a
2 dream about Belgium? (.) because Europe is a state in the making
3 (.) Belgium according to some is a state in dissolution hh::: it
4 would be interesting to check out what these gentlemen think about
5 that Belgian dream
6 JP: Loo:::k what a coincidence we just wanted to handle this
7 EXP: [hhh:: that] suits
8 well
((Everyone laughs))
9 JP: And this brings us to
10 P: [I] [I cer]tainly didn’t know that
11 JP: ((laughs)) And this brings us to our first proposition (.) EUROPE
12 (.) OWN PEOPLE FIRST … ((turn continues))
After the professor’s introduction, the journalist-presenter underlines the “coincidence” that this happens to be the next topic on the agenda (line 6), at which everyone laughs and one of the politicians expresses pretended amazement (“I certainly didn’t know that”, line 10). It shows the awareness of all the actors – the academic expert, the journalist-presenters, the politicians, and the studio audience – that the interaction between the journalist-presenter and the expert is planned in advance. In this respect, Kroon Lundell (2009) and Ytreberg (2006) have argued that contemporary (political) television
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formats are largely ‘staged’ and ‘illusionary’ in character: although they fall back on pre-planned format components and scripts, broadcast performers will always try to create a feeling of spontaneity, authenticity and immediacy. The irony with which the journalist-presenter in the above extract accentuates the “coincidence” of the topical parallel between the academic expert’s turn and his own, and the other actors’ reactions in the form of laughter and the politician’s ironic comment, make this paradox explicit.
8.4 SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS
The mediated interactions between journalist-presenters and politicians do not occur in a vacuum, but happen in the context of a programme format, with prearranged programme format components and scripts, setting the conditions and providing a context for the actual interactions (Kroon Ludell, 2009; Ytreberg, 2004, 2006). This chapter attempted to relate format considerations to a micro-level analysis of journalistic roles in political television debates. In their identity as media professionals, journalist-presenters need to show themselves to be skilled in mastering a wide range of different practices from leading the interaction, asking critical questions and ensuring a balanced turn-allocation, to making good television and attract viewers. In light of this latter responsibility, it is the journalist-presenters’ responsibility to smoothly integrate the programme format and its inscribed components into the local development of the programme. The analysis of the 2009 Flemish pre-election debates showed that pre-produced, format-related programme components, such as public surveys, visualised propositions, reportages and expert commentaries, not only impact on the interactions, but create several issues for the journalist-presenters hosting and presenting these television programmes. On the one hand, the demands of the format complicate the journalist-presenters’ repertoire of tasks and responsibilities, because it is they who are wholly responsible for combining these format components into practice within the live unfolding of the programmes. They need to demonstrate their ability to bring on-going discussions to a close and make a smooth transition to the pre-produced format components, at pre-planned moments within the programme, i.e. demonstrate the already referred to skill to produce a fluent “ribbon of broadcasting” (Goffman, 1981:
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262). On the other hand, it appeared that format components and extensive pre-planning do not necessarily have to be limiting or threatening to the journalist-presenters’ professional performance. On the contrary, the analysis indicates that these pre-produced format components offer potential for the journalist-presenters’ performance of a media professional identity, by both minimising resistant turns from politicians, and enlarging the journalist-presenters’ ‘pool’ of strategic resources to uphold their power positions and accomplish their complex repertoire of roles. Journalist-presenters then make selective use of the available format components to achieve a legitimate position from which to control the interactional development of the conversation and maintain a defendable and appropriate journalistic stance while, at the same time, meeting the media organisation’s objective of attracting audiences and persuading them to stay tuned.
If they succeed in realising the latter objective is, of course, another matter. As mentioned in the beginning of this chapter, the 2009 pre-election campaign broadcasts on Flemish public television were the subject of numerous criticisms from audience members and print journalists who denounced the programmes’ celebration of form at the expense of content and in-depth debate. The audiences’ reception of the heavy reliance on formatting in these programmes as not promoting good political television talk or successful journalism would seem to be in sharp contrast to the relevance of programme formatting for the journalist-presenters’ successful role accomplishments at the local level. In any case, the far-reaching embedding of pre-arranged components within programme formats gives pause for thought, not only in relation to the state and legitimacy of contemporary broadcast journalism, but also – and perhaps even more insistently – in relation to the supporting and controlling capability of underlying televisual production processes. In Chapter 9, it is exactly these processes of pre-mediation that are scrutinised in more depth.
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317
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11
Ι
CHAPTER 9
THE ROLE OF PRODUCTION STANDARDS IN
THE CONSTRUCTION OF A MEDIA
PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY In an attempt to further grasp the complexity of media professional identity in political television programmes, the remaining empirical chapters further acknowledge the intrinsic situated nature of its broadcasts and redirect analytic attention from the media professionals’ pratices in the on-air studio setting towards their situated preparatory practices in those spaces which, regularly, are hidden from public scrutiny. The main reason for this re-orientation can be found in the performative argument that to grasp the complexity of ‘doing’ identity and power (see Chapters 3, 4 and 5), the scope of analysis needs to be broadened to supplement the observations of frontstage behavioural patterns with an examination of the practices and mutual orientations in the backstage areas of a given institutional context (e.g. Goffman, 1959, 1981; Kroon Lundell, 2009, 2010; Meyrowitz, 1990; Ytreberg, 2002, 2004, 2006). Although how to obtain access to these back-regions of institutional settings is not always evident (Deacon et al., 1999: 268; Kroon Lundell, 2010a: 182-183), as was also the case in this project (see Chapter 6), the observations made in those regions can create valuable possibilities for extending the analysis of front-region occurrences, and produce a more complete understanding of the performance of professional identities. It is precisely this value of backstage relevancies that acts as the analytic foundation of this chapter. On the basis of the results of an ethnographic study of the newsroom of Terzake, I try to achieve an insider’s view of the interpretative, sense-making practices and local orientations of media professionals in the programme's off-air production contexts. The central question guiding the analysis is: How is the construction of a media
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professional identity contingent upon production standards in the backstage settings of political television programmes? By focusing on the production activities and production standards of Terzake’s personnel in the pre-broadcast phases, I intend to scrutinise the delicate processes through which a media professional identity is prepared for, produced and reproduced in the production phases of political broadcasting and, by extension, to develop a more comprehensive understanding of media professional identity in this context. This should contribute to the broader reflection on how preparatory activities in the backstage settings of Terzake potentially affect the frontstage accomplishment of a media professional identity and the roles of interactional manager, political journalist and television producer.
The chapter deals first with the concrete composition of the Terzake team, introducing its prime actors and activities, as well as its spaces and tools. It then examines how the Terzake team members prepare for their frontstage performances of a media professional identity by routinely orienting to and calling upon a recurring set of production standards in their planning of the broadcasts. Accordingly, the results of my observations at Terzake will be structured in relation to this repertoire of standards. The chapter concludes with a brief summary and more profound discussion of how the Terzake media professionals' production activities and the circulation of professional standards can be integrated and included in the already established results of the on-air performance of a media professional identity.
9.1 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE TERZAKE TEAM, ITS ACTIVITIES,
SPACES AND TOOLS
At the backstage settings of Terzake, a team of media professionals is occupied on a daily basis with the pre-planning and fine-tuning of the evening’s broadcast. In contrast to the previous analyses, which considered the journalist-presenters as the core and only media professionals in the front-region of political broadcasting, the next two chapters require the definition of ‘media professional’ be broadened to also include other types of media actors. It is especially the shift in analytic focus from the on-air studio context to the off-air contexts of political television production that makes the
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portrayal of the journalist-presenters as the prime professional actors of the programme rather restrictive, and demanding of a more holistic view of the media professional. A typical Terzake production is the outcome of intense cooperation among the two journalist-presenters, seven reporters, three researchers, one director, two production-assistants, and two editors.65 In what follows, I provide a brief overview of the typical tasks and activities of this set of media professionals engaged in producing Terzake, without very specific discussion of the interrelationships or internal hierarchies among them. These latter aspects are tackled in Chapter 10. The two journalist-presenters, Kathleen Cools and Lieven Verstraete, play a vital and influential role in the production of Terzake. Terzake’s programme format is to have one journalist-presenter66, so Cools and Verstraete alternate, including for responsibility for the production. Whoever is ‘in charge’ for the evening’s broadcast presentation is generally expected to participate actively in the programme’s production: s/he will invest a great deal of time in scripting the interview questions, compiling the transition texts and the so-called “repo-texts”, participating in the day-to-day agenda-setting process and contacting and welcoming the studio guests. Whichever of the journalist-presenters is not in charge is present in the newsroom, but intervenes much less prominently in the development and production of the broadcast. This individual appears to take on the role of ‘on call’ journalist-presenter whose professional expertise can be called upon if necessary. This difference in responsibility and activity between the in charge and on call journalist-presenter is also exemplified visually in their differential physical positioning in the newsroom’s open plan office: the journalist-presenter responsible for the evening's presentation is generally seated in the centre of the newsroom, in front of the editor-in-chief (see Figure 9.1); the ‘on call’ journalist-presenter is positioned much less prominently in the newsroom, generally in one of several seats at the back of the office. The journalist-presenters are often the last to arrive in the
65 This study takes account only of the activities of and interrelationships among the Terzake team members. However, this is not to
say that that these individuals co-operate only with one another in the production process. Often, the Terzake crew have to depend on
the services of other types of media workers who may not necessarily be directly connected to Terzake, but are employed by the public
service broadcaster for their expertise, e.g. camera crews, technicians, and graphic designers.
66 An exception to this is just before or during a general election when the regular Terzake-format may be revised to allow joint
presentation by both journalist-presenters (e.g. Terzake 09 and Terzake 2012).
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newsroom, sometime just before noon, when the other media professionals are bringing to a close their collective agenda-setting meeting or “story meeting” (Cotter, 2010).
Figure 9.1: Positioning of the editor-in-chief and journalist-presenter-in-chief in the open plan newsroom
Supporting the journalist-presenters are seven reporters who are responsible for delivering input to the broadcast’s content. Their main task is to contribute to the joint brainstorming activity on the morning of the broadcast, and to create reportage on topics deemed relevant. One of the journalist-presenters referred to them as “piece-makers” (16/03), during a period of observation. In general, each of the seven reporters has a particular domain of expertise, ranging from politics or economics to external and current affairs. These specialisms ensure that topics and question are efficiently and rapidly dealt with, and that appropriate reportage is obtained to address a topic on the Terzake agenda. The reporters, together with public service broadcaster’s news service technicians are responsible also for later mounting and editing their film into finished reportage.
IN CHARGE JOURNALIST-PRESENTER
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
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Should the journalist-presenters or reporters need clarification on a particular topic, there are three researchers on constant stand-by in the newsroom who can offer assistance and information. The researchers' primary tools for obtaining information are the Internet and a list of fixed sources with relevant contact data. In the case of extra complex issues, they are assigned – mostly by the editors – with compiling weighty dossiers of relevant information. The researchers also play a significant role in the programme's initial agenda-setting process and are expected to contribute substantially to the team’s daily morning meetings around the conference table at the back of the open plan office space (see Figure 9.2). They arrive quite early in the newsroom and use the daily newspapers and magazines as their main sources of inspiration. The researchers' day starts with their screening the papers and magazines for news topics that potentially are worthy of being included in the programme's agenda. These are then presented to the other Terzake team members during the morning's collective agenda-setting process in the story meetings.
Figure 9.2: The conference table and open plan office in Terzake’s newsroom
CONFERENCE TABLE
OPEN PLAN OFFICE
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This ensemble of journalist-presenters, reporters and researchers are in a constant and close contact with the editors of Terzake. Mimicking the pattern of the journalist-presenters, there are two editors who alternate responsibility for the evening’s broadcast and the role of editor-in-chief. The programme editors are generally the final decision-makers in the definition of the evening’s broadcast agenda and fine-tuning of the broadcast. The editors seem to have final responsibility for every aspect of the evening’s show from contacting appropriate sources and studio guests, to the framing of the reporters’ reportage, and the scripting of the journalist-presenters' texts. During the live broadcast, the editor-in-chief is positioned in the control room and is in direct contact with the journalist-presenter in the studio through a talkback system. In contrast to the more content-centred activities of the journalist-presenters, reporters, researchers and editors, the more practical and mechanical aspects of Terzake’s production are the responsibility of a technically-oriented crew. Typically, the production worker searches for camera crews and ensures that these crews are in the right place at the right time to assist the reporters in shooting pieces. Also, the production worker ensures that invited studio guests gain entry to the broadcaster’s building and are taken to the make-up room and then to a foyer next to the studio, offered refreshments and introduced informally to the programme anchors and other media professionals prior to and after the live broadcast.67 The director and two production-assistants assist the reporters in mounting their reportage and ensure an unproblematic unfolding of the technical aspects during the live, on-air broadcasting process. During the broadcast, they sit in a line in the front row in the control room (see Figure 9.3). The control room is a highly specific and professionalised space to which only the director, the production-assistants, the editor-in-chief and a couple of technicians have access. The room is lined with television screens showing mainly multiple different angles from the cameras in the studio setting. The far left screen is always reserved for displaying the actual broadcast as transmitted to the overhearing audience, while the far right screen typically shows the scripted intro/outro and transition texts on the autocue. During the live unfolding of the
67 See especially Chapter 10 for an analysis of the interrelationships in this setting.
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broadcast, it is the director who decides about the angles and directs the camera operators, using a talkback system similar to that used between the editor and journalist-presenter, to give instruction about their re-positioning and their camera focus.
Figure 9.3: Control room
As the day progresses, these different types of media professional work together in changing constellations and within a variety of backstage spaces. Figure 9.4 gives an overview of the different time spans and spaces in which the Terzake media professionals typically co-operate in the production of Terzake broadcasts. In the newsroom – either at the conference table or in the open plan office, foyer, studio setting, and control room, the media professionals work themselves through the day. As from half an hour before the live airing of Terzake broadcasts at 20h, the media professionals – i.e. the journalist-presenter(s) 68 and in some cases also a couple of reporters or researchers – gather in the foyer space to welcome the studio guests. About
68 As mentioned before, the third observational period coincided with a Terzake pre-election edition, which required both journalist-
presenters to take care of the programme’s presentation.
EDITOR’S SEAT
HEADPHONE FOR TALKBACK SYSTEM
FRONT ROW SEATS OF
TECHNICAL CREW
AUTOCUE CAMERA
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ten minutes before going on-air, the journalist-presenter(s) and studio guests move to the nearby studio setting to install themselves at the interview table and take their positions. Meanwhile, the editor-in-chief, director and production assistants leave the newsroom to head for the control room, from which they follow and direct the development of the on-air broadcast. As soon as the broadcast comes to a close, the journalist-presenter(s), studio guests, editor-in-chief, and in some cases the reporters and researchers who stayed in the foyer and followed the broadcast on the foyer’s television screen, assemble in the foyer for post-broadcast commentaries and small talk.
Figure 9.4: Overview of Terzake’s time spans, spaces and participants
9.2 UNRAVELLING THE MEDIA PROFESSIONAL “REFLEX”: A
LOOK BEHIND THE SCENES OF TERZAKE
As professionals engage in institutional working practices, they inevitably are involved also in complex interactional processes and sense-making practices. Thus, it would be an oversimplification to bracket together and describe the backstage practices of the Terzake workers with no reflection on the presuppositions, expectations and interpretations that circulate in the routine accomplishment of these practices. Therefore, it is valuable to have a closer analytic look at what is often taken for granted by the media professionals themselves, and to unravel the professional “doxa” (Bourdieu, 2002 [1977]: 164), “craft ethos” (Cotter, 2010: 31), or, as one of the media professionals at
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Terzake once defined it, the automatic “reflex” (cfr. reporter, 1 October 2012) with which they routinely produce and deliver Terzake broadcasts. Only when zooming in to the specific routinised presuppositions and operational standards that guide the media professionals’ everyday practices and decision-making processes in the backstage settings of political broadcasting, can one obtain a deeper insight into the overall construction of a media professional identity. It is through the continuous confirmation, challenge, and negotiation of these underlying presuppositions and standards through everyday discursive practice that Terzake broadcasts, and the professional identities therein, come into being. The behind-the-screens observations at Terzake generally reveal further implications of the performance of power, roles and identities in the context of political broadcasting. By considering the actual production activities of the Terzake staff, a more comprehensive understanding of media professionalism is achieved. The tripe role referred to throughout this work as the main constitutive aspects of a media professional identity – i.e. the media professional as interactional manager, political journalist and television producer – is apt also in the context of this analysis of backstage sense-making practices. In fact, it is through a repertoire of routine production activities and oriented-to standards that the Terzake media professionals co-operate in preparing for the successful performance of their media professional roles and, ultimately, of a media professional identity. In this respect, the joint preparatory activities of the media professionals, and the standards that circulate within these activities, are shown to be crucial means on which the front stage articulation of professionalism is based. From the joint brainstorming sessions in the morning to their informal conversations in the foyer in the very late evening, the Terzake journalist-presenters, editors, reporters and researchers are pre-occupied with showing orientations to and negotiating definitions of media professionalism; of what it means to be a media professional at Terzake and of what it means to professionally produce a successful Terzake broadcast. Most prominently, the ethnographic analysis indicates that media professionalism in the back-regions of Terzake is predominantly articulated in the media professionals’ ability to master a specific set of shared production standards and to effectuate them in their everyday routinised activities. While jointly shaping,
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concretising and preparing the evening broadcasts, the team of media professionals at Terzake are consistently oriented to a repertoire of goals or standards that generally govern their backstage production work. Whether reflecting upon the invitation of particular studio guests or considering the appropriateness and appeal of potential agenda-topics, a set of recurring standards variously serve as key criteria against which potential studio guests or agenda-topics routinely are measured. Although seldom explicitly oriented to by the media professionals themselves, the iterative empirical analysis of the ethnographic observations identifies seven standards that systematically guide these professionals' day-to-day production activities: originality, distinction, accuracy, public relevance, neutralism and balance, continuity, and spontaneity. Initially, it was not my prime intention to typify such a relatively closed set of professional production standards from the observations at Terzake, but rather to become familiarised with the everyday activities that are put to work to shape and prepare for broadcasts. However, this set of standards kept emerging out of the analysis of my ethnographic fieldnotes. Much to my own surprise, and interestingly enough, these standards to a large extent seem to parallel with traditional macro-oriented research about news values in journalism. However, rather than being theoretical, pre-empirical categories imposed on the analysis, the set of production standards that are put forward here are the result of iterative bottom-up analyses of the media professionals’ everyday sense-making activities in the newsroom and other relevant backstage settings. As such, media professionals do not explicitly refer to these standards to instigate or justify their production activities. Rather, these professional standards are shown as routinely emerging from and achieving relevance within the media professionals’ activities and local interactions in the newsroom and other relevant spaces in the back-region. Overall, the putting into practice of this set of standards serves two role-related and overarching production objectives at Terzake: the creation of a journalistically appropriate and unique broadcast offer, and the scripting of an unscripted feel.
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9.2.1 “GETTING THE BALL IN THE NET”: THE CREATION OF A
JOURNALISTICALLY APPROPRIATE AND UNIQUE BROADCAST OFFER
As part of their daily routine, the media professionals are constantly involved in showing orientations towards what makes out a good and journalistically appropriate Terzake broadcast. Through these orientations and accompanying routine practices, the media professionals consistently appeal to a set of presuppositions that are closely related to the institution of journalism. The ethnographic analysis indicates that the Terzake media professionals routinely work according to the standards of originality, distinction, accuracy, public relevance and neutralism and balance in their overall endeavour to produce a creative, in-depth and appealing journalistic product. In the effectuation of these standards, the reporters, editors and journalist-presenters bring into circulation a number of expectations about their proper roles and constantly are challenged to prove their competence as media professionals. It is especially clear that the Terzake media professionals appeal to these standards when preparing the frontstage performance of their interactional manager and political journalist roles. The following is based on these journalistic standards to show how the Terzake members typically prepare themselves for a successful on-air performance of a media professional identity, and which professional competencies are required.
IDENTIFYING WITH THE PROGRAMME: A SEARCH FOR ORIGINALITY
One of the prime aspects of a media professionalism in the off-air spaces of Terzake relates to the ability to identify with the genre boundaries and definitions that characterise the programme and other news programmes, from a general intention to produce an original offer. Based on such striving for originality, media professionalism in the newsroom can be seen as articulated in the competence broadly to identify with the programme’s specificity as a “news and commentary magazine” (e.g. Terzake website), and with the genre and format boundaries of its main competing news programmes. It appears that the media professionals are specifically required to demonstrate the political-journalist-related skill to produce a valuable,
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interpretive and in-depth broadcasting offer that distinguishes itself from the existing palette of news programmes. Overall, the Terzake team members put high value on creating an original programme that provides in-depth elucidation and interpretation of current news events which cannot be as fully or as extensively covered by other news programmes on Flemish television. It is especially during explicit agenda-setting moments, such as the collective morning meetings in the newsroom, that the media professionals seem to be heavily occupied with mutually articulating definitions of Terzake’s particularity, often in relation to other news programmes’ genre boundaries. As Cotter (2010: 9) identifies, these so-called “story meetings” form the “crucial site for the emergence of values that pertain to the media contexts”. At Terzake, reporters, researchers, editors and – as soon as they arrive – also the journalist-presenters, routinely gather around the conference table at the back of the open plan newsroom to jointly decide on the general agenda for that evening’s broadcast. The researchers and to a lesser extent the reporters are responsible for suggesting potential agenda-topics or “effervescent tablets” (editor, 17 March 2012), as one of the editors once described these topics. On the basis of their proper reading of the daily papers and magazines, the researchers and reporters select and suggest potentially relevant stories for reportage or studio interviews and debates. In cooperation with the researchers and reporters, the editors and journalist-presenters subsequently negotiate the actual relevance of the topic and relate it to reflections on the topic's position in the general broadcast structure. In these processes of “story conceptualization” (Cotter, 2010: 75) or “story ideation” (Bantz et al., 1980), the Terzake media professionals are involved almost continuously in expressing their understandings of what it is Terzake should cover. The typical journalistic goals of providing “added value” (editor, 14 March 2012) and “explanation” (reporter, 13 March 2012) count as the common overarching prerequisites for topics to reach the agenda and represent “getting the ball in the net” (editor, 16 March 2012). It appears to be a routine activity during the morning meetings to measure potential agenda topics against the background of shared knowledge of other news programmes’ genre limits. This then involves mutual understandings of other news programmes – especially of those produced by the public service
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broadcaster – as a means for negotiating the media professionals' proper definitions of so-called ‘appropriate’ Terzake topics. For example, topics that regularly fail to reach the Terzake agenda because other news programmes have “already dealt with it” (journalist-presenter to reporter, 16 April 2012) or because topics are too light-hearted, too broad or otherwise too obvious for Terzake and can be better covered by other news programmes. More specifically, it is the weekly current affairs programme De Zevende Dag (The Seventh Day, Eén, VRT), the more light-hearted documentary-style programme Koppen (Headlines, Eén, VRT), and the daily news show Het Journaal (The News, Eén, VRT) against which the Terzake professionals generally measure their items so as to avoid overlap and to maintain their proper programme singularity. For instance, during one of the observed story meetings, a researcher proposed the integration of the topics of an emerging solar wind and the occurrence of anorexia nervosa among athletes, both topics she had picked up from her routine reading of the daily newspapers. Her suggestion was rejected by one of the editors for being “too Koppenish” (in Dutch: “te Koppenachtig”) - a reference to the documentary programme Koppen and, thus, “too broad” for Terzake (8 March 2012).
MAKING NEWS AND SETTING THE TONE: A SEARCH FOR DISTINCTION
While many of the media professionals’ suggestions and ideas are based on and inspired by already-established news stories in newspapers, magazines and television programmes, the Terzake editorial team is simultaneously greatly occupied with making news, to distinguish itself from other news sources. From a general motivation to set the tone and provide for autonomous news production, the media professionals at Terzake are generally expected to show an ability not only to follow the news, but also to go out and make news.
During the observations, there were several occurrences of the editors and also, but less so, the journalist-presenters urging the team members to autonomously set the agenda and realise a distinction from already existing news outlets. The extract below reveals an editor-in-chief expressing doubts about the impulse to cover a just-revealed scoop in the popular weekly
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magazine Humo about a politician (and former journalist) accused of sexual harassment of women.
(9.1) 16 April 2012
Space: Newsroom
Scene: Editor-in-chief (E) to journalist-presenters and a reporter about
whether to cover a scoop that has just been published in Humo
1 E: First we have to know what is in there, we don’t have to simply
2 follow. If there is news in it, then we should do it.
This example is illustrative not only of the reticence of the editors in particular to blindly follow ‘the others’, but also the desire to make the news themselves and contribute independently to the existing facts. Extracts 9.2 and 9.3 also demonstrate this preference for setting the scene and working autonomously from existing news sources.
(9.2) 16 April 2012
Space: Newsroom
Scene: Editor (E) to reporter when the latter proposed to cover the recent
political measures on solving the traffic jam problem.
1 E: If you can make news with that…
(9.3) 24 April 2012
Space: Newsroom
Scene: Journalist-presenter (JP) to reporter after the latter came back from a
shooting afternoon at a politician’s press conference.
1 JP: Was there news in it? Was it interesting? Can we do something
2 with it?
That the Terzake media professionals put high value on distinction is exemplified not just in their mutual orientations, but is made tangible in a so-called “wall of fame” (10 October 2012). This is a section of the back wall of the newsroom that is reserved to display cut-out newspaper articles on news items that the team initiated (see Figure 9.5). By exposing them in this manner, these particular news stories work as yardsticks of their professionalism and incentives to continue working towards the standard of distinction.
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Figure 9.5: Terzake’s “wall of fame”
However, the distinction standard does not go uncontested. It is especially the duality between following the news and making the news that tends to create a certain complexity, which, at times, is explicitly encountered in the activities of and conversations among the media professionals. Extract 9.5, for instance, is part of a discussion between an editor-in-chief and a reporter about the production of a particular reportage, in light of reflections about distinction. In this specific case, the editor-in-chief wants to convince the reporter to make an undercover piece on the effectiveness of the recently introduced ban on smoking in public places. For this particular reportage, the reporter would have to go to bars in Brussels with a hidden camera to discover whether bar tenders were complying with the ban or being relaxed about smoking. The reporter was not keen to co-operate in the reportage and contested the editor’s proposition. Ultimately, the editor-in-chief uses the argument of distinction as a reason to continue with the idea of undercover reportage.
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(9.4) 27 April 2012
Space: Newsroom
Scene: Negotiation between an editor-in-chief (E) and a reporter (R) on the
production of a specific reportage
1 E: We can make news with this!
2 R: Oooooh, we make news! ((ironic tone))
3 E: Yes of course we make news! Why else do we do this?
The extract shows the contestation over the standard of distinction among the media professionals. Rather than being a fixed, shared understanding of political broadcast production, the standard can be negotiated and resisted at the level of local interactions and activities. Whereas the editor-in-chief makes a strong claim for pursuing this reportage since they “can make news with this” (line 1) and even suggests the possibility of it being picked up by other news media as a driving force of their professional activities (“why else do we do this?”, line 3), the reporter ridicules the distinction argument by questioning the story’s newsworthiness and by resisting acknowledgement of their proper role in the news-making process (“Oooooh, we make news!”, line 2). While the reporter’s reticence has probably more to do with a personal dislike of undercover assignments than a real belief in the proper role as newsmakers, the extract does show a dynamic negotiation over distinction as a potentially decisive standard for getting stories on the agenda. Somewhat similarly, the following extract depicts another negotiation between an editor-in-chief and a reporter about putting a particular story on Terzake’s agenda. During the daily story meeting, the reporter expresses his doubts about covering a topic on the Oosterweel Link in Antwerp69 and founds his argumentation on the distinction-related observation that “this [the Oosterweel-topic] will not make news” (16 April 2012). The editor-in-chief subsequently suggests attributing newsworthiness to the topic by altering its framing and situating it within a particular overarching framework.
69 The Oosterweel Link is a controversial and complex project to complete the Antwerp ring road.
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(9.5) 16 April 2012
Space: Newsroom
Scene: Conversation between an editor-in-chief (E) and a reporter (R) on
whether or not to make a particular reportage
1 E: It should mainly become a piece about: Is Oosterweel going to be
2 an issue in the next municipal elections or not?
... ((some lines removed))
3 R: Yes okay, but this piece will not make news.
4 E: But you have to frame it as: Look we are x weeks from the
5 elections.
The extract is illustrative of how media professionals tend to set store on the news-making potential of stories to achieve inclusion in the broadcast’s agenda. Also, it shows how framing can play a role in moulding a story such that it becomes a hot, on-the-spot, news topic (e.g. “But you have to frame it as: Look we are x weeks from the elections”, lines 4-5). Besides being related to the key value of distinction, this activity of framing is perhaps even more strongly related to another journalist-related professional standard which appears to guide the Terzake members’ production activities, that of accuracy.
FRAMING STORY LINES AND STUDIO GUESTS: A SEARCH FOR ACCURACY
ACCURATELY FRAMING STORY LINES. “Damn it”, the editor-in-chief mumbles in the control room during one of Terzake’s broadcasts (12 March 2012). His cursing is motivated by a broadcast reportage on the Afghanistan war. I am sitting next to him and he explains that the reportage generally falls short in relation to accuracy: not only has it been approached from the wrong angle, it at times also misses any framing. Later that evening, in the foyer area, the editor-in-chief shares his disappointment over the reportage with the journalist-presenter and a reporter. In fact, expressing more than disappointment with the reportage itself, the editor-in-chief demonstrates particular frustration with the lack of professionalism displayed by the reporter who was responsible for the reportage’s production. After voicing his irritation about the lack of accuracy, the editor-in-chief immediately alludes to the reporter’s long experience in the public service broadcaster’s
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news service: “and this man works here already for 25 years” (12 March 2012). Thus, the editor-in-chief seems to suggest that experience in the media should be proportional to media professionalism and, in this specific case, to the journalistic competence to deliver accurate news stories. Whilst quite exceptional because of the explicit critique on the reporter, the above case is illustrative of the weight that Terzake members generally tend to attach to the standard of accuracy in terms of a truthful and appropriate framing. Prompted by a typical journalistic intent to bring stories in a representative and contextualised manner, the Terzake members appear to consider it part of their professional identity and political journalist role to reflect upon an accurate construction and framing and to master the professional skill of choosing and effectuating accurate story angles. This is clear also in the media professionals’ general attitude to the operational procedures of other teams than theirs. Most notably in this respect is participation in the daily so-called “editor meeting”, where all the editors from the public service broadcaster’s various news programmes get together to discuss and reciprocally match their proper programme planning and broadcast structure.70 Throughout my time in the Terzake newsroom, I sensed some hesitance from the editors of Terzake of them attending these meetings. More often than not, the Terzake editors headed for this editor meeting with certain reluctance, precisely because these meetings tended not to be focused on accuracy and reflection. One of the Terzake editors commented that: “Everybody just reads his stuff from a little paper, without thinking about: who is going to make these pieces, from what angles, and so on” (13 March 2012). ACCURATELY FRAMING STUDIO GUESTS. However highly the media professionals value joint reflection upon accurately framed story lines, they are even more engaged in their day-to-day activities with reflecting upon the accurate framing of studio guests; on how the studio guests should be contextualised in the broadcast and on how they should be positioned against each other. In Chapter 7, I showed that, in their on-air studio performances and as part of their responsibility as interactional managers to stake out 70 These meetings coincided with the activities of the Terzake professionals so I chose not to attend them, but to continue my
observations in the Terzake newsroom.
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positions and ensure a clear frontstage discussion with demarcated positions, journalist-presenters regularly rely on contextualisations, supporter-versus-opponent framings and simplified re-formulations, as strategic powerful resources for framing politicians’ positions in the interaction. While simplified re-formulations are highly interaction-dependent in the sense that they require previous interactional stances to follow up on, contextualisations and supporter-versus-opponent frames are less contingent upon interactional development and, thus, can be scripted and prepared in advance. The ethnographic analysis shows that these latter resources are effectively largely pre-planned in the backstage settings of the programme for the sake of professional accuracy.
Scripting the contextualising labels that introduce studio guests in the later on-air interview or debate is considered a routine activity of the journalist-presenters. It is especially in those cases when journalist-presenters show some uncertainty about a particular contextualisation, that they feel the need to check and re-check its accuracy. This was, for instance, the case when a Shiite (Dyab Abou Jahjah) and a Sunni (Mahmoud Jaber) were invited to the studio for a debate on an assault on a Brussels mosque (13 March 2012). While Jaber’s background as a Sunni was in no doubt, the journalist-presenter showed some uncertainty about the position of Jahjah as a Shiite. During the scripting of her texts for the evening’s interviews and debates, the journalist-presenter pauses and asks the editor-in-chief who is sitting in front of her to verify Jahjah’s background: “Jahjah was first a Sunni, right?”. The editor-in-chief's subsequent confirmation is again questioned by the journalist-presenter who responds: “Are you sure?”, to which the editor replies that she should check with the guest himself. A few moments later, the journalist-presenter is on the phone to the involved studio guest first to verify his current membership of the Shiite-group and then to inform him more generally about the intended structure of the studio interaction. Being more certain of the accuracy of her contextualising frames for the evening’s studio guests, the journalist-presenter is able to progress with the scripting process. As exemplified in the following snapshot of her cue card, the journalist-presenter takes these contextualisations of the studio guests as Shiite and Sunni as the starting point to script and pre-set a potential conflict narrative.
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Figure 9.6: Snapshot from journalist-presenter’s cue card (13 March 2012)
The journalist-presenter’s repetitive use of the “><”-sign in her script and her repeated reference to Shiite and Sunni indicate a potential for conflict. However, more than simply endorsing a pro-and-con conflict situation between Jahjah and Jaber, the journalist-presenter appears to be taking their conflicting contextual backgrounds as a foundation for endorsing a consensus-provoking narrative. In her script, the journalist-presenter pre-plans to start the discussion by emphasising the general harmony among Shiite and Sunni in Belgium – i.e. the absence of tension, and the positive signal produced by representatives of the two groups being willing to sit next to each other and interact with one another in the Terzake studio. Thus, similar to the striving for originality and distinction, we find another production standard that typically is inscribed in the media professionals’ role as political journalist. Through the production of accurately framed news stories and studio guests, the media professionals work towards a correct and truthful broadcasting offer. The production standard of accuracy, with respect to both the broadcasts’ topics and its invited studio guests, represents a collective ambition of the Terzake media professionals, whilst simultaneously being an inherent qualification and prerequisite of media professionalism in the newsroom.
[TRANSLATION] * Nò tensions between Shiites and Sunnis in our country: agree? Two groups are setting next to each other here! (Dyab Abou Jahjah Shiite >< Mahmoud Jaber Sunni) (most Muslims in the West are Sunni…) - Contact with each other? >< often assumed: not!
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KNOWING THE AUDIENCE AND ‘GIVING THEM WHAT THEY WANT’: A SEARCH FOR PUBLIC
RELEVANCE
In addition to an ability to create an original, distinction and accurate offer, media professionalism in the backstage areas of Terzake appears also to be articulated in a joint conception of the programmes’ imagined audience; of what it is that Terzake's viewers want to see and need to see. While the significance of the journalistic public-service value in political television talk has already been made clear with respect to the journalist-presenters’ role as political journalist and, more specifically, their sub-role as public servant in the on-air interactions, it appears that reflections on the ‘overhearing audience’ are just as pertinent in the media professionals’ off-stage activities. The professional qualities of the journalist-presenters, reporters, researchers and editors at Terzake appear to depend upon and be articulated within their professional ability to align and identify with the audiences’ concerns and accordingly to produce publicly relevant Terzake broadcasts, based mainly on the overarching intention to optimally inform the public. In order to achieve this public relevance intention, the Terzake media professionals call upon a number of shared reflections on or, better, presumptions about their audiences’ wants and needs when reflecting on and giving shape to story lines, and deciding about invitations to particular studio guests.
SEARCHING FOR PUBLICLY RELEVANT STORIES. A recurring thread seems to guide particularly the production and, more specifically, the agenda-setting activities of the Terzake staff, namely a reflection on what “the normal citizen” (12 March 2012) still wants to know after having seen the other news programmes (14 March 2012). The main question generally directing this search for public relevance was described by one of the editors as “what do people want to see when they come home after a long day of work?” (editor-in-chief on 6 March 2012). In this respect, encouraging viewers to feel engaged with Terzake’s content is one of the main forces driving the media professionals’ production activities.
Judging from the local orientations in the media professionals’ day-to-day activities, this engagement can only be realised if stories and invited
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guests are sufficiently interesting and appealing. More specifically, Terzake broadcasts should not contain “too much politics” (5 March 2012), or “too many technical details” (26 April 2012), and must instead be “sexy enough” (7 October 2012) through the inclusion of “tasty pieces” (16 April 2012) and “good images” (16 April 2012). In short, Terzake's media professionals are preoccupied by the creation of an original, distinguished and accurate offer and also “an interesting package” (24 March, 2012), able to make the viewers feel enthusiastic and involved.
