магистрант Тешабоева Г.О.

Региональный социально-инновационный университет

Media discourse features and consequences

The most consequential feature of media discourse is that it is addressed to an absent mass audience and not to a group of co-present participants. The fact that media discourse is produced for such an audience influences both its content and its form. In the case of dialogic interaction being broadcast, the audience may be directly addressed by the journalists and, in rare cases, also by their studio guests. As a rule, however, it will be in the position of a ratified overhearer, as for instance when journalists and politicians talk to each other in order to display their discourse to the audience. This has consequences for the way in which such discourse is constructed, as has been demonstrated for the news interview by analysts working within the framework of conversation analysis. In refraining from giving feedback to their interviewees, interviewers indicate that the interviewees’ answers are not addressed to them but to the audience [1, p.120].

Another consequence of media discourse being addressed to an absent mass audience concerns the construction of meaning by the first-frame participants. Both in ordinary and in mediated face-to-face dialogues, participants may initiate repair sequences. In contrast to everyday discourse, however, there are constraints on the negotiation of meaning in mediated discourse. First, the length of a repair sequence is constrained by the programme’s strict time schedule, and second, the audience cannot directly intervene in this process between the first- frame participants by asking clarification questions. It may, however, participate in a mediated manner if there is audience participation, or through other types of mediated discourse, for instance letters to the editor, phone-ins, email, chat, or through meta-discourse with other members of the audience. However, such attempts at the negotiation of meaning are always delayed or after the event.

Just as other discourses of a society, the discourse of politics, and its ways of interacting with the discourse of the mass media, is subject to constant change. Such changes manifest themselves through the hybridization of its communicative genres - by incorporating features of one genre into another, and/or by a blending of generic styles, or by drawing on other or more discourses than before, e.g. by incorporating elements of economical, ecological and scientific discourse into political discourse [2]. The contemporary political interview in the Anglo-Saxon media is a particularly clear case of this happening. A particular kind of change has been triggered by a change in the participant structure of the political interview, or rather, in the status of the participating politicians. The arrival of grass-roots political movements and the appearance of their representatives in the public sphere have introduced a new type of politician to public interaction whose expertise may lie more in the fields of science and eco-technology than in politics. In dealing with professional politicians who have all present-day commodities and any possible personal and technical support at their disposal, and with professional interviewers who have the media know-how at their fingertips, they may be assigned therefore the status of partial experts, if not lay persons, and be treated accordingly. Present-day political discourse in the media thus has become hybrid in that it articulates together the orders of discourse of the political system (conventional, official politics), of the media, of science and technology, of grassroots sociopolitical movements, of ordinary private life, and so forth - but in an unstable and shifting configuration. [2, p.146].

Another change that can be observed is the incorporation of the familiar, “soft and feel-good” style of everyday conversation with its norms of politeness into the serious political interview:

Political interviews typically mix their genres and their discourses. In complex ways, politicians characteristically shift into conversational genre, and draw upon lifeworld discourses, in finding ways to address mass audiences who are listening or watching in mainly domestic environments. [2, p.151].

The tendency towards everyday discourse holds for interviewers as well, but as yet seems to show itself more in the private than in the public media, at least in Britain. If hybrid genres can be considered indicators of social change in general, a particular composition of hybrid elements can indicate a particular state of social development:

A particular articulation of genres and discourses within a generic complex is a particular effect of power corresponding to a particular state of hegemonic relations. It is also a potential focus for resistance and struggle. To take an example, not all professional politicians are willing to go along with more aggressive and contestatory styles of political interview which fit in with the media priorities to make programmes more entertaining by subordinating political discussion to gladiatorial contest. [2, p.151]

However, the manner in which journalists define their roles and professional identities can vary across channels within one culture [3].

Variation across cultures, which is the focus of the papers in this volume, is of course to be expected all the more. For instance, in the participant structure of news programmes, in some cultures one prominent anchor who is in sole control may be preferred, in others two or more anchors conversationally interacting as a team. The interesting point in comparative analysis comes when such features can be shown to cluster in a meaningful way, so that they support generalising interpretations.

Bibliography:

1. Clayman, S. and Heritage, J. 2002. The News Interview. Journalists and Public Figures on the Air. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

2. Fairclough, N. 2003. Analysing Discourse. Textual Analysis for Social Research. London: Rout ledge.

3. Lauerbach, G. 2003. “Context, Contextualization, and Re-contextualization.” In Mengel, E.,-J. Schmid and M. Steppat (eds), Anglistentag 2002 Bayreuth. Proceedings. Trier: Wis- senschaftlicher Verlag, 411-422.