Exploring the metadiscursive realisation of incivility in TV news discourse

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2019.100367Get rights and content

Highlights

  • We explore the metadiscursive realisation of incivility in TV news discourse.

  • (In)civlity is treated as separate from (Im)politeness.

  • Five salient aspects of incivility are presented.

  • Metadiscourse is shown as central to the realization these aspects of incivility.

Abstract

The present paper examines the use of metadiscourse in the realisation of incivility in TV news discourse. We take empirical data from a UK Channel 4 News interview between TV journalist and author Cathy Newman and clinical psychologist and author Professor Jordan Peterson. Adopting a discourse analytic approach, five aspects of incivility are presented: intolerant response; ideological entrenchment; low oppositional literacy; the need to win; and, change of opinion condemnation. We show how metadiscourse is used to manifest incivility in a number of ways including to prioritise the current speaker’s foci over those of the interlocutor; to express metalingual commentary which negatively characterises the interlocutor's discourse; and, to express discourse norms which undermine the open exchange of ideas. We conclude by suggesting recommendations for future research.

Introduction

On 16th January 2018, as part of its nightly evening show, UK broadcaster Channel 4 News televised a short edited segment of a non-live interview (Ekström and Fitzgerald, 2014: 85), featuring lead female anchor and, self-described feminist1, author Cathty Newman (CN) and clinical psychologist and, self-described traditionalist2, author Professor Jordan Peterson (JP). JP was in the UK promoting his best-selling book ‘12 Rules For Life’ (Peterson, 2018) the contents of which he sat down to discuss with CN as part of a factual entertainment feature for the main news show. Channel 4 News also released the full unedited exchange (which comprises the data we use in the present paper) via their YouTube channel. The undedited interview caused an online and offline furore, with high profile thinkers from the left (Žižek, 2018) and right (Murray, 2018) voicing opinions. In the first four weeks of release, the unedited interview received over 7 million views on YouTube. At the time of writing, it has received over 18 million views and attracted 130,000+ comments. Although the interlocutors discuss contentious issues such as the crisis of masculinity, gender equality, and, identity politics, much of the reactive commentary on the interview concerned the discourse style of the two, i.e. what we would call incivlity.

Whether online or analogue, exposure to incivility has been shown to have deleterious effects including increased perceptions of societal polarisation (York, 2013: 111); decreased open-mindedness (Borah 2014: 814); and, causing greater incivility amongst general populations (Gervais, 2014: 575). Reflecting societal concerns with regards to increasing incivility, such research has intensified interest in the development of a civil model of discourse. At the same time, some researchers have questioned the supposed rampant incivility plaguing political and media discourse (Papacharissi, 2004, Groshek and Cutino, 2016) whilst others have drawn attention to some of the problematic aspects of civility. For instance, White (2006: 445) discusses the ambivalent nature of civility and draws attention to its potential to act as a conservative force. Zerilli (2014: 117) rejects the notion of civility as reflecting elitist conceptions of democracy and as a means whereby marginalised groups have been denied rights of participation in the public sphere. Whist notions of civility may have been used for such invidious purposes in the past, the conception of (in)civility we explore, i.e. one which attempts to capture the discursive conditions in which the necessary space for all interlocutors to speak and be heard is granted or denied, actually contains the potential to enroll disenfranchised groups and marginalised perspectives.

Despite significant scholarly interest and an established body of literature, Culpeper (2018) notes that the concept of (in)civility may not ‘ring many bells with linguists’ (2018: 809). This is in part due to the preference for the umbrella term ‘impoliteness’ amongst linguists and pragmaticians to catch similar phenomenon investigated under the label of ‘incivility’ by communication scholars and sociologists. In the present paper, we do not treat (im)politeness and (in)civility as interchangeable or as near-synonyms. Instead, we build on research traditions which consider the two distinct, albeit interrelated, concepts (e.g. Papacharissi, 2004).

As the traditional divide between objective, watchdog, and opinion lead journalism has blurred, news programming has been identified as a noteworthy site of incivility (Sobieraj & Berry, 2011). Scholarly attention has particularly focused on interviews involving politicians (Tolson, 2012). The CN and JP interview represents another integral part of news programming, i.e. the factual entertainment interview – a sub-genre that has not, unlike interviews featuring politicians, been identified as a prominent site of incivility. Regardless of interview type, the interview format forms a staple part of our media diet (Huls and Varwijk, 2011: 50) so much so that lay individuals have firm expectations with regards to the etiquette, format and purpose of such interactions (Clayman and Heritage, 2002). When things go askew in media interviews, the subsequent material produced often comes to be added to the popular canon of ‘spectacular media events’ (Ekström and Fitzgerald, 2014: 85). We see the CN and JP interview as such a spectacular media event, not as it has been represented in countless online memes, videos, and podcasts (i.e. as a decisive victory in a supposed culture war of one partisan group over another) but as an illustrative case of incivility in TV news discourse.

