Opening up terrorism talk: The sequential and categorical production of discursive power within the call openings of a talk radio broadcast

Categorisation practices

Subsequent to Sacks’s (1995) foundational work on membership categories and ‘category bound activities’ (p. 248), seminal analysis by Jayyusi (1984) extensively exposed how member categories are formulated, managed and operationalised in interaction, in particular how categorisations operate ‘as umbrellas for the ascription of other features and actions’ (Jayyusi, 1984: 28). Jayyusi (1984) demonstrated the inexorably moral nature of member categories, contending that member categorisations often render unnecessary the need for actions to be accounted for by reason, as actions instead become attribute-specific: in other words, they become ‘category bound’. She also emphasised that category activities are both constitutive of categories (category-tied) and constituted by categories (category-generated). Further work in this area also, importantly, expanded the focus on activities to incorporate further category properties, including rights and obligations (e.g. Watson, 1978, 1983) and knowledge (e.g. Sharrock, 1974). Following Hester (1998), such category properties are often now referred to as ‘category predicates’, a focus on which is central to the MCA enterprise of illuminating the ways in which categorisation practices provide significant and variable resources for interaction.

Categories and power

Recognising membership categories and their predicates as a powerful resource for the local accomplishment of social order (Jayyusi, 1984) attunes MCA to examining the moral basis of talk and places the examination of talk as a morally grounded practice at its heart (c.f. Housely and Fitzgerald, 2002). Jayyusi (1984) argues that attribute specification is particularly common when members’ category activity is considered to be in some way deviant because the ‘underlying asymmetry of perspectives involved is a logical feature of such formulations, and it points clearly and simply to the normatively and morally organized character of categorization work, account, descriptions, predictions and discourse-interactional work in general’ (p. 28). Along with rights, obligations and responsibilities, power can be understood as a category predicate, or as the upshot of other underlying category predicates. In common with other predicates, power is not only differentially predicated by membership categories, it is also realised by them.

Whilst it is usual within the traditions of CA to focus the analysis solely upon the data (see Schegloff, 1997) and to avoid situating the analysis within any explicit social, moral or political context where discussions of power often reside, relations of power nevertheless feature tacitly in a great deal of CA analysis of institutional discourse (Hutchby, 2006). Hutchby (2006: 34) argues that:

By showing how participants display an orientation to institutional settings by engaging in certain activities and refraining from others, and illustrating how activities such as questioning are used to constrain the options of a co-participant, CA can also be used to demonstrate how power can be a feature of those activities. What is implied by these studies is that oriented-to activity patterns, such as differences in questioning and answering moves, may themselves be intrinsic to the play of power in institutional interactions.

Given that talk radio routinely presents a site where ‘ordinary people’ and ‘elites’ interact, the connections referred to by Hutchby (2006) between structure and power appear highly relevant for CA/MCA research in this setting. When examining the interactional work of members engaged in this kind of broadcast talk, utilising the conventions of CA and MCA, we suggest that it is possible to observe the live management of power as it plays out via sequential and categorical work. In particular, it is possible to examine relations of power in the interactions between lay and elite voices, and also in the interactions between varying elites.

We would further argue that the capacity to examine relations of power using the close focus of CA/MCA can make an important contribution to areas of research traditionally explored by more macro-analytic discursive approaches. Specifically, we suggest that there is space to engage the particular analytic strengths of CA/MCA within a Critical Discourse Studies (Van Dijk, 2009) framework. Here, we align with the call by Van Dijk (2009) to refer to the broad field of critical discursive work as Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) rather than Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), on the basis that CDA is neither theory nor method, but rather is an approach to research. Hence, the term Critical Discourse Analysis is potentially misleading. Theoretical and methodological tensions between the traditions of traditionally termed CDA and CA are well documented (see Schegloff, 1997, for an overview of the CA position). In large part, these tensions relate to how the issues of context and power are conceptualised and accounted for in research. Although mindful of what are often viewed as impregnable conceptual and theoretical differences between CDA and CA, we suggest that such differences might be put to one side when one engages CA (and, we would add, MCA) as a method for doing critical discursive work.

