Andrew Tolson

A new authenticity? Communicative practices on YouTube

Recent discussion of some user-generated material on the Internet has argued that its ‘freshness’ and ‘spontaneity’ offers a new form of ‘authenticity’ in mediated communication. With a focus on YouTube, particularly where extensive use is made of the facility to post text comments on vlogs, it has been suggested that such activities reproduce the feel of ‘face-to-face communication’. Interestingly such accounts echo previous debates about broadcast talk, although YouTube is defined as a species of ‘post-television’. This article assesses these claims through a case study of one practice of user-generated communication on YouTube, the so-called ‘make-up tutorial’. It takes an approach to spoken discourse analysis previously developed in the study of broadcast talk, but it also makes some observations about the structure of the YouTube site, by comparison with the discursive ‘regime’ of television. This analysis finds that there are indeed some distinctive communicative practices on YouTube, but rather than assessing these in terms of their ‘authenticity’, it is more useful to consider their ‘communicative entitlements’, which throw new light on the constraints of traditional forms of broadcasting.

Television talk shows: discourse, performance, spectacle

Chapters included ‘Talking About Talk: The Academic Debate’, pp 7-30, and ‘It Makes It Okay to Cry: Two types of “Therapy Talk” in TV talk shows’ (co-author Raina Brunvatne), pp139-154.

Belligerent broadcasting and makeover television : professional incivility in Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares

This article looks at the significance of the practices of ‘belligerent broadcasting’ in the popular ‘trouble-shooting’ business television programme Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, USA. Belligerent broadcasting is a broadcast style that offers as spectacle expressions of anger or impatience, or the exercise of intimidation, against an on-screen interlocutor. Focusing on the performances of Gordon Ramsay, the article analyses the management of on-screen confrontation between participants occupying asymmetrical positions of power and perceived expertise. The article looks at how the face-threatening component of belligerent talk is ameliorated by strategies of authenticity and its representation as a productive force within the narrative of the programme. Finally, we assess the relevance of arguments that this broadcasting style might be seen as part of a ‘new incivility’ across media discourses.

“Authentic” talk in broadcast news: The construction of community

Some recent assessments of public communication have demonstrated a concern for “authentic” forms of discourse in public life. This article uses a methodology derived from conversation analysis to examine different forms of public discourse in news interviews. Previous studies taking this approach have outlined the protocols for formal news interviews, but this article also looks at some types of “conversational” news interviewing that are increasingly prevalent in contemporary broadcasting. The modes of address (to the overhearing audience) in these types of interview can be usefully compared to the inclusive, sociable address associated with some genres of popular entertainment. It is suggested that the effect of “communality,” constructed by these conversational forms of talk, might be one factor in the development of new forms of participatory “public‐ness,” around some types of news events.

Media Talk and Political Elections in Europe and America

This book aims to make a much needed contribution to the field of political communication studies. 1 There are two aspects to this initiative. The first, and most important, is the application of techniques of discourse analysis to specific examples of mediated political communication (specifically TV and the Internet), ranging from interviews and election debates, to political speeches and web-based, online communication. Here there is a particular interest in contemporary developments and emerging forms of mediated political communication, such as changing practices of news interviewing, uses of the Internet to develop new campaign strategies (such as those used to promote Barack Obama in the 2008 US presidential election) and the party leader debates which were held for the first time in the UK general election of 2010.

Political Interviews: Pushing the Boundaries of ‘Neutralism’

Ekstrom and Tolson focus on how the credibility of politicians and the professional norms of journalists are discursively negotiated in adversarial interviewing in election campaigns. The comparative analysis includes styles of interviewing in news and current affairs programs in the UK, Sweden, France, Greece and Italy. Conversation analysis is used to explore how journalists push the boundaries of impartiality in question formats, footings and sequences of questioning. Interviews in which politicians’ credibility was seriously challenged occurred in all countries. However significantly more aggressive and face-threatening questioning, than the typical accountability interviewing, occurred in three contexts: in forms of live interviewing performed by celebrity journalists; in specific program formats such as political talk shows; and in interviews with politicians whose views are positioned as deviant and outside the political mainstream.

Citizens Talking Politics in the News: Opinions, Attitudes and (Dis)Engagement

Ekstrom and Andrew Tolson investigate how citizen’s voices are constructed and contextualized in news media across Europe. Interviews and vox pops are analyzed with respect to citizen roles, identities, attitudes, entitlement, epistemic status, and relationships to politicians. The vox pop constitutes a distinct format of news production although it is expanded into hybrid forms. It was frequent in the news in Sweden, France and the UK and almost nonexistent in Greece and Italy. Citizens are typically represented in a problematic relationship to politicians and are primarily used to illustrate categories of opinions, identities and attitudes. There is a tendency to trivialize citizens’ knowledge and engagement in politics. The few instances where citizens and politicians talk to each other confirm the rift between them. Some vox pops illustrate a shift from the voice of the concerned citizen to expressions of populist apathy and an implicitly patronising portrayal of political ignorance.

Polarized Politics and Personalization: British TV News Coverage of the EU Referendum 2016

This chapter offers an overview of British television news coverage of the 2016 EU referendum campaign. It examines three of the most significant British news channels (BBC, ITV and Channel 4) over a period of six weeks, focusing on three main critical issues: (1) editorial commentary on a polarized campaign; (2) a focus on personal divisions and animosities; (3) a problematic use of vox pops. Together, as was recognized in some critical comments at the time, these had negative effects on the discourse of the referendum debate by compromising public discussion of the ‘complex issues’ involved.

Different Views of Europe in TV News Reports

Tolson and Thornborrow present a case study of news reporting from other EU member states, where national journalists are located as ‘field reporters’. The study compares journalistic practices prevalent in France and in the UK taking the news programmes TFI ‘J20H’ and Channel 4 News as examples. The French material consists of two contrasting items, one from the UK about the Eurosceptic party UKIP, and the second from Poland about the popularity of the EU in that country. By comparison the Channel 4 report, from Copenhagen, is constructed in a very different journalistic style. The reporter, Matt Frei, is constantly on camera, taking the viewer on a journey to investigate the Danish People’s Party (DPP); assuming a distance between the viewer and a different EU country that becomes, to some extent, a kind of cultural travelogue.

Media Talk Shows

This article is a revision of the previous edition article by A.G.D. Leurdijk, volume 23, pp. 15437–15440,