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When
watching a television broadcast interview, it is generally obvious that there
are rules being followed for the interview to be carried out successfully and
as expected. Although broadcast to
potentially millions of viewers, these interviews begin as one-to-one
interactions between an interviewer and an interviewee and the mix of interacting
with the interview institution and of genuine live interaction can bring out
interesting performances of the self by those involved. It can be particularly valuable to examine an
incident when a key characteristic of the news interview is undermined as we
can see the way the conventions of the interview affect performances and
examine how people deal with a breach in the news interview norms. Broadcast live on BBC
News 24 programme on Monday the 8th of May 2006 such
an event occurred. Guy Goma, a man
waiting for a job interview, was mistakenly interviewed on live television as
IT expert Guy Kewney and interestingly, Goma
almost pulled it off. This essay will
look in depth at the underlying structures, assumptions and expectations that
take place in the interaction and how the format of the news interview affects
the performances of the interviewer and interviewee. When analysed closely, this piece of data
provides an interesting opportunity to question the nature of the self and Erving Goffman’s
ideas about performance as well as Harold Garfinkel’s findings about how people react
to the breaching of social norms.
For
a television interview to be successful, there are certain expectations and
obligations of the participants. The
structure of the interview is characterised by a set of generic markers that define
the roles of interviewers and interviewees including the modes of address, the
proxemics of the interview, the structure of questions and answers and the
limits within which each of the participants can negotiate the constraints of
those roles (Craig 2012, p. 76). One of
the key assumptions of the roles is that the interviewee is an expert in the
specific area they are being interviewed in and the interviewer will ask
questions relating to this. When some of
these assumptions are not filled, it can create a strange situation where
interlocutors try to keep the interview format in place, even when key parts
are missing.
Looking
at an interaction when something goes wrong follows the logic of pioneering
ethnomethodologist Harold Garfinkel (Heritage 1984, p. 78). The incident of Guy Goma’s interview gives an
insight into how people conduct themselves in accordance with certain settings
and how people will attempt to make sense of a situation rather than assume
there is a breach in the social norms.
Guy Goma is a business studies graduate from the Republic of the Congo
and was waiting in the main reception area of the BBC Television Centre in west
London for a job interview for a position as a Data Support Cleanser (Waldman
2006). Due to a series of
miscommunications, Goma was taken to the set, introduced live on BBC News 24 as
IT expert Guy Kewney and asked about the Apple Corps vs. Apple Computer court case. Goma was noticeably surprised by his
introduction, but with only a slight pause he proceeded to answer the questions the interviewer, Karen
Bowerman, asked him even though he did not necessarily give the
responses she was expecting. Despite
this serious subversion of interview conventions, the transcript of the
interview (as seen below) shows that many of the rules of the interview format
are adhered to. For example Goma and
Bowerman take turns with Bowerman initiating and leading the topic. In any interview, some departures from the desired
structure are accepted and other make conflict (Heritage and Roth 1995, p. 4),
but what happens when the person being interviewed is not the intended
interviewee and furthermore, what happens when this mistaken interviewee
identifies the interview structure and tries to adhere to it, even though the
questions asked are not for them is an interaction rich with micro-sociological data.
Transcript
of Guy Goma Interview on BBC News 24 on 08/05/2006
[1] Bowerman: Well,
Guy Kewney is editor of the technology website Newswireless. [Camera flashes to
Guy] Hello, good morning to you.
[3] Bowerman:
Were you surprised by this verdict today?
[4]
Goma: I am very surprised to see...this verdict to come on me,
because I was not expecting that. When I came, they told me something else and
I am coming. "You got an interview," that's all. So a big surprise
anyway.
[7] Bowerman: A big surprise, yeah, yes.
[8]
Goma: Exactly.
[9]
Bowerman: With regards to the cost that's involved, do you think
now more people will be downloading online?
[11]
Goma: Actually, if you can go everywhere you're gonna see a
lot of people downloading through Internet and the website, everything they
want. But I think it is much better for the development and...eh...to inform
people what they want, and to get on the easy way, and so faster if they are
looking for.
[15]
Bowerman: This does really seem to be the way the music
industry's progressing now, that people want to go onto the website and
download music.
[17]
Goma: Exactly. You can go everywhere on the cyber cafe, and
you can take...you can go easy. It is going to be an easy way for everyone to
get something through the Internet.
[19] Bowerman: Guy Kewney, thanks very much indeed.
When
Bowerman asked her initial question in line 3, she was fulfilling her role as
an interviewer by asking the interviewee’s opinion on the matter at hand. Goma’s response in lines 4 - 6 is honest to
his true self, he is indeed surprised, but Goma also keeps his answer ambiguous. At this point it could be conjectured that
Goma’s attempt to answer the questions in a way that continues the interview
and does not admit he does not know the answer could be consistent with him
thinking he was in a job interview and rationalising the whole experience as some
kind of initiation prank (Kewney 2006).
