Moving through Discourses: An Assessment of the New Zealand 2005 Election Televised Leaders' Debates

Abstract

This article examines the nature of the ‘debate’ that occurred in the televised leaders’ debates during the 2005 New Zealand election campaign. It argues that the theories of language and dialogue of the Bakhtin Circle of scholars can effectively inform evaluations of such debates. Such theories acknowledge the inherent contestability of language, the necessarily embodied nature of communication and the constitutive functions of the particular contexts of communication acts. The article also argues that the dialogical basis of political debate needs to be located in the contexts of contemporary mediated culture and information dissemination. Successful political performance in televised leaders’ debates is said to reside in the negotiation of a range of discourses, expressions of conflict and consensus, style and substance.