TV news

1. TV news A descriptiveframework

2. Studies in News – broadcast news asdiscourse • Harley and Montgomery 1985 • Graddol 1994 • Bondi Paganelli 1990 • Haarman 1999/2004/2006 • The news interview: Clayman 1991,Harris 1991, Heritage and Greatbasch 1991, Clayman and Heritage 2002

3. Broadcast news • A different set ofverbalpracticesthanthoseofprintjournalism • A radicallydifferentcommunication situation • Simultaneity in transmission and reception so thataudiencesexperienceitas ‘live’ • Temporal flow normallynotsubjectto audience control, itemssequencedbybroadcaster and experienced and decoded in realtimeby the audience

4. relationships • “the relationshipbetweenbroadcasters, listeners and viewersisanunforcedrelationshipbecauseitisunenforceable” (Scannell 1996:23) • Live, evanescent, ephemeral, and unforced • A communicative ethos orientedtowardssociabilityratherthaninstrumentality

5. regulation • Broadcastingstandards • Accuracy • Impartiality • Facts vs opinions • Range and balance

6. Linguisticapproach • Discourseanalysis: a discrete leveloflinguisticorganisation • Discourseas social action: needto take into account the context and interpersonal features • Discoursepractice: sequentialarrangementofdiscourseactsto serve institutionalisedpurposes • Discoursestructure: a structured set ofdiscourseunits

7. News as a discoursegenre • Over the yearstherehasbeen a stabilisation and sedimentationof a particular set ofdiscoursepractices and the enablingframeworkfromwhichdiscursivechange and innovation take place • These are shiftingand unstablegenres (look at TV ARK) • The discursiveembodimentofaninstitution

8. Discourse domain • An institutionalised area of social life dependentuponrecognisablydistinctdiscoursepractices and genres (e.g. law, politics, medicine, religion, journalism) • Repertoiresofbehaviour can becomespecialised and pre-specified (e.g. by training) • Demarcationofroles (reporter, presenter, correspondent) • Institutionalsupports and pressures

9. Participationframework • (Goffman 1981) • Author (editorial team) • Animator (presenterreading a script) • Principal, the accountable source (directorgeneral, the organisationitself) • Interviewees (vox, LP)

10. Modality and alignment • Systemsforexpressing speaker’s attitudetowards and assessmentof the truthof the propositionsbeinguttered • Epistemic: resourceswhichenablespeakerstosignalstronger and weakercommitmentto the factualityofstatements • Evidentiality: resourcesforcommunicatingdegreesofreliability in the sourcesof information, (directexperience, aninferencefromevidence, quotative)

11. Institutionalisedroles • News presenter, newsreader, anchor,newscaster • Reporter, correspondent, editor

12. Dicoursestructureof news broadcasts • Highlystructured: predictablesequencesofdiscourseactivities, oftenwithtransitions • Opening signaturevisuals (continuityannouncements) • Headlines • News items (news presentation( news kernel)+ news subsidiary (news report, live interview) • Closing (reprisepreface, reprise, closing, trailer, leavetaking)

13. Closed vs open • Things are different in rolling news programmessuchas CNN, SkyNewsinternational, Al Jazeeraetcwhich broadcast over 24 hours and followbreaking news items

14. Open vs closed – bulletins vs rolling news programmes • Fixed timing • Tight framing • Terse • Retrospecivelysummativeofevent • Presentational/monologic • Single voices • Studio centreddiscoursehierarchy • Punctuative • /completitive • Fluid timing • Looseframing • Prolix • Unfoldingsimultaneouslywithevent • Interpersonal/dialogic • Multivoiced • Flatteningofhierarchy in favourof non-studio voice • flow

15. News presentationelements • Role and performance • News reading and directvisualaddress • The spaceof the news studio and the spaceof the news field • The discourseofheadlines • News items and news kernels • Featuresof news kernels

16. News reports • TV news and narrative • Principlesofintelligibility • Tense and reference • Textualcohesion • Interplay ofvisual and verbal • Narrative or commentary?

17. 2way interviews • Live discourse and scripteddiscourse • The live 2way vs news presentation • Truthvalues and the live 2way • Push vs pull and scalar expressions • Issuesofidentity

18. Broadcast News interviews • Media interviews and news interviews • The accountabilityinterview • The experiential/witnessinterview • The expert interview • The interviewfragment

19. Changingdiscourse • Stylisticsub-genericnorms • Broadcast news and pressuresforchange • Changes in presentational style • Discursivechange and normative tension • The limitsofconversationalism • The limitsofneutralism • The limitsofinformality • Discursivechange and validityclaims

20. Genrechanges • Fromrealismto high modernismtopost-modernism • Selfreferentiality • Genre mixing • "Instead of referring to the real world, much media output devotes itself to referring to other images, other narratives; self-referentiality is all-embracing, although it is rarely taken account of. Furthermore, the commentary on the intertextuality and its self referential nature has itself become the subject of self referential and recursive commentary. • Many cultural critics have dismissed this as merely a symptom or side-effect of mass consumerism; however, alternate explanations and critique have also been offered. One critic asserts that it reflects a fundamental paradox: the increase in technological and cultural sophistication, combined with an increase in superficiality and dehumanization.”