SEARCHING FOR PUBLICLY RELEVANT STUDIO GUESTS. In the same way that the Terzake team acknowledges the value of publicly relevant stories, they also attach great importance to inviting publicly relevant studio guests. In the media professionals’ mutual discussions about which studio guests to invite for an upcoming broadcast, they routinely tend to bring into play a specific set of criteria allowing guests to be categorised as relevant-to-the-public and, eventually, as qualifying for an invitation to take part. First, and perhaps most evidently, closeness to the central topic is a key criterion for inviting potential guests to participate in a studio interaction. The ‘nearer to the top’ the public figures, the more they are deemed to be publicly relevant and the more they take precedence. It is not unusual for invited guests to be cancelled because a more directly relevant, in terms of closer-to-the-topic, guest has confirmed his presence. In this case, the researchers have to re-contact the earlier invited guest to cancel the invitation. As one of the researchers once explained in a telephone conversation with a potential guest: “you don’t have to come anymore, X is coming instead, he is closer to the subject” (24 April 2012). Second, the “communicative competence” (cfr. Hymes, 1972) or “articulateness” (cfr. Gans, 1979) of guests appears another decisive factor in the assessment of their relevance-to-the-public. When brainstorming about which studio guests to invite, the media professionals tend to have a common preference for eloquence and the competence to build an argumentation as critical factors for their being invited to participate in an interview or a debate. Not only does “having good opinions” (7 March 2012, p. 9) appear to be extremely important for guests to participate in the programme, they need also to show their skill as a “good tattler” (14 March 2012), which to the media professionals means the ability to “sound good” (13 March 2012) and “be
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smooth-spoken enough” (23 April 2012; 27 April 2012). The following is an extract from a conversation between the editor-in-chief and a journalist-presenter after a pre-recorded studio interview with a Norwegian public figure on the then ongoing trial in Oslo of Anders Breivik, the perpetrator of the 2011 attacks in Utoya (Norway).
(9.6) 16 April 2012
Space: Newsroom
Scene: In the newsroom, the editor-in-chief (E) addresses the journalist-
presenter (JP) who had just finished a pre-recorded interview
1 E: I found it rather dull. Not of you, but of him.
2 JP: Yes, it was a bit of a cool Norwegian, while he did sell himself
3 to us as a warm person.
In contrast to what is mostly the case, neither the editor-in-chief nor the journalist-presenter had prior knowledge of the communicative skills of the interviewee in this case. The only contact they had had with the Norwegian studio guest was a short preliminary telephone conversation earlier the same day, when the ambassador apparently did “sell himself to us [them] as a warm person” (journalist-presenter in lines 2-3) and, thus, as a decent communicator. However, when the interviewee eventually turned out to be a much less silver-tongued speaker in the actual studio interview, the journalist-presenter and the editor expressed their mutual dissatisfaction with the interview, calling it “rather dull” (editor-in-chief, line 1). Remarkably the editor-in-chief’s according comment “not of you, but of him” (line 1), immediately removes responsibility for the poor interview from the journalist-presenter’s shoulders and puts it on the interviewee. The editor-in-chief seems to explicitly avoid questioning the journalist-presenter’s professionalism to manage a publicly relevant studio interaction – that is, her professional capacity as an interactional manager, and instead ascribes it to the interviewee’s “cold” (line 2) communicative style.71 In contrast, in the extract below, an editor-in-chief and a journalist-presenter jointly express their enthusiasm about a just-finished studio interaction, mutually praising the communicative competences of a particular studio guest. 71 Ch. 10 investigates more deeply how the avoidance of critical evaluations among the media professionals serves the goal of
creating a generally constructive atmosphere of in-team cohesion among the production crew.
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(9.7) 13 April 2012
Spaces: Control room and studio
Scene: Conversation between the editor-in-chief (E) in the control room and a
journalist-presenter (JP) in the studio by way of the talkback system.
1 E: That was a very good conversation.
2 JP: Yes, Mahmoud was in the beginning almost about to cry!
3 E: Yes indeed, it was very good. A good mix between gut feeling,
4 emotion and explanation.
In the extract, the editor-in-chief and journalist-presenter jointly work up to the definition of the interview as “a very good conversation” (line 1) because of its “good mix between gut feeling, emotion and explanation” (line 3). The fact that the interviewee was “almost about to cry” (line 2) is in this context evaluated positively. Consequently, the editor-in-chief and journalist-presenter are not only working on the definition of a good Terzake interview, they are also generating a joint understanding of the competences required of politicians for them to be evaluated as decent – and, thus, professional – communicators, matching the performative purposes of Terzake. To take this a step further, underlying these mutual definitions of and expectations about a successful – or, in extract 9.6, unsuccessful – performance of a Terzake studio interaction is an assumption that they, as media professionals, are in the legitimate position of making judgements about whether or not politicians have been able to stage their performance in compliance with exactly these definitions and expectations. As such, their media professional identity seems to be founded on an alleged legitimation to decide about the communicative competence of politicians in contemplating the wider purpose of delivering appealing and relevant political television interactions to their audience. Third, and from a same public-relevance objective, invitations to the studio appear to be dependent also on the studio guests’ reciprocal relationships. In the case of multi-party studio debates, guests should match or, in the words of one of the editors, should “fit with each other” (12 March 2012). This generally means that guests should have a more or less comparable institutional status and should get along relatively well on a personal level. For instance, when a minister of the liberal party “offers himself to the studio” (12 March 2012) to debate against the fraction leader of another political party, the media professionals are in agreement about the inappropriateness of positioning “a minister against a fraction leader” (a journalist-presenter to a
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political reporter and editor, 12 March). Hence, the different status of the politicians in the political field is the reason for refuting the relevance of a mutual confrontation. Also, if politicians are involved in personal disputes, their on-stage confrontation is deemed irrelevant. This was particularly obvious on an occasion when the media professionals initially considered inviting two politicians who once belonged to the same political party, but now were members of opposing parties. The idea of inviting them to debate in the Terzake studio was swept relatively quickly off the table because it was considered that the two disagreed on a personal level: “then we’d better welcome them in two foyers” (editor-in-chief during the morning meeting, 7 March 2012). Finally, and from a remarkably less prominent public service intention, the media professionals also take personal considerations into account when deciding upon invitations to potential studio guests. Somewhat surprisingly, the Terzake team members and the journalist-presenters in particular, occasionally make feeling personally comfortable with the potential studio guests as a determining aspect for whether or not to invite them to the studio. The journalist-presenters attach considerable importance to feeling personally at ease with the guests they are planning to interview. During one of the morning meetings, for instance, one of the journalist-presenters admitted the personal dislike of a particular politician and proposed postponing the planned interview to a day when the other journalist-presenter could conduct the interview (8 March 2012). Also, being “in the mood” (e.g. journalist-presenter to editor-in-chief, 23 April 2012) to interview a particular studio guest is occasionally used to decide about an invitation to a studio guest. In the following extract, the journalist-presenter expresses to a reporter his reluctance to interview a Flemish politician as an individual guest.
(9.8) 14 March 2012
Space: Newsroom
Scene: Journalist-presenter (JP) to a reporter and later to the editor-in-
chief (E)
1 JP: I really do not feel comfortable (with doing a one-on-one with
2 him). I really hope that someone else will be sitting there as
3 well.
… ((somewhat later, the journalist-presenter addresses the editor))
4 JP: I really have doubts about X alone (.) I actually don’t like to
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5 have him alone.
6 E: I can follow you in that.
In this extract, the journalist-presenter refers to his personal feelings – i.e. “I really do not feel comfortable with doing a one-on-one with him” (lines 1-2) and “I actually don’t like to have him alone” (lines 4-5) – to express hesitation about the media professionals’ intention to invite a particular politician for a one-on-one interview. While such personal reflections might move us too far away from the professional objective of public relevance, it does illustrate that the Terzake team is not always guided by strictly institutionalised or journalistic criteria in selecting news and interviews, and that more individual considerations such as feeling personally comfortable also count as inherent variables in an unproblematic on-air performance of media professional identity. However, this occcasional reliance on personal desiderata for selecting studio guests must not necessarily be equated with a deluting of professional considerations. Indirectly, feeling personally comfortable with studio guests may lead the journalist-presenter to conduct a bad – i.e. non-professional – interview, or a treat the interviewee in a non-neutral – i.e. non-professional – way. In this respect, personal selection criteria are indeed potentially related to and instigated by an intention to keep upholding a professional stance. The next section deals with yet another oriented-to cornerstone of such a professional stance at Terzake: the typical journalistic ideals of neutralism and balance.
ENSURING A JOURNALISTICALLY APPROPRIATE PERFORMANCE: A SEARCH FOR NEUTRALISM
AND BALANCE
Neutrality or “neutralism” (e.g. Clayman & Heritage, 2002: 162) has been referred to throughout this work as a defining and vital aspect of a media professional identity in political television talk. Overall, the theoretical and empirical accounts in this study indicate that journalist-presenters can avoid breaches of their neutralistic professional stance through the typical turn-taking pattern of asking questions (e.g. Chapters 4 and 7), and through particular format arrangements which might provide the journalist-presenters
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with the essential tools for performing and upholding a neutralistic, balanced stance in political broadcast talk (e.g. Chapter 8). The present ethnographic analysis of the backstage areas of political broadcasting further informs and enhances this discussion. Most significantly, it appears that two backstage production activities particularly serve to facilitate the realisation of a defensible neutralistic and balanced stance in later on-air performances: (1) contacting relevant others; and (2) scripting.
CONTACTING OTHERS AND THE ACCUMULATION OF THIRD PARTY
OPINIONS. From an intention to be uninvolved, the media professionals at Terzake engage, in their everyday activities, with particular practices to safeguard their on-air professional neutralism. In this respect, contacting others to familiarise themselves with the interview topic appears a first relevant backstage practice in the media professionals’ striving for neutralism. In the run-up to the broadcast, especially the journalist-presenters, tend to spend a great deal of time acquainting themselves with the available dossiers and topics in order to build the knowledge base required for the later performance of the on-camera studio interactions. The journalist-presenters regularly approach relevant others to ask for information on particular topics to obtain inspiration and relevant input in preparation for the studio interactions. In this way, the journalist-presenters are able to develop the comprehensive knowledge base required to properly enact their role as political journalist and to acquire multiple perspectives to protect against personal involvement and to safeguard their journalistic neutrality. By routinely “hearing a couple of voices” in preparation of the broadcast (journalist-presenter, 5 March 2012), the journalist-presenters are able to gather third-party opinions, which could later serve to uphold or defend a balanced posture in the broadcast interview, for instance, by attributing their utterances to these third-parties to accomplish footing shifts and thereby safeguard their proper neutralism.
In particular, fellow media professionals, external experts and the studio guests play a crucial informative role in this backstage familiarising process. As far as concerns the consultation of fellow media professionals, the journalist-presenters regularly consult their own team members – i.e. especially the Terzake reporters and researchers – to gather ideas and new
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angles on particular topics. Most of the Terzake reporters have built up specialised knowledge in specific domains such as domestic politics, European policy, Scandinavian matters or America issues. This expertise is exploited by the journalist-presenters when preparing for the broadcasts, to obtain in-depth knowledge on particular topics. In the case of more complex issues that are not part of the reporters' particular fields of expertise, the journalist-presenters will turn to the Terzake researchers, who will then work to collect information and advise the journalist-presenters on potentially interesting matters. The journalist-presenters use this acquired knowledge as the foundation upon which to script their questions in an informed and uninvolved manner. In addition to the immediate Terzake team, other of the public service broadcaster's employees contribute. From time to time, Ivan De Vadder, the journalist-presenter of De Zevende Dag, will walk into the Terzake newsroom to sound out Terzake’s broadcast agenda or offer advice to the Terzake media professionals. The Terzake team members consider De Vadder an authority with expert knowledge on political matters and on professional television news production. It would be an exaggeration to depict him as some sort of super-media-professional, but the importance that the Terzake members attach to his opinions is striking.72 In relation to the standard of neutralism, Ivan De Vadder’s opinion can be said to count as a kind of benchmark of journalistic professionalism and, by extension, of journalistic neutralism. Certainly when a political interview or television debate is on Terzake’s agenda, the journalist-presenters will consult Ivan De Vadder about the questions that he would ply the politicians with, or ask him to verify their own scripted questions.
Apart from their fellow media professionals – within or outside the own team, the journalist-presenters also turn to experts in the field to familiarise themselves with the broadcast’s topic and its involved
72 However, the advice of Ivan De Vadder as an authority with professional legitimacy is not always that welcome within the team.
For instance, on the day of national mourning after a fatal bus crash in Switzerland, killing several Belgian school teachers and pupils,
he approached the journalist-presenter and editors of Terzake to express quite forcefully, his “appreciation” (16 March 2012) if the
team would not only cover the bus crash, but also the newly published results of a survey conducted by the public service
broadcaster on the local elections. According to Ivan De Vadder, the Terzake crew “cannot let this pass” (16 Mach 2012). Despite the
Terzake editor expressing little interest since “it wouldn’t fit” in the programme just “as an appendix” (16 March 2012), De Vadder
continued what could be seen as ‘lobbying work’ and tried to convince one of the journalist-presenters in an e-mail of the relevance
of the survey results. The editors ultimately decided not to cover the survey results.
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complexities, in order to ensure neutralism. More specifically, Carl Devos, the political academic expert that also performed in the 2009 pre-election broadcasts (cfr. Chapter 8), is regularly called upon to give his interpretation of a particular political matter. During the day, the journalist-presenters occasionally contact him on their own initiative or on the instruction of the editors, using the newsroom’s phone, to “check things out” (editor to journalist-presenter, 7 March 2012). For instance, on the first day of my observations, the invitation issued to the Flemish N-VA politician Bart De Wever to come to Terzake’s studio, was causing a fair amount of exhilaration among the media professionals. De Wever’s invitation to appear as a studio guest on Terzake was the result of his being put forward by his party as the front man for the upcoming local elections in October 2012. The Terzake media professionals had lots of questions about this strategy of N-VA and were contemplating challenging De Wever about this strategy in the studio interview. In preparation of this ‘plan’, the journalist-presenter consulted not only his fellow media professionals, but also the academic expertise of Carl Devos in order to obtain in-depth knowledge of the pros and cons of the party’s specific strategy. More specifically, after the telephone conversation with Carl Devos, the journalist-presenter was clearly well informed about the possible gains and pitfalls of the party’s strategy, and was using this information as the starting point for the interview. Hence, the journalist-presenter’s contact with colleagues in the newsroom and with the academic expert possibly fulfilled the journalistic goal of neutralism and balance by providing the journalist-presenter with various positions and viewpoints which then informed his scripting of the interview questions. Finally, the studio guests contribute to this effort to achieve a neutralistic and balanced approach to the topic at hand. As the day unfolds, journalist-presenters – or other media professionals acting for them – may contact the studio guests to go through the media professionals’ preparation for the upcoming interview with the dual objective of informing the studio guests about the structure of the interview and hearing their views on the subject matter. The first objective is discussed more later in this chapter, but it is useful to consider the function of these phone calls with studio guests in relation to the journalistic striving for neutralism and balance. Besides informing studio guests about the substantial and structural development of
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the interview, these phone calls clearly also serve the other way around, namely to provide information for the media professionals. Based on information provided by the studio guests in the course of these phone calls, the media professionals learn more about the topic, helping to script their questions and design a suitable conversational structure. However, unlike the conversations with fellow media professionals and experts, consulting studio guests appears to be an activity that the media professionals prefer to keep hidden: most journalist-presenters use their mobile phones and leave the newsroom to conduct conversations with studio guests. Consequently, these phone calls appear to be explicitly reserved for the farthest backstage areas of their professional performance and are oriented to by the media professionals as a rather non-conformist activity.
SCRIPTING AND THE MINIMISATION OF FRONTSTAGE SLIPPAGES. In addition to contacting relevant others, the media professionals’ efforts to achieve neutralism and balance are captured also in another backstage production activity, namely scripting the political television talk. The day-to-day activity of journalist-presenters consists largely of pre-planning their proper contribution to the broadcast in the form of scripts. As Goffman (1981) and Ytreberg (2002, 2006) conceptualise it, the process of scripting can be considered one of the most vital aspects of the production of broadcast talk. The written preparation of the journalist-presenters’ upcoming performances in the frontstage area and its memorisation pre-determine the broadcast’s organisation and procedural unfolding.
At Terzake, the computer software programme iNews plays a crucial role in registering this scripting activity and in streamlining the media professionals’ joint scripting activities. 73 The media professionals and especially the journalist-presenters use this software programme to script the opening and closing texts of the broadcast and the different broadcast
73 More concretely, iNews allows the media professionals to work jointly on the development of a television show without
necessarily having to interact with one another. While it is especially the journalist-presenters of Terzake who do most of the work in
iNews, the other media professionals as well can access the software programme and follow the scripting activities of the journalist-
presenters. Thus, iNews allows the media professionals to co-operate with and complement each other. For instance, reporters can
check the scripted intro/outro-texts of the journalist-presenters on their computers and check that their reportages are introduced
properly, and the editors can work directly on the formulation of scripted questions. How this relates to dynamic teamwork and
collaboration processes is discussed in more detail in Chapter 10.
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segments – i.e. “intro/outro” scripts (Ytreberg, 2002: 490) – and the topics and questions to be addressed within the broadcast interactions – i.e. “topic/turn” scripts (Ytreberg, 2002: 490). Just before the start of each broadcast, the journalist-presenters print their scripts on cue cards which they take with them into the studio and which subsequently form the basis of their studio activities. While the intro/outro scripts are mostly also displayed on the autocue on one of the studio cameras, enabling them to be mostly read out word-for-word, the topic/turn preparations on the cue cards form crucial mnemonic devices supporting the journalist-presenters’ performance of a journalistically defensible position and, by extension, a media professional identity.
A closer analytic scrutiny of these topic/turn scripts shows that scripting plays a crucial role in the journalist-presenters’ eventual frontstage performance of neutralism and compliance with the standard of balance. More specifically, scripting seems to have particular potential to facilitate the journalist-presenters’ accomplishment of a neutralistic and balanced professional stance within their on-air interactions with public figures.74 The previous empirical chapters have explained how journalist-presenters, in their roles of interactional manager and political journalist, can exploit particular interactional resources (Chapter 7) and format components (Chapter 8) as useful and strategic means for stimulating a procedurally balanced interactional environment for participants and achieving a neutralistic stance. The results of the present ethnographic study add to these insights. It appears that the production activity of scripting provides the journalist-presenters with practical possibilities for anticipating various third-party opinions to safeguard their neutralistic posture in broadcast talk and ensuring balanced turn-taking procedures.
With respect to the latter, topic/turn scripts seem to have great potential for achieving the journalist-presenters’ role of interactional manager to ensure an equal turn distribution in political broadcast talk. In the case of multi-party interviews, it is not uncommon for journalist-presenters to pre-arrange the turn-taking among the studio guests. By sketching out a desired procedural development of the upcoming interaction in pre-planned scripts, 74 Aside from enabling a legitimate journalistic posture, the prepared scripts also seem to contribute to the journalist-presenters’
responsibility as television producers. This is discussed more extensively later in this chapter.
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the journalist-presenters are able to preserve a balanced turn distribution in the final on-air interaction. The following snapshot is from a journalist-presenter’s cue card and illustrates how the accomplishment of a balanced interaction is strived for through extensive scripting of turn-taking procedures.
Figure 9.7: Snapshot from journalist-presenter’s cue card (16 April 2012)
The script shows how the journalist-presenter pre-plans the procedural and topical development of the broadcast interaction in his role as interactional manager. The script displays his intention first to address Mrs Van Hecke and ask her about some topical aspects and then, in a second instance, to give the floor to Mrs Heremans to sound out her proper experience with the topic under discussion. By scripting the development of the interaction in this manner, the journalist-presenter is provided with the means to handle and safeguard balance and fairness in the interaction and, consequently, to
[TRANSLATION] Mieke Van Hecke, cupola free education Karin Heremans, Director of Royal Athenaeum Antwerp --> Mrs Van Hecke, recognisable? = violence increases? = serious incidents? Such as? = also in “average” schools….. >< Mrs Heremans, you are réally on the grounds, your experience? = zero-tolerance…. = problem also transferring….
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produce a successful performance of his interactional manager role. However, this pre-planning of a balanced procedural development is not to imply that the journalist-presenters intend to have absolute control over the interaction, or intends constantly to intervene in the broadcast talk to ensure a balanced turn-taking. In contrast, the journalist-presenters appear to prefer that the frontstage interaction will increase as it unfolds, as shown particularly in their generally positive evaluations of those studio performances where the studio guests manage themselves to ensure a mutual balance in their speaking turns. For instance, immediately after one on-air debate, the journalist-presenter complemented the studio guests, both politicians, for having “kept each other well in balance” (12 March 2012). Later, in the foyer space, the journalist-presenter expanded on her satisfaction with the just-finished frontstage performance by telling her Terzake colleagues mentioning that she “barely had to do anything” because the politicians “went along in the debate very well” (12 March 2012). On the one hand, this confirms the observation that the achievement of balance, and neutralism more generally, is highly valued among media professionals. On the other hand, it is associated also with a more media-specific preference for authenticity and spontaneity in the television product, whose success depends on the media professionals.
Before going into such media-cultural, television-producer-related, considerations, it is necessary to deal with a final aspect related to how the production activity of scripting can support the journalist-presenters’ frontstage achievement of a neutralistic and balanced stance. Next to preparation for balanced turn-distributions, scripting seems to be strategically relevant to the journalist-presenters enacting a journalistically legitimate distance between their utterances and their personal beliefs. It is routine practice for journalist-presenters to include in their scripts of the broadcast talk third-party opinions to which they can refer in the on-air talk as a clever means for accomplishing footing shifts and upholding neutralism. Through this integration of external viewpoints, scripting can powerfully support the journalist-presenters’ endeavour as political journalist to meet the at times divergent goals of critically challenging politicians whilst maintaining a neutralistic interactional stance. The following is a snapshot of a cue card and is an example of how journalist-presenters routinely pre-plan footing shifts through the integration of third-party attributions in scripts.
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Figure 9.8: Snapshot from journalist-presenter’s cue card (18 April 2012)
This script concerns preparation for an interview with the social-democratic politician Bart Van Malderen. It was organised in response to Van Malderen's party’s request to cancel an already-made decision about the division tax for divorcing couples – often described as the “misery tax” (cfr. handwritten note of journalist-presenter on the cue card). The journalist-presenter's script includes numerous third-party opinions, which serve as a foundation for her later achievement of a professionally appropriate stance. She pre-plans her first confrontation with the politician with a critique of his party (sp.a): “Sp.a is disloyal?” This critical question is not some personal challenge authored by
[TRANSLATION] Bart Van Malderen, fraction leader Sp.a Flemish Parliament - Sp.a is de-loyal? = first deciding on everything together, then turning cart? - ANOTHER very important voice in this discussion. The Minister-President is NOT AMUSED: QUOTE !!! - Argument 1 Kris Peeters: you approached the media to act as if that backtrack was solely your idea? - So major mistake: Minister Lieten decided in core, so made mistake (apparently also contacted Bruno Tobback?) - Ludo Sannen (party colleague on Twitter): “fortunately there is still parliament to correct if the government stumbles” = so also your minister?
you have the chance during negotiations
Doesn’t sound good within 1 party?
misery tax
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the journalist-presenter; it is a follow-up on the reportage that appeared just before the interview on the leader of the Flemish Christian-Democratic party (CD&V), Wouter Beke. Then, in a second instance, the journalist-presenter scripts a further challenge to the politician, confronting him with “another very important voice”, namely that of Flanders’ Minister-President Kris Peeters. Rather than simply making a change in the footing by re-formulating the opinion of the Minister-President – i.e. claiming the speaker role of “animator” (Goffman, 1981: 144), the journalist-presenter and her team of media professionals appear to have chosen to broadcast the Minister-President’s opinion by showing a short fragment containing the respective quote. In this way, the third-party opinion is integrated directly into the programme’s format so that the journalist-presenter is on stronger ground from which to challenge the politician with acting “as if that backtrack was solely your [his] idea”.75 The last two points in the journalist-presenter’s script are apparently also aimed at challenging Van Malderen, this time with some internal controversies within his social-democratic party. The journalist-presenter more concretely intends to build further on the Minister-President's words to make inferences about an allegedly “major mistake” by the politician’s fellow social-democrat Minister, Ingrid Lieten, after which the journalist-presenter plans to make a footing shift and discuss a tweet made by the politician’s party colleague, Ludo Sannen.76
The integration by the journalist-presenter of such a variety of different voices in her script potentially allows her, in the later on-air interview, to safeguard her professional stance as a neutral political journalist while continuing to maintain a watchdog-type adversarial position towards the politician. By capturing such a wide array of arguments and external viewpoints in her script, the journalist-presenter has a firm foundation for her utterances and questions and, by extension, for a neutralistic stance and enactment of her institutional role as political journalist. Also, the design of the script seems not only to support the journalist-presenter’s political journalist role but also the other two roles of interactional manager and
75 See Chapter 8 for more insights into how the integration of third-party opinions into the programme’s format can help journalist-
presenters to maintain a professional neutralistic stance.
76 In Chapter 10 it will become clear how the realisation of this script was actually the result of dynamic teamwork among the
journalist-presenter and a Terzake media professional.
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television producer. The pre-planning of a series of questions and agenda-items and their moulding into an apparent preferred sequence of major items and sub-items – as exemplified in the different alignment of the scripted questions – all fit within the journalist-presenter’s professional duty as interactional manager. The above script also seems to support for the journalist-presenter’s unproblematic frontstage performance of her television producer role. This is clear in the emphasis she puts on the introduction of the quote into the broadcast. By writing “QUOTE” in block letters and bold type and accompanying it with three bold exclamation marks, the journalist-presenter seems to highlight the importance of not forgetting to introduce the quote into the broadcast talk so as to ensure her main responsibility as television producer: the creation of a fluent broadcast thread.
While the detailed analysis of the on-air political television talk during my observational periods at Terzake goes beyond the scope and feasability of this research, it is nevertheless worthwhile at this point to exceptionally take a closer look at how this specific script of the Van Malderen-interview was implemented by the journalist-presenter in the actual frontstage unfolding of the on-air interview. In the extract below, which is a transcript of the journalist-presenter’s on-air contributions to the broadcast talk related to the journalist-presenter’s cue card (Figure 9.8), it stands out how little room is left for non-prepared or ‘naturally occurring’ questions in the interview. The extract is particularly illustrative for how scripted third-party opinions can serve as powerful tangible mnemonic devices and even as a guide or manual for the unproblematic accomplishment of the already-identified tricky political journalist related balance between being critical and upholding a defensible position as an uninvolved questioner. (9.9) Terzake, 18 April 2012
Space: Studio
Scene: On-air talk between journalist-presenter (JP) and a politician (Bart
Van Malderen)
1 JP: hh:: Good evening Bart Van Malderen (.) sp.a fraction leader
2 in Flemish Parliament hhh:: we hear here (.) sp.a is de-loyal
… ((politician answers))
3 JP: Yes but then I hear Wouter Beke make a point hh:: yes if you
4 sit together about this and talk through these things the::n
5 yes then you can on that moment ring the alarm bells
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… ((politician answers))
6 JP: [Yes so in other] wo::rds your party did not quite realise what
7 exactly was on the table?
… ((politician answers))
8 JP: [Yes] in each case there is another very important voice in
9 this dis::cusion:: that is the Minister-President he is not
10 amu:::sed (.) let’s have a look
… ((short reportage on the Minister-President’s quote))
11 JP: hh:: Yes Mr Van Malderen first a::rgument you approached the
12 media instead of verifying this within the government and this
13 really is not nice
… ((politician answers))
14 JP: [Yes hh::] but with what happened exactly (.) should we then
15 conclude yes there has been made a mistake by:: Minister Lieten
16 who (.) in name of you::r party was present in the core when
17 that decision was being made?
… ((politician answers))
18 JP: [Yes shall I just put something else (.) yes (.) let me put
19 something] else on the table (.) Ludo Sannen your party
20 colleague just posted on Twitter fortunately there is still a
21 parliament to correct if the government stumbles hh:: that’s a
22 big word and thus it is also about you::r minister (.) that
23 doesn’t sound good within one party I guess
… ((interaction continues))
With the exception of the journalist-presenter’s input in lines 3-5 and lines 6-7, which is related to the journalist-presenter’s handwritten notes added to the cue card during the broadcast, this section of on-air talk was entirely scripted beforehand. Every question posed in the broadcast talk can be found in the journalist-presenter’s script and, conversely, every scripted question is posed in the broadcast talk. Hence, the production activity of scripting, and the print-outs of these scripts in the form of cue cards, create possibilities for the journalist-presenters to accomplish their role as political journalists. Overall, scripts can be said to have a powerful potential for the performance of the political journalist role and, by extension, media professional identity: they allow maximum control over the later on-air performance through detailed preparation of many aspects of the broadcast and of their identity-bound responsibilities in that broadcast, while simultaneously minimising on-air aberrations of this professional identity.
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However, it would be simplistic and ignorant of the underlying complexities to conclude that the journalist-presenters’ scripting activities merely dictate the development of the frontstage performances. A straightforward performance of these scripts would definitely collide with more media-cultural related considerations such as liveness and authenticity. In this context, the preparation and later performance of the Van Malderen interview could also be linked to the media professional's role as television producer, which requires a specialist performance skill to professionally ‘stage’ a pre-planned instance of political broadcast talk. The question of which complexities and professional standards precisely underlie this spontaneous effectuation of pre-planned scripts in the on-air development of political broadcasting and the intrinsic paradox that follows, is addressed in the remaining part of this chapter.
9.2.2 SCRIPTING THE UNSCRIPTED FEEL
While the pre-planning of questions, turn-taking patterns, and third-party attributions in scripts have powerful potential to support and even facilitate the journalist-presenters’ frontstage achievement of their roles as interactional manager and political journalist, they relate also to their professional requirements as television producer. The pre-planning and scripting of the evening’s broadcast, in all its facets, supports the journalist-presenters’ frontstage responsibility to produce a fluent television show. When planning the structural development of the broadcast or deciding on the interview questions, Terzake media professionals constantly appear to be oriented towards the creation of a logical, smooth and spontaneous flow of information or, in Goffman’s (1981: 262) terms, the production of a continuous “ribbon of broadcasting”. In the theoretical chapters of this study, the importance of producing “seemingly faultless fresh talk” (Goffman, 1981: 242) in the live unfolding of on-air broadcasts was stressed. The results of the ethnographic analysis at Terzake support the identified ubiquity of “liveness-as-ideology” (Lundell, 2009: 286) in the production of broadcast talk, and indicate that the journalist-presenter’s role as television producer is
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articulated mainly in the ways they demonstrate competence to script authenticity in the backstage spaces of the programme.
Paradoxically and most intriguingly, the media professionals’ activities in the production phases of Terzake seem typically to be guided by the equivocal intentions of maintaining control on the one hand, and creating a feel of authenticity on the other; they appear to be in a constant search for a balance between extensive pre-planning of many aspects of the broadcast, and letting it appear to be a naturally occurring, on-the-spot event. Put differently, the Terzake members are continuously engaged with an orientation towards scripting their frontstage performance so as to enhance an unscripted feel. This complexity is articulated especially in the specialised routine activities of planning structure and scripting text and, more broadly, in the media professionals’ overarching striving for (1) continuity and (2) spontaneity.
CREATING A COHERENT BROADCAST PACKAGE: A SEARCH FOR CONTINUITY
The activities in the production spaces show that the media professionals devote a great deal of time to pre-planning the broadcast as a continuous television product. With the intent mainly to keep their audiences engaged, Terzake staff set great store on creating and delivering a broadcasting ‘package’ that smoothly connects each of the planned programme segments and agenda topics to each other. This implies that to accomplish an identity as media professional, it is necessary to master the specialised skills required to produce a coherent broadcast flow. The observations in the Terzake newsroom indicate that this professional skill is particularly articulated in the ways that the media professionals are able to smoothly open and close a programme and create fluent linkages between diverse agenda topics and programme segments.
A Terzake broadcast ideally starts with an opening topic that avoids the “obvious” or the “taken for granted” and functions as the “unique selling position of the broadcast” (editor-in-chief on 7 March 2012), thereby setting the tone for the rest of the broadcast. Equally, broadcasts are preferably concluded with a "farewell" phrase that captures or links back to the
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preceding broadcast while trailing related future events, discussions or Terzake broadcasts. It is necessary also for the various topics within one broadcast to follow on in a continuous manner. The media professionals see it as their responsibility as television producers to create a so-called “ping pong” (edito-in-chief on 17 April 2012) between different programme segments for the sake of continuity, i.e. the creation of associations between reportage and interviews, even when these differ in their topical focus. These "ping pongs" can be realised via a number of production activities: journalist-presenters can script interview questions on the basis of preceding reportage or, in the case of intraprofessional journalist-to-journalist interviews, the journalist-presenters can arrange with their fellow media professionals to conclude the interview to allow the next broadcast topic to be introduced smoothly. For instance, when the Terzake media professionals want to integrate a reportage on the situation in Israel, the editor-in-chief suggests making an explicit bridge between the foregoing, by the Terzake team called ‘duplex interview’77 with a correspondent in America on the topic of Super Tuesday, and the reportage on Israel. Based on the assumption that “people are not very eager for Israel” (editor-in-chief on 7 March 2012), the journalist-presenter and the America-correspondent agree in a pre-interview telephone conversation to the latter's making a short reference to Israel at the end of their interview. This allows a pre-planned and virtually invisible transition between two initially separate programme segments on different topics, to avoid losing audience by introducing the supposedly less interesting topic of Israel. The Terzake team considers the production of a logical order of topics and the creation of fluent linkages as significant prerequisites to keep audiences tuned, and as integral parts of their media professional identity. A large white board, hanging in the centre of the newsroom, serves as a key spatial feature streamlining and facilitating the translation of this professional production skill into practice (see Figure 9.9). The editor-in-chief routinely uses this white board to sketch out the structural planning for the evening’s broadcast and the timeframes ideally foreseen for each of the programme
77 Terzake's description of a « duplex interview » is referred to in the academic literature as a « direct » interview (Ekström and Kroon
Lundell, 2011) or a “live two-way” (Montgomery, 2006), i.e. an interview between a journalist-presenter in the studio and an
interviewee at-the-scene.
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segments. The board forms an important link among the media professionals, not least between the editor-in-chief and the director, and between the editor-in-chief and the journalist-presenter. While it is the editor-in-chief who develops the structural skeleton of the broadcast and decides on the various time spans, it is the director who is responsible for effectuating a faultless structure during the live unfolding of the broadcast from his position in the control room.
Figure 9.9: White board in the newsroom
The following extract shows that the white board is a central feature in the continuous development of a Terzake broadcast. The extract depicts a problem situation in the control room when the director does not seem to be informed about the organisation of a live duplex interview. However, he is responsible for an unproblematic telephone connection. As the on-air broadcast unfolds, a production assistant enters the control room to set up the required telephone connection with a politician, Ivo Belet, onsite. She addresses the editor-in-chief and asks if Jeroen, the director, knows that the interview is to be aired live (line 1). What follows is the demystification of a misunderstanding between the editor-in-chief and the director due to lack of information on the white board.
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(9.10) 18 April 2012
Space: Control room
Scene: Conversation between a production assistant (PA), the editor-in-chief
(E) and the director (D) during an on-air broadcast
1 PA: ((to editor-in-chief)) Does Jeroen ((the director)) know that
2 this is a live?
3 E: ((addresses the director)) Jeroen, later on we will have a
4 duplex (.) it will be a live with Ivo Belet later on.
5 D: What? I didn’t know that (.) I haven’t seen it on the board
6 earlier.
7 E: Maybe it wasn’t clear enough.
The white board also forms an important link between the editors and journalist-presenters, since the latter need to adhere to the time spans allocated on the white board when preparing their interview questions and transition texts (see below). The white board, therefore, is an important reference for guaranteeing a continuous and fluent flow of the pre-planned broadcast structure among the media professionals.
“IT WOULD BE GREAT IF YOU COULD DO THIS SPONTANEOUSLY”: PRE-PLANNING FRESH
TALK IN A SEARCH FOR SPONTANEITY
In their role as producers of a television product, the media professionals at Terzake demonstrate an all-encompassing effort to create a broadcast or television show that comes across as fluent. In order to achieve this typical media-cultural target, they not only work towards the production of a continuous broadcast with as little obtrusion and fragmentation as possible, but also towards the production of particular instances of media talk that resemble instances of naturally occurring, spontaneous conversation as much as possible. That spontaneity is a recurring and omnipresent oriented-to standard in the production of Terzake is clear from two, quite contradictory, observations in the back-regions of the programme: while the Terzake media professionals show an obvious preference for unrehearsed broadcast talk that can be incorporated in the natural development of the interaction, they also like to be in control by pre-planning this ‘spontaneity’. In what follows, I examine this paradox, showing first how the media professionals’ mutual
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understandings in the back-regions are consistently oriented towards the production of a spontaneous broadcast flow, and then investigate how this spontaneity is actually articulated in a complex dual professional competence to script spontaneity in the back-region and perform these scripts in the front-region.
