1. „I have one question
for you,
Mr. President“
Doing accountability in „citizen
interviews“
Svjetlana Simić
Univerzitet Novi Sad: R13/12, Komunikologija (Master)
Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz:
1112976, JDP South-Eastern European Studies
(Master)

2. Research Subject
 TV-Show: „Tengo Una Pregunta Para Usted“
on RTVE
 Introduced in 2007
 Subject: high-ranked politician
 Audience: 100 members (socio-demographic
representation
 Interview type: “la entrevista ciudadana” (=“citizen
interview”)

3. Politics and Television in Spain
 Initiated in 1956
 Three transitional phases:
 1956 – mid/late 1970s: Franco’s dictatorship
 1970s – 1996: new channels, ranking-competition
 1996 – now: digital media, new broadcasting
formats
 2007: merge with radio & rebrand:
“Radio Televisión Española”

4. The study
 Guest: President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero
 The show: 26th January 2009
 90-min-show: Tengo Una Pregunta Para Usted
 60-min-show: 59 Segundos
 RTVE-news-features before and after
 Method: contend & discourse analysis
 Transcription: Jeffersonian method
 Interesting in live shows because of the semiotic
framework

5. The Study: impoliteness

6. Results
The role of an interviewer in “Tengo Una
Pregunta Para Usted”

7. Interviewer’s role
Example:
Reyes is worrying about her job: unemployment
 Reyes = citizen interviewer (like 92%)
 Formal address  distance-marking
 The President
 Informal address  involvement-marking
 Negative politeness
 Why? His role: caring for the citizens
 Result: clash of roles

8. Interviewer’s role
 72% used prefatory statements (rising
unemployment)
 ½ included a personal story (colleagues’
experience)
 ⅓ of personal stories included emotional lexis
(“I feel surprised you [the President] can sleep at
night”)

9. Results
The interviewer’s assessment of the
interviewee’s behaviour – The
“impoliteness” of political accountability

10. Interviewer’s assessment
 “Confrontainment” is perceived as
“inappropriately rude”
 Majority of questions: negative assessments
 ⅓ criticised inability of leading a country
 ⅔ criticised veracity and propriety
 Technique: recontextualisation & on-record
impoliteness strategies

11. Results
From doing political accountability to
managing citizen participation

12. Citizen participation
 Control by the producers
 Usage of camera shots
 Limitation of time
 75% of the interviewers were blocked by the
moderator
 The President was interrupted only once
 Online survey: entertainment character

13. Conclusion
 Citizen journalists as “watchdogs”
 Results: combination of lay and expert
 Questions with generic prefatory statements
 Challenge of the President’s identity
 Two questions:
 Are citizen-produced news real journalism?
 How much power remains with the “big media”?

14. Thank you for your
attention!
Source
Mats Ekström and Marianna Patrona, Talking
Politics in Broadcast Media, Cross-cultural
perspectives on political interviewing,
journalism and accountability (Amsterdam:
John Benjamins Publishing Co., 2011), p.
201-222