The imaginery in Televised Talk. Permanence, change and conflict

Guy LochardJean-Claude SoulagesLiz Libbrecht

The imaginery in Televised Talk. Permanence, change andconflictIn: Réseaux, 1996, volume 4 n°1. pp. 9-34.

AbstractSummary: Discussion programmes, long dominated by the 'debate' model, were gradually superseded on French television in themid-eighties by a new model known in professional and critical discourse by the generic term 'talk show'. This change can beimputed to a shift in the 'communicational imagination' of the professionals (presenters and producers) on whom the process ofmediating these programmes depends. If we extend our investigation to include Europe and North America, we find that thereare in fact several models, each fulfilling a different social function, which can broadly be described as 'talk shows'. Theemergence and proliferation of such shows provides an effective indicator of a new relationship between television and its public,and of a new way of regulating programme schedules. It also makes possible a reconsideration of the elaboration of both internaland external communication contracts for studio performances in general.

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Lochard Guy, Soulages Jean-Claude, Libbrecht Liz. The imaginery in Televised Talk. Permanence, change and conflict. In:Réseaux, 1996, volume 4 n°1. pp. 9-34.

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THE IMAGINARY IN

TELEVISED TALK

Permanence, Change and Conflict

Guy LOCHARD and Jean-Claude SOULAGES

Translated by Liz Libbrecht

Summary: Discussion programmes, long dominated by the 'debate'

model, were gradually superseded on French television in the mid-

eighties by a new model known in professional and critical discourse by

the generic term 'talk show'.

This change can be imputed to a shift in the 'communicational imagination'

of the professionals (presenters and producers) on whom

the process of mediating these programmes depends.


If we extend our investigation to include Europe and North America, we

find that there are in fact several models, each fulfilling a different social

function, which can broadly be described as 'talk shows'. The emergence

and proliferation of such shows provides an effective indicator of a new

relationship between television and its public, and of a new way of

regulating programme schedules. It also makes possible a reconsideration

of the elaboration of both internal and external communication contracts

for studio performances in general.

10

THE IMAGINARY IN TELEVISED TALK

1 THE

IMAGINARY

IN TELEVISED

TALK

Permanence, Change and Conflict


We've put the box at the centre of our world'

Michèle Santoro (RAI 3).

From the viewpoint of the programmes presented, the recent history of television is largely one of the consecrat

ion of conversation. While the daily 'experience' of TV viewing confirms this, an examination of programme schedules enables us to measure the extent of the phenomenon. Over the past twelve years or so, the already classical political or cultural 'debates' have been joined by a succession of countless programmes focused on talk. Whether 'magazines', 'talk shows' or 'televised chat', they all centre around

the presentation, through dialogue, of actors with differing status and roles.

Often remarked on in the press, the phenomenon has been the subject of various illuminating studies.1 Yet, although productive, these 'macro-sociological' readings fail to explain the transformations that this televisual talk has undergone over the past two decades in respect of its modes of management and distribution, as well as its procedures for creating a show. It is, by contrast, the diversification of these mediated interlocutory configurations presented under the magnifying effect of the TV image, which has attracted the attention of several researchers whose work focuses on an analysis of discourse (with a linguistic, socio- or psycho-linguistic basis).

For some of these researchers, television seems sometimes to have provided no more than an ideal place for the exhibition of social and political discursiveness, independently of the constraints of the medium. For others, it is effectively this situation of mediation which constitutes these specific interlocutions because, through various interlinked contracts, it structures both its forms of distribution and verbal regulation and its modes of visual and gestural communication. That is the conclusion of a long research project undertaken by the C.A.D.a, comprising successive analyses of the radio interview, cultural debate and currently the talk show in an international context.3

Although this type of approach focused on the product constitutes an alternative to numerous studies on television which tend too readily to produce rapid overviews, we feel that it needs nevertheless to be elaborated. The use of socio-linguistic analytic grids to estab-

11


lish the differences between interview, debate and talk show, followed by an explanation of their 'televisualization', is surely a gateway (although often unknown) to an understanding of these televisual phenomena. Yet, such an attitude leaves unanswered the question of their sequence and their unequal distribution among TV channels or, more broadly, among televisual systems. Left with questions on the transformations of these 'locutional' modes, the 'why' of the domination of one genre over another can lead to the exclusion of one of them.

The sharing of knowledge The initial aim of the present study was to pursue the linguistic examination of TV products by focusing on their contexts in order to understand more clearly these changes of paradigm. It thus identifies with the project of the 'new inter-discipline' thus named by T. Van Dijk and Mauro Wolf, characterized by 'the desire to unify the specifically communicative dimension and the essentially sociological dimension of communication research' (Van Dijk, 1985)* «.

Since we excluded from our inquiry the field of political talk - which involves more specific problematics - our attention is focused here on talk of a 'socio- cultural' nature. The term 'socio-culturaT has been chosen to label a range of products that have been named differently (magazines, debates, talk shows) by various professional milieux (specialized press, programme managers, regulatory bodies) and by users. The set is unquestionably heterogeneous, since these programmes

are oriented towards a variety of themes (literary, artistic, societal, scientific or cultural). Yet, they all display the dual intention of sharing knowledge and of providing a show which, in our view, legitimates their inclusion in a macro- category, the 'socio-cultural', crossing traditional boundaries between cultural, literary, scientific and societal programmes.

Spread over twenty years, this corpus has spawned a first series of questions which has shifted from the products themselves towards their conditions of production-reception, and is currently focused on the French televisual context. What mode of contractualization and management of talk prevailed in France during the seventies and early eighties? Of what was the generalized use of the word 'debate' during that period a symptom? At what moment did programmes identified in France as falling into this category give way to a more generic type of programme favouring a different conversational mode and professionally identified as 'talk show'? Does the reappropriation of the term relate to a change of usage only, or does it signify, on the contrary, the emergence of another mode of presenting speech on television? What are the common features of these devices which appeared so suddenly on French screens in the mid-eighties and became important elements in television channels' programming strategies? How can the current domination of this model be explained?

Prescriptive and fictive norms In order to answer these questions we were first led, while maintaining the

* Note: Quotation from translation by Mauro Wolf, in Mauro Wolf (1993): 'Recherche en communication et analyse textuelle', Hermès n°ll-12.

12


semio-discursive anchorage of our previous work, to explore a minor but essential dimension of the conditions of production of these TV programmes: the 'communicational imagination' of professional actors with an operational or decisional status.

Rooted in the concept of 'linguistic imagination' and extended to televisual communication, this concept seemed to us to be appropriate for grasping the representational constraints in the discursive practices of the actors who support the mediation devices of these programmes. As Anne-Marie Houdebine showed (Houdebine, 1986) - inspired by, but distinguishing herself from, William Labov - the linguistic practices of a national, socio-economic, socio- cultural, professional or even sexual community are regulated by two types of norm: the one 'objective' and the other 'subjective', with the two categories articulating to shape the 'linguistic imagination' of the relevant social communities.

Some of these norms recorded in earlier discourse (dictionaries, literature, texts) are of a 'prescriptive' nature and refer to a 'purisť ideal. Other, '(self)evaluative' norms used in the professional environment, refer to rules which are often not adhered to. Analysed and condemned as 'mistakes', these are nevertheless perceived as inevitable because motivated by working conditions. A third type of norm labelled 'fictive' relates to a 'practical subjective' ideal, forged in a common professional experience.

By focusing on mass media communication and particularly on the press, Anne-Marie Houdebine was able to highlight the fact that prescriptive norms which are strongly invoked in

journalists' representative discourse, are counterbalanced among journalists by an intensely pregnant 'fictive norm' concerning the 'effectiveness of communication'. It appears, this author points out, 'in direct relation to the representation which the journalists have of their readers and to their prime concern with being within its reach, on a par with ...'. "This fictive norm', she continues, 'is characterized essentially by the taking into account of the receiver, even if this receiver is an ideal or fantasy' (Houdebine, 1986).

