Managing Audience Participation: The Construction of Participation in an Audience Discussion Programme

Managing Audience Part ic ipat ionThe Construct ion of Part ic ipat ion in an Audience DiscussionProgramme

j Nico Carpentier

A B S T R A C T

j In this article the theoretical notions of power developed by Giddensand Foucault are combined to serve as a framework for the analysis of theparticipation of 20 ‘ordinary people’ in Jan Publiek, an audience discussionprogramme on north Belgian public service television (VRT). In thisanalysis the positive/generative and negative/repressive aspects of power –united in the Giddean ‘dialectics of control’ – and especially the manage-ment of the participants in the pre-broadcast, broadcast and post-broadcasting phase and the resistance this management provokes, arebrought into focus. The conclusion returns to the Foucauldian question ofthe (local) overall effect and the production of discourses on participationand ‘ordinary people’. Although the ‘ordinary people’ actually deliver amajor contribution to the realization of the programme Jan Publiek, theyare also confronted with the management of the production team, puttingtheir participation into perspective. j

Key Words audience participation, confessional and disciplinary tech-nologies, dialectics of control, ordinary people, power, resistance, television

Introduction

Jan Publiek1 is a north Belgian (or Flemish)2 talk show, with a panel of 20‘ordinary people’ playing a leading role. During a fixed number of 16episodes,3 the same participants, 10 ‘ordinary’ women and 10 ‘ordinary’

Nico Carpentier is a researcher at the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences atthe University of Antwerp (UIA), Universiteitsplein 1, B-2610 Antwerp,Belgium. [email: [email protected]]

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men, are granted access to a prime-time, live television programme, inorder to discuss one specific issue each episode. This feature positions JanPubliek among what Livingstone and Lunt (1996) call audience discussionprogrammes and what Dahlgren (1995) refers to as vox-pop programmes(which he contrasts to elite talk shows). From a different angle, anddespite the fame of the host, Jan Publiek is to be defined as an issue-typetalk show, based on group discussion (Carbaugh, 1988), and cannot beseen as a personality-type talk show, focusing on ‘show business chitchat’(Steenland, 1990).

Talk shows – and more specifically audience discussion programmes– have provoked a wide range of reactions and evaluations, somecriticizing their commodified and apolitical nature (Meyrowitz, 1985;Peck, 1995; Steenland, 1990). Others point to the democratic potentialof these ‘platforms’, where common sense is valued over expertise and thevisibility of members of marginalized groups is increased (Carpignano etal., 1990; Livingstone and Lunt, 1996; Priest, 1995). Without remaininginsensitive to the rigidity of the prevailing power balances, audiencediscussion programmes enable – in the latter view – the participationof the active citizen-viewer, as Livingstone and Lunt (1996) call her orhim.

In order to evaluate the participatory nature of Jan Publiek, adiscursive and social-constructivist approach is chosen, where participa-tion is to be considered a floating signifier, open to articulation (Laclauand Mouffe, 1985: 113). In this article it is contended that – followingHall’s (1980: 128–38), Fairclough’s (1995: 57–68) and van Dijk’s (1985:5) position that mass media themselves can be analysed as a discourse –Jan Publiek contains a discursive articulation of participation. In otherwords, the programme Jan Publiek is in itself a discourse on participation.Referring to Pateman’s (1972: 71) definition of participation (see later),the division of power within the programme is used to analyse thespecific articulation of participation. The major questions then becomehow the different power relations function, how within the dialectics ofcontrol voices4 are managed, power is shared and unequal power relationsare resisted, and what discourse on the participation of ‘ordinary people’the combination of power and resistance eventually produces.

Method

The collected data focus5 on the second series of Jan Publiek, which wasbroadcast from September until December 1997 on the north Belgianpublic television channel, VRT (Vlaamse Radio- en Televisieomroep). A

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specific software package (ISI’s Profile Timer©, hereafter referred to asPRT) is used in order to facilitate the content analysis of these 16programmes and to visualize the findings. One randomly selected episodeon ‘Family or Career’, which was broadcast on 11 December 1997, is usedto illustrate the findings and is analysed in more depth.

The content analysis of the 16 programmes was conducted in twophases: in a first phase the broadcasts were semi-automatically timed andthe Dutch text of the broadcast was transcribed using Button and Lee’s(1987) transcription system.6 Data correction was implemented by usinga PRT-algorithm (called ‘matching’) linking and comparing the actualtimings and the estimated speaking time of the transcription. In a secondphase the paper version of the transcription was used for furtherquantitative content analysis, based on seven separate coding systems.One broadcast (broadcast 37) was subjected to Scott’s intercoderreliability test (Krippendorff, 1980), resulting in values larger than .80for all coding systems. The results of the content analysis were sub-sequently fed back into the PRT software, and exported to SAS for furtheranalysis.

