This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by THORNBORROW, J. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Questions, Control and the Organization of Talk in Calls to a Radio Phone-In

CARDIFF UNIVERSITY

This article examines the management of participation in calls to radio phone-in programmes. In the broadcast media, there are increasing occasions for interaction between `professionals' and lay members of the public, particularly within what have come to be known generically as public participation programmes (talk shows, phone-in programmes and the like). People call in to phone-in programmes for various reasons; to give opinions, to get advice, and often to ask questions. In the particular phone-ins analysed here, callers are invited to put questions to leading politicians of the day about their election policies. In many institutional contexts for talk (e.g.courtrooms, classrooms, political interviews) the role of questioner has been found to be a more powerful interactional position than the role of answerer. Through an analysis of the organization of the phone-in calls, this article argues that the potentially powerful discourse role of questioner is interactionally `defused' through the participatory framework of the call. The author shows how the mediated interactional structure of these calls limits the range of possible actions available to callers in their institutional position as questioners, and thus produces constraints on what callers can actually achieve in this particular context for institutional talk.

Key Words: control • discourse • institutional interaction • participation frameworks • public participation • questions • radio phone-in

Discourse Studies, Vol. 3, No. 1, 119-143 (2001)
DOI: 10.1177/1461445601003001006


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				S. Hood and G. Forey The interpersonal dynamics of call-centre interactions: co-constructing the rise and fall of emotion Discourse & Communication, November 1, 2008; 2(4): 389 - 409. [Abstract] [PDF]

				K. Ross Political talk radio and democratic participation: caller perspectives on Election Call Media Culture Society, November 1, 2004; 26(6): 785 - 801. [Abstract] [PDF]

				R. Fitzgerald and W. Housley Identity, categorization and sequential organization: the sequential and categorial flow of identity in a radio phone-in Discourse Society, September 1, 2002; 13(5): 579 - 602. [Abstract] [PDF]

				J. Thornborrow and R. Fitzgerald From problematic object to routine `add-on': dealing with e-mails in radio phone-ins Discourse Studies, April 1, 2002; 4(2): 201 - 223. [Abstract] [PDF]

				J. THORNBORROW Authenticating Talk: Building Public Identities in Audience Participation Broadcasting Discourse Studies, November 1, 2001; 3(4): 459 - 479. [Abstract] [PDF]