Television hosts, once relatively modest figures who simply read the news, have over the years evolved into well-known personalities and the focal point of discourse within news programs. Informative discussion shows represent an enhancement of daily news broadcasts due to their placement in program schedules and are therefore the most prestigious segment of news departments. Their host becomes a personality willing to stake his/her reputation for the audience, asking questions and investigating on their behalf, while stating an objective discourse of truth. This goes especially for the public media, such as Radiotelevizija Slovenija, which are normatively bound to different standards than commercial media. This master's thesis explores the norms for hosting informative discussion shows on Televizija Slovenija and the linguistic norms applied in these shows. The hosting of informative discussion shows, where communicative circumstances differ from those of daily news broadcasts, has not yet been comprehensively examined in our context. To answer the two research questions, we have conducted a textual analysis of the professional and personal characteristics of the hosts,
language usage, rhetoric, discourse, and non-verbal communication. To gain a production perspective, crucial for understanding existing practices, we employed the method of semi-structured interviews. The analysis and interviews with the hosts revealed that even where norms are established, the hosting itself is not the result of careful planning by the media company, but rather primarily shaped by the individual actions and professional level of the hosts of informative discussion shows. Nevertheless, a consensus on certain hosting practices
and characteristics of informative discussion show hosts exists within the media company, making it possible to identify them as norms.
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