A dual statement The process of transferring and broadening this concept of the 'imaginary' to the situation of televisual mediation requires that it be split. As was shown, live televisual communication, irrespective of the genre, is always the outcome of a 'dual statement' (Lochard, 1990: 92-100; Lochard and Soulages, 1992).8 On the one hand it is a verbal statement, that of the different media actors, whether professional or not, constrained by the rituals of the relevant programmes; on the other hand it is a (tele)visual statement, made by a production team which, depending on the socio-professional systems and contexts, enjoys a variable but always irreducible margin of autonomy. It is thus on these two levels that the communicational imagination of the actors responsible for televisual mediation should be examined. They are the 'mediators' responsible for the verbal production of the programmes concerned and the 'directors' responsible for filming. Borne by the complex dynamics of the norms which constitute their own 'communicational imagination', these two types of professional

13


actor are instituted as guarantors of the management of relations with viewers. The last links in the chain connecting programme units with receivers, and the only ones to have any control over the final contact, it is they who spawn, by their discursive practices, the forms of communicational interaction which structure the relationships established with the public.

The simultaneous and articulated examination of their respective systems of representational constraints thus seemed to us essential for an understanding of the problem of diachronic and synchronie distribution of the macro-genres called 'debate' and 'talk show'.

A process of destabilization

Recent research has revealed that these two groups of professionals have clearly distinct characteristics, despite the latter having been subjected to a process of destabilization over the past few years. Although the professionalization of the 'corporation' of journalists occurred relatively recently, this group has progressively constituted, through practical experience and a training system, a number of rules which act as constraints and hence as 'evaluative norms' in the exercise of the profession. Such is the case of editorial practices, codified in the well-known typologies of 'journalistic genres', in the press. It is similarly the case of informational practices on the radio and television, where the different situational genres (interviews, discussions, etc.) were defined only recently.

To guarantee its legitimacy, the profession has also constituted a body of deontological rules (The Journalists

Charter drawn up in France in 1918) which, as a professional 'superego' that is ritually invoked if not respected, has a 'prescriptive' status. With the institution of the professional card (issued since 1936 by a joint committee) journalists have, furthermore, endowed themselves with an instrument of which Denis Ruellan (Ruellan, 1992: 25- 38) studied the productivity as regards their social identity. As he noted, while this card has no more legal value than has effective powers to control the borders of the profession, it 'does play an essential role in this respect because, more than any other instrument of exclusion, it functions as a symbolic attribute capable of determining boundaries where the legislator would never have imagined them' (Ruellan, 1992: 31).

In the professional field of French television, this strategy of distinguishing journalists is effective primarily with regard to a group of professionals which is very similar in its function but which has a very different history, i.e. 'hosts'. Recent studies (Pasquier & Chalvon-Demersay, 1990) reveal that the 'communicational imaginations' of this group is upheld essentially - and unlike that of journalists - by 'fictive norms'; the 'satisfaction of the public's desires' is constantly evoked. This is an attitude which differentiates them fundamentally from the other television professional groups which are highly structured and all have 'evaluative' norms.

As Dominique Pasquier and Sabine Chalvon-Demersay show, the conduct of these professional actors, which is justified solely in relation to results obtained, is highly individualized: '...hosts constitute a group which pre-

14


sents all the characteristics of anarchy: no representative body, no formal training, no rules for entering the profession, a wide diversity of careers and professional backgrounds . . . ' . ' Such contradictory value systems could1

they remark 'but lead to a strengthening of positions. Since the hosts declined the model of organized professions, the latter refused to grant them the status of professionals' (Pasquier and Chalvon- Demersay, 1990). In no way has this absence of symbolic recognition penalized them.

Declining value Often considered as a secondary operation of a strictly technical nature, the filming of these programmes ought to be subjected to the same questioning. Yet, the problem of these discursive conditions of production is of a different nature. It concerns not professional groups (whether constituted or informal) with contradictory interests, but the group of film directors itself. Professional recognition was granted in 1963 to these mainstays of early television through a classification of the members of the corporation into five levels of 'creativity' claimed by each of the genres. However, during the seventies directors experienced a progressive decline in their status and hence in their power which shifted towards the producers. The resulting corporative defence found in a well-identified discourse on creation (essentially centred around the big names in the profession) a point of anchorage. As Pierre Corset (Corset, 1991) remarked, the latter still has 'a certain degree of effectiveness as a unifying myth in the profession but, given the evolution of television, can be no more than mythical'."

Although this discourse on creation is focused essentially on fiction programmes, studio performances are not entirely overlooked. The evaluation of the autonomy, and thus of the 'creative aspect' of filming, seems to be the basis of a distinction between film directors. The majority, in a North American mode, accept an inferior status as 'technicians' and perform an exercise in standardized and 'transparent' filming. The others, often more renowned, persist in claiming that they add a personal touch to film making. This dual attitude is gradually giving way to one in which directors agree to conform to concepts of standardized programmes, clearly placed under the control of producers and programme managers.

In reality and in all cases, it is the representational norms of actors with a decision-making status, the 'gatekeepers' of televisual institutions,7 which are decisive in the definition of 'the place' (position and level) of a specific genre in the programme grids. Thus, in our view, even if they act as structuring models, the communicational imaginations of the 'mediators' and directors (prompted by a contradictory play between prescriptive and evaluative, or fictive, norms) constitute no more than 'propositions' for communicational contracts subject to ratification.

Debate as imaginary shared

talk It was on the basis of this hypothesis that the recent history of the scheduling of conversational programmes on French television was re-examined. During the early seventies it was characterized by the upsurge in programmes generally defined in

15


professional milieux and the specialized press by the unifying term 'debate programmes'. Initiated in France during the sixties by a programme on social issues [Foire face, 1960-1962), the genre spread steadily albeit timidly at the end of the decade to the political arena. Progressively frozen during the post-1968 period of standardization of the ORTF," it was to experience a major comeback after 1969 in diverse forms and in fields from which it had previously been absent: literature and science. Noël Nel (Nel, 1988), who compiled a comprehensive chronological inventory of this genre, has highlighted the progressive experimentation with numerous archetypal forms (e.g. the trial, duel, sacrifice) which many contemporary programmes have merely repeated.

Although varied in their themes and conversational situations, these programmes nevertheless have a similar mode of managing interaction. The study carried out by the Centre d'analyse du discours on the programme Apostrophes, reveals how this situation of televised dialogue is governed by two types of contract ('dialogic debate contract' and 'shown debate contract') which constrain the situation by ritualizing it In the common search for a single cognitive sphere in which to compare their points of view, the different participants are prompted to establish three types of interactional movement: 'movements of construction' (definition of a speech frame), 'movements of co-construction' and 'movements of contestation', which all contribute towards the same verbal dynamics. By highlighting the dangers of a break in communication, the 'movements of contestation' act as props for spectacular dramatization, itself

tuated by the game of adjustment of similar or dissimilar words in the movements of co-construction (Croll, 1992: 66-87). But, unlike the talk show where, as we shall see below, contestation is the very substance of the show, the debate, 'the locus of the assertion of differences and similarities, favours dialogue as a means to transcending contestation, thus exemplifying the necessity for social control' (Charaudeau, 1993).

Reasoning discussion

Its interactional finality which places it within the realm of informational, but also 'instructive', talk, makes this genre an element of 'symbolic representation of democracy: the dissemination of information, the free expression and opposition of different (even contradictory) opinions which are exhibited and fed to the social eye, so acting as a mirror susceptible to produce a cathartic effect' (Charaudeau, 1992: 25).

Like political debate, 'sociocultural debate', typified in France by Les dossiers de l'écran (1967-1990), seems to want to realize, by filming the public sphere, an ideal of the search for Reason conditioned by the free exercise of speech. Grounded in a regulatory and balancing mode of organization of interlocutions, it symbolizes an image of shared talk and 'reasoning discussion' by drawing upon a number of topologi- cal archetypes (e.g. the agora, the forum, the drawing room) of liberal political philosophy, for the construction of these devices.

