Voters’ response to rhetoric in televised election debates
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.52610/rhs.v24i80.26Keywords:
Rhetoric, Political Rhetoric, Television Debates, Rhetorical Audience Studies, Protocol AnalysisAbstract
Political television debates should engage voters and provide them with information they need to make a decision. Existing research provides an understanding of the rhetorical mechanisms at play in debate situations, but we still know little about how viewers react to different rhetorical expressions. This study provides an empirically based understanding of how viewers react to the debate. The study is based on the reactions of 55 viewers who followed the national broadcaster’s (NRK) closing party leaders’ debate in the 2017 parliamentary election. The study demonstrates how the audience is both engaged and informed by well-formulated, concrete and clearly structured replies. The study also shows how the viewers lose attention when the debaters are heckling and interrupting each other. Attention is drawn away from the argument, towards the politicians’ appearance and the program format. Thus, the article demonstrates the value of combining a qualitative approach to audience responses with rhetorical close reading in critical rhetorical research on election debates.
References
Andersen, I. (2016). Opplysningens retorikk. Noen bemerkninger til Kocks krav til den politiske debatt. Sakprosa, 8(1).
Atkinson, M. (1984). Our Master’s Voices: The Language and Body of Politics. London: Methuen.
Bengtsson, M. (2017). Think-Aloud Reading: Selected Audiences’ Concurrent Reaction to the Implied Audiences in Political Commentary. i J.
Kjeldsen (Ed.), Rhetorical Audience Studies and Reception of Rhetoric. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Clayman, S. (1992). Caveat orator: Audience disaffiliation in the 1988 presidential debates. The Quarterly Journal of Speech, 78, 33-60.
Clayman, S., & Heritage, J. (2002). The News Interview: Journalists and Public Figures on the Air. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Coleman, S. & Moss, G. (2016) “Rethinking Election Debates: What Citizens are Entitled to Expect”, The International Journal of Press/Politics, 21(1), 3-24.
Drew, P., & Heritage, J. (1992). Talk at Work: Interaction in Institutional Settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ekström, M., & Berczes, J. (2008). Avbrott i politiska mediesamtal: en studie av statsministerkandidaterna Persson og Reinfeldt i den svenska valrörerlsen 2006. Nordicom Information, 30(1).
Gabrielsen, J., Pontoppidan, C., & Jønch-Clausen, H. (2011). Forskydninger: Mellem svar og ikke-svar. Journalistica, 12(1), 232-248.
Greatbatch, D. (1992). On the management of disagreement between news interviewees. i P. Drew & J. Heritage (Eds.), Talk at Work. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Heritage, J. (1985). Analyzing News Interviews: Aspects of the Production of Talk for an Overhearing Audience. i T. A. Dijk (Ed.), Handbook of Discourse Analysis Volume 3 (pp. 95-119). New York: Academic Press.
Hoff-Clausen, E. (2008). Online Ethos: Webretorik i politiske kampagner, blogs og wikis. Frederiksberg: Samfundsliteratur.
Hutchby, I. (2006). Media Talk: Conversation Analysis and the Study of Broadcasting. Glasgow: Open University Press.
Jørgensen, C., Rørbech, L., & Kock, C. (1994). Retorik der flytter stemmer. Hvordan man overbeviser i offentlig debat. København: Gyldendal. Som ebog, Retorikförlaget 2011.
Kjeldsen, J. (2016). Studying rhetorical audiences. Informal Logic, 36, 136-158.
Kjeldsen, J. (2017). Rhetorical Audience Studies and Reception of Rhetoric. Syracuse, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
Kock, C. (2007). Dialectical Obligations in Political Debate. Informal Logic. 27(3), 233-247.
Kock, C. (2011). De svarer ikke: fordummende uskikke i den politiske debat. København: Gyldendal.
Kock, C. (2017). Young Voters’ Responses to Polemical Debate. Paper presentert ved Rhetoric in Society (RSE), East Anglia University, Norwich, UK.
Lantz, M. (2013) Ordstyrer afgjør den politiske debat. Hvilken ordstyrerstrategi bidrager til den mest oplysende politiske debat? Tidsskrift for medier, erkendelse og formidling 1(2), 3-22.
McKinney, M. & Warner, B.R. (2013). Do Presidential Debates Matter? Examining a Decade of Campaign Debate Effects. Argumentation and Advocacy 49:4, 238-258.
Sandvik, M. (2016). Hva trenger velgerne å vite? Og får de vite det? En retorisk analyse av debattklima, journalistisk praksis og argumentasjon i valgkampdiskurs på radio og tv fra valgkampen i 1991, 1999 og 2009. (Dr. Philos), Universitetet i Oslo, Oslo.
Simon, H. A., & Ericsson, K. A. (1984). Protocol Analysis: Verbal Reports as Data. Boston, MA: MIT Press.
Vatnøy, E., Hoem Iversen, M., & Svennevig, J. (2016). Utspørrerne. Journalistisk strategi og forskjellsbehandling i stortingsvalget 2013. Norsk Medietidsskrift, 23(3).
Downloads
Additional Files
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2022 Rhetorica Scandinavica
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Open Access; CC Erkännande-IckeKommersiell-IngaBearbetningar 4.0
