David Greatbatch

A turn-taking system for British news interviews

The British news interview turn-taking system operates through a simple form of turn-type preallocation. This article shows that a large number of the systematic differences between the news interview and mundane conversation are a product of these constraints on the production of types of turns. It then explores the relationship of turn-type preallocation in news interviews to the background legal and institutional restrictions on British broadcast journalists. In so doing, it notes how the organisation of turn-taking in two other types of broadcast interview can differ from that in the news interview due to differences between the institutionalized footings that the interviewers are conventionally required to maintain within them. (Conversation analysis, mass communication, British speech, turn-taking systems, institutional talk)

Generating Applause: A Study of Rhetoric and Response at Party Political Conferences

Recent work in conversation analysis suggests that audience responses to political speeches are strongly influenced by the rhetorical construction of political messages. This paper shows that seven basic rhetorical formats were associated with nearly 70% of the applause produced in response to 476 political speeches to British party political conferences in 1981. The relationship between rhetoric and response is broadly independent of political party, the political status of th speaker, and the popularity of the message. Performance factors are found to influence the likelihood of audience response strongly.

Tasks-in-interaction: paper and screen based documentation in collaborative activity

Drawing on field studies of three, real world, organisational environments, namely an architectural practice, a medical centre and the Control Rooms on London LJnderground, this paper explores the ways in which personnel use paper and screen based documentation to support synchronous and asynchronous collaborative activity. It discusses how collaboration involves a complex configuration of coparticipation by personnel in a range of activities, ranging from seemingly individual tasks to mutually focussed, real time cooperation. By addressing the ways in which personnel manage collaboration and interactionally organise a range of activities, we discuss the ways in which paper and screen based media provide rather distinctive support for cooperation. These observations form the basis for some suggestions concerning requirements for CSCW systems. INTRODUCTION In relation to the concern for uncovering the details of collaborative work there has recently been a growing interest in undertaking naturalistic studies of technologically mediated collaborative activity in ‘real world’ organisational environments. These studies have focussed on a variety of activities including ship navigation, piloting helicopters, airport ground control air traffic control, and traffic management in an urban railway network (i.e. Hutchins [14], Linde [16], Suchman [19], Goodwin and Goodwin [7], Harper et al. [10], Heath and Luff [12]). and they have begun to delineate a range of practices and reasoning utilised by organisational personnel in using a variety of tools and systems tcl coordinate reaitime tasks and activities. As yet however, these studies Permission to copy without fee all or part of this material is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for direct commercial advantage, the ACM copyright notice and the title of the publication and its date appear, and notice is given that copying is by permission of the Association for Computing MachinerV. To COPV otherwise, or to republish, requires a fee and/or spacific permission. 01992 ACM 0-89791 -543 -7/92/0010 /0163 ...

Catching Goldfish: Quality in Qualitative Research:

1 .50 have not been primarily concerned with the ways in which their observations and findings might inform the design of tools and technologies to support co-present or physically distributed collaborative activity in the settings in question or the development of more generic requirements for

Knowledge, technology and nursing: The case of NHS Direct

This paper reviews the contribution of qualitative methods to health services research (HSR) and discusses some of the issues involved in recognizing quality in such work. The place of qualitative work is first defined by reference to Archie Cochranes agenda for HSR and the limitations of the recent focus on randomized trials as the standard method. Health care practice involves large elements of improvisation which cannot be captured by evidence-based approaches. Qualitative methods offer ways of understanding this improvisation and of identifying more efficient and effective practices, as well as considering the traditional topics of equity and humanity. The methodological procedures of qualitative work reflect a long-established inductive tradition in scientific practice. The logic of grounded theory provides a contemporary specification. In its application, it is quite different from the methodological anarchy of postmodernism. The use of qualitative research and the theoretically stated generalizations which arise from it inform reflective work by health service managers, planners and clinicians.

Displaying Group Cohesiveness: Humour and Laughter in the Public Lectures of Management Gurus

NHS Direct is a relatively new, nurse-based, 24-hour health advice line run as part of the UK’s National Health Service (NHS). The service delivers health advice remotely via the telephone. A central aspect of the service is the attempt to provide a standard level of health advice regardless of time, space or the background of the nurse. At the heart of this attempt is an innovative health software called CLINICAL ASSESSMENT SYSTEM (CAS). Using a number of qualitative methods, this article highlights how the interaction between the nursing staff and this technology is key to the service. The technology is based on management’s attempt to standardize and control the caller-nurse relationship. Thus the software can be seen as part of an abstract rationality, whereas how it is deployed by nurses is based on a practical rationality that places practice and experience first and sees the technology and protocols as tools.

Management Fashion as Image-Spectacle The Production of Best-Selling Management Books

As perhaps the highest profile group of management speakers in the world, so-called management gurus use their appearances on the international management lecture circuit todisseminate their ideas and to build their personal reputations with audiences of managers. This article examines the use of humour by management gurus during these public performances. Focusing on video recordings of lectures conducted by four leading management gurus (Tom Peters, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Peter Senge and Gary Hamel), the article explicates the verbal and nonverbal practices that the gurus use when they evoke audience laughter. These practices allow the gurus to project clear message completion points, to signal their humourous intent, to ‘invite’ audience laughter, and to manipulate the relationship between their use of humour and their core ideas and visions. The article concludes by suggesting that the ability of management gurus to use these practices effectively is significant because audience laughter can play an important role with respect to the expression of group cohesion and solidarity during their lectures.

Management Speak : Why We Listen to What Management Gurus Tell Us

Drawing on the work of Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle and Daniel Boorstin’sThe Image, this article argues that aesthetic and management fashions are not separate forms, as both represent the preeminence of the image spectacle. Central to this is the increasing emergence of pseudoevents and synthetic products. Using empirical findings from a study of the production of six best-selling management books, it shows that they are manufactured coproductions that result from an intricate editorial process in which the original ideas are moulded in order for them to have a positive impact on the intended audience. Central to this is a set of conventions that stress the vivification of ideas. The editorial process thus seeks to enhance the aesthetic attractiveness of the ideas. The implications of the conceptual approach and empirical findings are considered with respect to current understandings of management fashion.

Laughing with the Gurus

Based on primary research into the public lectures of management gurus, this fascinating new volume analyzes how such gurus disseminate their ideas, values and visions on the international management lecture circuit. Adopting a novel conceptual/theoretical perspective, it brings together insights from the fields of management, sociology, media studies, communications and social psychology. Written by leading figures in the field, this topical book covers such broad ranging areas as the live presentation of management ideas, using rhetoric, legitimating ideas, values and visions, the grammar of persuasion and charisma and oratory and is a valuable resource for students academics and researchers in the fields of management, sociology, and communications.

Risk and the Responsible Health Consumer: The Problematics of Entitlement among Callers to NHS Direct

Management gurus are among the most influential public orators of the day. But mastery of age-old rhetorical devices, including the use of humour, is central to their effectiveness.