Hence, rooted in a democratic tradition which attributes thoughts to pluralism, and heuristic properties to their confrontation, it postulates not only 'rationalizing' actors but also 'rationalizing'

16


receivers, capable of transcending the stage of opinion. Being open to the arguments of the Other, they are able to attain a superior truth, the product of opposites.

This set of assumptions, by recognizing their structuring role in these programmes, has favoured a category of 'mediators' with a hitherto ambiguous status on television: journalists. If we consider the history of this professional group, we note that the model of 'organic' journalism which characterized European and notably French television during its first two decades, progressively decayed during the sixties, leaving a reduced yet effective place for controversy and favouring a more analytical form of journalism focused on social phenomena.

The first aspiration was revealed to the public at large during the 1965 presidential election," and was confirmed afterwards by the regular scheduling of debate programmes, the most celebrated of which was Jean Farran's Face à face. The second phenomenon was incarnated at first10 in a number of current events programmes [Zoom, Panorama, and others). Enjoying a degree of autonomy, these programmes tried to make use of formulae (definition of themes, tone of writing) with which the magazine press had been experimenting for several years. With the underlying assumption of editorial freedom and hence little suspicion of 'partisan' attitudes, this new type of TV journalism seems to have been only tolerated, before being stifled after May 1968 when TV information was brought to heel.

By reconciling the demands of a journalism that was less strictly 'factual', with the need to break free of a Gaullist and

Pompidolian monologism perceived as increasingly anachronic, the debate formula was to entounter in the field of political, societal and cultural information, the professional representations of the new generation of journalists who were starting to fill posts on the television channels in the late sixties and early seventies. Generally better qualified than the first generation, they were stakeholders in the process of legitimisation and emancipation which affected the profession as a whole at the end of that decade: emancipation from the omnipresent political control of French television, and legitimisation in relation to the intellectual milieux with whom a game of attraction-repulsion and inter- penetration - the scope of which can be measured today - was progressively established.

The process of emancipation, under the banner of 'professionalism',11 depended on a number of deontological values (pluralism and independence13) that were largely absent from French television, itself dedicated to expressing 'the voice of France'. That of legitimisation seems, on the other hand, to have been grounded in the revival of discursive organization familiar to the academic sphere. Just as Yves de la Haye (de la Haye, 1985), a number of years ago, demonstrated the ties which existed between certain forms of journalistic writing and scholarly writing (editorial and essay, report and narration), we note that the project of structured and balanced opposition of arguments which underlies televisual debate is not unrelated to the ideal of 'discussion' inherited from the rhetoric practised not so long ago by 'Humanist' scholars.

Functioning as 'prescriptive norms', this world of references seems to have

17


fed and guaranteed a model for the organization of talk which, invested with the mission of developing minds, refuses any 'demagogic' deviation and is consequently biased in favour of heuristic and pedagogical ends. These neo-journalists of television, who set out to achieve the model of 'journalistic excellence'13 born in France at the end of the eighteenth century, were the main beneficiaries of an approach to programming in the 1970s which favoured this type of device. The latter symbolized in France the recognition of television as a forum for the public sphere.14

But unlike political debates, characterized from the early seventies by a tendency towards the spectacular with a play on the dramatic effects of images (among other devices such as music, solemnizing presentation, etc.), socio- cultural debates were characterized, in so far as their visual treatment was concerned, by neutrality. An analysis of modes of viewing programmes at the time, shows that they generally resulted from a strategy of obliteration of the operation of filming. Rather than breaking free of the verbal scene by desyn- chronization, the visual production was generally limited to following the interlocutory dynamics by alternating footage of the players.18 Taking advantage of the effects of 'saturation' achieved by shots strictly focused on looks, film makers in this early form of televized socio-cultural talk usually adopted a position of 'masked statements'.

Limited to little more than a medium for demonstrating talk, the visual presentation intervened at this stage as a mere vehicle for disseminating words. Its communicational imagination was therefore 'technicisť, borne by a

gory of directors often 'relegated' to programmes with little prestige and who, experiencing an erosion of their power, were prompted to confine themselves to strictly functional attitudes.

Transitions

The first challenge to this model occurred in France in the early eighties with the remarkable success of the programme Droit de réponse generally ascribed to the independent and 'anti- authority' spirit of its founder, Michel Polac.

Identified by both professional nomenclatures and researchers as a 'debate', this renowned programme was marked by a number of deviations from the existing model. Differences concerned the themes treated (both 'trivial' and more controversial subjects) and the way in which interaction was managed (favouring movements of contestation and recentering on the host) as well as the status of the guests who were more numerous and heterogeneous and less institutional than they had been previously.

Differences also existed in the filming itself, which was more independent and less subservient to the principle of alternation in the debate. Refusing the 'enun- ciative transparency' characteristic of the canonical visual presentation of debate (see above), this novel programme multiplied the figures of 'communicational asynchrony'. It introduced a break between sound and image by showing, from an often unusual angle, other participants with conflicting attitudes. Of relevance here is the fact that the director of this programme was Maurice Dugowson, the author of cinema and TV fiction and typical of the direc-

18


tors sought after by certain programme producers owing to their 'interventionist' and creative approach in the filming of studio programmes.

The talk show: another relational frame In France the programme Droit de réponse, while retaining certain features of a debate, seems to have provided a transition with the other model for the management of televised talk, employed in other televisual contexts over the past few years (e.g. the USA and Italy).1" Carried by the pugnacity of the host who did by far the most talking, this new model, progressively identified in the profession and by critics as a 'talk show', used the reconstruction of a convivial or even spectacular scene, to soften the barrenness of the studio settings in which traditional debates usually took place. Multiplying, by means both of the autonomy granted to the participants and of their greater numbers, the possibilities for new openings and unexpected developments, the dynamics of the programme seemed to be totally unpredictable. It was the collision of these impromptu words that was the real object of the spectators' expectations, rather than the contents of the interchange characterized by the fragmentation of the interlocutory space. The consequence of this fragmentation was a 'blockage of argumentative talk and hence of the treatment of the contents or sense of the words produced through the different interventions' (Charaudeau, 1993: 11).

Talking 'like'

By breaking free of prescriptive norms which governed the management of talk

in the debate, the talk -show distinguished itself by a number of specific features.

Hitherto concentrated on the televised scene, talk changed focus in favour of individual contact with the TV viewer (the 'dear public' was replaced by a 'you', thus considering the viewer as a partner). This was achieved though a change in the strategy of the mediator whose identity and status were also modified. He became the viewer's alter ego, his or her equal. His way of speaking and dressing, and his strategy of pretended naivety or lack of culture, for example, all contributed to sowing confusion. The talking 'well' of the pioneers (who verbalized writing), was replaced by talking 'like'. Thus, a different 'relational' frame was established, since television seemed, through these procedures, to want to ensure the permanence of 'effective contact' with its public, much like the 'phatic function' which Malinowski perceived in language activity. With the talk show, television displays above all the more general desire to favour intersubjective relations rather than a cognitive role.

But with regard to the internal management of talk, a radical change was also taking place. The positions occupied by the protagonists were no longer the same. The former restrictive attribution of communicational roles (questioning/answering, narrative) was broadened to the point of their sometimes being reversed. The host was the most directly affected. His main function as a regulator of the debate was eclipsed by other attitudes: evaluation, controversy, provocation, and even the challenging of his position as 'master of ceremonies', etc. That was similarly the

19


case with the guests who actively participated in this deregulation by crossing the limits of their position as interviewees to argue, provoke and even contest the mediator's omnipotence. Henceforth, the mediators of talk shows no longer seemed like the guardians of spheres of reference, guarantors of the construction of knowledge, but like the initiators of an intersubjective scene with the status of a show. Some programmes thus ended up resembling a patchwork. In France Coucou c'est nous! remains17 a perfect example, inspired by the French cqfé-théâtre of the seventies in which the viewer, present by means of the telephone, can also play a role.

