Politics of trading fact for face
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.The art of politics is about 'saving face' and the political interview is shaped more by the politician's need to protect himself, his party, and his colleagues or allies than by individual characteristics such as dishonesty or deviousness, psychologists said yesterday.
Questions which threaten the politician on one or more of these fronts or faces may be responsible for the general impression that they 'never answer British political interviews are associated with a high degree of equivocation, according to Peter Bull and colleagues at York University. Margaret Thatcher, John Major and Neil Kinnock replied to only 40 per cent of the questions put to also possible that equivocation occurs because of the kind of questions which questions may not only be difficult to answer, but even intrinsically unanswerable,' Dr Bull said.
The researchers analysed 18 interviews with leaders of political parties in the 1992 general election to test their hypothesis that interviews were about saving face on three fronts, personally, for the party and for certain response The 'face' model can also be used to evaluate interviewers. For example, if an interviewer asks a high proportion of questions to which replies are highly an indication of interviewer bias.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments