507154
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television and commercial broadcasters: A comparison
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Carles Roca-Cuberes Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain
Abstract In this article I examine the differences between broadcast political interviews in commercial and public service broadcasters in Spain. The study focuses in particular on political interviews broadcast on ‘morning show’ type programmes. The analysis distinguishes the characteristics that make up the news interview turn-taking system in order to explore the degree to which information and entertainment come together in political interviews broadcast on morning shows. The results show, primarily, that political interviews shown on public service broadcasters’ morning shows adhere to the journalistic standards of neutralism and adversarialness. This is precisely how they strive to make the politician publicly accountable. In political interviews broadcast by commercial broadcasters, however, these rules are followed intermittently. The aim of these interviews appears to be different: to penetrate politicians’ personal sphere with the discernible purpose of entertaining. These differences reflect different interview styles which, in turn, reveal different conceptions of journalism, politics and society. This investigation utilizes the research tools developed in conversation analysis (CA).
Keywords Broadcast political interviews, commercial broadcasting, conversation analysis, morning show, news interview, public service broadcasting
Introduction In this article I examine the differences between broadcast political interviews in commercial and public service broadcasters in Spain. The broadcast political interview, the Corresponding author: Carles Roca-Cuberes, Department of Communication, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Facultat de Comunicació, Campus de la Comunicació, Roc Boronat 138, 08018 Barcelona, Spain. Email:
[email protected]
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aim of which is to inform, has become a formidable tool for public political learning and educating. Bearing in mind that television remains the predominant medium, interviews with politicians on television provide the perfect opportunity for people to find out firsthand about activities or proposals by the figures that have taken on leadership of their society. Given their importance in political communication, can various degrees of ‘quality’ be established with regards to the messages they convey? Does ownership (public or private) of the broadcasting channel matter? Political interviews are broadcast on different kinds of television shows, such as the news, current political affairs programmes, morning shows and even talk shows. This analysis focuses on interviews on morning shows, programmes that abundantly populate morning television listings in Spain.1 The ‘morning show’ is a kind of infotainment programme originating from the United States (where it is also known as ‘early morning news show’; in the UK it is called ‘breakfast television’) that reached European television towards the end of the 1980s after deregulation in the broadcasting sector. Initially popular on private television channels, public service broadcasters ended up adopting it too, as its informative content could be pitched as a reflection of its public service mission (Wieten and Pantti, 2005). Given this dual objective of informing and entertaining, do morning shows manage to keep the two concepts separate? Or does the combination impregnate the whole programme? With this question in mind, do differences exist between morning shows on public and private channels? To what extent are the political interviews they show affected? The morning show is a programme that is broadcast live and that starts when people are waking up, having breakfast and getting ready to go to work or school; however, due to its length (it can last several hours) its target audience also encompasses an adult demographic sector that mainly constitutes female homemakers. The content and style is a result of this combination of target audiences – adults, children, men and women – making the morning show a hybrid ‘container’ of other genres. As a result, the first part of the programme (when workers and students are still at home) generally tends to focus on the more serious content (politics, economy, etc.) along with news briefs and practical information (e.g. traffic, weather, etc.) in preparation for the move from the private to the public sphere. The second part of the programme usually has more entertaining content: soft news, showbusiness, fashion, health advice, lifestyle, consumer service and care of the home in general. Politicians are interviewed with relative frequency on morning shows. In fact, some have made the political interview a characteristic feature. Interviewing politicians during the programme enables it to comply with its most serious task of providing news and information. It also adds a touch of prestige to the programme and the interviewer/presenter/journalist. Being interviewed on these programmes affords politicians an excellent opportunity to reach potential voters in a more (a priori) informal environment, which might lead to favourable reception of his/her messages. As a result of this mutual convenience, it is therefore quite common to see politicians – especially during election campaigns – hit the talk show circuit (Baum, 2005). In the rest of this article I first describe the broadcast political interview and the news interview turn-taking system. I then detail the data and method employed for the analysis. Finally, I look at fragments of political interviews on public service broadcasters and
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commercial broadcasters. The result of this analysis enables me to reach some conclusions about the status of political interviews in contrasting ownership channels.
The broadcast political interview The broadcast political interview is a kind of formal interview with (usually) high-ranking political representatives as part of a programme aimed at informing. It is produced in a studio or official office and might have a live audience. There are basically two roles in the political interview, interviewer (IR) and interviewee (IE), which characteristically are assumed by a journalist and a politician respectively by virtue of their professional roles. The political interview is not a spontaneous meeting between journalist and politician. On the contrary, it has specific institutional and well-defined objectives. First, politicians are accountable to the general public and attend the interview to account for and defend their political activities. The IR, meanwhile, sets her/himself up as a representative/intermediary of the public/audience. Questions put to the IE are of public interest and purportedly originate from a social interest mandate granted by the general public. The IR aims to find out firsthand the details and inconsistencies of policies carried out (or to be implemented) by the IE or the party/government s/he represents. As a result of this disparity of interests, it is therefore not unusual to see the occasional conflict between IR and IE. The audience deserves special mention. We must not forget that the broadcast political interview is a specially staged audience event. Despite being technically absent (except in cases in which there is an audience in the studio) the audience is the main recipient of the event. However, it is constituted as massive, and, as Heritage puts it, an ‘overhearing audience’ (Heritage, 1985). The forerunner of the broadcast political interview is one of the preeminent journalistic genres: the journalistic interview. The journalistic interview has a relatively extensive historical background. Its origin is generally considered to date back to the first half of the 19th century in the United States, pioneered by James Gordon Bennett (Martínez Vallvey, 1995: 71–72). The first interviews in Europe (including Spain) were published in 1880, and in 1895 the first proper question–answer political interview came out in a Spanish newspaper (Cantavella, 2002: 27). The historical background to the broadcast political interview in Spain is relatively brief. Bearing in mind that the public broadcasters (radio and television) in Spain were under the control of a dictatorship, the first broadcast political interviews in Spain were not aired until several years after the end of the regime. The first televised political interviews were actually broadcast during the electoral campaign of the second general election in the new democratic period in 1982, when candidates from the various political parties were interviewed. News and current affairs programmes developed slowly in Spain: the effects of Franco’s regime, the lack of competence and stringent budgets made newscast development in public channels challenging, hampering it as a means of dynamic and competent information dissemination (Mateos-Pérez, 2009). Interviewing politicians did not become common practice until the appearance of private television channels in 1990. In order to diverge from the rigidity of broadcast practices by the Spanish public television channel (TVE), right from the start private channels included an interview with a topical person, often a politician (Medina and Ojer, 2010).
