Entertaining politics, seriously?! How talk show formats blur conceptual boundaries

Format of TV show determines choice of political guests

It is not the style of the host or the opinions of the editors that determines which political guests appear on the six main Dutch talk shows, but the format of the programme itself. Guests are selected on the basis of political relevance and ‘talkability’, depending on the nature of the programme. Editors are reluctant to experiment with little-known main guests. These findings are from research conducted by Birte Schohaus, who will be awarded a PhD by the University of Groningen on 14 March. Her research also contradicts critics of talk shows, who claim that too little airtime is given to ‘the man in the street’.

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Dissertation: http://hdl.handle.net/11370/6effc879-ed36-43bc-9ffb-f1706f6e4e0f