Political Bias in a Turkish Political TV Interview

The study aims to provide empirical data on the question of partiality in political TV interviews in Turkey. The model developed by Clayman and Heritage (2002) and Clayman et al. (2007) and extended by Huls and Varwijk (2011) is used to analyze questions asked by interviewers in the political TV discussion program Siyaset Meydanı to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. The initial 30-minute parts of each interview have been examined to reveal aggressive question designs and the results are evaluated in comparison to each other in terms of possible bias favoring or disfavoring one of the politicians. The conclusion is that though it is hard to make distinctions regarding the other five measures – initiative, directness, assertiveness, adversarialness, accountability and persistence – interviewers seem to be partial in terms of assertiveness that they utilize in their questions, favoring Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and disfavoring Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

The clear-cut nature of the QAS makes it less interpretive and more empirical. The points mentioned above have different indicators which are fairly concrete in nature. These indicators are assigned different values depending on their quality. Table 2 gives the analytic perspectives (measures), their indicators with descriptions, and the values assigned to each indicator.  (Clayman et al., 2007) The perspectives, together with example data from the interviews, can be explained as follows (the rest of the transcriptions of the interviewsthe parts where the relevant indicators have been spottedcan be seen in Turkish in the Appendix: 1. Initiative. Interviewers can address their questions to interviewees in such a way that the latter can orient their answers the way they wish and construct their responses freely. Alternatively, interviewers can constrain the way interviewees can answer their Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies Volume: 3 -Issue: 4 -October -2013 questions. When the latter happens, initiative is exemplified. As is seen in Table 2, this measure is broken down into three categories: statement prefaces, in which the interviewer makes introductory statement/s before asking his/her question to the interviewee; multiple questions, which is characterized by two or more questions that the interviewers asks at a single turn; and finally follow-up questions, which refers to the interviewer"s asking another question/other questions subsequently. A value of 1 point is assigned for each of these items if they are present in the interviewer"s question. Below is an example of initiative evidenced by statement prefaces and multiple questions.

U2
The Prime Minister criticizes you.

U3
This reaches to such an extent that sometimes the President interferes and makes warnings.

Q1
May it affect the electorate?

Q2
How do you view this issue?
In the example, the interviewer makes introductory statements that limit the scope of the question and also there are more than one question addressed to the interviewee. Therefore, this question design takes a value of 2, 1 for preface and 1 for multiple questions.
aggressive the question design. Indirectness is instantiated in the question given in to the interviewee. This kind of tilt gets a value of 1 point. In the latter, the tilted preface poses threat to the interviewee. This latter sort is assigned a value of 2 points in accordance with its more aggressive nature. The last indicator, negative question, is given a value of 1 when present in the question design. In Example 3, a negative question indicator of assertiveness can be seen.
The example shows that the interviewer shapes her question in such a way that a Yes answer is the only plausible answer, thus manifesting an example of assertiveness. This example in the present study received a value of 1 point.

5.
Adversarialness. This is evidenced when the interviewer takes a position opposite to the interviewee. An interviewer can express adversarialness by making statements While empirical and easy to apply, the model has certain weaknesses. One obvious criticism can be made regarding the coverage of the present study; as pointed out earlier, thirty-minute parts of each interview were analyzed. Though this article does not claim that the same pattern of question design in the 30-minute part of the interviews holds for the rest of the