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To understand the practice of broadcast political interviewing in Spain, reference must be made to the legal framework in which the profession of broadcast journalism develops as well as the journalistic culture and media system in Spain. Unlike the United Kingdom’s BBC, where IRs are legally required to maintain the stance of formal neutrality, in Spain (and the United States), IRs’ conduct is only subject to codes of professional ethics – in Spain, the main code is that of the Spanish Federation of Journalists’ Associations; in the United States, references used are those from the Radio Television News Directors Association and the Society of Professional Journalists – or style manuals belonging to the channels themselves. Nevertheless, it is important to remember that codes of professional ethics or style manuals are only a set of recommendations for good practice, and are never legally binding. This means Spanish or American television channels, or private British channels, are not subject to restrictions beyond those set by the journalists themselves and the content arising from their work: the legal framework of each country, which usually emanates from its Constitution. Out of the channels analysed in this study, only the two public channels have a style manual: Televisión Española and Televisió de Catalunya.2 In both cases, their style manual contains recommendations on how to perform the interviews. In the style manual for Televisión Española, one of the recommendations is to convey ‘to the spectator a sense of balance, cadence, professionalism, or in other words, independence and credibility’ (Corporación de Radio y Televisión Española, S.A. (RTVE), n.d.). In that of Televisió de Catalunya, which is similar, other pertinent points are added: for example, not broaching ‘facts related to the interviewee’s personal life if this intimacy has no public relevance’, or ‘do not force out responses’ and ‘not being overly familiar with the people being interviewed nor unjustifiably distant’ (Corporació Catalana de Mitjans Audiovisuals (CCMA), n.d.). It can generally be noted that the practices of both broadcast journalism and political interviewing are subject – in Spain and the United States, although not in British public television – to self-regulation by the channels themselves. Broadcast journalistic culture in Spain is conditioned by the media system to which it belongs. The Spanish media system would form part, in the three large models – Mediterranean or Polarized Pluralist Model, North/Central European or Democratic Corporatist Model and North Atlantic or Liberal Model – of the first (Hallin and Mancini, 2004). This model, in terms of political parallelism, has been characterized as high political parallelism; commentary-oriented journalism; parliamentary or government model of broadcast governance; politics-over-broadcasting system. It has also been characterized as having weaker professionalization and strong state intervention. The Liberal Model, to which the United Kingdom and the United States belong, are characterized, amongst other things, by information-oriented journalism and a professional model of broadcast governance; strong professionalization and non-institutionalized self-regulation. Overall, we see that the practice of broadcast political journalism in Spain is linked to the media system of which it forms part. This, which has also been described as ‘state paternalism’, calls to mind a non-independent and overpoliticized Spanish public broadcasting system in which partisan control of radio and television has been the norm (Papatheodorou and Machin, 2003).3 The introduction of private channels in the 1990s was, however, significant. A trend began to be adopted regarding information conception as a spectacle and as entertainment, with an excess of value judgement within news and current affairs
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programmes and where information is constructed according to the interest aroused in the audience (Mateos-Pérez, 2009: 321–322). This process calls to mind the introduction of private television in other countries. For example, the introduction of ITV (Independent Television) in the UK in 1955 changed the way in which television engaged audiences by introducing more populist political discourse; or the start of commercial television in the Netherlands in 1989, which lead to more political talk shows and a communicative style combining ‘anti-professional journalism with crude comedy that is seen as anti-intellectual and anti-establishment’ (Stamper and Brants, 2011: 115). In short: to further understand the practice of broadcast political interviewing in Spain, reference must be made to its historical development, its legal framework, the journalistic culture and the media system. Nevertheless, as Becker (2007) indicates in her cross-cultural investigation of interviewing practices in television election night coverage, a causal relationship cannot be established between these elements and a specific interviewing style, nor can attempts to establish different national interviewing styles be made, as interviewing practices may depend on the IR’s sociocultural identities (e.g. gender); and vary more within the same culture than among cultures, according to channel ownership (public or private). The latter is precisely part of what this article discusses.
News interview turn-taking system As observed by Montgomery (2011: 36), the canonical form of the broadcast political interview – which he describes as ‘accountability interview’ (Montgomery, 2008) – is perfectly reflected in Heritage and Greatbatch’s description of the news interview turn-taking system: turn-taking is organised through a distinctive normative procedure in which – unlike conversation – the types of turns that may be produced by each speaker are provided in advance. News interview talk should proceed as sequences of IR questions and IE responses to those questions. Correspondingly, speakers who act as IRs may not properly engage in actions other than questions, while those who take part as IEs should refrain from initiating actions (such as unsolicited comments on prior talk) or sequences (for example, asking questions to which the IR or other IEs would be obliged to respond). (Heritage and Greatbatch, 1991: 97–98)
In fact, this pervasive correspondence between role and turn type gives the turn-taking system of the news interview its particular imprint. The news interview, however, cannot be reduced to a mere succession of questions and answers, as this also characterizes other turn-taking systems with different structures and objectives such as (e.g.) police interrogations (Watson, 1990). Clayman and Heritage (2002) note, for example, that questions are usually fairly well-developed, including declarative statements that become prefaces to the questions themselves. These prefaces contain the necessary information that must enable the politician and the audience to contextualize and attribute a certain meaning to the IR’s questions. Despite the fact that the prefaces can be quite long, there is a tacit agreement according to which the IE does not usually start to produce a response until a recognizable question has been completely formulated. The IE’s responses, meanwhile, also adhere to another tacit agreement similar to that of the IR, which permits the production of (frequently) extensive blocks of questions and answers.