Not only does Van Dijk (2009: 62) assert that ‘CDS is not a method, but rather a critical perspective, position or attitude’, but Schegloff (1997: 184) argues that if ‘those whose central impulse is critical’ wish to address ‘discursive events in their import for participants […] then critical analysis and formal analysis are not competitors or alternatives. One presupposes the other, serious critical discourse analysis presupposes serious formal analysis and is addressed to its product’. Precisely what constitutes ‘serious formal analysis’ seems to lie at the heart of the disagreement between advocates of these differing approaches, and whilst we recognise the value of such methodological debates, in order to concentrate on the practical purposes of the current study, we put these largely to one side with a view that CA/MCA can be engaged within a broader CDS framework and that the particular analytic strengths of CA/MCA can produce research findings with the capacity to make a meaningful contribution to areas of critical research.

Context and data

The data for this study are taken from a two-hour talk radio programme entitled ‘What more can we do to stop the terrorists?’. This show was broadcast on BBC Radio 5 Live, a British national radio station specialising in broadcasting live news and current affairs programmes, live phone-in shows and live sports commentary. The programme was scheduled in a weekday morning slot traditionally devoted to interactive live debate with members of the public. The show is generally focused upon a pre-selected, often contentious, current affairs topic or dominant news story. The phone-in selected for analysis aired on Monday 2 July 2007, directly following two attempted terrorist attacks in London and Glasgow on Friday 29 and Saturday 30 June. The show featured talk from members of the public, talk from callers with some level of topic-related ‘expertise’ of professional standing, and the show host.

Host ‘omni-relevance’

Before examining call opening sequences in the data, a wider focus on the role of the ‘host’ is required. This is provided by the following extracts:

Extract 1

1 M.B. Good mo:rning it’s nine o’clock. This is Matthew Bannister with

2    you o:n 5 live und in ↑this hour what ↑more can we do to stop the

3    terrorists (0.5)

Extract 2

1 M.B. The free phone number to call is 0500 909:693 (.) >you can ↑text

2    us< on 85058 (0.5) o:r you can e-mail Banniste::r at bbc.co.u↑k

Extracts 1 and 2 demonstrate some of the structural and contextual norms enacted by the occupier of the ‘host’ category, as have been identified in previous research (e.g. Hutchby, 1996; Thornborrow, 2001b). Extract 1 is an example of topic-setting for the phone-in, whilst Extract 2 exemplifies the host’s provision of routes for callers to access and engage in the programme.

Fitzgerald and Housley (2002: 583) argue that the categories ‘host’ and ‘caller’ represent a primary layer of categorisation in the talk radio context, which they label ‘programme-relevant categories’. In their account of this category layer, Fitzgerald and Housley (2002) engage with Sacks’s (1995) notion of omni-relevance. Sacks (1995) initially proposed that certain membership devices can be understood as omni-relevant to an ongoing interaction. Such a device is not required to be contextually or sequentially related to the preceding occurrence in the interaction, but ‘when it is used, it’s the controlling device’ (Sacks, 1995: 314). Fitzgerald and Housley (2002) demonstrate that the omni-relevant category ‘host’ makes a significant contribution both to the ongoing sequential interaction and to the organisational/institutional structure underlying the sequencing of interaction. In a similar vein, Thornborrow (2001b: 122) refers to the host as the ‘talk manager’ and argues that some ‘quite complex interactional work goes on’ prior to the caller taking charge of the air. Fitzgerald and Housley (2002) also note an asymmetry with respect to the occupation of the host versus caller roles: one member occupies the role of host throughout the programme, yet a succession of members occupy the category of caller.

A difficulty with the concept of omni-relevance might be that the backgrounded nature of its affordances means that it is often invisible. However, Extract 3 below provides an explicit example of the omni-relevance of the ‘host’ device being actively engaged in interaction.

Extract 3

1 M.B. and Nick in Letchworth (0.2) ‘anyone could be a terrorist so

2    waddawe do check everyone doing anything anywhere? .hh let’s just

3    get on with our own lives’ (0.2) 0500 909693 is the free phone

4    number to ca:ll (0.2) Bannister at bbc.co.uk is the email address and

5    ↑85058 .hh (0.2) is the number if you text us

Here, omni-relevance permits interjection in the middle of the programme to provide information which is not sequentially or contextually relevant to the preceding talk. Hence, in Extract 3, the act of interrupting the contextualised topical talk of ‘terrorism’ with phone numbers and an email address is an accepted norm when enacted by the host, and does not require any additional explanatory or justificatory work to support it.

