Confrontation Talk: Arguments, Asymmetries, and Power on Talk Radio (Everyday Communication Series)

Confrontation Talk: Arguments, Asymmetries, and Power on Talk Radio by Ian Hutchby uses conversation analysis to study argument, asymmetry and power on talk radio. It is addressed to academics, advanced undergraduates and postgraduate students in fields such as sociology, linguistics, media and communication studies, and anthropology. Routledge published this 140-page hardcover in 1996.

At its center is a case study of a British talk radio show, which the book draws on to examine the communicative asymmetries between hosts and callers and how arguments are constructed in a setting that both enables and constrains conflict talk. It also shows how conversation analysis can account for power as a feature of institutional discourse.