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The turn-taking system of the news interview involves two basic functions associated with modern journalism: neutrality – or rather neutralism, as Clayman (1992) suggests – and adversarialness (Clayman and Heritage, 2002; Heritage and Clayman, 2010). Despite their standings as public ‘inquisitors’, journalists must follow certain journalistic ethics that advocate the presenting of facts in a balanced, impartial and personally disinterested manner. In fact, to the public eye the appearance of partiality can lead to delegitimizing the journalist’s task. At the same time, and even though it might appear incoherent with the notion of neutralism, the journalist has the obligation – through a popular mandate to hold politicians publicly accountable – to challenge the IE when s/he avoids his/ her questions. If this conduct is not applied, the role of the journalist could be reduced, in the eyes of the public, from co-producer of public interest information to mere collaborator in the creating of a propaganda-style political discourse. This conduct also provides, as noted by Clayman (2002), a higher dose of liveliness to the interview, an important quality when attempting to connect with the audience (Tolson, 2006). The neutralism with which the IR should tackle the political interview is expressed in a series of interactional practices. In fact, it might be more appropriate to first speak of a lack of certain interactional practices that are very common in ordinary conversation. For example, significantly, IRs very rarely produce newsmarks and news receipts such as ‘oh’ or ‘really’ that might indicate an acceptance of IEs’ responses, or ‘assessments’ (Pomerantz, 1984) that could denote alignment (or vice versa) with IEs’ positions. Nor is it common to find ‘acknowledgement tokens’ (Jefferson, 1984) such as ‘yeah’ or ‘mm hm’, which are habitual in ordinary conversation and that could suggest support or empathy for the IE in the context of the interview (Clayman and Heritage, 2002; Heritage, 1985; Heritage and Clayman, 2010). One frequently used strategy is that of ‘footing shifts’ (Goffman, 1981), which consists of invoking third parties when the IR makes risky statements from which s/he wishes to distance himself/herself or make a hostile challenge to a response from the IE. Using this practice the IR can maintain a delicate balance between neutralism and adversarialness (Clayman, 1992). Adversarialness, the other distinctive feature of the political interview, is also reflected in a plethora of interactional devices used by both the IR and IE. Interruptions, for example, are produced somewhat repeatedly by both parties. This gives rise to a high incidence of overlap at the boundaries of turns (Montgomery, 2008). The IR frequently uses supplementary questions – that might include the disjunct marker ‘but’ – which may undertake various functions (Greatbatch, 1986): a) probing IEs’ statements or arguments, either through requiring further details or an account of some aspect of his/her response, or through putting a hypothetical question to IEs; b) countering IEs’ statements through questions which cast doubt on their assertions; and c) pursuing a question which IEs have either covertly or overtly rejected, or not answered on account of insufficient information about it, of its irrelevance or of the presupposition it contains. One particular case of supplementary questions possibly posed by the IR comprise ‘formulations’ (Garfinkel and Sacks, 1970; Heritage and Watson, 1979) of the gist or upshot of the IE’s remarks, a fairly uncommon practice in daily conversation and often employed in institutional interaction (Drew, 2003). This practice, which accomplishes several functions in other institutional contexts,4 is used in the political interview in two contrasting ways (Heritage, 1985): to sum up or gloss what the IE has said – ‘cooperative recyclings’ – or to assess
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or criticize the IE’s comments through references to the implications or implicit assumptions in these comments – ‘inferentially elaborative probes’. The more adversarial the interview, the more instances of the second, less benign type, might be found. Further dimensions of adversarialness can be observed with regards to IRs’ actions. IRs design their questions, as Clayman and Heritage (2002) remark, to set specific topic or action agendas limiting the scope of IEs’ answers (e.g. ‘Have you been stealing from public funds?’). IRs’ questions might also embody presuppositions that influence the terms from which answers derive (e.g. ‘When did you start stealing from public funds?’). IRs’ questions are sometimes designed to include preferences that lean towards a certain response (e.g. ‘Isn’t it true that you have been stealing from public funds?’). Some more extreme cases of adversarialness by IRs take us to ‘forks’ – the IE is given two unpleasant alternatives from which to choose – or the IR drawing out patent contrasts or inconsistencies in the IE’s conduct or actions. The adversarialness of this meeting also appears in the IE’s actions. As the IR initiates prior challenging actions, the subsequent activities of the IE are usually designed to resist these challenges, whilst likely covert to varying degrees (Clayman and Heritage, 2002; Heritage and Clayman, 2010). The IE might not overtly address the question, for example, by showing deference to the IR, implying that the IR is the one who has the right to set the topic agenda (e.g. ‘can I also point out’) or minimizing the divergence by shifting the topic set by the question (e.g. ‘very quick’ or ‘just one comment’). The IE’s resistance may also be more concealed to give the impression that s/he is in fact answering the question. This can be achieved with furnishing the veneer of an answer – by incorporating specific words from the question within the answer – or ‘manipulating’ the question in such a way to make it adapt to the IR’s answer. Certain forms of more severe resistance imply going straight in for the attack: occasionally, IEs might dispute IRs’ challenges or even remind IRs to adhere to their role of questioning (Rendle-Short, 2007). The use of address terms by IEs has also been shown to be indicative of adversarialness (Clayman, 2010; Rendle-Short, 2007). By employing address terms, IEs can manage disaligning actions such as topic shifts, inappropriate responses to questions or disagreements; they might even be used to present certain opinions as being particularly significant or sincere (Clayman, 2010).
Data and method Data in this study come from 20 interviews between prominent Spanish broadcast journalists and politicians recorded in April 2010 on morning shows. The interviews studied were televised in Spain on morning shows on private channels and public service broadcasters. During this period all political interviews aired on morning shows were recorded and then analysed. This period was chosen as it was a chapter of political ‘normality’, that is, there were no imminent elections that might have altered treatment of information about political issues on the different channels. The public service broadcasters and their morning shows in the sample are Televisión Española (Los Desayunos de TVE (‘Breakfast on TVE’); six interviews) and Televisió de Catalunya (Els Matins (‘The Mornings’); seven interviews).5 Meanwhile, the private channels and their morning shows are Telecinco (El Programa de Ana Rosa (‘Ana Rosa’s Programme’); two interviews) and Antena 3 (Espejo Público (‘A Public Mirror’); five interviews). All these programmes go
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on air at the same time in the morning and usually schedule their interviews with politicians at the same time.6 The qualitative method used in this study is that developed by conversation analysis (CA), which involves a detailed analysis of naturally occurring social interaction. CA proposes recording speech patterns to detect underlying rules that enable orderly communication. Particular attention is paid to the sequential organization of interactional activities. Audio-or video-recorded techniques are used preferably to preserve the natural attributes of the interaction. These distinctive features of CA facilitate the identification of certain discourse or interactional practices used in the institutional setting of the political interview on morning shows. In fact, it has been suggested that the fragments and interactional practices shown may be considered examples of the two different interview styles of public and commercial channels.7 Specific transcript excerpts (five from public channels and three from commercial broadcasters) have been reproduced here, therefore, as specimens of distinctive and recurrent interviewing practices found in the two types of channels.
