Communicating with the Public: Conversation Analytic Studies

This book offers a collection of conversation analytic investigations, focusing on the efforts of one US-based philanthropic organization to communicate its mission of improving public health through its funding of health-related research and programming. In contrast to big speeches and news interviews, much communication with the public involves routine communications undertaken by institutional representatives: this book considers through conversation analysis how this can be done most effectively.

Communicating with the Public broadens the scope of conversation analysis by unveiling the interactive, multi-party, and multi-modal nature of institutional messaging that may have otherwise been construed as scripted, monologic undertakings. To this end, it features a diverse array of contemporary platforms, including webinars, podcasts and television interviews, as well as face-to-face conversations after conference talks and panel discussions. The chapters in this volume reveal how both foundation representatives and their interlocutors target messaging to specific audiences that may or may not be (physically) present, manage the logistics of delivering such messaging, and position themselves as credible experts or a unified institutional collective.

Hansun Zhang Waring is Associate Professor of Linguistics and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, USA.

Elizabeth Reddington is a doctoral candidate in Applied Linguistics at Teachers College, Columbia University, USA.