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Abstract
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The paper raises the question of generic categorisation of talk shows and, against this background, addresses the problem of (political) debates on TV being for show, not only staging [`]as-if'-debates, but also pseudo-co-operation and pseudo-controversy--even if serious topics are at issue. Two sets of data are presented, both political talk shows, one broadcast in Germany in the late eighties, the other in Switzerland some 15 years later. In the first, the host's discursive practices are studied in terms of empirical criteria (turn-taking, speaking time, etc.), in the second, the discursive strategies of the invited politicians are examined in terms of qualitative data on the distribution of verbal power. Both sets of practices exhibit features of [`]verbal violence', which sabotages a fair and reflected exchange of arguments. The theoretical framework of the study is that of critical discourse analysis. The data are two Friday night talk shows of the same genre, but from different periods. The main interest is how the genre can be described (typological perspective), which are the structural changes (diachronic perspective), do we need a more flexible concept of [`]public communication' (theoretical perspective).
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