1887
Volume 13, Issue 1
  • ISSN 2211-4742
  • E-ISSN: 2211-4750
USD
Buy:$35.00 + Taxes

Abstract

Abstract

During the Covid-19 pandemic, various institutions held press conferences to inform the public about the situation. Journalists engaged in these events to obtain information and to scrutinize the appropriateness of authorities’ measures. Previous research has shown that journalists have become more adversarial towards politicians, but also that health crises make journalists more cooperative with authorities to help manage the situation. However, it remains unknown to what extent journalists retain their deliberative aim in press conferences where crises are addressed, and how their interventions as a whole shape discussions with authorities. A corpus of twenty-one press conferences held by seven institutions was annotated according to the argumentative moves of journalists. Results show that journalists displayed a wide array of argumentative moves, and the findings suggest that journalists incline towards retrieving information during crises, unless the situation gets intertwined with political turmoil.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/jaic.00024.her
2024-05-17
2025-02-11
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Anderson, Charles
    2020 Jacinda Ardern and her government soar in popularity during coronavirus crisis. Retrieved onApril 2022fromhttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/01/jacinda-ardern-and-her-government-soar-in-popularity-during-corona​virus-crisis
  2. Anthony, Laurence
    2005 AntConc: design and development of a freeware corpus analysis toolkit for the technical writing classroom. InIPCC 2005. Proceedings. International Professional Communication Conference, 729–737. IEEE. 10.1109/IPCC.2005.1494244
    https://doi.org/10.1109/IPCC.2005.1494244 [Google Scholar]
  3. Ardern, Jacinda
    2020, April7. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern holds a press conference to give an update on the Covid-19 pandemic in New Zealand. Retrieved onDecember 1, 2022, fromhttps://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/new-zealand-covid-19-briefing-transcript-april-7
  4. 2020, April29. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern holds a press conference to give an update on the Covid-19 pandemic in New Zealand. Retrieved onDecember 1, 2022, fromhttps://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/new-zealand-covid-19-briefing-transcript-april-29
  5. Clayman, Steven
    2001 Answers and evasions. Language in society, 30(3), 403–442. 10.1017/S0047404501003037
    https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404501003037 [Google Scholar]
  6. Clayman, Steven. and John Heritage
    2002a Questioning presidents: Journalistic deference and adversarialness in the press conferences of US Presidents Eisenhower and Reagan. Journal of communication, 52(4), 749–775. 10.1111/j.1460‑2466.2002.tb02572.x
    https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2002.tb02572.x [Google Scholar]
  7. 2002bThe news interview: Journalists and public figures on the air. Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9780511613623
    https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511613623 [Google Scholar]
  8. Clayman, Steven. and Matthew Fox
    2017 Hardballs and softballs: Modulating adversarialness in journalistic questioning. Journal of Language and Politics, 16(1), 20–40. 10.1075/jlp.16.1.02cla
    https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.16.1.02cla [Google Scholar]
  9. Clementson, David. and William Eveland
    2016 When Politicians Dodge Questions: An Analysis of Presidential Press Conferences and Debates. Mass Communication and Society, 19(4), 411–429. 10.1080/15205436.2015.1120876
    https://doi.org/10.1080/15205436.2015.1120876 [Google Scholar]
  10. Coombs, Timothy
    2010 Parameters for crisis communication. InThe handbook of crisis communication, ed.Coombs, T and S. Holladay. Oxford: John Wiley & Sons. 10.1002/9781444314885.ch1
    https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444314885.ch1 [Google Scholar]
  11. Cuomo, Andrew
    2020, April3. Governor Andrew Cuomo holds a press conference to give an update on the Covid-19 pandemic in New York State. Retrieved onDecember 1, 2022, fromhttps://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/gov-andrew-cuomo-new-york-covid-19-briefing-april-3-ny-passes-100000-cases
  12. 2020, April16. Governor Andrew Cuomo holds a press conference to give an update on the Covid-19 pandemic in New York State. Retrieved onDecember 1, 2022, fromhttps://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/andrew-cuomo-new-york-covid-19-briefing-transcript-april-16