The quantitative content analysis of the 16 episodes is com-plemented with a parallel, qualitative content analysis (based on Wester’s[1987, 1995] methodological approach) – deepening the results of thequantitative content analysis – and further supplemented with aqualitative analysis of the interviews with nine members of theproduction team and with the 20 panel members. In this article theinterviews with the host, executive editor and production assistant of JanPubliek, and with three arbitrarily chosen panel members are used toillustrate the findings.

Participation and power

As mentioned earlier, participation is related to power, although someauthors prefer to limit participation to mere presence or to the exercise ofa certain amount of influence. On this reduction Pateman (1972: 69)remarks: ‘Although the terms influence and power are very closely relatedto each other they are not synonymous, and it is significant that . . . theformer is usually used.’ In order to deal with the tension betweeninfluence and power in the definition of participation, Pateman (1972:70–1) introduces the distinction between partial and full participation.Partial participation is defined as: ‘a process in which two or more partiesinfluence each other in the making of decisions but the final power todecide rests with one party only’, whereas full participation is defined as

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‘a process where each individual member of a decision-making body hasequal power to determine the outcome of decisions’.

Although these definitions seem uncomplicated, they are based on anegative concept of power that refers to a powerful/powerless dichotomythat was criticized by (among others) Giddens and Foucault. Giddensrefers to a ‘dialectics of control’ to describe the interplay of autonomy anddependence, which is at work in any social situation, thus linking thedialectics of control concept to his structuration theory. In formulatingthe dialectics of control, Giddens (1979: 91–2) distinguishes between thetransformative capacity of power – treating power in terms of the conductof agents, exercising their free will (Walsh, 1998: 33) – on the one hand,and domination – treating power as a structural quality – on the otherhand. According to Giddens, power does not necessarily involveexploitation and coercion, but is also related to freedom and interdepend-ence. As it is part of all social life, it refers to the transformative capacity,or in other words the ‘capacity to change the world’ (Tucker, 1998: 114).Power should be seen as a regular and routine phenomenon, instantiatedin social action (Giddens, 1979: 91). Power relations are also always two-way relations, even if the power of one actor (or party) is limitedcompared to the other. Power relations are ‘relations of autonomy anddependence, but even the most autonomous agent is in some degreedependent, and the most dependent actor or party in a relationshipretains some autonomy’ (Giddens, 1979: 93). Domination, on the otherhand, involves ‘asymmetries of resources employed in the sustaining ofpower relations in and between systems of interaction’ (Giddens, 1979:93). Giddens (1983: 50) clearly states that domination should notnecessarily be used in a negative fashion as a noxious phenomenon – justas power is not necessarily linked to conflict and not inherently oppressive(Giddens, 1984: 257).

From a different angle, poststructuralists like Foucault have alsopointed out that in the traditional interpretation, power was usuallyreduced to a negative approach, condemning power as morally ‘wrong’. Inhis two major works of the 1970s – Discipline and Punishment (1975) andthe first part of the History of Sexuality7 (1976) – Foucault rejects therepressive meaning of power, and defines power as productive, as ‘ageneral matrix of force relations at a given time, in a given society’(Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1983: 186). Foucault foregrounds the productiveaspects of power, claiming that power is inherently neither positive nornegative (Hollway, 1984: 237). Instead power produces knowledge,discourse and subjects. Furthermore, he strongly opposes the image of thesubject as a rational being at the origin of human action, defining this


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subject as a historical construction, produced by power through discourse.In the History of Sexuality, Foucault (1978: 95) states that power relationsare ‘intentional and non-subjective’. Power thus becomes anonymous, asthe overall effect escapes the actor’s will, calculation and intention:‘people know what they do; they frequently know why they do what theydo; but what they don’t know is what what they do does’ (Foucault, citedin Dreyfus and Rabinow [1983: 187]). This does not mean that thesubject is deprived of an active role: according to Foucault subjects areactive in producing themselves as subjects, in the sense of being subjectedto power through discourse. They provide the bodies on and throughwhich discourse may act (Kendall and Wickham, 1999: 53). Theemphasis on structure to the detriment of agency should be considered asone of the main differences with Giddens’s dialectics of control, asFoucault prefers a bird’s-eye perspective to social phenomena – focusingon the overall effect, instead of considering subjects and agents as analyticpoints of departure.

Both Foucault and Giddens have claimed that their interpretation ofpower does not exclude domination or non-egalitarian distributions ofpower within existent structures (e.g. Foucault, 1978: 94). Positive/generative and negative/repressive aspects of power are united in thedialectics of control and form a complex power-game, where power ispractised and not possessed (Kendall and Wickham, 1999: 50). The levelof participation, the degree to which decision-making power is equallydistributed and the access to the resources of a certain system areconstantly (re)negotiated. Processes engaged in the management ofvoices, confessional and disciplinary technologies will remain active, butcan and will be resisted (Kendall and Wickham, 1999: 50). As positive/generative and negative/repressive aspects of power both imply theproduction of knowledge, discourse and subjects, productivity should beconsidered the third pillar of the analysis of power, thus combining thetheoretical views of Foucault and Giddens on this matter.