Since it is no longer a question of knowledge which promotes the co-construction of an argumentative space, it is essentially in the play and exhibition of taking turns in speech or of individual performances overdetermined by the creation of a show, that the interaction takes on full meaning. As Andrew Toison remarks (Toison, 1991), in mediators' televisual space, witnesses and experts have to come across as 'real' and not institutionalized personalities, and 'it is this form of subjectification which is overwhelmingly characteristic of mass-mediated forms of publication' (Toison, 1991: 195). But, he emphasizes, this desire for 'authenticity' or spontaneity may often have the opposite effect: the artificiality of the mechanisms and the suspicion of connivance between the protagonists.

The establishment of new devices for physical interaction between partners within televised spaces, as well as positions for speaking (standing or sitting), go hand in hand with the evolution of scenic devices. The latter reveal an

affirmed tendency towards the blending of settings (theatrical scenic settings and televisual settings) in which is incorporated the desired presence of a living public to represent, in a sense, the viewers. This mutation is amplified by the strategies of visual production which, by using the technical apparatus and decor of variety shows,18 has a Voyeuristic' way of capturing the scene. Giving secondary importance to the contents of verbal interaction, the film makers intervene to 'narrativize' the latter, either by emphasizing the facial expressions and slightest peripheral reactions of the protagonists, or by focusing on interaction between the audience and the studio floor. They thus assert themselves in some talk shows as one of the essential actors in the mediation device, proposing complete 'reconstructions' of the televised scene. This enhanced latitude in modes of filming which can be observed in numerous talk shows, is attended by the adjustment of certain visual parameters (lighting, scenography, sound effects) to comply with norms prevailing in variety shows. Underscoring the progressive shift of the genre into the sphere of entertainment programmes (often shown by their affiliation with the staff or management teams of corresponding programmes), this standardization of scénographie symbolism is symptomatic of the directors' loss of autonomy. With very few exceptions, they henceforth have to conceive their work in line with the 'concepts' of the programmes and the styles of programme units.

A theatre of negotiation More pessimistic in its 'assumptions', the talk show, unlike the debate, pre-

20


supposes a psycho-cognitive subject incapable of modifying its beliefs through exposure to (counter)argumentative processes; a social subject subjected to immediate passions and interests, and therefore unable to make choices of an ethical nature. In other words it postulates a 'pre-citizen', deprived of the faculty of attaining the conscience of the general interest and of adhering in a contractual manner to collective solutions grounded in reason. Noting this social attitude stamped with the seal of 'individualism', this situational genre models a form of treatment of intellectual and social problematics which establishes relativism as an heuristic solution and compromise as a way to resolve conflict

Thus, the way in which the talk show manages discussion is effectively characteristic of the theatre of negotiation described by Henri-Pierre Jeudy.19 Consolidating, through processes of show creation, the already old phenomenon of 'mediatic proximity', the talk show uses certain of its variants (see the second part of this article) to facilitate contact between the citizen and places of decision making. In a world characterized, in the words of Georges Balandier, by 'the conscience of disorder', it can thus be presented as a place for listening to and answering individual and social demands which fall between the gaps of institutional compartmentaliza- tion and are hence unintegrated (and non-integratable) into the scope of traditional politics.

The upsurge in this type of programme seems, in this sense, to ratify the shifting of power towards areas of decision making in which techno-scientific competence is progressively taking

dence over elective legitimacy. Verifying the phenomenon, described countless times, of 'desacralization' (through an excess of mediation) of the civil service, and the resulting inability of the corresponding power to transcend its actions, it underscores the loss of that power of transfiguration of the political (still present in debate) henceforth reduced to purely technical management. With the generalization of the 'talk show' model, it is therefore not only a change of interlocutory contract but also a new communicational imagination which becomes necessary. By staging a new 'democratic ideal' with a cathodic substructure, this imagination will essentially benefit a new generation of mediators who overwhelmingly define themselves as 'hosts'. Legitimating primarily their communicational practices in the name of 'fictive norms' (well-identified expectations of the public), they easily fit into this 'plural' model, so avoiding the constraints and clumsiness of informative programmes. Its plasticity provides this category of mediators with a decisive asset since it enables them, through the multiplication of formulae and roles,30 to handle widely varied thematic demands (from the most 'frivolous' to the most serious) by constantly spreading their zone of sovereignty across the programme grids.

Coexistence The preponderance of the talk show model in contemporary television does not, however, exclude the former debate model. The latter remains irreplaceable for the presentation of political talk, primarily through the ritual and ritualized organization of face-to-face

21


encounters between candidates on the occasion of major electoral campaigns (e.g. présidentiels in France and the United States) or programmes with polylogical devices which are far more open in respect of interaction but which also imply a problematizing and balancing management of interlocutions (European elections in 1991, legislative elections in 1993). It may also be used in regular programmes such as Le point sur la table on TF1, for example."

In the socio-cultural field, it is the programme La Marche du siècle which currently typifies the genre in France. Analysed by critics as an 'anachronism' or the last bastion of a public service television, it seems to illustrate through its austere educational bias22 and rejection of the spectacular model incarnated by the talk show, this ideal of 'dialectical shaping of the truth' pointed out in a debate by Edgar Morin.

Attempted intermediary strategies have, however, been observed in France during the past few years. Stars à la barre23 (Antenne 2, 1989) and more recently Mardi soir (Antenne 2, 1991) appear to be the best examples of indecisive programmes which, without renouncing the heuristic finality of debate, nonetheless play on the spectacular features of the talk show24 (e.g. entries with musical accompaniment, scenography, lighting inspired by variety shows). The failure of these programmes (rapid suspension in both cases) warrants closer attention as more than a mere anecdote. What criticism was levelled at the journalist Daniel Bilalian, the host of both programmes? In the first case, a lack of control of the discussion. In the second, the fact that he offered a platform to extremists of the far right Both are phenomena which are considered

'deviations' in a debate but as quite the opposite in the talk show, considering the unbridled talk and search for controversy to the point of verbal aggression, as well as the themes and persons who can legitimately be received on the show.

In both cases, over and above the mixture or confusion of genres, there was total indifference regarding the management of the channels who were faced with a conflict of imaginations. Fuelled by the protests of diverse personalities, it seems that the question of the elimination of these programmes effectively centred around the host's identity. That which was tolerable in a talk show was not equally so in a programme that the 'journalistic' status of its host invested with values of moderation and balance.28

The failure of these two programmes on a public channel and the inclusion over a long period of similar programmes broadcast on conservative private channels has nevertheless helped to moderate the antagonism between the debate and talk show models. Risky in the context of a public service still devoted, in spite of all, to its missions of instruction and information, clearly distinguished from an 'entertaining' vocation, the strategy of ambivalence28 could turn out to be productive in a private context. Evidence can be found in the relative longevity of the programme Durand la nuit (1992-1993) on TF1 and of its journalist-host Guillaume Durand. Durand's career path, which rested essentially on a 'double agent' position, provides ample illustration, in France, of the advantage that the journalistic identity has over that of a host in the same area of activity. Building on the observations of Sabine Chalvon- Demersay and Dominique Pasquier, Denis Ruellan also notes that 'journal-

22


ist hosts (holders of a press card who, owing to the development of their functions, have become programme hosts) occupy a place apart in this milieu. Their status grants them more credibility than that of pure hosts whose career path and status is more similar to that of the show business professions. Only the card seems to justify this difference, since the activities are identical. Hence, the card enables a category of individuals to distinguish themselves from their colleagues by determining artificial boundaries' (Ruellan, op. cit.).

The bridging of this identity gap is increasingly obvious among hosts of the new generation, mainstays of composite 'catch all' programmes" on which they are led to adopt both positions. It occurs more readily in the private sector where this new category of mediators very often combines the function of host with that of programme designer-producer. Seriously called into question by the development of a corporate spirit38 which forced them to transcend former 'corporatist rigidity', the journalistic identity invoked (and the related credibility) seem no longer to constitute in these cases a mere argument for negotiation.

Thus, we have imperceptibly entered into a new production logic (free of former distinctions between 'programmes' and 'information') of 'format programmes' founded on their mediator's 'brand image'. Modifiable to an extensive degree, the latter no longer have a regular and determined structure. They offer no more than a 'framework' to the mediator who can, depending on the themes (political, societal) adopt widely varied standpoints and modes of conversational management, of the debate genre or in the purest 'talk show' style.

