Question design and the construction of populist stances in political news interviews

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (6) ◽  
pp. 672-689
Author(s):  
Joanna Thornborrow ◽  
Mats Ekström ◽  
Marianna Patrona
Keyword(s):  
Moral Order ◽  
Broadcast News ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Political News ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Figures ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Journalistic Practice ◽  
News Interviews

This paper focuses on the relationship between journalism and right wing populist discourses in the context of broadcast news interviews. We analyse a specific feature of question design in which the public is invoked as a source of opinionated positions in adversarial interviewing. Analysing data from a range of socio-political contexts, we identify a shift in adversarial questioning along a scale of ‘soft’ populism, that is the attribution of views and concerns to a generic public ‘in crisis’, to ‘hard’ populism, where interviewers construct hypothetical scenarios in which populist positions are attributed to ‘some people’. We argue that the democratic role of journalists as public watchdogs, holding politicians and public figures accountable on behalf of the public, is challenged by this normalisation of populist moral order discourses in a routine journalistic practice, both drawing on and contributing to the propagation of populist agendas and anti-democratic populist rhetoric.

scholarly journals Hearing non-neutral: Listening practices and the construction of societal consensus in hybrid election campaign interviews

Journalism ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-137
Author(s):  
Argyro Kantara
Keyword(s):  
General Election ◽  
Election Campaign ◽  
Broadcast News ◽  
Election Campaigns ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Political News ◽  
The Public ◽  
Societal Consensus ◽  
News Interviews

Ekström and Kroon Lundell, Ekström, Hutchby refer to hybridity in political news interviews as the mix of activities or the systematic shifting between speech exchange systems otherwise associated with non-interview settings. In their examination of journalists’ mixed interactional activities, both Hutchby and Ekström discuss how hybridity is explored as an interactional resource to question politicians and/or create an argumentative environment, breaching the neutralistic role of the broadcast news journalist. In this article, I examine instances of journalists’ breaching neutralism not through their hybrid questioning practices but through their listening practices in one-on-one interviews conducted during the 2012 Greek general election campaigns. In my data, journalists use hybrid listening practices to co-produce politicians’ arguments and to answer their own questions. Findings indicate that journalists’ hybrid listening practices provide political actors with new ways to mainstream and appropriate their manifestos to the public.

Neo-Populist Scandal and Social Media

2020 ◽  
pp. 442-459
Author(s):  
Juha Herkman ◽  
Janne Matikainen
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
News Media ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
News Reporting ◽  
The Public ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Media Environments ◽  
Political Scandals ◽  
The Relationship

The article analyses a political scandal that occurred in Finland in 2015, when an MP of the populist right-wing Finns Party, Olli Immonen, published a Facebook update in which he used the same kind of militant–nationalist rhetoric against multiculturalism that Norwegian mass-murderer Anders Behring Breivik had used a couple of years earlier. By analyzing the content published in both social and news media, the role of social media and the relationship between news reporting and social media are explored by analyzing the progress of the scandal. The analysis indicates the prominent role of social media as being a starting point for scandal and for keeping scandal in the public eye, serving as forums for supporters and opponents of the scandalized politician. The relationship between social and news media seems symbiotic in this case because both of them fed and inspired each other during the scandal. However, further research is needed to fully understand the role of social media in scandals linked to north and west European populist right-wing parties, as well as political scandals occurring in different political contexts and media environments.