FRONTSTAGE SPONTANEITY AS THE GREATEST GOOD. Judging by the media professionals’ local orientations in the newsroom, there is no doubt that spontaneity is a primary objective in Terzake’s broadcast talk. As part of their identity as media professionals, the journalist-presenters and reporters are expected to uphold and stimulate a sense of spontaneity in their frontstage performances. The following extracts covers two simultaneous interactions in the frontstage and backstage areas of Terzake and clearly shows the media professionals’ preference for the creation of an impression of spontaneity in the on-air broadcast.
(9.11) Terzake, 10 October 2012
Space: Studio
Scene: On-air interview between a journalist-presenter (JP) and a politician
(P)
1 JP: Just between you and me, how do you look back on what happened
2 there?
3 P: Yes but I think that professor Allaert has summarised it very
4 well… ((answer continues))
(9.12) 10 October 2012
Space: Control room
Scene: Off-air evaluation by reporter (R) and editor-in-chief (E)
1 R: ((laughs)) “Just between you and me”! ((laughs))
2 E: ((laughs)) That woman is really amazing.
In the backstage control room, a Terzake reporter and the editor-in-chief engage in the joint celebration of a journalist-presenter’s comment in the frontstage studio setting, in which she alludes to the spontaneous intimacy in which the frontstage interaction is allegedly taking place, as a strategic means to encourage the politician to share his real thoughts on the matter. That spontaneity is considered as the greatest good by media professionals is
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perhaps even clearer in the journalist-presenters’ reactions to my question about whether I could use their cue cards for research purposes.
(9.13) 12 March 2012
Space: Foyer
Scene: Journalist-presenter (JP) to me
1 JP: Oh yes no problem, it’s only some repo-texts and conversation
2 preparation
(9.14) 24 April 2012
Space: Foyer
Scene: Journalist-presenter (JP) to me
1 JP: But mostly I don’t follow that you know, I mostly let it grow
2 as it happens
These reactions of Terzake’s two journalist-presenters are remarkably similar and show a general denial of a controlling or guiding function achieved by their pre-planned scripts on their on-air conduct. In claiming that their scripts on the cue cards “only” contain “some repo-texts and conversation preparation” (extract 9.13) and that letting “it grow as it happens” (extract 9.14) is more important than strictly following these preparations in the broadcast talk, the journalist-presenters both trivialise the weight of scripts on their actual frontstage conduct. As such, spontaneity in the broadcast talk is invariably seen as taking overall precedence over the strict performance of scripts produced in the backstage.
Also, when I asked one of the journalist-presenters about the scripting process, the journalist-presenter chose to distance himself from some of his predecessors who “used to write down 20 questions and then run through them question-by-question”, irrespective of the dynamics of the interview (24 April 2012). Such disapproval of blindly following a script to the detriment of naturally occurring interaction was clear also from my first day at Terzake, when the same journalist-presenter expressed his belief that “the questions may not become the cornerstones, that cannot be what we [journalist-presenters] should be doing” (5 March 2012). Rather, he opted to script “five key words” and use these as a rough basis for upcoming television talk (5 March 2012). Thus, the journalist-presenter was engaging in a form of self-reflexivity through which he orients to his own working method – i.e. the
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scripting of key words instead of full sentences – as the preferred and more professional method, allowing for more spontaneous reactions and local manoeuvring within the actual on-camera interaction.
PRE-PLANNING SPONTANEITY IN THE BACK-REGION. Somewhat curiously, while the journalist-presenters work towards a self-definition that is dissociated from the strict adoption of scripts, this is exactly what predominantly occupies them during the day and is also what they are expected to construct. For instance, when an editor-in-chief noticed the journalist-presenter’s relatively few questions after consulting iNews in the control room, he referred to the journalist-presenter “not really behaving as usual today” (8 March 2012). Hence, he normalised the practice of scripting and considers it a fundamental part of professionalism at Terzake. Indeed, in the production phases of the programme, the media professionals are continuously oriented toward pre-planning the broadcast in relation to the standard of spontaneity. It appears that the journalist-presenters often pre-plan their frontstage interventions such so that they appear extemporaneous. For instance, in the preparation for a particular pre-election debate, a journalist-presenter once consulted a researcher about his intention to script an apparent impulse question (5 October 2012). The journalist-presenter asked the researcher to find out whether Bart De Wever, one of the later studio guests, made many doorstep pre-election visits. Her request was prompted by an earlier comment made by one of the Terzake media professionals about De Wever not being very close to his voters on an interpersonal level. The journalist-presenter was seeking confirmation of this impression to allow her to script a critical question and use it to challenge the politician in the later studio debate. However, rather than wanting to present it as a formal and deliberate question in the studio debate, the journalist-presenter wanted the question to appear a spur of the moment intervention in the later frontstage debate.
(9.15) 5 October 2012
Space: Newsroom
Scene: Conversation between a journalist-presenter (JP) and a researcher (R)
1 JP: I actually want to do this as spontaneously as possible
2 R: Yes, that would be a good spontaneous question
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The extract shows how the scripting of spontaneity can be mutually informative about the journalist-presenter’s role as television producer and political journalist in a way that supports the overall performance of a media professional identity. On the one hand, the journalist-presenter’s skill in acting as television producer to spontaneously bring prearranged aspects into the flow of a frontstage performance can serve to bolster the role as critical political journalist. A challenging question that seemingly comes out of the blue, has much more confrontational and adversarial potential than the same question contextualised or worked up to. On the other hand, the confrontational atmosphere created by impromptu challenges can enliven the broadcast talk and, by extension, can potentially help in the accomplishment of the journalist-presenter’s television producer related sub-role as television show entertainers. Building further on the relevance of scripting spontaneity, the pre-broadcast telephone conversations between the journalist-presenters and the later studio guests seem to have an important function in the preparation of a spontaneous broadcast. As already stated, journalist-presenters regularly contact studio guests to inform them about the general structure and planning of their forthcoming joint performance. The following is an extract from a telephone conversation between a Terzake journalist-presenter and a Flemish academic expert in the field of psychology who was scheduled to be a studio guest for that evening’s broadcast.
(9.16) 25 April 2012
Space: Newsroom
Scene: Telephone conversation between the journalist-presenter (JP) and a
studio guest
1 JP: Hello, I just wanted to very shortly, since I probably won’t
2 have the time for that later on, briefly run through how I see
3 the broad lines in the conversation (…)First there will be a
4 reportage in which the facts will be listed once again (…) And
5 if we come out of the reportage - you are sitting next to Walter
6 Van Steenbrugge ((debate opponent)), you are simply sitting next
7 to each other - I will first address you with the question: how
8 do you actually perceive this? (…) And then I will shortly go to
9 Walter Van Steenbrugge, to place his comment a bit against yours
10 (…) The first part of the conversation will last for about ten
11 minutes, so you will both have plenty of time to say something.
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…((studio guest answers))
12 JP: Okay but I will certainly try to integrate that (…) In the
13 second part, and again it also depends on how the conversation
14 develops, I will play a quote of Minister Lieten who has urged
15 for … ((turn continues))
…((studio guest answers))
16 JP: Okay, but this is a bit the line, what I would like to
17 integrate.
Telephone conversations such as these seem to serve a range of noteworthy objectives. First, the journalist-presenter intends to inform the studio guest about the programme’s format in terms of typical time spans for interviews and her expectations about their forthcoming performance. More specifically, the journalist-presenter refers to the positioning of both studio guests at the interview table (“you are simply sitting next to each other”, line 6) and provides information on the interview segments including reportage and a quote. In saying “first there will be a reportage” (lines 3-4), “if we come out of the reportage” (line 5), “I will first address you” (lines 6-7), “the first part” (lines 9-10), and “in the second part” (lines 12-13), the journalist-presenter is revealing the pre-scripted and pre-planned nature of the studio interview which they are about to perform. Second, for the sake of spontaneity and the creation of continuity (see above), these pre-interview telephone conversations serve also to avoid later misunderstandings in the frontstage area. Ironically, in assuring that she “will certainly try to integrate” (line 12) some of the guests’ just-made suggestions into her interview script and in making explicit the ample room for actual spontaneity in the interview (“it also depends on how the conversation develops” (line 13)), the journalist-presenter explicitly chooses to nuance the orchestratedness of the interview, which is a clear demonstration of the already-mentioned complexity of finding a balance between pre-planning and spontaneity within media professionalism.78 That this staging of spontaneity is inherent in the construction of a media professional identity is perhaps even more apparent in the preparations of “affiliated” (Montgomery, 2007) or “intraprofessional” (Kroon
78 How such nuancing manoeuvres are related also to the establishment of a convivial pre-broadcast interrelationship between media
professionals and studio guests is further developed in Chapter 10.
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Lundell, 2010b) interviews, i.e. journalist-to-journalist interviews. In contrast to calls to politicians or other types of public figures, as in the case above (extract 9.16), pre-interview telephone conversations between journalist-presenters and their fellow media professionals are remarkably less nuanced and are oriented more explicitly to the joint construction of faultless, fresh talk. The media professionals make agreements about the fluidity of their forthcoming on-air performances, about how to act and what to say. The following extract is exemplary and relates to the on-site reporting of a Terzake reporter in Oslo on the already mentioned Breivik-trial. (9.17) 16 April 2012
Space: Newsroom
Scene: Telephone conversation between the journalist-presenter (JP) and a
Terzake reporter who is in Norway for corresponding about the Breivik-trial
1 JP: … I would first say something about what kind of impression does
2 this man make, and then I would go to the appraisals of the
3 psychiatrists that contradict each other and then you can say
4 how this can be interpreted. And then, thirdly, what follows
5 now.
… ((correspondent answers))
6 JP: Yes and maybe I can then ask with a very simple question: Yes,
7 you have also been to Utoya, the place where it all happened
… ((correspondent answers))
8 JP: So, first the impression about Breivik (…) Yes (…) Yes (…) Two,
9 the witnesses (…) Yes (…) Yes (…) And then you announce your
10 report, right?
… ((correspondent answers))
11 JP: Okay, yes, see you later! Break a leg!
In this telephone conversation between the journalist-presenter and an on-site reporter, the media professionals make joint and very explicit agreements about the substance of their interview, and how they will stage a fluent instance of broadcast talk. They not only agree to split their talk into three different substantial parts so as to reduce confusion or hesitation during the on-air performance, they also pre-plan a smooth and uninterrupted transition between their proper talk and the reporter’s prearranged reportage on Utoya. More concretely, they agree on the journalist-presenter formulating her final turn so as to create a logical stepping-stone to the reportage (“you have also been to Utoya, the place where it all happened” (lines 6-7)). Then, they agree
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jointly to the reporter closing the interview with a reference to and announcement of the reportage (“And then you announce your report, right?”, lines 9-10). Interestingly, the journalist-presenter closes the telephone conversation with an admonition used in the world of theatre to wish someone good luck before entering the stage, i.e. “Break a leg!” (line 11, in the Dutch original “toi, toi, toi!” 79). In this way, the division between a back-region in the newsroom, where frontstage performances are rehearsed and prepared for, and a front-region where these preparations are actually performed becomes very apparent. This intraprofessional pre-planning of spontaneity is also very lucidly articulated in the next extract.80
(9.18) 7 March 2012
Space: Newsroom
Scene: Telephone conversation between the journalist-presenter (JP) and a
correspondent in New York
1 JP: It is great that you mention Netanyahu because immediately after
2 our conversation, we have a reportage on Israel (…) It would be
3 great if you could do this spontaneously!
In this extract, the journalist-presenter of Terzake expresses delight in the fact that an on-site correspondent is planning to mention Netanyahu in a later intraprofessional interview, since the Terzake team had just planned to integrate reportage on Israel following that interview. The journalist-presenter even urges the correspondent saying that “it would be great if you [he] could do this spontaneously” (lines 2-3), thereby quite unscrupulously arranging the scripting of spontaneity and continuity.
STAGING SPONTANEITY AS A PRE-REQUISITE OF (MEDIA) PROFESSIONALISM.
The already-mentioned paradox inscribed in the media professional's responsibility as television producer to create a continuous and spontaneous stream of broadcasting, surfaces blatantly. On the one hand, the ethnographic observations show that authentic spontaneity in Terzake’s broadcast talk is a
79 As Harrison (1998: 284) argues, the expression ‘toi, toi, toi’ is “used mainly in European theatre” and “is an explosive phrase
emitted in circumstances when the staider English actor might mutter ‘break a leg’: a way of wishing a performer good luck before
they go on stage. It is a stylised and sanitised version of spitting over one’s shoulder, and another example of superstition in theatre”.
80 See also earlier comments on this extract in relation to the striving for continuity.
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significant, oriented-to feature on the media professional's conceptual map. On the other hand, this ideal of authenticity in the programme’s frontstage performances seems to collide with the inherent staged nature of media products. Consequently, this conflict seems to result in a process of extensive scripting and pre-planning that absorbs the standard of spontaneity in a way that is very similar to how it absorbs the other production standards. In this way, spontaneity becomes an inherent part of the production phases, thereby indirectly undermining its fundamentals such as improvisation, naturalness and impulsiveness. How, then, to translate this paradox within a broader understanding of a media professional identity?
It seems that being a professional journalist-presenter or reporter at Terzake is articulated in an ability to find an appropriate balance between effectuating the pre-planned scripts and stimulating the natural occurrence of on-air talk. Overall, the media professionals are being put to the proof to create a feeling of authenticity while implementing scripts into the practice of broadcast. In an informal conversation with the media professionals, a reporter drew a parallel between this particular performer competence and cycling: “you just cannot unlearn it” (23 April 2012). In this sense, mastering the competence to be spontaneous on live television is oriented to as a kind of fixed acquisition that is necessarily entrenched in every media professional. One of the journalist-presenters confided that this competence for her was the most difficult qualification of her profession, not least because it requires a specific skill to “listen” to what happens in the studio and be attentive to the local development of the broadcast talk (10 October 2012). As illustration, she referred to a concrete instance of broadcast talk when she chose to let go of her preparations for the sake of spontaneity.
(9.19) 10 October 2012
Space: Foyer
Scene: Journalist-presenter (JP) to me in the post-broadcast phase
1 JP: I knew I still had to ask many questions and I had prepared
2 several blocks, but suddenly I hear him going, and suddenly BAM,
3 and then you have to let it come in the heat of the discussion.
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In taking into consideration the media professionals’ local sense-making practices and interactions, this professional competence of endorsing spontaneity seems far from uncontested. It is especially when the expectation of professional naturalness is being breached, that the media professionals see it as a problem situation that needs to be tackled and reflected on. The following is an extract from a conversation between the editor-in-chief, an anchor from the public service broadcaster’s news programme Het Journaal, and a Terzake reporter, on the occasion of this last's alleged lack of spontaneity in his duplex interview from Norway on the Breivik trial in Oslo.
(9.20) 26 April 2012
Space: Newsroom
Scene: Conversation between the editor-in-chief (E), an anchor from Het
Journaal (A) and a Terzake reporter
((Editor-in-chief to reporter))
1 E: It looked too much as the agitated television reporter and,
2 because of this, a part of your charm was missing.
((An anchor from Het Journaal enters the Terzake newsroom and joins the
conversation: the editor welcomes the anchor and contextualises their ongoing
discussion))
... ((some turns removed))
3 E: At some points he appeared too prepared or was it because of the
4 stress.
5 A: It is always a bit dying when you, as a reporter, have to tell
6 your story when you are on-site.
... ((some turns removed))
7 E: I think you just have to tell your story.
In this extract, the editor-in-chief and the news anchor are involved in mutual negotiations over the reporter’s professionalism. Excessive preparation (“too prepared”, line 3) and potential stress (“or was it because of the stress”, lines 3-4; “it is always a bit dying”, lines 5-6) are seen as the main grounds for the reporter’s alleged lack of spontaneity in his live report. They argue that the reporter overly presented an “agitated” (line 1) version of himself, which contrasted with the performance of his “charm[ing]” (line 2) and professional self. In this way, media professionalism is oriented to as mastering the skill to perform a natural and spontaneous self by “just…tell[ing] your story” (line 7)
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and staying away from frontstage nervousness or the blind following of scripts. A final note regarding this complex balancing act pertains to the question of whether this spontaneous performance of pre-planned scripts is specific only to the accomplishment of a media professional identity, or whether it is connected also to something broader. During the observations, it was striking how the mutually shared expectation of a smooth staging of spontaneity in broadcast talk occasionally went further than the media professionals’ proper performances. However much the journalist-presenters play out their role as television producer to professionally carry out a broadcast that measures up against the typical media-cultural demands of which spontaneity is an inherent part, they remain dependent on the benevolence of politicians, or whoever is taking part in the broadcast talk, to abide by the rules of the interactional game. Therefore, the studio guests are expected to display a sense of professionalism that is similar to that of the media professionals, namely the competence to create an appearance of spontaneity in the front-region of political broadcasting. More concretely, the Terzake media professionals show a general rejection of blatantly prepared, non-spontaneous politicians in their evaluations of these latter. The following two extracts are from conversations among the media professionals about Belgium’s Prime Minister, Elio Di Rupo, coming to Terzake for a broadcast interview. The first extract is from a conversation between a Terzake reporter and the journalist-presenter, the second extract is an exchange between the Terzake journalist-presenter and Ivan De Vadder, the already-mentioned journalist-presenter of Terzake.
(9.21) 16 March 2012
Space: Newsroom
Scene: Conversation between a Terzake reporter (R) and the Terzake journalist-
presenter (JP)
1 R: Are you looking forward to the conversation?
2 JP: ((sighs)) Everything will probably be prepared to the max.
(9.22) March 16 2012, p. 31
Space: Newsroom
Scene: Conversation between the Terzake journalist-presenter (JP1) and the De
Zevende Dag journalist-presenter Ivan De Vadder (JP2)
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1 JP1: I think that he will be extremely prepared.
2 JP2: Yes. That was also the case with me in De Zevende Dag.
3 JP1: But actually that is the case with every Prime Minister, also
4 with Verhofstadt.
5 JP2: Yes. In fact, Leterme was eventually the most rewarding on that
6 JP1: Indeed (.) And Dehaene as well.
7 JP2: Hmhm. ((confirms))
In both of these passages, the media professionals jointly orient themselves to overly prepared politicians (e.g. “prepared to the max”, line 2 in extract 9.21; “extremely prepared”, line 1 in extract 9.22) as a drawback for the broadcast talk. Especially in the second extract, the journalist-presenters work up to a mutual understanding of less prepared politicians as being “the most rewarding” to interview (line 5, extract 9.22). Also, the post-broadcast comment below, made by one of the Terzake journalist-presenters fits into this oriented-to preference for spontaneous politicians. In the extract, the journalist-presenter addresses the editor-in-chief in the foyer space to express her annoyance with the just-finished broadcast interview. She particularly expresses criticism of the politician for having overly pre-planned his contributions to the interview and failing to display the expected professionalism to spontaneously bring these preparations into the flow of the interaction. Ironically, this concerns the already discussed Van Malderen interview, in which it appeared that the journalist-presenter had strictly followed her pre-produced scripts in the broadcast talk.
(9.23) 18 March 2012
Space: Foyer
Scene: Post-broadcast conversation between the Terzake journalist-presenter
(JP) and the editor-in-chief
1 JP: This man really had prepared a point that he wanted to make and
2 did not deviate from it.
Overall, these extracts show that the expectation of frontstage spontaneity requires the skill of both the media professionals and the politicians to effectuate their intended preparations in a natural and unobtrusive manner into the development of the broadcast talk. As such, the staging of spontaneity arrives as the pre-requisite not only for media professionalism
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but also for the interviewees’ professionalism and, by extension, the general successful delivery of an apparent effortless and fluent instance of political broadcast talk.
9.3 SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS
The results of the ethnographic analysis presented in this chapter necessarily imply an enrichment and further development of the notion of media professional identity in the institutional setting of political television talk. The broadening of the analytic scope that comes with the ethnographic ‘look from backstage’, forces a revision and reconsideration of the performance of a media professional identity as solely a matter of front-camera role-play. While the previous empirical chapters show that journalist-presenters are indeed constantly put to the test to simultaneously accomplish the performer requirements related to their professional roles as interactional manager, political journalist and television producer in their on-air effectuation of the programme and interactions with politicians, the analysis in this chapter shows that the pre- and post-broadcast phases are equally crucial for the construction of a media professional identity. Overall, the iterative ethnographic analysis of the observations at Terzake highlights two broad, but interrelated reflections on the accomplishment of media professional identity in political broadcasting.
First, like the interactional resources in Chapter 7 and the format components in Chapter 8, the backstage production activities of the media professionals appear to carry powerful potential for supporting and strengthening the journalist-presenters’ on-air, frontstage performances of a legitimate media professional identity. More specifically, the successful performance of an appropriate professional identity in the frontstage arrives as a joint oriented-to ambition in the backstage. In their day-to-day production and re-production of meaning, the media professionals at Terzake are routinely oriented towards the preparation of a successful on-air staging of the broadcast, and a successful on-air performance of their proper professional identity. The pre-planning activities and post-broadcast evaluations of the media professionals in the backstage areas of the
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programme are specifically oriented towards supporting, facilitating or otherwise reflecting upon the unproblematic realisation of a frontstage media professional identity. The media professionals’ backstage activities serve to prepare for their on-air activities so as to limit frontstage aberrations of the tricky balancing act required to instantaneously perform their triple media professional roles. Figure 9.10 shows how this backstage preparation of a frontstage media professional identity emerges as a dynamic process that is articulated through the mastery and bringing into practice of a set of shared and recurring production standards and activities through a number of tools that are situated in a variety of spaces. In their daily production activities, which include setting the broadcast’s agenda, evaluating proper and studio guests’ performances, contacting studio guests, framing story lines and studio guests’ positions, scripting frontstage contributions, and staging frontstage performances, the media professionals at Terzake seem to be routinely guided by a strive for originiality, distinction, accuracy, public relevance, neutralism and balance, continuity, and spontaneity. This set of production standards arrives as the prime benchmarks against which the media professionals legitimise and assess their everyday activities. A wide array of physical spaces including the conference table and the open plan office in the newsroom, the foyer, control room and the studio serve as the prime spatial settings from which to pre-plan and gradually give shape to the broadcast as well as to the media professionals’ interactional and institutional frontstage performer roles. A set of situated tools such as newspapers and magazines, the iNews software programme, the white board in the newsroom, the talkback system, the cue cards and the telephone line in the newsroom, comprises the necessary paraphernalia. This set of backstage standards, activities, spaces and tools form the encompassing framework that allows Terzake’s “journalistic doxa” (Schultz, 2007) or “craft ethos” (Cotter, 2010: 31) to be accumulated in the backstage to ensure a smooth frontstage performance of a media professional identity and accompanying roles. It is through the repetitive bringing into practice of particular production standards, through specific production activities, via situated tools in situated settings, that the media professionals can prepare for their roles as interactional manager, political journalist, and television producer and, ultimately, pave the way for the construction of a media professional identity.
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Figure 9.10: Terzake’s craft ethos in the back-region in the preparation of a media professional performance
Despite the rather closed situation that might be conveyed by the above figure, the identified production activities and standards are all but fixed. In this respect, the contingency and dynamism with which these backstage aspects tend to be effectuated, both in the back- and front-regions, cannot be over-emphasised. As shown in various examples included in this chapter, the professional standards that routinely tend to guide the media professionals’ production activities in practice, are seldom taken-for-granted, but instead
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form inherent sites of struggle that are contingent upon and often subject to negotiation. Also, the effectuation of these standards and activities, through the use of situated tools in situated spaces, does not count as a simple licence for the achievement of a media professional identity in the on-air effectuation of the preparations. The pre-planned aspects still need to be brought into being, and the sequential development of the on-air interactions with studio guests can urge journalist-presenters to abandon some of their preparations and build on locally emerging relevancies.
At the same time, and as a bridge to the second conclusion in this chapter, it would be extremely limiting to think of this complex web of spaces, tools, activities and standards as merely projecting and constituting a backstage context for what will occur later in the frontstage. While in the back-regions of Terzake, the media professionals are indeed pre-occupied with preparing for their frontstage performances of a professional identity, they also need a sense of media professionalism to work through these preparations. What necessarily comes to the fore, then, is the duality between sowing the seeds for a frontstage performance of a media professional identity, and enacting a media professional identity. While the backstage social interactions of the media professionals are definitely not as formal as the interactions in the frontstage, the former are all but free from social expectations, routines, or face-saving strategies. As exemplified in this ethnographic analysis, the above-mentioned production spaces form a stage with circulating production standards that require the performance of professional activities in order to be effectuated. What is generally considered to be the back-regions of political television production then, emerge as the frontstage areas where media professionalism is just as thoroughly tested and in need of a joint and dynamic performance as it is in the literal front-region. As such, the study aligns with Kroon Lundell’s (2010: 169) earlier-mentioned rejection of a strict and literal distinction between the on-camera frontstage and the off-camera backstage in political broadcasting (see also Goffman 1959: 130-131; MacCannell, 1990: 30; Meyrowitz, 1990: 70; Ytreberg, 2002: 491). In this respect, the question remains as to whether the typology of the media professional and its three performer roles identified in this work still holds in this analysis of the production context, or whether some revision is needed. On the basis of the ethnographic results discussed in this chapter, there is
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ample reason to believe that the roles of interactional manager, political journalist and television producer are pertinent to the articulation of a media professional identity in the backstage of Terzake. Not only do the media professionals make every effort to prepare for the numerous performer tasks that are inscribed in these roles through the articulation of a specialised set of production activities and accompanying standards, they are simultaneously challenged to enact these roles in their preparatory activities. While the role of interactional manager is interactional and, thus, integral to the turn-by-turn development of on-camera interactions, the media professional roles of political journalist and television producer are much broader and are linked to rights and obligations embedded in the respective social institutions of journalism and broadcasting. It is not surprising then, that these institutional roles emerge also in the backstage spaces of political broadcasting. This is particularly evident in the repetitive oriented-to expectation of mastery of a set of sense-making standards that are typical of the institutions embodied by the media professionals. To be more precise, in the production of an original, distinguished, accurate, publicly relevant and neutral and balanced broadcast offer, on the one hand, and a broadcast that simultaneously foresees a sense of continuity and spontaneity, on the other hand, the media professionals call upon and practice what is taken to be some of the most archetypical values in, respectively, journalism and broadcasting. Media professionals are expected to display their institutional competences as political journalists and television producers just as much in the backstage production settings as in the frontstage studio setting. Hence, the two outer circles in the above figure can be seen as pertaining to both the on-camera and off-camera performances of a media professional identity and the accompanying roles.
Based on these conclusions, the production context of political broadcasting culminates in both a ‘genuine’ back-region where performances in the front-region are pre-planned and rehearsed, and a front-region which itself requires as much mastery and practice of specialised media professional competencies as is required in the ‘genuine’ front-region. Overall, the ethnographic analysis of the production activities at Terzake illustrates the value of a look behind-the-scenes to obtain a broader picture of the performance of identity in institutional settings. However, one part of the puzzle remains: the question of how the performance of a media professional
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identity is related to matters of co-dependency and teaming processes. In this chapter I have occasionally referred to the necessity for collaboration among different types of media professional in order to achieve harmonious preparation for the broadcasts; in Chapter 10 I deal more explicitly with this crucial role of team collaborations in the articulation and performance of a media professional identity. Among other things, Chapter 10 accounts for how the routine production activities and standards identified in the current chapter contribute to the constitution of a shared ‘secret’ which serves to guarantee smooth cooperation and interaction among the media professionals and, ultimately, a smooth staging of media professionalism.
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6 7 8 9 10 11
Ι
CHAPTER 10
THE ROLE OF TEAM COLLABORATIONS IN THE
CONSTRUCTION OF A MEDIA PROFESSIONAL
IDENTITY
When reflecting on the manifold discursive practices and processes through which a media professional identity can be established and performed in both the on-air and off-air contexts of political broadcasting, an analytic bracketing of these practices and processes risks their being presented as a neatly demarcated set of constitutive building blocks required for the faultless performance of a media professional identity. From an overall integrated discursive perspective, such analytic bracketing would be fiercely limiting not least because it risks jeopardising the interactivity and reflexivity with which identities and relationships tend to be constructed. The articulation of any identity in social interaction, by definition, involves dynamic interrelational processes of ratification, negotiation or otherwise refutation by the co-participants in an encounter (e.g. Altheide, 2000; Bucholtz & Hall, 2005; Diamond, 1996; Fairclough, 1995; Harré & van Langenhove, 1999; McKinlay & Dunnett, 1998; Schiffrin, 1996; Weizman, 2008). Earlier in this work, I dealt with this dynamic aspect of identity construction in the on-air performance of media professionalism (see Chapters 7 and 8). This chapter draws attention to how a media professional identity is collectively and collaboratively accomplished in the off-air settings of political broadcasting and provides an analytic look at the relational mechanisms through which media professionals live up to the identified set of backstage production activities. Team collaborations form the necessary foundations for the construction of a media professional identity. If journalist-presenters are to stage and produce an instance of political broadcast talk in a professional manner, they cannot ignore cooperation with others. For an appearance of
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media professionalism to be achieved and to emerge, the journalist-presenters and others must adopt particular pre-established roles and foster a shared orientation towards the definition of the situation. The central question guiding this chapter is: How is the construction of a media professional identity contingent upon dynamic team collaborations in the backstage settings of political television programmes? The investigation of this question exploits data from the ethnographic study in Terzake’s backstage settings as its empirical foundation. My observations at Terzake lend themselves particularly to narrow focus on how relationships are dynamically built throughout a variety of backstage spaces, and how these relationships potentially contribute to the preparation and ultimate performance of a media professional identity. At a more conceptual level, Goffman’s (1959) thinking about team performances and teaming processes support the optimal capture of the collective and social aspects of the construction of a media professional identity in the backstage settings of Terzake. More concretely, this chapter proposes that the construction of a media professional identity is contingent upon the media professionals’ competence to function effortlessly within two distinct, but interrelated operative teams: an intraprofessional team of fellow media professionals, and an interprofessional team of media professionals and politicians (or other types of studio guests). In the preparation, performance and aftermath of political broadcasting, each of these teams presupposes different working mechanisms with different tacit rules, norms, interactional patterns and power relationships. Therefore, media professionals are put to the test to master and expose the social skills necessary to stay in line with the normative expectations that guide each of these teams’ performances. The goal of this chapter is to disentangle the peculiarities of these teams’ operations and to map the social challenges with which especially journalist-presenters are faced in their off-air political broadcasting activities. The construction of a media professional identity in the backstage settings of Terzake can be seen, then, as the product of a web of dynamic, but nevertheless conventionalised interactions and relationships between fellow media professionals on the one hand, and politicians on the other. The chapter is divided broadly into two parts. In the first part, I show how intraprofessional team performances in the pre-broadcast, broadcast and
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post-broadcast phases81 are closely related and are manifestly part of the journalist-presenters’ performance of a media professional identity. Within each of these temporal phases, the collegiality and internal hierarchies among the Terzake media professionals are put under scrutiny. It is especially the role of language use and the relative authoritative position of the editor that appear to be crucial for a smooth collaboration among the intraprofessional team members. In the second part of the chapter, I refocus the attention from the internal operations of the Terzake team to the media professionals’ relationship with invited studio guests. I argue that when media professionals and politicians meet in the surrounding context of Terzake broadcasts, they engage in particular symbolic interprofessional team performances. I show that the pre- and post-broadcast encounters between media professionals and politicians are highly routinised exchanges that serve the particular goal of stimulating and maintaining a cordial relationship and promoting team loyalty. The chapter ends by reflecting upon the role and necessity of team collaborations in the construction of a media professional identity in political television talk.
10.1 INTRAPROFESSIONAL TEAM PERFORMANCES IN THE
BACKSTAGE
Figure 10.1: Screensaver pictures on the news service's computers of teaming news production crews
81 As mentioned in the theoretical framework (see 5.3.6), this distinction between a pre-broadcast, broadcast, and post-broadcast
phase is inherited from Carpentier (2011 : 150) and Kroon Lundell (2010a).
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This series of snapshots are from the screensaver on VRT’s news service computers. The images are displayed automatically, as a slideshow, when the computers in VRT’s newsrooms and control rooms have been idle for a while. Each of these pictures shows a ‘behind the scenes’ look that goes beyond what is generally noticeable to the regular news media audience, who see only those who are in front of the camera. Through the repetitive portrayal of closely cooperating teams of media professionals in this screensaver, the VRT news service seems to present teaming as an inevitable precondition for its daily functioning: in all weathers, in good times or in bad, in safe or precarious circumstances, the media professionals at the news service can build upon each other’s professionalism for the fulfilment of their shared ambition to produce strong news media products. So, although a screensaver might seem quite trivial, these images call attention to some important aspects discussed in this chapter: the centrality of collaborative teamwork in not only the production but also the performance and aftermath of Terzake broadcasts. In light of my overall focus on the contingent aspects of the construction and achievement of a media professional identity in the context of political broadcasting, this vital role of the teaming process must not be overlooked. In fact, in-team role relationships and power asymmetries imply an additional complexity in the concept of media professionalism. Not only must media professionals be skilled in mastering a set of production standards and professional competencies to faultlessly produce and carry out political television broadcasts (see Chapters 7, 8 and 9), their social competencies to function within a particular team constellation, and to align within the internal functioning of an intraprofessional team and its shared missions, are put to the test. At Terzake, a vast team of researchers, reporters, journalist-presenters and editors is constantly involved in dynamic interactions and collaborative processes to work jointly towards the professional production and performance of a political television programme. In order to capture how these interactions and processes reflect and constitute the team’s internal relationships, it is of analytic relevance to distinguish three phases in Terzake's team operation: a pre-broadcast phase which entails all of the team’s cooperative activities prior to the live airing of Terzake broadcasts; an actual broadcast phase in which it is especially useful to consider the communications among the journalist-presenter and editor-in-chief; and a
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post-broadcast phase which captures the team’s cool-down exchanges after the broadcast. Each of these phases implies not only different temporal but also different spatial frames, and team performances and mutual team relationships vary across these phases. Overall, the three phases comprise different team constitutions and collaborations that turn out to be directed respectively towards preparing for, supporting and praising the performance of a media professional identity.
10.1.1 TALKING THE BROADCAST ‘INTO BEING’: DYNAMISM IN THE PRE-
BROADCAST PHASE
Rather than being accomplished in isolation, the repertoire of production activities and standards in Terzake’s newsroom identified in Chapter 9, requires and presupposes extensive co-operative efforts among Terzake’s media professionals. During my first observations in the newsroom in particular, what was striking for me was how little time the media professionals seemed to spend on individual work on their role-related production tasks. While particular institutionalised moments such as the morning story meetings, carry a clear expectation of constructive exchanges and team collaborations (e.g. Boden, 1994: 149-150; Cotter, 2010: 9; Holmes et al. 1999: 356), it might be expected that outside these explicit interactional and co-operative moments, the media professionals would tend to work individually on their proper professional tasks: interview questions and transition texts to be scripted, reportages to be shot and mounted, and studio guests to be mobilised and informed. While the accomplishment of these tasks involves an obvious role division among the media professionals, it would be incorrect to assume that they carry them out in a solitary manner. In reality, in the performance of their proper role-bound tasks during preparation for broadcasts, the Terzake team members routinely engage in almost constant consultation with each other. Typically, Terzake broadcasts are produced through collaboration and numerous interactional exchanges in the newsroom: editors seldom take decisions about inviting particular studio guests, or shifts in the broadcast structure, without prior discussion with the journalist-presenters; reporters seldom start shooting reportage without first running through the envisaged
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approach with the editor-in-chief; and journalist-presenters rarely prepare their contributions for the broadcast without consulting one another, the editors, the reporters and the researchers. Generally, the media professionals rely on one another’s mutual involvement to achieve affirmation that what they are doing is right or, to put it differently, that their current performances of (aspects) of their media professional identity are in line with the general team performance and the team’s expectations. The following extracts are examples of the typical collaborative processes through which Terzake media professionals shape the Terzake broadcasts. In both examples, journalist-presenters address reporters to check how their reportage-introducing scripts could best “do justice” (extract 10.2, line 2) to the reporters’ pieces. (10.1) 13 March 2012
Setting: Newsroom
Scene: Journalist-presenter (JP) to reporter (R)
1 JP: Is it all right like this? Is this it? Because otherwise you
2 should tell me.
3 R: No no, it is all right!
(10.2) 25 April 2012
Setting: Newsroom
Scene: Telephone conversation between a journalist-presenter (JP) and a
reporter (R)
1 JP: I just wanted to very quickly sound you out about the intro,
2 about what I should include to do justice to your piece.
… ((reporter answers))
3 JP: Okay, I will make something out of it. Good luck.
By appealing to the reporters to confirm the correctness of their professional backstage scripting activity, in the above extracts, the journalist-presenters invite the reporters to engage in a teaming process oriented towards optimisation of their later on-air performance of a media professional identity. If the journalist-presenters can manage to produce a reportage-introducing script that accurately mirrors the core of the succeeding reportage, this will pave the way to a successful frontstage performance of a knowledgeable media professional who knows to master every aspect of the broadcast, while also introducing and directing attention to the professional work of a fellow team member. Interactions such as these above are typical of the media professionals’ co-operative exchanges in the newsroom and are
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exemplary of how Terzake broadcasts are routinely ‘talked into being’. Language use and the repetitive mobilisation of each other’s opinions form the fundamental basis upon which production activities are enacted and production standards are put into practice.
