Comparative Analysis Of The Interwiews: Piers Morgans With Cheryl Cole, And George Galloway With Jeremy Paxman

Interviews are an effective approach for people to communicate through spoken speech. There are a wide variety of interviews such as News reports, Talk Shows, Parent and Teacher conference, university applications, and they all take place for different reasons. Take for instance a news report, they take place to share a main event globally, Talk shows are a way to entertain the public, Parent teacher conferences allow parents to understand how their child is doing academically and University applications are a chance for you to prove yourself and how capable you are.

We can compare two different interviews such as Piers Morgans life stories with Cheryl Cole and the famous George Galloway and Jeremy Paxman broadcast to show how interviews can vary depending on the context and response from both parties. Piers Morgan runs a pre-recorded sit-com with major celebrities such as Cheryl Cole to get an insight on their lives and with his background in high class journalism he is renowned for his controversial style of questioning. Morgan comes from a very high class background which shows in his received pronunciation accent. Cole, whilst succeeding in her music career and appearing on The X Factor, had been fighting a long Battle with Malaria and had been recently divorced to football star Ashley Cole.

The purpose of this interview is mainly to entertain but along with that, it gives Coles fans an insight on how she had been holding up, giving the situation and to give Cole her own voice. The audience for this interview consists of watchers of Morgans shows, followers of Cole and football fans (of Ashley Cole). As well as Morgan, Jeremy Paxman is widely known for his insistent style in interviewing politicians. He went to a private school and comes from a family of high achievers and like Morgan, he too has a received pronunciation accent which shows high intelligence. One of the many politicians that Paxman has interviewed is George Galloway. He is a British politician who comes from a working class background. In 2003 he was expelled from the Labour Party as he was guilty of 415 charges for bringing the party into disrepute.

In 2005 there were heated exchanges between Galloway and Jewish Oona King - one of two black female MP’s - after he defeated her in the Labour Party seating. He threatened to sue King and told people not to vote for her because of her mothers faith. This shows Galloway's controversial personality. The broadcast between Paxman and Galloway is a journalistic interview where Paxman challenges and observes Galloway’s response. The audience of the interview can be anyone who has an understanding or interest in politics. Because Galloway comes from a Scottish background, the Scottish community might have an interest in this interview also. When comparing the two interviews, it's clear that they are very different in several ways. For example, the nature of Cole and Morgan’s interview is soft and intimate. It's filmed face-to-face. Morgan asks Cole “How are you feeling?” In which she replies, “Terrified. ” This tells us that the tone is immediately friendly and conversational. Morgan uses this soft question to ease Cole into the interview and to make her feel at ease and that she can be herself. Her short answer could indicate that she's nervous and can't think behind a long sentence. This is intended to show the audience that Cole isn't just one of those typical celebrities who think she's better than everyone else but that she's a regular person just like everyone in the audience.

The audience would appreciate the relaxed ambience that Cole brings. However in contrast, the nature of the Paxman and Galloway interview is very different, the atmosphere is quite tense as the election result just came in and we learn Galloway has won. Paxman starts with hard questions such as’ “Are you proud of having got rid of one of the very few black women in Parliament?” He repeats himself numerous times making a point. This shows that Paxman gets straight to the point and doesn't take time to break Galloway into the interview. He refers to Galloway's character traits using emotive language. Within the first words of the interview, Paxman is already trying to alienate Galloway to the public. Galloway's response is, “What a preposterous question. ” He doesn't have any immediate denial to the accusation, nor does he actually answer the question. We find that throughout the interview, Galloway's answers are very hostile and defensive. This shows the audience that Paxman is more dominant with his accusatory questioning style over Galloway. When responding to Paxman, we see Galloway become slightly enraged as he starts, “IM NOT… Jeremy, move on. ” So although we can observe that Galloway is starting to voice his dissatisfaction, he still does so in a polite manner to try gain respect from the audience. Paxman, sarcastically asks, “Who do you not know?’ To make Galloway sound clueless in attempt to undermine him. Morgan also uses emotive language when talking to Cole but instead to show his support.