Social Management or Social

Control?

This first retrospective examination raises many questions. Carried out on a televisual system characterized by the importance of cultural and educative missions (directly or indirectly guaranteed by a public authority), does it not simply confirm the replacement of a 'State television' by a 'society television', of a 'paleo-television' by a 'neo- television', of a 'television of content' by a 'television of relationships'? Does it not merely illustrate the growing sophistication of audience studies and the consequent skills of programmers who have learned to adapt to the 'expectations' of their publics? Or does this proliferation of conversational programmes with popular audiences reveal that such programmes are progressively taking over responsibility for certain social functions?

In order to answer these questions we need to broaden our perspective and simultaneously attempt to categorize observable devices. Does an examination of the North American TV system, as well as that of neighbouring European countries (Italy, Spain, UK) enable us to identify interactional models other than those observable in Prance? Does the gap between these different environments not relate to the unequal development of their programming in respect of volume and strategy, or to socio-cultural factors?

In an attempt to reduce the risk of 'eth- nocentrism' in a research field which tends to diminish televisual identities, this latter series of questions is seen as an extension of the former in order roughly to define a typology of such programmes as instruments of social management.

23


Public trust

A retrospective analysis of the North American televisual landscape confirms that socio-cultural debate would never be able to secure the slightest place on a television which was based on a commercial logic alone and therefore rapidly doomed to do nothing more than entertain. This phenomenon was highlighted by Dominique Pasquier when she noted more generally that 'socio-cultural' programmes were the first to be affected. Their presence in commercial TV scheduling was, to put it mildly, short-lived. From 1955 they were limited to daytime on Sundays, before being reduced during the sixties to a few programmes with religious inspiration broadcast early on Sunday mornings. Today it is difficult if not impossible to find cultural or sociocultural programmes of any description in the network programme grids, and their place in public TV programmes remains inferior to that of comparable programmes on the French public channels (Pasquier, 1990).

The 'talk show', on the other hand, experienced its first forms of existence in North American television through the numerous Variety' programmes articulated around a semi-host (receiving numerous guests), semi-chanso rimer personality. Although it enjoyed a form of afterlife through the perpetuation of Johnny Carson's Tonight Show broadcast in the late evening (11.30pm), this type of programme was progressively replaced by serialized fiction and its hosts' renown supplanted by that of information stars, the journalist- announcers who enjoyed a period of popularity in the eighties.

However, this supremacy seems to be contested again today, in the nineties,

by the hosts of 'talk shows' of the second generation which constitute a growing share of late evening programmes. This type of programme regained a prominent place at the end of the eighties with the Phil Donahue Show, a programme by Giraldo Rivera, famous for his outbursts and other incidents or the Oprah Winfrey and Morton Downy junior programmes. Talk shows are present today in the catalogue of most North American production companies (Columbia with Ricki Lake, Warner Bros with The Jane Whitney Show or The Jenny Jones Show and more recently Buena Vista with Empty West and Twentieth Television with The Bertice Berry Show). They pull audiences matched only by those of reality shows, whether on cable or the major networks.

All centred around the personality of an omnipresent host, these programmes comprise two major formulae which are already 'archetypal' and tend either towards the individualization or alternatively towards the 'collectivization' of talk. The first model places us firmly in the category of 'public trust'. As an extension of the intimist radio interview, it stretches from the confidential interview-avowal of show-business stars [Entertainment Tonight) or other VIPs (Inside Edition29) to that of the man in the street30 It is a relatively traditional genre which sometimes borrows more baroque forms from maieutics31 or psychoanalysis,32 for example.

Prefigured, in its Variety show' version, by Johnny Carson in the United States, this formula of the talk show is based on the juxtaposition of highly ritualized interviews with individuals of diverse status. A recent study on similar programmes in Quebec (Patry, 1993),

24


showed that in this model it is around the guests (and not a common problematics) that the programmes' 'arena of discourse* is constructed, since 'each interview constitutes a fresh start on the theme'. Even if a number of specific cultural factors have to be considered, we need also to take heed of the comments of Richard Patry, the researcher, regarding the success of this model. He notes that 'this type of verbal interaction which is strongly coloured by emotions on an individual level and which is now found in interviews, has progressively replaced debate. The latter is now no more than a sporadic event on Que- becer television screens'. He suggests that Quebecer TV has clearly 'neglected the field of representation of these social and political issues, a phenomenon which can no doubt be largely explained by the profound discredit that has characterized "politics" over the past few years in North America. It is a sphere of discourse that has become synonymous with lies, dupery, empty words and manipulation'.

The alternative success of talk shows can therefore, according to him, be attributed to the fact that 'emotions don't lie - unlike polities'. It is underpinned, moreover, by an 'ideology of televisual transparency' strongly present in the representations of the programmers. This leads the latter, according to Patry, to see themselves somewhat idealistically as the 'conveyor belts' between the events reported and the TV viewers; in other words, 'as a productive body which reports facts without presenting them'.

But if these programmes are able to impose themselves on TV viewers, it is both because they act as a substitute festival33 and because they appear as a

promise of an opening to authentic individuals who, as singular and illustrious as they may be, nevertheless remain fellow human beings. As a response to a reduction of intersubjective relationships typical of mediated societies, these programmes, refusing the coldness of intellectual relationships, seem to want to rehabilitate more 'authentic' ties by proposing encounters of an emotional nature.

Democratized talk While the North American context obviously favours this form of televisual talk which exalts individuality and the private sphere, it does not for all that exclude social talk. Proof is to be found in the presence in programme grids of other models which assert, beyond the relational role common to all models, a 'civic' vocation. Playing on an ideal of 'democratized talk', these programmes call into play a societal problematics managed directly by social actors (figure of the public-citizen in praesentia) or indirectly through technological mediation devices (videotext, surveys, telephone calls). It is therefore relevant to note that this type of device34 was able to find favourable ground in democratic Spain, and more particularly in its Catalonian population. Self-managed by the participant audience, Vida en une Xip (TV3), by mobilizing primarily the participatory and integrating function of the media, seems to be a typical example of the model. In it the host appears essentially as an operator of mediation who, by soliciting the participation of a highly active public, transforms the mediatic space into an 'agora' and explicitly refers to it as a 'medium for grievances'. Everything in the device

25


contributes towards creating a context of citizenship in daily life. An introductory sitcom places one in the presence of symbolic personalities from daily life in Barcelona, in an equally prototypical place, a café. Then a link-up dialogue between one of the characters in the café and the programme host introduces the theme of the day. A public debate hosted by the mediator follows, bringing together experts and actor-witnesses who confront a wide variety of viewpoints without any hierarchical order. The second part of the programme in which the host disappears completely and leaves the debating public to its own devices, is a significant example of the regulation of social talk. The third part, which has an evaluative function and is led by an honorary jury aided by surveys and telephone calls, finally pronounces its judgement on the course and relevance of the interaction. Thus, the programme seems to comprise, both in its fictional part and during the studio scenes, an imaginary presence of the vox populi, since both experts and host seem to be no more than suppliers of a service. The myth of direct democracy is perfectly embodied. The 'grass-roots' express themselves, debate and 'are responsible for themselves'.

This situational variation of the talk show has taken on a somewhat paroxysmal form in Italy through a (constantly threatened) programme on RAI 3, Л rosso e il noro (preceded by Samar- canda), hosted by Michèle Santoro. Wanting to fill the gaps in public institutions,38 it is often the theatre of violent challenges shown live in which various people in positions of authority are called upon to explain themselves under the magnifying eye of the camera.

