The Construction of 'Ordinariness' across Media Genres

Description

Departing from the premise that ‘being ordinary’ is brought into the discourse and brought out in the discourse and is thus an interactional achievement, the contributions to this edited volume investigate its construction, reconstruction and deconstruction in media discourse. Ordinariness is perceived as a scalar notion which is conceptualised against the background of both non-ordinariness and extra-ordinariness. The chapters address its strategic construction across media genres (public talk, Prime Minister’s Questions, interview, radio call-in, commenting) and discursive activities (tweets, social media posts) as done in various languages (American English, Austrian German, British English, Chinese, French, Finnish, Hebrew and Japanese) by professional participants (e.g., politicians, journalists, scientists) and by ordinary people participating in media discourse (e.g., ordinary citizens, viewers, members of the audience). Discursive strategies used to bring about (non/extra) ordinariness include small stories, quotations, conversational style, irony, naming and addressing as well as references to the private-public interface. The Construction of ‘Ordinariness’ across Media Genres Editorial page Title page Copyright page Table of contents Introduction 1. Ordinariness and ethnomethodology 2. Ordinariness and positioning theory 3. Ordinariness and genre theory 4. Mediated ordinariness This volume Acknowledgement References Part I. Constructing ordinariness in politicians’ discourse Are Austrian presidential candidates ordinary people? Candidates’ self-presentation strategies on Twitter during the 2016 Austrian presidential election campaign 1. Introduction 2. Doing “being an ordinary person” on social media platforms 3. Data and campaign details 4. Methodology 5. Results 5.1 Frequency of picture use in candidates’ tweets 5.2 Qualitative aspects of the politicians’ visual impression management strategies 5.3 Indicators of staged ordinariness 6. Discussion and conclusions References “You bring the steaks, I’ll bring the salad”: Presenting ordinariness in PM Netanyahu’s public talks 1. Constructing ordinariness 2. Between the ordinary and the epic 3. Benjamin Netanyahu as a case study 4. Netanyahu’s staged and communicated ordinariness 4.1 Linguistic tools 4.2 Reference to ordinary lifestyle and preferences 5. Constructing Netanyahu’s life as an epic 6. Problematizing the concept of ordinariness: The social-cultural perspective 7. Concluding remarks References Quoting ordinary people in Prime Minister’s Questions 1. Introduction 2. Quotation 2.1 Linguistic formatting 2.2 Discursive functions 3. Ordinary people and ordinariness 4. The representation of ordinary people and ordinary-life experience by non-ordinary politicians 4.1 Method 4.1.1 Participants 4.1.2 Apparatus 4.1.3 Procedure 4.2 Results 4.3 Discussion 5. Conclusion Acknowledgement References “Well, Yair? When will you be prime minister?” Different readings of ordinariness in a politician’s Facebook post as a case in point 1. Introduction 2. Self-positioning as an ordinary person in politicians’ Facebook posts 3. Three types of readings of a Politician’s self-positioning as an ordinary person 4. The politician and post under discussion 5. Single-voiced readings 6. Double-voiced readings 7. Polyphonic readings 8. Conclusion – Different readings, different Positionings References Appendix. The post under discussion Part II. Constructing ordinariness in experts’ discourse “I can do math, but I’m not that smart. I’m not brilliant”: Ordinariness as a discursive resource in United States radiophonic financial call-in interactions 1. Introduction 2. Contextualizing the “The Dave Ramsey Show” 3. Ramsey’s practices for creating ordinariness 3.1 Using vernacular language 3.2 Building shared common-sense 3.3 Being similar and close to the callers 4. Bring me the poor and the rich, and I’ll make them and me ordinary 5. The ordinary success as an ideological ploy Acknowledgment: References Ordinary science 1. Science and the public 2. Ordinariness and popular television 3. London et Kirschenbaum 4. Analysis 4.1 Knowledge and ignorance 4.2 Science and common-sense 4.3 Research and us 5. Life and presentation Acknowledgments References Appendix 1. Transcription notation Constructing ‘ordinariness’: An analysis of Jack Ma’s narrative identities on Sina Weibo 1. Introduction 2. The intricacies of doing “being ordinary” 3. Analytical framework for doing “being ordinary” online 3.1 Internet pragmatics and genres 3.2 Narrative and narrative identity in digital communication 4. Data 5. Data analysis 5.1 Doing “being ordinary” in self-claimed identities 5.2 Doing “being ordinary” in projected identities 5.2.1 Jack Ma as a business mogul 5.2.2 Jack Ma as Alibaba CEO 5.2.3 Jack Ma as a football fan 6. Conclusion Acknowledgements References Part III. Constructing ordinariness in ordinary media Constructing ordinariness in online commenting in Hebrew and Finnish 1. Introduction 2. Commenting and mediatization 3. Ordinariness 4. Positioning 5. Data and methods 5.1 Methodological rationale 5.2 The Hebrew data 5.3 The Finnish data 6. Similar categories in the Hebrew and the Finnish data 6.1 Ordinary people vs. politicians and politics 6.2 Social injustices: State vs. ordinary 6.3 Ordinary citizen, social norms and control 6.4 Moral and ethics of the ordinary person 7. Specific categories in the Hebrew data 8. Specific categories in the Finnish data 9. Conclusion References Appendix 1. Original examples in Finnish and Hebrew (numbers correspond to the order of examples in the text) Ordinary people’s political discourse in old and new French media: Evolution and problems 1. Introduction 2. Ordinariness, political discourse and media 3. Data and methodology 4. Results 4.1 Transformation of ordinariness 4.1.1 Wiam Berhouma: Transformations of TV ordinariness 4.1.2 Hélène: Ordinariness in Facebook video 4.2 Questioning ordinariness 4.2.1 Who is really Wiam Berhouma? 4.2.2 Who is really Hélène? 5. Discussion: What is ordinariness? 6. Conclusion References When being quotidian meets being ordinary 1. Introduction 2. Construction of being quotidian in natural conversations 2.1 Quotidian reframing 2.2 Quotidian (re)framing in older Japanese women’s conversational narratives 3. Construction of being quotidian in media 3.1 Japanese talk show host with her guest 3.2 Former U.S. President Nixon after a bill-signing ceremony 3.3 Former U.S. President Obama during his second-term campaign 3.4 Tweets by the constitutional democratic party during a general election in Japan 4. Conclusions Acknowledgment References Index