For example, he states, “Its come after a really difficult year for you,” this makes the audience want to sympathise for Cole, again, shying the audience towards Coles side. Cole tells us, “…erm… I have experienced negative press before. It's horrible. ” Firstly we see the use of caesura and fillers which Cole uses on multiple occasions to allow herself a pause, this could indicate that she wants to control what she says or that she's nervous showing her vulnerability. In this statement, we see a repetition of negative adjectives such as ‘horrible. ’ The emphasise on the negative language gives an overall negative mood and makes the audience show support through sympathy. In comparison, we also see negative remarks in our second interview between Paxman and Galloway. Paxman suggests, “Your not answering that one?” In which Galloway responds, “No. . ” further showing dominance. We see overlap when Galloway overpowers Paxman and speaks over him “…I've got a lot of people who want to speak to me… I'm going, i ware you now,” using the imperative. Paxman replies with,”Don't try and threaten me please Mr Galloway. ”Galloway comes across as self-centred without the encouragement from Paxman who replies combatively and is fully aware that he is provoking Galloway. Cole uses informal and colloquial language multiple times through her Geordie accent (Newcastle). This might make the audience misinterpret her as being less intelligent than she actually is. She says, “i just wanna rock out in me scruffs and me Uggs” which the audience replies positively to with laughter.

This type of language appeals to the audience and is especially recognisable to the younger generations which is significant as the older generations would probably already be interested in the interview because of Morgan. Cole is really trying to please everyone and she succeeds in doing so with the help of her interviewer. Morgan flatters Cole by saying she is a “fashion icon. ” Cole has no immediate denial but shows modesty when she responds with, “Not at all. ” This is a calculated response as it shows the audience she's a good person, but we can't tell for definite if she's being genuine. The questioning style and pace of both interviews varies throughout. Take for instance Paxman and Galloway's interview. Galloway's response to Paxman's probing questions starts off as hesitant but then leads its way into a more forceful and direct approach. We can see similarities about this in Morgan and Coles interview. Cole starts off hesitant at Morgan's questions but unlike Paxman, Morgan brings Cole in gently and warmingly. In Paxman and Galloway's interview there's a significant amount of verbal jostling for the dominance of the situation which adds to the tension in the atmosphere. The pace of Morgan and Coles interview is steady and flows well quite like Paxman and Galloway's whose is very controlled and consistent throughout, however both interviews do have overlap when both parties are speaking.

Throughout Paxman and Galloway's interview the pitch increased showing enragement between the two, where as Morgan and Cole spoke at a friendly and reasonable volume. However, we need to take into consideration that Paxman and Galloway were communicating through a screen where as Morgan and Cole spoke face to face, which needed less volume to hear each other respectively. I have a personal experience with interviews where I have prepped and performed my own role plays. The purpose of my interview was to inform the parent of their child's behaviour in class and how that reflected poorly against their grades. As the interview progressed the conversation became more enraged. To show this my partner and I raised voices until it was suggestive we were shouting at each other. From this, the audience perceived that the parent to this pupil clearly didn't agree on the way the teacher thought of their child. When I spoke, on behalf of the parent, I made sure I slowed the pace of my speech to indicate that I wanted the teacher to clearly hear everything I had to respond. When my partner spoke as the teacher, she informed the parent of her child's behaviour using the technique of a list of three. This method is known to be an affective describing technique as the audience tends to remember the information conveyed more clearly. I also used rhetorical questions to emphasise the sarcastic undertone.

To conclude, we can see how different contexts can affect how professionally an interview takes place. In the case of Morgan and Cole, having known each other before hand, it really took the tension out of the situation and both parties responded friendly and supportive to one another. Nevertheless, Paxman and Galloway shared different views on the political circumstances, which shown in their responses to each other. Morgan's intentions, from the start were to keep the audience on Coles side to give her encouragement where as Paxman was focusing more on weakening Galloway's image as a Politician. Therefore we can compare similarities in both, but the nature of these two interviews are viewed completely as opposites and furthermore show different purposes and meanings to the audiences.