Power relations in Jan Publiek

The participation of so-called ‘ordinary people’ in audience discussionprogrammes combines the ‘traditional publicness of co-presence’ thatcharacterized Habermas’s bourgeois public sphere and a mediated non-dialogical and non-localized publicness that Thompson (1995: 125)distinguishes. The latter convincingly argues that the vast majority of theaudience are watching or listening in their homes to a dialogue withoutparticipating in it, engaging in ‘a form of mediated quasi-interaction’


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(Thompson, 1995: 246). On the other hand, a selected group of ‘ordinarypeople’ is allowed to gain access and to have their statements heard (andseen) by other people. The participants are considered agents who are ableto generate statements on the topics that are being discussed in theprogramme. Together with the host, the production team, the technicalcrew and the other invitees, they generate a broadcast, where a specificissue is being discussed and different opinions are being aired/screened.

Their participation on television and their presence in the mediasystem is managed by the production team, who themselves have specificobjectives, who define themselves as owners of the means of productionand who are familiar with the rules of practice within the media system.While participants are empowered by the very same production team –by granting them access – to perform in a television programme, the‘ordinary people’ are at the same time confronted with different forms ofdomination, authority, control, management of voices, confessional anddisciplinary technologies. They will resist this domination, thus con-tinuing and deepening the dialectics of control, which will result in anegotiated level of participation, a certain distribution of decision-making powers and a certain access to the available resources.

This negotiation will eventually result in a (local) overall effect: theproduction of discourses, not only on the issue that is being discussed,but also on the participation of ‘ordinary people’. The performances of theparticipants during the programme actually show how participation isarticulated in social practice, partially fixing the discourse on participa-tion of ‘ordinary people’ in the media system, but also in other socialsystems as schools and the workplace, accentuating the socially con-stitutive aspects of mass media (Torfing, 1999: 213). In Jan Publiek,‘ordinary people’ are seen on television to take part in a process which isusually restricted to members of different elites, including mediaprofessionals. They are seen discussing their views with other ‘ordinarypeople’ and with members of certain elites, often inverting the lay–expertrelation, ‘repudiating criticisms of the ordinary person as incompetent orignorant and asserting the worth of the “common man” [sic]’ (Livingstoneand Lunt, 1996: 102). For this reason, Livingstone and Lunt (1996: 101)call audience discussion programmes poetically ‘a celebration of ordinaryexperience’. But the participants are also seen being subjected tomanagement, confessional and disciplinary technologies, and they areseen resisting those negative/repressive aspects of power.

The analysis of Jan Publiek focuses on the different forms ofmanagement and the presence of confessional and disciplinary tech-nologies, combined with the resistance these aspects of power provoke. To


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analyse these different forms of management and resistance, a distinctionbetween the pre- and post-broadcasting phase on the one hand and thebroadcasting phase on the other hand is introduced. Although this articledoes not seem to do justice to the generative aspects of power, it shouldbe kept in mind that the different agents gain access to a broadcast andare able to generate statements on specific issues. The large number ofstatements from panel members in the 16 emissions (see Table 1) clearlyshows the presence of generative power.

Management and futile resistance of the panel members in thepre- and post-broadcasting phase of Jan Publiek

During the pre-broadcasting phase, the production team is firmly incontrol. Before the series actually starts, they have already decided uponthe concept (in agreement with the network management and withoutany involvement of the yet to be selected panel members). In the nextpreparatory phase the production team selects the panel of 20 ‘ordinarypeople’ who will feature in the 16 consecutive programmes, based on self-established criteria. As they want the panel to be a representation of northBelgian society, respecting its diversity, they mainly focus on traditionalsociodemographic criteria (with specific attention to the presence of twopeople with allochthonous origins and an equal proportion of men andwomen) and to a lesser degree on the participants’ political orientationand personality. The production team also has specific demands for eachof the panel members: they have to be eloquent and quick, speak clearly,have clear-cut opinions and should not be fixated on a certain topic.

After being selected, the panel members receive little training (onmedia and debating techniques or on the actual use of the audiovisualtechnology) or information beforehand. Before the series of 16 broadcastsstarts, they are invited to participate in a test broadcast. This testbroadcast mainly consists of a technical briefing – explaining to the newpanel the functioning of microphones and cameras – combined with anoverview of the limited number of ‘house-rules’, thus linking the briefingwith the managerial strategy of the production team. The ‘house-rules’are repeatedly mentioned in different letters from the executive editor orthe host to the panel members:

It is impossible for Jan [the host] to give the floor to everyone at the sametime. The possibility exists that you didn’t get the opportunity to saysomething about a particular subtopic. Avoid coming back to somethingthat has been said before. . . . If you react, react to the topic that is being


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discussed at that moment. (Letter from the executive editor to the panelmembers, 18 September 1997)

Before each broadcast a topic is divided by the production team intodifferent subtopics, allowing a specific approach to the general topic, thuspre-structuring (or framing as Leurdijk [1997] calls it) the entire debate,again without consulting the panel members. In addition to the panel of20 ‘ordinary people’, four more or less famous Flemish people (in Dutchabbreviated as ‘BVs’) are invited by the production team to participate.Several guests (professional or ‘emotional’ experts) are invited as well.

