Journal article
Between Adversarialism and Cooperation: Rhetorical Strategies of Interviewers and Interviewees in Presidential Elections
Journalism practice, Vol.ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print), pp.1-22
03/23/2023
DOI: 10.1080/17512786.2023.2191864
Abstract
This article aims to examine the rhetorical strategies employed by interviewers and interviewees to understand how adversarialism unfolds in television broadcasts. While most studies to date analyze a single interview or compare how the same interviewer confronts several interviewees, we capture how different panels of interviewers address adversarial questions in the same program format. We use mixed methods to assess nine interviews with Brazilian presidential candidates on the Roda Viva program aired during the 2018 elections. The results reveal that the structural characteristics of Roda Viva reduce the opportunities for equivocation gaps. In addition, while media professionals adopt a more assertive stance toward candidates (seeking to deauthenticate them), some interviewers from outside journalism offered the interviewees moral support. In turn, politicians avoided tricky questions and criticized the media coverage when placed in "embarrassing" situations. We also discuss how adversarial questions may help populist candidates since they use such opportunities to play the victim's role and attack the interviewers' credibility. Besides scrutinizing the media's performance in a non-Western setting, the paper contributes to the work of journalists, candidates, and political consultants by highlighting which rhetorical elements favor or harm the efficiency of those participating in such interviews.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Between Adversarialism and Cooperation: Rhetorical Strategies of Interviewers and Interviewees in Presidential Elections
- Creators
- Francisco Paulo Jamil Marques - Universidade Federal do ParanáEdna Miola - Universidade Tecnológica Federal do ParanáAndressa Butture Kniess - Universidade Federal do ParanáNaiza Comel - Universidade Federal do Paraná
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Journalism practice, Vol.ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print), pp.1-22
- Publisher
- Routledge
- DOI
- 10.1080/17512786.2023.2191864
- ISSN
- 1751-2786
- eISSN
- 1751-2794
- Number of pages
- 22
- Language
- English
- Electronic publication date
- 03/23/2023
- Academic Unit
- School of Journalism and Mass Communication; Center for Social Science Innovation
- Record Identifier
- 9984772259302771
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