B

Bad News in Medicine, Communicating

Barbara Schouten

University of Amsterdam

Communicating bad news is defined as any information that produces a negative alteration to a person’s expectations about the future. Notwithstanding that there are instances in which information is probably universally appraised as bad, such as the sudden diagnosis of a fatal disease, interpreting information as bad news is regarded as subjective and depending on individual differences in personality, personal resources, cognitive appraisals, and expectations. Medical information, then, is defined as bad news only when a patient appraises it as such after its disclosure.

The dominant research questions in the field include how to successfully break bad news and how physicians and patients experience the delivery of bad news. Results indicate that patients and physicians agree on three main dimensions of the successful delivery of bad news: content of the message (what and how much information is given); facilitation (where and when information is conveyed); and support (emotional support during the interaction).

Crucial aspects of successfully delivering a bad-news message are maintaining a balance between honesty and sensitivity, ensuring that the information is communicated at a convenient time for the patient, and acknowledging the patient´s emotional distress. Adequate information provision during bad-news consultations is related to greater patient satisfaction, fewer depressive and anxiety disorders, and better coping strategies.

However, many patients report a gap between the amount of received information and the amount of desired information. This finding may partly stem from physicians underestimating the extent to which patients want to be informed and partly from their reluctance to transmit bad news, the so-called MUM effect. There are several explanations for the occurrence of the MUM effect: the physicians´ difficulties in handling their own emotions, the communicators’ concern with undesirable emotional reactions on the side of the patient, and the communicators’ concern with social norms, such as the norm to help. Another concern mentioned by physicians is their lack of training in delivering bad news.

See also: image Health Communication image Interpersonal Communication image Interpersonal Communication Competence and Social Skills image Social Support in Interpersonal Communication

References and Suggested Readings

  1. Eggly, S., Penner, L., Albrecht, T. L., Cline, R. J. W., Foster, T., Naughton, M., Peterson, A., & Ruckdeschel, J. C. (2006). Discussing bad news in the outpatient oncology clinic: Rethinking current communication guidelines. Journal of Clinical Oncology, 24(4), 716–719.
  2. Harrison, M. E. & Walling, A. (2010). What do we know about giving bad news? A review. Clinical Pediatrics, 49(7), 619–626.
  3. Paul, C. L., Clinton-McHarg, T., Sanson-Fisher, R. W., Douglas, H., & Webb, G. (2009). Are we there yet? The state of the evidence base for guidelines on breaking bad news to cancer patients. European Journal of Cancer, 45, 2290–2966.

BBC

Michael Bailey

University of Essex

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) started life not as a public corporation but as a private company. Formed in 1922, the early BBC operated as a cartel, consisting of several wireless manufacturers, including the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company. In 1927 the Crawford Parliamentary Committee recommended that “broadcasting be conducted by a public corporation acting as a Trustee for the national interest, and that its status and duties should correspond with those of a public service.” On January 1, 1927, the BBC was effectively nationalized under Royal Charter, and as such became one of the earliest examples of a national public utility (→ Public Broadcasting Systems).

The institutional influence of the BBC and the public service legacy upon which it was founded only really abated with the 1980s and 1990s, a period that witnessed what was then the most significant overhaul to the ecology of British broadcasting, particularly the infrastructure of the BBC, which was made to adapt to the cultural hegemony of neoliberalism. In response to renewed attacks from the commercial broadcasting lobby demanding it become more publicly accountable, the BBC has reinvigorated the discourse of public service with its newly pledged commitment to “building public value,” a managerial discourse aimed at costcutting and efficiency drives, all of which has impacted on the quality and creativity of its program-making. While some of the reforms within the BBC and its programming are to be commended, others are potentially detrimental to the BBC’s public service ethos and its unique relationship with the public as citizens.