To take this a step further, the joint maintenance of a talkative dynamism in the newsroom is oriented to as a shared project that is normatively inscribed in the accomplishment of a media professional identity at Terzake. This is particularly clear from the media professionals’ orientations when this dynamism is seen to be missing. (10.3) 6 March 2012
Setting: Newsroom
Scene: Journalist-presenter (JP) at his desk and reply from a researcher (R)
1 JP: Damn, it’s so quiet over here, what is going on?
2 R: Fortunately there is nothing happening in the world.
(10.4) 12 October 2012
Setting: Newsroom
Scene: Journalist-presenter (JP) at his desk
1 JP: I feel like going home, I miss that adrenaline.
In these examples, a journalist-presenter seizes on the quietness (extract 10.3) and lack of adrenaline (extract 10.4) in the newsroom to make explicit the extra-ordinariness of the situation. In the researcher’s ironic reference in the first extract to the fortunateness that “there is nothing happening in the world” (extract 10.3, line 2), and in the journalist-presenter’s inclination in the second extract to take off his professional mask and go home (extract 10.4), the media professionals create a distance between the current, exceptional situation and the to-be-expected definition of a newsroom situation that normatively presupposes a fair degree of liveliness and dynamism among team members. In this respect, it is relevant to take a closer analytic look at how this normativity of team dynamism in the pre-broadcast phase relates to the construction of a media professional identity in political broadcasting. I focus particularly on three aspects: (1) the role of these dynamic team collaborations for the journalist-presenters’ preparation of their media professional roles in the frontstage; (2) the role of the editor-in-chief in safeguarding and stimulating the team’s dynamism; and (3) the special status of out-of-
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character behaviour in the creation of solidarity among the Terzake team members.
PUTTING THE JOURNALIST-PRESENTERS’ FRONTSTAGE ROLES TO COLLABORATIVE
BACKSTAGE WORK
As discussed in Chapter 9, the roles of the journalist-presenter are not isolated from their activities in the backstage. In the backstage areas of political broadcasting, media professionals are routinely occupied with demonstrating their orientation towards the tasks and responsibilities that typically are inscribed in their frontstage media professional roles. Chapter 9 highlighted especially how media professionals build on a set of production standards and activities in the newsroom to prepare for these on-air tasks and responsibilities. The analytic focus of the present chapter on team collaborations extends these insights to include reflections on how joint preparatory collaborations help the journalist-presenters to live up to there required media professional roles. Through my observations in the newsroom, I learnt that these role-preparations are highly contingent upon constructive collegiality among the media professional team members at Terzake. Generally, the back-region setting of the newsroom is considered by the journalist-presenters as the heart of the co-constitution of their frontstage media professional identities and according roles as interactional manager, political journalist and television producer in collaboration with fellow team members.
THE JOINT PREPARATION OF INTERACTIONAL MANAGER RESPONSIBILITIES. With respect to the journalist-presenters’ role as interactional manager, the Terzake media professionals commonly pre-plan how to achieve optimal performance of their interactional moves in order for the later interview or debate to appear as a professionally managed instance of political broadcast talk. In their daily production of broadcasts, the Terzake team members collaborate in the preparation of potential turn-taking patterns and questioning lines for later broadcast talk. This applied particularly to the production of the October 2012 pre-election broadcasts, whose frontstage
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presentation involved both journalist-presenters. During this period, the journalist-presenters were required to collaborate much more extensively than for the regular Terzake broadcasts. Inevitably, this led to more frequent and explicit negotiations among the journalist-presenters about how collaboratively to prepare for and manage the later performance of their interactional manager role. The example below shows how Terzake’s journalist-presenters negotiated over possible turn distributional patterns in an upcoming pre-election debate. (10.5) 12 October 2012
Setting: Newsroom
Scene: Journalist-presenter (JP1) to the other journalist-presenter (JP2)
1 JP1: I would not run through them party by party.
2 JP2: Or just say: those are the three parties that are having
3 difficulty.
By sounding one another out about their intended turn-allocating moves in this manner, the journalist-presenters could pre-plan the interactional management of the later debate in accordance with the wider purpose of facilitating maintenance of a joint definition of the later on-air situation and limiting potential blunders in their frontstage collaborative interactional manager performances. The following extract illustrates this safeguarding of the procedural-controlling requirements of the journalist-presenter’s interactional manager role. (10.6) 12 October 2012
Setting: Newsroom
Scene: Journalist-presenter (JP) to editor-in-chief
1 JP: You should still have a look at the preparation of my questions.
2 I have split it up now in different blocks: a block Karel De
3 Gucht, VLD, a block CD&V. So there is little debate in it now.
Here, the journalist-presenter mobilises the editor-in-chief to take a look at his scripts in the shared software programme iNews, to check whether his pre-planned intention to give the floor sequentially to each party, fits with the editor’s expectations of the shape of the debate. In adding “there is little debate in it now” (line 3), the journalist-presenter seems to allude to the taken-for-granted media-cultural expectation that political debates should
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contain a degree of spectacle and conflict (see Chapter 7). I did not manage to catch the editor’s eventual verdict on the journalist-presenter’s script, however, the extract is illustrative of the key role of teaming in the shaping and enactment of the journalist-presenters’ obligations as managers of the frontstage interaction. How exchanges such as these work to tell us something about the authority of the editor is a topic that is discussed later in this chapter. Extract 10.7 counts as a final example of how journalist-presenters habitually consult fellow media professionals to collaboratively pre-plan their frontstage interactional manager role. Here, the journalist-presenter turns to a reporter specialised in the field of politics to discuss the possible procedural and topical development of a particular interview (this is the interview with the social-democrat Bart Van Malderen already referred to in Chapter 9). (10.7) 18 April 2012
Setting: Newsroom
Scene: Journalist-presenter (JP) to a reporter
1 JP: I will first let him react and then I will fairly quickly give
2 the floor to Peeters because he suggests, at least I think, we
3 have made agreements and now you will do a u-turn.
… ((some lines removed, reporter shortly replies confirmative))
4 JP: So that first piece is about “not doing well”.
… ((some lines removed, reporter replies confirmative))
5 JP: Then the next line seems to me “how has this happened then”.
… ((some lines removed, reporter replies and suggests more topical lines))
6 JP: Yes, and the third line is “well, you hear it, Peeters (wants
7 to economise within his own domain)”.
… ((some lines removed, reporter replies and contextualises the discussion
while pointing the journalist-presenter to the controversial Twitter post of
Ludo Sannen, another member of the Flemish social-democratic party))
8 JP: I can still see how it runs, because maybe I can use that, I can
9 perhaps refer to that.
In predefining the sequentiality of three broad parts in the interview - i.e. “the first piece” (line 4), “the next line” (line 5), “the third line” (line 6) - and in running through potential topical angles, the journalist-presenter and the reporter clearly engage in checking and establishing the journalist-presenter’s options for guiding and managing the later studio interaction. At the same time, the journalist-presenter and reporter bring in aspects of the journalist-presenter’s responsibilities as political journalist and television producer. By
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running through three possible critical assertions with which to confront the politician - i.e. “not doing well” (line 4), “how has this happened then” (line 5), “well, you hear it, Peeters (wants to economise within his own domain)” (lines 6-7), they consider how to implement the journalist-presenter’s duty of watchdog during the course of the interview. Also, in deliberating on the integration of extra-situational material, such as a quote from another politician (“I will fairly quickly give Peeters”, lines 1-2) and a disputable Twitter post from the studio guest’s party colleague (“I can perhaps refer to that”, lines 8-9), the journalist-presenter and reporter jointly orient to the entertainer and master-of-ceremonies responsibilities inscribed in the journalist-presenter’s role as television producer.
THE JOINT PREPARATION OF POLITICAL JOURNALIST RESPONSIBILITIES. As is clear from the last example, it is a common and routinised practice for journalist-presenters to engage with their colleagues in co-operative brainstorm activity to decide about potential interview angles that will critically challenge interviewees in a manner that meets the underlying requirements of their political journalist role. The extract below is part of a discussion on a journalist-presenter’s options to prepare for the accomplishment of his sub-role as watchdog in that evening’s broadcast interview. It is an interaction between the journalist-presenter in charge of the evening’s broadcast presentation, and the other, ‘on call’, journalist-presenter, on the occasion of an interview with Belgian’s then Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo about a dramatic coach crash in Switzerland a few days earlier, which killed several Belgian school teachers and dozens of pupils. (10.8) 16 March 2012
Setting: Newsroom
Scene: Journalist-presenter in charge for the presentation of the evening’s
broadcast (JP1) to the ‘on call’ journalist-presenter (JP2)
1 JP1: Is it for him a point in time when he cannot address Flemings
2 in their own language.
3 JP2: You could ask that, whether he doesn’t experience this as an
4 impediment. If you formulate it like that then it is well done
5 because you can challenge his dignity.
6 JP1: I can start with: how has he experienced that day? Was it for
7 him immediately clear that this would be a day of national
8 mourning? And then I can move over to language as a barrier for
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9 him. And then to the political aspect: Flemings and Walloons
10 united in their grief. I think I can do this without frontally
11 attacking.
12 JP2: Yes, yes indeed.
In this instance, the two journalist-presenters put their heads together to reflect jointly upon how one of them could perform his journalistic watchdog sub-role in the upcoming interview without appearing overly aggressive. More concretely, they engage in a collective teaming process to figure out how the presenting journalist-presenter could build up, through his questions, to the statement that the native French-speaking Prime Minister must find it “an impediment” (line 4) or “a barrier” (line 8), not to be able to offer consolation to the Flemish people in their own language. In their collaborative brainstorm activity, the journalist-presenters are particularly oriented towards finding a way to formulate a challenging and critical question that “can challenge his [the Prime Minister’s] dignity” (line 5), without “frontally attacking” (line 11) and, thus, without endangering the journalist-presenter’s professional stance as political journalist. In addition to consulting fellow media professionals over the scripting of critical questions, journalist-presenters also draw on the professional skills of Terzake researchers to compile and deliver to-the-point dossiers on complicated political matters. This information appeared to be particularly helpful in the pre-election series of Terzake, and permitted the journalist-presenters to familiarise themselves with and be informed about the interview topic. Perhaps even more, these dossiers allowed journalist-presenters to assemble a repertoire of related external viewpoints, figures and complexities, on which basis they could pre-plan footing shifts in order to challenge the politician interviewees without endangering the journalist-presenter neutralistic frontstage stance.
THE JOINT PREPARATION OF TELEVISION PRODUCER RESPONSIBILITIES.
Lastly, I want to show how team collaborations intervene in the preparation of the journalist-presenter's role as television producer. Normatively, the journalist-presenter's television producer role includes an expectation that the journalist-presenter will control the broadcast beyond mere control over interactional exchanges. As pointed out in various ways throughout this
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work, the journalist-presenters have a particular responsibility for a faultless construction of a coherent and spontaneous broadcast flow in their on-air performances. A closer look at the media professionals’ sense-making practices in the pre-broadcast phase of Terzake reveals a number of collaborative activities aimed specifically at reducing potential frontstage mishaps related to these particular television production tasks. To use the rather theatrical language of the media professionals themselves, journalist-presenters have co-responsibility for the production of “a show” (journalist-presenter, 12 October 2012), and are required to work together in order to jointly establish “a plan” (journalist-presenter, 12 October 2012) or “scenario” (journalist-presenter, 15 October 2012) in which a well-practised “choreography” (production assistant, 1 October 2012) can be carried out immaculately. The next extract is an example of how journalist-presenters build on their team members to give gradual shape to their television producer role and, more specifically in this case, to their sub-role as master of ceremonies. A journalist-presenter addresses the Terzake director to check out the pre-planned choreography in an attempt to fine-tune his proper performance. (10.9) 12 October 2012
Setting: Newsroom
Scene: Journalist-presenter (JP) to director (D), in the presence of the other
journalist-presenter
1 JP: So Kathleen says “thank you, you can go to Lieven”. They leave,
2 applause comes. Does this still come into picture, that they
3 are taking their places?
4 D: Yes.
5 JP: Okay, so they take their places and then I will do the intro.
Such conversations are typical of the process described by Ytreberg (2004: 684-685) as “format-incarnation”: they serve to achieve familiarity with the specific requirements of the format in order to secure a fluent broadcast flow. In confirming whether the politicians' move from one debate table to the other will be filmed by the camera crew (“Does this still come into picture, that they are taking their places?”, lines 2-3) after the other journalist-presenter has brought the first debate to a close and referred to the upcoming debate (“so Kathleen says ‘thank you, you can go to Lieven’” (line 1)), the
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journalist-presenter brings in a number of pre-planned broadcast aspects to attune his proper performance and estimate when he should “do the intro” (line 5) to his interview. Thus, the collaboration with the director allows the journalist-presenter to prepare extensively for his master-of-ceremonies sub-role in a way that limits potential frontstage professional aberrations. What is more, journalist-presenters can count on their team members for the routine backstage rehearsal of later frontstage performances. Immediately before going live, and by way of a test performance, the journalist-presenters routinely practise their scripted opening lines in the studio. They then do a dry-run of their scripted opening lines using the auto-cue, in front of an audience of their fellow media professionals in the control room. This allows them – in a quite literal dramaturgical sense – to ‘rehearse’ their part as television producer on the performance stage. The following is an example of how journalist-presenters in the studio setting typically engage in formal rehearsals of their intro-scripts in close connection with their intraprofessional team members in the control room. (10.10) 18 April 2012
Setting: Studio and control room
Scene: Journalist-presenter (JP) in the studio right before going live and the
director (D) and editor-in-chief (E) in the control room
1 JP: Shouldn’t I quickly do the headlines?
2 E: Okay
3 JP: Sharp lessons from Wouter Beke, especially for the Flemish
4 socialists who reverse their decisions in Flemish government.
5 Violence at school against teachers increases. And the parents
6 as well are increasingly aggressive. Shortly a debate. And the
7 secret of the Spanish top football: bankrupt clubs but huge
8 grace and the Europeans pay the bill.
9 D: ((to editor-in-chief in the control room)) Isn’t “debate”
10 a bit too strict?
11 E: Perhaps, yes. ((changes “debate” into “conversation” within the
journalist-presenter’s script in iNews))
After the journalist-presenter has expressed to the editor-in-chief and via the talkback system that connects the studio with the control room, her wish to “quickly do the headlines” (line 1), the journalist-presenter formally practises her programme introduction just minutes before the show goes live. Judging from the orientations of the editor-in-chief and director in the control room,
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this rehearsal allows fine-tuning of the planned performance of a television producer role and elimination of those aspects that potentially could harm the journalist-presenter’s stance as professional manager of a television programme. In suggesting a change from describing the forthcoming interview as a “debate” to a less “strict” description (lines 9-10), the director seems to be warning against overstating the television-producer-related effort to achieve a programme that contains conflict and spectacle. The editor-in-chief agrees and inserts the word “conversation” directly into iNews. Thus, the theatrical activity of rehearsing an upcoming performance with the team serves the goal of ensuring collaboratively that the journalist-presenter’s later frontstage performance comes across as a professionally managed 'ribbon of broadcasting'. During Terzake's special pre-election series of debates, which occurred during my third observation period, these rehearsals were not limited to practising opening lines. Other aspects of the journalist-presenters’ television producer role were practised in collaboration with the team, including the journalist-presenters’ moves within the studio, and the effectuation of their interview scripts. These rehearsals not only allowed the production personnel in the control room to get the right camera angles and sound settings, it allowed for memorisation of scripted questions, and time to ponder possible responses for the journalist-presenters. Remarkably, a number of Terzake media professionals, mostly researchers, were mobilised to stand in for the invited politicians at the debate table in the studio, so that the journalist-presenters could run through some scripted questions with them. I witnessed a couple of these studio rehearsals and it was striking how seriously the media-professionals-turned-politicians took their temporary roles as interviewees at the debate table. Rather than indulging in just any kind of talk to give the camera men and sound operators the chance to adjust the necessary technical settings, they temporarily abandoned their media professional identities and assumed the skins of the politicians, trying to provide genuine responses to the journalist-presenters’ questions, in a communicative style totally in line with what one might expect from the real interviewees. They assumed the standpoints and aired the views the politicians they were playing, and even took over some of their signature argumentation. This allowed the journalist-presenter to anticipate possible
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responses, and practise turn-distribution. It can be seen that these team performances in the form of formal broadcast rehearsals not only play a crucial role in the journalist-presenters’ preparation for their television producer responsibilities, such as knowing when and where to move in the studio, and the seating positions of each of the invited politicians, but also in the practice of those responsibilities attached to their roles of interactional manager and political journalist, such as the organisation of turn-taking, the effectuation and memorisation of scripted questions, and the adoption of a critical posture in the interaction. Overall, team collaborations in the pre-broadcast phase of Terzake emerge as the paramount precondition for the preparation of the journalist-presenters’ performance of a media professional identity and its accompanying roles. Journalist-presenters are highly dependent upon the collegiality and collaboration of fellow team members for the backstage shaping and formatting of their roles of interactional manager, political journalist and television producer. Before investigating how the necessity of this team performance for the construction of media professionalism extends to the broadcast phase, we need to consider two further aspects that play a central role in the preservation and stimulation of the required sense of dynamism and constructive cooperation in Terzake’s team in the pre-broadcast phase. On the one hand, there is the editor-in-chief who emerges as a sort of orchestral conductor with a crucial role to play in stimulating in-character behaviour, and motivating the intraprofessional team members to maintain alignment with their respective professional roles within the team’s configuration. On the other hand, and quite paradoxically, the Terzake team also tends to define itself in a counter-hegemonic kind of way by encouraging out-of-character behaviour, which is oriented to as the basis of its particularity and the prime dynamo of team solidarity.
THE EDITOR AS ORCHESTRAL CONDUCTOR: PRESERVING AND STIMULATING IN-
CHARACTER BEHAVIOUR
Within Terzake’s team constellation, the editors play a special role. In general, they are ultimately responsible for the success of the broadcasts and,
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therefore, occupy a position of authority within the team. Overall, the editors' duties are to yield and safeguard optimal operation of the media professionals’ backstage production activities and to lead the whole Terzake team. In their responsibility for a professional production of Terzake broadcasts, editors play an important part in stimulating intraprofessional cooperation and constructive broadcast production. Whoever is editor-in-chief for the day82 operates as the orchestra leader or conductor, aligning each team member according to his or her respective media professional roles to produce an efficient overall team performance.83 This conceptualisation of the editors as orchestral conductors is perhaps closest to what Goffman (1959: 97, emphasis added) understood as “directors” of team performances, i.e. those who are “given the right to direct and control the progress of the dramatic action”. Typically, such “directors” have the dual responsibility of “allocating the parts in the performance” (Goffman, 1959: 99) while also “bringing back into line any member of the team whose performance becomes unsuitable” (Goffman, 1959: 98). This applies equally to the Terzake context, where the editors appear to articulate their leading team role through two sub-roles. Their activities in the newsroom broadly revolve around the sub-roles of motivator, who is required to stimulate the media professionals to play their proper parts in the production process, and guardian, whose duty is to realign media professionals displaying wayward behaviour outside the normative pattern. In what follows, I examine the two sub-roles in the editors’ orchestral conductor role in the pre-broadcast phase roles.
THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF AS MOTIVATOR. During my first meeting with the two Terzake editors, a couple of months before starting my observations, one of the editors described his proper role in the production process as “making sure that everything stays within the pre-established lines” (23 January 2012). Throughout this conversation, the editors tended to describe their editorial task mainly in terms of stimulating every team member to act within the pre-
82 As explained in Chapter 9, the Terzake editors – just as the journalist-presenters – apply a rotation system in taking charge of the
Terzake broadcasts and alternate responsibility over the programme every other day.
83 Each media professional in the Terzake team has a different role related to their professional positions as journalist-presenter,
reporter, researcher, editor. It is beyond the scope of the present work to capture the complexities of each of the media professional
roles in the newsroom. However, given my focus on the sense-making practices of journalist-presenters to achieve a media
professional identity, it is relevant to examine the special role of the editor in guiding and streamlining the team’s activities.
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set definition of the situation to achieve the overall goal of producing a decent Terzake package. This role of editor as team motivator was a recurrent thread throughout my observations at Terzake, as exemplified by this comment made by the editor to the team of media professionals in the newsroom. (10.11) 5 October 2012
Setting: Newsroom
Scene: Editor-in-chief (E) to Terzake team
1 E: Is everything all right? Does everybody know his role? His star
2 role?
Whilst quite ironic in tone, the example demonstrates the editor's typical role to motivate team members to assume their respective media professional roles within the team. Only the editors have the authority to put the media professionals to work and to stimulate the effectuation of their professional roles: they send out reporters to produce Terzake reportage, they mobilise researchers to contact potential sources, and they direct journalist-presenters in their scripting activities. This legitimacy of aligning the media professionals within their respective team roles invariably presupposes an essential interpersonal component. During my observations in the newsroom, one of the editors expressed as being expected to master the specific skill of knowing “where everyone’s buttons are” (12 March 2012) in order to keep all of the team motivated to execute their media professional tasks. As such, the editor seems to orient to knowledge of people’s personalities as a key element in the effectuation of his role as team motivator.
THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF AS GUARDIAN. In addition to motivating people to work within their proper media professional roles, editors have a professional duty to preserve Terzake’s specific team assemblage. As guardians, editors see a responsibility to call to account and realign any team member who in one way or another, displays behaviour that is inconsistent with the team’s envisaged performance. Behaviour that threatens to jeopardise the team’s operation and dynamism is taken seriously by the editors. The Terzake editors' realignment efforts are aimed at two particular aspirations: restoring role demarcations and role relationships; and protecting and stimulating team loyalty. To illustrate the former activity, I refer to the conversation between an
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editor-in-chief and a reporter already discussed in Chapter 9. Extract 9.20 shows how an editor-in-chief took a reporter’s inappropriate live correspondence as grounds for redefining the reporter’s professional role and its limits. The editor-in-chief particularly described the reporter’s on-air performance as that of an “agitated television reporter” who “appeared too prepared” when demonstrating to the reporter the inconsistency between the reporter’s actual role performance and the desired and expected performance. I observed numerous similar conversations such as these, between editors who tactfully approached a Terzake team member to realign their behaviour with their proper media professional role. In the extracts below, the editors are indulging in similar realignment practices and demarcating the role boundaries of other media professionals in relation to the demands of their proper entitlements.
(10.12) 5 March 2012
Setting: Newsroom
Scene: Conversation between the editor-in-chief (E), a Terzake journalist-
presenter (JP1) and the De Zevende Dag journalist-presenter (JP2)
((The journalist-presenters suggest the editor-in-chief to cover the just-
published opinion poll results by the public service broadcaster in Terzake’s
evening broadcast))
1 JP1: … We won’t bring it anymore on Monday.
2 E: Look at this, we suddenly make up four editors!
(10.13) 5 March 2012
Setting: Newsroom
Scene: Editor-in-chief (E) to a reporter
((A reporter formulates some of his objections on the current preplanned order
of topics for the evening’s broadcast))
1 E: I shall decide on that.
In both extracts, the editors quite forcefully restore the prevailing in-team role relationships by making the boundaries of their and the media professionals’ roles quite explicit. In both cases, the editors are criticising team members for exceeding the limitations of roles while simultaneously claiming decision-making authority over preplanning of Terzake’s broadcast agenda (extract 10.12) and structure (extract 10.13). In the first extract, the journalist-presenter of Terzake and the journalist-presenter of De Zevende Dag are jointly oriented towards persuading Terzake’s editor-in-chief to integrate the just-published
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results of the public broadcaster’s opinion poll into the evening’s broadcast on the assumption that the topic would otherwise ‘get lost' over the weekend (“we won’t bring it anymore on Monday” (line 1)). At this point, the editor-in-chief refers to the formal role division within the team as self-explanatory of his resistance to the journalist-presenters’ power claim: “Look at this, we suddenly make up four editors” (line 2). In formulating his rebuttal in this way, the editor-in-chief somehow ridicules the journalist-presenters’ agenda-controlling efforts, and restores the initial role divisions between the two journalist-presenters and the two Terzake editors. Ultimately, the journalist-presenters drew the short straw and the opinion poll results were not covered by Terzake. Similarly, in the second extract, the editor-in-chief refers to his role and authority to decide on the broadcast’s composition in order to smother a reporter’s suggestion about reorganising the sequencing of broadcast topics. In claiming that he, as an editor, “shall decide on that” (line 1), the editor-in-chief is implicitly criticising the reporter's commenting on the structural sequencing of topics, and re-claims his proper structure-controlling power within the team. As well as serving the goal of sustaining existing role definitions and relationships, the editors’ realignment efforts in their role of team guardians are often directed towards safeguarding and endorsing a sense of team loyalty. For Goffman (1959: 214), dramaturgical loyalty can be understood as the willingness of team members to “perform enthusiastically whenever, wherever and for whomsoever the team as a whole chooses”. This applies to the Terzake context, where the editor's overall task is to unify team members, mainly to maintain team dynamism. One of the editors described a reporter as: “she is very good, you ask her something and she just does it” (editor-in-chief, 24 April 2012). This straightforward carrying out of assigned tasks by the media professionals is positively evaluated by the editors as exemplifying a correct professional attitude and contrasts deviant cases where the media professionals’ lack of enthusiasm is denounced and seen as explicit inappropriate conduct. When I asked one editor on her first day as Terzake editor-in-chief - who formerly was already a Terzake team member, as reporter – whether she took satisfaction from her new function, she responded as follows.
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(10.14) 24 April 2012
Setting: Control room
Scene: Editor-in-chief (E) to me
1 R: Not on days like these. You can already feel it from the
2 morning onwards. They already come an hour too late and then
3 they are puffing and blowing.
Similarly, the extract below shows an editor-in-chief’s disapproval of a reporter’s sighing and lack of enthusiasm when being asked to produce a reportage. (10.15) 13 March 2012
Setting: Newsroom
Scene: Editor-in-chief (E) to a reporter (R)
((The editor-in-chief instructs a reporter to shoot a particular reportage on
location))
1 R: Pffffff ((breathes a big sigh))
2 E: That seems to be without too much of enthusiasm.
3 R: ((sighs)) It is because of personal reasons.
4 E: Come on, ça bouge! we cannot miss this. We can make a nice
5 reportage and a nice broadcast out of this, but everyone has to
6 stand behind it. Come on, it isn’t normal that I should motivate
7 you to go outside to shoot nice reportages.
In this extract, the editor-in-chief translates the reporter’s lack of “enthusiasm” (line 2) to “go outside to shoot nice reportages” (line 7) into an overall lack of loyalty to the team. The editor-in-chief is involved more particularly in defining the team’s overall project as to make “a nice reportage and a nice broadcast” (lines 4-5). As a precondition for accomplishing this joint goal, “everyone has to stand behind it” (lines 5-6), i.e. each and every member of the Terzake team should be facing in the same direction. As such, the reporter’s sighs and unwillingness to just straightforwardly carry out the editor’s instructions are seen as potentially endangering the overall team performance. Later, during lunchtime, the editor-in-chief referred back to this conflict with some other team members, expressing his disappointment at entering a newsroom where "people don’t want to collaborate in producing a nice broadcast” (editor-in-chief, 13 March 2012).
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That editors actually play a part in maintaining team loyalty and encouraging constructive collaboration shows also in the tendency for editors to intervene if something threatens the overall team alignment. For instance, arriving late in the newsroom, or not finishing tasks on time, are oriented to as working inversely proportionate to the dynamism and loyalty that is so highly valued by the team. Therefore, the Terzake editors' regular hobbyhorse was playfully ‘punishing’ those culpable of ‘nonconformist’ behaviour by requiring them to do push-ups in the newsroom. Although such sanctions are clearly absurd and teasing, they exemplify the way in which relationships are typically sustained and restored at Terzake; they are illustrative of a general awareness of the normative, structural expectations about the team’s professionalism – of how things ‘should be’ – while expressed in a playful manner. The following section delves deeper into how such teasing actually appears to be a normative aspect of Terzake’s team constitution.
OUT-OF-CHARACTER BEHAVIOUR AND THE DE-INSTITUTIONALISATION OF MEDIA
PROFESSIONALISM
Although the editors’ role to promote in-character behaviour in the newsroom plays a vital role in the joint professional production of Terzake broadcasts, we must not overlook the role of out-of-character behaviour in the construction and preparation of media professional identities in the pre-broadcast phase. To do so would be to ignore the real state of affairs in the newsroom of Terzake. In my first intake conversation with the editors, they immediately and literally “forewarned” me about the “very casual and informal atmosphere” at Terzake (23 January 2012). This emphasis on the otherness of the Terzake team remained a theme throughout my entire observation period, related to how the media professionals tend to define and articulate their uniqueness, as a professional team, vis-à-vis other newsrooms in the Belgian media landscape. For instance, one of the reporters confided to me that he had worked as editor-in-chief on a Flemish newspaper, then returned to Terzake, left again, and re-returned persuaded by the “pleasant atmosphere” at Terzake (6 March 2012). Other team members as well, from time to time, told me about the exceptional ambience at Terzake.
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After spending some time in the newsroom, it became very clear that this alleged special atmosphere was articulated concretely in the media professionals’ local orientations and the team’s activities. For instance, every Friday afternoon, the media professionals took a break from their professional activities to gather round the newsroom's conference table to share a cake, while temporarily distancing themselves from their professional identities and engaging in informal small-talk. However, the stated extra-ordinariness of the Terzake team is perhaps made even more explicit and underlined by the team’s occasional admission of out-of-character behaviour. The so-called “quarter-to-eight moment”, for instance, is a telling example of such allegedly dissonant behaviour. Fifteen minutes before the live airing of Terzake's eight o’clock evening broadcast, the team members adopt a kind of subversive routine and start chucking a frisbee around in the newsroom, as a somewhat ludicrous way of letting off steam right before the official ‘moment of truth’. That such behaviour is in conflict with their conventionally maintained performance of a media professional identity was made clear by their explicit recognition of my presence in the newsroom. In contrast to their behaviour when involved in more formal and professionally acceptable activities, they often referred to my observing them explicitly, and made jokingly comments like, “Eva won’t write it down” (25 April 2012). Similarly, the media professionals tended to notice my presence if, for instance, one of the media professionals began to sing, which was quite frequent behaviour for one of the journalist-presenters. On the day after the local elections, which resulted in a victory for the Flemish nationalist party N-VA, a journalist-presenter ironically sang the official anthem of Flanders, De Vlaamse Leeuw (“the Flemish Lion”), loudly in the newsroom. Clearly, this explicit statement clashed with the journalist-presenter’s official and to-be-expected maintained performance of neutral media professional, which was made even more clear by the hilarity among the other media professionals in the newsroom that greeted these efforts. At another time, a researcher began to perform circus stunts in the newsroom, half an hour before the start of the broadcast. While one of the reporters searched on his iPad for circus music to accompany the researcher’s crazy actions, the other media professionals jointly fantasised about what they would do if the head of the public service broadcaster’s news services would walk into Terzake's newsroom. They surmised that the circus-
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actor would quickly return to one of the formal spaces in the open plan office, and that the reporter would hide his iPad under his suit jacket. In addition to showing the media professionals’ orientation to the deviancy of their behaviour, these examples throw light on the specificities through which the media professionals demarcate team definitions and create a distance between themselves and outsiders. The team’s occasional subversiveness of the conventional in the form of playing frisbee, singing or fooling around in the newsroom, contributes to a sense of in-team belonging. The incompatibility of such backstage behaviour with the image that the media professionals generally wish to foster in the frontstage is then played out as exactly their strength and the team’s uniqueness. By generally positioning them, both through their local orientations and in their conversations with me, as a group of atypical media workers, the Terzake team consistently takes such non-conventional practices to heart to differentiate themselves from other news production outlets and to define their proper professional identity. In other words, the team’s occasional out-of-character behaviour serves as a shared secret of in-group solidarity and as a way to create in-team and out-team definitions. Applying these insights to the above-mentioned findings on intraprofessional team collaborations in the pre-broadcast phase, it appears that being a media professional within the contours of the Terzake team requires a particular ability to both act and collaborate within the pre-established boundaries of professional practice and to let go of the established patterns and challenge the structural boundaries. Therefore, teaming within the pre-broadcast context of Terzake, is just as much a matter of mastering and flawlessly executing routine professional practices as it is of challenging the institutional patterns that underlie these practices. Hence, the currently described processes through which out-of-character behaviour is normalised and even made a characteristic of Terzake’s team, adds to the previous results of the ethnographic analysis. A media professional identity not only emerges as solely articulated in the media professionals’ control over a set of recurring production standards and their competence to execute these standards in close and smooth cooperation with fellow team members but also in their capability to adhere to, what could be called, the de-institutionalisation of the normative institutional relationships and codes of conduct. What is more, the
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careful control over and execution of routine and institutional patterns of news production seem to be necessary prerequisites for accomplishing the signature laid-back atmosphere at Terzake. As one reporter asserted, the exceptional vibe in the newsroom is, for him, no more than the logic and direct result of the team’s composition of no-one but “capable people, who do their jobs properly” (6 March 2012).
10.1.2 “WE ARE RIGHT BEHIND YOU”: TEAM COLLUSION IN THE BROADCAST
PHASE
As the broadcast preparations come to a close and the actual airing of the broadcast approaches, the media professional team at Terzake is reduced to only those members who will contribute to the on-air broadcast. The presenting journalist-presenter and the technical personnel, such as camera and sound operators, install themselves in the frontstage studio setting to prepare for the performance they are about to stage. The editor-in-chief, the director and the production assistants head for the backstage control room from which they will guide their team members in the studio setting. Thus, the team’s constellation changes from co-present working processes in the newsroom to non-present collaborations from two separate, but, through the talkback system, interconnected spatial settings – the studio setting and the control room. Much like theatre prompts, the director and editor-in-chief share responsibility, from behind the scenes, for keeping the frontstage media professionals in line with the general pre-established script. The director and editor-in-chief have unlimited access to the pre-produced scripts in iNews, via the computers in the control room. The specialised talkback system, which connects the media professionals in the control room with those in the studio via earphones, allows the director and editor-in-chief to provide support and instruction – i.e. “staging cues” (Goffman, 1959: 177) – respectively to the technical operators and the journalist-presenter in the studio, to carry out the pre-planned broadcast. While the director is in continuous contact with the technical crew to guarantee control over the setting – in terms of, for instance, ensuring appropriate camera angles or effectuating pre-planned format components at appropriate moments in the broadcast – the editor-in-chief is particularly responsible for guiding the journalist-presenter in controlling the
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talk within the broadcast. In what follows I focus more narrowly on how the peculiar backstage-frontstage collaborations between the editor-in-chief and the journalist-presenter assist, but not necessarily facilitate, the journalist-presenter’s accomplishment of a media professional identity.
THE EDITOR AS BEHIND-THE-SCENES ORCHESTRAL CONDUCTOR
Journalist-presenters are not dependent only on themselves for the on-air performance of a media professional identity. Chapter 7 and 8 showed how they have to rely on the willingness of politicians to collaborate in the maintenance of a shared definition of the situation, and the ethnographic analysis as presented in this chapter brings to light that team collaborations in the backstage as well appear to be playing a pivotal role in the journalist-presenters’ on-air performances. A talkback system allows journalist-presenters to remain in a hidden, but continuous connection with the editor-in-chief in the control room. During my observations at Terzake, I managed to be present at the live broadcasts from the rather unusual perspective of the control room, sitting next to the editor-in-chief. This allowed a much deeper insight into the role particularly of the editor-in-chief, in the development of the broadcast and, more prominently, in the collaborative performance of frontstage media professionalism.
It appears that the editors’ role of orchestral conductor and according sub-roles of motivator and guardian of in-character behaviour, still hold during the broadcast phase. The editor’s function during live broadcasts might best be seen as directing the journalist-presenter’s frontstage performance through careful instructions. Just like orchestral conductors, editors are responsible for guiding the on-stage performer(s) through the pre-established script, and assisting them to give a faultless performance and maintain momentum. However, unlike ‘real’ orchestral conductors, who usually are physically positioned in the frontstage and can be seen making visible directing gestures, the Terzake editors guide the on-stage journalist-presenters from a space that is intentionally hidden from the public eye, and produce invisible, but for the journalist-presenters audible, instructions that address the journalist-presenters as prime and only recipients. In what follows, I disentangle how the Terzake editors typically articulate their sub-
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roles as motivators and guardians in the live development of Terzake broadcasts to show how the accomplishment of these editor roles potentially intervenes in the journalist-presenter’s frontstage construction of a media professional identity.
THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF AS MOTIVATOR. As live broadcasts develop, the Terzake editors routinely practise their sub-role of motivators to encourage journalist-presenters in their performances. From within the control room and through the talkback system, the editor-in-chief regularly offers encouragement to the journalist-presenter to boost his or her morale and motivate the journalist-presenter to keep up the good work. Routine comments include “well done” (1 October 2012), “good question” (10 0ctober 2012), “you’re doing well” (17 April 2012), or “this runs smoothly” (17 April 2012) and are communicated through the talkback throughout the broadcast, to compliment and encourage the journalist-presenter in the studio. Like a true supporter, the editor-in-chief cheers from the sidelines to encourage the journalist-presenter in the staging of his or her performance. At the start of one of the observed broadcasts, the editor-in-chief communicated to the journalist-presenter: “We are right behind you” (13 March 2012). Through this comment, the editor-in-chief was referring literally to the presence of the larger team of media professionals in the backstage who were there to support the journalist-presenter and assist where necessary. Consequently, the editor’s role as motivator in the broadcast phase, translates into a duty to stand by the journalist-presenters and encourage them in their frontstage performance and boost their confidence. As a contra-example, one case stands out. During the series of pre-election broadcasts in October 2012, Terzake used a guest editor to alternate occasionally with the Terzake editors. This guest editor, whose regular job was editing another political programme on public service television, joined the Terzake team for two weeks during Terzake’s special pre-election editions. The guest editor was known for his rather exuberant and energetic approach to political television production. His inclusion in the Terzake team required the media professionals to deal with and get used to the newcomer and his ways of working, and was a welcomed occasion for me to observe the team’s local orientations when normative established teaming patterns were challenged. For instance, during a live pre-
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election debate on the topic of education, the guest editor in the control room began very explicitly to express his lack of interest in and boredom with the debate. (10.16) 10 October 2012
Setting: Control room
Scene: Editor-in-chief (E) to a researcher (R), the director and production
assistants
((The editor-in-chief gives a distracted and disinterested impression: he
sighs, sends messages on his mobile, surfs across news websites))
1 R: You should be following Lieven.
2 E: ((ironic tone)) It is interesting, don’t you think? (…) Would
3 there still be someone who knows what this person is talking
4 about? (…) Shall we play truant ourselves? It won’t get any
5 worse, I promise you. (…) Come on, what a question! (…)
6 Friends, what has happened here stays forever between us,
7 because this was the most boring broadcast ever. We will frame
8 it, okay? (…) Wouldn’t this audience in the studio have fallen
9 asleep in the meantime?
Far from embracing his role as motivator of the studio performance, the editor-in-chief first displays behaviour that is normatively inconsistent with the underlying expectations of his role in the control room: he sighs, sends messages on his mobile phone, and surfs news websites on the computer in the control room. His norm-breaking behaviour does not go unnoticed, as shown by the orientation of a researcher who exceptionally was also present in the control room. In asserting that the editor “should be following Lieven [the journalist-presenter]” (line 1), the researcher takes the editor’s deviant behaviour requiring him to be called to account, to stop displaying non-conformist behaviour and to reassume the editor’s institutional sub-role as team motivator. What follows is a general takedown of the performance by the editor. In suggesting that nobody “knows what this person [the studio guest] is talking about” (lines 3-4) and that the studio audience will probably “have fallen asleep in the meantime” (lines 8-9), the editor-in-chief repeatedly denounces the debate’s “boring” (line 7) character. In line 4, the editor alludes to the debate’s general topic of education to ironically urge the technical crew in the control room to “play truant” themselves. In making the suggestion to throw in the towel and collectively abandon their professional roles in order to put an end to the current performance, the editor-in-chief explicitly resists
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his encouraging role as motivator, unifying team members in the successful staging of a frontstage performance.
THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF AS GUARDIAN. In addition to motivating journalist-presenters in their staging of political broadcast talk, the editors’ activities in the control room are directed also towards facilitating the journalist-presenters’ management of the broadcast talk. As guardians of in-character behaviour, editors see it as their responsibility to guide journalist-presenters through every aspect of the broadcast talk. In contrast to the journalist-presenter in the studio, who relies mainly on sporadic glances at cue cards, the editor has unlimited access to the pre-planned scripts via iNews on the computers in the control room. By keeping an eye continuously on these pre-plannings, the editor can provide the journalist-presenter with detailed instructions about how to achieve the greatest consonance with the scripted preparations and has the power to assist the journalist-presenter in a faultless execution of the broadcast phase. It goes without saying that this collaboration between the journalist-presenter in the studio and the editor in the control room has crucial implications for the frontstage construction of the journalist-presenter’s media professional identity. Through careful communication from the backstage, the journalist-presenters are supported in the accomplishment of the roles, duties and legitimate entitlements attached to the performance of their media professional identity. From the control room, the editor-in-chief carefully monitors the activities in the frontstage and, through equally careful instruction, guards the successful construction of the journalist-presenter’s media professional identity. Consequently, the journalist-presenter's roles as interactional manager, political journalist and television producer need to be understood as collaboratively accomplished, in both the frontstage interactions with politicians and through the frontstage-backstage teamwork between the journalist-presenter and the editor-in-chief. In what follows, I consider more deeply how the Terzake editors routinely articulate their sub-role as guardian within each of the identified journalist-presenter roles. In relation to and in support of the journalist-presenter’s professional responsibilities as interactional manager, the editor-in-chief regularly makes suggestions about questions and preferred turn-taking patterns. The
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following exemplifies how editors, as it were, navigate journalist-presenters through the topical and procedural preparations of the broadcast talk. The editor-in-chief specifically communicates the desired and pre-scripted turn distribution and topical lines within the broadcast talk to the journalist-presenter in the studio. (10.17) 3 October 2012
Setting: Control room
Scene: Editor-in-chief (E) to journalist-presenter via talkback
1 E: Almaci, you can let her react (…) Okay, then we go to the topic
2 of respect. (…) Next we go to urban renewal with Somers.
In mentioning that the journalist-presenter should first make room in the interaction for the reaction of one politician, Almaci, before going to the topic in question (line 1) and later to the issue of urban renewal with the other politician, Somers (line 2), the editor-in-chief potentially facilitates the journalist-presenter’s management of the frontstage interaction and ensures an unproblematic performance of the journalist-presenter’s professional duties as questioner and moderator of the frontstage interaction. In similar vein, the editor-in-chief plays a powerful role in safeguarding the journalist-presenter’s duty as political journalist. In the following extract, the editor-in-chief suggests some questions aimed particularly at critically challenging the politicians in the frontstage. (10.18) 3 October 2012
Setting: Control room
Scene: Editor-in-chief (E) to journalist-presenter via talkback
1 E: Mister Somers, a lot of liberals are against you.
(10.19) 3 October 2012
Setting: Control room
Scene: Editor-in-chief (E) to journalist-presenter via talkback and partly
also to a present researcher
1 E: ((to journalist-presenter)) Also for you Mr Laeremans? “Knife
2 in the diaper”, would you say that? Repeat, would you say that?
((The journalist-presenter takes up the editor’s suggestions and the
politician provides an answer))
3 E: ((to researcher)) Well done, we defeated him!
4 E: ((to journalist-presenter)) Well done Cools.
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In both these extracts, the editor-in-chief assists the journalist-presenter in the frontstage enactment of a political journalist role. The editor, more particularly, calls on the journalist-presenter’s journalistic watchdog responsibility to make suggestions about the formulation of critical questions to pose to the politicians in the studio. The editor’s cues are directed towards the generation of polarised positions within the politicians’ respective parties. In the first extract, the editor-in-chief suggests that journalist-presenter to challenge the Flemish liberal politician Somers with the observation that “a lot of liberals are against” him (extract 10.18, line 1). Likewise, in the second extract, the editor-in-chief directs the journalist-presenter to formulate a challenging and potentially damaging question. He alludes specifically to confronting the extreme-right politician Laeremans with a comment made by Filip Dewinter, a party colleague of Laeremans who produced the unnuanced and radical statement that immigrants would be born with a “knife in the diaper” (extract 10.19, lines 1-2). In inciting the journalist-presenter to allow the studio guest to comment directly on this blunt statement, the editor-in-chief directs the journalist-presenter in her role as critical political journalist to hold the politician accountable for his and his party members’ political positions. What’s more, by immediately adding “repeat, would you say that?” (extract 10.19, line 2), the editor-in-chief promptly anticipates evasiveness on the part of Laeremans. Hence, the editor-in-chief orients the interview to the normativeness of “avoidance-avoidance conflict situations” (Bavelas et al., 1990) in political broadcast talk, urging the journalist-presenter not to allow the politician to evade this statement and to press him for a fitting response. The following extract shows how these suggestions were effectively reflected in the actual on-air talk between the journalist-presenter and Laeremans. (10.20) 3 October 2012
Setting: Studio
Scene: On-air studio interaction between journalist-presenter (JP) and
politician (P)
1 P: … He is no longer listed on the city council’s list so this man=
2 JP: [Mr Laeremans] [Mr Laeremans]
3 P: =has been liquidated by you
4 JP: [The knife the] knife in the diaper as Filip
5 Dewinter says hh:: do you agree with that? Would you say that as
6 well?
6 P: Well that is an expression that is typical o-of him I wouldn’t
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7 express it in that way but there do is a problem with high
8 criminality among newcomers and we have to dare recognising
9 that… ((answer continues))
In her interaction with Laeremans, the journalist-presenter confronts him with his party colleague's comment, using almost the same words suggested by the editor-in-chief (lines 2-6). However, in contrast to the editor's expectation that the politician would avoid this challenge, Laeremans immediately deals with the critical question and distances himself from his colleague's radical metaphorical language, asserting “that is an expression that is typical of him, I wouldn’t express it in that way” (lines 6-7). As is clear from the editor’s orientation in extract 10.19 (“well done, we defeated him!”, line 3), the politician’s response is experienced as a real triumph on the part of the media professionals: through the collaborative articulation of a political journalist role, they, as an intraprofessional team, managed to challenge the politician such that an inconsistency in the party’s general position was revealed. In line with his sub-role of motivator, the editor-in-chief promptly congratulates the journalist-presenter on the success of their joint conflict-provoking attempt and, by extension, with the journalist-presenter’s achievement of her
watchdog sub-role (i.e. “Well done Cools”, line 4, extract 10.19). The evident pleasure expressed by the editor-in-chief in the revelation of apparent in-party controversy even so fits with the journalist-presenter’s duty as television producer to keep the overhearing audience entertained. In political broadcast talk, journalist-presenters are required constantly to parade their professional competence to create an entertaining television show and to perform perfectly pre-planned format arrangements within the practice of the on-air interaction (see Chapters 7 and 8). My observations from the control room complement these insights. From the backstage setting of the control room, the editor-in-chief meticulously monitors the tempo of the studio interaction and guides the journalist-presenter through the pre-produced aspects of the programme. In line with the journalist-presenter’s sub-role as entertainer, the editors regularly incite the journalist-presenters to provoke conflict as a way of maintaining momentum and promoting tension in the on-air interaction. The previous extracts 10.18 and 10.19, where the editor-in-chief encourages the journalist-presenter to stimulate interactional conflict, for instance, are in line with this observation. Perhaps more
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prominently, the editors play a large part in protecting the journalist-presenters’ immaculate implementation of the requirements of the programme format as part of the journalist-presenters’ sub-role as master of ceremonies: the editors keep track of the broadcast time and regularly communicate how long remains to the journalist-presenter in the studio, as exemplified in the following extracts. (10.21) 25 April 2012
Setting: Control room
Scene: Editor-in-chief (E) to journalist-presenter in the studio
1 E: There is time for one more question.
(10.22) 10 October 2012
Setting: Control room
Scene: Editor-in-chief (E) to journalist-presenter in the studio
1 E: Referring to Ghent, one more minute.
In keeping the journalist-presenters aware of the remaining time, the editors assist the journalist-presenter's responsibility as master of ceremonies to keep within the pre-set time restrictions. Also, in the examples, the editors allude to the journalist-presenters’ interactional manager role in making the suggestion to ask “one more question” (extract 10.21) and “referring to Ghent” (extract 10.22). The editors stand guard over the journalist-presenters’ accomplishment of their television producer responsibilities by warning them of an impending format component transition. For instance, in the extracts below, the editors notify the journalist-presenters about the forthcoming second pre-planned part of the studio interaction (extract 10.23), a pre-selected external quote (extract 10.24) and a programme close (extract 10.25) to be effectuated by the journalist-presenters in the on-air development of the broadcast talk. (10.23) 13 March 2012
Setting: Control room
Scene: Editor-in-chief (E) to journalist-presenter in the studio
1 E: Still the question of “remained calm”, then to part two.
(10.24) 15 March 2012
Setting: Control room
Scene: Editor-in-chief (E) to journalist-presenter in the studio
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1 E: Hereafter follows the quote.
(10.25) 1 October 2012
Setting: Control room
Scene: Editor-in-chief (E) to journalist-presenter in the studio
1 E: You can gradually close down.
The already mentioned professional competence of the journalist-presenters to “incarnate the format” (Ytreberg, 2004: 684) then no longer seems to be the media professional responsibility solely of the journalist-presenters. In order for external and pre-produced programme frames to be integrated smoothly into the broadcast, and for the journalist-presenters resulting role of television producer to be successfully accomplished, the journalist-presenters can rely on the instruction and collaboration of the editors in the backstage.
THE JOURNALIST-PRESENTER AS A VENTRILOQUIST’S DUMMY?
From a critical perspective, one might question the structural power position of the journalist-presenter in the frontstage as theoretically and empirically presented throughout this work. If the construction of an on-air media professional identity is partly the product of the journalist-presenter executing the pre-broadcast team preparations under the secret instruction of an editor-in-chief in the backstage, then how ‘powerful’ is the journalist-presenter in terms of management of the actual on-air broadcast talk? Is the performance of a media professional identity by the journalist-presenter’s merely the performance of a ventriloquist’s dummy whose words are provided by the editor-in-chief in the backstage, rather than being due to the journalist-presenter autonomously controlling the interactional, journalistic and media-cultural aspects of the broadcast talk in the frontstage? Based on the journalist-presenters’ local orientations in the back-regions of Terzake, this claim can be refuted. In the front-region studio setting, the journalist-presenters have the freedom to comply with or ignore the backstage instructions, and they have final responsibility for the on-air development of the broadcast. In fact, it seems that journalist-presenters seldom follow the editors’ directions blindly, but often apply only loose re-formulations of the comments from the backstage into the frontstage broadcast talk. For the
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journalist-presenters, the editor-in-chief should be more of an aide-mémoire, supporting them in the effectuation of their performer roles and reminding them of the pre-planned scripted lines, than a ventriloquist controlling what they say and do. This was particularly noticeable during the period when the already alluded to guest editor joined the Terzake team. His typical exuberant style and excessive interventions during the broadcast differed noticeably from the style of the regular Terzake editors with which the Terzake media professionals were familiar. The entry of the guest editor regularly induced the Terzake team members intermittently to orient towards the deviancy of the guest editor’s behaviour as norm-breaking. The extracts below are illustrative of some of these orientations, and reflect the comment made by one Terzake journalist-presenter in the foyer space after a broadcast. The journalist-presenter denounced the many superfluous instructions of the guest editor during an earlier broadcast, first to fellow team members and later that evening to me, using similar wording. (10.26) 10 October 2012
Setting: Foyer
Scene: Journalist-presenter (JP) to regular Terzake editor and other Terzake
journalist-presenter after a broadcast
1 JP: He kept on rattling in my ear. In the end I couldn’t understand
2 what was being said at the table (…) I felt like yelling
3 “stop!”, but yes of course that is not possible. ((laughs))
(10.27) 10 October 2012
Setting: Foyer
Scene: Journalist-presenter to me at the end of the day
1 JP: I really felt like tearing out my earphone. But you cannot do
2 that, you also cannot yell “stop!”
Most prominently, these extracts demonstrate the institutional and rule-bound character of the intraprofessional collaboration between the journalist-presenter and the editor-in-chief in the broadcast phase. Like any other form of institutional talk, the communicative alliance between these two types of media professional in on-air talk entails a particular normativeness that allows them to behave in predictable and routinised ways. In the examples, the journalist-presenter displays an overall orientation to the guest editor’s behaviour during the on-air talk as deviating from the prevailing norm. In
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expressing annoyance with the guest editor’s excessive “rattling in my [the journalist-presenter’s] ear” (extract 10.26, line 1), and frustration with the proper powerlessness to do something about it – either by making the guest editor stop giving instructions (yelling “‘stop!’” (extract 10.26, lines 2-3; extract 10.27, line 2) or by ultimately breaking the connection with the control room (“tearing out my earphone”, extract 10.27, line 1), the journalist-presenter makes explicit the institutional convention that typically underlies the peculiar frontstage-backstage relationship with the editor. Rather than assuming a supportive role as motivator and guardian of the journalist-presenter’s professional power position in the broadcast talk, the editor claims power over the management of the frontstage talk, to the detriment of the journalist-presenter’s autonomy in the studio. The editor-in-chief’s resistance to his normatively expected roles in the broadcast phase leads then to a situation where the journalist-presenter is no longer provided with an optimal framework within which to construct a media professional identity and accomplish the accompanying power positions in the frontstage setting of the studio. Following the comment in extract 10.27, the journalist-presenter went on to contrast the deviant behaviour of the guest editor-in-chief with the ‘normal’ and structurally accepted behaviour of Terzake's regular editors.
(10.28) 10 October 2012
Setting: Foyer
Scene: Journalist-presenter (JP) to regular Terzake editor, in the presence of
the other Terzake journalist-presenter after a broadcast
1 JP: You were whispering something that reminded me I still had to
2 ask that. And then I thought: “Oh, yes!”
In the journalist-presenter’s conversation in the foyer after a broadcast with the regular Terzake editor-in-chief and the other journalist-presenter, the journalist-presenter normalises the conduct of the regular Terzake editor by juxtaposing the aforementioned aberrant “rattling” (extract 10.26, line 1) of the guest editor with the usual “whispering” (extract 10.28, line 1) of the regular editor. By doing so, the journalist-presenter articulates the normative definition of the situation in which editors should function as aide-mémoires helping journalist-presenters to stick to the pre-planned script, rather than as ventriloquists dictating the journalist-presenters frontstage actions.
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In the broadcast phase, then, journalist-presenters are challenged by what Ytreberg (2006: 425) describes as showing a professional competence to communicate, “not just to absent audiences but also to production personnel who are present in the stage wings, hidden from the absent audience”. The backstage instructions from editors have powerful potential to assist journalist-presenters in their management of and control over frontstage talk and, consequently, have a not to be underestimated role to play in facilitating the journalist-presenters’ construction of a media professional identity in the studio. At the same time, and given the restricted character of their one-sided communicative relationship in the broadcast, the journalist-presenters are heavily dependent on the willingness and competence of the editor to stick to the conventionally accepted definition of the situation for journalist-presenters to carry out their duties in the frontstage to the optimum. The editors, on their part, have to exploit their professional competence to achieve an appropriate balance between assisting the journalist-presenters in their performance of a media professional identity and their according roles and power positions, while leaving room for the journalist-presenters to control the course of the political broadcast talk.
10.1.3 SCHMOOZING IN THE POST-BROADCAST PHASE
Once Terzake's evening broadcast is over, the remaining media professionals and studio guests gather in the so-called “foyer” space next to the studio setting. The foyer resembles a small café lounge area, with a bar counter, barstools, a reception table, and an area with some comfortable chairs and a television. There is a barkeeper who dispenses alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. After the 2012 pre-election Terzake broadcasts, it was common for the interviewees to linger for quite some time in the foyer, but studio guests in regular Terzake broadcasts generally left after a quick obligatory drink. Once the studio guests have left the foyer84, the remaining media professionals - mostly the journalist-presenter(s), the editor-in-chief and a few reporters or researchers - use these informal post-performance moments to increase in- 84 The way that these informal meetings between the media professionals and politicians (or other studio guests) function to maintain
interprofessional relationships is discussed later in this chapter. However, it is useful here to consider the intraprofessional
interactions among media professionals in the backstage setting of the foyer.
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team cohesion. The Terzake media professionals routinely engage in two types of post-performance talk that serves the particular goal of boosting the team’s spirit: staging talk and small talk.
THE PRODUCTION OF STAGING TALK
It was Goffman (1959: 175) who first coined the term “staging talk” to conceptualise the out-of-character talk through which team members typically discuss the enactment of past performances. Staging talk, Goffman (1959: 176) believes, helps team members jointly to "recuperate" after a performance and counts as a moment when “wounds are licked and morale is strengthened for the next performance”. In the context of Terzake’s team, the post-broadcast phase is a time when the media professionals can engage in joint evaluative talk on past performances.
PRAISING OWN PERFORMANCE. The media professionals’ joint staging talk for a large part is directed towards praising own performances and complimenting one another on the development and success of their collaborative teamwork during the broadcast. The editor, either immediately after a broadcast through talkback, or later in the foyer, will provide - mostly positive - feedback to the journalist-presenter on the recently completed performance. They routinely pass flattering remarks such as “that was very good” (16 March 2012, editor to journalist-presenter in control room via talkback) or “that ran smoothly” (12 March 2012, editor to journalist-presenter in foyer). That editors are normatively expected to engage in staging talk is also clear from the post-broadcast orientations of the journalist-presenters. In the extract below, for instance, a journalist-presenter invites the editor-in-chief to engage in staging talk and to assess the previous instance of political broadcast talk, by asking “were you happy?” (line 1). (10.29) 25 April 2012
Setting: Foyer
Scene: Journalist-presenter (JP) to editor-in-chief (E)
1 JP: Were you happy?
2 E: Yes, it was very good. Very concrete.
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Almost as a reflex and an obligatory routine, the editor-in-chief confirms his satisfaction (“yes, it was very good”, line 2) and provides a basis for his judgement with the comment “very concrete” (line 2). In this way, the editor shows his approval of the journalist-presenter's successful media-cultural achievement of a solid interview as part of her frontstage television producer role. In her turn, the journalist-presenter shows an overall orientation towards the editor’s post-broadcast legitimacy to make judgements on the performance by her invitation for an evaluation of her performative efforts. Whereas the editors’ power position in the broadcast phase seemed to be weakened and subject to potential conflict in relation to the overall frontstage power position of the journalist-presenter, it seems that in the post-broadcast phase the editors reassert their relatively higher position in the hierarchy of the intraprofessional team. However, with regard to the editors’ overall sub-roles as motivators and guardians of the team’s operations, it is remarkable how the latter seems to disappear into the background in these post-broadcast intraprofessional exchanges. It seems that the editors see themselves as facing a sort of role clash in these routine appeals for good post-performance feedback. On the one hand, their sub-role as guardian is appealed to through the journalist-presenters’ routine appeals for appraisal of their earlier performance. The journalist-presenters, in engaging in these inquiries, show a particular orientation to the editor’s guardian-related legitimacy to make judgments about whether the staging activities were in line with the general requirements of media professionalism. On the other hand, the editors’ sub-role as motivator prevents an absolutely straightforward and honest airing of their real opinion should this potentially is at odds with the responsibility to keep the media professionals motivated. Certainly in a post-broadcast context, it would be hugely discouraging were the editor-in-chief to criticise the just-finished professional performance of the journalist-presenter. Consequently, it appears to be counting as a norm for editors to put aside their responsibilities as guardians of the successful performance of media professional identity for the sake of carrying out their motivator sub-role in the post-broadcast phase, through the production of positive post-performance staging talk.
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DENOUNCING THE PERFORMANCE OF STUDIO GUESTS. The post-broadcast staging talk of Terzake’s media professionals is also often directed towards denouncing the performance of studio guests. In contrast to the predominantly encouraging and constructive evaluations of the journalist-presenters’ performances, media professionals tend to be quite critical in their judgements of the staging skills of invited studio guests. Comments such as those below are very common in post-performance evaluations of studio guests by the media professionals. (10.30) 18 March 2012
Setting: Foyer
Scene: Journalist-presenter (JP) to editor-in-chief
1 JP: This man really had prepared a point that he wanted to make and
2 did not deviate from it.
(10.31) 25 April 2012
Setting: Control room
Scene: Editor-in-chief (E) to journalist-presenter via talkback after an
interview
1 E: He was touchy!
(10.32) 2 October 2012
Setting: Foyer
Scene: Journalist-presenter (JP) to editor-in-chief
1 JP: She starts somewhere and you don’t know where she is going to.
Chapter 9 touched on how the Terzake media professionals consistently build on a legitimacy to judge on the articulateness of studio guests in relation to their overall striving for a publicly relevant broadcast offer. From the perspective of the present chapter’s focus, the judgmental evaluations of the interview capacities of studio guests can be seen as serving another, more social goal: by jointly engaging in derogatory backstage talk about the past staging performance of studio guests, the media professionals can contribute to a specific form of backstage team solidarity. This observation ties in with Goffman’s (1959: 170) views on the backstage “treatment of the absent“ (Goffman, 1959: 170) as an important catalyst for maintaining team morale. Later in this chapter, I show how this backstage derogation of studio guests contrasts with the media professionals’ face-to-face evaluations with them.
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THE PRODUCTION OF SMALL TALK
In second instance, the foyer is a space for backstage relaxation, one where the media professionals can let off steam and drop their professional masks. As soon as the studio guests have left the foyer, the media professionals take the opportunity to have a drink and engage in informal talk among colleagues. The media professionals consider it a ritual activity to make small talk in the form of gossip or social chat in the foyer. They embrace these opportunities to chat about personal matters or gossip about especially politicians, or about other media professionals. On one particular evening, for example, the Terzake media professionals began by joking about the - presumably - tons of work required of the make-up artists to hide the puffiness and dark circles under the eyes of a particular politician, and then went on to make comments about the remarkably beautiful spouses of politicians, and later on the working practices of other news production teams at the public service broadcaster (7 March 2012).
Apart from allowing the tension to disperse, and allowing the media professionals to recover after their performance and hype up for future performances, I would argue that such instances of backstage post-performance small talk serve the interpersonal function of sustaining and further promoting a sense of particular collegiality and team cohesion. For, it has been argued elsewhere (e.g. Coupland, 2000: 52) that however negligible such small talk might seem at first sight, it can serve a number of significant interpersonal goals such as building social connections, managing impressions, winning approval, or reducing the social distance among actors. Small talk is not trivial, but actually is inherent to the social encounters among people involved in the construction and maintenance of social relationships with one another (Holmes & Stubbe, 2015: 89). For the media professional team at Terzake, the instances of small talk at the end of the day, and the informality this inevitably prompts, entails an essential opportunity to strengthen in-team loyalty and a sense of belonging. The remainder of this chapter deals with how the Terzake media professionals built up and sustain their interprofessional relationships studio guests and how this can be related to the construction of a media professional identity.
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10.2 INTERPROFESSIONAL TEAM PERFORMANCES IN THE
BACKSTAGE
Media professionals are dependent upon the collaboration of studio guests for their media professional identity to be successfully accomplished in political broadcast talk (e.g. Clayman, 2001; Clayman & Heritage, 2002; Ekström, 2007; Heritage, 2002). The conversation analyses in Chapters 7 and 8 show how both journalist-presenters and politicians can develop and implement interactional strategies in their mutual on-air encounters, to deal with the demands of their respective roles and to claim, negotiate or resist power in the interaction to achieve their proper goals. The ethnographic study of the backstage settings of Terzake extends these insights not least because its results allow for a broader and deeper understanding of their so often emphasised interdependent relationship. Despite the impression conveyed by many existing studies of political broadcast talk, the established bounds to reciprocal co-dependency between media professionals and studio guests do not disappear outside the public limelight. Not only during, but also before and after broadcasts, media professionals and studio guests rely upon each other, and have everything to gain from safeguarding and fostering a peaceful relationship; they are jointly committed to seeing their on-air performances run smoothly and in a friendly atmosphere. Therefore, media professionals and politicians are bound to sustain a co-operative and constructive interrelationship in the off-air contexts as well in order to accomplish their shared overarching goal of staging a successful performance in front of the cameras. The backstage encounters between media professionals and politicians, in the form of pre- and post-broadcast off-camera communications, typically bounce back and forth between being institutional forms of interaction and ribbons of ordinary conversation. Compared to their formal institutional on-camera interactions, the interprofessional backstage encounters between these actors take place in private rather than in public contexts, and their encounters are much less constrained by a normatively defined set of interactional practices and turn-taking procedures. What is more, their off-air encounters are much less open to overt sanctions in case of departures from these practices and procedures. As such, their off-camera interprofessional
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relationships are much “more loosely structured” (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 1998: 148) and boundaries between ‘ordinary conversation’ are less strictly defined than in the case of their on-camera relationships. However, portraying these off-camera encounters simply as unbounded chitchat between ‘ordinary’ speakers would be to seriously ignore their actual institutionality. Whilst less formally guided by pre-established conventions and rules of conduct as in the case of on-air broadcast talk, the off-camera interactions between media professionals and studio guests are managed by recurring norms, expectations and interactional patterns (see also Kroon Lundell, 2010a). Consequently, when media professionals and politicians meet in the pre- and post-broadcast phases of political broadcasting, they are still expected to assume particular professional identities and perform formally expected role-based activities. It is, therefore, useful to think of the backstage interactions between Terzake media professionals and politicians as particular “non-formal” (Heritage & Greatbatch, 1991; Hutchby & Wooffitt, 1998) types of institutional interaction that are less formally structured by normatively sanctionable and pre-established turn-taking formats, but are nevertheless still task-oriented and guided by routinely structured segments. Goffman (1959) would probably argue that when media professionals and politicians meet in such non-formal ways in the institutional context of political broadcasting, they do so as two distinct teams which, for that moment, make a pact to follow the established definition of the situation and its inscribed social rules. Through a sort of “gentleman’s agreement” (Goffman, 1959: 169), these two groups would “meet under a temporary truce, a working consensus, in order to get their business done” (Goffman, 1959: 175). Given their diverging institutional backgrounds and agendas, there is a lot to be said for the portrayal of media professionals and politicians as two teams temporarily working together to achieve the joint goal of staging a successful television performance. However, there is also good reason to consider them as one, united interprofessional team, co-operating intensively to maintain a given definition of the situation. Goffman (1959) also conceptualises a number of preconditions for team performance: teammates should be reciprocally dependent on each other for the success of the performance, ought to share and keep particular secrets, and should allow for a sense of backstage familiarity and relaxation. Also, for Goffman (1959: 104),
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a team is not necessarily “a “grouping (…) in relation to a social structure or a social organization but rather in relation to an interaction or series of interactions in which the relevant definition of the situation is maintained”. Taking these qualifications as a bedrock, it would certainly not be an exaggeration to think of the relationship between Terzake media professionals and politicians in terms of a true team relationship. As with any team constellation, the interprofessional team of media professionals and politicians at Terzake is guided by a particular dynamism when it comes to the playing out of identities and the circulation of power. In the moments before and after Terzake broadcasts, the media professionals and politicians mutually depend on each other to achieve their goals and inevitably are involved in constructing identities and negotiating power positions. To my knowledge, the study by Åsa Kroon Lundell (2010a) on The before and after of a political interview on TV is the only academic account of how the team collaborations between journalists and politicians reside in the off-air contexts of political broadcasting. To refresh the study’s prime conclusion, Kroon Lundell (2010), in her case study, observes an asymmetrical power relationship among journalists and politicians in the pre- and post-broadcast phases. While in the moments before a broadcast, journalists have the upper hand in their interactional exchanges with politicians, this asymmetry seemingly is overthrown in the moments after a broadcast when the politicians can build upon a particular powerful legitimacy to evaluate the finished performance. As is made clear throughout the remainder of this chapter, many of my findings at Terzake are in line with Kroon Lundell’s observations. The present study reveals also that media professionals – especially journalist-presenters – have a powerful position in their pre-broadcast exchanges with politicians. However, there are also some discernible differences, not at least with respect to the relationship between media professionals and politicians in their post-broadcast encounters. Rather than observing a reversal in the power asymmetries from the pre- to the post-broadcast phases, my observations indicate a relative continuity in the powerful position of the media professionals in their backstage interactions with politicians. Overall, there seems to be a conventional pattern to their mutual off-air relationships, which situates the media professionals in a controlling position, in the phases before and after Terzake broadcasts. Yet,
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and here my observations again align with those of Kroon Lundell (2010), the media professionals, at least, make their best efforts to camouflage their authoritative position within the interprofessional team through the use of particular de-dramatising strategies. The following maps the subtleties with which media professionals and politicians tend to build and sustain a cordial interprofessional relationship in the backstage settings of Terzake. Again, I use the phases before and after broadcasts as a starting point to sketch out the relative normativeness of the interactional patterns underlying the off-camera interprofessional teaming relationships. In contrast to the analysis of the intraprofessional team collaborations among media professionals, the actual broadcast phase is not considered here for the simple reason that, unlike the intraprofessional team, media professionals and politicians cannot appeal to secret backstage modes of communication during the live unfolding of an on-air broadcast. The following takes a closer analytic look at the patterns of exchange and related normative expectations that guide the interprofessional contacts between media professionals and politicians in the pre- and post-broadcast phases.
10.2.1 DE-DRAMATISING STRUCTURAL ASYMMETRIES IN THE PRE-
BROADCAST PHASE
In the run up to Terzake broadcasts, media professionals and politicians variously come into contact with one another. Already through their first contact in the form of an invitation to the studio, media professionals and politicians are bound within a particular liaison of co-dependency. As a routine, their pre-broadcast communications tend to occur within three broad temporally distinct interactional strips: (1) the initial invitation of a studio guest to the studio, (2) an informative telephone conversation on the day of the broadcast, and (3) the welcoming of studio guests to the broadcast setting in the evening. Generally, the media professionals have the upper hand in these routinely occurring pre-broadcast encounters, and this for a number of reasons. Media professionals both take the initiative in the organisation of each of these pre-broadcast encounters, and control invitation or admission of politicians (or other studio guests) to the television stage. Also, in contrast to
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studio guests, media professionals are able to build upon prior knowledge of the agenda and planned flow of their forthcoming joint staging activity. However, presenting the pre-broadcast relationships among media professionals and politicians as a simple and straightforward asymmetrical relationship to the advantage of the media professionals would negate the subtle efforts used by the media professionals to obscure this alleged inequality. In contrast to the explicitly conveyed and oriented-to power asymmetries in the on-air interactions between journalist-presenters and politicians (see Chapter 7), their off-air relationships are remarkably much less explicitly expressed. In particular, what stands out is how, in their pre-broadcast treatment of politicians (and other studio guests), journalist-presenters (and other media professionals) at Terzake invest everything to play down their proper structural power position in the pre-broadcast phase. Kroon Lundell (2010a: 176) describes this very aptly in saying that journalists tend to wear “cotton gloves” in their pre-broadcast treatment of politicians. As will become clear in what follows, my analysis of the backstage relationships between media professionals and politicians at Terzake supports Kroon Lundell’s (2010a: 176) observation that journalists tend to turn to “specific neutralizing interactional strategies to de-dramatize the explicit front-region situation that they are about to put the politician in”.85 While in the front-region setting of their mutual on-air performances, media professionals exploit a repertoire of interactional strategies to maintain, negotiate and re-claim their advantageous structural position in their interactions with politicians, the opposite occurs in the back-regions of the pre-broadcast phase. In their ritual encounters preceding Terzake broadcasts, media professionals appeal to a number of interactional practices, not to preserve the structural power asymmetry in their relationship with politicians, but to maintain an impression of symmetry. The following briefly considers each of the identified pre-broadcast encounters in light of this observation, and sketches out the “neutralizing interactional strategies” (Kroon Lundell, 2010:
85 Kroon Lundell (2010a), in her study, only considers the face-to-face contact between interviewers and interviewees minutes before
the live broadcast. However, given that the interprofessional teaming relationships between these two parties – and the use of de-
dramatizing interactional strategies – start at a much earlier stage, the present study includes all the routine interprofessional pre-
broadcast encounters.
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176) with which the media professionals at Terzake tend to diminish their controlling position vis-à-vis invited (or about to be invited) studio guests.
INVITING POLITICIANS TO THE STUDIO
After the broadcast agenda has been set at the morning meeting, the Terzake media professionals start contacting potential studio guests, either on the telephone or via text message, to invite them to participate in a studio talk. Then, either an editor, a reporter, a researcher or one of the journalist-presenters contacts the chosen studio guest – in most cases a politician – to persuade him or her to participate in the evening’s studio interview or debate. These initial contacts show that, already in their first communication, media professionals and politicians engage in strategic face-work. The media professionals have everything to gain from convincing their first choice politician to participate in their television programme. While I was not always able to observe these invitation-contacts given their rather obscured character86, it was clear that the Terzake media professionals made every effort to establish a preliminary courteous relationship with the about-to-be-invited politician of their choice. The interactional strategies used by the Terzake media professionals to persuade politicians are directed mainly toward establishing a mutual bond of trust that potentially forms the necessary foundation for the later encounters in both the backstage and frontstage settings of Terzake. Typically, the media professionals put everything to work to promote a peaceful interrelationship, mainly through very a careful and quite deferential treatment of politicians during their first contacts. However, as a contra-example, one of the reporters told me that he once “did something that is not done”: he said that he had “ignored the rules” by trying to invite a particular Flemish minister by calling her directly instead of passing the invitation through the minister’s spokesperson, which would be normal in this situation (18 April 2012). Through his alleged deviant behaviour, the reporter made explicit the actual normativeness of the courtesy with which such initial interprofessional contacts are commonly established. Related to 86 As mentioned in Chapter 9, the media professionals tend to preserve these pre-broadcast telephone conversations with politicians
for the far backstage areas, by calling with their mobile phones and withdrawing from the newsroom. Therefore, these telephone
conversations were mostly not easy to observe.
