Constructing knowledge : epistemic practices in three television interview genres

Abstract

This study analyses epistemic practices in broadcast television interviews, focusing on three different interview genres: celebrity interviews, sports interviews and political interviews. In the analysis I examine the linguistic and interactional practices that are used to construct knowledge in the interviews. These practices include mobilization of different types of knowledge, use of assessments to invite first-hand knowledge, negotiation of epistemic stances while disaligning with the question, and use of assessments for claiming or contesting epistemic rights to authority and expertise. The study comprises four articles and a summary. Article I focuses on celebrity interviews and analyzes how different types of knowledge can be invoked by the participants in a way that enables them to manage the level of intimacy of the interview. Article II explores the interviewers´ use of assessments and evaluations in sports interviews in eliciting athletes´ personal experience regarding their preceding performance. Article III examines political interviews, focusing on instances where politicians, in their answering turns, resist some aspect of the question and negotiate an independent epistemic stance. Article IV also investigates political interviews, concentrating on assessments embedded in questioning sequences. The results of article IV show how assessments contribute to the negotiation of institutional identities and rights to knowledge and authority. The data consists of interviews where English is used as a common language between participants who come from different linguistic backgrounds. This study contributes to the literature on second language interaction by bringing new insights into how second language interaction is conducted in the media, a public sphere of society. The results of this study provide new information on how knowledge is socially constructed and negotiated in different interview genres as part of, and often embedded in, actions that characterize those genres.