The topic of each broadcast is revealed to the panel members in ashort telephone call or fax by the production assistant one day (orsometimes two days) before the day of the broadcast. Information aboutthe structure of the broadcast, the subtopics or the guests is not given tothe panel members. They are not encouraged to read or reflect on thetopic, and they are requested not to discuss the topic with the other panelmembers, especially not in the hours before the broadcast, when they arein the VIP-bar having dinner or waiting to have their make-up done. Onthe evening of the broadcast the production assistant is charged with thereception of the panel members, as the production team has adapted thepolicy not to speak to them before the broadcast.

The production team legitimizes the lack of training and informa-tion of the panel members by stressing the importance of spontaneity,which, according to their view, will increase the level of reality andauthenticity. A second related argument to legitimize the lack of trainingor information is the fear of influencing the panel members’ abilities oropinions:

They are 20 people chosen from the audience, and that is their strongestpoint. And you should keep that strongest point, you shouldn’t start tomould them, you shouldn’t model them, as you do with a host, or counselthem, as you would counsel an expert because he [or she] has a specificfunction. Their function was to be themselves. It was important to have . . .them play the same role. (Interview with the executive editor [m, G3]8)

This lack of communication before the broadcast severely limits thepossibilities of the panel members to resist the production team’s manage-ment, leaving them only two options: to come prepared or to declinefrom coming at all. Some panel members have studied certain topics,ignoring one of the elementary ‘house-rules’, but were discouraged byfellow panel members and by members of the production team. Twopanel members found their participation too limited and actuallyconsidered quitting the programme, but never did.


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After the broadcast the panel members have more opportunitiesavailable to (try to) counter the production team’s management, as theymeet with the production team at the bar of the broadcasting company.When talking to the production team they sometimes show theirdissatisfaction and frustration with some aspects of the programme. Inparticular the lack of feedback (or an evaluation) and the consequences ofthe time restraints are frequently addressed by panel members duringthese conversations. Some panel members also (unsuccessfully) try tosuggest topics for programmes to come. These attempts are usuallyreferred to as ‘complaining’ or ‘nagging’ by the production team, showingthat even these subtle attempts to co-decide are considered interferenceand are not taken seriously. Moreover, the situation of the panel membersis defined by the redaction team as deplorable but unavoidable. Thereluctant attitude of the production team to allow ‘interference’ isillustrated by the executive editor and the production assistant:

[The panel members] are an important instrument in the programme, butyou should be able to continue using them as instruments, which meansthat you cannot afford to show your cards. They have strongly requested tobe evaluated, to see whether they performed well or not. We did, but youshouldn’t change them. (Interview with executive editor [m, G3])

If you involve the panel, they’ll soon take over the building. (Interviewwith the production assistant [f, G2])

Management in the broadcasting phase of Jan Publiek

During the broadcasting phase, the processes of control are morecomplex. The production team exercises control on two major planes.First, the host controls the process of turn-taking: he has the authority togrant or deny panel members permission to speak. In this he is supportedby the director and the technical crew, who control the microphones andthe cameras. This form of control is combined with a prepreparedstructure, unknown to the panel members. Second, the host also has theauthority to interview people.

The control of the production team of course does not exclude thepossibility of the panel members generating statements during thebroadcast. The content analysis of the 16 Jan Publiek broadcasts showsthat the panel members (as a group and in comparison to other groups ofparticipants) are able to use the largest part of the total speaking time:about 35 percent (see Table 1). Although the number of interventions ofthe host is notably higher (50 percent of the total number of inter-ventions), the panel members are responsible for 27 percent of the total


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Table 1 Interventions according to types of participant

Broadcast 22–37 Broadcast 36

Number ofinterventions

Total speakingtime (in seconds)

Average speakingtime/turn (inseconds)

Number ofinterventions

Total speakingtime (inseconds)

Average speakingtime/turn (inseconds)

N % Total % Mean SD N % Total % Mean SD

Host 4521 50 15889 22.5 3.5 6.5 226 47 908 21 4.0 6.5Panel members 2446 27 24679 35 10.1 10.4 113 23 1521 36 13.5 11.3BVsa 446 5 5454 8 12.2 11.7 43 9 456 11 10.6 9.3Guests 1471 16 14470 20.5 9.8 11.6 89 18 786 18 8.4 8.6Reportage 206 2 10079 14 48.9 65.6 13 3 613 14 47.2 66.7Total 9090 100 70571 100 7.8 15.0 484 100 4284 100 8.9 15.4

a The four BVs in the case study (broadcast number 36) are the host of a weekly current affairs programme (BV1), a writer of a weekly column in amagazine (BV3), the coach of the north Belgian judo team (BV6) and a host of popular television programmes (BV11).