Notwithstanding the continuing shift toward populist broadcasting and renewed demands that the license fee be top-sliced and distributed between other public service broadcasters, the BBC remains one of the world’s most influential and celebrated cultural institutions, widely revered as an authoritative source of information, trusted worldwide as a keeper of truth and the public interest.

See also: image BBC World Service image Objectivity in Reporting image Public Broadcasting, History of image Public Broadcasting Systems image United Kingdom: Media System

References and Suggested Readings

  1. Crissell, A. (1997). An introductory history of British broadcasting. London: Routledge.
  2. North, R. D. (2007). “Scrap the BBC!Ten years to set broadcasters free. London: Social Affairs Unit.
  3. Peacock, A. (2004). Public service broadcasting without the BBC? London: Institute of Economic Affairs.

BBC World Service

Graham Mytton

Freelance Consultant and Trainer in Market and Audience Research and Media Governance

The best-known international radio service and that with the largest audience is the BBC World Service (WS), which reaches a weekly global audience of 192 million. Until recently most of its listeners used shortwave, but following cuts to transmissions and investment in new media platforms an increasing proportion use the Internet, mobile phones, and local rebroadcasts. The largest of the BBC’s 32 language services aside from English is the Arabic service. It is now available both on radio and television, the latter launched in 1995 and relaunched in 2008. Funds for this new service were partly found by closing down 10 other language radio services.

The largest audiences have always been in countries where local freedom of media is restricted by poverty or political controls. Audiences in Africa are among the largest, and especially so in such strife-torn areas as Darfur, South Sudan, and Somalia, all examples of a recurring feature of the success of the BBC World Service – the strongest demand for it is where free and independent information is in short supply (→ Freedom of Communication; Freedom of Information). It was this feature of the World Service that prompted Kofi Annan, then secretary-general of the United Nations, to describe it in 1998 as “perhaps Britain’s greatest gift to the world this century.” The importance of the BBC in meeting information needs in areas of crisis and human deprivation led during the 1990s to the establishment of the World Service Trust, which later became BBC Media Action, an educational and development agency that had as its mission to “inform, connect and empower people around the world.”

The vigorous independence of the BBC in its domestic services is a great strength to WS. Journalistic principles and practices are the same for both. From 2014 both BBC domestic and international broadcasting will be funded from the TV licence fee paid by nearly all households in the UK. This change has been welcomed by many as it should end suspicions of FCO involvement in WS. In 2011 the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), which funded the BBC until 2014, cut funding by 16 percent. This led to the closure of broadcasts in five languages and severe cuts to seven others. Crucially, much shortwave broadcasting also ended.

See also: image Freedom of Communication image Freedom of Information image International Radio image International Television

References and Suggested Readings

  1. North, R. D. (2007). “Scrap the BBC!Ten years to set broadcasters free. London: Social Affairs Unit.
  2. Walker, A. (1992). A skyful of freedom: 60 years of the BBC World Service. London: Broadside Books.

Behavioral Norms: Perception through the Media

Dhavan V. Shah

University of Wisconsin–Madison

Hernando Rojas

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Social norms entail learned expectations of behavior or categorization that are deemed desirable, or at least appear as unproblematic for a specific social group in a given situation. Mass media have been found to help shape → perceptions of behavioral norms (→ Media and Perceptions of Reality). These perceptions are consequential for health behaviors, social and sexual practices, democratic participation, and a range of other outcomes.

To a certain extent all communication research traditions provide evidence of the importance of mass media in the perception of behavioral norms. From → agenda-setting effects and its focus on the relative importance of social problems that is provided by media attention, to cultivations of social reality by the disproportionate and continuous presentation of exemplars (→ Cultivation Effects), to more critical accounts in which elites secure consent for a given political order through the production and diffusion of meaning and values through mass media, the notion that media transmit behavioral norms is implied. The case for a direct relationship between exposure to mass media and differential perception of social reality is probably exemplified best by the cultivation tradition, according to which sustained exposure to mediated messages, particularly television, cultivates a common outlook on the world in which mediated reality becomes more important than real-world experiences.