Given the focus toward power relations in the current study, the ways in which omni-relevance is utilised as a means of control is of central interest, hence the omni-relevant ‘host’ category is of particular concern.

‘Lay’ caller introductions

The following extracts provide typical examples of the standard means by which members of the public are introduced to the programme.

Extract 4

1 M.B. let’s bring in Fahima (0.5) who’s called us from East London

2    (0.5) hallo Fahima

3    (0.5)

4 Fa.  hi there

5    (0.2)

6 M.B. good morning what did you want to say

Extract 5

1 M.B. let’s bring in Ashfaq who’s called us from Leeds

2    er good morning Ashfaq

3    (0.2)

4 As.  A very good morning to you Matthew=

5 M.B. =what did you want to say=

Extract 6

1 M.B. .hhh ah Ray is on the line from Norwich (0.5) ↑good morning Ray

2    (0.8)

3 Ra. Hallo Matthew good morning to ↑you

According to Fitzgerald and Housley (2002: 586), it is within such call openings that the host sequentially and contextually manages a progression from the relatively anonymous programme-relevant layer of categorisation to a more detailed layer of categorisation, which they label a ‘call-relevant identity’. At this level, the host provides a collection of particulars for the individual caller, which distinguishes them from others who might share the relatively anonymous programme-relevant category of ‘caller’.

Many of the host-led call opening sequences in the current data follow a standard structural and contextual pattern, in keeping with the findings of previous analyses (e.g. Thornborrow, 2001a, 2001b). As exemplified in Extracts 4, 5 and 6, this sequence, whereby the host shares the caller’s first name and geographic locale with the listeners, is never deviated from throughout the broadcast when introducing ordinary people to the air. We identify this as a ‘name-plus-location’ sequence (one of two ‘name-plus’ provisions, as will be seen in the following section).

Whilst the level of information may initially appear to be minimal, the name-plus-location introduction provided by the host is potentially consequential for the ongoing interaction. Schegloff’s (1972) analysis of location formulations and personal names emphasised the ‘recognisability’ of their construction, referring to the way that they are designed so that listeners can ‘perform operations … categorize … bring knowledge to bear [and] … detect which of … [their] attributes … [are] relevant in context etc.’ (p. 91). Schegloff also notes that personal names may contain, as a matter of course, indications of ‘sex, ethnicity and social class’ (p. 91). Meanwhile, he highlights that members’ use and interpretation of location formulations engages three levels of analysis: first, a ‘location analysis’ (p. 83), including what he calls ‘common sense geography’ (p. 85) and a tendency towards ‘selecting formulations that are members of the same collection’ (p. 102); second, a ‘membership analysis’ (p. 88), involving recipient design for what listeners can be expected to recognise; and third, a ‘topic analysis’ (p. 96), involving an orientation to the particular topical context in which the term is used.

Drawing on these observations in relation to name-plus-location introductions in the current data, we suggest the following. On an institutional level, the routine format of such formulations in talk radio (c.f. Thornborrow, 2001a) centres upon the provision of personal names and location formulations that are hearable as coming from the same collection (of first names on the one hand and of British towns and cities on the other), whilst also orienting to recipient design for an audience expected to recognise certain nominal and geographical references (c.f. Drew, 1978). However, Schegloff’s (1972) analysis also allows for a more localised, context-specific level to such formulations. The observation that people are generally in the business of reading categorisations, inferences and relevances from name and location referents, means that, for any given topic under discussion within a radio broadcast, such referents are inspectable for the purpose of carrying out these sorts of ‘operations’ (Schegloff, 1972: 91).

In their original discussion of the sequential and categorical development of identity, Fitzgerald and Housley (2002) state that ‘call-relevant identity’ is a term used ‘to suggest that there is a layer of identity membership that is not topic oriented’ (p. 586), whilst their ‘topic-relevant’ category layer (p. 596) captures a level of categorisation in which identity work is centrally topic-related. However, Schegloff’s (1972) observations challenge such a straightforward distinction, revealing that even the relatively innocuous details provided in the development of call-relevant identity are inspectable as topic-relevant and may result in the promotion of asymmetrical opportunities, rights and obligations for speakers.

