The concept of `para-social interaction' has chiefly been applied to entertainment materials. Following suggestions from Goffman, from the pragmatics of Palo Alto and from other approaches in discourse analysis, this article draws attention to the interactional strategies and devices often embedded in television news. It outlines a set of `meta-discoursive indicators', through which it should be possible to define and analyse the role the television journalist assumes before his audience, and the kind of interaction he tries to develop with the televiewer.
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