The Uncooperative Actions of Interviewees in News Interviews: the Analysis of Interviews with Donald Trump

Abstract

The paper aims to examine uncooperative actions of interviewees occurring in news interviews with Donald Trump. The paper qualitatively analyzed the interviews by how the interviewee reacts to the interviewers probing. With a bottom-up approach, there were three classifications of those actions such as the backhandedness, the avoidance, the challenge. First of all, the backhandedness explains examples about the interviewees not giving direct answers to the question. Secondly, the avoidance is related to the attempt of the interviewee to hastily close the current topic. Lastly, the challenge shows the turn of the interviewee who asks a question without pure intention of questioning. It is rather about showing an opposing position. Although the interpretation of the data was mainly ascribed to the turns and interaction between the participants, it was impossible to account for them keeping out power relations.