  13. Eriksson, Göran
    2011 Follow-up questions in political press conferences. Journal of Pragmatics, 43(14), 3331–3344. 10.1016/j.pragma.2011.07.004
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2011.07.004 [Google Scholar]
  14. Eriksson, Göran and Mats Eriksson
    2012 Managing political crisis: an interactional approach to “image repair”. Journal of Communication Management, 16(3), 264–279. 10.1108/13632541211245776
    https://doi.org/10.1108/13632541211245776 [Google Scholar]
  15. Gallup
    Gallup. n.d.Presidential Approval Ratings – Donald Trump. Retrieved onApril 2022from: https://news.gallup.com/poll/203198/presidential-approval-ratings-donald-trump.aspx
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Glik, Deborah
    2007 Risk communication for public health emergencies. Annual Review of Public Health, 281, 33–54. 10.1146/annurev.publhealth.28.021406.144123
    https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.publhealth.28.021406.144123 [Google Scholar]
  17. Hautli-Janisz, Annette, Katarzyna Budzynska, Conor McKillop, Brian Plüss, Valentine Gold, and Chris Reed
    2022 Questions in argumentative dialogue. Journal of Pragmatics, 1881, 56–79. 10.1016/j.pragma.2021.10.029
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2021.10.029 [Google Scholar]
  18. Heritage, Jhon and Steven Clayman
    2013 The changing tenor of questioning over time: Tracking a question form across US presidential news conferences, 1953–2000. Journalism Practice, 7(4), 481–501. 10.1080/17512786.2013.802485
    https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2013.802485 [Google Scholar]
  19. Hernández, A.
    2021 Journalists’ moves in political press conferences and their implications for accountability. Journal of Argumentation in Context, 10(3), 281–314. 10.1075/jaic.20005.her
    https://doi.org/10.1075/jaic.20005.her [Google Scholar]
  20. Hooker, Claire, Catherine King, and Julie Leask
    2011 Journalists’ views about reporting avian influenza and a potential pandemic: a qualitative study. Influenza and other respiratory viruses, 6(3), 224–229. 10.1111/j.1750‑2659.2011.00319.x
    https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1750-2659.2011.00319.x [Google Scholar]
  21. Jacobs, S., Jackson, S., & Zhang, X.
    2022) What Was the President’s Standpoint and When Did He Take It? A Normative Pragmatic Study of Standpoint Emergence in a Presidential Press Conference. Languages, 7(2), 153.
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Johnson, Boris
    2020, November26. Prime Minister Boris Johnson holds a press conference to give an update on the Covid-19 pandemic in the U.K. Retrieved onDecember 1, 2022, fromhttps://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/boris-johnson-downing-street-covid-19-press-conference-transcript-nov-26-covid-tier-system
  23. Klemm, Celine, Enny Das, and Tilo Hartmann
    2019 Changed priorities ahead: Journalists’ shifting role perceptions when covering public health crises. Journalism, 20(9), 1223–1241. 10.1177/1464884917692820
    https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884917692820 [Google Scholar]
  24. Klie, Jan-Christoph., Michael Bugert, Beto Boullosa, Richard de Castilho, and Iryna Gurevych
    2018 The inception platform: Machine-assisted and knowledge-oriented interactive annotation. InProceedings of the 27th International Conference on Computational Linguistics: System Demonstrations (pp.5–9).
    [Google Scholar]
  25. Krause, Thomas and Amir Zeldes
    2016 ANNIS3: A new architecture for generic corpus query and visualization. in: Digital Scholarship in the Humanities 2016 (31). dsh.oxford​journals.org/content/31/1/118. 10.1093/llc/fqu057
    https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqu057 [Google Scholar]
  26. Leal, Fernando
    2020 On the Importance of Questioning Within the Ideal Model of Critical Discussion. Argumentation341, 405–431. 10.1007/s10503‑020‑09516‑0
    https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-020-09516-0 [Google Scholar]
  27. Pazzanese, Christina
    2020Principled yet just, pragmatic yet idealistic –and nice. The Harvard Gazette. Retrieved onApril 2022fromhttps://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/12/new-zealand-prime-minister-wins-gleitsman-award/
    [Google Scholar]
  28. Politico
    Politico. n.d.United Kingdom – PM Boris Johnson’s approval rating. Retrieved onApril 2022from: https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/united-kingdom/#98099
    [Google Scholar]