Political interviews on public service broadcasters This interview, broadcast as part of the programme Los Desayunos de TVE, was with the President of the Catalonia Regional Parliament, Mr Benach. Benach is a parliamentarian of the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) party, a minority party which, along with another minority party, Iniciativa per Catalunya Verds (ICV), supported the winning party in the 2006 elections (Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya (PSC)) to form a leftwing coalition – popularly known as the ‘tripartite’ – which has governed since then in the region of Catalonia. Seven months away from another election, polls indicate a victory for the other major party – conservative – in Catalonia, Convergència i Unió (CiU), which, it is assumed, will not obtain an absolute majority and could need other parties in order to govern. At the start of the following fragment, taken from an early part of the interview, IR begins a new topic and asks IE about his party’s conduct in the scenario arising after the approaching elections. Data extract 1 [Des-Benach-48:00] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
IR:
IE:
Of course the recession is going to have an effect >precisely because it’s the people’s problems< the coming electio:ns (.) are in Catalonia and I’d like to know whether: >in: light of the polls< you think that: (.) the tripartite is fini:shed as some people say. (0.8) .hhh well polls ((clears his throat)) they’re polls they show publi::c opinion public moods so they shouldn’t be ignored (.) but they should shoul:dn’t be taken peremptorily either (.) .hh mh I think the elections: ar they’re a few months away yet (.) .hh from now until the elections ar a lot can happen (.) huh polls in the Catalonian parliament historically and so mh I think that ar:: (.) well from a more party perspective what’s clear is that we have a complicated situation difficult a:part from the government
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I think the government huh tripartite or not (.) e:h in Catalonia luckily there a:rent just two possibilities of government (.) either PSOE or PP (.) in Catalonia there are a lot more (0.6) certain coalitions or other coalitions can go:vern and °there can be different combinations° even .hhh but you say there are a lot more possibilities help me to imanito imagine some if you think government pacts are possible because for me actually (.) to see the Partido Popular with Esquerra seems totally impossible [I don’t know if CIU, who seem to be doing the best= [that, tha::t =that’s not an option is it.hhh Not an option at all I don’t know whether:: if CiU (.) if they win the elections and need someone to be able to govern they wouldn’t choose the PP (.) they’d choose Esque:rra [which also seems complicated (.) it’s a possibility [it’s a possibility look you you’ve suggested two to me already Convergencia choosing the Partido Popular .h[hh Converge ar [Well, one you rejected the one of the Partido Popular with Esquerra= =With Esquerra yes rejected of course (.) but Convergencia with support from the Partido Popular either in the Government or: from outsi:de Convergencia with support from Esquerra:. Convergencia: in the minority pacting with the socialists (.) .h the sociathe tripartite again (.) that means ar: there are are even more combinations that: that wouldn’t be: unimaginable existing in town councils right? ar: (1.8) there there’s another one that maybe could > be considered very seriously by someone in Catalonia< which would be a kind of united government of pro-Catalan powers right? .hh especially depending on the ruling of the Constitutional etcetera mh [that no no [So there’s the possibility tha:t Esquerra could get out of bed if you see what I mean with the PSC and into bed with CIU for exa:mple? But the problem isn’t so much whether Esquerra goes from one bed to another but who it will choose ar::[: [well who it will be holding hands with if we take it as something ac[tive= [Yes ar:: =who it will be holding hands with there is that possibi:lity No no (.) but again I don’t know if it’s exactly the: the::: ar:[:= [right way of expressing it =But the one responsible for choosing is the one: >who has the possibility of forming a government< and yes I’d like Esquerra Republicana to be the: main player when it comes to forming govern:ment but that’s not going to ha:ppen: ((continues))
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In a multi-party, parliamentarian system like that of Catalonia (or Spain), it is normal for no one party to achieve absolute majority. The two major parties that up to now have managed to win the elections – CiU and PSC – have opted for coalitions, such as the ‘tripartite’ of which the IE party is included at the time of the interview, or specific agreements with other parties. In the political culture of Catalonia – and Spain – political parties’ practice of not showing their cards regarding their intentions of seeking alliances to create a coalition government – or any other alliance – until after the elections seems to have become routine procedure. Political parties, legitimately, consider that they should not have to decide until the results are out and they can make calculations about possible coalitions. Voters, also legitimately, should be able to have an idea before the elections of the sway or political colour their vote might hold depending on potential varying results. It is precisely these kinds of concerns that encourage the preceding exchange and that turn this fragment of the interview into adversarial: IR stands as a representative of the interests of potential voters and IE of a political party whose strategy of not revealing possible future alliances could, however, estrange it from the interests of these voters. We see that the question with which IR starts this topic (lines 1–4) sets a specific agenda for IE’s upcoming answer: 1) it identifies a topical domain as relevant (the intentions of IE’s party, according to information from polls, after the election in terms of establishing alliances that might enable the ‘tripartite’ coalition to be reinstated); 2) it identifies actions IE should carry out in response to the question and the scope of the answer (yes or no as to whether the ‘tripartite’ is over), affording IE little margin. Meanwhile, the question also asserts quite a risky proposition about what IE’s party may do after the election, which is partially mitigated by a footing shift (‘as some people say’, line 4). The fact that it is only partially mitigated can be seen in IE’s response (lines 6–17), which, with his turn delay (line 5) and the dispreference marker ‘well’ (line 6), expresses the impropriety of IR’s previous proposition. IE’s response, moreover, does not adequately address the topic and action agenda – the intentions of IE’s party and a yes/no type response, respectively – set by IR’s previous question: it focuses on the reliability of polls to predict results that – on the day of the interview – IE believes unpredictable and in the ‘combinations’ (line 17) of possible coalitions, but without specifying the intentions of his party. IR’s next turn (lines 18–24) constitutes a follow-up question that presents IE’s response as inadequate by establishing a contrast – with the disjunct marker ‘but’, in line 18 – between IE’s response and what the question is demanding: again, the intentions of IE’s party regarding possible future coalitions. This question, and IR’s subsequent turns, also attempt to prompt IE’s response by providing possible coalition examples, so that in the end IE goes into more detail in his turn in lines 33–43. In this response IE details possible coalitions – he also mentioned some that would be impossible previously in line 25 – which occasions IR’s formulation in lines 44–45. This formulation, an inferentially elaborative probe (Heritage, 1985), performs the three tasks that Heritage and Watson (1979) described for formulations, in that it: 1) maintains the content of the previous turn as an object for a subsequent and wider elaboration, preserving the relevant characteristics of this utterance;
