Lingua Inglese 1 LM Spoken narrative and media ANALYSING MEDIA TALK 2 News talk

Media talk Primarily interested in building a social relationship Interactivity Perfomativity Liveliness Para-social interaction Part of the conversationalisation of public discourse?

Interactivity The style of speech used in media talk is designed to produce active, participating listeners; even though listeners are not present, media speech acts as if they were You need to establish the “participation framework” (who speakers and listeners are and whether participating or not)

Performativity There is an overhearing audience (the audience sitting at home) There is pressure on media talkers to perform to the overhearing audience It is difficult to interact with someone who is not present Media talk has to do a performance of friendliness

Liveliness Media talk has to seem spontaneous even though many programmes are recorded so speakers have to be extra-lively (the rhetoric of “liveness” without being live)

Para-social interaction You need to assess whether or not speakers are using a script (but pretending not to in order to seem spontaneous) Do speakers adjust their response to the supposed response of the audience and does the audience anticipate this?

Mediated relationships with absent others Intimacy at a distance What kind of group identity does this produce in people who are sharing the events What is the “imagined community” of people watching things on TV or using the Internet

Other characteristics of media talk Sympathetic circularity – an exaggeratedly conversational style used in media talk to involvelisteners at home with studio guests Media professionals are good at using conversational genres in an institutional framework

News talk News reports are a form of narrative. Remember Labov’s paradox and the two extremes of …… interest credibility You need to see where a news report stands on this line by looking at the way the story is presented and told

Formats of news talk News presenter(s) in the studio News reporters in the studio or “on the spot”? Monologue report or dialogue? Studio-reporter interviews (live or recorded?) How is the interview conducted? In studio? Two-way satellite links?

Presenter-reporter interaction Monologue report? Interview by presenter? Question-answer routine Is reporter’s speech prepared, ready by autocue? Does reporter establish credibility? Does the reporter speculate? Report or narrative reconstruction? Use table 3.1

Interaction in news studio Analyse the interaction between news presenters – e.g. news as gossip between presenters; shared knowledge and mutual affiliation Analyse interaction between presenter and expert; how does expert establish credibility?