Article published In:
Journal of Language and PoliticsVol. 8:3 (2009) ► pp.386–415
Power and affiliation in presidential press conferences
A study on interruptions, jokes and laughter
Presidential press conference is an enduring form for public interrogations. Interaction in this context regulates and symbolizes relations of power, autonomy and affiliation between the President and the journalists. A general argument is that we have to study sequences of interaction in order to understand the roles and relations established in press conferences. The article investigates interruptions, and jokes and laughter. The study is based on Conversation Analysis and the data encompasses 19 press conferences held by George W Bush from 2005–2007. The analysis shows how the President uses interruptions in order to control the allocation of turns, disagree and reject criticism, demonstrate certainty and conviction, and makes joke with the journalists. Sequences of jokes and laughter strengthen the interactive power of the President, create affiliations, and questioning the expected neutrality of journalism.
Keywords: interaction, press conference, interruption, jokes, laughter, journalism, affiliation, power
References (61)
Adelswärd, Viveca. 1989. Laughter and dialogue: The social significance of laughter in institutional discourse. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 121, 107—136. 
Atkinson, Maxwell and Heritage, John (Eds.) 1996. Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis. Camridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bavelas, Janet, Black, Alex, Bryson, Lisa and Mullett, Jennifer. 1988. Political Equivocation: A Situational Explanation Journal of Language and Social Psychology 7(2), 137—145.
Beattie, Geoffrey. 1989. Interruptions in Political Interviews: A reply to Bull and Mayer. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 8(5), 327—339.
Bhatia, Aditi. 2006. Critical discourse analysis of political press conferences. Discourse and Society 17(2), 173—203.
Bilmes, Jack. 1997. Being interrupted. Language in Society 261, 507—531.
Bull, Peter. 2003. On the Microanalysis of Political Communication. Claptrap and Ambiguity. London: Routledge.
. 1994. On Identifying Questions, Replies and Nonreplies in Political Interviews. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 13(2), 115—132.
Bull, Peter and Mayer, Kate. 1993. How Not to Answer Questions in Political Interviews. Political Psychology 14(4), 651—666.
Bull, Peter och Mayer, Kate. 1988. Interruptions in Political Interviews: A Study of Margaret Thatcher and Neil Kinnock. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 7(1), 35—45.
Clayman, Steven. 1990. From talk to text: Newspaper accounts of reporter source interactions. Media, Culture and Society 12(1), 79—104.
. 1993. Reformulating the question: A device for answering/not answering questions in news interviews and press conferences. Text (13(2), 159—188.
Clayman, Steven and Heritage, John. 2002a. Questioning Presidents: Journalistic Deference and Adversarialness in the Press Conferences of Eisenhower and Reagan. Journal of Communication 52(4), 749—775.
. 2002b. The News Interview. Journalists and Public Figures on the Air. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Clayman, Steven, Elliot, Mark, Heritage, John and McDonald, Laurie. 2006. Historical trends in questioning presidents 1953—2000. Presidential Studies Quarterly 361, 561—583.
. 2007. When does the watchdog bark? Conditions of aggressive questioning in presidential news conferences. American Sociological Review 721, 23—41.
Collins, Randall. 2004. Interaction Rituals. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Corner, John and Pels, Dick. 2003. (eds.) Media and the Restyling of Politics. London: Sage.
Drew, Paul and Heritage, John. (eds.) 1992. Talk at Work. Interaction in Institutional Settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
EkstrÖm, Mats. 2006a. Politiken i Mediesamhället (Politics in the Media Society). MalmÖ: Liber.
. 2006b. Interviewing, quoting, and the development of modern news journalism: A study of the Swedish press 1915—1995. In: Mats EkstrÖm, åsa Kroon and Mats Nylund (eds.) News from the Interview Society. GÖteborg: Nordicom.
. 2007a. Conversation Analysis in Journalism studies. Journalism Studies 8(6), 964—974.
. 2007b. Occupying the floor in political press conferences. A study in interaction and territorial power (Paper presented at the ICA Conference in San Fransisco May 2007).
. 2009. Announced refusal to answer: A study of norms and accountability in broadcast political interviews. Discourse Studies 11(6), 1-22.
EkstrÖm, Mats and Bérzces, Judit. 2008. Avbrott i politiska mediesamtal (Interruptions in political media talk) Nordicom 30 (1), 3—18.
Eshbaugh-Soha, Matthew. 2003. Presidential press conferences over time. American Journal of Political Science 47(2), 348—353.
French, Blaire Atherton. 1982. The Preidential Press Conference: Its History and Role in the American Political System. Washington, DC: University Press of America.
