Interactional Forms of Political Negativism in the Broadcasted Political Interviews of the Campaign for the Italian Political Elections of 2013

The aim of this research is analyzing the sequential associations between questions asked by interviewers and answers provided by their political interlocutors during the two-month campaign for the Italian political elections of February 24-25, 2013. The assumption is that patterns of interaction may reveal much about partiality of interviewers and political negativism and incivility. A sample of 9 hours of digital registrations was drawn from the population of the interviews. It was coded on the base of coding systems of closeness and face-threat of questions, pertinence and equivocation of the answers, and general topic of the exchanges. Indexes of agreement among three observers were good. Main results show subtle forms of interactional negativism, as strong use of maintenance strategies by both interlocutors, sequential cycles of tough questions and no-replies, and the so-called partisan bias by the interviewer (negative treatment for politicians partaking to a political area not supporting the channel in which the interviewer works). Results are interpreted on the base of face model, politeness theory and communication accommodation theory.