There is also a long tradition of interventions in the form of communication campaigns that seek to alter certain social behaviors by providing cognitive or emotional appeals intended to influence what is considered “normal” (→ Communication and Social Change: Research Methods).

See also: image Agenda-Setting Effects image Climate of Opinion image Communication and Social Change: Research Methods image Cultivation Effects image Media Effects: Direct and Indirect Effects image Media and Perceptions of Reality image Perception image Pluralistic Ignorance and Ideological Biases image Political Socialization through the Media image Spiral of Silence

References and Suggested Readings

  1. Gunther, A. C., Bolt, D., Borzekowski, D. L. G., Liebhart, J. L., & Dillard, J. P. (2006). Presumed influence on peer norms: How mass media indirectly affect adolescent smoking. Journal of Communication, 56, 52–68.
  2. Mutz, D. C. (1998). Impersonal influence: How perceptions of mass collectives affect political attitudes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  3. Price, V., Nir, L., & Cappella, J. N. (2006). Normative and informational influences in online political discussion. Communication Theory, 16, 47–74.
  4. Riddle, K. (2010). Always on my mind: Exploring how frequent, recent, and vivid television portrayals are used in the formation of social reality judgments. Media Psychology, 13, 155–179.
  5. Yanovitzky, I. & Rimal, R. N. (2006). Communication and normative influence: An introduction to the special issue. Communication Theory, 16, 1–6.

Bi- and Multilingualism

Richard Clément

University of Ottawa

Merriam-Webster’s online thesaurus defines bilingualism as “the ability to speak two languages: the frequent oral use of two languages,” and multilingualism as “using or able to use several languages.” Achieving a state of balanced bi/multilingualism is subject to the existence of contextual factors such as the equal status of the languages and the availability of a language community for each language, as well as individual factors such as positive attitudes toward bi/multilingualism and the languages. Besides intergroup attitudes, the more recent literature has supported the importance of L2 confidence as a determinant of L2 behavior and competence (Clément 1980).

Lambert (1978) first proposed that language learning outcomes could be very different for members of majority and minority groups. Notably, subtractive bilingualism would refer to a situation where members of a minority group would come to lose their first language as a result of learning the second one. Additive bilingualism, on the other hand, refers to situations where members of a majority group acquire L2 without losing L1. These aspects find an echo in Kim’s (2005) contextual theory of interethnic communication.

Positive benefits from L2 acquisition and usage will be achieved only to the extent that the first language and culture are well established. This presupposes a social context that allows the development and transmission of the first language and culture. Although such conditions may be present for majority group members, they may not characterize the situation of minority group members, immigrants, refugees, and sojourners. The relative status of the first- and second-language speaking groups is a key determinant of the linguistic and cultural outcomes of bi/multilingualism.

See also: image Acculturation Processes and Communication image Communication Networks image Intercultural and Intergroup Communication image Intergroup Contact and Communication image Language and Social Interaction image Power in Intergroup Settings

References and Suggested Readings

  1. Clément, R. (1980). Ethnicity, contact and communicative competence in a second language. In H. Giles, W. P. Robinson, & P. M. Smith (eds.), Language: Social psychological perspectives. Oxford: Pergamon, pp. 147–154.
  2. Kim, Y. Y. (2005). Association and dissociation: A contextual theory of interethnic communication. In W. B. Gudykunst (ed.), Theorizing about intercultural communication. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 323–350.
  3. Lambert, W. E. (1978). Cognitive and socio-cultural consequences of bilingualism. Canadian Modern Language Review, 34, 537–547.

Bias in the News

Tien-Tsung Lee

University of Kansas

Kirsten Grimmer

University of Kansas

A media bias, the opposite of objectivity (→ Objectivity in Reporting) is differential treatment of a particular side of an issue, which can be measured quantitatively or qualitatively. If one side receives proportionally less news coverage, or apparently more negative, inaccurate, or unbalanced coverage, a bias is shown (Simon et al. 1989; → News).