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2) selects an element from the previous turn, which is ‘proposed’ for confirmation. Obviously, the selection of just one element implies the suppression of others that do not appear in the formulation about the previous turn. In fact, IE’s long turn (lines 33–43) alludes to various possible coalitions that might arise after the election, but IR’s formulation appears to focus on one: ‘Convergencia with support from Esquerra’ (line 35). That is, the coalition that the other majority party should lead (CiU) and that would include IE’s party (Esquerra or ERC); 3) transforms or modifies, in as much as it paraphrases (in this case an upshot) the content of the previous turn. Therefore, in the fragment analysed, it might be observed how a possible future coalition between IE’s party and the likely winner of the election is transformed in IR’s formulation into an accusation of political promiscuity – reinforced by the expression going from one party’s bed to another’s (lines 44–45) – of IE’s party. IR’s formulation, as seen in lines 46–47, is rejected by IE. In this rejection, IE is not only dismissing the accusation of political promiscuity, but is also avoiding the possibility of revealing the intentions or preferences of his party, hence avoiding answering by ‘manipulating’ the terms of the question to fit his response. Moreover, he transfers the responsibility and initiative to the winning party of the future election. It must be remembered that formulations imply a normative preference for confirmation over rejection, by which IE’s rejection initiates a disagreement sequence (Pomerantz, 1984) with a certain degree of conflict, as reflected on the various occasions in which IR and IE’s talk overlaps (lines 47–48, 49–50 and 52–53) in attempts to secure the floor at the boundaries of turns. Despite the reformulating of the formulation (lines 48–51) IR does not achieve IE’s anticipated positioning (lines 52, 55–58) and in the end initiates another topic after IE’s last turn in the transcript. In the next interview, shown by the Catalan public service broadcaster on 21 April 2010, IR interviews the leader of the Catalan Partido Popular, or People’s Party, a minority party in the Catalonian Parliament but the second party in the Spanish Parliament. The Partido Popular had lodged an unconstitutionality appeal before the Constitutional Court regarding the Statute of Autonomy – the basic institutional law of a Spanish region – of Catalonia. The members of the Constitutional Court are largely appointed at the request of political parties – through the Parliament, the Government and the General Council of the Judiciary – which has led to frequent accusations of politicization. Catalonia had adopted the Statute of Autonomy following a referendum. In this fragment IR asks IE about the legitimacy of the current Constitutional Court to rule on the constitutionality of the Catalonian Statute of Autonomy. Data extract 2 [Mat-Camacho-13:34] 1 2 3 4 5
IR:
IE:
Is it normal that the:: current speaker (.) of a motion for judgement about the Statute (.) is a member of a court who should have stepped down two years ago? (0.6) .hh well the thing is: we’re in the same situation Mr Cuní that:
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6 7 8 9 10
IR: IE:
I can have my opinion a:bout it [but [And I’m asking you for your opinion= =Okay but my opinion is that these members of the Constitutional Court are >fully competent< and they are ar even members ((continues))
As in the previous data extract, we see that the question with which IR starts this topic (lines 1–3) sets a specific agenda for IE’s upcoming answer: 1) it identifies a topical domain as the relevant one (the legitimacy of the Constitutional Court); 2) it identifies the actions IE should carry out to respond to the question and the scope of the answer (yes or no to this legitimacy), constraining IE’s answer. The design of the question is particularly interesting, as it ‘prefers’ (Clayman and Heritage, 2002; Pomerantz, 1984; Sacks, 1987) a particular response from IE. In fact, questions that project preferred responses situate IEs’ possible responses at different levels of appropriateness, which in the event of opting for the dispreferred option could lead IE to respond defensively. Thus, the contrast between the preface of the question (‘is it normal that’ (line 1)) and the description of an abnormal situation – by which the speaker of a proposal for a ruling on the Statute should continue in his/her position two years after it has expired (lines 1–3) – invites acceptance with a confirming ‘no’ response. As can be seen in IE’s response (lines 5–6), this is not IR’s preferred response, and, to mitigate the effects of this action, IE builds it up defensively to limit possible disagreement that may arise from her response. This way the response occurs after a pause of 0.6 seconds and an in-breath that may be used to express hesitation. At the same time, IE marks her response as a nonconforming one through the use of the contrastive ‘but’ and the address term ‘Mr Cuní’, which, as shown (Clayman, 2010; Rendle-Short, 2007), may be used in disaligning actions such as disagreements. The constructing of questions that incorporate preferences holds a certain risk for IR: they may be treated as assertions or opinion statements (Heritage, 2002) and be indicative of adversarialness, but also as a reduction of neutralism. As can be seen, IE’s ‘I can have my opinion’ (line 6) treats IR’s preceding question as ‘any’ other opinion that might be held about the legitimacy of the Constitutional Court. In fact, this opinion is finally requested by IR in line 7 and offered by IE in lines 8–10. Occasionally, an IR’s vocation of adversarialness may lead to a loss of neutralism. In the next three data extracts we see various examples of how this may occur. About four minutes after the previous extract IR and IE are still talking about the same topic. After an ‘unsatisfactory’ response from IE and various unsuccessful intervention attempts (lines 4, 6 and 8), IR’s utterance in lines 10–11 starts with a ‘Fine but’, which could be typical of Action–Opposition sequences (Hutchby, 1996) found in ordinary conversation. Data extract 3 [Mat-Camacho-17:25] 1 2 3 4
IR: IE: IR:
But because that’s not how it is [you must understand [So let’s reincorporate it [the Partido Popular has asked for it to be reincorporated= [you-
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= and that the appeal is i:s lodged >again [of unconstitutionalityI don’t know if they’re well-informed< (0.7) that the: Partido Popular is trying to cover up the Gürtel scandal >You know something about the Gür:tel scandal< (.) you know something about the Faisán case (.) which also reaches: Mr Rubalcaba >Mr Garzón you know about a lot of cases ar:< but it seems that here we only know about the cases related to certain ones so ar:: remember I can remember too Mr Cuní ve[ry well and I’d also like to remi:nd= [I know =the statements and deliberations the Socialist Party made
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according to the time ar: after signing Mr Garzón and after Mr Garzón .h things didn’t go as they expected so the assess[ment-= [I remember as well =You remember too so as you’re only talking about the Partido Popular [let’s talk about them all:= [Noo =[so that listeners see it too [I’m talk- ↑I’m talking about today
One of the most common ways in which IE orients to the adversarial character of IR’s prior turn, as indicated by Rendle-Short (2007), consists of challenging or showing disagreement with the content of this turn. In fact, the first thing that can be observed in IE’s response starting in line 9 is that it obviates IR’s question in lines 1–8 to then, in turn, challenge it. Despite IR’s footing shift (‘according to some observe:rs’, the supposed source that may not be reliable, as expressed by ‘I don’t know if they are well-informed’, lines 6–7) to safeguard his question from possible partiality interpretations, we see in IE’s response starting in line 9 that the desired effect has not ensued. The emphasis IE places on some words that link the rival political party (the ‘Faisán case’ and ‘Mr Rubalcaba’, who is the Government’s vice president) with political corruption serves to highlight the accusation that IR is only focusing on ‘certain ones’ (line 13), and later on ‘you’re only talking about the Partido Popular’ (lines 21–22) when asking about corruption. IE also reinforces this accusation of selective memory and partiality with the expression ‘I remember’ (lines 3 and 13) and the use of the address term ‘Mr Cuní’ (line 13), by which she can convey disagreement and sincerity. Of particular interest is the equally severe accusation IE launches at IR of not acting in representation of the whole ‘people’, in ‘so that listeners see it too’ (line 24), but of only those who may be solely interested in IE’s party’s corruption case. Data extract 5 [Mat-Pastor-01:24:00]
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
IR:
IE:
Obviously there are corrupters because there are corru:pt people Or there are corrupt people because corrupters get to them mhh how can you stop that (.) in a political group how can someone who’s responsible for making the electoral lists scrutinize it (0.6) to preve:nt these risks (.) .hh if on the other hand you belong to a political party (.) that has shown that at least so far the one >making the electoral lists< ends up being (.) the prime example of corruption? Well bu::t if you’ll allow me I don’t agree with that ar:: the Socialist Party I think has been the party ar:: that has demonstrated the most how people saw and see corruption in this country right? ((continues))
