Don’t get mad, get persuasive!: anger management and persuasion in TV discourses

Abstract

Although social scientists, journalists, and tv presenters have made great efforts to justify the relevance and importance of audience discussion programmes, these programmes have been commonly labelled as “trash television”. Among the most frequent criticisms in the literature are the accusations that these programmes turn serious matters into sensationalist spectacle and indulge emotional outbursts while pretending to offer some kind of public service. The point of departure for the present paper is that a linguistic analysis of conflict talk in an institutional context may throw light on the insights offered by these programmes. More precisely, the present paper argues that conflict talk in an institutional context can build normative legitimacy by exemplifying values and moral obligations – as can be seen in the topics and guests selected for each programme. All in all, this study suggests that conflict talk is not only used as an ideological vehicle for attitude change, but that it also exerts a powerful force of social cohesion on the audience.