Additional insights into these issues can be drawn from the work of Jayyusi (1984). In particular, that members conventionally orient towards positive category ascriptions for themselves, whilst working to obscure any grounds for negative category ascriptions; and some categories are expectably disclosable in a given context, whereas others are not. Moreover, some categories, including political and religious affiliations, are ‘revelatory matters [and simultaneously] matters for concealment’ (p. 69).

Whilst it may not be consequential for all talk radio topics, the name-plus-location convention for lay callers within talk radio broadcasts needs to be recognised as potentially taking the disclosure of ethnic and religious membership categories out of the hands of speakers, with important implications for callers’ ongoing contributions and their development of call-relevant identities.

In the context of the ‘terrorism talk’ in the current analysis, the caller introductions ‘Fahima’ from ‘East London’, ‘Ashfaq’ from ‘Leeds’ and ‘Ray’ from ‘Norwich’ are hearable as indicative of varying ethnic membership categories. More specifically, in the given topical context, ‘Ashfaq’ from ‘Leeds’ and ‘Fahima’ from ‘East London’ are hearable as Muslim category members, whilst ‘Ray’ from ‘Norwich’ is hearable as a white British category member. Jayyusi (1984) makes plain that, whilst analysts are trained not to take anything as a ‘given’, ‘for members of a culture, there are indeed “givens”’ (p. 59) and what is of interest is how members utilise such givens ‘as a resource’ (p. 59). Within the context of contemporary dominant terrorism discourses in the UK, where Muslims are increasingly conceptualised as the new ‘suspect community’ (Pantazis and Pemberton, 2009) and young British Muslims report that they are routinely ‘categorized as the feared, the dangerous “other”’ (Mythen et al., 2009: 749), such ethnicity revelations are clearly morally loaded and present potentially serious problems for those interactions members wish to engage in. ¹

‘Elite’ caller introductions

In contrast to the introduction of ordinary people, an alternative form of name-plus provision is employed by the host when introducing a second group of callers, who are thereby distinguished from ordinary people. The following extracts provide a standard example of this alternative name-plus provision.

Extract 7

1 M.B. I want to bring in< Patrick Mercer who’s a former (0.2) .hh shadow

2    security spokesman for the Conservative party (0.2) er good morning

3    Mr Mercer

Extract 8

1 M.B. .hh ah l-let’s talk to er Osama Sai:d who’s the spokesperson for the:

2    (0.2) Muslim association of Britain in:: Scotland er-ah-g-good

3    morning Mr Said

Here we witness the standard way in which the host introduces a distinguishable membership category via the use of a different form of name-plus provision. This name-plus provision comprises both forename and surname, in addition to which is the inclusion of some indication of professional standing or expertise. In Extract 7, the relevant expertise of Patrick Mercer is connected to his former role as a security spokesperson for the Conservative party, whilst in Extract 8, Osama Said’s relevant expertise relates to his role as a spokesperson for the Muslim Association of Britain. It remains perfectly possible that Patrick Mercer is also a religious spokesperson, and that Osama Said is also a security expert; however, these and any number of other possible elite credentials remain unknown. Hence, call-relevant identity centres upon the elite credentials that are explicitly provided. As in Thornborrow’s (2001a) data, these credentials involve a variety of public identities, including memberships, roles and occupations. The range of potential elite credentials that are employable by hosts would, we suggest, represent an extremely interesting focus for future analyses of the radio phone-in genre, though beyond the scope of the current analysis.

Fitzgerald and Housley (2002: 586) refer to call-relevant identity as ‘producing a specific identity for this particular caller for their time on air’. The differing name-plus introductions identified above lead us to make an analytic distinction between two primary types of call-relevant identity in our data, which we will label ‘lay’ and ‘elite’ callers. These discrete caller categories map on to distinctions reported in other work from TV and radio public participation media. For example, Thornborrow’s (2001a) analysis of radio and television data identified the establishment of lay and expert identities during host-led introductions. Similarly, Hamo (2006) reported a distinction between famous, semi-famous and anonymous callers in his television talk show data, whilst Simon-Vandenbergen’s (2007) analysis of the Kilroy television talk show identified differences between expert and lay guest introductions.

