human interaction
talk at work
mass communication
Research
My research lies at the intersection of talk, interaction, and mass communication. I was originally trained as a conversation analyst, and I have applied and extended that approach to forms of broadcast talk such as news interviews and presidential news conferences. Since news and public affairs programming is increasingly organized around nonscripted interactions rather than narratives or stories, I am interested in what the study of interaction can reveal about journalism, political communication, and the public sphere.
Beyond the domain of broadcast journalism, I am interested in how interaction works in a variety of occupational settings (such as medical, legal, and emergency service settings), which is sometimes known as the study of institutional talk or talk at work. More broadly still, I am interested in the organization of interaction per se — what Erving Goffman termed the interaction order. The interaction order is not only a foundational medium through which the work of societal institutions gets transacted; it is also an institution in its own right, and an elementary locus of human sociality.
Research Projects
Journalists and Public Figures in Interaction
• broadcast news interviews
• presidential news conferences
• question design and journalistic norms
• historical development of president-press relations
• determinants of aggressive questioning
• answers and evasions
Media Gatekeeping
• front-page story selection
• quotations and soundbites
• gatekeeping in academic publishing
Speaker-Audience Interactions
• political rhetoric
• applause, booing, laughter
Conversational Practices
• question design
• address terms
My Research in the News