The Potentials and Pitfalls of Interactional Speculations by Journalists and Experts in the Media: The Case of Covid-19

Abstract

During pandemics, uncertainty is a given condition, as are the potential risks of which the public needs to be informed via the media. In such dire straits there tends to be a shortage of certain knowledge and an abundance of speculations that can potentially inform as well as misinform the public. In this study, we conduct a conversation analysis of the interactional dynamics of speculations between Danish journalists and health experts in televised news interviews and press conferences during the initial phase of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020. The analysis shows how journalists and experts construct and moderate speculations interactionally by entering both convergent and divergent roles. In conclusion, the potentials and pitfalls of such speculations are discussed, and implications are suggested for journalism practice.

“You’d be Right to Indulge Some Skepticism”: Trust-building Strategies in Future-oriented News Discourse

“…Accordingly, journalists can inspire credibility by adopting an objective style (Karlsson and Clerwall 2019 ; Zahay et al 2021 ), adhering to traditional notions of neutrality and truthfulness (Davies 2008 ; Henke, Leissner, and Möhring 2020 ), and using professional transformations to distance themselves from sources (Tenenboim-Weinblatt and Baden 2018 ). Nevertheless, an opposite strategy of marking proximity to sources, especially knowledgeable ones, can also establish validity and expertise (Blom et al 2021 ; Hamo 2015 ). Alternatively, journalists’ employment of eye-witnessing rhetoric and first-person narration can create a sense of familiarity with the reported events (Vodanovic 2022 ; Zelizer 2007 ) and endow news stories with authenticity (Coupland 2001 ; Montgomery 2007 ; Wahl-Jorgensen 2020 ).…”

“…This strategy may culminate in journalists’ increasing tendency to express personal opinions and advance subjective analysis in their coverage (Salgado and Strömbäck 2012 ). In other cases, more subtle textual strategies can be used—from distancing speech verbs (e.g., “claim”), through the use of conditionals (e.g., “if”), to rhetorical questions and irony—in order to embed journalists’ own reservations within the tale of the events (Blom et al 2021 ; Gonen, Kampf, and Tenenboim-Weinblatt 2020 ; Salgado and Strömbäck 2012 ). Combining different textual strategies thus allows journalists to warn readers about suspicious information, while signaling their own credibility as “professional trust allocators” (Barnoy and Reich 2020 , 1).…”

“…In this paper, we therefore study trust not through its effect on publics, but rather through its construction by communicators. Accordingly, we adopt a sociolinguistic approach (Blom et al 2021 ) to locate journalists’ trust-building strategies within news texts. To this aim, we specifically focus on future-oriented journalistic discourse.…”

Ekspertkilder i landsdækkende danske dagblade

“…Og der kan herske stor uenighed om vurderinger blandt fagpersoner. Blom et al (2021) taler i den forbindelse om to idealtypiske ekspertfunktioner: den faktuelle ekspert og den spekulative ekspert.…”

“…Med Broersmas ord optraeder ekspertkilder som "puppets in journalism's theater" (Broersma et al, 2013, s. 393). Ekspertkilder castes til at udfylde en raekke vaesensforskellige funktioner: I nogle tilfaelde bruges eksperten i en konstaterende funktion til at levere faktuel, nøgtern viden; i andre tilfaelde i en vurderende og spekulerende funktion, hvor eksperten bevaeger sig ud på tyndere is (Peters, 2014;Kruvand, 2018;Blom et al, 2021). En tredje funktion, som journalister bruger eksperter i, er som agerende, hvor eksperten kommer med handlingsanvisninger, fx i form af opfordringer og efterlysninger til politikere, virksomheder, myndigheder eller borgere.…”