Talk on Television Peter Lunt

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Talk on TelevisionPeter Lunt
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Public Service Broadcasting

• Lord Reith, 1st director general of the BBC
• People should be excluded from TV whose status,
  either professionally or socially, and whose
  qualifications to speak seem doubtful Scannell
  Cardiff (1991)
• BBC model of public service broadcasting
• Dissemination of information and decisions to a
  mass audience and providing a course of
  distraction and entertainment
• Political context elite democracy
• Challenged by political left and right
• Left exclusion/containment of citizens
  interests and voices
• Right part of the left-wing biased
  establishment, a barrier between government and
  people

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Analytics

• Rhetorical analysis
• Hosts control of programme
• Address
• NVC
• Elicitation
• Story telling
• Setting
• Theatrical vs integrated
• Genre analysis
• Debate/inquiry
• Romance
• Host as romantic hero
• Therapy
• Therapeutic discourse
• Microcosm
• The creation of a experiential scene
• Self referencing
• Complete

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Experts experience

• I really dislike going on television for
  anything, but I hate all this trivializing and
  slickness.
• I felt that there wasn't enough time, which was
  quite frustrating, and that's one of the reasons
  why I wouldn't do it again.
• I suspect that some people who were not aware of
  some of the potential risks of things they do
  were made aware of them. So raising awareness,
  and raising awareness of strategies and simple
  safety precautions that people should take. It's
  a way of getting information to them and not just
  to the people who might be taking the drugs or
  might be the victims but also people who can
  help, for example, politicians.
• I suppose going on television as an expert is one
  way of contributing to what I hope is an improved
  public debate.
• In order to influence politicians you have to
  appeal to the public . . . you don't necessarily
  always succeed but it's one way of trying to do
  it... I agree that lobbying from the scientific
  community has to happen as well but why shouldn't
  the public be involved in it?

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• I made the assumption that I was effectively to
  be the kind of neutral exponent of which of these
  varied claims was actually going to be right... I
  didn't have any impression that they had any
  particular interest in one side or the other,
  they really do want to achieve a good discussion
  and what they really wanted from me was - Kilroy
  was the referee - it's really somebody who will
  say that claim is a bit over the top, that one is
  about right, have you thought of that?
• I was simply asked if I would put the thing in
  context, and I said yes, that was what I was
  asked to do and that's what I did and I
  interjected several times during the programme in
  order to put some balance into what I thought was
  becoming unbalanced.
• To me partly it feels a bit like academic
  prostitution, to talk on anything, and it's very
  seductive to be phoned up and asked, will you
  appear as the expert, quite flattering,

6

• The secret is to be able to encapsulate your
  thoughts very quickly and to make your points
  at reasonably short length
• I believe you can nearly always get quite a
  complex point over so long as you don't use too
  erudite language.
• On the one hand they were wanting me as the
  expert ... yet I was in the audience and I had to
  vie for space to speak with the rest of the
  audience ... I was very much an equal member of
  the audience. And the audience would disagree
  with what I was saying but from a personal
  perspective as opposed to an expert perspective,
  and so I felt it was a very ambiguous situation
  because I didn't want to engage with them on a
  personal level because I felt I was there as the
  expert and yet my expertise was being undermined.
• You certainly didn't get a chance to say what you
  wanted to say because it tries to fulfill two
  roles. It tries to get across expert opinions
  plus having real people so to speak trying to
  express their views, which is equally valid but
  they don't necessarily integrate with what the
  experts are saying or the direction that the
  discussion might go in. So it doesn't achieve an
  awful lot, it's a very frustrating type of
  programme.

7

• It was very difficult because all they were
  interested in was my personal experience, and in
  a sense that was the reason they were there, to
  talk about their personal experience, and why
  shouldn't I talk about mine? (Expert 2,
  psychologist)
• You have your experts facing your audience out in
  front. Here we were in the front row in a
  semi-circle. That made it harder to have informal
  interchanges with them the other experts
  without involving the whole audience and the
  formal interchanges were minimized except
  occasionally Kilroy juxtaposed a couple of us,
  what do you think of that point? . . . On the
  whole he was rather careful to make sure it
  didn't become a discussion simply between the
  experts with comment from everybody else. (Expert
  5, academic in government)

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Viewers Views Why should only professionals
have their chance to air their views on
television. It's our television, it's our
country, why shouldn't we, as ordinary people,
have a chance to air our views? I like the way
this tends to try and balance the arguments, and
I can think of both sides and decide for
myself. What I like about Kilroy's approach is
that you get more flow and interaction. I think
interaction is what makes it work more. The Peter
Sissons Question Time style of things is
traditional - it's a good formula and it provides
good television and good debate, but the debate
is debated between the politicians about issues
suggested by the audience. I think it is better
if they don't draw conclusions because I think
people are smart enough, anyone is smart enough
to come to their own conclusion and think things
through for themselves and I don't think we
should all think what Oprah or Donahue say.
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The Construction of Expert and Ordinary

• On traditional factual broadcasting
• Lay Expert
• Subjective Objective
• Ungrounded Grounded in data
• Emotional Rational
• Unique Replicable
• Concrete Abstract
• On the Talk Show
• Lay Expert
• Authentic Alienated
• Narrative Fragmented
• Hot Cold
• Relevant Irrelevant
• In depth Superficial

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The Mediated Public Sphere

• Different theories of the means of overcoming
  asymmetries of power in public deliberation
• The Rational Critical Public Sphere Vs
  Oppositional Public Sphere
• Access
• Disinterested citizen vs interested
  representative
• Obligations
• Rational Critical Discussion Vs Expression
• Aims
• Construction of consensus Vs Compromise

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• Scientists think that they are
• 1) disseminating knowledge or informing public
  debate
• 2) engaging in rational critical discussion
• Popular cultural forms
• Put participants on an equal footing and