Several observers have noted that it has acted as a significant social analyser recently.38

In this second version, the space-time of the talk show is massively occupied by representatives of the TV viewers themselves. The latter are more and more frequently present on the studio floor, as if the medium and its producers wanted at all costs to produce 'authentic' witnesses, to institute a form of complicity with users through 'transparency'. The guests have less and less of an aura or the characteristics of experts. Owing to their attributes of anonymity a wider section of the public can identify with them. It is thus, as Sonia Livingstone remarks, a change in the framework of communication which occurs in these programmes with participation by the public. The expert's know-how is not validated there. This character who formerly could close debates in the name of truth or science has lost that authority. The objective knowledge of phenomena no longer suffices; it is above all their experience by 'authentic' actors or witnesses which has become necessary. The global mediatic device, as she points out, is therefore modified: 'The media are not so much the intermediaries between the producers and the public as between the members of the public themselves' (Livingstone, Lunt, 1993: 153). Television becomes a sort of social telephone whereby a person can communicate with everyone else.

This effect of democratization of the televisual sphere is often accentuated by an opening onto the outside by means of various technological auxiliary devices (videotext, duplex, telephone). Already present in certain debates, this exteriorization-democrati-

26


zation of the televisual sphere is therefore, in the talk show, no longer at the service of the TV viewers' traditional demand for knowledge from experts. On the contrary, it seems to confirm the inversion of roles since the viewer, who formerly consulted experts, is now him or herself consulted through questions and surveys on the implications of interaction and, by means of a reflecting device, instituted as the (final) legitimating authority.

Dissension

Edified around imaginary confrontation but fully rooted in the show world, Ciel mon mardi! (TF1), Les absents ont toujours tort (la Cinq), Durand la nuit (TF1) in France, L'Instruttoria (Guliano Ferrara) and the Maurizio Costanzo Show (Canal 5) in Italy, seem to be the most successful forms of a third type of talk show which presents itself essentially as a context for the activation of dissension.

In Italy, L'Instruttoria is characterized by a declared policy of revealing all forms of social inhibition by the destabilization of dominant values in Italian society.37 Hosted by a mediator who claims the role of 'jester', it presents itself as a counter-model (also claimed in France by the designers of Ciel, mon mardi!)3* of federative television.

By playing on the theatrical reference,*9 which occupies a decisive place in Italian television, Maurizio Costanzo's programme also seems typical of a type which, unlike the former model, exalts the figure of the mediator. If we are to take cultural peculiarities into account, the light which Giuseppe Mininni sheds on this programme provides interesting insight into the functioning of this

atrical' variant According to him, 'Marizio Costanzo's brilliant intuition consists of bringing out and presenting the potential which any person, theme or problem has to provide a show, and of combining the new potentialities of the televisual instrument with the semiotic possibilities of the theatre. The formula invented by Maurizio Constanzo: create a living room in a theatre for the TV screen, is both the key of this programme's success and the basis of its argumentative scenarios. If one creates a drawing room on stage, the conversation doubles its performative value because it is offered as a representation of the representation of the living world. What one says is aimed not only at the receiver but also at the public's approval' (Mininni, 1992).

Although it may seem caricatured in the Italian example, this theatrical reference is similarly present in other European programmes, e.g. the reconstitution of a modern theatre (characterized by a hall-stage continuity) in Ciel mon mardi!, or filming in a real place ('Bobino' for Durand la nuit). But the effectiveness of this formula also lies in the position of the host who, in the internal management of talk, acts as a director by favouring tiny inter- individual events. While this provides material for a show, it does so at the expense of an authentic prolematizing attitude.

Moreover, the mediator deploys a complementary communicational role by appropriating the exclusivity of contact with the TV viewer. By looking at the camera he includes, as participants and 'ratified' witnesses, the viewers in a global scene which transcends the split between the hall and the stage to which the real public is subjected.

27


Playing on the spectacular, this talk show of the third kind does not, for all that, make a complete break with the 'interventionist' approach of the second model. It also includes, alongside 'enticing' subjects, unavoidable social problems (e.g. the scandal of contaminated blood brought to the fore by Christophe Dechavanne or the struggle against the Mafia by Maurizio Costanzo). No longer claiming - unlike the 'debate' forms - to intervene as the operators of resolution through the production of authorized knowledge, both come across as the active and powerful vectors of awareness and of 'mobilization', by enabling people to see and to hear words which are all the more legitimate for originating in 'authentic real life cases'.

The game of cathodic roles

This shift from the realm of knowledge to that of the show is confirmed by a fourth model: the game of cathodic roles. Its approach is of the light- hearted type that in the French context could be classified as the 'Coluche syndrome'* . Institutions such as expertise have no right to be quoted and are definitively disqualified. All the communicational roles assumed by the host are, henceforth, marked by derision. This behavioural rhetoric has an effect of alienation, of apparent non-implication - an attitude borne by a meta-discourse of démystification of the televisual institution, a postulate posed as being shared by the public. It is the spectacular event itself, a ritual of the happening, which counts. Some of the fragmented performances of Antoine de Caunes in Nulle part ailleurs or of Christophe Dechavanne in Coucou c'est

nous in France, those of the Barry Humphries' talk show The Dame Edna Experience in England, or of the hosts in Dans le décor in Quebec, are particularly representative of this position which may correspond to a programme or have only some of its elements. Claiming to be the negation of the traditional interview, this rejection of the rituals and standards of televisual talk lead to a refusal of any quest for knowledge. Talk is then only there to serve a game which is most often solitary. By refusing institutional talk, this autistic figure of communication encloses itself in its refusal to take a stand on worldly issues. It is as if the only one to have a veritable existence was the cathodic sphere. The talk show thus appears in effect to reveal this new mediatic being, deprived of the 'interiority' identified by Philippe Breton (Breton, 1992), a typical product of the communication Utopia. Unlike classical mediators motivated by values and carrying identifiable references, the substance of these artificial beings wears itself out in an apparent relational management, in vain gestures, sometimes carnivalesque (the transvestism of Barry Humphries or Antoine de Caunes), perpetuated by the absence of meaning.

Conclusion These instances of cultural decentering confirm that the promotion of the talk show at the expense of the archetypal 'debate' was a phenomenon in European and, more generally, Western television that was not unrelated to the institutional history of these media. The roots of this mutation are largely to be found in the process of deregulation

* Translator's note: Coluche was a talented French comic who ridiculed every aspect of French society, particularly the bourgeois element, often with vulgarity. (He was, as a result either loved or hated.)

28


to which the media have been subjected, to varying degrees, since the early eighties.40 By severing the umbilical cord with public authorities, which had ensured the maintenance of cultural, educative and civic goals, and by opening up more and more to advertising formulae, the televisual institution progressively committed itself to a form of 'secularized' programme scheduling. The latter, beyond the nuances between the public and private sectors and between general-interest and specialized channels, aimed at confronting a competitive situation.

Henceforth, television had to go out to meet the 'assumed targets' that the public at large or specific publics had become. For programme hosts and schedulers who were its 'weapons', the challenge was to build and maintain continuous and ostentatious ties with TV viewers that remote control and the proliferation of the programme offering had rendered nomadic. The communicational imaginations of the pioneers were linked to a conception of their function as the expression of a 'hegemonic1 institution. This was replaced by horizontal and concentric interaction with the diverse publics that had become habitual but above all consumers. Hence, the communicational imagination of the newcomers proposed a television which was to take charge of all aspects of social life. An external relation with social discourse was supplanted by an internal positioning which appeared as one of the natural extensions establishing television as a relational 'terminal'.

This mutation of the medium's function led to the reshuffling of non-relational genres and thus of classical mediators who were henceforth confined to the

rare channels with a cultural vocation. On the other hand, it sanctioned, in the major general-interest channels, figures freed from the communicational values and norms of classical television, who appeared as the guarantors of a contract of 'satisfaction' of demands that had hitherto received little attention. For, by reappropriating the media, programme schedulers and hosts - on behalf of the public - purged television of cultural and educative values, openly labelled as elitist.

The socio-discursive phenomenon represented by the advent of the talk show, can be seen, in this sense, as the revenge of an alliance between TV hosts and their popular public, 'interfaced' by the programme schedulers, on the one hand, over the political, intellectual and journalistic elite who prided themselves on incarnating the public interest, on the other. It can be identified in the 'neopopulisť accents in the discourse of decision makers of general-interest television channels in both the public and private sectors.

