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Article published In: Journal of Argumentation in Context
Vol. 10:3 (2021) ► pp.281–314

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Journalists’ moves in political press conferences and their implications for accountability

 | Università della Svizzera italiana
Published online: 14 December 2021
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jaic.20005.her
Abstract
Political press conferences are important spaces for public accountability because they give journalists the opportunity to scrutinize politicians’ decisions. However, the structure of press conferences poses specific constraints to journalists because their role is limited to ask questions. This situation is not problematic if their goal is to ask informative or critical questions, but it becomes problematic if journalists want to advance standpoints, arguments, or criticisms. In the latter case, journalists have to perform their argumentative moves through façade questions in order to comply with the protocol of press conferences. For this reason, it is not easy to distinguish the argumentative function of journalists’ questions, and consequently, their value for accountability. This paper draws on the pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation to give an argumentative account of political press conferences. Furthermore, the implications of journalists’ questions for accountability purposes are discussed.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Political press conferences: Initial situation and starting points for the discussion
    • 2.1The initial situation of political press conferences
    • 2.2Starting points of political press conferences
  • 3.Argumentative means in political press conferences
  • 4.Journalists’ questions as functional speech acts
  • 5.The importance of journalists’ questions for accountability purposes
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Note
  • References
References (35)
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Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Hernández, Alfonso
2023. Disentangling Critical Questions from Argument Schemes. Argumentation 37:3 ► pp. 377 ff. DOI logo
Hernández, Alfonso
2024. Journalists’ questions during crisis. Journal of Argumentation in Context 13:1 ► pp. 74 ff. DOI logo

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