Adversarial Political Interviewing

Ofer Feldman is Professor of Political Psychology and Behavior at the Faculty of Policy Studies, Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan. His research centers on the psychological underpinnings of mass and elite political behavior in Japan, and he has extensively published journal articles and book chapters on issues related to political communication and persuasion, political leadership, and political culture. His books include The Psychology of Political Communicators (2019, edited with Sonja Zmerli), The Rhetoric of Political Leadership (2020, edited), When Politicians Talk (2021, edited) and Politische Psychologie (2021, 2nd ed., edited with Sonja Zmerli). In 2021 he was elected as Honorary Chair of the Research Committee on Political Psychology, International Political Science Association.

• Introduction: Political Interviews – An Analytical Model.- Reciprocal Interactions between Interviewers and Interviewees.- Neutrality, Non-Neutrality, and Hybridity in Political Interviews.- Manifestations of Integrated Hybridity in Journalistic Questioning During the 2012 Elections in Greece.- Interviewing Styles: Reciprocal Positioning and Power in the Israeli Context.- Threat to Face and Equivocation in Televised Interviews of Italy’s Politicians For and Against the 2016 Constitutional Referendum.- Aristotelian Framing in Political Discourse: A Case Study of Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s Exclusive Interview with Radio Televisyen Malaysia and the News Agency Bernama.- Beyond the Question-Answer Format: How Montenegrin Interviewers Depart from the “Normative” Political Interview Structure.- Argumentative and Persuasive Strategies During Political Interviews.- A Metafunctional Analysis of Two Televised U.K. Political Interviews with Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer.- Argumentative Strategies and Self-Image Projection in Spanish Political Interviews.- Crisis Response Strategies in Political Interviews: A European Union Perspective.- The Finnish “Famous Five” in Television Interviews: Cultural Characteristics of Party Leaders’ Response Style.- A Linguistic Analysis of Interviewing Discourse During a Talk Show in the U.K..- Reference Statements and Quotes as Communication Strategy: Effects of Source Use During Japanese Televised Political Interviews.- Creating and Shaping Images in Interviews with Populist Politicians.- Adversarial Rhetoric or Lapdog Journalism? Political Interviews During the 2018 Brazilian Presidential Elections.- Pejoration in Political Interviews: Contrasting U.S. President Donald J. Trump with Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro.- Sustaining a Populist Persona: CNN Philippines’ Political Interview with President Rodrigo Roa Duterte as Image Restoration.- Understanding Turkish Political Culture through Televised Interviews: The Case of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.- The Role of Political Interviews in Mainstreaming and Normalizing the Far-Right: A View from Australia.- Coda: The Past, Present, and Future of Television Interview Studies.- Political Interviewing Research: Commonalities, Contrasts, Conclusions & Critiques.

“As a volume consisting of contributions … this book has a few merits. First, as the book’s title suggests, is its entailing of worldwide perspectives, case studies of televised political interviews include leaders from the United Kingdom … and Australia. The second is the diversity of methodologies and analytical approaches adopted in this book’s chapters. As with any scientific contribution … . this is an issue for all qualitative researchers in social science that needs further insights.” (You Tenghua, Communicatio - South African Journal for Communication Theory and Research, January 31, 2024)