From talk to text

Workbook: Week 7, Activity 3

Week 7, Activity 3

Review of journal article: From talk to text (Clayman 1990)

Journalists and reporters have a unique set of considerations in undertaking an interview or producing an article. Clayman (1990, pp. 79-80) investigated aspects of ‘reporter-source’ communication, and found that ‘unfolding sequences of talk’ highlighted the behaviour of the interviewee, enabling more objectivity than quoted statements.

A variety of stories appear in news in papers and on television, in which participants are either quoted or paraphrased. According to Clayman (1990, p. 82), interactions can be reported in two ways:

  1. as directly quoted statements, or
  2. quoted with additional context.

The second option is important in some situations of reporting, as ambiguity can arise in the absence of an explanation of the interaction that was taking place (Clayman 1990, p. 84).

There are some devices that can be used in presenting statements accurately:

  1. The statement is linked to a preceding question that was asked and placed into its correct context (Clayman 1990, p. 85).
  2. Displaying a response as either, (a) ‘delayed, or (b) ‘confirmatory or rejecting’, where  (a) is achieved through attention to the timing of the response, (b) is achieved through attention to agreement or disagreement (Clayman 1990, p. 88).
  3. Placing a failure to answer into some interactional context; the respondent may decline to answer in a variety of ways, or for specific reasons (Clayman 1990, pp. 93-96).

Overall, the ability of the reporter to provide the audience with an objective and contextual report of an event, is reliant upon the way in which they choose to relay the reporter-source interaction. A variety of devices can be employed in ensuring that situations and interactions are correctly recounted. Today’s reporters can achieve greater accuracy and avoid ambiguity, through the use of Clayman’s suggestions.

References

Clayman, SE 1990, ‘From talk to text: newspaper accounts of reporter-source interactions’, Media, Culture and Society, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 79-103, viewed 26 April 2016, http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/clayman/Site/Publications.html