In examining category-incumbency, Jayyusi (1984: 64) distinguishes between varying ‘communities of categorisers’, which operate within a given culture, and highlights that, for certain categories, category-incumbency can only be bestowed by members of a specific community who make a judgement regarding the potential member’s requisite skill or knowledge. Such categories can be contrasted with others whereby the community of categorisers is, in principle, fully inclusive and any member can undertake categorisation work (Jayyusi, 1984). In our data, the inferential work of the host, reflected in the differential introductions for ‘lay’ and ‘elite’ callers, implies that members of the latter have been adjudged by some select community of categorisers as expert in relation to their particular introductory credentials. The omni-relevance of the host category is such that the host is able to make these credentials explicit for the local purposes of the broadcast. Hence, the members introduced in Extracts 7 and 8 are hearable as experts in matters considered to be of relevance to the broadcast. The structural and contextual power of host-led introductions facilitates the hearing of this differentiation between ‘elites’ and ‘lay’ callers. The ‘elites’ are implicitly constructed as having varied, but similarly elevated, member-incumbency, which distinguishes them from ‘lay’ callers. This point links back to Sacks’s account of omni-relevance. Sacks (1995: 313–314) stated that an ‘omni-relevant device is one that is relevant to a setting via the fact that there are some activities that are known to get done in that setting’, and furthermore ‘it is the business of say, some single person located via the “omni-relevant device” to do that [business], and the business of others located via that device, to let it get done’. On this occasion, the business of the host involves assigning differential rights to callers that are implicative of particular ‘elite’ status, and it is the business of the callers (and the audience) to let that get done. In relation to Jayyusi (1984: 65) then, making these ‘elite’ member distinctions acts to vest these callers with the ‘locus of obligations and rights’ that are indelibly tied up with elite-member incumbency.

Sequence, identity and power

Having identified that lay and elite callers are differentially categorised at the outset via the host-led introduction, a more in-depth analysis of some of the structural and contextual features of introductions can reveal still more. Specifically, it can provide insight regarding the ways in which the distribution and uptake of discursive power occur in these data. As we will see, power hinges upon the interplay between structural features (question/answer etc.) and membership categorisations made salient in these caller introductions. The following examples reflect how this plays out in practice.

Extract 9

1 M.B. ↑alright Mark thanks very much I-I take the point that you’re making

2    from Birmingham (0.2) >I want to bring in< Patrick Mercer who’s a

3    former (0.2) .hh shadow security spokesman for the Conservative

4    party (0.2) er good morning Mr Mercer

5    (0.2)

6 P.M. hallo Matthew good morning=

7 M.B. =th-what do you think about the point that Mark makes that in

8    Northern Ireland negotia↑tions seems to have (0.2) stopped (0.2)

9    terrorism .hh (0.2) ahh w-w-could we ever: negotiate with the people

10    behind the a-attempted attacks in London un the attack in Glas↑gow

11    (0.2)

12 P.M. well I-I-I speak with many tours on Northern Ireland behind me as a

13    serving soldier where I worked in both (0.2) .hh strategy an

14    principally intelligence matters .hh (0.2) und (0.2) there is of ↑course

15    ↓room for negotiation (0.2) but to ne↑gotiate (0.5) you have got to

16    understand your enemy and have an enemy that is willing to

17    negotiate with you:: (0.5) .hh an I’m afraid that this new form of

18    Islamist (.) fundamentalist (0.2) style of terrorism (0.2) does not

19    se:em to be amenable to that

20    (0.2)

Extract 10

1 M.B. Patrick ↑stay with us I want to bring in Shami Chakrabarti of Liberty

2    (0.2) uh:: to get ↓her reaction to what you have to say fi-fi-first of all

3    er Shami uhm good morning to you

4    (.)

5 S.C. and to you Matthew=

6 M.B. =uhm P-Patrick Mercer suggests that he would liked to have seen

7    more armed police (.) more dog patrols on the underground th-this

8    morning on the critical state of alert we are at (0.2) d’you think that

9    would be a↑good scheme

10    (0.2)

11 S.C. .hh well I mean Patrick Patrick has an operational (0.2) uhm

12    experience which-wh-which I don’t but I (.) I am grateful to him

Two interrelated features are of particular interest to us here. First, the structural order in which these callers are invited to participate in the talk and the implications this has for utilising category membership, and second, the local conditions under which the opportunities to contribute are availed by the host.

