Rautajoki2012

From emcawiki
Jump to: navigation, search
Rautajoki2012
BibType ARTICLE
Key Rautajoki2012
Author(s) Hanna Rautajoki
Title Membership categorization as a tool for moral casting in TV discussion: The dramaturgical consequentiality of guest introductions
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, MCA, TV
Publisher
Year 2012
Language
City
Month
Journal Discourse Studies
Volume 14
Number 2
Pages 243–260
URL Link
DOI 10.1177/1461445611433637
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

Download BibTex

Abstract

This article shows how journalists deploy membership categorization in managing conversational drama among ordinary individuals in live television discussion. The scripted agenda for the discussion is analyzed as an interactional project, being prosecuted by the hosting journalists. The case in focus is a Finnish discussion program broadcast six days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the USA in 2001. Five guests are invited to the studio and introduced to the audience. The membership categories that are activated at the beginning of each entrance are consequential to the way the interactional activities unfold in the rest of the discussion, leading from experiential entitlement to accountability and accusation. Introductory identifications are utilized in the question formulation to push moral accounts from the category members and to build an institutionally proper identity for the journalists. The collaboration in realizing the moral casting vividly illustrates the cultural power of the categorization device in action.

Notes