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number of interventions; their average speaking time is much higher incomparison to the host: 10.1 seconds to 3.5 seconds. The broadcast on‘Family or Career’ – which is used to illustrate the analysis – does notdiffer substantially from the more general picture.

The presence of generative power does not eliminate the attempts ofthe production team to manage the participants. First, a programme ishighly structured: the 70 minutes’ air time are divided into subtopics,which are initiated by a pre-made reportage, a general question by thehost to the panel, or an interview with one of the guests. Panel membersare requested not to refer to earlier parts of the discussion, thusthemselves contributing to the segmentation of the programme. Thissegmentation also reduces the topic to a certain number of subtopics,which in its turn eliminates other possible subtopics or angles.

In the episode ‘Family or Career’ eight phases can be identified. Inan introductory phase the host introduces the topic (Intro) and interviewsa few panel members on their relation to the topic (P0). The core of thebroadcast is formed by five subtopics (P1–P5), which all have specificreportages and/or guests. In the final phase of the broadcast the hostbriefly thanks the participants and introduces next week’s topic (Outro).In Figure 1, a PRT overview is given of the complete broadcast and itsstructure. Every intervention is chronologically indicated with a smallrectangle, with the beginning of the broadcast at the left-hand side. Atthe top of the screen the eight phases are indicated, while the largerectangles show the different subtopics.

The host – together with his production team – knows the structureof the broadcast, and will try to keep the discussion within the bounds ofthe subtopics. In the fragment shown in Figure 2, a panel member bringsup a new subtopic during the discussion of the private life of a northBelgian politician (Bert Anciaux). The panel member is quickly cut offby the host, and another panel member (Fatiha) is given the floor.

Within these subtopics, the authority of the host is the secondaspect of control: on the procedural level, panel members have to askpermission to speak by raising their hand. Advised by the director of theprogramme (via an audio-connection), the host autonomously decideswho gets a turn, and who does not. This leads to a specific pattern inturn-taking, as Table 2 shows: panel members (and BVs) explicitly solicita first turn (68.9 percent of their first interventions) and if permission tointervene is granted the panel member is able to make an intervention.Then the host can decide to address the panel member – asking for anelaboration – or allow someone else to speak. These second and thirdconsecutive turns are not solicited by the panel members and the decision


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Figure 1 Screenshot PRT overview Jan Publiek broadcast 36

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to ask the panel member for an elaboration is entirely the host’s to make.Only during the first introductory phase of the broadcast is a differentpattern noted, as the host selects a few panel members (without theirsoliciting a first turn) to question them on personal experiences relevantto the topic of the broadcast.

The turn-taking pattern of the guests is completely different. Theyrarely get a turn after soliciting (11 percent of their interventions). Intheir case turns are initiated by the host without them asking for a turn(about 77.5 percent of the interventions). Again, the decision is the host’sto make.

The host also decides when the next speaker gets a turn, which oftenmeans that the previous speaker is interrupted. The host legitimates theseinterventions by pointing to the limitations in time. He feels responsiblefor allowing every guest and panel member at least one turn during thebroadcast. Arguments therefore have to be ‘encapsulated into catchphrases’ (Tomasulo, 1984: 10) – or according to the host of Jan Publiek:

We cannot give someone the floor for an entire minute. If you count thenumber of people who are present in the studio, and the minutes we have,the total speaking time, this leaves little time for the individuals. So, uh.What we do – what I do – is giving the floor to as many people as possible.This means that long statements are out of the question. (Interview withthe host [m, G3])

The favouring of clear-cut opinions – and the exclusion ofknowledge acquisition through learning in its diverse forms, includingdiscussion – leads to competition among the panel members for anopportunity to intervene. The panel members have to attract theattention of the host by different non-verbal strategies, such as waving orclearly showing their (dis)agreement and emotional involvement.Although the production team stresses the importance of continuing

Figure 2 Fragment 1: Broadcast 36 – 11 December 1997 – Start: 11:13 – Stop12:36


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Table 2 Interventions of participants (host excluded): turn-taking and type of participant

Panel BVs BV6b Guests Total

Gets a turn from the host and has solicitedFirst intervention 42 (37.17)c 10 (47.62) 2 (9.09) 9 (10.11) 63 (25.71)Later interventions 0 (0.00) 0 (0.00) 0 (0.00) 1 (1.12) 1 (0.41)

