Poliittinen TV-draama:

Rather vs. Bush

Författare

• Dan Steinbock

Abstract

This article attempts to determine the dimensions of political TV drama. As a case study, it is based on a live interview between the CBS anchor Dan Rather and Vice President George Bush on January 25, 1988. In the controversy, Bush insisted on speaking about his political credentials, whereas Rather concentrated on Bush’s role in the Iran-contra affair. The Rather-Bush debate is used to illustrate certain actual and potential elements in political TV drama. The perspective is a combination of dramaturgical analysis (Erving Goffman) and, to a lesser extent, psychoanalysis (Sigmund Freud). Only a dramaturgical analysis, the author maintains, can capture the specific drama of a TV interview. Political TV drama has always a potential position in programming; the program/segment is organized in space (spatial control of the front and the backstage) and time (dramatic structure of the setup, confrontation and resolution); and it encourages strategic interaction (certain kinds of basic movements) and expression games (failures of self-control, parapraxes, false-self systems, etc.). The article is an abridged version of an unpublished study written in English.