McQuail (1992) identifies four types of bias: open versus hidden and intended versus unintended. A partisan bias is open and intended (e.g., an editorial endorsement). Propaganda is intentional yet hidden (e.g., results of a firm’s public relations efforts; → Propaganda). An unwitting bias is open and unintended (e.g., news events receiving coverage unequally). Ideology is unintended and hidden, and therefore difficult to define or detect as it is embedded in text. The manifestation of a media bias consists of three aspects: the ideologies and party affiliations of journalists, actual media content, and media organizations’ structure.

Some authors believe mainstream media in industrialized western countries have a conservative bias, partially due to corporate owners supporting a capitalist and two-party-system status quo. Others argue that alternative political views are often considered un-newsworthy and ignored. Additionally, the media have been accused of having racial, gender, religious, and class biases (Wilson, Gutierrez, & Chao 2013). Others have claimed that a liberal and pro-Democratic bias exists in US mainstream media, which is unsupported.

Hostile media” studies offer an explanation for the perception of a media bias and suggest supporters of an issue or a group might believe the media favor their opponents. The perception of a media bias is likely caused by an observer’s own partisanship bias.

Another explanation for perceived media biases is that audiences likely seek political information they agree with, and process information in a way that matches their existing view (→ Selective Exposure; Selective Perception and Selective Retention). If they see a differing viewpoint in the news, they likely perceive a bias. Also, consumers may categorically assume all information from a certain source is completely biased and ignore it. If citizens are not exposed to, or are not open-minded about, perspectives they do not necessarily agree with, there can be negative consequences in a participatory democracy.

See also: image Advocacy Journalism image Journalists’ Role Perception image Media Production and Content image News image News Values image Objectivity in Reporting image Propaganda image Selective Exposure image Selective Perception and Selective Retention

References and Suggested Readings

  1. McQuail, D. (1992). Media performance. London: Sage.
  2. Niven, D. (2002). Tilt? The search for media bias. Westport, CT: Praeger.
  3. Simon, T. F., Fico, F., & Lacy, S. (1989). Covering conflict and controversy: Measuring balance, fairness, defamation. Journalism Quarterly, 66, 427–434.
  4. Wilson II, C. C., Gutierrez F. G., & Chao, L. M. (2013). Racism, sexism, and the media. Los Angeles, CA: Sage.

Bollywood

Vijay Mishra

Murdoch University, Perth

According to the Oxford English Dictionary (2005), Bollywood is a name of the Indian popular film industry, based in Bombay. Origin 1970s. “Blend of Bombay and Hollywood” (→ Hollywood). The OED definition acknowledges the strength of a film industry which, although a subset of the burgeoning Indian film industry (Bollywood’s annual output of some 130 films is less than a fifth of the total), is now seen as India’s transnational and transcultural popular art form.

The numbers in all respects for Bollywood are quite staggering, especially for an industry which was given ‘industry status’ only on May 10, 1998: a $3.5-billion-dollar-per-year industry which employs some 2.5 million people, ticket sales close to 4 billion every year and a growing international market. For example, Dabangg (2010) grossed $36 million at the box office, and 3 Idiots – the highest-grossing Bollywood film ever – $65 million (→ India: Media System).

Rendered through melodrama which, ever since the first Indian film, Phalke’s Raja Harischchandra (1913), drew on the sentimental European novel, the Indian epic tradition, Persian narrative, a fair bit of Shakespeare and the influential Parsi theatre, Bollywood cinema has dealt with big issues – the idea of the nation-state, communal harmony, and justice. The highest-grossing hits of Bollywood from 1943 to 1994 – Kismet (1943), Barsaat (1949), Awara (1951), Aan (1952), Shree 420 (1955), Mother India (1957), Mughal-e-Azam (1960), Sholay (1975), and Hum Aapke Hain Koun (1994) – show the persistence of these themes and the durability of the melodramatic genre.

