Expert and lay participation in television debates: an analysis of audience discussion programmes

The television audience discussion programme is critically analysed as a cultural forum in which the viewer-as-citizen may participate in public debate. These programmes place experts and ordinary viewers face to face in a studio audience to discuss an issue of current social concern. The viewer thus plays a role as joint author of the text. The programmes raise issues of citizenship, political participation, the active viewer and the cultural forum. The genre is analysed using Goffman's participation framework to reveal the conventions of the genre and the role of the reader. It is argued that in some respects these programmes represent a `managed show', offering the illusion of participation, while in other respects, they construct a role for the active viewer which legitimates and celebrates ordinary understandings while simultaneously devaluing expertise.