Contemporary public debate is in general a media debate, organized by journalists working for major media companies. Journalists are not merely employees of their corporations. They, as “opinion leaders”, shape political attitudes as well as behaviors of their viewers, readers and listeners. Compounds between media and politics are multifaceted and one of them is relationship between journalists and politicians. Each party tries to infl uence the other, with various results but it certainly can be said that politicians and journalists are interdependent. However, in recent times, journalists are increasingly dependent not only from politicians but also from their employers, thus weakening their professional position. This leads to a reduction of the importance of informational function of the media for the sake of entertainment. The aim of the article is to examine political journalism in terms of relationships between interviewers (journalists) and interviewees (politicians) taking place during television interviews. The analysis is carried out mainly through the prism of actors and themes occurring in the context of the convergence of traditional and tabloid journalistic standards.
According to the canons of liberal democracy, both political and media systems constitute two spheres which strongly interact but still are separated and fulfill different aims. The actors belonging to these spheres play specific social roles, due to sets of rules called (respectively) the logic of politics and media logic. Politicians are supposed to create and reshape the world gaining electorate support while the media should show, explain and interpret the world in a way that attracts its audience. The two are expected to compete inside their spheres but not with each other. Today, however, the mediatization of politics and politicization of the media have changed the relationship between politicians and journalists. The aim of the article is to describe the phenomenon of redefinition of roles of the main actors of political communication, using content analysis of television political interviews during an election campaign. Elections create a special situation of mutual interdependence of the two entities as well as the need to achieve their specific goals. The authors weigh up whether the changing formula of TV interviews is an element of a broader phenomenon of competition and trial of taking up control in the process of political communication or just incidental behavior typical for the time of an election.
Taking advantage of the terminology of the pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation propounded by Frans H. van Eemeren and Rob Grootendorst (1984, 1992, 2004), argumentation is considered faulty if a person advancing arguments attaches greater importance to the need to convince a dialogue (which is often identical to a strategy of manipulation) the participants of a dialogue than to the accepted norms of the argumentative exchange. The result of this is the triumph of the rhetorical goal over the dialectical. Referring also to strategic thinking, in which a strategy is viewed as a plan of action (Dixit and Nalebuff 1991/1993, 2010), appealing to the art of rational thinking (vide: behaviour) in mutual relations (Dixit and Skeath 1999), and which proposes a merge of science (“what”, specialist and scientific expertise, experience) and art (“how”, a skill or an ability learned inductively) to attain the desired effect, that is a win, participants of a dialogue will use every available means to realise the above goal, even at the expense of the rationality of their arguments. This is precisely the task of players/participants to verify which strategies to select to gain payoff, that is a win in the election. Thus, this paper will focus on the use of the strategy of (ir)rationality as a strategy of manipulation in the political TV interviews in Great Britain. The analysis of the genre of the political interview will enable us to determine whether and to what extent this type of argumentation may be rendered rational.
PL
Korzystając z terminologii pragma-dialektycznej teorii argumentacji sformułowanej zaproponowanej przez Fransa H. van Eemerena i Roba Grootendorsta (1984, 1992, 2004), dowodzenie uznajemy za błędne, jeśli osoba wysuwająca argumenty przypisuje większe znaczenie potrzebie przekonania uczestników dialogu – często tożsamej ze strategią manipulacji – niż przyjętym normom wymiany argumentacyjnej. W wyniku tego cel retoryczny osiąga przewagę nad celem dialektycznym. Bazując na myśleniu strategicznym (ang. strategic thinking), które opiera się na planowaniu działań (Dixit i Nalebuff 1991/1993, 2010) i wykorzystaniu racjonalnego myślenia (vide: postępowania) w relacjach między ludźmi (Dixit i Skeath 1999), uczestnicy dialogu starają się połączyć naukę (ang. science; wiedzę naukową, ekspertyzę naukową, doświadczenie) i sztukę (ang. art; umiejętności, zdolności) dla osiągnięcia pożądanego efektu – zwycięstwa. W tym celu korzystają z wszelkich dostępnych środków, nawet jeśli odbywa się to kosztem racjonalności ich argumentów. Zadaniem graczy/uczestników dialogu jest weryfikacja, które strategie należy wybrać, by uzyskać wypłatę (ang. payoff), czyli w odniesieniu do analizowanego materiału – wygraną w wyborach. Przedmiotem niniejszego szkicu będzie zastosowanie strategii (nie)racjonalności jako strategii manipulacji w wywiadzie politycznym w Wielkiej Brytanii. Analiza gatunku wywiadu politycznego pozwoli natomiast na wskazanie, czy i w jakim stopniu taki typ dowodzenia, argumentacji może być nazwany racjonalnym.
Media interviews with politicians are messages which shape the views of the audience regarding the phenomena in the world and affect the hierarchy of importance in broadcasts. An analysis of interviews with politicians reveals that the communication purposes of the participants are often divergent and the interlocutors themselves consider on another to be opponents. The rejection of the very idea of conversation as a setting for an agreement sets a new goal: victory, an interlocutor’s particular benefit. These communication conditions provide a setting where redundancy works perfectly as camouflage. The broadcaster in the media, who cares about achieving the implicit purpose of communication, may treat redundancy as a mask – consciously hiding behind multiplicity makes the recipient bear the burden of responsibility for misunderstanding the message or treat what is obtained explicitly from the broadcaster as an indicator to look for meanings. In the paper, two main ranges were distinguished: party messages and universal phrases, indirectly defining the basic tasks of redundancy. The former suggest ways politicians reply to the journalists’ questions; the latter serve to provide statements oscillating around the issue – their generality, predictability and non‑ controversiality makes them fit in almost any topic and political option.
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