Then there was a sudden redefinition, not because of any significant change to the → genre itself but through a shift in the mode of production, consumption, and circulation. We now find a postmodern Bollywood, where instead of the old depth of language and dialogue (hallmarks of classic Bollywood cinema as seen, for example, in the 1953 Parineeta or the 1955 Devdas), technorealism in production (seen in the remake of Parineeta (2006) and Devdas (2003)) and cosmopolitanism of theme have become the markers of Indian Bollywood modernity.

See also: image Genre image Hollywood image India: Media System

References

  1. Gopal, S. (2011). Conjugations: Marriage and form in new Bollywood cinema. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  2. Mishra, V. (2002). Bollywood cinema: Temples of desire. New York and London: Routledge.
  3. Rajadhyaksha, A. (2003). ‘The “Bollywoodization” of the Indian cinema: Cultural nationalism in a global arena.’ Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 4 (1), 25–39.

Book

Kay Amert

University of Iowa

The book is a durable vehicle for words and images and often is a central artifact in cultures with the written word. Those produced in the era before the advent of printing are unique ‘manuscript’ books that were made by hand (→ Printing, History of). The book became the first mass medium, and conventions for its presentation shaped those of later media. It can be distinguished from other printed and electronic media by the substantial length of its texts and by the diversity of its content, which ranges from the worldly and practical to the poetic and sublime.

While most books are edited, designed, produced, promoted, and distributed, the field of book publishing is diverse and includes small presses, specialty publishers, government publishing, the private press, and artists’ books, inspiring many variant practices. Materials used in the construction of books must be light enough to be amassed in quantity and flexible enough to be rolled or folded. Papyrus, parchment, and paper all meet these requirements, with machine-made paper predominant in modern times. For economy, the sizes and shapes in which such materials originally are produced often act as determinants of the formats of books. By design or of necessity, book formats sometimes break out of these norms: ‘elephant’ folios and miniature books are two examples (→ Design). Comprehension of the content of most books requires a specific sequence of pages to accumulate meaning. Imposition (the placement of pages) and binding determine and enforce that order.

Producing the book has almost always required the use of teams of people and specialized equipment, in the modern era in an industrial setting to accomplish typesetting, proofreading, printing, and binding. The introduction of computers into this process from the 1960s changed the process of typesetting and revised writing and editing practices, eliminating steps in production and altering relations among personnel.

The computerization of book ordering and shipping, begun in the late twentieth century, reduced diversity among bookstores, encouraging centralization and the development of uniform chains. Online sale and the electronic ordering of books further unified bookselling.

See also: image Design image Graphic Design image Photography image Printing, History of

References and Suggested Readings

  1. Coulmas, F. (1996). The Blackwell encyclopedia of writing systems. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
  2. Steinberg, S. H. (1996). Five hundred years of printing. New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll.
  3. Thompson, J. (2005). Books in the digital age: The transformation of academic and higher education publishing in Britain and the United States. Cambridge: Polity.

Branding

Katja Gelbrich

Catholic University of Eichstaett-Ingolstadt

The term ‘branding’ is used for the identification of offers (products and services). Etymologically, the origin of the word can be found in the branding of cattle. Initially, the spectrum of meanings was closely restricted to the pure act of naming. In the course of time, a more tailored definition was suggested: integrated and harmonized use of all marketing-mix instruments with the aim of creating a concise, comprehensive, and positively discriminating brand image within the relevant competitive environment (→ Marketing).

However, this all-embracing concept is not clearly distinguishable from brand management. Hence, another definition situated between these two extremes has become widely accepted: the so-called magic triangle of branding. The triangle has the following three sides: brand name, trademark (for example, a logo), and product design and packaging. It is the task of branding to balance these three sides so that they position a brand uniquely (→ Brands).