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this was the observation that, in their first contact with politicians, media professionals generally avoid any confrontational or adversarial element that generally tends to mark Terzake interviews and debates. Again as a sort of deviant case, an editor-in-chief on one occasion ridiculed the prevalence of a very polite and mollifying treatment of politicians in their initial contacts. Jokingly, the editor-in-chief imagined sending an invitation text message to the Belgian Minister of Justice, Annemie Turtelboom, and addressing her as “my dearest Annemie”. He seems in this way to parody the earlier mentioned kid-glove treatment (Kroon Lundell, 2010a: 176) that typifies the interprofessional pre-broadcast treatment of politicians. If we link this back to the question of power, these careful initial moves of media professionals could be interpreted as reflecting the media professionals’ dependency on the willingness of politicians to collaborate in the pre-set plan of the production team and to accept the invitation. However, from what I could see of the media professionals’ local orientations in the newsroom, their apparent humble and deferential attitude when inviting a politician was related more perhaps to the maintenance of a formal sense of politeness to achieve an acceptance by a preferred studio guest, than to a decisive dependence of media professionals on the contacted politicians. Politicians are just as much dependent upon media professionals to achieve media exposure as those media professionals are on politicians to produce the television show they envisage. This is clear from the observation that, rather exceptionally, politicians may also offer themselves for a studio interaction. A politician might contact one of the media professionals at Terzake to suggest an invitation to participate in a studio interview. However, the media professionals rarely take up those offers. In fact, the few self-initiated offers made by politicians that I witnessed, tended to give rise to a great deal of hilarity and disparaging remarks backstage among the media professionals, and comments such as “I neatly kept him at a distance!” or “What a nerve!” (journalist-presenter to editor-in-chief, 17 April 2012). Such local orientations make it clear that instigation and control of invitation sequences are normatively the exclusive domain of the media professionals.
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INFORMING POLITICIANS ON THE FORTHCOMING BROADCAST
Once a politician has agreed to participate in a Terzake broadcast, the media professionals can start the concrete planning of the broadcast talk. During the day, the media professionals reserve some time to contact the invited politicians to prepare them and inform them of the intention of the upcoming stretch of broadcast talk. In Chapter 9, these pre-broadcast telephone conversations between media professionals and studio guests were argued to serve a dual informative function in relation to the media professionals’ striving for the journalistic standard of neutralism and the media-related standard of spontaneity. However, in addition to considering these informative telephone conversations in relation to the media professionals’ accomplishment of production objectives, it is equally interesting and necessary to consider them in terms of the media professionals’ and politicians’ mutual relationships in the pre-broadcast phase. For these calls seem not only to serve a purely professional informative function but also to play a crucial role in the establishment of an interprofessional team alliance. By contacting the invited studio guest a couple of hours prior to their joint on-air performance, the Terzake media professionals further establish their relationship with the studio guest on whom they will depend for the later successful staging of the broadcast talk. Typically, such phone calls start with the journalist-presenter or a specialist reporter notifying the invited politician (or another type of studio guest) about the production team’s pre-planned arrangements for the upcoming piece of television talk: the media professional mentions the prearranged interactional and programme segments, and offers information on scheduled time frames and the envisaged questioning and turn-taking patterns. It has been argued that opening sequences in telephone conversations reveal particular identifications which provides these sequences with a high analytical relevance: “the way speakers design their first utterances will begin to reveal how they categorize themselves in relation to the other” (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 1998: 155). In the case of these pre-broadcast interprofessional calls, the media professional routinely takes initiative to inform the politician about the Terzake team's planned prearrangements for the upcoming broadcast. By so doing, the media
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professional establishes his or her position as privileged holder of knowledge with the legitimacy to provide politicians with the information necessary to bring the staging of their later on-air performance to a good conclusion. However, rather than using this power position to make explicit power claims, the Terzake media professionals put everything to work to prevent the politician from assuming that the media professionals will be controlling the relationship. Because of the media professionals' dependence upon the constructive collaboration of politicians in the later on-air performance (and vice versa), the Terzake media professionals want at all times to avoid frightening off the politician, making him or her unnecessarily nervous, or giving the impression that there is no space for the guest's own agenda. The media professionals tend to exploit particular interactional strategies in their calls, to sooth and reassure the studio guest. More specifically, through the use of particular interactional strategies, the media professionals downplay their proper authority in the later on-air interview for the sake of constructive backstage teamwork. By nuancing their proper media professional control over and respective roles in the on-air performance, the media professionals can align studio guests within a joint interprofessional project, and stimulate a smooth pre-broadcast relationship. In the extract below, which was discurssed in more depth in Chapter 9 (extract 9.16), a Terzake journalist-presenter downplays the upcoming staging activity by minimising her roles in the broadcast talk of interactional manager and television producer (10.33) 25 April 2012
Setting: Newsroom
Scene: Telephone conversation between journalist-presenter (JP) and a public
figure
1 JP: …I will first address you with the question: how do you
2 actually perceive this? (…) And then I will shortly go to Walter
3 Van Steenbrugge ((debate opponent)), to place his comment a bit
4 against yours.
What the journalist-presenter actually reports in this extract is that she plans to arrange turn-taking in such a way that she can polarise the positions of the two studio guests to meet the requirements of her frontstage sub-role as moderator who – from her overall role as interactional manager – is endowed
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with the power to control turn-taking and turn-distribution, and as entertainer who – from her overall role as television producer – must ensure a level of conflict in the performance (see Chapter 7). However, instead of communicating this intention straightforwardly, the journalist-presenter uses particular terminology to minimise the confrontational aspect of the forthcoming on-air performance. Through the use of diminutives as “shortly” (line 2) and “a bit” (line 3) in her statement that she “will shortly go to Y, to place his comment a bit against yours” (lines 2-3), the journalist-presenter’s informing statements come across as less authoritative and less aggressive than if she stated quite openly “and then I will go to Y, to place his comment against yours”. In similar vein, the journalist-presenter in the next extract downplays her on-air role as interactional manager by explicitly nuancing the steadiness of her pre-planned agenda. (10.34) 18 April 2012
Setting: Newsroom
Scene: Telephone conversation between journalist-presenter (JP) and a
politician
1 JP: …And then, depending on whether we have sufficient time: okay,
2 that system has to change urgently, how long will it take. At
3 this moment we have the problem of Europe which is in a
4 financial crisis etcetera. Unless you tell me now that I have
5 overlooked something.
… ((politician talks))
6 JP: Yes, something like that, about five minutes.
… ((politician talks))
7 JP: Yes, but especially when going live I like to make some
8 agreements about what we will do, so if you want to make a point
9 or are working on a dossier then I want to hear about that.
… ((politician talks))
10 JP: Okay, but then we have three broad stories…
By inviting the politician several times to jointly “make some arrangements” (line 7) related to their performance in the form of bringing in elements that she (the journalist-presenter) might have “overlook(ed)” (line 5) or bringing in the “point” (line 8) the politician is planning to make, the journalist-presenter presents her preparations in the pre-broadcast phase as an open, constructive teaming process in which the politician also can have a say. The
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teaming aspect seems to be promoted further in the journalist-presenter’s repeated use of the first person plural “we” when it comes to planning the interview: she aligns the politician as co-decider “about what we [they] will do” (line 8) and engages him in the interview’s development by mentioning that “we [they] have three broad stories” (line 10). Another case occurred where a Terzake reporter nuanced the journalist-presenter’s frontstage role as political journalist in a pre-broadcast telephone conversation with a politician. (10.35) 7 March 2012
Setting: Newsroom
Scene: Telephone conversation between reporter (R) and a politician
1 R: … There won’t be too much chat around X((another politician))
((Another Terzake reporter starts to nod very obviously))
2 R: … ((The reporter suggests some topics for the politician to
3 tackle)) But okay, I will not spoon-feed your answer.
In this telephone conversation, the reporter plays down the adversarial character of the upcoming interview by ensuring the politician that the journalist-presenter will avoid reference to a particular case involving another politician who at the time was quite controversial for the invited politician: “there will not be too much chat around X” (line 1). In this way, the reporter talks down the journalist-presenter’s role and legitimacy as critical political journalist in the broadcast interview, and paves the way to aligning with the politician in a friendly relationship. Also, another reporter overhearing the reporter's call, nods ostentatiously, suggesting the distinct probability that the journalist-presenter will in fact raise the controversial topic in the actual interview. This situation not only shows how the pre-broadcast telephone conversations form a sort of frontstage-backstage interaction in which the calling media professional has one foot in the interprofessional team with the politician, and another in the intraprofessional team of fellow media professionals, it also exemplifies the inherently strategic aspect of these phone calls in relational terms. By nuancing the adversarialness of the upcoming interview, the Terzake reporter aligns the politician in a particular bond of mutual understanding and cordiality. The reporter takes this a step further by later making some suggestions to the politician about which policy issues to possibly tackle in the interview and adds: “but okay, I will not spoon-feed
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your answer” (line 3). Through the entire telephone conversation, the Terzake reporter seems to oppose the confrontational aspect of their relationship in the on-air frontstage setting to underscore the convivial aspect of their relationship in the off-air settings.
WELCOMING PUBLIC FIGURES TO THE BROADCASTER’S SETTINGS
Half an hour before the live airing of Terzake broadcasts, a reduced team of media professionals – always including the evening's journalist-presenter, sometimes accompanied by one or more reporters or researchers – leaves the newsroom to go downstairs, to the foyer. The foyer setting functions as the pivot around which the direct interprofessional relationships between the Terzake media professionals and the invited politicians are established, both before and after the broadcasts. In contrast to their other pre-broadcast contacts, in which the media professionals and politicians engage in constructive teaming processes, but still operate from within their own ‘safe’ working spaces, their physical meeting in the broadcaster’s foyer requires them to merge into a united team. For the first time, the media professionals and politicians are in direct contact with each other. Thus, the foyer space functions as a frontstage setting in itself where backstage behaviour (e.g. informal dress, eye rolling, derogatory gestures, etc.), which during the invitation and pre-informing telephone contacts is still permitted, is no longer normatively approved.87 In the foyer, media professionals and politicians are expected to put on their professional masks and establish a joint definition of the situation. Because of the explicit front-region behaviour that this literal backstage setting inevitably prompts (see Kroon Lundell, 2010: 173), it is relevant to comment on these specific social encounters through an analytic lens. In the foyer, the Terzake media professionals can structurally be expected to have a privileged power position in their interaction with politicians. As hosts of the programme, the media professionals are endowed
87 For the journalist-presenters, the change of setting is accompanied by a change of clothes. After leaving the newsroom upstairs, the
journalist-presenters first put on formal dress before heading for the foyer downstairs. The male journalist-presenter changes his
clothes for a suit, and the female journalist-presenter puts on a dress or a two-piece suit, and high-heeled shoes.
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with a legitimacy to welcome studio guests and inform them about and guide them through the upcoming instance of broadcast talk. As Goffman (1959: 95, 96) states, such a “privilege of giving a performance on one’s home ground” provides control over the encounter and gives a particular “sense of security”. In addition to the fact that the pre-broadcast interactions take place in a space that is the media professionals’ habitat, the media professionals are also privileged holders of knowledge in possessing crucial information about the performance they are about to jointly stage. As Kroon Lundell (2010a: 175) recognises in her study of backstage pre-broadcast interactions between journalists and politicians, there is “an inequality of knowledge in favour of the production crew”. This applies to the Terzake context: the media professionals take the interactions in the foyer very seriously, and inform the studio guests on the so-called “choreography” (production-assistant to politician, 1 October 2012) and “role play” (journalist-presenter to politician, 2 October 2012) that is expected from them. The media professionals see it as their last chance to inform studio guests on the programme’s format to minimise the risk of aberrations in their on-air performance. They can ask politicians whether they are “already aware of the programme’s structure” (journalist-presenter, 4 October 2012), and explain the format of the programme and how the instances of broadcast talk are generally arranged. Often, the politicians also orient to this powerful position of media professionals as knowledge holders. It is not uncommon for politicians to ‘fish’ for information with the media professionals in the foyer. They then sound out the Terzake media professionals about their intended questioning lines or about whether a particular topic will be dealt with. Thus, the politicians not only situate themselves as rather vulnerable – because unknowledgeable and dependent – but also construct an authoritative position for the media professionals as holders of privileged knowledge about the course of the upcoming event. This position assumes that politicians are not yet aware of what awaits them, which is in contrast to the omniscient media professionals. (10.36) 7 March 2012
Setting: Foyer
Scene: Politician (P) to reporter (R)
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((A politician and Terzake reporter are discussing a recent political incident
involving the politician))
1 P: Will this be covered in the interview?
2 R: Probably in the last two little questions.
(10.37) 12 March 2012
Setting: Foyer
Scene: Politician (P) to journalist-presenter (JP)
1 P: Will the survey results be dealt with in the debate?
2 JP: Only at the end.
In both cases, the politicians sound out a Terzake media professional about a – for the politicians – possibly face-damaging topic in the upcoming interview and debate. They thereby orient to the normativeness of a particular power relationship in which the Terzake media professionals are positioned as knowledgeable agents, as opposed to the uninformed and disadvantaged politicians. Preceding extract 10.36, the politician and Terzake reporter were making small talk about a recent political incident involving the politician. When this delicate topic was raised, the politician was keen to know whether “this [will] be covered in the interview” (extract 10.36, line 1). Earlier that day, in their pre-informing telephone conversation, the reporter had assured the politician that “there will not be too much chat around X” (see extract 10.35). Similarly, in this later conversation, the reporter downplays the significance of this delicate topic in the upcoming interview asserting that the topic will “probably” only be dealt with “in the last two little questions” (extract 10.36, line 2). The reporter makes use of diminutives to trivialise the potentially damaging-to-the interviewee character of the topic. Similarly, in the second extract, a politician expresses his concern to the Terzake journalist-presenter over the possible coverage of a (for him) delicate topic. Earlier that day, some Belgian media outlets had published the results of their jointly organised public survey to assess the political preferences of the Belgian population. The politician’s party scored very low in this survey, in contrast to the party of his opponent in the forthcoming debate, which was the outright winner according to the survey. By asserting that she will refer to it “only at the end” (extract 10.37, line 2) of their performance, the journalist-presenter appears to be assuaging the politician's worry. To summarise, in both cases what stands out is how the media professionals ignore the power position interactionally
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endowed on them, by responding rather evasively, and minimising the worry signalled by the politicians’ probing questions; they talk down their alleged power in the forthcoming frontstage performance in order to establish a constructive interprofessional relationship and cordial atmosphere in the pre-broadcast phase. In fact, the interactions between the media professionals and politicians in the foyer, minutes before going live, appear mainly to be structured around such power-reversing interactional moves by the Terzake media professionals. The construction and preservation of team cohesion then appears to be the prime objective of the media professionals’ and politicians' face-to-face contacts in the foyer. Every reference to or assumption of asymmetry, adversarialness or conflict is not only cleverly circumvented but also avoided as much as possible by the media professionals. The Terzake media professionals make their best efforts to put the politicians at ease about the joint performance ahead. There are several ways that media professionals pursue this objective before broadcasts. Most prominently, the media professionals make every effort to (1) stimulate a friendly and relaxed pre-broadcast atmosphere; (2) stimulate a sense of informality and familiarity; and 3) praise politicians on past media performances. STIMULATING A FRIENDLY AND RELAXED ATMOSPHERE. Often, the Terzake editors urge the media professionals in the newsroom to “go downstairs to welcome X [a politician] so that it can be made a bit cosy down there” (editor-in-chief to reporters in newsroom, 8 March 2012). Like real hosts, the Terzake media professionals then warmly welcome the studio guests to ‘their’ territory and invite them to feel at home: “come in, make yourself comfortable” (journalist-presenter to politician in foyer, 3 October 2012). In the foyer, a barkeeper offers sandwiches and drinks. Overall, the media professionals make every effort to actively stimulate a comfortable atmosphere in the foyer and clearly feel responsible for making the public figures feel relaxed and motivated before the start of their performance.
STIMULATING A SENSE OF INFORMALITY AND FAMILIARITY. Next to creating a relaxed and comfortable atmosphere, the media professionals stimulate a sense of informality and familiarity in their pre-broadcast encounters with
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public figures in the foyer. Upon the arrival of the studio guests, the Terzake media professionals greet them cordially, shake hands with them and not uncommonly address them by their first names. In addition, the media professionals and studio guests will engage in informal conversation. As already shown in this chapter, small talk can serve the interpersonal objective of building connections among team members. This also applies to the context of the interprofessional pre-broadcast exchanges between media professionals and politicians. Perhaps more than contributing to a particular sense of collegiality – as is the case in the intraprofessional encounters, small talk between media professionals and politicians in the pre-broadcast phase, emerges as a particular expression of the ruling power relationships. In the foyer, small talk can be used to re-balance the identified structural asymmetries between the media professionals and politicians, with the general objective of establishing the grounds for their co-dependent relationship and offering encouragement to the politicians. For instance, during one of my observations in the foyer, a Terzake journalist-presenter initiated a particular instance of small talk. At the time, it was the politician’s first formal media performance after having lost a perceptible amount of weight. The journalist-presenter was sympathetic to this situation and to try to reassure the politician, he initiated a conversation about his proper experience of weight loss, declaring that he had also once lost a considerable number of kilos (5 March 2012). This small talk forged an interpersonal bond between the journalist-presenter and the politician, to put the politician at ease.
PRAISING POLITICIANS ON PAST MEDIA PERFORMANCES. The Terzake media professionals also downplay their authority in the foyer interactions with politicians by occasionally praising them on earlier media performances. For instance, a journalist-presenter once expressed to a politician that she “was very impressed about your [the politician’s] performance” (journalist-presenter to politician, 7 March 2012) in another broadcast talk programme on the same subject and presented it was the prime reason that the politician had been invited to appear on Terzake. While this allows the journalist-presenter to situate herself in a powerful position from which it is legitimate to pass judgement on the communicative competences of politicians, she uses this
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power position only to make positive evaluations and to motivate an equally successful performance from the politician at Terzake. In this respect, the following extract is relevant. (10.38) 5 March 2012
Setting: Foyer
Scene: Journalist-presenter (JP) to politician (P)
1 JP: You gave a sharp interview there.
2 P: I will be happy if yours is equally sharp.
Despite the journalist-presenter’s neutralising interactional move to praise the politician for his “sharp” (line 1) interview capacities during a radio interview earlier that day, the politician seems to orient to the journalist-presenter’s saying as an actual power claim. Rather than simply taking the journalist-presenter’s positive assessment as a compliment to build a cordial and balanced pre-broadcast relationship with the journalist-presenter – as would be more usual, the politician embraces the chance to challenge the journalist-presenter’s authoritative position. In expressing his hope that the forthcoming interview “will be equally sharp” (line 2), the politician implicitly refuses to go along with the pre-established power position of the journalist-presenter in the pre-broadcast phase and claims a certain power to make evaluations of the presenter's interview capacities. By this means, the politician expresses his proper expectation of professionalism on the part of the journalist-presenter in the upcoming interview, which creates a particular pre-broadcast tension as well as anticipation about the potential post-broadcast evaluations of the politician. Whether politicians are normatively positioned to judge the journalist-presenters’ performance competences in the post-broadcast phases is tackled in what follows.
10.2.2 DE-DRAMATISING STRUCTURAL ASYMMETRIES IN THE POST-
BROADCAST PHASE
As soon as the cameras stop filming in the studio, the Terzake journalist-presenter(s) and studio guests head towards the foyer, where they meet up again with the editor-in-chief and a few other media professionals such as reporters or researchers. Since the frontstage performance is over, it might be
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assumed that the media professionals and politicians are no longer required to make efforts to preserve and stimulate the same level of interprofessional friendliness as in their encounters before the broadcast. Put differently, it might be assumed that the media professionals no longer have to resort to specific de-dramatising strategies to camouflage their structural power position in their post-broadcast interactions with politicians. However, in anticipation of possible future collaborations and media performances, the media professionals and politicians have everything to gain from sustaining cordial relations. Therefore, the interprofessional interactions after broadcasts are still characterised by specific attempts from both the media professionals and the politicians to maintain and construct team cohesion. These endeavours are articulated in the production of two particular types of post-broadcast talk. Like the post-broadcast interactions among the intraprofessional team members, staging talk occurs as a highly standardised aspect of the post-performance encounters between media professionals and politicians. It counts as a general expectation for media professionals to engage in positive evaluations on the just-finished performances of politicians. Also, media professionals and politicians occasionally involve in, what I would call, conspiracy talk: talk that is directed towards the entrustment of sensitive information. The post-broadcast instances of both staging talk and conspiracy talk seem to serve the overall interrelational objective of sustaining and building loyalty within the interprofessional team.
THE PRODUCTION OF STAGING TALK
The atmosphere after a Terzake broadcast can best be described in terms of typical post-performance satisfaction: in the foyer, the performance stress slowly evaporates and makes room for relief and relaxation backstage. Upon arrival in the foyer, there seems to be a normative expectation of post-performance evaluation among the media professionals and politicians. Mostly over a glass of wine or beer, the performers and members of the backstage production crew ‘cool down’ after their staging activities by engaging in joint post-performance evaluations in the form of staging talk. My observations in Terzake’s foyer align with those in Kroon Lundell’s (2010a)
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study in recognising the positive tone of this post-broadcast staging talk. The routinely organised evaluations after Terzake broadcasts are then directed almost exclusively towards praising the politician’s just-finished staging activity in the front-region studio setting. As a rule, the media professionals and politicians engage in making cheery evaluative comments on their recent performance, as an expression of team loyalty. When considering these evaluative interactions in terms of the power relationships between media professionals and politicians in the post-broadcast phase, it appears that the media professionals again are positioned and oriented to as authoritative knowledge-holders. Rather than being translated into the selective disclosure or protecting of privileged knowledge, as in the case of the pre-broadcast encounters, the power position of the media professionals finds expression in a particular legitimacy to make evaluations of the completed performance. After a broadcast, the Terzake media professionals routinely appeal to an authority to assess the just-finished staging activities, and especially the politicians’ communicative competence. It is at this point that my analysis of the post-performance interprofessional team collaborations at Terzake falls out of line with Kroon Lundell’s (2010a) observations. In her analysis, Kroon Lundell (2010a: 180) identifies an obvious shift in asymmetry in the encounters between journalists and politicians from the pre-broadcast to the post-broadcast phases: “the interactional asymmetries I argued existed in favour of the production crew in the pre-interview talk, where the politician was attributed the role of student and the crew the role of instructors, now seem reversed”. More specifically, she observes that in contrast to the journalists' information-giving role in their interactions with politicians before the broadcast, after the broadcast, the journalists tend to approach politicians “rather carefully” (Kroon Lundell, 2010: 179) to ask them for their evaluations. Thus, she concludes that "the communicatively relevant inequalities of knowledge have shifted" (Kroon Lundell, 2010: 180). At Terzake, however, the post-broadcast evaluations are established almost exclusively by the media professionals and not by the politicians. On the initiative either of a media professional or a politician, the Terzake media professionals call upon a particular legitimacy to assess the just-finished staging activity. Mostly, as soon as a politician enters the foyer
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space, the editor-in-chief or the journalist-presenter spontaneously starts to compliment him or her, with positive evaluations of the politician’s performance with comments such as “that was very good” (journalist-presenter to politicians, 12 March 2012), “that was a very good conversation” (journalist-presenter to politician, 16 March 2012), or “that was good” (journalist-presenter to politician, 2 October 2012). Politicians may also take the initiative to urge the media professionals to offer their views on the finished staging act. The following extract is an example of such an invitation from a politician to engage in staging talk. (10.39) 1 October 2012
Setting: Studio
Scene: Politician (P) to editor-in-chief (E)
1 P: Are you happy?
2 E: Yes, it was a strong conversation.
By asking whether the editor-in-chief is “happy” with the just-finished broadcast (line 1), the politician orients to the editor-in-chief as the one being positioned to make judgements on the past performance, and implicitly invites the editor-in-chief to engage in a post-broadcast evaluation of the past on-air performance. In conformance with the normative rule to assess the performance positively, the editor-in-chief promptly replies with a short and constructive assessment of the interview as “a strong conversation” (line 2). DISRUPTING THE EXPECTATION OF POSITIVITY. In the data, there are two examples of the Terzake media professionals disrupting the tacit norm of praising just-finished performances. In the following extract, this disruption is at a very subtle level and does not explicitly break any courtesy norms.
(10.40) 25 April 2012
Setting: Studio
Scene: Politician (P) to journalist-presenter (JP)
1 P: Was it okay?
2 JP: Yes yes yes, it was okay.
3 P: Wasn’t it too defensive?
4 JP: No no.
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Immediately after a studio interview and while still seated at the table in the studio, a politician asks for the journalist-presenter's opinion by asking “was it okay?” (line 1). The journalist-presenter’s reply “yes yes yes, it was okay” (line 2) can be considered to be quite out of the normative pattern: neither the interview nor the politician’s interview capacities are explicitly positively assessed. The politician’s subsequent question “wasn’t it too defensive?” (line 3) can then be interpreted as an orientation to the journalist-presenter’s answer as deviant from the common pattern because the politician is clearly searching for more substantial appraisal of the interview. The journalist-presenter, however, remains rather distant with a simple “no no” (line 4) reply. The journalist-presenter's rather superficial attitude in this extract perhaps makes more sense when also taking account of the editor-in-chief’s evaluations of the interview in the far backstage setting of the control room during the interview (extract 10.41) and his intraprofessional communication with the journalist-presenter in the studio after the interview, through talkback (extract 10.42). (10.41) 25 April 2012
Setting: Control room
Scene: Editor-in-chief (E) to technical crew in control room during the on-air
interview
1 E: He really feels as if being stung by a wasp.
(10.42) 25 April 2012
Setting: Control room and studio setting
Scene: Editor-in-chief (E) in the control room to journalist-presenter (JP) in
the studio immediately after the on-air interview
1 E: He was grumpy.
2 JP: Yes.
During the interview, the politician’s rather aggressive interview behaviour caused the editor-in-chief to pass repeated comments in the control room such as “he feels as if being stung by a wasp” (extract 10.41, line 1). Immediately after the interview, the editor-in-chief shares his critical assessment of the politician’s performance with the journalist-presenter through the talkback system by saying: “he was grumpy” (extract 10.42, line 1), to which the journalist-presenter, still in the presence of the politician, utters "yes" (extract 10.42, line 2) and nods. It is at this moment that the politician is prompted to
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ask “was it okay?” (extract 10.40, line 1). Within the broader context of this extract, it is easier to understand the journalist-presenter’s rather reserved evaluation of the interview. Had the journalist-presenter enthusiastically praised the politician for his just-finished performance, this would have completely contradicted the mutual intraprofessional assessment of the interview made between her and the editor-in-chief. To extend this even further, one could say that the backstage intraprofessional team cooperation between the editor-in-chief and the journalist-presenter in this case impeded the journalist-presenter from collaborating fully in the interprofessional team performance with the politician. While the journalist-presenter’s tempered evaluation of past performance in the extract 10.40 already counts as deviant from the routine post-broadcast interactional pattern, I observed another example that counts as a fiercer norm-breaker. (10.43) 10 October 2012
Setting: Foyer
Scene: Politician (P) to Terzake reporter (R) in the presence of Terzake
journalist-presenter
1 P: What did you think of the debate?
2 R: ((sighs)) Boring. I would have zapped after two minutes.
3 P: Why is that? Fatigue or…?
4 R: No no, it just wasn’t interesting.
By asking “what did you think of the debate?” (line 1), the politician encourages the Terzake reporter to engage in a post-debate evaluation in the foyer. Rather than orienting towards the joint and conventional interest of the interprofessional team in praising the past performance, the reporter discredits the normatively projected definition of the situation by labelling the debate as “boring” and adding that he “would have zapped after two minutes” (line 2). When the politician tries to re-stabilise the reporter’s out-of-character behaviour by attributing the reporter’s boredom to the possibility of personal “fatigue” (line 3), the reporter again dismisses the performance as “just” not “interesting” (line 4). That this conversational behaviour on the part of the reporter can be considered a disruption and denouncement of the interprofessional team’s etiquette and loyalty is clear from the reaction of the Terzake journalist-presenter who witnessed this conversation. Not only did
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the journalist-presenter immediately jump in to change the subject with the politician, he later that evening, still in the foyer, deplored the reporter’s professional attitude to the other journalist-presenter and to a Terzake researcher. More specifically, the journalist-presenter contrasted the reporter’s unprofessional attitude with the professionalism of another Terzake reporter who “makes a name for himself on the basis of his dossiers” rather than on the basis of “his big mouth” (journalist-presenter in foyer, 10 October 2012). As such, the journalist-presenter makes explicit the prevailing normative expectation that, to achieve a media professional identity at Terzake, one must adhere to the rules of the game governing the media professionals’ backstage relationships with studio guests. DISRUPTING NORMATIVE POWER ASYMMETRIES. Such deviant cases make clear that the normative expectation of positive post-broadcast staging talk by media professionals is contingent on the collaboration of every individual member of the interprofessional team. Whereas in the extracts above, disruptions to the constructive collaboration of media professionals can be detected, there was also an instance of a politician challenging the rules of the post-broadcast interactional game in the foyer. This case is quite exceptional because it is the only case I observed that reflects a deviation by a politician from the established post-broadcast asymmetries between media professionals and politicians. After one of the pre-election broadcasts of Terzake 09, a politician claimed evaluation legitimacy for himself, and repeatedly situated himself in a position from which it allegedly was legitimate to judge the media professionals’ performance capacities. It started with the following extract. The editor-in-chief approached the politician to take the initiative to enact a normatively accepted interactional post-performance move, congratulating him on his performance (“Well done!”, line 1). However, rather than joining the editor-in-chief in the presentation of a routine instance of cheerful staging talk, e.g. by thanking the editor-in-chief for the compliment or by initiating social small talk, the politician exploits this moment to vent his proper critical evaluation of the debate. More specifically, by criticising the interactional management capacities of both the journalist-presenter and the editor-in-chief, the politician questions their skills as media professionals.
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(10.44) 10 October 2012
Setting: Foyer
Scene: Editor-in-chief (E) to politician (P)
1 E: Well done!
2 P: Yes, but I still have a bone to pick with Lieven. I was mad at
3 him for a moment during the debate.
4 E: Why?
5 P: He never let me finish talking. I could hardly ever speak
6 without him interrupting me. I was always very politely
7 requesting the floor, but he never gave it. But meanwhile you
8 were probably talking into his ear, right?
9 E: Yes but for the first three minutes you had been talking a long
10 time without being interrupted.
11 P: See, I knew you were in his ear! “STOP! Let him stop talking!”
12 ((laughs))
13 E: ((laughs))
In the extract, the politician seems to be ignorant of the tacit normative power relationship between him and the media professionals in the foyer. In fact, by claiming that he has “a bone to pick” (line 2) with the journalist-presenter and that he “was mad at him [the journalist-presenter] for a moment during the debate” (lines 2-3), the politician seems to reverse the established post-broadcast power asymmetry. The politician subsequently continues to denounce the interactional managing capacities of the journalist-presenter during the debate: despite the politician’s repeated and polite requests for the floor, the journalist-presenter prevented him from finishing his answering turns (“I was always very politely requesting the floor, but he never gave it”, lines 6-7). Then the politician attributes the editor-in-chief with co-responsibility for the journalist-presenter’s failure of professionalism: “but meanwhile you were probably talking into his ear, right?” (lines 8-9). In response and in defence of their proper media professional skills, the editor-in-chief rebuts the politician’s critique, claiming that “for the first three minutes” (line 9) the politician had ample and exclusive access to the interactional debating floor (“talking a long time without being interrupted”, lines 9-10). The politician interprets this response as confirmation of the editor-in-chief’s part in the actual management of the on-air talk’s interactional development (“see, I knew you were in his ear!”, line 12). By starting to imagine the editor-in-chief’s possible directive comments from the control room, the politician slowly takes a distance from and ridicules the
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initially accused situation, thereby re-aligning himself in the interprofessional team with the editor-in-chief. However, the politician did not abandon his stance entirely, and later that evening confronted the respective Terzake journalist-presenter with his criticism of the latter’s on-air performance. (10.45) 10 October 2012
Setting: Foyer
Scene: Politician (P) to journalist-presenter (JP) in the presence of an
expert-interviewee
1 P: There was one point where you did miss a hint, namely on the
2 topic of public education. You didn’t pick up on what I said.
3 Nonetheless it was a very interesting point. There is municipal
4 education, there is community education, well I suggest
5 transforming it into one public education. You didn’t react to
6 that, and it would have been better if you had asked me a
7 question about it. You didn’t realise that but Patriek ((the
8 expert-interviewee)) did understand it because he picked up and
9 continued on the issue.
10 JP: But I did ask that question to Patriek but he didn’t really
11 answer ((looks at the expert and laughs)).
12 P: Yes but what does he have to say about that, he also is in an
13 awkward position. You should have put that question to me.
The politician calls the journalist-presenter to account to have “miss(ed) a hint” (line 1) during the broadcast and orients to the journalist-presenter’s role in political broadcast talk as needing to “pick up on” (line 2) and “react to” (line 5) what interviewees bring up during the talk’s on-air development. In other words, the politician appeals to the journalist-presenter’s responsibilities as interactional manager and political journalist to detect and build further upon social relevancies and policy matters in political activities, to denounce the journalist-presenter’s lack of professionalism in the performance of the just-finished debate. Taking this critique along with the politician’s disapproval expressed in the extract 10.44, the politician seems to be particularly critical of the journalist-presenter’s firm control over the broadcast talk, to the detriment of a spontaneous interactional development. In Chapter 9, I showed that the Terzake media professionals put high value on achieving a sense of spontaneity in their instances of political broadcast talk. In my view, it is from this perspective that the journalist-presenter’s subsequent resistance should be interpreted. Judging from his response in
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lines 10-11, the journalist-presenter indeed orients to the politician’s criticisms as threatening his professional identity: by arguing that he did pick up on the issue (“but I did ask that question to Patriek”, line 10), the journalist-presenter tries to defend his proper professionalism in the debate and tries to keep ‘face’ in front of the politician by stipulating that there was in fact room for spontaneous, non-prepared discourse in the debate. Moreover, by adding that the expert-interviewee – who was also overhearing the conversation – “didn’t really answer” (lines 10-11), the journalist-presenter appears to be trying to change the focus from his proper broadcast performance to that of the expert and, in that way, regain his authority as post-performance evaluator. However, in the face of this attempt to re-balance the existing power asymmetries, the politician does not yield, but continues to claim a power position: he refutes the journalist-presenter’s defence, claiming that the journalist-presenter “should have put that question to me [him]” (line 13). What such deviant cases demonstrate is that backstage settings also are permeated with particular structural role-related expectations that guide the interactional patterns. While it might be assumed that the backstage foyer-setting, certainly in the post-broadcast phase where the media professionals and politicians are no longer directly dependent on each other for the successful staging of a joint performance, prompts back-region behaviour from the interprofessional team, it appears that the professional masks do not entirely slip. In their backstage post-broadcast encounters, media professionals and politicians tend to continue acting in accordance with the demands and expectations of their professional identities. The foyer then appears as a normative, rule-bound setting infused with power relationships, in which these norms, rules and relationships are constantly put into interactional use – either to confirm, challenge or resist them – for the purposes of interpersonal impression-management.
THE PRODUCTION OF CONSPIRACY TALK
The foyer also seems to serve sporadically as a place for backstage conspiracy among the media professionals and politicians; as a place where media professionals and politicians can act out of character. Like any team’s members,
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media professionals and politicians share “the sweet guilt of conspirators” (Goffman, 1959: 105). Away from the public eye, and in an atmosphere of general post-performance relief, media professionals and politicians sometimes engage in secret sharing in Terzake’s foyer. That the post-broadcast encounters in the foyer-space can be used to confide private information is most obvious in those moments when media professionals and politicians speak in murmurs or leave the foyer, in favour of the broadcaster’s empty hallway, to make off-the-record statements, to gossip or to engage in any other form of confidential team collusion. The secrecy typifying these murmured or hidden conversations is a clear signal that the media professionals' and politicians' conversations are closed and private. In these cases, I generally tried to keep a distance so as to not intrude in these explicit off-the-record exchanges. Therefore, my insights into these mystifying encounters are rather conditional and based on sporadic and fragmented observations.88 Nevertheless, in light of the present chapter’s focus on team collaborations, it would be to ignore the interprofessional team’s complexities to overlook these special forms of post-broadcast interaction. When media professionals and politicians engage in backstage conspiracy, they not only literally, but mostly also figuratively move towards the farthest backstage regions of their interpersonal relationship: professional masks are necessarily abandoned by both the media professionals and the politicians. Occasionally, politicians take Terzake media professionals into their confidence and reveal or discuss political information, which, if revealed to the media, might potentially harm or discredit the politician’s reputation or image. Ironically, on one occasion, a politician discussed with the media professionals how a yet unrevealed detail about his personal life could be prevented from becoming a media scoop. Also, on the side of the media professionals, their alignment with a particular politician and, thus, also with his/her political affiliation, occasionally becomes clear through particular supporting utterances. For instance, a politician once thanked a Terzake researcher after a broadcast for an implied suggestion during a Terzake debate, about how to confront a political opponent, whereupon the researcher sympathised further with the politician, affirming that the debate opponent 88 Given the evident sensitivity of these observations, I have chosen not to accompany the writings in this section with concrete
references to time.