In Extracts 9 and 10, we can see that both of these elite callers are directed by the host to respond to an argument developed by the preceding caller. In his detailed analysis of talk radio, Hutchby (1996) builds on initial work by Sacks (1995) and observes that the ‘going first’ and ‘going second’ structure of argumentation is a routine convention that can be understood as a form of ‘Action-Opposition sequence’ (p. 42). Following the conventions of host introduction, the caller who is positioned as ‘going first’ must set out their view of the given issue, whilst the caller who gets to ‘go second’ can counter that view. Hutchby (1996: 42) explicitly states that this puts ‘disputants who get to go second … in a more powerful position than those who go first’.

As the caller in Extract 9 begins his turn (line 12), he benefits from the power asymmetry that comes from ‘going second’. The argument, already set up by the prior caller, and reformulated by the host, is available for challenge. Yet, in addition to this structurally derived power advantage, the caller has a further power differential that results from his ‘elite’ membership category incumbency. In Extract 9, the ‘former … security spokesman’ (line 3) is asked to respond to an argument that has been advanced by lay caller ‘Mark’ (line 1). Here, the lay and elite membership categories of the callers can be understood to operate as what Jayyusi (1984: 122) referred to as an ‘asymmetric category set’, whereby an asymmetry operates between category incumbents with respect to rights and duties and/or skills and knowledge. This, Jayyusi notes, plays out, in particular, within disputes between incumbents of asymmetrically positioned categories, so as to differentially favour the more empowered category incumbent. Thus, in Extract 9, resulting from his elite status within the asymmetric category set of ‘elite’ caller and ‘lay’ caller, any challenge to, or support for, the lay caller’s position that is offered by the elite caller is bolstered.

Moreover, the specific, introductory elite credentials of the elite caller as ‘former … security spokesman’ are directly relevant to the local particulars of the argument made by the lay caller – glossed by the host as asserting that ‘in Northern Ireland negotia↑tions seems to have (0.2) stopped (0.2) terrorism’ (lines 7–9). The fit between the elite’s stated expertise and the timing at which he is introduced is such that he is able to immediately introduce a ‘topic-relevant identity’ (Fitzgerald and Housley, 2002: 596) or ‘relevant participatory status’ (Thornborrow, 2001a: 470) into his talk. Fitzgerald and Housley (2002) propose that ‘topic-relevant’ category work involves callers invoking topic-relevant aspects of their experience in connection with the opinion being expressed and laying claim to some form of personal relatedness to the topic under discussion. This is clearly demonstrated in Extract 9 (lines 12–14), when Patrick Mercer sets up a relationship between his lived experience and the topic at hand, as a means of evidencing his argument. The structural efficiency and contextual ease with which this elite caller can engage in such identity work suggests that his scheduled placement within the broadcast is organised to facilitate him in addressing the aspect of terrorism talk that is most pertinent to his expertise.

In contrast to Extract 9, the elite caller in Extract 10 (Shami Chakrabarti) is introduced to the air directly following the turn of another elite caller (Patrick Mercer from Extract 9) and asked to respond to the talk of that prior elite caller. Thus, whilst Shami Chakrabarti may have the opportunity to ‘go second’ and challenge the argument put forward by the prior caller, she does not benefit from the power advantage that comes with being an elite engaged in a dispute with a lay caller in an asymmetrical category set. In this way, Shami Chakrabarti is denied the lay–elite power differential that has been afforded to Patrick Mercer. The contrast between the two examples does not stop there, however. With respect to the host-specified expertise of these callers, Extract 10 requires Shami Chakrabarti, whose introduction foregrounds her role as the director of ‘Liberty’ (the UK National Council for Civil Liberties), to respond to an argument by the ‘former security spokesperson’ Patrick Mercer, in which he draws upon his ‘many tours on Northern Ireland’ to argue that ‘this new form of Islamist (.) fundamentalist (0.2) style of terrorism (0.2) does not se:em to be amenable to [negotiation]’. Thus, whilst Patrick Mercer is called as a securities expert to comment on a securities topic (advanced by a lay caller), Shami Chakrabarti is called as a civil liberties expert to comment on a topic which has been developed and framed by a securities expert. Consequently, it is not possible for Shami Chakrabarti to utilise her particular elite credentials to engage in the sort of topic-relevant identity work that Fitzgerald and Housley (2002) highlight, without first engaging in some other work to re-focus the topical trajectory of the talk. Thus, to the extent that Patrick Mercer’s introduction is scheduled within the broadcast to empower his expertise, Shami Chakrabarti’s scheduled introduction disempowers hers.