Gets a turn from the host and has not solicitedFirst intervention 10a (8.85) 2 (9.52) 2 (9.09) 18 (20.22) 32 (13.06)Later interventions 41 (36.28) 6 (28.57) 13 (59.09) 51 (57.30) 111 (45.31)

Gets a turn from a participant and has not solicitedFirst intervention 0 (0.00) 0 (0.00) 2 (9.09) 0 (0.00) 2 (0.82)Later interventions 1 (0.88) 0 (0.00) 3 (13.64) 1 (1.12) 5 (2.04)

Takes a turnFirst intervention 9 (7.96) 0 (0.00) 0 (0.00) 8 (8.99) 17 (6.94)Later interventions 10 (8.85) 3 (14.29) 0 (0.00) 1 (1.12) 14 (5.71)

Total 113 (100) 21 (100) 22 (100) 89 (100) 245 (100)

a Mainly in the introductory phase (P0) of the broadcast.b BV6 is one of the four BVs – ‘famous Flemings’ – but this role is combined with the role of a witness, as his son is also invited and both are questionedon the father–son relation. For this reason BV6 is kept separate from the other three BVs.c Percentages shown in parentheses.

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where the previous speaker(s) have left off, the non-verbal strategies ofattracting attention are difficult to reconcile with the notion of listeningto the other participants. Through these mechanisms, the debate is oftenreduced to a succession of isolated statements, expressing approval ordisapproval with a certain phenomenon. As the panel members oftenfocus on making at least one ‘good intervention’ per broadcast, opinionsstay fragmented and can rarely be articulated. Without pleading for theHabermasian ideal of a ‘rational discussion leading to a critical consensus’(Livingstone and Lunt, 1996: 160) in a talk show, it should be noted thata swift succession of isolated statements hardly resembles any discussionat all.

The degree of fragmentation in the broadcast on ‘Family or Career’is analysed in two ways. First the mere reference to (any of the) previousinterventions of other speakers is taken into account: half of theinterventions of the panel members (44 percent) remain detached fromthe previous remarks of the panel members. The interventions of theguests are even more detached from previous interventions (76 percent).A second approach considers the immediate interaction between theparticipants, thus putting more stress on the continuation of a discussionbetween two or more participants. Table 3 shows (again) that themajority of the inventions made by participants are non-directly relatedto previous speakers, but the table also shows that when participants doreact to previous speakers, an unmediated reply to this reaction fails tooccur in half of the instances. In other words, half of the reactions arelevel 1 reactions. This does not mean that higher level reactions do not

Table 3 Interaction between the participants

Frequency Number of interventions

Level 0 (no reaction to previous speakers) 143 143 58.4Level 1 47 47 19.2 46.1Level 2 3 6 2.45 5.9Level 3 2 6 2.45 5.9Level 4 1 4 1.6 3.9Level 5 1 5 2.0 4.9Level 6 1 6 2.45 5.9Level 10 1 10 4.1 9.8Other 18 18 7.35 17.6

Total 245 100


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occur, but they remain rare: nine higher level fragments (totalling 37interventions) were identified in this episode.

The authority of the host is not limited to his procedural-levelfunction as moderator, deciding on who gets a turn or not. As the schemein Figure 3 illustrates, the host of an audience debating programme canactually play different roles, depending on the degree they can interveneat the content level and on the degree they can intervene at theprocedural level.

Figure 49 shows that the role of the host as a formal moderator is farless important than the role of the host as an interviewer, where he notonly questions the invited guests, but also the panel members. Thesequestions could be the result of someone soliciting a turn, but could alsobe the result of a one-sided decision by the host. In certain cases, the host

Formal introducer

Formal moderator

Debating partner

Moderator/debater

Interviewer

Permission to speak not needed

Permission to speak needed

No interventionRegarding content

InterventionRegarding content

Figure 3 Possible roles of the host in an audience discussion programme

Other9Debating

11

75 Moderation

18Introduction

156

Interview

77 Without reference to a personal situation

79 With reference � to a personal situation

Figure 4 Interventions of the host


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for instance decides to switch format and start a small-scale interview,often related to a personal experience or to the personal situation of theinterviewee. The host frequently uses this authority: in the broadcast on‘Family or Career’, 79 of the 269 codes refer to questions about thepersonal situation of the interviewee or about an event that happened tothe interviewee.

If the three major types of intervention of the host (moderation,interviewing with questions about the personal situation of the inter-viewee and interviewing without questions about the personal situationof the interviewee) are related to the person the host is addressing,10

important differences arise: when the host addresses a guest, he clearlyprefers interviewing to moderating. When, on the other hand, the hostaddresses a panel member, the moderating and interviewing type ofintervention will be more balanced, but the interviewing role of the hoststill remains very present (see Figure 5).

