Question Design in the Press Conferences of U.S. Presidents Harry S. Truman and George W. Bush

Abstract

This research aims at laying out some basic features of question design in presidential press conferences and to describe their use to convey adversarial proposition. Underlying some of the observations is the suggestion that the innovation in question design can be an important element of social change in the political interviews context, and broadcast journalism more generally. It is hypothesized that present-day press conferences and political interviews differ from those of the past in its aggressiveness, and this can be conveyed through question design. For this study, two U.S. presidents George W. Bush (2001-2009) and Harry S. Truman (1945-1953) were selected. Four press conferences were sampled and analyzed. Two press conferences for each president, and each question is analyzed in terms of three basic aspects of adversarialness in question design (a) Question Complexity, (b) Assertiveness, and (c) Accountability. Examining the questions in Bush and Truman press conferences shows that Journalists are more aggressive and exerts more pressure on Bush. Whereas they are more cautious and more polite with Truman. They convey their aggressiveness through the combination of both the content and the design of the question. There is a general increase in the use of the complex questions with preface or with multiple questions, and in the use of assertive question. Accountability questions are never used with Truman, but they are used from time to time with Bush. These findings can support the assumption of the growing of aggressiveness in political interviews and press conferences through the use of question design .