TV news A descriptive framework

Studies in News – broadcast news as discourse Harley and Montgomery 1985 Graddol 1994 Bondi Paganelli 1990 Haarman 1999/2004/2006 The news interview: Clayman 1991,Harris 1991, Heritage and Greatbasch 1991, Clayman and Heritage 2002

Broadcast news A different set of verbal practices than those of print journalism A radically different communication situation Simultaneity in transmission and reception so that audiences experience it as live Temporal flow normally not subject to audience control, items sequenced by broadcaster and experienced and decoded in real time by the audience

relationships the relationship between broadcasters, listeners and viewers is an unforced relationship because it is unenforceable (Scannell 1996:23) Live, evanescent, ephemeral, and unforced A communicative ethos oriented towards sociability rather than instrumentality

regulation Broadcasting standards Accuracy Impartiality Facts vs opinions Range and balance

Linguistic approach Discourse analysis: a discrete level of linguistic organisation Discourse as social action: need to take into account the context and interpersonal features Discourse practice: sequential arrangement of discourse acts to serve institutionalised purposes Discourse structure: a structured set of discourse units

News as a discourse genre Over the years there has been a stabilisation and sedimentation of a particular set of discourse practices and the enabling framework from which discursive change and innovation take place These are shifting and unstable genres (look at TV ARK) The discursive embodiment of an institution

Discourse domain An institutionalised area of social life dependent upon recognisably distinct discourse practices and genres (e.g. law, politics, medicine, religion, journalism) Repertoires of behaviour can become specialised and pre-specified (e.g. by training) Demarcation of roles (reporter, presenter, correspondent) Institutional supports and pressures

Participation framework (Goffman 1981) Author (editorial team) Animator (presenter reading a script) Principal, the accountable source (director general, the organisation itself) Interviewees (vox, LP)

Modality and alignment Systems for expressing speakers attitude towards and assessment of the truth of the propositions being uttered Epistemic: resources which enable speakers to signal stronger and weaker commitment to the factuality of statements Evidentiality: resources for communicating degrees of reliability in the sources of information, (direct experience, an inference from evidence, quotative)

Institutionalised roles News presenter, newsreader, anchor,newscaster Reporter, correspondent, editor

Dicourse structure of news broadcasts Highly structured: predictable sequences of discourse activities, often with transitions Opening signature visuals (continuity announcements) Headlines News items (news presentation( news kernel)+ news subsidiary (news report, live interview) Closing (reprise preface, reprise, closing, trailer, leavetaking)

Closed vs open Things are different in rolling news programmes such as CNN, SkyNews international, Al Jazeera etc which broadcast over 24 hours and follow breaking news items

Open vs closed – bulletins vs rolling news programmes Fixed timing Tight framing Terse Retrospecively summative of event Presentational/monologic Single voices Studio centred discourse hierarchy Punctuative /completitive Fluid timing Loose framing Prolix Unfolding simultaneously with event Interpersonal/dialogic Multivoiced Flattening of hierarchy in favour of non-studio voice flow

News presentation elements Role and performance News reading and direct visual address The space of the news studio and the space of the news field The discourse of headlines News items and news kernels Features of news kernels

News reports TV news and narrative Principles of intelligibility Tense and reference Textual cohesion Interplay of visual and verbal Narrative or commentary?

2way interviews Live discourse and scripted discourse The live 2way vs news presentation Truth values and the live 2way Push vs pull and scalar expressions Issues of identity

Broadcast News interviews Media interviews and news interviews The accountability interview The experiential/witness interview The expert interview The interview fragment

Changing discourse Stylistic sub-generic norms Broadcast news and pressures for change Changes in presentational style Discursive change and normative tension The limits of conversationalism The limits of neutralism The limits of informality Discursive change and validity claims

Genre changes From realism to high modernism to post-modernism Self referentiality Genre mixing "Instead of referring to the real world, much media output devotes itself to referring to other images, other narratives; self- referentiality is all-embracing, although it is rarely taken account of. Furthermore, the commentary on the intertextuality and its self referential nature has itself become the subject of self referential and recursive commentary.intertextuality Many cultural critics have dismissed this as merely a symptom or side-effect of mass consumerism; however, alternate explanations and critique have also been offered. One critic asserts that it reflects a fundamental paradox: the increase in technological and cultural sophistication, combined with an increase in superficiality and dehumanization.consumerism