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Who is the journalist, a conversation analysis of interviews with party leaders during the 2006 election period, focus on the ideology of journalismÖrebro University, Department of Humanities, Media- and Communication studies, C-studySupervisor: Mats EkströmAuthor: Erica HellstrandIn contemporary society the media is part of the politics, or maybe, politics is part of the media. Whatever the case, they are important to each other, the media play a conclusive role in the connect between politics and citizens, and thus, results of election. The relation between the media and politics should continuously be studied and discussed in the continuously changing modern society.This paper examines the practice of news journalism in interviews with swedish party leaders during the 2006 election period. Focusing on how the ideology of journalism and the professional identity of journalists affect the practice the researcher hopes to contribute to the further understanding of the area. Steven E. Clayman has studied broadcast political interviews and the use of tribune of the people-footing, which means that journalist's align with the public in different ways. Thus, delimitations of the study has been set to the analysis of how journalists use the TV-audience, the studio audience, the people, the citizens, the voters and the common in a set of techniques during the interview.The method used is conversation analysis which concentrates on utterances as actions within sequences of talk. The method is based on a model, developed by Sacks and Schegloff, of turn taking which describes the basic rules of conversation. It is a qualitative study of eight party leader-interviews recorded during the 2006 election. The aim is to examine the professional identity of journalists as a tribune of the people, in the practice of their profession. The researcher aimed to answer two questions:Does the interview structure contribute to enhance the role of the journalist as a tribune of the people?Can patterns be found in the journalist's question-formulations which imply that the journalist is acting in the role as a tribune of the people?Everything in the interview happen because someone has decided i should happen. The scene itself is perfectly planned to fit the aim of the interview, namely to mediate the interrogation of politicians to the people. Questions formulated by persons in the audience or persons at home watching the program constitute a resource to the interviewer, when the question is asked the interviewer can further interrogate the interviewee on the subject without having to explain why the question is worth asking. Further, the structure of the speech-exchange also creates resources for the journalist to stance him/herself as a tribune of the people. Four categories of aligning with the public was found in the material. The journalist can; (1) construct a hypothetical person and ask one or several questions on behalf of this person, (2) formulate a question on behalf of the people, (3) formulate a question on the basis of a indefinite crowd of people and (4) formulate a question on the basis of a definite crowd of people.The results implies that the journalists act as a tribunes of the people, more or less, throughout the interview situation. The question yet to be asked is if this only constitute resources in a struggle between different agendas or if it actually is imbedded in the identity of the journalist. The ideoloy is said to control, motivate and inspire. Thus, a tribune of the people stance creates resources and legitimizes the practice of journalism, but it also creates a place in society where journalism is needed. |
