Adversarial Political Interviewing Worldwide Perspectives During Polarized Times

This book presents a collection of studies on political interviews in a variety of broadcast media worldwide. Following the growing scholarly interest in media talk as a dominant form of political communication in contemporary society, a number of eminent international scholars analyze empirical material from the discourse of public figures and interviewer–journalists to address questions related to the characteristics, conduct, and potential effects of political interviews. Chapters span a varied array of cultural contexts: the U.S.A., U.K., Israel, Japan, Italy, Turkey, Greece, Australia, Philippines, Finland, Brazil, Malaysia, Spain, Venezuela, Montenegro, and the European Community, enabling a comparison of the different structures and contents of political interviews in societies from West to East. Authors bring an interest in discourse and conversation analysis, as well as in rhetorical techniques and strategies used by both interviewers and interviewees, from different disciplinary viewpoints including linguistic, political, cultural, sociological, and social–psychological. In doing so, the book develops a framework to assess the extent to which media political interviews and talk shows, and regular news programs, play a central role in transmitting accurate and genuine political information to the general public, and how audiences can make sense of these programs’ output.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

Introduction: Political Interviews – An Analytical Model.- Reciprocal Interactions between Interviewers and Interviewees.- Neutrality, Non-Neutrality, and Hybridity in Political Interviews.- Manifestations of Integrated Hybridity in Journalistic Questioning During the 2012 Elections in Greece.- Interviewing Styles: Reciprocal Positioning and Power in the Israeli Context.- Threat to Face and Equivocation in Televised Interviews of Italy’s Politicians For and Against the 2016 Constitutional Referendum.- Aristotelian Framing in Political Discourse: A Case Study of Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s Exclusive Interview with Radio Televisyen Malaysia and the News Agency Bernama.- Beyond the Question-Answer Format: How Montenegrin Interviewers Depart from the “Normative” Political Interview Structure.- Argumentative and Persuasive Strategies During Political Interviews.- A Metafunctional Analysis of Two Televised U.K. Political Interviews with Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer.- Argumentative Strategies and Self-Image Projection in Spanish Political Interviews.- Crisis Response Strategies in Political Interviews: A European Union Perspective.- The Finnish “Famous Five” in Television Interviews: Cultural Characteristics of Party Leaders’ Response Style.- A Linguistic Analysis of Interviewing Discourse During a Talk Show in the U.K..- Reference Statements and Quotes as Communication Strategy: Effects of Source Use During Japanese Televised Political Interviews.- Creating and Shaping Images in Interviews with Populist Politicians.- Adversarial Rhetoric or Lapdog Journalism? Political Interviews During the 2018 Brazilian Presidential Elections.- Pejoration in Political Interviews: Contrasting U.S. President Donald J. Trump with Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro.- Sustaining a Populist Persona: CNN Philippines’ Political Interview with President Rodrigo Roa Duterte as Image Restoration.- Understanding Turkish Political Culture through Televised Interviews: The Case of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.- The Role of Political Interviews in Mainstreaming and Normalizing the Far-Right: A View from Australia.- Coda: The Past, Present, and Future of Television Interview Studies.- Political Interviewing Research: Commonalities, Contrasts, Conclusions & Critiques.

Ofer Feldman is Professor of Political Psychology and Behavior at the Faculty of Policy Studies, Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan. His research centers on the psychological underpinnings of mass and elite political behavior in Japan, and he has extensively published journal articles and book chapters on issues related to political communication and persuasion, political leadership, and political culture. His books include The Psychology of Political Communicators (2019, edited with Sonja Zmerli), The Rhetoric of Political Leadership (2020, edited), When Politicians Talk (2021, edited) and Politische Psychologie (2021, 2nd ed., edited with Sonja Zmerli). In 2021 he was elected as Honorary Chair of the Research Committee on Political Psychology, International Political Science Association.