(In)Sincere Demeanor and (In)Sincere Language in Crisis Communication

Perceptions of a crisis communicator’s sincerity drive reactions to an organization’s response amidst a scandal. However, a spokesperson can nonverbally appear sincere while deceptively evading questions and can appear insincere while actually speaking sincere truths. Applying truth-default theory to crisis communication, we assess people’s reactions to a spokesperson varying in sincerity through demeanor and language. In an experiment ( N = 801), adults from across the United States were randomly assigned to view one of four versions of a news interview. The stimuli present the spokesperson replying to questions with sincere or insincere demeanor and sincere language (conveying relevance and clarity) or insincere language (evasion and obfuscation). Results indicate that sincerity in demeanor and language interact to affect (a) account acceptance, (b) negative word-of-mouth intention, and (c) attribution of responsibility. But sincerity in language largely overrides behavioral impressions. Discussion concerns considering evasion and obfuscation as demeanor cues, when violations of relevance and clarity in language undercut a spokesperson’s believability.

Preparing for a News Interview

This publication provides information on how to prepare for a news interview. This is a minor revision with an added author from the 2018 version.

The disaffiliative use of ‘did you know’ questions in Arabic news interviews: The case of Aljazeera’s ‘The Opposite Direction’

This article studies the use of ‘hal taʔlaam’ (‘did you know’, hereafter) questions by the interviewer (IR) as a discursive strategy to block the interviewees’ (IEs’) agenda and stance in Aljazeera’s ‘The Opposite Direction’, a weekly news interview program that broadcasts live in Arabic on Aljazeera. The show has been on the air since Aljazeera’s inception, in the mid 1990s. The show hosts two guests with opposing political views, who are pitted against each other in a heated discussion as they represent and defend their own political and institutional affiliation. This article shows how IR uses ‘did you know’ questions to express adversarialness with his interviewees. The article argues that IR uses this type of questioning as an agenda blocking practice that the IR orients to as confrontational. The dataset examined in this article shows that ‘did you know’ questions do not provide any new information, nor does it seem to expect a response from the addressee. In fact, they are regularly used by the IR in this specific program to provide an account for previous turns that did not receive the desired response from the IE. They are lengthy, said in clear, loud Standard Arabic, and they typically embed ‘hostile presuppositions’ and confrontational messages. For the analysis presented here, 20, 50-minute episodes from ‘The Opposite Direction’ are examined following Conversation Analysis as the analytic method.

“So my position is…”

This article examines the interactional functions of the so-prefaced answer, when used by interviewees in news and other political discussion broadcasts. Using the methods of conversation analysis, based on a data corpus of recent broadcasts from British mainstream television, the analysis shows that the so-preface functions in a cluster of related ways within the question-answer discourse structure of the political news interview. Specifically, it is used to reset or reframe the prior question from a standpoint of epistemic authority, enabling the interviewee to answer on their terms rather than the interviewer’s.

Discussion on the Law of Hidden Interview and News Tort in the Context of Integration Media

<p>The arrival of the media era has also brought about the diversity and novelty of news interview methods, and the controversial hidden interview is one of the important interview methods. In recent years, more and more journalists use implicit interviews to get the audience's attention, followed by a series of legal issues such as news infringement. Hidden interview as a double-edged sword, if not grasp the "degree" of interview, not only difficult to reveal the truth, often counterproductive, resulting in violations of privacy rights, therefore, how to avoid the hidden interview in the news practice of news infringement has become a problem that every journalist should ponder.</p>

Topical Management: Agenda Setting Strategy in Pakistani Political Talk-Shows

This study analyzes the agenda-setting done by anchors using topical management in the interactional aspect of the institutional speech event; the Political News Interview (henceforth Political talk-show). In the current scenario of 24/7 news, audiences turn to political talk-shows to understand the events of the day and judge the news. The discussion on topics in the political talk-shows is managed and developed by the anchor. This study carries out a discourse analysis of the recorded talk-shows for topical shifts and perspectival shifts to check if the topic is set and controlled by the anchor, by not allowing participants to bring any information to the discussion. The qualitative analysis of topical shifts reveals that the anchor keeps tight control over the topic set in the openings and using the technique of topical management the anchor keeps the agenda set through the development of perspectives and recycling of topics.

Screening Indigenous Bodies

This issue acknowledges the work of Rosalie Fish (Cowlitz), Jordan Marie Daniels (Lakota), and the many others who refuse to ignore the situation that has allowed thousands of Indigenous women and girls to be murdered or go missing across North America without the full intervention of law enforcement and other local authorities. As Rosalie Fish said in an interview regarding her activism on missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls (MMIWG),"I felt a little heavy at first just wearing the paint. And I think that was . . . like my ancestors letting me know . . . you need to take this seriously: “What you’re doing, you need to do well.” And I think that’s why I felt really heavy when I first put on my paint and when I tried to run with my paint at first. . . . I would say my personal strength comes from my grandmas, my mom, my great grandma, and I really hope that’s true, that I made them proud." (Inland Northwest Native News interview)