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was indeed “perplexed”. This is not to suggest that the supposed confrontational but co-dependency relationship between media professionals and politicians is a façade that is presented to the public audience; such instances of backstage confidences were the exception. Therefore, in my view, the few cases of backstage conspiracy that occur in the ethnographic data should be interpreted as yet another aspect of the media professionals’ and politicians’ joint creation of a necessary bond of mutual trust, rather than as some kind of affirmation of the false character of their interrelationship maintained in the frontstage. However, the sharing of secrets in the farthest backstage of their performances play a further vital role in the establishment and maintenance of a good interprofessional relationship. Also, perhaps even more than their sharing, the keeping of such “entrusted secrets” (Goffman, 1959: 143) serves as a not to be underestimated function in future demonstrations of the team's and its members’ loyalty. Given the delicate nature of the backstage confidential information shared between media professionals and politicians, the disclosure of such information might not only potentially harm their publicly upheld professional identities but also might seriously disrupt the efforts of both parties to maintain cordial interpersonal relationships. As such, discretion is needed on both sides to protect entrusted secrets in between encounters. During my observation periods, one case occurred in which a media professional breached the team’s loyalty, because he had disclosed a secret that a few days earlier had been entrusted by a politician to another Terzake media professional. More specifically, a Terzake journalist-presenter had used particular confidential information as the basis for an adversarial opening question in a Terzake debate. That this was against the unwritten rules of the interprofessional team’s operations was made very clear the morning after the debate. In the middle of Terzake’s routine story meeting, the journalist-presenter received a text message from the politician whose confidence had been revealed by the journalist-presenter’s on-air question. In the text message, which the journalist-presenter immediately read out aloud in front of the production crew, the politician was very straight: he reproached the journalist-presenter for exploiting information that was clearly communicated off-the-record. A few minutes after the journalist-presenter received the message, she received a second text from the politician saying: “not even an
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answer”. While the journalist-presenter was not too worried after the first message, it was clear that she was upset by this second message. She immediately started to type a message, with slightly shaky hands and an embarrassed blush, asking the politician whether she could call him. The politician replied that he would be available in the afternoon. Later that day, I learnt that the journalist-presenter had indeed called the politician to apologise for her indiscretion. Examples such as these serve to strengthen the proposed typology of encounters between media professionals and politicians as symbolic team performances that are interspersed with tacit social norms, rules, routines and interactional patterns, which can be maintained, negotiated and challenged in very dynamic ways.
10.3 SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS
From a social constructionist and performative perspective, it would be inconceivable to think of a media professional identity as accomplished autonomously and independently of social interactional processes. For journalist-presenters to achieve a frontstage media professional identity in political broadcasting, they need to do more than putting into practice interactional strategies (Chapter 7) or pre-produced format segments (Chapter 8) in on-air broadcast talk, or to effectuate prevailing production activities and standards in their preparatory work (Chapter 9). In this chapter, the necessity of constructive backstage cooperation with others has been proposed as another cornerstone of the succesfull performance of a media professional identity. The construction of a media professional identity appears to be thoroughly contingent upon the dynamic collaboration among media professionals, on the one hand, and between media professionals and (to be) invited politicians, on the other. The identification of two symbolic operative teams – an intraprofessional team and an interprofessional team – enables the identification of a number of interactional patterns and backstage social relationships that seem to be routinely governing encounters in the wings of political television discourse. Journalist-presenters are required to display particular interpersonal skills to collaborate with fellow media professionals and politicians (or
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occasionally also other types of studio guests) in the backstage settings of political broadcasting. On the one hand, journalist-presenters depend upon an intraprofessional team of fellow media professionals in the warm-up for, performance and aftermath of their frontstage activities. The intraprofessional team’s collaborative efforts in the form of collectively preparing for, supporting and praising the journalist-presenters’ frontstage performance of a media professional identity routinely serve to assist and encourage journalist-presenters in this performance. On the other hand, journalist-presenters rely on the cooperation of politicians for the successful staging of Terzake broadcasts and, thus, also of their media professional identity, not only in the on-air context of political broadcast talk, but also in the off-camera encounters surrounding their frontstage performances. A behind-the-scenes look at their interprofessional backstage encounters reveals that media professionals and politicians put everything to work to sustain a peaceful relationship outside the spotlight as well. I have argued that the pre- and post-broadcast encounters between media professionals and politicians especially serve to align the latter in a joint performative project and stimulate a solid interprofessional relationship, both of which provide a necessary foundation for an unproblematic frontstage performance of a media professional identity. Whilst divergent in composition and objectives, there are several similarities to be discerned among these teams’ operative mechanisms. Both are governed by invisible, but thoroughly institutionalised, routines that ultimately are aimed at the successful staging of professionalism. Both teams are characterised by particular internal hierarchies and infused with asymmetric power relationships. While within the intraprofessional team of fellow media professionals, the editors are endowed with a particular authoritative position as motivators and guardians of the performance of a media professional identity, within the interprofessional team of media professionals and politicians it seems to be the media professionals in particular who take the lead in (the initiation of) their mutual off-air encounters. Remarkably, both the editor in the intraprofessional team and the media professionals in the interprofessional team, tend to deal with their respective power positions in very strategic ways: they routinely appeal to specific de-dramatising strategies to downplay and even obscure their respective in-team power positions. More specifically, the strategic use of
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neutralising interactional moves shows to be having particular potential for the maintenance and stimulation of a sense of team solidarity – i.e. a sense of collegiality within the intraprofessional team and a sense of cordiality within the interprofessional team. As such, the focus on team collaborations in the backstage settings of Terzake provides further insights into the construction of a media professional identity in political broadcast talk. A media professional identity can only assimilate meaning in relation to the sense-making practices of others. The apparent normativeness of these collective processes, in particular, presupposes the social competence of the journalist-presenters, but also of each and every one of the involved social actors, to be able to function within particular interrelational constellations, to be knowledgeable of these constellations’ typical rules of conduct, and to properly effectuate these in their local encounters with one another. The collaborative activities of both fellow media professionals and invited politicians emerge as major components of the constitution and protection of media professional identity in political broadcasting. To overlook these components in the question of how professional identity is achieved in this context would be massively to underestimate the actual complexity of identity construction.
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Conclusions
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CHAPTER 11
THE CONSTRUCTION OF A MEDIA
PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY: SUMMARY AND
CONCLUDING REMARKS This study set out to show how a media professional identity is constructed in (the production of) Flemish political television discourse and has identified how this construction is related to dynamic power relationships in both the on-air and off-air settings of political television broadcasting. Political television talk has attracted extended analytic attention, especially from interactionist discursive research angles (e.g. Clayman & Heritage, 2002; Ekström & Patrona, 2011; Hutchby, 2006; Montgomery, 2007; Scannell, 1991; Tolson, 2001, 2006). However, what has remained only into the periphery of the existing body of research on the topic is an account of (1) how the on-air performances in political television talk are inextricably entangled with issues of identity and power, as well as (2) how these on-air performances are related to and made possible by professional performances in the off-air production context. This study has chosen to take this relatively unexplored territory as a starting point to find out how journalist-presenters achieve a legitimate media professional identity in political television discourse.
In order to face this challenge, the study has argued for a particular inclusiveness at the levels of theory, methodology and analysis. At a theoretical level, the study has conceptualised an integrated discursive and performative approach in an attempt to grasp how notions such as context, identity, role, self and power reside in institutional forms of discourse. I proposed syntheses between interactionist discursive and critical discursive approaches, between structural and interactional levels of institutional settings, and between frontstage and backstage; all from an intention to develop a framework that enables a reflexive and holistic approach to the occurrence of identity and power in institutional contexts. At a
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methodological level, the study has proposed a combination of CA and ethnography to concretise the dialectic and situated nature of identity and power. At an empirical level, the study has turned to iterative analyses of on-air and off-air practices of media professionals and politicians in the frontstage and backstage settings of political television broadcasting to get a grip on the complexity of identity construction in political television broadcasting. This concluding chapter follows a twofold structure. In the first part, the aim to close the study down and find an answer to the research question by delving into the study’s main findings. It will become clear that the construction of a media professional identity and the operation of power in (the production of) political television broadcasts are contingent upon the dynamic articulation of four constitutive cornerstones, including interactional resources, formats, production standards and team collaborations. In the second part, the aim is to open the study up for further theoretical underpinnings and empirical observations. After dealing with the ‘so what?’-question by formulating a number of broader implications for discourse studies, broadcast talk studies and political television journalism studies, I go on to tackle the closely related ‘now what?’-question by suggesting a number of future research options that might enrich and further extend the conclusions of this research.
11.1 THE CONTINGENCY OF MEDIA PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY
CONSTRUCTION
In political television talk, the journalist-presenters’ construction of a media professional identity depends upon their competence to play out and combine three different roles in their on-air interactions with politicians, namely that of interactional manager, political journalist and television producer. The repertoire of entitlements that are normatively connected to each of these roles, endows journalist-presenters with a particular powerful legitimacy to control political television talk. However, this study has shown that the construction of a media professional identity does not disappear out
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of the spotlights, but involves a continuous process of actions, interactions and relationships in the frontstage and backstage settings of political television production. It reveals that the relationships between media professionals and politicians are being constituted by means of particularly institutionalised modes of interaction, both on-air and off-air. Not only in the broadcast phase, where the discourse mode is strictly formal, but even so in the pre- and post-broadcast phases, where the discourse modes are more informal, the mutual encounters between media professionals and politicians entail routinised perfomances that are guided by normative expectations and thoroughly institutionalised interactional patterns, roles and power relationships. This study brings to light that the journalist-presenters’ construction of a media professional identity in (the production of) political television discourse is contingent upon the articulation of four central aspects: (1) interactional resources; (2) formats; (3) production standards; and (4) team collaborations. These four aspects are the basis of the iterative back and forth movement between theory development and the concrete conversation analytic and ethnographic case studies, and have shown their importance for the power relationships that underlie and constitute media professional identity. The repetitive and performative articulation of interactional resources and format components in the on-air context of political television talk, and of production standards and team collaborations in the off-air context of political television production, show to be crucial for the construction of a media professional identity in this context, both in enabling and disabling ways. Therefore, it is opportune to think of these four elements as key constitutive cornerstones of a media professional identity in (the production of) political television broadcasts. The first constitutive cornerstone pertains to interactional resources. The use of interactional strategies shows to be an essential discursive means through which journalist-presenters and politicians routinely negotiate their structural power relationships in the development of political television talk. The fine-grained analysis of the political television debates in De Zevende Dag and Terzake 09 reveals that the performance of a media professional identity in political television talk depends upon the participants’ competences to invoke particular interactional strategies to deal with the structurally established
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power asymmetries. The close investigation of concrete instances of political television talk brings to light that journalist-presenters and politicians selectively can appeal upon a repertoire of interactional resources to negotiate interactional, public and media-cultural power positions in political television talk. First and foremost, the study indicates that interactional resources play a very strategic role in the local accomplishment of the structurally defined power positions that define a media professional identity. A second constitutive cornerstone has to do with the inherent mediated nature of political television talk. By definition, political television talk takes place within a setting that has been moulded within a format of pre-set time spans, programme structures and interludes. The analysis of the series of pre-election television programmes of VRT in 2009 reveals that political television formats and their integrated format components have a particular performative relevance for the construction of a media professional identity. It illustrates that the ways in which political television programmes are formatted are consequential for the journalist-presenters, who strategically invoke format components to facilitate accomplishment of a number of responsibilities that are inscribed in their media professional identity. More precisely, political television formats have a powerful potential for bolstering the journalist-presenters’ threefold of roles, while at the same time limiting the politicians’ manoeuvring options within their role as answerers. A third constitutive cornerstone includes the production standards that routinely tend to guide the performances of media professionals in the backstage settings of political television production. The ethnographic analysis of the observations at the off-air settings of Terzake points out that, behind the scenes, journalist-presenters, editors, researchers and reporters are preoccupied on a daily basis with carefully preparing frontstage performances of a media professional identity. Their backstage production activities tend to be routinely guided by a set of production standards that are centred on the multi-layered strive to create an original, distinguished, accurate, publicly relevant, neutral and balanced, continuous, and spontaneous broadcast. The ethnographic analysis shows how the ensemble of production standards can be diversely brought into play – through particular production activities and the use of particular situated tools in
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particular situated spaces – by media professionals to prepare for a successful frontstage performance of a media professional identity and according roles. At the same time, the media professionals are put to the test to display their professional competences as political journalists and television producers just as much in the backstage settings of political television production as in the frontstage setting of live, on-air broadcasts. A fourth constitutive cornerstone has to do with the role of backstage team collaborations. The observations at Terzake indicate that the construction of a media professional identity depends upon the journalist-presenters’ competence to function within two symbolic teams in the backstage settings of political television broadcasts. One the one hand, journalist-presenters rely upon an intraprofessional team of fellow media professionals in the preparation, performance and evaluation of their frontstage activities. On the other hand, journalist-presenters depend upon the collaborative efforts of politicians in an interprofessional team to lay the foundations for the later successful staging of political television talk. Overall, it shows that the construction of a media professional identity is contingent upon dynamic backstage relationships of co-dependency among media professionals and between media professionals and politicians. Overall, the identified set of four constitutive cornerstones of a media professional identity (Figure 11.1) contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of identity construction in political television broadcasting. Each of these cornerstones has shown its empirical significance for the power relationships that underpin the construction of a media professional identity. The bringing into practice of interactional resources and pre-produced formats in the on-air context, and of production standards and team collaborations in the off-air context, impact on the constitution of media professional identitites in (the production of) political television programmes. Consequently, a media professional identity arrives as the amalgam of the discursive practices and collaborative processes whose repetitive performances in the on-air and off-air contexts of political television broadcasts contribute to the achievement of the power positions that are inscribed into the media professionals’ roles as interactional manager, political journalist and television producer.
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Figure 11.1: The construction of a media professional identity in (the production of) political television broadcasts
However, notwithstanding the importance of the articulation of these four elements for the construction of a media professional identity, this study cannot and does not intend to make any claim whatsoever about the completeness or exhaustiveness of this set, nor does it want to imply that the strategic performance of each of these elements counts as a guarantee for the media professionals’ control of the setting and faultless accomplishment of a professional stance. While the former aspect will be dealt with later in this chapter, in the form of suggestions for further research, it is worth to shortly deal here with the latter and reiterate one of the prime fundaments of this study. From a social constructionist view, and as the empirical analyses have repeatedly pointed out, identity and power in (the production of) political television broadcasts are far from given accomplishments, but necessarily entail dynamic processes of iteration and struggle; of active production, re-production and negotiation in local interactional contexts. Journalist-presenters (and other members of the production team) not simply ‘are’ media professionals or ‘have’ a media professional identity, but constantly need to engage in local and collaborative performances with others in order to accomplish it. Consequently, the aim of my study was not to furnish factual insights into how a media professional identity ‘is’ or how it is ‘objectively’ made up, but rather to situate its construction and articulation into the
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participants’ local understandings and orientations to show the arsenal of mechanisms through which this identity can be established.
11.2 IMPLICATIONS AND CHALLENGES FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
From the focus on the local accomplishment of media professional identity, to the identification of broader constitutive cornerstones, right through the ideas of power and performance, there emerges a fertile ground for further theorising and analysis. At this point, I wish to relate the study’s concrete research results to its wider applicability in and extensibility to established research traditions and forthcoming research. How can the formulated theoretical and methodological claims be consequential for or generalisable to other discursive studies on identity and power in institutional settings? How can this research contribute to the already extensive body of research on broadcast talk? How does this study add up to a reflection on the broader power relationships between journalism and politics? And how can the end points of this research trigger openings of forthcoming research? In this last section of the conclusion, I engage with these questions. I first explore the study’s implications for the fields of discourse studies, broadcast talk studies and political television journalism studies, and then go on to suggest how the present research might inspire further research on the topic.
11.2.1 IMPLICATIONS FOR DISCOURSE STUDIES
In the field of discourse studies, considerable attention has been paid to the notions of identity and power, positioning them variously on the macro-micro, structure-agency and institutional-interactional levels of social reality. The central question guiding most discourse analytic research on the notions, is how identity and power are embedded within and/or emerge from social context. Discourse studies are broadly dominated by critical discursive and interactionist discursive research traditions that mutually differ on quite a few points. Positioning oneself, as a researcher, within this heterogeneous field of discourse studies, necessarily entails implications at the level of research focus and research set up. Taking the present study’s broad interest in the
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occurrence of media professional identity and power in political television discourse as an illustration, the adoption of either a critical discursive or an interactionist discursive approach would lead to significantly differing research foundations and objectives. From a critical discursive perspective, the formulated interest would probably be translated into an ambition to uncover how a media professional identity and according power is represented in political television programmes and how these representations are related to the broader social institutions of journalism or broadcasting. From an interactionist discursive perspective, the interest would likely boil down to a close attention of how a media professional identity and ‘asymmetries’ are accomplished in participants’ orientations in the moment-to-moment unfolding of political television talk. While a firm and clear-cut distinction between these discourse analytic research traditions would be too narrow an approach given not only the occasional overlaps between the traditions and given the variations within each of the traditions, the array of discourse analytic approaches to identity and power, and the according range of attempts to fix the notions’ definitions and points of application, do illustrate that identity and power are in itself ambiguous and labyrinthine. Far from raising this as problematic, this work has argued that discursive research might actually benefit from this fragmented account of identity and power in favour of an integrated attitude that acknowledges the notions’ versatility and reconciles both their embedded and emergent, fixed and contingent aspects so as to arrive at a more holistic understanding of how identity and power are dynamically constructed in and through discursive practices and processes. Through a differentiation between structural and interactional levels of institutional contexts, identity and power can be approached as being partly entrenched in pre-established structural arrangements of the setting, and as being partly contingent upon local negotiations and accomplishments at the level of social interaction (e.g. Giddens, 1976, 1982; Hutchby, 1999a, 1999b; Kothoff, 1997; Lindell, 1998a; Moerman, 1998, 1990, 1992; Silverman, 1997; Thornborrow, 2002). Of course, such an approach is not gratuitous. In a critical reading, one might argue that the proposed integrated discursive approach to identity and power is no more than yet another attempt to fix the notions’ meanings and levels of application. However, such a view would be to fiercely overlook the
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centrality and constant possibility of struggle and contestation in this constitutive process. To better capture this complexity, I have put forward the notions of performance and performativity as conceptualised by Goffman (1959, 1967) and Butler (1990, 1993) as the bedrocks of conceptualising the social constructionist and dialogic character of identity and power. Goffman’s idea of social life as being permeated with dramatic performances and Butler’s emphasis – through the concept of performativity – on the iterative and subversive aspects of performance, allows for analytically dealing with the dynamic “doing” of identity and power in situated contexts. I believe that such an integrated discursive and performative approach to the study of identity and power may lay the foundations for further theorising on and analysis of the notions in different types of institutional settings. In my view, the main strength of the proposed theoretical approach has to be found in its enabling of an integration of macro-related concepts such as identity and power into the situated micro-analysis of interactional relevancies, as well as in its potential for transcending many of the existing critiques on the established critical and interactionist discursive research strands. More specifically, the alleged fallacy of the critical discursive research tradition to overlook participants’ situated behaviour and the repeated critiques on the interactionist discursive tradition for its reticence of an a priori inclusion of the to-be-expected relevance of identity and power, might be overcome in favour of an inclusive approach. This allows for an infusion of theoretical claims about context, identity and power into the local analysis of micro-behaviour. The present study has demonstrated that such a pairing of theory and concrete analysis does not have to lead to a reductionist, top-down account of how identity and power impede on local conduct, but actually can enrich our understanding of the embedded and emergent aspects of identity and power in situated contexts.
11.2.2 IMPLICATIONS FOR BROADCAST TALK STUDIES
In relation to broadcast talk studies, this work has raised a couple of issues that, to date, have attracted only sporadic or brief analytic attention in this research field. Broadcast talk studies have been largely dominated by traditional conversation analytic approaches. Therefore, broadcast talk has
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been primarily analysed from a focus on how particular contextual aspects show to be demonstrably relevant to participants in the moment-to-moment development of radio or television talk. While such an analytic focus is highly valuable for its insights into how particular performer roles are locally accomplished, negotiated and understood among participants, what has remained under-researched, is an account of how broadcast talk is situated within broader relevant contexts. Far from being an isolated discourse type, broadcast talk by definition is embedded within wider media formats and underlying production contexts. Considerations on the relevance and repercussions of such contextual relevancies for the on-air development of broadcast talk are crucial if we want to develop an understanding of the complexities at play. I believe that, to better grasp the modalities of contemporary broadcast talk, one should dare to adopt a more holistic and contextualised approach to this institutional type of talk. In that respect, I want to highlight three reflections that came out of the present analysis and might generally inform the study of broadcast talk. A first reflection relates to the alleged ubiquity of the question-answer turn-taking pattern in most types of broadcast talk. While the rules and practices in radio and television talk are in large part shaped by the repetitive tasks of asking and answering questions (e.g. Bilmes, 1999; Clayman, 1988; Clayman & Heritage, 2002; Greatbatch, 1988; Heritage, 1985; Heritage & Greatbatch, 1991), the versatility of the participants’ roles in the encounter may lead us to reconsider the typicality of this pattern. As has been discussed, journalist-presenters in the specific broadcast context of political television talk structurally are expected to accomplish a diversity of roles in their encounters with politicians in order to successfully perform their overall identity as media professional. The merging of their roles as interactional manager, political journalist and television producer into an overarching media professional identity, brings journalist-presenters to engage in a variety of professional discursive practices, which go beyond the production of questioning turns. Rather, media professionalism requires the careful management of a whole set of specialised performer competences, including the bringing into practice of pre-produced format components, shifting between different modes of address, effectuating scripts and absorbing editor instructions from within the backstage. For this reason, it would be restrictive
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to reduce the journalist-presenters’ package of tasks to merely asking questions. As such, the traditional conversation analytic claims about the normativity of the question-answer turn-taking system in political television interactions, but also in other forms of broadcast talk, would seem ripe for revision. A second reflection pertains to the crucial role of production work in the backstage regions of broadcast talk. Broadcast talk is far from naturally occurring and, instead, involves extensive processes of pre-mediation and pre-planning. In the context of political television talk specifically, journalist-presenters and politicians come to the interaction with already developed agendas and equally developed resources for accomplishing them. Paradoxically, they will generally attempt to conceal the existence of these preparatory processes in their front-region interactions. Consequently, a purely conversation analytic study of the on-air interactions risks to bypass the underlying dynamics involved in the performance of professional identities. Based on this study’s primary interest in the articulation of journalistic identities in political television talk, I opt to explicitly recognise the significance of the production context in shaping the conditions under which identities and local role-playing activities tend to emerge in broadcast talk. The results of this study show that the journalist-presenters’ on-air performances of media professional identity extend beyond the local development of the on-air interactions. In my opinion, the typical pre-planned character of broadcast talk makes it necessary to broaden the scope of broadcast talk studies to include the backstage processes that reach beyond the broadcast interactions in the frontstage, on-air setting. The achievement of identities, roles and power positions in broadcast talk then needs to be approached as being the result of a junction between the on-stage broadcast interactions in the studio and the preparatory work of the production team in the off-stage settings. Such an analytic inclusion of the backstage context might lead broadcast talk scholars to resort more frequently to the ethnographic methods as common in news production studies to grasp the extensive production processes that lie behind the on-the-spot production of mediated talk. Related to this plea for a fertilisation between broadcast talk studies and news production studies is a third reflection, which pertains to the
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alleged and often declared “double articulation” (Scannell, 1991: 1) of broadcast talk. It counts as one of the basic principles of broadcast talk that its participation framework is multi-layered. It has been argued that broadcast talk typically involves two types of addressees, including the frontstage participants and the overhearing audience. Tolson (2013: 151), for instance, upholds that the professional qualities of journalist-presenters – or of any type of broadcast talk host – are articulated in an ability to “alternate between collective direct address [to the overhearing audience] and interaction with co-present fellow participants”. On the basis of the present study, I would argue that this view on the typical interactional structure of broadcast talk might not catch it all. In my study of political television talk, it became clear that the journalist-presenters’ professional competences are articulated, amongst others, in an ability to alternate between not only direct address to the overhearing audience and interaction with co-present fellow participants, but also interaction with non-present fellow media professionals. From a production perspective it is crucial not to overlook those participants ‘in the wings’ when reflecting on the complexity of participation frameworks and interactional constellations in on-air broadcast talk. As the present study has demonstrated, it is an illusion to think of broadcast talk merely as an interaction between journalist-presenters and interviewees, being produced for an overhearing audience. From behind the scenes, the interaction in the frontstage is meticulously followed and guided by a fellow media professional – mostly an editor, but occasionally also other production team members. Under these circumstances, it would be more opportune to speak of a triple articulation of broadcast talk, rather than a double one. Accordingly, the earlier mentioned typology of broadcast talk as including a mutual first-frame interaction (between journalist-presenters and interviewees) and a one-way second-frame interaction (between these participants and the overhearing audience) (e.g. Burger, 2005; Fetzer, 2000; Fetzer & Johansson, 2007; Scannell, 1991), should be enhanced with a supplementary, third-frame interaction, namely the one-way interaction between a non-present media professional in the backstage and the journalist-presenter in the frontstage. Unlike the second-frame audience, who are also invisible but cannot interfere in the first-frame interaction unless the programme is especially formatted to these ends – i.e. via phone-ins, chat, tweets, etc., the non-present media professional in
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the third-frame can intervene into the live, on-the-spot development of the first-frame interaction. In fact, it is the backstage media professional’s task and co-responsibility to watch over and calibrate the first-frame interaction from within the stage’s wings. In a way, one could argue that, as with the second-frame interaction with the audience, the third-frame interaction with the backstage media professional couldn’t take place unless the interaction is especially mediated, via technological tools, to these ends. In the present case of the Terzake broadcasts, the interactions between the editor-in-chief in the control room and the journalist-presenter in the studio were made possible through the mediation via a talkback system with hidden earpieces. In other broadcast talk contexts as well, for instance in radio talk, hosts can rely upon a number of technological tools including internal phone lines, intercoms and computer software, to keep their connection with the team of fellow media professionals ensured. However, the ubiquity of technological tools doesn't necessarily have to count as a prerequisite for such third-frame interactions to take place. One could think of situations where on-stage media professionals can remain in contact with behind-the-scenes media professionals without intervention of technology, for instance, via ‘secret’ hand gestures or even via plain talk during particular interludes such as the display of a reportage in a political television programme or the play of a song in a radio programme.
11.2.3 IMPLICATIONS FOR POLITICAL TELEVISION JOURNALISM STUDIES
Evidently, the study of media professional identities in political television talk is also closely related to research on political television journalism. The results of my study can contribute particularly to a deeper understanding of how the discursive practices of and collaborative processes between media professionals and politicians in political television talk and surrounding contexts are related to the relationship between journalists and politicians, and the state and legitimacy of political television journalism in this relationship. The present study’s empirical focus on interactional relationships allows for shedding light on how the so often reported bond of co-dependency between the institutions of journalism and politics is reflected in the moment-to-moment negotiations among journalist-presenters (and
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other media professionals) and politicians in the context of political television discourse. On the basis of the present research findings, there is reason to assume that media professionals have the upper hand in political television discourse. From their situated role as interactional manager and from their more institutional roles as members of the institution of journalism and broadcasting, journalist-presenters cannot only build upon a powerful legitimacy to decide what will be talked about, who has access to the public stage, how the talk will be framed, and under which terms the talk will occur, but also have a privileged access to particular extra-situational elements, such as format components, cue cards and a talkback system, that can assist them in sustaining overall control. Media professionals seem to have developed a number of sophisticated strategies to pull the strings in political television discourse and minimise resistant interactional moves from politicians. For the fulfilment of their combined interactional, journalistic and media-cultural responsibilities, journalist-presenters, together with their fellow professionals, can build upon particular discursive mechanisms to maintain control in political television talk and safeguard their media professional identity. The study shows that journalist-presenters routinely fall back upon interactional strategies to combine a control over the procedural and topical course of and framing over the interaction, with their journalistic and media-cultural entitlements to adopt adversarial questioning lines, judge on the politicians’ truthfulness, hold them responsible and pursue conflict and simplification. In addition, an integration of particular pre-produced format components into the local development of political television talk can strengthen journalist-presenters in upholding and defending a powerful position. Particular backstage processes as well, such as the scripting of critical-but-neutral questions in the preparatory phases of political television broadcasts, and the covert instructions from an editor-in-chief in the control room during the broadcast, further allow journalist-presenters to exploit their control over the on-air interactional setting and diminish the possibility of on-air slippages of their professional identity. Overall, such findings foster the impression that political television discourse is to a large extent ‘staged’, i.e. moulded into rigid programme formats and produced under the premises of careful pre-plannings and
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conspiratorial directions from within the backstage. In such a context, the structural options available for politicians to claim control themselves could be argued to be de facto limited: they play an away game in which they, as answerers, will always have to manoeuvre within already established speaking frames, and they cannot appeal to supportive helplines or mnemonic devices in ways that journalist-presenters can. For instance, it is not so very long ago that it was still common practice for politicians to bring dossiers and notes to the debate table to support and defend their argumentations in political television talk. Nowadays, this habit is no longer or only rarely to be spotted on our television screens. Hence, the repertoire of advanced methods on which journalist-presenters can rely to control the situation seems to be in sharp contrast with the mere interactional options available for politicians to gain control. The possibility for politicians to negotiate power in political television discourse seems, then, to be entirely conditional on the politicians’ proper communicative competences to put to use interactional strategies to negotiate, challenge or refute the journalist-presenters’ authoritative interactional position and accomplish own goals. However, to conclude that the power relationships between journalist-presenters (and other media professionals) and politicians are to be reduced to an all-embracing power of the former would be to seriously misconceive the dynamism and subtle complexities that are at stake in this relationship, both in front of and behind the scenes. This study indicates that politicians are far from throwing in the towel, but actually are adapting to the tenets and primacies of contemporary political television discourse. For instance, in political television talk, politicians regularly use ‘media language’ themselves, such as the implementation of a simplified discourse or lively vocabulary, to bend the journalist-presenter’s agenda and negotiate floor space; or they send out eye-catching one-liners on social media platforms that might attract the media professionals’ attention and might subsequently be included in interviews or debates. Whether such practices are effectively conscious strategies of politicians to influence journalistic agendas is a question that this study cannot answer, but it certainly shows the strategic potential of such cautious exploitations of prevailing journalistic and media ‘logics’ for politicians, who can use these logics to their own ends to negotiate control over political television discourse. Also, the ethnographic analysis from the
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observations in the backstage settings of Terzake learns that media professionals and politicians are highly co-dependent for the successful staging of political television talk and, therefore, are jointly committed to sustaining a friendly backstage team relationship. In fact, the analysis shows that the conditions of political television discourse are open for negotiation. For instance, it counts as a routine practice for media professionals to contact invited politicians to inform them not only about the programme’s format, but mostly also about the intended question-answer structure of the forthcoming interview or debate. In such pre-broadcast contacts, politicians are often allowed the room to have their say in the agenda-setting process and can raise items that they wish the see tackled in their forthcoming joint performance. Also, not seldom do media professionals suggest answering options for politicians. Such observations suggest that, in the backstage settings of political television discourse, media professionals and politicians are aligned in a particular bond of mutual understanding and cordiality. What’s more, the study shows that, in the pre- and post-broadcast phases, media professionals even tend to resort to specific de-dramatising strategies to camouflage the power asymmetries between them and politicians. Such observations clearly put the issue of power in political television discourse into perspective. While, in the frontstage studio setting, tempers are heated and the negotiation of and struggle over power are inherent parts of the definition of the situation, in the backstage pre- and post-broadcast settings, the interprofessional power relationships between media professionals and politicians become much more subtle. If this study has spelled out one thing on this topic, then it is that the relationship between journalism and politics in the context of political television broadcasting is not to be captured within a simple ‘who has power over who’-model, but is in itself a dynamic construct that is contingent upon local performative activity.
11.2.4 FUTURE RESEARCH TRACKS
Having drawn further implications of this study for the broader research domains in which it is situated, it is time to gradually bring this work to a close by making a last leap from the macro-level of structural assessments to the micro-level of concrete empirical analysis. The findings and further
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implications of this study might provide a basis for forthcoming research on the topic. As mentioned earlier in this chapter, the present study on the construction of a media professional identity in (the production of) political television broadcasts is not exhaustive and, therefore, creates a number of opportunities for continuing where this research has stopped and for exploring related analytic territories. More particularly, I situate the relevance for future research on the topic in the further exploration of potentially relevant constitutive cornerstones of a media professional identity, including but not limited to the role of media professional skills of politicians, the role of media culture, the role of genre, and the role of audience reception. It is a challenge for forthcoming research to scrutinise the dynamic ways in which each of these elements might affect the construction of a media professional identity in political broadcast discourse in similar or differing ways as the interactional resources, formats, production standards and team collaborations, as identified in this study, impinge on the possibilities available to media professionals and politicians to co-construct their power relationships that underlie identity construction processes in political television talk. A first direction for further research has to do with the media professional skills of politicians; an aspect that could only been intermittently dealt with throughout this work because of its prime focus on the media professional. The study shows that, for journalist-presenters to construct a media professional identity and protect a legitimate power position in on-air political television talk, they are highly dependent upon the willingness of politicians to collaborate in the normative, to-be-expected patterns of ‘doing’ a political interview or television debate. Especially the study’s moment-to-moment analysis of the interactional resources used by both journalist-presenters and politicians to negotiate particular legitimate entitlements in the on-air broadcast talk, indicates that politicians as well appear to be highly skilled in the combined mastery of strategic interactional practices, including negotiating turn continuation, refuting critical assertions, circumventing tricky questions, shifting interactional agendas and resisting established frames. Politicians appear to become increasingly professionalised in political interviewing, potentially due to their following of media and interview trainings, which are, paradoxically enough, often authored by political
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television journalists. These are processes that would have taken the present study too far away from its attention to the immediate surrounding settings of political television broadcasting, but is nevertheless a thought-provoking matter, not at least in terms of their potential repercussions on the journalist-presenters’ media professional performances. If politicians become more and more professionalised in their media performances, then media professionals are increasingly put to the test to maintain their structurally legitimate control position. To extend this idea somewhat further, one could even wonder whether the alleged increasing adversarial questioning practices in political television talk are not more of a counter-reaction to the increasing use of evasive answering practices, than, as mostly purported, of being the direct result of an increasingly entertaining-seeking journalism. A second option for further analysis could be to cross analytic borders at the level of media culture and media landscapes. The political television programmes included in the analyses of this work are sourced from one media culture - i.e. the Flemish one - and one broadcaster - i.e. the Flemish public service broadcaster VRT - and this mainly for aforementioned pragmatic reasons. In general, cross-cultural research on the topic of political broadcast talk remains rather exceptional (but see Ekström & Patrona, 2011; Ekström & Tolson, 2013). Therefore, an analysis of political broadcast talk across media cultural contexts and across broadcasting contexts may enhance our knowledge of how variation at these levels bring about differences in the interactional manager, political journalist and television producer roles of journalist-presenters, as well as in the media professionals’ off-air production activities and upheld production standards, and in the on-air and off-air power relationships between media professionals/journalist-presenters and politicians. For instance, it would be of relevance to reveal how commercial interests impact on the performance of media professional roles and production processes, or how variations in journalism cultures assume variations in role-performances and in intraprofessional and interprofessional relationships. A third track for further research is an extension of the analysis of media professional identity to other broadcast genres that include the invitation of politicians as studio guests. For instance, an analysis of political talk in audience participation programmes, radio phone-ins or light-hearted
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television talk shows, might deliver substantially different research results on the question of how identity and power reside in these contexts. Different broadcast formats come with different objectives, participation roles, participation frameworks and turn-taking systems, all of which might affect the construction of a media professional identity and the power relationships involved. For instance, in the case of television talk shows, the presenter is not a journalist and is, therefore, not necessarily bound to journalistic responsibilities such as neutrality, public service and accountability. Obviously, this would ask for a revised typology of media professional roles and might furnish a number of crucial implications on the construction of identities and power within these settings. In the case of audience participation programmes, the direct mediation of audience’s opinions into the programme create powerful possibilities for (journalist-)presenters to simultaneously meet the requirements of their public servant sub-role, safeguard a defensible neutralistic posture and guarantee a lively and confronting debate. As such, the set-up of audience participation programmes might have considerable consequences for the (journalist-)presenters’ achievement of their media professional roles. Similarly, the genre arrangements in radio phone-ins could empower (journalist-)presenters in their performance of a media professional identity. The fact they can build upon a ready-to-use pool of listener questions and opinions with which to directly confront politicians, can have a significant facilitating role for (journalist-)presenters to keep politicians aligned to the agenda, refute evasive answers, legitimise an adversarial stance, and safeguard neutrality. Also, the absence of the televisual aspect probably entails a whole new set of situated tools that might have repercussions on the construction of identities in this type of broadcast talk. A fourth option for further research pertains to an exploration of the role of the audience in the construction of a media professional identity. As already repetitively stipulated, political television talk is first and foremost designed for the purposes of being overheard by an undefined, overhearing audience. In the production context of political television programmes as well, media professionals seem to be routinely engaged with making reflections on and invoking assumptions about what it is their audiences want to see and need to see. From the observation at Terzake, it for instance showed
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that the media professionals tend to attach great importance to feedback from audience members via social media platforms such as the programme’s Twitter-account or Facebook-page. Often already from within the control room, during the development of the on-air broadcast, editors screen Twitter and Facebook on their computer or mobile phones for incoming posts of the Terzake viewers about their assessments of the programme. This suggests that there is indeed a potential role to be played for audience reactions and audience opinions in the production of political television programmes. However, the consumption of political broadcasting has been generally left out of analytic consideration. From an analytic point of view, it would be renewing to explore, by means of ethnography or focus group interviews, how audiences give meaning to political television talk and how they assess programme formats and the role of journalist-presenters in their interactions with politicians. Such an analysis of the audience meaning-making processes would allow for grasping the audience’s perceptions on and expectations of contemporary political television broadcasting and the performance of media professional identities therein. Beyond these four options as potential supplementary constitutive cornerstones, the present study would generally benefit from a follow-up research that refers the main findings back to the Terzake media professionals to explore, by means of interviewing or focus groups, their visions and interpretations on the findings. While it was out of the scope of this study to probe the interpretations of media professionals because of the study’s main interest in situating empirical analysis within the participants’ local actions and moment-to-moment understandings and orientations, an auxiliary project connecting the results of this bottom-up analysis to the feedback from media professionals, could enrich our understanding of the complexity of media professional identity in political television discourse. Such a study could shed light on how the identified relevance of the strategic use of interactional resources, formats, production standards, and team collaborations to the performance of a media professional identity is being experienced and evaluated by the media professionals themselves, and, as such, add up to the gathered insights.
