Gender and Power in Televised Panel Interviews

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Gender and Power in Televised Panel Interviews

• Gisela Redeker Wendy Wagenaar
• University of Groningen

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Overview

• Gender and Power in Public Discourse
• Political Interviews/Discussions on Dutch TV
• Data Two Panel Discussions from Buitenhof
• Analysis Interruptions, Overlaps, Backchannels
• Discussion and Preliminary Conclusions
• Gender, Power, and Habitus

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Gender and Power in Public Discourse

• Public discourse (e.g., in parliament and in the
  media) used to be and still is dominated by men.
  But participation of women is increasing.
• In discussions between men and women, men have
  often been found to dominate the floor (Holmes
  1995). Men also tend to violate the formal rules
  of debate more often than women (e.g., Shaw
  2000).
• Gender differences tend to be more pronounced in
  formal/public genres and in groups of three of
  more participants (Anderson Leaper 1998).

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Panel Interviews on Dutch TV

• Regular feature in the weekly interview and
  discussion program Buitenhof.
• 2 4 panelists, usually including politicians
  and experts (academic or executive).
• Style varies from group interview to involved
  debate among panelists.
• Less polemic than interviews on British and
  American television (as described e.g. by Clayman
  Heritage 2002).

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Panel 1 Buitenhof 26 Oct 2003(length 3127)
Paul Witteman (interviewer)
Hans Crombag (professor)
Marleen de Pater (MP)
Ybo Buruma (professor)
Laetitia Griffith (MP)
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Panel 2 Buitenhof 13 March 2005(length 2345)
Rob Trip (interviewer)
Joke de Vries (health inspector)
Coskun Çörüz (MP)
Andries van Dantzig (psychiatrist)
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Speaking Time and Turns
Speakers of words of words of turns of turns words per turn
Panel 1 male professor (HC) 1007 14.7 52 16.6 19.4
Panel 1 male professor (YB) 1504 22.0 45 14.4 33.4
Panel 1 female MP (LG) 1305 19.1 60 19.2 21.8
Panel 1 female MP (MP) 1347 19.7 59 18.8 22.8
Panel 2 male psychiatrist (AD) 1928 38.2 62 33.7 31.1
Panel 2 male MP (CC) 1192 23.6 26 14.1 45.8
Panel 2 female health insp.(JV) 877 17.4 20 10.9 43.9
Panel 1 interviewer (PW) 1682 24.6 97 31.0 17.3
Panel 2 interviewer (RT) 1053 20.9 76 41.3 13.9
Totals 11895 497 23.9
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Did the Male Panelists Talk More?
Speaker Excess share of words Excess share of turns
Panel 1 male professor (HC) -5.5 -0.9
Panel 1 male professor (YB) 4.1 -4.2
Panel 2 male psychiatrist (AD) 14.9 24.1
Panel 2 male MP (CC) -3.5 -9.3
Panel 1 female MP (LG) 0.3 2.8
Panel 1 female MP (MP) 1.1 2.3
Panel 2 female health insp. (JV) -11.4 -14.8
for panel 1 minus 25, for panel 2 minus
33.3
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Interruption Coding System(adapted from Roger,
Bull Smith 1988)

• Simultaneous start? ? false start, parallel talk
• S2 is non-interruptive ? overlap
• backchannel continuer
• backchannel assessment
• S2 is interruptive ? successful/unsuccessful
• single/multiple attempts
• interjection, snatch back

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Ratio of active to passive interruptions
(panelists only)
Speaker interrupts more often than s/he is
interrupted
11
Interruptions per 100 turns (incl. interrupting
the interviewer)
count 6 7 10 5 11 11 0
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Interruptions per 100 turns (panelists only)
count 5 6 7 2 7 9 0
13
Backchannels(per 1000 words of other
participants)
count 97 81 14 11 60 34 03
14
Backchannels(per 1000 words of other panelists)
count 56 60 12 11 10 13 00
15
Overlaps per 100 turns (incl. overlaps with
interviewer)
count 4 2 3 4 6 6 5
16
Overlaps per 100 turns (panelists only)
count 3 1 3 2 2 3 0
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(Tentative) Conclusions

• No clear gender differences in speaking time,
  number of turns, or interruptions.
• Male expert panelists tend to use more
  back-channels (signaling participation?). But
  this is probably not a gender effect
• Evidence from interruptions, backchannels, and
  overlaps suggests that politicians seem to orient
  more strongly to the interviewer, while academic
  experts seem to use more nonverbal participation
  cues (habitus from parliamentary vs. academic
  discussions?)

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References

• Anderson, K.J. Leaper, C. (1998). Meta-analyses
  of gender effects on conversational interruption
  Who, what, when, where, and how. Sex Roles 39
  (3-4) 225-252.
• Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a Theory of
  Practice, trans. Richard Nice. Cambridge
  Cambridge University Press.
• Clayman, S. Heritage, J. (2002). The news
  interview. Journalists and public figures on the
  air. Cambridge CUP.
• Dickerson, P. (2001). Disputing with care
  analysing interviewees treatment of
  interviewers prior turns in televised political
  interviews. Discourse Studies 3(2) 203222.
• Lauerbach, G. (2004). Political interviews as
  hybrid genre. Text 24(3) 353397.
• Holmes, J. (1995). Women, men and politeness.
  London Longman.
• Roger, D., Bull, P.E. Smith, S. (1988). The
  development of a comprehensive system for
  classifying interruptions. Journal of Language
  and Social Psychology 7 27-34.
• Shaw, S. (2000). Language, gender and floor
  apportionment in political debates. Discourse
  Society 11(3) 401418.