Rather than assume a horrible mistake has occurred, Goma initially tries
to make sense of the situation, which is consistent with the findings from
Garfinkel’s breaching experiments that that all actions,
whether in a simple game or a social interaction, are perceived to have a
constitutive structure and a threat to the normal order of these events is
upsetting because if we don’t behave according to the rules social organisation
simply disintegrates (Garfinkel 1963, p. 198).
Goma is not the only one trying to make the situation make sense as
Bowerman in line 7 agrees with Goma’s assertion that it is a “big
surprise”. By carefully observing
and analysing the naturally occurring data presented on this news clip, we can
begin to deconstruct how interaction occurs in a news interview format and
glean an insight into how different settings affect the presentation of the
self.
In
their comprehensive book on the news interview, Clayman and Heritage describe
it as “an interactional encounter between a journalist and one
or more newsworthy public figures” (2002, p. 1). They continue this definition by explaining
interviews consist of “a journalist asking questions of politicians, experts,
or others who are “in the news.”” (Clayman & Heritage 2002, p. 1). It is clear from this basic definition of the
news interview that if the person being interviewed is not an expert in the
desired area, there is a serious breach in what is expected from the
interaction. In the case of Goma and
Bowerman, neither participant fulfilled their obligations in the eyes of the
other. Goma was expecting to be in a job
interview, so would have initially been expected to be referred to by his
own name, and then asked questions relating to the job he was applying
for. Instead, Bowerman asked him
questions about the Apple court case and downloading music. Likewise, Bowerman expected that the man
brought to the stage would be an expert in the area she was
interviewing him in. In her view, her
interviewee was obligated to answer the questions with evidence of relevant
prior knowledge. As Goffman postulates,
if rules of social conduct are broken, the people involved run the risk of being
discredited (Goffman 1967, p. 51). As
Bowerman did not fill her obligation by interviewing the right person and Goma
did not respond as an expert interviewee is expected to, both parties would
have seemed to be socially incapable.
Instead, they struggled on with the façade of an interview in an attempt
to save face.
The
way that Goma is acting in his interview could be described as a performance in
line with what is expected in any formal interview, whether it is for a job or
the news. Goffman uses the term
‘performance’ to refer to all the activity an individual consciously makes
before observers. A performance is informed by a ‘front’ that is part of individuals’ performance in a general and fixed fashion to
define the situation for observers (Goffman 1971, p.
32). In the interview Goma is performing the role he
feels is expected, but aware of it. Goma
recognised the setting he is in as demanding a certain sort of behaviour and then performs that behaviour. Goffman (1971) argued that all interaction is
a performance only with different levels, i.e.
front stage and back stage. Goma’s
performance is extremely front stage, his surprised to composed facial expressions at the
beginning of the interview evidence that he is aware he needs to perform a
role in accordance to the setting he is in.
Setting is part of Goffman’s front and includes scenic parts that act as
stimuli to the performer such as furniture, layout, manner and appearance (Goffman
1971, pp32-35). Goma tailors his
performance based on the setting, even mirroring Bowerman’s sitting position
throughout the interview.
Even
though Goma does obey many of the interview rules, it is clear to the
audience within the first few seconds that there is something amiss in Goma’s
interview with Bowerman. As watchers of
news, we can tell that this because we are familiar with the news interview
format. Perhaps what gives Goma’s
illegitimacy as an expert interviewee away is his authentic look of horror as
he is introduced as Guy Kewney and before he re-composes himself. While Goffman argues that
all interaction is a performance, examining Goma’s behaviour in his interview
might suggest there is some authentic interaction. When
the camera shows a close up of Goma’s face as he is introduced as Guy
Kewney (see line 1) Goma’s face turns from a composed front to showing a
looking of horror and even mischief before he resumes a performed front stage
expression and officially acknowledges the introduction. Goma’s seemingly raw reaction and then
conscious performance could challenge Goffman’s claim that a performance can
only be authentic to the degree that the performer is “sincerely convinced that
the impression of reality which he stages is the real reality” and a cynic “may not be taken in at all by his own
routine” and only perform it for the benefit of others (Goffman 1971, p. 28). When considering Goma’s interview, it does
not seem that he is performing his initial reaction at all, but the guise that
follows is clearly a presentation of the self as stimulated by the
setting. Goma is aware he is performing
when answering the questions asked by Bowerman by matching her manner and even
her language, repeating the word “surprise” in lines 4 and 6 after she
introduces it in line 3. Goma is clearly
aware of his performance that is almost entirely dictated by the setting, but
his true, unmediated self can perhaps be seen to be beneath the façade dictated
by the interview format.