By reappropriating this hegemonic medium, by establishing with it a new mode 'of social negotiation' indicative of the release from the idea of its 'lack of legitimacy',41 the public has not merely ratified the existing popular genres which share in the new cultural capital described by John Fiske (Fiske, 1987). Rather, it has worked towards the establishment of new relational and communicational configurations by projecting onto the televisual sphere a number of demands of an inter-subjective, cultural and social nature, that the contemporary forms of sociality no longer satisfy. It is, indeed, this vast 'residual' space deserted by academic culture and politics, that is occupied by

29


the falsely familiar figures of talk shows who offer themselves as a link between fragmented individualities by claiming to 'represent' them and, better still, to merge them into a vast fusional 'we'.

Thus, the talk show appears as an effective tool for analysing television since it leads one to consider differently the processes of elaboration of these 'cultural objects'. The first level that can be revised is that of the origin of contracts or 'pacts of reading' corresponding to the different genres. A long-standing theoretical tradition, established with regard to literature, tends to consider that the broadcasting end 'automatically' has the initiative and control of the generic display which programmes audience expectations. Showing an about turn in the communicational interaction regulating the televisual institution, the talk show phenomenon tends to prove that the origin of the different 'pragmatic circuits' structuring televisual communication is increasingly at the reception end. For producers, daily viewership no longer appears only as a place from which they can draw 'clues' needed in the development of their products. Rather, they see it as a place for the creation of 'orders' executed by communication partners perceived and perceiving themselves as the agents, with a projective function, of TV viewers. It is therefore in this perspective that the capacity and rapidity of 'mimetic reply' might constitute, in a competitive area peculiar to a category of programmes, a major asset.

A second reconsideration concerns the very 'object' of communication contracts in non-fiction programmes. Progressively downgraded, the traditional criteria used in respect of themes will henceforth be established primarily in

relation to an 'ethos' of mediated and mediatic talk, with the first factor of differentiation being the ability to produce and present it.

By gaining access to a new mode of regulation based on the control of the public, is television in a position, by means of this constantly enhanced panoply of relational programmes, to act as an efficient instrument of social management, offsetting the increasingly obvious lack of traditional mediating instruments? This is a mode of presentation which is tending to prevail.

Yet, we note that, paradoxically, these 'participative' and 'interventionist' ambitions of the media are becoming more intense at a societal level where, with politics constantly giving way to the power of expertise, citizens see themselves increasingly dispossessed of all decision-making power. It thus seems that, because of its new mode of regulation, television is directly invested with these functions by the social actors and, moreover, to an extent that is in direct proportion to the reduction of the social link. Presented as a subsidiary arena into which the exercise of democracy can be shifted, it will, in this sense, be no more than a derisory compensatory artifice.

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VERRAT-MASSON, I. (1991): 'Les mutations de l'information télévisée en 1969' in Martin, M. (Ed.): Histoire et mémos, journalisme et journalistes français, 1950-1990. Paris, Bibliothèque Albin Michel des Idées.

Notes 1 Most importantly, the work of Flichy, 1991, and de Bertl, Alberto Negri and Paolo Signorelli, 1990, but also the indirect remarks in publications of a more general nature such as Debray, 1979. Beaud, 1984, Lipovetsky. 1987 and Ehren- berg, 1993. 2 Centre d'analyse du discours (Paris XIII University). 3 Charaudeau, 1986, 1992. Charaudeau & GhigUone. 1993. 4 In this synthesis, the researcher evokes several orientations that might result from the encounter between discourse analysis and communication research: 'A new approach is necessary, related to the reformulation of a number of fields which have developed here and there. Thus, some aspects of discourse analysis might be included in the organizational sociology of press enterprises, in cognitive studies focused on the acquisition and structure of knowledge, or in research on the processes of memorization. Or it might contribute towards a re-examination of the uses and gratifications'... In his conclusion he affirms: 'hi order to put an end to the mutual ignorance of communication research and discourse analysis and to initiate their unification, it is important to emphasize that the elements and influences that discourse analysis can contribute concern the mediatic process as a whole.' (op.cit. p.219). 5 See also Munch, 1992. 6 This study - one of the few devoted to the profession - brings into sharp focus the progressive internalization, by these professional actors, of the cultural non-legitimacy of this activity compared to cinematographic activity. 7 Their function was clearly shown by Michel Mathien in his attempted systematic analysis of regional newspapers: 'The gate-keeper, in other words the regulator of each medium, may be, depending on the case, the managing director, the editorial director, the main share-holder, the programme committee, or even the interest group financing a firm or local radio... Whatever the case may be, the gate-keepers act as

tees of media products, of their standards and their contents in relation to firms' strategies and inevitably in relation to their perceptions of the satisfaction of the public or the entire social system. They appear as the last internal feedback loop in a "multi-loop" system or one that is structured by successive locks...' (Mathien, 1989: 57). 8 Office de radiodiffusion télévisionfrançaise 9 For the election various programmes were organized in which interviews showed journalists in a good light, in their position as interrogators and spokespersons on behalf of the TV viewers. For a study of this period the reader is referred to the illuminating article of Bourdon (1991). 10 In this respect see Brusini and James, 1982. 11 One of the significant moments in the process of professionalisation in France seems to have been the famous 'Desgraupes experiment' (June 1969-July 1972) analysed by Veyrat- Masson, 1991: 226. 12 In this respect see Bourdon, 1992. 13 Cyril Lemieux, in his analysis, reveals that it is the outcome of a 'civic logic which is constantly determined and distinguished from that which it refuses to be or to become: demands for publicity to frustrate the taste for secrecy; demands with respect to a civic spirit and self- control (and control of one's emotions) to rid oneself of reputations, prejudices, bodily influences (violence, sexuality) and being carried away by passion', Lemieux, 1992. 14 Witness this ideal type of TV debate proposed by André Laurens, an experienced political journalist and former director of the newspaper Le Monde, concerning Michel Polac's programme Libre et change (M6) : 'This conversation between cultured people with good intentions but in total disagreement is a living illustration of what democracy is all about We see what its demands are in respect of maturity, authenticity and modesty. Debate, too, is either frustrating or gratifying. True democracy is capable of self-contestation; its participants are not loath to challenge the flaws we know it to have...' Le Monde Radio-Télévision, 16 April 1990. 15 This mode of filming can be analysed as a figure of 'communicational synchrony'. See Lochard and Soulages, 1992. 16 The adoption in Europe of the term 'talk- show* to denote this new mode of TV production does not seem merely to result from an attitude of mimicry vis-à-vis the United States, a characteristic phenomenon in the television sphere. It can also be explained by the particular connotations of the word 'show' in Europe (implying special effects). If we refer to North American writings (e.g. 'TV Genres. A Handbook and Reference Guide', ed. Wesport, 1985), we note that its value is not the same in professional typologies. Thus, five different types include the word 'show': the police show, the detective show, the game show, the talk show and the variety show. The term 'talk show' thus appears more neutral by referring to the primary, most neutral, sense