Neo-Populist Scandal and Social Media

2017 ◽  
pp. 1-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juha Herkman ◽  
Janne Matikainen
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
News Media ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
News Reporting ◽  
The Public ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Media Environments ◽  
Political Scandals ◽  
The Relationship

The article analyses a political scandal that occurred in Finland in 2015, when an MP of the populist right-wing Finns Party, Olli Immonen, published a Facebook update in which he used the same kind of militant–nationalist rhetoric against multiculturalism that Norwegian mass-murderer Anders Behring Breivik had used a couple of years earlier. By analyzing the content published in both social and news media, the role of social media and the relationship between news reporting and social media are explored by analyzing the progress of the scandal. The analysis indicates the prominent role of social media as being a starting point for scandal and for keeping scandal in the public eye, serving as forums for supporters and opponents of the scandalized politician. The relationship between social and news media seems symbiotic in this case because both of them fed and inspired each other during the scandal. However, further research is needed to fully understand the role of social media in scandals linked to north and west European populist right-wing parties, as well as political scandals occurring in different political contexts and media environments.

scholarly journals Cultures of rejection at work: Investigating the acceptability of authoritarian populism

Ethnicities ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 146879682110124
Author(s):  
Alexander Harder ◽  
Benjamin Opratko
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Social Cohesion ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Moral Order ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The Public ◽  
Authoritarian Populism ◽  
Right Wing Populism ◽  
The Public Sphere

This article introduces the concept of cultures of rejection as a framing device to investigate conditions of acceptability of authoritarian populism among workers in Germany and Austria. After situating the concept in the current scholarly debate on right-wing populism and discussing its main theoretical points of reference, we offer an analysis focusing on experiences of crisis and transformation. Two elements of cultures of rejection are discussed in depth: the rejection of racialised and/or culturalised ‘unproductive’ others; and the rejection of the public sphere, linked to the emergence of a ‘shielded subjectivity’. These articulations of rejection are then discussed as related to two dimensions of a crisis of authority: the crisis of state or political authority in the field of labour and the economy; and the crisis of a moral order, experienced as decline in social cohesion. In conclusion, we identify possible avenues for further research, demonstrating the productivity of the conceptual framework of cultures of rejection.

Administrative elites and the crisis: what lies ahead for the senior civil service in Greece?

2014 ◽  
Vol 80 (4) ◽  
pp. 709-725 ◽  
Author(s):  
Calliope Spanou
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Civil Service ◽  
Civil Service Reform ◽  
The Public ◽  
Administrative Elites ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

The nature of the relationship between the public administration and politics and the subsequent role of the administration appear to be incompatible with the emergence of an administrative elite. After analysing the reasons for this incompatibility, the article explores the impact of the measures taken in the wake of the economic crisis on the civil service and its reform, and also the prospects for the development of a senior civil service. The key, and also the challenge, to any change in this direction remains the rebalancing of the relationship between the public administration and politics. Points for practitioners What might interest practitioners is the issue of the conditions of effectiveness of civil service reform in times of economic crisis and significant pressure.

Updated "state-society contract" as a way to rationalization of national projects in Russia

2021 ◽  
pp. 7-14
Author(s):  
T.I. Grabelnykh ◽  
◽  
N.A. Sablina ◽  
A.N. Parkhomenko
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Russian Society ◽  
Administration System ◽  
Public Control ◽  
The Public ◽  
State And Society ◽  
Conceptual Foundations ◽  
The Relationship

Researched are systemic aspects of the process of implementing national projects in Russia. Attention is focused on effectiveness of solving key problems of development of the public administration system in the context of the relationship between the state and society under modern conditions. The institution of public control in Russia is characterized through prerequisites of formation, organizational and legal status and main functions. The work defines the place and role of the institution of public opinion in the system of public administration and public control, substantiates its regulatory mechanisms, factors and agents of influence. In the aspect of systemic relationship between public administration and public control, the specificity of implementation of national projects in the transforming Russian society is revealed. A sociological vision of the “reset” of conceptual foundations of interrelationships between the public administration system and the institution of public control both at the stage of “entering” the space of national projects and in the process of their implementation is presented. It has been proved, that at the present stage the main integrating factor is consolidation of society through an updated "state-society contract". The analysis of historical and modern practices of public participation made it possible to draw a conclusion about the increase in the function of “co-management” of public control bodies in the interaction of state and public structures.

scholarly journals The university-industry relationship under diferent approaches: the entrepreneurial university to academic capitalism