A further example of the subtle power play engaged within elite caller introductions is provided in the following extract.

Extract 11

1 M.B. .hh ah l-let’s talk to er Osama Sai:d who’s the spokesperson for the:

2    (0.2) Muslim Association of Britain in:: Scotland er-ah-g-good

3    morning Mr Said

4    (0.5)

5 O.S. >°g’mornin°<

6    (0.2)

7 M.B. .hh (0.2) er thanks for joining us err c-co↑uld you ah just i-clear u:p a

8    point which (0.2) er was made by one of our (0.5) callers ↓earlie:r .hh

9    umm-er-i-who said that er a-all Muslims in this country want Britain

10    to become a Muslim state.

The above extract strikingly highlights that the routine conventions of host-controlled introductions are anything but mundane. Indeed, the host-managed caller introductions avail the host an uninterrupted opportunity to not only construct a call-relevant identity for the caller, but also to make germane particular topic-relevant categories (Fitzgerald and Housley, 2002). In Extract 11, we witness how, via the routines of sequence and structure, the host-led introduction presents significant implications for this elite caller, where the introduction entails that he engage with a topic-relevant identity foisted upon him. In Extract 11, the host initiates the conversation, stating ‘l-let’s talk to er Osama Sai:d who’s the spokesperson for the: (0.2) Muslim Association of Britain in:: Scotland’ (lines 1–2). Multiple devices and categories are brought into play here: the caller is ascribed ‘elite’ credentials as the Scottish spokesperson for the Muslim Association of Britain and, simultaneously, ‘ethnic’ credentials as ‘Muslim’. Following the initial introduction, the host requests that the caller ‘just i-clear u:p a point which (0.2) er was made by one of our (0.5) callers ↓earlie:r’ and, in doing so, positions the caller via the membership affiliations made explicit in the introduction.

The point under scrutiny concerns a previous caller’s argument which is reformulated by the host as the belief that ‘all Muslims in this country want Britain to become a Muslim state’ (lines 9–10). In requiring the caller to deal with such an ideological positioning of ‘all Muslims’, the host treats the caller’s call-relevant identity as implicitly topic relevant. Having established the caller as a person with multiple layers of membership rights and obligations born from membership of the categories ‘Muslim’ and ‘elite’, the caller is first positioned as somebody who can speak on this issue as a result of being a Muslim with lived experience and knowledge, and second as someone who should speak as a result of the normative moral obligations tied to being an ‘expert’. Thus, category membership is again displayed as inherently moral. In this way, the call-relevant identity displayed in Extract 11 blurs into topic-relevant category membership, which is then treated as an accountable aspect of caller identity. The local assignment of topic-relevant category membership, via the sequential conventions of host-led introductions, carefully manages how the caller can initially engage in the conversation. It defines what the host treats as topic-relevant membership, narrowing the scope of actions available to the caller and more or less requiring him to address that topic from the entailed membership categories, work to challenge the construction of the given categories, or refute membership of those categories before engaging in other topic-relevant category membership displays.

The omni-relevant affordances of the host category underpin the conventional norms of interactively positioning the caller in this way. They vest the host with a greater degree of structural control than any guest, irrespective of elite credentials.

There are occasions in the data where callers skilfully manoeuvre beyond the endeavours of the host to delimit their contribution, and steer the conversation toward other topics (see Extract 10, lines 11–12 for such an example). However, as Extract 11 demonstrates, this is much more difficult when the host-led request to respond to a topic rhetorically and actively merges call-relevant identity with topic-relevant category membership.