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On occasion, such as the one presented in this data extract, IRs’ adversarial questions may be devoid of any component to guard them against accusations of partiality. Thus, the attribution of third-party authorship, for example, could convert an opinion statement into a journalistically acceptable question. This is not the case in this fragment under analysis. The fact that IE utters ‘if you’ll allow me I don’t agree with that’ (preceded, also, by the dispreference marker ‘Well’ and the disjunct marker ‘bu::t’, indicating incipient disagreement) (line 9) suggests that in fact he has treated IR’s utterance in lines 1–8 as an opinion statement with which he may or may not agree, implying that IR may have exceeded the limits of journalistic ethics of neutralism. Overall, the fragments of political interviews in public service broadcasters analysed convey an image of interviews that seek to make the politician publicly accountable. Through the interaction practices identified, it can be seen that both IRs and IEs have complied with the task attributed to them by the political interview. IRs have acted as intermediaries for the audience, seeking with their adversarialness (through e.g. setting specific agendas, asserting propositions, preferences or formulations) to scrutinize the actions, proposals or inconsistencies of politicians, whilst risking incurring non-neutrality. The confrontational style sought by IRs appears to be an essential part of modern journalism. If we take formulations as an example of the application of this style, their presence in political interviews can easily be understood. A simple adherence to the journalistic style of neutrality would imply, at the interactional level, a mere succession of questions. Somehow, IRs’ roles would be limited to that of simply providing topic headings that IEs could respond to comfortably. To avoid the effects of interviews of this kind (that is, flatness in the interview and consequential audience boredom, apart from IEs easily circumventing questions), it is not surprising that journalists resort to formulations. Their use affords IRs certain objectives: clarifying, transforming and proposing alternatives to IEs’ statements, or challenging those statements. In short, they are useful for achieving a more penetrating, flexible, dynamic and vivid journalistic style that permits a more successful connection with the ultimate interview target: the audience (Heritage, 1985). Politicians’ capacity to ‘not answer’ questions is well-known. Given the sequential characteristics of formulations, these appear to undertake another practical purpose: as we have seen in the fragment transcribed, they can enable the IR to ‘pin down’ the IE and prevent him/her slipping away from certain questions; the latter may confirm or reject (but in the final instance must take a stance on) what is being ‘formulated’ to him/her. IEs, meanwhile, have attempted to defend their points of view before generally adversarial, interview styles, which have led them at times to question evasion through the use of address terms or to present IRs’ questions as opinions. Challenges to inadequate responses by the IE or the unguarded assertions by the IR, in any case, attest to the dialectical character of the interviews studied. In general, the discourse emanating from these interviews may largely be considered a reflection of the divergence and plurality of the political and social climate from which they derive.
Political interviews in commercial broadcasters In this interview IE is the Minister for Education in Spain. After being asked about the lack of authority of teachers in the classroom, the start of the following fragment shows the final part of his response.
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even if there’s just one case< (0.8) this is very important .hh and I (.) wanted to put it in a more global context (0.6) the issue of authority isn’t just a problem in schools it’s an issue in our whole society Mh hm= =There are also families that have problems [in their environments aren’t there? and we don’t really understand how= [Mhm more and more =to make a concept of authority compatible which perhaps we should consider .hhh with a consistent democratic situation (0.8) this is the challenge we face not going back to authoritarianism (.) and instigating a concept of an active and communicative autho::rity.
As indicated earlier, the IR’s conduct in political interviews must involve two characteristics linked to the exercising of modern journalism: neutralism and adversarialness. In this fragment, which is fairly representative of the kind of interaction recorded in this and other interviews in commercial broadcasters in my data, IR assumes the role of coproducer of IE’s discourse, abandoning neutralism. At the same time, presumably, nor is IR exercising the adversarialness that should be attributed to her. Thus, the acknowledgement token uttered by IR in line 9 operates in such a way that IR 1) assumes the role of recipient of IE’s preceding response (as indicated by Heritage (1985) when referring to news interviews, one of the reasons why IRs do not use news receipts or acknowledgement tokens is that of converting the audience, and not the IR, into the main recipient of the IE’s discourse; from this premise, the IR declines to adopt the role of direct recipient of the IE’s discourse, but maintains that of promoter of this discourse); and 2) she empathizes with IE and the content of his response, thus making it hers too. These effects are also produced with IR’s acknowledgement token in line 12. This time, moreover, this acknowledgement token is accompanied by talk that serves not only to emphasize IE’s preceding response in lines 10–11, but also to embellish it. In this next interview the invited politician is Esperanza Aguirre. Ms Aguirre is President of the Region of Madrid and member of the Partido Popular, a party that (at the time of the interview) is in the opposition in the Spanish Parliament. On this date, Ms Aguirre had acquired certain notoriety for publicly opposing the VAT increase the Spanish government intended to apply in a few months to alleviate the effects of the economic crisis. Ms Aguirre, meanwhile, had tried to dispute the national leadership of her party with Mr Rajoy after he lost the last election. This, according to the press, had damaged their relationship.
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Data extract 7 [AR-Aguirre-01:01] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33
IR:
IE:
IR: IR: IE:
Hello good morning ((coughs to clear throat)) welcome (.) If there’s anyone who’s at the forefront of politics today i::t’s Esperanza Aguirre (.) thank you Esperanza Aguirre for being here today: wi:th: us (1.0) ye:::sterday ar::: (.) the Preside:::nt of ar your party (.) Mr Rajoy and you were at an act in Leganés (.) you started tha::t ar campaign agains::t the VAT (.) >your relationship with Rajoy has got a lot better then hasn’t it ?< (0.9) Heh heh .hhh I saw in a paper that says that in three months we’ve been to five acts toge:ther an:d it’s true (0.7) tha::t the President was kind enough to come to acts organized by Madrid (.) and yesterday was an important one and why was it important? well because we think (.) that tha:t from the first of July all products are going to increase their VAT but all (.) when I say all that means electricity phone gas (.) ar::: bread .hh all the food products we buy (.) so we think it’s very negative for Spain’s economic situation (.) and so (.) .hh I said that we were going to do a campaign of rebellion (.) but not rebellion in the sen::se that I meant military or of not paying no no (.) what the dictionary calls rebelling is and so as we think it is to raise VAT (.) .hh as this will also have consequences that are precisely the opposite of those proposed by the Government because they say >not because it is to reduce the ↓deficit< (0.6) the last time they put up VAT (.) when they put it up from twelve to fifteen per cent (.) which is even more than it’s going up now (.) in the end collection went down (0.7) >because half a million jobs were destroyed because the Spanish economy went down< and as the economy started to get worse so- people consumed less and VAT collection went down (.) [so it was a disaster. [.hh And what will this campaign consist of (0.6) [in collecting signature::s i::n? [.hh
As can be seen in this data extract, which starts the interview, IR indicates in the preface to the first question the concern to interview IE on this particular date: her ‘campaign agains::t the VAT’ (line 6). The question she puts to IE, however, contrasts with the preface and addresses another issue that may be minimally implicit in this preface: the personal relationship with the president of her party (‘your relationship with Rajoy has got a lot better then hasn’t it?’, lines 6–7). This question could be considered of the type that Labov and Fanshell (1977: 100) described as a B-event statement. A B-event is a kind of declarative statement that a speaker formulates about something to which the recipient has sole and privileged access. These kinds of declarative statements operate interactively to
