conflict
& communication online, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2002
www.cco.regener-online.de
ISSN 1618-0747
Kerstin Stettner
and Franz Januschek (Oldenburg)
Exposure - an action pattern of populist discourse (using the example
of the Haider talk show hosted by Erich Böhme)
Talk show host Erich
Böhme had, after the swearing-in of the ÖVP-FPÖ coalition
government in early 2000, invited Jörg Haider, together with a few
other guests to "Talk in Berlin" on 5 February 2000. Before
this, Sabine Christiansen, after Michel Friedman and Otto Schily had declined
to participate and after public protests against providing a forum for
Haider, had withdrawn her invitation for him to appear on her own talk
show. Erich Böhme obviously did not want to pass up the media event
and the resulting viewer quotas and went as far as to even move the premiere
of his talk show ahead to two weeks before the originally planned date.
Although there is no doubt that, contrary to Böhme's intention, Haider's
appearance on Böhme's talk show won him sympathizers, this result
is usually attributed more to the inadequate abilities of the moderator
and the other participants in the conversation than to the setting of
the broadcast, with its central pattern of "exposé."
In the present article the thesis will to the contrary be defended that
the exposure of a (right-wing) populist is itself a component of populist
discourse and not a means to combat it. In particular it will develop
the idea that participants in an investigative interview can easily become
entangled in populist discourse if they hold a serious conversation with
a right-wing extremist and the political television discussion is so constituted
by them that it is not the substantive disagreement, but rather the pure
verbal sparring which holds the attention of viewers - a media setting
in which it was easy for Haider to show his best side.
Creating a conflict frame for the talk show studied makes it possible
to bring out the aggressive function of the individual contributions and
demonstrate the lack of argumentative complexity and willingness to communicate
- aspects which are, however, the very preconditions for a successful
exposé.
On the authors:
Franz Januschek, Extraordinary Professor for Germanic Linguistics at the Carl von Ossietzky University in Oldenburg. Director of the SPRACHBÜRO in Oldenburg and Managing Director of the Language and Communication Advisory Office transcript. Special areas of interest, inter alia: xenophobic media reporting in Austria, political language of right-wing extremism and right-wing populism, teacher further training and returning immigrant reintegration assistance in Kosovo. Publications, inter alia: "Doppelzüngler. Die Sprache der ´Republikaner´" (with Sonja Bredehöft, Duisburg 1994); "Schlagwort Haider. Ein politisches Lexikon seiner Aussprüche von 1986 bis heute" (with Gudmund Tributsch, Vienna 1994); "´Notwendige Maßnahmen gegen Fremde?´ Genese und Formen von rassistischen Diskursen der Differenz in Österreich" (with Bernd Matouschek and Ruth Wodak, Vienna 1995).
Address: Gotenstr. 26, D-26121 Oldenburg. e-mail: franz.januschek@uni-oldenburg.de, franzjanuschek@hotmail.com
Kerstin Stettner, Instructor in English at the University of Bremen and the Technical School of Bremen. Study of German and English for a teaching position in a Gymnasium at the University of Oldenburg and University of Glasgow. Examination work on the topic of "Empirische Analyse populistischer Sprache am Beispiel Jörg Haiders". Currently completing a doctorate on the topic of "Der Umgang mit Rechtspopulismus in den deutschen Medien" in the area of German linguistic studies at the University of Oldenburg.
Address: Zwickauer Str. 4, D-28215 Bremen. e-mail: kerstinstettner@gmx.net