Using conversation analysis to explore the nature of argument, asymmetry, and power, this book focuses on the interplay between the structures of participation on talk radio. It demonstrates how conversation analysis may be used to account for power as a feature of institutional discourse.

The landscape of broadcast news media is constantly changing, partly under the influence of changing technology but also due to changes in the social role of television journalism. The Political Interview: Broadcast Talk in the Interactional Combat Zone takes a sociological and linguistic approach to examining these changes, focusing on the discourse practices that are associated with them. Tracing contemporary developments in the ways that interviews with politicians are conducted in a range of televised formats, Ian Hutchby analyzes increasing tendencies towards conflictual interactions...