  29. Rigotti, Edo and Andrea Rocci
    2006 Towards a definition of communication context. Studies in communication sciences, 6(2), 155–180.
    [Google Scholar]
  30. Rocci, Aandrea and Margarita Luciani
    2016 Economic-financial journalists as argumentative intermediaries. Journal of Argumentation in Context, 5(1), 88–111. 10.1075/jaic.5.1.05roc
    https://doi.org/10.1075/jaic.5.1.05roc [Google Scholar]
  31. Roy, Eleanor
    2020New Zealand health minister David Clark quits over handling of Covid-19 outbreak. Retrieved onApril 2022fromhttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/02/new-zealand-health-minister-david-clark-quits-over-handling-of-covid-19-outbreak
    [Google Scholar]
  32. Sánchez, Julio, Ninon Guibarra, and Pamela Pereyra-Zamora
    2021 Media Agenda and Press Conferences on Covid-19 in Mexico: An Analysis of Journalists’ Questions. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(22), 12067. 10.3390/ijerph182212067
    https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182212067 [Google Scholar]
  33. Siena College Research Institute
    Siena College Research Institute. n.d.87% of NYers Approve of Cuomo’s Handling of the Coronavirus. Retrieved onApril 2022from: https://scri.siena.edu/2020/03/30/87-of-nyers-approve-of-cuomos-handling-of-the-coronavirus/
    [Google Scholar]
  34. Schueler, D., & Marx, M.
    (2023) Speech acts in the Dutch COVID-19 press conferences. Language Resources and Evaluation, 57(2), 869–892.
    [Google Scholar]
  35. Trudeau, Justin
    2020, May15. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau holds a press conference to give an update on the Covid-19 pandemic in Canada. Retrieved onDecember 1, 2022, fromhttps://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/justin-trudeau-canada-covid-19-press-conference-transcript-may-15
  36. Trump, Donald
    2020, April14. President Donald Trump holds a press conference to give an update on the Covid-19 pandemic in the U.S. Retrieved onDecember 1, 2022, fromhttps://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-coronavirus-press-briefing-transcript-april-14-trump-halts-who-funding
  37. 2020, April27. President Donald Trump holds a press conference to give an update on the Covid-19 pandemic in the U.S. Retrieved onDecember 1, 2022, fromhttps://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-coronavirus-press-conference-transcript-april-27
  38. Van Eemeren, Frans
    2017 Argumentative patterns viewed from a pragma-dialectical perspective. InPrototypical Argumentative Patterns (ed.van Eemeren, F.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 7–30. 10.1075/aic.11.02van
    https://doi.org/10.1075/aic.11.02van [Google Scholar]
  39. 2018Argumentation theory: A pragma-dialectical perspective. Cham: Springer. 10.1007/978‑3‑319‑95381‑6
    https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95381-6 [Google Scholar]
  40. Van Eemeren, Frans and Rob Grootendorst
    1984Speech acts in argumentative discussions. A theoretical model for the analysis of discussions directed towards solving conflicts of opinion. Dordretch: Foris Publications. 10.1515/9783110846089
    https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110846089 [Google Scholar]
  41. 2004A Systematic Theory of Argumentation. The pragma-dialectical approach. New York: Cambridge University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  42. Van Eemeren, Frans, Rob Grootendorst, and Francisca Snoeck Henkemans
    2002Argumentation: Analysis, evaluation, presentation. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 10.4324/9781410602442
    https://doi.org/10.4324/9781410602442 [Google Scholar]
  43. Walton, Douglas, Reed, Chris, & Macagno, Fabrizio
    2008Argumentation schemes. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. 10.1017/CBO9780511802034
    https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511802034 [Google Scholar]
  44. Weaver, David and Lars Wilhoit
    1996The American journalist in the 1990s: US news people at the end of an era. Erlbaum: New Jersey.
    [Google Scholar]
  45. Wodak, R., Culpeper, J., & Semino, E.
    2021 Shameless normalisation of impoliteness: Berlusconi’s and Trump’s press conferences. Discourse & Society, 32(3), 369–393. 10.1177/0957926520977217
    https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926520977217 [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1075/jaic.00024.her
Loading
/content/journals/10.1075/jaic.00024.her
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): argumentative moves; corpus annotation; Covid-19; journalism; press conferences; questions
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was successful
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error