Goma's
performance of an expert being interviewed while still revealing some of his
confused and nervous state certainly raises questions about the nature of the
self. Goma’s performance is informed heavily by
external factors, especially by Goma wanting to protect his how Goma wants to
be perceived by Bowerman and anyone else watching. This phenomenon can be described by Charles
Cooleys looking-glass self, which suggests that self-consciousness involves
continually monitoring oneself from the point of view of others (Scheff 2005, p.
147). This could explain Goma’s persistence
with answering the questions in the interview as he was introduced as “Guy
Kewney is editor of the technology website Newswireless” (line 1). As
Bowerman and the audience perceived him as Kewney, he presented himself as the
technology expert by answering the interview questions as best as he could in
that role.
Goma’s
presentation of self can also be considered to be affected by the institutions
he is interacting with. Goffman
describes an institution as an instrumental formal organisation that creates a
product such as material artefacts, decisions, or information (1960, p. 176)
and that because interactions make up institutions, they are managed by the
institutional culture (Manning 2008, p. 686). This interview is not only modeled by the
institution of the news broadcast interview with its legacy and expectations
(Clayman & Heritage 2002, p. 12), it is also shaped by its presence within
the BBC, which is an institution itself (Engel 2011). The institutions Goma interacts with can be
read as part of the setting he responds to when trying to adhere to the expert
interview structure. The news clip exposes
the strict format of the news interview, and might even go as far as showing
how strong the impact of an institution on the performance of self can be. Goma’s performance as an expert on the Apple Corps vs. Apple Computer case could be viewed as not his own performance, but as something structured by the institution. Even with no rehearsal of the event or
research on the questions, in the institutional setting Goma was able to at
least partially-successfully carry out an interview, possible due to the level
of influence an institutional setting has on a person’s everyday interaction.
The
short news clip of Guy Goma’s interview gives us an opportunity to consider how
people perform their identities in relation to their context. We can clearly see that the performance of
self is affected by a setting and by others' perceptions. It also becomes evident that everyday
interaction can be affected by institutions which have their own heavily
influential structures. The example of Goma is particularly valuable as it provides an insight to how people can perform certain identities in rather extreme circumstances, as Goma was in a context where he was provoked to take on the identity of an expert in a specific area and carry out an interview i that guise, while still having his own concerns about being perceived as a desirable job applicant at play. This essay has gone some of the way into uncovering how identities can be performed in response to certain settings, but more research could certainly be done to explore these concepts in depth.
References:
Clayman, S and Heritage, J
2002, News Interview: Journalists and
Public Figures on the Air, Cambridge University Press, Port Chester.
Craig, G 2010, ‘Dialogue and dissemination in news media
interviews’, Journalism, vol.11, no.1, pp75–90, accessed 17/10/2012, doi: 10.1177/1464884909349582
Garfinkel, H 1963 ‘A
Conception of and Experiments with ‘Trust’ as a Condition of Concerted Stable
Actions’ in O’Brien, J (ed.) The
Production of Reality: Essays and Readings on Social Interaction, vol. 4,
California, Pine Forge Press, pp370-81.
Goffman, E 1960, Asylums, Aldine, Chicago.
Goffman, E 1967, ‘The
nature of deference and demeanor’, in Interaction Ritual: Essays on
Face-to-Face Behaviour, Pantheon Books, New York, pp47-96.
Goffman, E 1971,
'Performances', in The Presentation of
Self in Everyday Life, Harmondsworth, Penguin, pp28-82, accessed 29/08/2012,
http://ereadings.uow.edu.au.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/goffmane1.pdf
Heritage, J 1984, ‘The
Morality of Cognition’, in Garfinkel and
Ethnomethodology, Polity Press, Cambridge, pp75-102.
Heritage, J and Roth, A
1995, ‘Grammar and Institution: Questions and Questioning in the Broadcast News
Interview’, Research on Language &
Social Interaction, vol. 28, no. 1, pp1-60, accessed 20/10/2012, http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15327973rlsi2801_1
Kewney, G 2006, ‘That “Guy”
- he really is a Guy, and not a cab driver, either!’, weblog post, Newswireless,15 May, accessed
25/10/2012, http://www.newswireless.net/index.cfm/article/2708
Manning, P 2008, ‘Goffman
on Organizations’, Organization Studies vol. 29, no. 5, pp677-699, doi:
10.1177/0170840608088767
Scheff, T.J. 2005,
"Looking-Glass Self: Goffman as Symbolic Interactionist", Symbolic
Interaction, vol. 28, no. 2, pp147-166.
Waldman, S 2006, ‘The wrong
guy’, weblog post, BBC, 15 May,
accessed 28/10/2012, http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2006/05/the_wrong_guy_1.html