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of 'show' (to reveal, exhibit, etc.). It can be understood as a 'discussion programme*. (Remark suggested by Francois Jost) 17 Andrew Toison quotes, in this respect, the programme The Dame Edna Experience, the Barry Humphries talk show in which Humphries dresses up as a woman to interview his guests. 18 Interestingly, the co-producer of Guillaume Durand's programme was Jacques Marouani, a well-known figure in show business. 19 Described by this researcher as follows: 'In a state of universal crisis, the only thing that counts is the desire to negotiate... The exercise of power consists of going daily from one negotiating table to the next to maintain the public image of this ideal way of managing conflict. Debate can be trying; what must surely seem convincing is the show of the intention to negotiate as the exercise of an exorcizing negation of all belligérance. As the only possibility for creating alternatives, the act of negotiating seems positive from the outset; it corresponds to the universality of values and rights. In pace with constant anticipation, it allows one to simulate the autoregulatlon of interaction and to found the conditions for the ideal maintenance of democratic order.' Henri-Pierre Jeudy, 'L'al-je bien négocié?', Libération, 29 January 1993. 20 See In this respect the analysis of Dominique Mehl who proposes an interesting typology: 'the host-trainer, the instigator, the motivator, the mobilizer, the accuser', Mehl, 1992. 21 Witness the presentation of this programme by the hostess Anne Sinclair: 'A successful debate is one that puts across two or three contradictory ideas in which everyone can find an answer to his or her own questions... I've always liked the clashing of ideas, it matches the French temperament, a tradition of discussion and even of argument in the almost theological sense of the word'. Quoted by Annick Cojean, Le Monde Radio-Télévision, jeudi 4 octobre 1990. 22 The programme is less a debate than a demonstration in which the role of the guests is to complete or refute the presented facts. The debate on ideas starts on the studio floor and should be continued in families after the television set has been switched off.' Jean-Marie Cavada, Le Monde Radio-Télévision, cf. also Alain Woodrow, 'Animateurs à la barre', Le Monde Radio-Télévision, 30 avril 1990. 'La Marche du siècle is above all an Informative programme which aims at providing the public at large with access to tools for acquiring knowledge, which in turn will enable it to make its own opinions and to understand better the world in which it lives. It may seem over-ambitious in theory but, In practice, we strive every week to put together this programme so that It will enlighten TV viewers by considering certain problems in depth...' Sylvie Faiderbe, 'Avant tout un magazine d'Information', Mediascope, n'2, p. 16. 23 Proof of this ambiguity is the presentation of this programme by its host Daniel Bilallan: 'It is a programme grounded in controversy and

conflict In order to release the truth, we try to confront opposing points of view, antagonistic people and also renowned people, stars... We planned a new type of programme in which 'dean' debate of the Dossiers de l'écran type, or 'soft' like Apostrophes is replaced by a 'hard' conflict which is closer to real life. In other words, is there a single programme presently that is not a show! Even Pivot's debates are moving in this direction.' Alain Woodrow, Le Monde Radio-Télévision, 30 avril 1990. 24 Presenting Mardi soir, Daniel Bilalian affirmed: 'Being a journalist I obviously won't make any Dechavanne... There's no question of reverting to a more serious although at least more truthful treatment of current events...' Libération, 10 September 1991. 25 Journalists on the channel seem to have played a considerable role in the suspension of Mardi soir, stating the day after the programme 'that it is inadmissible to invite, on a sensitive subject people who in the main represent groups that habitually defend ideas condemned by the law*. This argument was then adopted by the programming division who declared that It had 'drawn to the notice of the programme managers the treatment of this debate intended to "show to alert", as well as the need to oppose representatives of the extreme right with representatives of democracy in equal strength'. Quoted by Odile Benyahia-Koulder, Libération, 10 December 1991. 26 A position also analysable as a broadening of a diminished role of the journalistic figure: that of the 'court jester' defined by Dahrendorf as as 'a scoffer in modern society, (he) who has the duty to doubt the obvious, to relattvize all authority, to ask questions that nobody dares to ask'. Darhendorf, 1984, quoted by Rieffel, 1984. 27 Jean-Luc Delarue on Canal Plus with La Grande Famille was a prototype. 28 A phenomenon remarked on by Michel Math- ien: 'On some radio and television channels, one meets managers who, discovering the reality of the unit in which they work, have difficulty accepting the separation between programmes and news bulletins, and create a hierarchy common to journalists and other creative professions (the channel director, for example). To be sure, the autonomy of each of these two types of broadcasting media activity will be maintained for a long time yet for essentially categorical reasons, whereas the interactions or interferences between them are bound to become more marked' (the shift from information to presentation, for example). Mathlen, 1991: 41. 29 In France Si Von se disait tout, Le jeu de la vérité, TF1. 30 La Grande Famille on Canal +. 31 Bas les masques, France 2. 32 Le Divan, France 3. 33 In this respect see Georges Balandier: "The civilization of the media and the spectacular produces daily, commonplace, partial substitutes for festive occasions; it delivers entertainment into the home via the radio, television and machines for storing sound and Images; it main-

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tains the impression of participating in the ostentation of powerful people and in the "festive" lives of current stars, by promoting these worldly events through widespread publicity; it gives wider access to the world of the cinema and theatre.' Balandier, 1992: 131. 34 The formula is not absent from French programming. In particular, it is embodied in the programme Français, sť vous parliez hosted by André Bercoff and scheduled four times a week on France 3. Readily mixing specialists with laypersons, it is distinguished from other similar foreign programmes by a clearly manifested nationwide desire to watch and openness to the unexpected (the public is neither selected nor as restricted as in other programmes). It is furthermore distinguished by the attitude of self-effacement of the host who thereby plays a counter-role compared to other star-hosts of French television. 35 'We are not television junkies. Who are they anyway? Those who want to control it, who want to put the whole world into the box. We have put the box at the centre of the world. The world has understood that certain problems were not often given space in this box. Now, everyone must find his or own way, learn to understand and to be a citizen. It can't depend on the TV stars alone. There's a problem which concerns the parties, trade unions, everyone who has the power to do something. Now, if these organizations are corrupt and incapable of providing a medium for the participation of the citizens, it's not the fault of television, it's their fault... I'm from a working-class background. I was taught solidarity with my fellow citizens and for me it's something natural. I don't do it through generosity but because I'm an animal trained to be like that' Michèle Santoro (Interview in Télévision et démocratie, Arte, 4 June 1993). 36 In a recent TV programme in Italy, Walter Vetroni, director of VUnita, told Michèle Santoro that 'he showed the painful side of our country, an Italy that is disillusioned, desperate, capable of absurd and dangerous simplifications; it shattered old certainties, but there was more true life in Samarcanda than in the salons of reassuring television*. 37 The host, Giuliano Ferrara, declared: 'I think that TV should also show in an intelligent and ironical manner the negative values of society. It should convey rebellion against conformism, the codes of good conduct or of life in society.

Otherwise it's a television in the pay of the regime. In Italy, this is particularly true because here TV is traditionally made for the family. In our country, there's a strong Catholic presence in the political powers. So the family is the basic value and TV espouses the family. Those who make TV have always thought: "I'm making TV for a single public. There are children, the grand-mother, old people, the middle-aged father and mother who work, who have rights and certain duties. And I have to take all these people into account and make it all homogeneous." I think, on the contrary, that the family, which I love and respect as an institution, the family in Italy is also the core around which the best but also the worst in our society has been built People spoke of an "amoral family spirit" in connection with the Mafia. Well, the family is in a sense a tiny criminal association. A TV tailored for the family which never divides the public, which is made for the edification, the presentation of all values, all good and sacred values, is a TV which doesn't interest or concern me and which bores me.' (Interview in Television et démocratie, Arte, 4 July 1993.) 38 'Ciel mon mardi! was born at a time of prevailing consensus, from an almost ludic desire to 'make a programme of dlssensus', that is to say a programme which showed that behind the apparent consensus and complicity of major institutions, there is still strong opposition on every type of societal subject whether it concerns sexual, cultural or other problems. We thought and rightly so, that we simply needed to focus the spotlight on these questions and the truth would explode. The aim was thus to show that society is essentially conflictual and, more cynically, that the social content itself is essentially spectacular and hence lends itself very well to the talk show genre.' (Interview with Michel Field. Médiascope n°3, p.8-9.) 39 The programme has taken place every evening for the past eleven years in the Parioli theatre in the presence of a paying public. The scenography adopted corresponds fully to a bourgeois theatre setting: the characters are lined up facing the hall, on chairs or couches. Maurizio Costanzo makes them talk, one by one, and the slightest deviation or relief in these banal conversations is punctuated by a few bars played by a pianist dressed in white. 40 It is interesting to note in this respect that Italian television, 'deregulated' at the end of the seventies, experienced this phenomenon of transformation of programmes earlier than did France. 41 See in this respect Boullier, 1991.

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The imaginery in Televised Talk. Permanence, change and conflict

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Transcript of The imaginery in Televised Talk. Permanence, change and conflict