Educação ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 73
Author(s):  
Evandro Coggo Cristofoletti ◽  
Milena Pavan Serafim
Keyword(s):  
Academic Capitalism ◽  
Public Institutions ◽  
Entrepreneurial University ◽  
The Public ◽  
The World ◽  
Industry Relationship ◽  
The University ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
University Industry

The economic and political changes in the world, from the 1970s, changed the political education of the Public Institutions of Higher Education in the world. The direction of these changes was clear: the university approachedthe market and the company and created interaction mechanisms that did not exist. The article therefore reviews the academic literature that interprets the relationship between university and market/company from two perspectives: approaches that positively position of interactions, exposing their motivations, interests and forms of interaction, especially the notions on Knowledge Economy and Entrepreneurial University; approaches that observe this interaction critically and reflectively, exposing the problems of interaction, its negative aspects and the reflection of the true role of the public university from the perspective of Academic Capitalism.

scholarly journals Building Enthusiasm and Overcoming ‘Fear’: Engaging with Christian Leaders in an Age of Science

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lydia Reid
Keyword(s):  
Science And Religion ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
Christian Leadership ◽  
The Public ◽  
Ministerial Training ◽  
Lay Reader ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Christian Leaders

In popular culture the relationship between science and religion has often been portrayed as one of conflict. The impact of the conflict thesis can be observed in church leaders’ hesitancy in talking about science and religion in the public domain. It was this finding that led Revd Professor David Wilkinson (cosmologist and theologian) and Professor Tom McLeish (physicist and Anglican lay reader) to form the project ‘Equipping Christian Leadership in an Age of Science’ funded by The Templeton World Charity Foundation. The data presented in this article (collected during 2015-2018) is derived from two discreet pieces of research. The first consisting of a survey of over 1,000 church leaders and interviews with 20 senior church leaders and, the second, with a strategic focus on ministerial training comprised of 12 interviews with church educationalists. This paper reflects on the findings from both pieces of research – covering topics such as church leaders’ enthusiasm towards science, how church leaders view the relationship between science and religion and the role of compartmentalisation in ministerial training. The article is unique in providing sociological analysis on the relevant data and including a personal reflection by David Wilkinson – the project’s director – on the implications of the research for ministerial training and science.

scholarly journals Standardized Flexibility: The Choreography of ICT in Standardization of Service Work

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 679-698 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Røhnebæk
Keyword(s):  
Information System ◽  
Information Systems ◽  
Public Services ◽  
Due Process ◽  
Local Level ◽  
The Public ◽  
Local Responses ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
The Relationship

This article is based on a research project that explores the proliferation of information and communication technology (ICT) in public services. Furthermore, the research explores how the enhanced presence of ICT relates to efforts to increas-ingly individualise the service delivery. It can be argued that enhanced individualisation requires increased levels of discretion and flexibility. At the same time, this flexibility needs to be implemented within a standardized framework to ensure due process and to meet demands for efficiency. As local-level work practices in the public services are increasingly being enabled through ICT, the information systems can thus be seen to offer ’standardized flexibility’. Hence, the information systems work as both enablers of flexibility and as controllers of the same. This research explores how this duality manifests empirically at the local-level of the Norwegian employment and welfare services (NAV). It focuses on the in-terface of the information systems and local-level employees. In this article, I portray the role of the information system, Arena, with regard to how the front-line employees structure and organize their work. This portrayal reveals that the information system reflects an ideal world which is out of tune with local working conditions. The employees are thus facing gaps between the ideals of the system and their actual work context. The main purpose of the paper is to illustrate how the employees deal with this gap; I identify three types of responses and strategies. Moreover, I suggest that the relationship between the information systems and different kinds of local responses may be fruitfully analysed by drawing an analogy with choreography and dancing. The second purpose of this article is thus to outline how the metaphor of choreography may provide a suitable theoretical lens for analysing ICT-enabled standardization of work.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document