Glenn, Phillip. 1989. Initiating shared laughter in multi-party conversations. Western Journal of Speech Communication 531,127—149.
. 2003. Laughter in Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Goffman, Erving. 1967. Interaction Rituals: Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior. New York: Anchor Books.
Graham, Elizabeth E, Papa, Michael J and Brooks, Gordon P. 1992. Functions of humor in conversation: Conceptualization and measurement. Western Journal of Communication 561,161—183.
Hay, Jennifer. 2001. The pragmatics of humor support. Humor 14(1), 55—82.
Heritage, John. 1985. Analysing news interviews: Aspects of the production of talk for an overhearing audience. In: Teun van Dijk (ed.) Handbook of Discource Analysis,Volume 3: Discourse and Dialogue. London: Academic Press.
Heritage, John and Greatbatch, David. 1991. On the institutional character of institutional talk. The case of news interviews. In: Deirdre Boden, and Don H. Zimmerman. (eds.) Talk and Social Structure. Studies in Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Hutchby, Ian. 1996. Confrontation Talk. Arguments, Asymmetries and Power on Talk Radio. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
. 1999. Beyond agnosticism?: Conversation analysis and the sociological agenda. Research on Language and Social Interaction 32(1&2), 85—93.
Jefferson, Gail. 1979. A technique for inviting laughter and its subsequent acceptance Declination. In: George Psathas (ed.) Everyday Language. Studies in Ethnomethodology. New York: Irvington Publishers Inc.
. 1985. An exercise in the transcription and analysis of laughter. In: Teun van Dijk (ed.) Handbook of Discourse Analysis vol 31. London: Academic Press.
Kotthoff, Helga. 1996. Impoliteness and conversational joking: On relational politics. Folia Linguistica, 30(3—4), 299—325.
Kumar, Martha Joynt. 2003. Does this constitute a press conference? Defining and tabulating modern presidential press conferences. Presidential Studies Quarterly 33(1). 221—237.
. 2005. Presidential press conferences: The importance and evolution of an enduring forum. Presidential Studies Quarterly 35(1), 66—194.
. 2007. Managing the president’s Message. The White House Communications Operation. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Lammers, William. 1981. Presidential press-conference schedules: Who hides, and when? Political Science Quarterly 96(2), 261—278.
Marshall, David. 2004. Celebrity and Power. Fame in Contemporary Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Manheim, Jarol and Lammers, William. 1981. The news conference and presidential leadership of public opinion: Does the tail wag the dog? Presidential Studies Quarterly 11(2), 177—188.
Murray, Stephen O. 1985 Toward a Model of Members’ Methods for Recognizing Interruptions. Language in Society 141, 31—40.
Norrick, Neal. 1993. Issues in conversational joking. Journal of Pragmatics 351,1333—1359.
Sacks, Harvey. 1974. An analysis of the course of a joke’s telling. In: Richard Bauman and Joel Sherzer (eds.) Explorations in the Ethnography of Speaking, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
. 1972/1995a. Lectures on Conversation. Vol 1 (edited by Gail Jefferson and with an introduction by Emanuel A. Schegloff). Malden: Blackwell Publishing.
. 1972/1995b. Lectures on Conversation. Vol 2 (edited by Gail Jefferson and with an introduction by Emanuel A. Schegloff). Malden: Blackwell Publishing.
Sacks, Harvey, Schegloff, Emanuel and Jefferson, Gail. 1974. A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language 501, 696—735.
Scannell, Paddy. 2007. Media and Communication. London: Sage.
Schegloff, Emanuel A. 1987. Between Micro and Macro: Contexts and Other Connections. In Jeffrey Alexander et al (eds.) The Micro-Macro Link. Berkley: University of California Press.
. 2000. Overlapping talk and the organization of turn-taking for Conversation. Language in Society 29(1), 1—63.
. 2007. Sequence Organization in Interaction. A primer in Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Steensig, Jakob and Drew, Paul. 2008. Introduction: Questioning and affiliation/disaffiliation in interaction. Discourse studies 10(1), 5—15.
Thornborrow, Joanna. 2002. Power Talk. Language and Interaction in Institutional Discourse. London: Longman.
Tolson, Andrew. 2006. Media Talk. Spoken Discourse on TV and Radio. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Weeks, Peter. 1995. The microsociolgy of everyday life. In: Sylvia M Hale (ed.) Controversies in Sociology. Toronto: Copp Clark Ltd.
Zajdman, Anat. 1995. Humorous face-threatening acts: Humor as strategy. Journal of Pragmatics 231, 325—339.
Zimmerman, Don H. and West, Candace. 1975. Sex roles, interruptions and silence in conversation. In Barrie Thorne and Nancy Henley (eds.) Language and Sex: Difference and Dominance. Rowley: Newbury House.