Faced with the increasing globalization of many markets, the issue of the creation of global brand names has recently received much attention. The criteria mentioned in this context (e.g., short, simple brand names that release positive associations and are easily understandable and easily remembered) are of course also important for the branding of national brands. In a global context, however, such criteria as ‘short, simple, easily remembered’ have to be more strictly observed or differentiated.

Brand logos play a decisive role because visual impulses are more memorable than verbal ones and take a direct path to stored associations in the brain. For this reason, image logos are used more often than script logos. The images may in turn be abstract icons or tangible pictures.

The → design and packaging have to contribute to the high-quality, unique positioning of a brand. This can be obtained by a characteristic form and color as well as other features (e.g., materials).

See also: image Advertisement Campaign Management image Brands image Corporate Reputation image Design image Iconography image Marketing image Organizational Image image Visual Communication

References and Suggested Readings

  1. Aaker, D. A. & Joachimsthaler, E. (2000). Brand leadership. New York: Free Press.
  2. Coomber, S. (2007). Branding. Chichester: Capstone.
  3. Shamoon, S. & Tehseen, S. (2011). Brand management: What next? Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research in Business, 2(12), 435–441.

Brands

Kim Bartel Sheehan

University of Oregon

In the late 1800s, a brand was a tool used to identify ownership. As manufacturing processes improved throughout the Industrial Revolution, brands became a way for parity products to differentiate themselves. Today, a brand is a symbol that embodies a range of information connected with a company, a product, or a service. Elements of a brand include a name, a logo, and other visual elements such as images, colors, or typefaces (→ Branding).

Every year, Interbrand calculates the brand value of the world’s top brands, i.e., the net present value of the earnings the brand is expected to generate and secure in the future for a specified one-year time period. The world’s most valuable brand is Apple. In 2013 it had a brand value of US$98 trillion (www.interbrand.com). Only two non-US brands (Samsung and Toyota) made it into the top ten brands.

Brands have certain advantages for the consumer. They indicate value and quality. Consumers can use brand information to defend their own purchase decisions, which minimizes post-decisional dissonance (→ Cognitive Dissonance Theory). Consumers also use some brands to indicate to other consumers who they are, or who they would like to be.

Brands are valuable for companies as well. When consumers purchase a brand that they like, the brand is contributing to the commercial success of the company. If a consumer associates a brand with quality, the brand can command higher prices than a weaker brand. Strong brands allow for reduction in advertising expenditures. The brand accounts for more than a third of shareholder value in the average company, and in many cases for more than 70 percent of shareholder value.

Even nonprofit organizations have started embracing the brand as a key asset for obtaining donations, sponsorships, and volunteers. This represents a movement to have brands represent a company’s key values in order to connect with consumers on a deeper, more emotive level.

See also: image Advertising image Advertising Effectiveness image Advertising Strategies image BRANDING image Cognitive Dissonance Theory image Integrated Marketing Communications image Marketing

References and Suggested Readings

  1. Bedbury, S. (2002). A new brand world. New York: Viking.
  2. Gyrd-Jones, R., Merrilees, B., & Miller, D. (2013). Revisiting the complexities of corporate branding: Issues, paradoxes, solutions. Journal of Brand Management, 20, 571–589.
  3. Ries, A. & Ries, L. (2004). The origin of brands: How product evolution creates endless possibilities for new brands. New York: Collins.

Broadcast Journalism

Mike Conway

Indiana University

Broadcast journalism took news off the page and extended it to radio and television in the mid-twentieth century. The first broadcast journalists came from other media including newspapers, news and photo magazines, theater newsreels, motion pictures, and documentary films.

In the United States, radio news found its purpose and audience during World War II. Concerning television, CBS, NBC, and a few local stations offered news programs before World War II (Conway 2009), but television news became an important platform after the war, as television diffused to a larger audience, becoming a true mass medium. In Britain, Japan, the Netherlands, and other nations that employed a user fee to pay for radio and television news, broadcast journalism tended to focus more on public affairs issues. In countries such as France the government kept parts of the broadcasting system under close watch, turning broadcast journalism into more of an official service (→ France: Media System; Public Broadcasting Systems).