In applying a discourse analytic approach, we will focus on the use of metadiscourse (Ädel, 2006, Ädel, 2010, Ädel, 2017) in the realisation of (in)civility. Metadiscourse is a resource which allows speakers to explicitly refer to themselves, their interlocutors or the ongoing discourse (Ädel, 2006). The use of metadiscourse has been associated with antagonistic communication (Smart, 2016: 205)and conversational dominance (Mauranen 2001: 170). For instance, Mauranen (2001) details how the use of discourse reflexivity (a close kin of metadiscourse) allows a speaker to impose authority on discourse (e.g. by explicitly directing the current interaction) and that it is ‘natural to assume that it is used by dominant speakers in abundance’ (2001: 176). In a similar vein, metalanguage itself has been noted as an ultimate attempt by producers to ‘dominate the signifying effects’ of language (Žižek, 2008: 171). We build upon such observations by exploring the use of the phenomenon in the realisation of incivility. We should also note that spoken data is rather neglected when compared to written data in studies of metadiscourse (Mauranen, 2012: 169). The present paper furthers the exploration of the phenomenon by applying the concept to interactive spoken data in a media context.

In the present paper, we neither focus in great detail nor seek to provide commentary on, either participant’s representations on the autonomous plane of discourse, i.e. that in which the speakers act as informers by making representations about object reality (Sinclair, 1981). Indeed, we are primarily interested in the actions of each participant on the interactive plane, i.e. the explicit management of the (ongoing) interaction. Thus, we will use a discourse analytic approach to explore the CN and JP interview to reveal how metadiscourse is used in the realisation of incivility. In doing so, we adopt a qualitative approach to identify and explore a number of discursive practices which give rise to incivility in discourse.

In the following two sections, we outline the core analytic components, i.e. (in)civility and metadiscourse. We will then describe the data and approach used in the study, followed by analysis and discussion. Finally, we will conclude with a summary of our findings and directions for future research.

Section snippets

Civil discourse and incivility

The U.S. National Institute for Civil Discourse defines civil discourse as ‘the free and respectful exchange of different ideas. It entails questioning and disputing, but doing so in a way that respects and affirms all persons, even while critiquing their arguments’3. This definition pertains to notions of (in)civility which seek to uphold the discursive conditions under which individuals, in all their diversity, can speak and be heard (Boyd, 2006, Calhoun, 2000,

Metadiscourse

Two distinct schools of metadiscourse exist within the literature. We use a narrow school (Ädel, 2006; 157) conception of metadiscourse and draw upon Ädel, 2006, Ädel, 2010, Ädel, 2017 work. In a field notoriously haunted by fuzziness, the principal strength of Ädel’s model is the clear identification principles of metadiscourse it sets forth. In keeping with the general premise of the narrow school of metadiscourse, Ädel’s model of metadiscourse does not include aspects of intertextuality or

Data and approach

The actual interview takes place in a television studio in which CN and JP are the only communicative participants (i.e. no studio audience). A verbatim transcript of the interview formed the data set for this study (the transcription scheme can be found in the Appendix A). As analysts of metadiscourse, we were struck by the constant use of the phenomenon by both CN and JP as well as the way in which the conversation struggles to get out of the interactive plane. The highly conflictual nature

Findings and discussion

In the following section, we discuss five manifestations of incivility: intolerant response; low oppositional literacy; ideological entrenchment; the need to win; and, change of opinion condemnation. The first three reoccur throughout the interview; the last two represent salient flashpoints worthy of analysis. Except for oppositional literacy (which we take from Hart, 2018: 66), the labels are ours but based on insights from the literature (e.g. Adler, 1997, Jamieson et al., 2017, Meltzer and

Conclusion

The present article has explored the use of metadiscourse in the realisation of incivility in TV news discourse by focusing on the Cathy Newman and Jordan Peterson interview.

Five main aspects of incivility were presented: intolerant response; low oppositional literacy; ideological entrenchment; the need to win; and, change of opinion condemnation. In our data, metadiscourse was shown as central to the realisation of such incivility. It functioned in several main ways including to preference the

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declared that there is no conflict of interest.

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