As the rules of practice of an interview seem quite clear – eachquestion is followed by an answer – the interviewee tends to reply to thequestions of the interviewer quite openly. This openness is supported bythe (abstract) assurance of the production team that the privacy of theinterviewee will not be violated. In practice, this means that questionsthat are considered too sensitive by the production team will not be posedto the interviewee. Second, it also means that an interviewee has the rightnot to answer a question when she or he does not want to.

The situation where the host interrogates the participants andclarifies their statements resembles a situation of pastoral authority,especially because the participants are supposed to speak the truth aboutthemselves, their experiences, emotions and personalities. In the History of

100%

Guests (N = 77)

Panel members(N = 110)

Total (N = 227)

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%

18 4910

164153

797474

ModerationInterview without questions about the personal situationInterview with questions about the personal situation

Figure 5 Type of intervention of the host, related to the type of participant


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Sexuality, Foucault argues that one of the strategies of power is self-examination (Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1983: 175). In particular, the needfor experts to interpret and/or to clarify the statements resulting from thisself-examination has enmeshed us in relations of power with those whoclaim to be able (or to help) to extract the truth from these statements.The role of the host could then be (partially) seen as a guide (Karskens,1986: 154) in the search for the ‘real’ opinions and lives of theparticipants. As a guide, the host is able to use confessional techniques asa strategy of power.

Resistance to management in the broadcasting phase ofJan Publiek

The authority of the host in his role as a moderator and interviewer isrepeatedly resisted. At the procedural level, the host faces difficultieshaving his preprepared structure accepted, especially when a new sub-topic has – in the opinion of the host – to start. A second form ofresistance occurs when the authority of the host concerning the turn-taking is contested. On several occasions, people start speaking withouthaving asked or been granted permission. As Table 2 shows, thishappened 31 times in the ‘Family or Career’ broadcast (out of a total of245 interventions by participants), mainly by panel members (19 cases)but also by guests (nine cases) and BVs (three cases). Another difficultythe host is confronted with as moderator is interrupting panel membersin order to give another panel member a turn. In some cases they simplycontinue speaking, or protest at being interrupted, as the example inFigure 6 shows.

The role of the host as an interviewer is also contested. Some of thepanel members became quite experienced in ignoring the questions of thehost without losing their turn. In four cases the panel members try toquestion the guests themselves. This also means that the panel member(and not the host) gives someone else (usually a guest or a BV) a turn,thus taking over another aspect of the host’s moderation role. By directlyaddressing another participant they, and not the host, decide that theguest or BV will be able to make a statement. In the ‘Family or Career’broadcast, seven instances where participants give other participants aturn were identified (see Table 2). On some occasions panel memberssucceed in asking their question directly, thus completely taking over therole of the interviewer, but usually this behaviour is in its turn resisted bythe host, who is reluctant to part with his authority. This situation issometimes resolved by negotiating a compromise, where the panel mem-


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ber asks permission to pose a question or the host echoes the question ofthe panel member, as is illustrated in the fragment in Figure 7.

The major distinction with the traditional pastoral authority is thatin the case of Jan Publiek the searching, clarifying and interpretativeaspects of this type of authority are shared by the host with the panelmembers. They are allowed to interpret even more than the host, who ispartially restricted by the need for professionalism and journalisticneutrality. Together with the host, the panel members are able toquestion and judge guests who in ‘real’ life sometimes occupy quiteimportant societal positions, thus temporarily reversing those positionsand granting the panel members pastoral authority. Another aspect ofpastoral power – taking responsibility for the well-being of each indi-




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vidual in the flock, emphasized in Foucault’s late work (Foucault, 1983:214–15) – remains the domain of the host: the host takes clearresponsibility for ‘his’ participants, protecting them from questions thatare too personal or violent attacks and making sure that they get theopportunity to make at least one intervention every broadcast.

Conclusion

The discourse on participation that is produced as a result of the dialecticsof control strongly foregrounds the importance of the presence of ‘ordinarypeople’ (with the inclusion of members of misrepresented societal groups)in the media system. During these 70-minute live programmes on prime-time television ‘ordinary people’ are enabled to generate statements onspecific topics and have their opinion known by a large audience. Thepanel members often talk about their personal experiences, connotingthat lay knowledge based on personal experience is worth talking abouton television. Their prolonged media presence furthermore prevents themfrom being reduced to the mere narration of a very specific authenticexperience, showing that ‘ordinary people’ have an opinion on a diversityof issues.

In Jan Publiek, the panel members are also placed in a relativeegalitarian position towards members of different elites, where they canbe seen discussing these topics with politicians, managers and experts,sometimes even interviewing them and questioning their opinions. Inthis fashion, Jan Publiek does strengthen a participatory discourse on‘ordinary people’, as these people are placed towards the guests in a powerrelation which is at least egalitarian, but sometimes unequal – to theadvantage of the panel members (and thus opposite to ‘real’ life). Thisreversal is of course only temporary, and could also be interpreted ashiding traditional ‘real’-life power relations. Questioning a politician doesnot automatically change her or his policies, although showing apolitician being questioned by ‘ordinary people’ does support a moreegalitarian, participatory discourse.