In Asia, Taiwan has distinctly western news, with local versions of popular US programs such as “60 Minutes” and “Meet the Press,” despite the mostly eastern influences on other television programming. In China, the government determined the direction of most news programming through the 1980s, when it began loosening some restrictions (→ China: Media System). Al Jazeera, based in Qatar, has adopted US news practices such as heated political debate, dramatic visuals, live coverage, and criticism of government decisions, altering the news landscape in Middle Eastern nations that previously stifled dissent (→ Arab Satellite TV News).

In the twenty-first century, broadcast news across the globe ranges from stark public affairs programming, through 24-hour live coverage, to sensational tabloid shows. The move to online and mobile platforms for news is presenting new challenges for traditional radio and television journalism.

See also: image Arab satellite tv news image China: Media System image Commodification of the Media image France: Media System image Germany: Media System image Infotainment image Public Broadcasting Systems image Television Broadcasting, Regulation of

References and Suggested Readings

  1. Conway, M. (2009). The origins of television news in America: The visualizers of CBS in the 1940s. New York: Peter Lang.
  2. Pew Research Center (2011). How people learn about their local community. Project for Excellence in Journalism, September 26. At http://pewresearch.org/pubs/2105/local-news-television-internet-radio-newspapers, accessed July 18, 2014.
  3. Zhang, W. (2004). Staging unity, celebrating Chineseness: Textual analysis of 2002 CCTV Spring Festival Eve Gala. Asian Communication Research, 1(2), 67–83.

Broadcast Talk

Steven E. Clayman

University of California, Los Angeles

Most radio and television programming involves talk in some form, but the term broadcast talk is usually reserved for a type of content that differs from both fictional entertainment and news stories. It refers to programs that are informational, relatively unscripted, and organized around processes of interaction (→ Narrative News Story). Broadcast talk includes ad hoc events held at the initiative of public figures (e.g., news conferences, campaign debates, town meetings), as well as regularly scheduled programs (e.g., news interviews, celebrity talk shows, radio call-in shows). A range of journalistic and “infotainment” → genres fall into the category, each involving some combination of public figures, media professionals, and ordinary people as participants.

Broadcast talk programming has grown substantially in recent decades due to a confluence of factors. First, technological changes such as the rise of cable, satellite feeds, and more portable video equipment have enabled live encounters between program hosts and guests from around the world (→ Cable Television; Satellite Television). Second, economic conditions have encouraged broadcasters to exploit these opportunities, with marketplace volatility and internet competition fostering a willingness to experiment with new formats (→ Commodification of the Media). Third, such experimentation has taken place within an occupational culture that places a high value on “live” programming as the distinctive province of broadcasting.

Research so far has focused on the interactional forms and practices associated with various talk genres, e.g., “Conversational” talks (e.g., celebrity talk shows) vs more formal and specialized talks (e.g., campaign debates, news interviews). Other research considers what the form and content of broadcast talk reveals about, for instance, the professional norms of journalists or the evolving relations between them and public figures. Finally, researchers have also examined the impact of broadcast talk on subsequent news coverage, and on political knowledge, attitudes, and behavior.

See also: image Cable Television image Commodification of the Media image Genre image Infotainment image Language and Social Interaction image Narrative News Story image Questions and Questioning image Satellite Television

References and Suggested Readings

  1. Baum, M. A. & Jamison, A. (2011). “Soft news and the four Oprah effects.” In R. Y. Shapiro and L. R. Jacobs (eds.), The Oxford handbook of American public opinion and the media. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 121–137.
  2. Clayman, S. E. & Heritage, J. (2002). The news interview: Journalists and public figures on the air. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  3. Hutchby, I. (2006). Media talk: Conversation analysis and the study of broadcasting. New York: Open University Press.
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