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To conclude, this work has shown how the construction of a media professional identity in (the production of) political television broadcasts is a multi-layered process that is contingent upon the frontstage articulation of interactional resources and formats, and upon the backstage articulation of production standards and team collaborations. The involved merging of a macroscopic look at the structural and contextual arrangements of political television discourse, and a microscopic look at the moment-to-moment use of particular discursive practices, processes and tools in situated spaces, has allowed to arrive at a holistic, kaleidoscopic look that embraces the complexity, dynamism and contingency with which media professional identity tends to be performed in political television discourse.
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LIST OF FIGURES
FIGURE 2.1: RELATIONSHIP CONTEXT – FOCAL EVENT FROM GOODWIN & DURANTI (1992: 3) 20 FIGURE 2.2: RELATIONSHIP LOCALITY – TRANSLOCALITY ‐ CONTEXT 22 FIGURE 2.3: RELATIONSHIP TEXT‐CONTEXT IN CRITICAL DISCURSIVE APPROACHES 24 FIGURE 2.4: RELATIONSHIP TEXT‐CONTEXT IN INTERACTIONIST DISCURSIVE APPROACHES 27 FIGURE 2.5: RELATIONSHIP TALK & TEXT‐CONTEXTS IN SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM 35 FIGURE 3.1: OVERVIEW OF IDENTITY FORMATION PROCESSES WITHIN THE SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL AND DISCURSIVE APPROACHES 50 FIGURE 3.2: BUTTERFLY MODEL OF AN INTEGRATED DISCURSIVE APPROACH TO IDENTITY 64 FIGURE 3.3: ROLE‐IDENTITY‐SELF AS INTERRELATED CONCEPTS 65 FIGURE 4.1: THE JOURNALIST‐PRESENTER’S IDENTITY AS MEDIA PROFESSIONAL 96 FIGURE 6.1: SCHEMATIC OVERVIEW OF THE RESEARCH SET‐UP AND STRUCTURE OF THE EMPIRICAL
PART 165 FIGURE 6.2: CONVERSATION ANALYTIC CORPUS: TRANSCRIPTS OF POLITICAL TELEVISION
BROADCASTS IN 2006 AND 2009 191 FIGURE 6.3: THE SETTING OF DE ZEVENDE DAG IN 2006 192 FIGURE 6.4: THE SETTING OF VLAANDEREN 09 193 FIGURE 6.5: THE SETTING OF TERZAKE 09 194 FIGURE 6.6: ETHNOGRAPHIC CORPUS: THREE PERIODS OF OBSERVATION 198 FIGURE 6.7: JOURNALIST‐PRESENTERS’ CUE CARDS 198 FIGURE 6.8: ETHNOGRAPHIC CORPUS: CUE CARDS OF JOURNALIST‐PRESENTERS 198 FIGURE 6.9: TERZAKE 2012 STUDIO 199 FIGURE 6.10: DUO‐PRESENTATION IN TERZAKE 2012 200 FIGURE 6.11: THE ITERATIVE ANALYTIC PROCESS 209 FIGURE 7.1: JOURNALIST‐PRESENTERS’ AND POLITICIANS’ PROCEDURAL (COUNTER‐)
RESOURCES 240 FIGURE 7.2: JOURNALIST‐PRESENTERS’ AND POLITICIANS’ TOPICAL (COUNTER‐)RESOURCES 247 FIGURE 7.3: JOURNALIST‐PRESENTERS’ AND POLITICIANS’ FRAMING (COUNTER‐)RESOURCES 257 FIGURE 7.4: JOURNALIST‐PRESENTERS’ AND POLITICIANS’ ADVERSARIAL (COUNTER‐)
RESOURCES 268 FIGURE 7.5: JOURNALIST‐PRESENTERS’ AND POLITICIANS’ CONFLICT‐SEEKING (COUNTER‐)
RESOURCES 274 FIGURE 7.6: JOURNALIST‐PRESENTERS’ AND POLITICIANS’ SIMPLIFICATION‐SEEKING (COUNTER‐
)RESOURCES 282 FIGURE 8.1: ON‐SCREEN VISUALISATION OF THE PREDEFINED PROPOSITION “IS WORKING LONGER
LEFTWING?” (“LANGER WERKEN IS DAT LINKS?”) 294 FIGURE 9.1: POSITIONING OF THE EDITOR‐IN‐CHIEF AND JOURNALIST‐PRESENTER‐IN‐CHIEF IN THE
OPEN PLAN NEWSROOM 320 FIGURE 9.2: THE CONFERENCE TABLE AND OPEN PLAN OFFICE IN TERZAKE’S NEWSROOM 321 FIGURE 9.3: CONTROL ROOM 323 FIGURE 9.4: OVERVIEW OF TERZAKE’S TIME SPANS, SPACES AND PARTICIPANTS 324 FIGURE 9.5: TERZAKE’S “WALL OF FAME” 331 FIGURE 9.6: SNAPSHOT FROM JOURNALIST‐PRESENTER’S CUE CARD (13 MARCH 2012) 336 FIGURE 9.7: SNAPSHOT FROM JOURNALIST‐PRESENTER’S CUE CARD (16 APRIL 2012) 348 FIGURE 9.8: SNAPSHOT FROM JOURNALIST‐PRESENTER’S CUE CARD (18 APRIL 2012) 350
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FIGURE 9.9: WHITE BOARD IN THE NEWSROOM 357 FIGURE 9.10: TERZAKE’S CRAFT ETHOS IN THE BACK‐REGION IN THE PREPARATION OF A MEDIA
PROFESSIONAL PERFORMANCE 372 FIGURE 10.1: SCREENSAVER PICTURES ON THE NEWS SERVICE'S COMPUTERS OF TEAMING NEWS
PRODUCTION CREWS 379 FIGURE 11.1: THE CONSTRUCTION OF A MEDIA PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY IN (THE PRODUCTION OF)
POLITICAL TELEVISION BROADCASTS 456
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APPENDIX
APPENDIX 1: SIMPLIFIED TRANSCRIPTIONS SYMBOLS
(.) A dot enclosed in brackets indicates a pause. = Equal signs indicate two ‘latched’ turns to show the
continuation of a speaker’s turn across intervening lines of transcript.
[ A left square bracket indicates the beginning of an overlapping stretch of talk.
] A right square bracket indicates the end of an overlapping stretch of talk.
( ) Empty brackets indicate a to the transcriber unclear (set of) word(s).
(( )) Double brackets indicate the transcriber’s descriptions of the interaction, e.g. ((answer continues)). They are mostly used to mark talk that is not included in the transcript, but also to enclose contextual information such as laughter, clapping, etc.
hh H’s indicate inbreaths or outbreaths. wo::rd Colons indicate the stretching of a breath, sound, or word. The
more colons the larger the stretch. wor- A dash indicates a cut-off word during an utterance. word Underlining indicates an emphasis on the word or part of the
word. WORD Capitals indicate markedly louder words. word? A question mark indicates a rising tone.
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APPENDIX 2: VRT PRESS RELEASE (28/09/2012)
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APPENDIX 3: SNAPSHOT OF EUROPE 09 WEBSITE AND AUDIENCE REACTIONS
Vlaanderen 09Europa 09Het groot debat 09De stemming 09
« Vlaanderen 09Het groot debat 09 »
Europa 09
Europa 09 peilt naar het belang voor de burger van de Europese verkiezingen en van Europa. Het programma wordtrechtstreeks uitgezonden vanuit het Vlaams Parlement en gepresenteerd door het duo van Volt : Martine Tanghe en KobeIlsen. Ze krijgen voor de gelegenheid versterking van Rob Heirbaut, de Europese verslaggever van het Journaal.Hendrik Vos, de Europakenner van de Gentse universiteit (en met Rob Heirbaut de auteur van het top 10-boek HoeEuropa ons leven beïnvloedt), is de Eurowizzard van dienst. Ook het kruim van de Europese kandidaten komt naar de setin het Vlaams Parlement. De kijker mag zich zeker aan een debat tussen Jean-Luc Dehaene en Guy Verhofstadtverwachten.
Is Europa in de verkiezingen van 2009 de ver-van-mijn-bed-show? Is de inzet van de Europese stembusgang meer daneen poll tussen een kopstukken zoals Dehaene of Verhofstadt? Toch wel. Neem nu de aankoop van een nieuwe auto.Niemand die eraan denkt die verder te gaan zoeken dan de landsgrenzen. Maar misschien biedt de eengemaakte Europeseruimte wel mogelijkheden? Maar wat als je de aankoop echt in het buitenland doet? Wacht er dan geen oerwoud aanformaliteiten waar geen zinnig mens doorheen raakt?
Wat is Europa eigenlijk? Een superstaat die ons nodeloos betuttelt en te vaak en te veel over onze schouder meekijkt? Ofis het een constructie die het leven simpeler en gemakkelijker maakt? Is de Unie niet te groot geworden? Kunnen degrenzen nog verder worden verlegd, met Turkije erbij bijvoorbeeld? Kortom: Europa 09 gaat over alles wat een menszich afvraagt over en wil weten van Europa.
Europa 09: zondag 24 mei om 21.30 u. op Eénvanuit het Vlaams ParlementMet: Martine Tanghe, Kobe Ilsen en Rob HeirbautEindredactie: Carl Voet
Tags: Europa 09, Kobe Ilsen, Martine Tanghe, Rob Heirbaut, Verkiezingen
Dit bericht is geplaatst op maandag 11 mei 2009 om 11:46 in de categorie Europa 09. Je kunt reacties op dit bericht volgen via de RSS 2.0-feed. Jekunt een reactie schrijven of een trackback plaatsen vanaf je eigen site.
3 reacties op “Europa 09”
Jan Struyf zegt:24 mei 2009 22:58 om 22:58
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NIEUWS SPORT CULTUUR WEER VERKEER RADIOSPELER WEBSHOP
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Heel ontgoocheld en eigenlijk boos … Europa 09 was wat mij betreft een staaltje van oppervlakkigheid, een niveaubeneden alle peil. Het redactieteam moet toch in staat zijn om informatieve duiding te verstrekken (op basis vaninhoud) i.p.v. louter entertainment te brengen.
Hebben jullie er al eens bij stilgestaan dat politieke desinteresse bij jongeren welig tiert ? Denken jullie dat jullieprogramma (als ze er al naar kijken) zou bijdragen tot meer inzicht en interesse in de thematiek ?
Waarom b.v. niet het argument van JL Dehaene i.v.m. het gebruik van de eigen taal uitdiepen en op die maniertoelichten dat Europa terecht geld kost ? Of enkele illustraties van de functionerende democratie met wisselendemeerderheden bij verschillende thema’s (of denkt u dat de bevolking dat al weet of … niet zal begrijpen ???)
Hemeltergend - want helemaal niet ter zake- was de afsluiter i.v.m. wat zich in de vrije tijd op en rond hetLuxembergplein afspeelt.
Layla zegt:25 mei 2009 12:47 om 12:47
Ik sluit mij aan bij de reactie van Mr Struyf. Ik vind dat tegenwoordig de VRT het belangrijker vind om ‘hip’ en‘trendy’ over te komen en men vergeet daarbij nogal snel dat het bij politieke programma’s toch eerder over deinhoud zou moeten gaan. Hoe kunnen de mensen nu een duidelijk inzicht krijgen in de programma’s van deverschillende politieke partijen als de sprekers zelfs de tijd niet krijgen om hun standpunten te verdedigen?! En ditgeldt niet enkel voor Europa 09. Ook in de andere politieke programma’s lijken de journalisten helemaal niet meerte luisteren naar de sprekers en onderbreken ze hen constant op een brutale manier. Een zware buis voor dehedendaagse journalistiek
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anne meurrens zegt:7 juni 2009 14:05 om 14:05
wat was er gisteren weer wat te doen om de oude computers op te starten om te kiezen.voor mij leek het een grotebesparing.het is uiteindelijk ook gelukt. verkwisten is momenteel de grootste boosdoener.en zo zijn er duizendenvoorbeelden, dat wil de minder begoede belg horen en zien.groetjes, anne.
3.
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APPENDIX 4: SNAPSHOT OF AUDIENCE COMMENT ON TERZAKE 09 WEBSITE
(05/06/2009)
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APPENDIX 5: NEWSPAPER ARTICLE IN KNACK (03/06/2009)
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APPENDIX 6: NEWSPAPER ARTICLE IN DE MORGEN (05/06/2009)
Een zware 09-indigestie Verkiezingen 09: alle dagen, Eén en Canvas Een zware 09-indigestie De openbare omroep heeft zo gigantisch ingezet op de nakende stembusslag dat het verbazing mag wekken dat er nog programma's zijn die het zonder het predikaat '09' moeten doen. Enigszins overdreven is het hoe de kijker, als was hij een gans die foie gras moet produceren, genadeloos wordt overvoerd met aan verkiezingen gekoppeld infotainment. De kwantiteit is enorm, de kwaliteit wisselend. Een, beperkt, overzicht. Europa 09 was flets. Eppink en Van Brempt maakten ruzie, Dehaene en Verhofstadt leken twee gezworen kameraden en het debat over de toetreding van Turkije was oersaai. Gelukkig was er Kobe Ilsen. Die immer goedgemutste spring-in-'t-veld staat in voor de 'reportages met een knipoog'. Dankzij hem weten we dat een Volkswagen Golf in Polen goedkoper is en het Luxemburgplein een oord van verderf. We zagen hem, gearmd met een blonde eurocrate, uit beeld verdwijnen. Terzake 09 is dan weer wel goed. Gebald, to the point en met weinig ruimte voor gezever. Jammer van het onnozele slotakkoord dat 'De Kennedy's' heet. Twee ex-acteurs uit De kotmadam die zich, geheel ten onrechte, op het glibberige pad der politieke satire hebben gewaagd. Het Groot Debat 09 was streng geformatteerd en genietbaar. De partijkopstukken die als gladiatoren werden ingehaald vochten een paar sterke verbale robbertjes uit. De Vadder en Devroy waren correcte scheidsrechters. Het afterdebat, geleid door het vermoeiende Duracellkonijn Linda De Win en Tim Pauwels was zelden boeiend en wekte de indruk dat echte en vermeende opiniemakers ons even wilden komen vertellen wat we moesten denken.
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De laatste rechte lijn naar 7 juni wordt, noblesse oblige, volgemaakt door kopman Siegfried Bracke die in Stemming 09 wordt bijgestaan door de onvermijdelijke Rik Torfs. Small talk in plaats van een inhoudelijke discussie. Onderhoudende televisie maar vluchtig, licht als een veertje en net iets te vaak geforceerd grappig. Rubriekjes bij de vleet. Een korte speech, Kobe Ilsen, weer hij, als mediatrainer en Jan Becaus, Frieda Van Wijck of Phara op familiebezoek. "Papa is een toffe gast" en "mijn kind schoon kind" klinkt het enigszins voorspelbaar van Berlare tot Antwerpen. Veruit het leukst is de ongezouten, vaak ontluisterende mening van jonge reporters Kim en Arzou. Toch kunnen al die fijne programma's niet beletten dat de eerste symptomen van een 09-indigestie duidelijk de kop opsteken. Trop is te veel. Laat deze verkiezingen alsjeblieft zo snel mogelijk voorbij zijn. © 2009 De Persgroep Publishing Publicatie: De Morgen Publicatiedatum: 5 juni 2009 Auteur: Jules Hanot; Pagina: 42 Aantal woorden: 404
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APPENDIX 7: NEWSPAPER ARTICLE IN DE STANDAARD (06/06/2009)
Het is allemaal show Politiek op tv: meer kwantiteit dan kwaliteit Aan het aantal uren politiek op tv zal het niet gelegen hebben, als u nog steeds over uw stem twijfelt. 'Stemming 09', 'Terzake 09', de debatten: veel politici gezien, maar hoeveel wijzer werden we? Concurrenten feliciteren elkaar haast met hun verbale vondsten Steven De Foer Bij ieder WK voetbal maken verkopers van tv's reclame voor tweede toestellen, voor de vrede in het huishouden. De verkopers moeten deze week ook gouden zaken gedaan hebben. Anderhalf uur debat laten volgen door nog eens 50 minuten nabeschouwing, dagelijks een politiek avondprogramma op Eén en op Canvas: het was een stevige brok. Maar inhoudelijk was de bloedarmoede vaak hemeltergend. 'FLANDRIEN OP KOP VAN HET BLAUWE PELOTON' Zondagavond, 20.30 uur: Het grote debat. Als Federers op Roland Garros betreden de kopstukken van de Vlaamse partijen het strijdtoneel. Eén voor één, ingeleid door een galmende volksmennerstem die hen aankondigt als 'de Flandrien op kop van het blauwe peloton' of 'de man die gebeten is om te bijten', schrijden ze langs een haag van toeschouwers die blijven applaudisseren. Wie zijn deze mensen die even hard applaudisseren voor Mieke Vogels als voor Filip Dewinter? Zijn ze zo doordrongen van de opgefokte sfeer dat ze hun politieke voorkeur van hun harde schijf gewist hebben? De politiek als show. Iedereen tof. Je zou haast Bart Peeters of Peter Van de Veire als presentator verwachten. Saaiheid krijgt geen kans. Beurtelings
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kruisen twee politici de degens in een duel. Winnaars en verliezers. En statistieken, zoals in het voetbal. Zoveel procent balbezit, zoveel schoten op doel. In de politieke versie wordt dat 3'50" spreektijd over eigen standpunten, en 0'49" seconden reacties op de tegenstander. Na anderhalf uur komen we tot de verrassende conclusie dat het een goed debat was. Niet zo wereldschokkend als door het Circus Maximus-sfeertje bij aanvang gesuggereerd werd, maar toch leerrijk genoeg. Dankzij of ondanks de gestuurde toffe aanpak? 'IK ZOU GRAAG MIJN REDENERING AFMAKEN' Vier minuten: zo lang duurt het voor de eerste kandidaat het op zijn heupen krijgt van de presentatoren die hem voortdurend in de rede vallen. De eer is aan Jean-Marie Dedecker, die met ongebruikelijke nuance tracht uit te leggen waarom hij niet zo'n fan is van ongebreidelde overheidssteun aan sectoren die al veel overheidssteun hebben gehad. Dat kan Ivan De Vadder niet tolereren, zo'n redenering van zeker twintig seconden lang. 'Hoor ik goed dat u vindt dat de Vlaamse overheid géén geld mag investeren in Opel?', zegt hij hijgerig. Dedecker reageert geprikkeld: 'Ik zou graag mijn redenering afmaken'. Hij zal er nauwelijks de kans toe krijgen. Het moet flitsend, zonder nuanceringen of cijfers, want dan wordt het te ingewikkeld voor 'de mensen'. De politici laten zich doen, als de dood om als onvriendelijk of betweterig over te komen. Openlijk protesteren doen ze zelden. Vaker is het een subtiel verzet, zoals Frank Vandenbrouckes milde schoolmeestersglimlach: 'Het ligt iets ingewikkelder hoor, maar goed.' Soms lees je in de lichaamstaal van Kathleen Cools of Ivan De Vadder: 'Sorry, maar het moet zo van de bazen'. De kwade genius achter de VRT-aanpak is Siegfried Bracke, schreef Knack deze week in een opvallend J'accuse. Nochtans is Bracke zelf paradoxaal genoeg vaak de uitzondering. Hij voelt zich niet gebonden door zijn eigen regels, en is daarom nu zowat de enige die op een interessante stelling nog durft te reageren met een nieuwsgierig 'dat moet u toch eens uitleggen' in plaats van paniekerig te checken wat het volgende af te vinken item is.
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'EXTREEM ONHAALBAAR VERHAALTJE' Waar is de tijd dat Guy Verhofstadt Stefaan Declerck in een verkiezingsshow van het politieke speelveld tackelde? Anno 2009 is er tijdens de campagne ook met modder gegooid, maar zelden op het scherm. De hele week lang waren kandidaten lief voor elkaar. Bart Somers loofde Groen omdat het 'hard veranderd is' ; Filip Dewinter had compassie met 'de Vlaamsgezinde socialist Frank Vandenbroucke'. Dirk Van Mechelen vergat dat hij net even voor de vorm in de aanval was gegaan op Kris Peeters, en noemde hem 'top' als minister-president. Het scheelde niet veel of de ladies en gentlemen feliciteerden elkaar met hun verbale trouvailles. De mooiste was wellicht die van Frank Vandenbroucke, die Filip Dewinters Eenzijdige OnafhankelijkheidsVerklaring vertaalde als een 'Extreem Onhaalbaar Verhaaltje'. Leuk, maar nimmer snijdend. Hadden de politici de onderzoeken gelezen in damesbladen die zeggen dat vrouwen een hekel hebben aan haantjesgedrag bij politici? Wat een contrast met het bloederige gevecht dat Didier Reynders en Elio Di Rupo inmiddels uitvochten onder de taalgrens. In de Vlaamse programma's waren de momenten van bitse vijandigheid zeldzaam. Toen Bart Dewever Filip Dewinter het platte racisme van zijn 'uw pensioen zit in de pocket van Mohammed'-uitspraak onder de neus wreef, spuwden vier ogen even vuur. Maar voor de strijd echt kon ontvlammen, was het alweer tijd voor een volgende onderdeeltje. Voor wie niet van beschaving houdt, organiseerde VTM af en toe een partijtje catch in zijn journaal. De methode was eenvoudig. Stuur een politicus met scherp profiel op pad in het hol van de leeuw. Zou Bart Dewever een hand krijgen van de baas van het maison du peuple in diep Wallonië? Kan Filip Dewinter harder de woorden 'blijven steken in de middeleeuwen' roepen dan een koor van vijf jonge moslima's met hoofddoek daartegen kan protesteren? De Jerry Springer-show was niet ver.
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Ook de VRT deed één duit in het zakje, door Karel De Gucht en Jean-Marie Dedecker tegenover elkaar te zetten in De keien van de Wetstraat. Hoewel het ook daar voor 90 % over hun vete ging, had de scheldpartij (meedogenloze ijzervreter! libertijnse opportunist!) toch nog enige relevantie. 'MIJN VADER WAS EEN SLAGER' In deze context van gewapende vrede openbaarden zich geen nieuwe politieke talenten. Frank Vandenbroucke en Bart Dewever bevestigden wat velen al lang vonden: dat ze de grootste politieke talenten van Vlaanderen zijn. Dirk Van Mechelen verslikte zich wat in zijn poging om zich te ontpoppen van kleurloze duif naar vurige vechthaan. Hij kwam zo vaak aandraven met wat Amerikaans aandoende 'persoonlijke' toetsen (hij is de zoon van een slager, hij heeft twee autistische kindjes in de familie) dat hij de buikspreekpop van zijn spin doctors leek. Van Mechelen is een bekwaam minister van performantie en parameters, maar een charismatisch strijdpoliticus word je niet op bestelling. Anderen, zoals Mieke Vogels, Kris Peeters en Filip Dewinter, voegden niets toe aan wat we al van hen wisten. 'WAARIN VERSCHILT U VAN UW VADER?' Een van de plagen die de Belgische politiek teisteren, is het gebrek aan fatsoen - ook in de lijstvorming. Schaamteloos nepotisme en het kandideren op drie lijsten tegelijk, zijn slechts twee voorbeelden. Geen enkel tv-programma stelde deze uitwassen aan de kaak. De stemming 09 op maandag: centrale gasten Jean-Jacques De Gucht en Maya Detiège, respectievelijk zoon van en dochter van. Om hen op de rooster te leggen met netelige vragen over een achternaam die harder weegt dan bewezen kennis of capaciteiten ? Welnee. Alleen de Gucht maakte het zichzelf
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moeilijk, door met de mond vol tanden te staan over een evidente vraag als 'waarin verschilt u van uw vader'. Open VLD maakte er trouwens een potje van - of ligt het aan de uitnodigingspolitiek van de VRT? Vincent van Quickenborne mocht geheel ongehinderd komen debiteren dat hij 'perfect geloofwaardig is, aangezien hij als federaal minister alleen als lijstduwer op de Vlaamse en de Europese lijst staat'. Toppunt was Herman De Croo's egocentrische causerie over 'altijd jezelf blijven' in de 'twee minuten-speech' in datzelfde programma. Frank Dewinne twee minuten laten volpraten over het eten aan boord van het ISS zou niet méér zinloos gelul in de ruimte geweest zijn. 'WAAR GAAN EUROPESE VERKIEZINGEN OVER?' Tussendoor even zappen naar Nederland. Knevel & Van den Brink in gesprek met premier Balkenende. Andries Knevel vraagt waar deze Europese verkiezingen over gaan. Balkenende geeft netjes uitleg. Ook al hebben veel Nederlanders op de eurosceptici gestemd, dat is zeker niet aan een gebrek aan informatie op hun tv te wijten. Op de Vlaamse tv wordt ondertussen nauwelijks nog over Europa gerept. De politieke programma's gaan louter over nationale kwesties. Europese kandidaten zijn onzichtbaar - tenzij ze over het nationale gekrakeel willen praten, zoals Jean-Luc Dehaene of Derk Jan Eppink. De VRT heeft twee weken geleden al een avondje 'Europa 09' georganiseerd, en daarin hard geroepen dat Europa belangrijk is, zoals het hoort. Daarmee moeten Dirk Sterckx en Ivo Belet en Anne Van Lancker het doen. LDD, SLP, LPG: IK KAN NIET KIEZEN! LPG, hahaha, dat is een brandstof. Wat een lol! Humor en verkiezingsprogramma's, het blijft een moeilijk huwelijk. Bijzonder
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tenenkrommend zijn de Kennedy's, die vijftien afleveringen lang Terzake mogen afsluiten met 'politieke satire' die door het scenaristenteam van FC De Kampioenen geschreven lijkt. Ook Rik Torfs kwam in deze campagne zelden uit de verf als ironiserende sidekick van Siegfried Bracke. De professor bedrijft graag de ironie, en dat werkt in confrontatie met mensen die zichzelf niet al te serieus nemen. Zelfrelativering is echter geen populaire sport bij politici op enkele dagen voor hun uur van de waarheid. Torfs merkte dat je met twee moet zijn op te pingpongen. Zonder hem nu meteen een onemanshow aan te praten, mag Kobe Ilsen gerust een aangename verrassing genoemd worden. Hij sluit dagelijks Stemming 09 af met marketingtips, en de vaak knullige campagnefilmpjes en -stunts geven hem voldoende munitie om het publiek te doen glimlachen. 'IK ZOU LIEVER EEN DEBAT VOEREN OVER DE INHOUD' Maar wat beloven partij x en partij y nu eigenlijk? Weinig tv-kijkers zullen daar veel wijzer van zijn geworden. Het gebrek aan inhoud is het meest manifest in De stemming 09, zeer geformatteerd en gericht op het brede publiek. Wat wil zeggen: zo veel mogelijk 'menselijke' onderwerpen en zo weinig mogelijk dossiers. De toon wordt gezet door de proloog, waarin Siegfried Bracke en Rik Torfs de sfeer van Torfs' uitstekende biechtprogramma Nooitgedacht trachten te creëren. Helaas. Nooitgedacht is een diepgravend en interessant programma, omdat het zijn tijd neemt om naar de diepere zielenroerselen van de praatgast te boren. Die tijd ontbreekt in Stemming 09. Wat hadden Bracke en Torfs dan gedacht? Dat politici, met uren mediatraining onder hun riem en met het mes van de verkiezingen op de keel, zich gaan bloot geven op vragen als 'wat kunt u niet vergeven' of 'liegt u vaak'?
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Op het einde van De stemming 09 zit een nóg holler item: 'De wetten van de macht'. Alsof we in een of ander debiel spelprogramma zitten, mogen alle tafelgasten een kernwoord kiezen uit een lijst, om dan ter discussie een stelling voorgeschoteld te krijgen als 'wees vrouw als het je uitkomt' of 'bewierook uw voorganger en doe het tegendeel'. Je krijgt de echo niet meer uit je huiskamer, zozeer galmt het daarna van de frasen die de praatgasten daarover verzinnen. WAT ZIJN WE WIJZER GEWORDEN? Heel wat volgens de alomtegenwoordige politoloog Carl Devos, die de ondankbare taak had de boemboem te zien in de blabla. Devos was te mild. De gesprekjes met familieleden, de reportages door jongeren, de tot mislukken gedoemde pogingen tot persoonlijke ontboezemingen: het leverde zeer weinig op. Inhoudelijk onthouden we hier en daar enkele relevante minuten in Terzake over onderwijs of groene economie. Uiteindelijk was alleen Het groot debat écht interessant, omdat de verleuking er ondergeschikt was aan een echte woordenstrijd over politieke inhoud. De conclusie voor de volgende keer: minder en scherper, graag. © 2009 Corelio Publicatie: De Standaard / Publicatiedatum: 6 juni 2009 Auteur: sdf; Pagina: 16 Aantal woorden: 1863
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APPENDIX 8: VRT PRESS RELEASE (06/06/2009)
Persbericht
8 juni 2009
Vlamingen kiezen opnieuw massaal voor VRT Uitstekende resultaten voor breed kwaliteitsaanbod Verkiezingen 09 Verkiezingen zijn niet alleen hoogdagen voor de democratie, maar ook voor de VRT. De openbare omroep kan zich dan volop uitleven in zijn informatieopdracht. Daartoe worden traditiegetrouw alle mensen en middelen ingezet. En ook deze keer hebben de Vlamingen massaal voor de VRT gekozen om de verkiezingen te volgen. Zowel tijdens de campagne als op verkiezingsdag zelf, op televisie, op de radio en online, was de VRT de voorbije weken dé referentiebron bij uitstek voor informatie over de verkiezingen. Kris Hoflack, hoofdredacteur Verkiezingen 09, blikt tevreden terug op de ‘verkiezingscampagne’ van de VRT: “Zowel op verkiezingsdag als in de aanloop heeft de kijker onze inspanningen om inhoudelijke programma’s te maken over de verkiezingsstrijd zeer gesmaakt. Programma’s als Vlaanderen 09, Europa 09, Het groot debat haalden 500.000 à 600.000 kijkers. De speciale uitzendingen van Terzake, Phara en De Keien van de Wetstraat zagen hun aantal kijkers in de aanloop naar 7 juni gevoelig stijgen. Net zoals de kiezer heeft ook de kijker altijd gelijk.” We zetten enkele resultaten op een rijtje: Verkiezingen 09 op tv De verkiezingsmarathon vanuit het Vlaamse Parlement en de provincies was een technisch huzarenstuk dat de kijker op snelle, correcte en boeiende manier informeerde over de verkiezingsuitslagen en de reacties daarop. De uitzending (van 12.00 u. tot 23.44 u.) werd gevolgd door gemiddeld 727.000 kijkers, over die lange tijdspanne goed voor een marktaandeel van 48 %. Tussen 18 en 23 u. waren er vijf uur lang gemiddeld ongeveer een miljoen kijkers. Tussen 19.10 u. en 20.33 u. waren het er zelfs 1.129.000 (53.2% madl), en het piekmoment lag om iets voor negen uur, tijdens het kopstukkendebat: toen waren er 1.241.000 kijkers. In totaal keek 42% van de Vlaamse bevolking (2.445.000 mensen) minstens een kwartier naar de verkiezingsuitzending op Eén. Dat is vergelijkbaar met het resultaat van 2007 en zo’n 5% meer dan in 2006. De uitzending op verkiezingsdag was het sluitstuk van een succesvolle ‘verkiezingscampagne’ van VRT Nieuws. Ook in de aanloop naar de verkiezingen bereikte VRT TV met zijn verkiezingsaanbod ruim 41% van de Vlamingen: 2.400.000 mensen hebben dus minstens een kwartier van een van de specifieke verkiezingsprogramma’s gevolgd. Als we daar ook de andere nieuwsprogramma’s bijtellen, waarin uiteraard ook verkiezingsnieuws zat, dan loopt dat aantal zelf op tot ruim 3.800.000. De best bekeken uitzending was De Stemming 09 van afgelopen zaterdag, met 628.000 kijkers (30.2 madl.). Gemiddeld haalde De Stemming 09 in de laatste week voor de verkiezingen zo’n 450.000 kijkers (24.2%). De drie grote verkiezingsuitzendingen op zondagavond hadden gemiddeld ruim 500.000 kijkers. Op Canvas keken gemiddeld 228.000 mensen naar Terzake 09, goed voor 11.2 % marktaandeel en Phara en De keien van de Wetstraat haalden ieder zo’n 13% marktaandeel.
Verkiezingen 09 op de radio Ook de radio werd druk beluisterd op verkiezingsdag. Dat blijkt uit eigen VRT-onderzoek. Op de meeste radionetten lag de luisterdichtheid aanzienlijk hoger dan op een gewone zondag: voor Radio 1 bedroeg de stijging 19%, voor Radio 2 en Klara 13% en voor Studio Brussel zelfs 26%. Radio 1 bereikte tijdens de verkiezingsuitzending (13-24 uur) 538.000 luisteraars (15’ luisteren), met een luisterdichtheid die 17.5 % groter was dan in een vergelijkbare tijdspanne op een gewone zondag. Vooral rond de sluitingstijd van de stembureaus en bij een te verwachten eindresultaat waren er
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aanzienlijk meer luisteraars dan op een normale zondag: + 60 % tussen 15.00 en 16.00 uur; + 24 % tussen 18.00 en 19.00 uur. De Ochtend 09 (de Radio 1-talkshow vanuit het Vlaamse Parlement tussen 8 tot 9 uur) had met sommige uitzendingen tot 25% meer bereik dan de gemiddelde gewone uitzendingen van De ochtend in dat tijdsslot. (bron radiocijfers: PPM-onderzoek, n = 1000, representatief voor Vlamingen 12-79 jaar) Verkiezingen 09 online Op verkiezingsdag werden op deredactie.be ruim 231.000 unieke bezoekers geregistreerd: dat is het beste cijfer ooit voor deredactie.be. Samen vroegen die in totaal 3 miljoen pagina’s op en bekeken ze 240.000 videofragmenten. Ongeveer 30.000 internetgebruikers volgden het verkiezingsprogramma van Eén live via de internet-livestream. In totaal hebben sinds de lancering op 4 mei zo’n half miljoen bezoekers van deredactie.be ook de verkiezingssubsite bezocht. Ongeveer even veel mensen hebben “De Stemtest” gedaan (460.000). Met een groot en gevarieerd verkiezingsaanbod heeft de VRT er de voorbije weken voor gezorgd dat het publiek via de meest diverse kanalen en op alle momenten van de dag bij hun openbare omroep terecht kon voor informatie, duiding en analyse bij de verkiezingscampagne en bij de verkiezingen zelf. De VRT is dan ook verheugd dat de Vlamingen daar volop gebruik van hebben gemaakt. Bronnen: CIM, Nedstat en VRT Studiedienst Meer informatie: Kris Hoflack, hoofdredacteur Verkiezingen 09, tel. 0475 34 11 86 Anne Stroobants, Hoofd communicatie VRT Nieuws, tel. 02 741 51 63 - [email protected] Lies Klinkers, Stafmedewerker communicatie VRT Nieuws, tel. 02 741 97 51 – [email protected] VRT Communicatie - Kamer 9L48, 1043 Brussel - tel. 02-741 35 66 - e-mail: [email protected]
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