The analysis of the power relations between the production team –especially the host – and the panel members shows that in the discourseon participation management of voices and confessional and disciplinarytechnologies play an important role, uniting the ‘ordinary people’ and themembers of different non-media elites in their subjection to this man-agement. The professional identity of the production team legitimates aclear, unequal division of power: panel members are limited in theirability to co-decide in the pre- and post-broadcasting phase and they are


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hampered in the possibility to articulate when they are confronted withthe authority of the host, resulting in fragmentation, segregation and theabsence of dialogue.

The presence of people who are labelled ‘ordinary’ on television alsoreveals information on the nature of being ‘ordinary’. Nodal points – touse the vocabulary of Laclau and Mouffe (1985) – of the construction ofbeing ‘ordinary’ are spontaneity and authenticity. By placing the panelmembers in an antagonistic relationship towards experts, politicians andother members of different elites, ‘ordinary people’ are disarticulated frompower (in a traditional sense), from being organized – as they are usuallydepicted as isolated individuals – and from learning and knowledge.

The unequal power distribution in Jan Publiek and the subjection ofthese ‘ordinary people’ to different forms of repressive power (through themanagement of the production team) do not prevent the panel membersfrom engaging in different acts of resistance. They too play an active rolein the dialectics of control, where power is always (but to a certaindegree) shared and resisted. In particular, their prolonged presence offersthem some room for negotiation in order to resist the various types ofmanagement – connoting that ‘ordinary people’ can resist unequal powerrelations – by taking turns themselves, protesting when they lose theirturn, contesting the role of the host or simply ignoring him, but only ona small scale. In the ‘Family and Career’ broadcast, 19 instances of turn-taking by the panel members (without permission of the host) and oneinstance of a panel member protesting against the host’s decision wereseen – from a total of 245 interventions. The interviewing role of the hostwas contested five times, once by ignoring the host’s questions and fourtimes by asking another participant a question – again on a total of 245interventions. In most cases, the panel members accept the rigid structurethey are placed in.

The comparison between the generative powers of the panelmembers, the repressive powers they are subjected to and their ability toresist those repressive powers supports the conclusion that the discourseon participation in Jan Publiek hardly approximates the definition of fullparticipation Pateman has introduced. This discourse combines access tothe media system by individuals who are labelled ‘ordinary people’ withthe need for professional authority and management guiding these‘ordinary people’. Participation is shown to be impossible without themanagement of a host (and his production team) and highly constrainedby the professional standards of the broadcasters, whose main objective isto make a ‘good’ programme, reducing participation to a secondary


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objective. Although the production team tries to grant access andpromote equality, they fail to question the power relations which encirclethe media system itself.

Notes

1. The name of the programme originates from a Dutch expression which canbe translated as ‘Joe Public’ and which refers to the so-called ‘man in thestreet’.

2. In order not to resound the strong Flemish identity construction process, theuse of the expression ‘north Belgium’ is preferred, which actually approx-imates the transmission range of the VRT quite well, as both the Flemishregion and the Brussels capital region are covered by the VRT.

3. The first series of Jan Publiek (the only series without a panel of ‘ordinarypeople’) had 21 episodes, the second series 16 episodes and the threeconsecutive series 13 episodes.

4. Because Jan Publiek is mainly (but not exclusively) based on groupdiscussion, the management of bodies is reduced to the management ofvoices. Spatial elements will thus be ignored.

5. Data were collected during an elaborate project on three Dutch-spokenaudience discussion programmes, in collaboration with Sonja Spee, Centrefor Women’s Studies, Antwerp, Belgium.

6. Transcription symbols were not included in the English translation of theselected fragments.

7. The first part of History of Sexuality has the French subtitle La Volonte dusavoir (The Will to Know), which was in the English translation replaced bythe unimaginative ‘An Introduction’. When we in this article use the titleHistory of Sexuality, we only refer to the first part of Foucault’s trilogy: LaVolonte du savoir.

8. The sex and age group of the participants and members of the produc-tions team are always added to a quote. The age groups are: G1 = 21 andyounger, G2 = 22–44, G3 = 45–59, G4 = 60 and older. Panel members,guests and BVs are also marked by numbers.

9. This analysis is based on the 226 interventions the host actually makes. Ascodes may overlap, the total number of codes is higher than 226.

10. In this analysis only 187 of the 269 available coded fragments were used; 23codes with a panel member or guest as the next speaker were disregardedbecause the intervention of the host was clearly on the previous and not onthe next speaker; 34 codes had a BV as the next speaker and were notincorporated in the analysis because this group was too small; 25 codes werenot attributable because of the absence of a speaker following the host’sintervention.


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Documents

Managing Audience Participation: The Construction of Participation in an Audience Discussion Programme