Cited by (24)
Cited by 24 other publications
Pritzker, Sonya E., Jason A. DeCaro, Baili Gall, Lawrence T. Monocello & Joshua R. Pederson
2024. Embodying intimacy in everyday interaction: A biolinguistic study of long‐term partners in the Southeastern United States. Ethos 52:1 ► pp. 89 ff. 
Ekström, Mats & Melisa Stevanovic
2023. Conversation analysis and power: examining the descendants and antecedents of social action. Frontiers in Sociology 8
Quan, Lihong & Jinlong Ma
Svenbro, Maja & Misse Wester
2023. Examining Legitimacy in Government Agencies’ Crisis Communication. International Journal of Strategic Communication 17:1 ► pp. 54 ff.
Just, Marion R., Joseph Saraceno & Ann N. Crigler
2022. Trump Confronts COVID in Press Briefings and on Twitter. In Manufacturing Government Communication on Covid-19 [Springer Studies in Media and Political Communication, ], ► pp. 215 ff.
Shrikant, Natasha & Sylvia Sierra
2022. “Nasty Question” and “Fake News”: Metadiscourse as a Resource for Denying Accusations of Racism in Donald Trump’s Presidential Press Events. Howard Journal of Communications 33:2 ► pp. 119 ff.
Wang, Hong & Yunfeng Ge
2022. The discursive (re)construction of social relations in a crisis situation: A genre analytical approach to press conferences on COVID-19 in China. Frontiers in Psychology 13
Wodak, Ruth, Jonathan Culpeper & Elena Semino
2021. Shameless normalisation of impoliteness: Berlusconi’s and Trump’s press conferences. Discourse & Society 32:3 ► pp. 369 ff.
Carpenter, Dick M., Marjory J. Webster & Chad K. Bowman
2019. White House Wit: How Presidents Use Humor as a Leadership Tool. Presidential Studies Quarterly 49:1 ► pp. 23 ff.
Gu, Chonglong
2019. Mediating ‘face’ in triadic political communication: a CDA analysis of press conference interpreters’ discursive (re)construction of Chinese government’s image (1998–2017). Critical Discourse Studies 16:2 ► pp. 201 ff.
Kantara, Argyro
2019. Laughter and identity construction in political interviews. Journal of Language and Politics 18:3 ► pp. 420 ff.
Liao, Sixin & Li Pan
2018. Interpreter mediation at political press conferences. Interpreting. International Journal of Research and Practice in Interpreting 20:2 ► pp. 188 ff.
Wu, Feng, Yang Cheng & Duo Chao
2017. Global questioners: examining journalists’ aggressiveness at Chinese premiers’ press conferences (1993–2015). Asian Journal of Communication 27:4 ► pp. 357 ff.
Wu, Feng & Hong Zhao
2016. How to respond to journalists’ questions? A new perspective on Chinese premiers’ aggressiveness at press conferences (1993–2015). Asian Journal of Communication 26:5 ► pp. 446 ff.
Kangas, Sara E.N.
2014. What can software tell us about political candidates?. Journal of Language and Politics 13:1 ► pp. 77 ff.
Eriksson, Göran & Johan Östman
2013. Cooperative or Adversarial? Journalists’ Enactment of the Watchdog Function in Political News Production. The International Journal of Press/Politics 18:3 ► pp. 304 ff.
Patrona, Marianna
2013. ‘We Change or We Sink’: Discursively Constructing the Voter’s Dilemma in a Pre-election Interview with the Greek Prime Minister. In Media Talk and Political Elections in Europe and America, ► pp. 13 ff.
Dunmire, Patricia L.
2012. Political Discourse Analysis: Exploring the Language of Politics and the Politics of Language. Language and Linguistics Compass 6:11 ► pp. 735 ff.
Eriksson, Göran
2011. Follow-up questions in political press conferences. Journal of Pragmatics 43:14 ► pp. 3331 ff.
Lee, Judith Yaross
2011. The Year's Work in American Humor Studies, 2009. Studies in American Humor 23 ► pp. 81 ff.
Lee, Judith Yaross
2011. The Year's Work in American Humor Studies, 2009. Studies in American Humor 23 ► pp. 81 ff.
Ekström, Mats
2009. Announced refusal to answer: a study of norms and accountability in broadcast political interviews. Discourse Studies 11:6 ► pp. 681 ff.
Ekström, Mats
2016. Press Conferences. In The International Encyclopedia of Political Communication, ► pp. 1 ff.
[no author supplied]
2012. References. In The Handbook of Conversation Analysis, ► pp. 741 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.