"Just asking…’ Adversarial interview style in party leader interviews

Abstract

In the parliamentary election campaign the two major Norwegian TV-channels NRK and TV2 regularly organize in-depth interviews with the leaders of the political parties represented in Parliament. This article analyzes the interview style used by the interviewers in the election campaigns in 2005 and 2009. We define three dimensions of adversarial questioning. The first is response narrowing, in which the interviewer constrains the politician’s range of response options. The second is argumentative questions, which promote a certain conception of the world and seeks agreement with it. The third is critical questioning, in which the interviewer explicitly or implicitly criticizes the politician or the party. The parties in power are asked more critical questions, whereas the opposition parties are more subject to response narrowing in that they are requested to make promises and provide guarantees in the event of their victory. An exception to this pattern is the right populist Progress party, who is asked more critical questions in both campaigns without being in office in any of the periods.