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solicit the recipient’s confirmation, particularly if they are produced with rising intonation and include an explicit preference, such as the ‘hasn’t it?’ in IR’s utterance ending in line 7. In news interviews B-events may have a broad variety of references in the form of mental predicates: emotions, opinions, expertise, experience, intentions, sensations, etc. (Heritage and Roth, 1995). It has been observed that B-events, however, are frequently used in other kinds of broadcast interviews with a specific function: in talk shows, to elicit from celebrity guests testimonies or personal confidences (Blum-Kulka, 1983). The latter appears to be, in fact, what IR is seeking with her question: not just a confirmation of whether ‘your relationship with Rajoy has got a lot better then’ (lines 6–7), but the details of this improvement. This question is received in a disaffiliative manner by IE, as anticipated in the delay of her response (line 8), her slight laughter and the in-breath (line 9) with which she starts her response. Interactionally, with these three devices IE constitutes IR’s question as inadequate. If we look in particular at the laughter, this could undertake various functions. Its placement should be heard as referring to something, so hearers have to identify its referent. Hence, sequential placement provides a relevant indication to ascertaining laughter’s referent. When laughter can be interpreted as referring to talk, usually that talk occurs immediately before the laugh (Glenn, 1995). The referent of IE’s laughter is, therefore, the preceding question and its function, as indicated by Glenn (2003), appears in this case to be that of resisting IR’s question. In fact, as can be observed in the start of IE’s response (lines 9–16), she does not confirm IR’s statement and practically reduces the relationship with the leader of her party to a mere co-presence in institutional political ‘acts’ (line 12). To IR’s personal question, moreover, IE opposes and identifies the ‘important’ aspect (line 13) of the preface to IR’s question in which she (perhaps) should have focused this question: the public political act against the VAT raise. Finally, it can be seen that despite the fact that IE does not address IR’s question in her utterance in lines 9–30, IR does not produce a follow-up question to somehow challenge it. On this next occasion IE is Mr Montilla, President of the regional government of Catalonia. Mr Montilla, born in the region of Andalusia, is the first President of Catalonia not to have been born in the region over which he governs. This precise issue gives rise to IR’s question – after discussing current political issues and the future election in which IE is again running as a candidate – in the following data extract. Data extract 8 [EP-Montilla-00:12:00] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
IR:
IE:
.hhh José Montilla >son of an ↑Andalusian labourer< who arrived in Catalonia at the age of sixteen and ends up being President of the Regional Government (.) it’s: the Catalan dream some people say you’re the Catalan Obama .hhh ar:: would it have been possible for this labourer’s son to have got to The Andalusian Council? (0.6) what do you think .hh (.) I don’t know actually I don’t I don’t know some people say that it would have been more difficult for sure (.) I I don’t think so I think that it depends on circumstances o:n on the personal circumstances of each person on determination (.) .h ar:: fortunately democracy one of its greatest assets is that :: (1.2) mh someone despite their
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IR: IE: IR: IE: IR: IE: IR: IE: IR:
IE:
origins ar::: can get wherever:: they might put their mind to can’t they? (0.6) because there are lots of people who don::’t mh usually don’t ask you where you’re from but more where you’re going (1.1) and I think that’s the key [which explains these things a bit [.hhh we’re watching:: (.) pictures right now of: of your origins of: tha::t [boy:: from Córdoba mh hm [That’s a photo of Iznájar and that’s a photo now of of well [I was living in Catalonia [You had hair there eh? [hh heh heh HA HA HA HA [Yes I had hair now I don’t but:[: [In th(h)e p(h)a(h)s(h)t o hhh= =I did and a lo:t ha ha= =You were you were very hippy from what I see at that time right? Well they’re pictures from the [sixties. [Yes that was normal then right? .hh ar well so the thing is tha:t mh I’m wondering what remains of the stereotypical Andalusian because you (.) you don’t like bullfighting you don’t like Sevillanas dancing: you’re more Germanic. I’m not surprised your triplets go to the German school. (1.3) .hh well I a:m but the thing is that I think it’s a stereotype as well tha::t people from Andalusia ((continues))
The first thing we may notice in the above data extract is that IR is inviting IE (lines 1–6) to produce a ‘story’. The concept of a story, as a particular kind of a collaboratively produced narrative in conversation, was first studied by Labov (1972) and developed within the field of CA by Sacks (1992). Stories can be either ‘volunteered’ or ‘invited’ – that is, initiated by teller or recipient, respectively (Watson, 1990). In invited stories the recipient of the story provides the preface (or first utterance), whereby the materials produced by the putative recipient should be integrated into the putative teller’s story (Watson, 1990: 275). The putative teller, then, after s/he has been invited, might accept or decline to narrate the story s/he has been requested to produce. As observed, the invitation of stories is practically an integral part of talk show discourse, in which the host invites his or her guests to produce stories of personal experience (Thornborrow, 2001). Politicians that go on talk shows are also usually required to produce narratives about their private or personal life (Eriksson, 2010) at the request of the host. What appears to be uncommon, though, is to find invited stories of personal experience in political interviews. Despite the fact that IR’s invitation to produce a story could be resolved with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response (the final question is ‘Would it have been possible for this labourer’s son to have got to The Andalusian Council? (0.6) what do you think’, lines 4–6), the materials included by IR in the story preface – the contraposition, for example, of opposite membership categories – project the elaboration of a personal ‘success story’. This is how IE understands it, in fact, by uttering his response in lines 7–15, but the account he
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provides is about general success stories in ‘democracy’ (line 10) and not about his personal ‘success story’. His story therefore diverges from the preface projected by IR; IE meanwhile manages to give his response a more political or institutional touch and, as a result, to return the conversation to the domain of public and political affairs. In invited stories the recipient of the story usually has the right to include ‘response tokens’ (e.g. ‘mh hm’ in line 17 or ‘Yes’ in line 27) or questions (such as in lines 25 or 27–31) to prompt IE to elaborate the story already underway. In this particular case, moreover, IR uses something that is not completely alien to television: images on a screen to which both IR and IE and the studio audience have access. With this simple resource their interaction is reinstated in the domain of IE’s private sphere. In fact, the three photos of three different times in the life of Mr Montilla are presented (coinciding, roughly, with lines 16–18, 19 and 20–22) on the screen and interpreted by IE as a prompt to produce an account of the personal circumstances in which they were taken. Two of the photos are accompanied by a request by IR for elaboration by IE (lines 17; 20 and 25), while the other photo becomes itself a request for the account that IE produces in line 18. In talk show celebrity interviews hosts exploit the sequential characteristics of these narratives to take full advantage of them as a performance (Thornborrow, 2001). An essential element in achieving this is the IR and IE’s joint production of something amusing or laughable (Montgomery, 2000) initiated usually at the expense of a humorous or unexpected comment by the IR. In the above data extract, the revelation of images of a much younger IR present in this interview the perfect opportunity to generate something laughable. In particular, the contrast that IR establishes between the image of Mr Montilla when he ‘had hair’ (line 20) and that of the politician before her serves to invoke laughter from IR (lines 21 and 23) as well as IE (line 24). It is assumed, by extension, that the final aim is that of provoking laughter from the studio audience and the ‘overhearing audience’ in their homes. With the use of invited stories or B-events, the IRs in the fragments analysed have sought to penetrate the private and personal arena of the politicians interviewed; that is, the one that, given the public function of the politician, is more likely to be the object of gossip. This, along with a lack of apparent neutralism in some of the IRs’ actions leading to an alignment with the IEs’ statements, gives us an image of political interviews whose aim of making the politician publicly accountable can only be secondary. IRs, as a result, relax their mandate of establishing themselves as intermediaries of a critical audience to move, instead, to ‘personalize’ politics with the clear aim of entertaining. IEs, meanwhile, may benefit from these kinds of interviews, as they permit them a favourable self-presentation. However, as noted by Eriksson (2010), participation in these interviews is not without risks. In fact, it places politicians in a dilemma: if they do not follow the IR’s game they may appear impersonal and too formal; however, going too far with the game could compromise their public image which, traditionally, is associated with seriousness and sobriety. In this regard, perhaps, Ms Aguirre’s and Mr Montilla’s attempts to resist IR’s attempts to lead the interviews into personal terrain can be understood. In terms of the fragments analysed, it can be stated that a certain degree of acquiescence – unlike the dialectical nature of interviews on public service broadcasters – has characterized these interviews, which, in the same vein, may have served to transmit a shared perspective between IR and IE.
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Conclusions Undoubtedly, in the interviews broadcast on morning shows of commercial broadcasters we also find some of the ingredients – formulations, follow-up questions, challenges, preferences, lack of acknowledgement tokens, etc. – usually associated with the classical genre of the political news interview. Thus, in interviews of both types of broadcasters we may appreciate a generic observance of the main rules – neutralism and adversarialness – that govern journalists’ conduct. In the commercial broadcaster interviews, however, a marked tendency can be seen to abandon or relax these rules, which is not detected in interviews on public television. Despite the fact that the morning show was initially conceived as an infotainment programme, with a hybrid content of various genres, the phenomenon of hybridation appears to influence – at least as deduced from the interviews studied – in a different manner commercial and public television morning shows. While on public television morning shows both information and entertainment appear in a more compartmentalized form, in commercial broadcaster morning shows information and entertainment appear to be consistently intertwined. Insofar as this is true, and insofar as infotainment and misinformation are taken as equivalent phenomena, political interviews shown on commercial broadcaster morning shows lose a good part of their potential function. This function is that of facilitating political communication to enable the public to remain vigilant before political powers. IRs in public service and commercial broadcasters present two different interviewing styles. IRs’ style in public service broadcasters, in which their commitment to hold politicians accountable is taken seriously, attempting to maintain the delicate balance between neutralism and adversarialness, comes close to the ideal of the news interview described above. This style points to interviews with a well-articulated institutional character which, consequently, better reflect the balance of powers between the three institutions involved: media, politics and society. The style of IRs in commercial broadcasters, however, in which holding politicians accountable is not a priority objective, is half way between news interview and talk show interview. This style is indicative of interviews with a weaker institutional nature and in which the balance of powers between the three institutions leans more towards media and politics, somewhat neglecting society, which should be its chief goal. The different interview styles also point to different conceptions of the public. IRs in public service broadcasters work through an intermediary role with a critical public concerned with grasping the varied faces of politics. IRs in commercial broadcasters, however, act more as journalists who perform on behalf of a public more interested in personal than political issues, thus construed as passive observers of the political process. In my data, political interviewing in commercial broadcasters appears to draw on practices that are traditionally associated with talk show interviews. This essential difference between interviewing styles in public and commercial broadcasters has been observed in this study in Spain, but also in other countries such as the United Kingdom (see Lauerbach, 2004). The hybridization of genres within political interviews in commercial broadcasters appears to form part of a trend towards conversationalization of public discourse, a colonization of the public sphere by practices from the private sphere (Fairclough, 1995), in order to win over the audience or increase it. This, meanwhile,
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seems to be encompassed within a general and international trend in private broadcasters to bring entertainment to information in order to popularize news and current affairs programmes and gain audience. This phenomenon, which consists of delivering information that has first been infused with emotion, personalization, populism, gossip or scandal, has been widely studied for a while and has been given names such as tabloidization (Hallin, 1996). This study also shows the difficulties involved in linking the legal framework, the media system and journalistic culture to specific interviewing styles. A priori, and in line with these factors, infotainment should have colonized in Spain the interviewing practices in both public and commercial broadcasters. In practice, this is not the case, as far as the determining factor appears to be channel ownership. This investigation, however, aspires to have identified discursive practices that help us understand how some political interviews do not adhere to their mission of holding politicians accountable. In conclusion, from the two styles of interviews studied, we see that those shown on morning shows by commercial broadcasters contribute to contaminating the public sphere. This derives from confusing public political issues with politicians’ personal affairs, conceiving political information as a spectacle, perceiving the citizen as a mere consumer. We all know the result of this: a flourishing disinterest in politics leading to a demobilization of the people. Funding This work was supported by Spain’s Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (grant number CS0200802589/S0CI).
Notes 1. 2.
3.
4.
In fact, a large part of political interviews shown in Spain are broadcast on ‘morning show’ type programmes. Of the British and American channels studied, only the British BBC – ‘Editorial Guidelines’ – and ITV appear to have something resembling style manuals. In ITV’s ‘Code of Conduct’, the only mention of viewers and customers indicates that they should receive ‘accurate information on which they can make an informed decision’ (ITV, n.d.). The degree of politicization and independence of Spanish public media has fluctuated according to the political party in power. For example, when the socialist government was in power, a law was passed in 2006 whereby the heads of public corporations had to be elected by two-thirds of Parliament; that is, through consensus between government and opposition. The victory of the conservative Popular Party in 2011 promptly led to a change in this law. The Popular Party approved a decree law that modified the way the board of directors of public radio and television was elected, and by which an absolute majority was sufficient. While public perception during the period 2006–2011 and the various international accolades awarded to the public media intimated depoliticization and independence, from late 2011 with the new law and the new board of directors, signs are starting to appear – according to complaints from journalists in the public media, a drop in viewership for news programmes and a report from the Council of Europe on political pressure in TVE – of re-politicization and bias. In mental health consultations, for instance, formulations have been shown to be used by therapists to display the psychotherapeutic value of their own interpretations (Schwartz, 1976), selecting a candidate problem and establishing it as therapeutically relevant (Antaki et al.,
