communication skills

Building Rapport:

Building rapport is essential when interviewing someone as it makes the interviewee reveal more.  By Building rapport it helps you build up a level of trust and understanding with your interviewee, almost as if you are creating a mutual connection with them. Good phrased questions and positive body language are the keys things which make building rapport successful. The interviewer does not have to agree with the interviewee in order to build rapport. Having confidence is a useful way of building rapport as it makes you seem more approachable. Though being confident is helpful, it may also have the opposite effect as you may become overly confident, which could be seen as being arrogant and may not get you the answers  and informations you want gain from the interviewee. Using the interviewee's name often (but not constantly as practically every sentence) can make the interviewee feel as though you're almost friends, as you're on a first name basis. Compliments go far when building rapport with the interviewee, which can often be built within the confidence building section of the interview, but don’t overdo or you may appear false. Your overall goal should be to understand them rather than expecting them to understand you. Alan Carr and Jonathon Ross are interviewers that consistently build rapport with their interviewees. 

Body Language:

Your Body language is imperative as an interviewer in interviews, a bad display of body language can ruin the whole interview. Having a positive body language goes a long way as it helps the interviewer feel more at ease, relaxed and open up more.  For example; mirroring an interviewer while having a discussion, therefore making them feel comfortable which something we usually do subconsciously. Sitting up straight, and leaning in slightly forward in your chair shows a level of interest, and also showing enthusiasm by keeping an interesting expression. Eye contact is also a plus as it shows you’re focused and engaged on what they are saying which will make the intervieweefeel more relaxed and reveal more as though the interviewer is paying attention and wants to hear more. However you have to be careful not to overdo it. Personal space is something the interviewee will demand in order to feel comfortable. Negative Body will make the interviewee feel uncomfortable. For example sitting with armed folded across your chest will make appear unfriendly and disengaged, most importantly turning your back from the interviewee will make the interviewee feel isolated and unwelcomed. Invading their personal space may lead to them not giving good responses and feeling apprehensive or uneasy. The interviewer should never have bad posture. Sitting in a 'sluggish' way is a revealing sign of your confidence and interest. It doesn't portray you as very confident and shows that you're not extremely interested in what the interviewee has the say, which can both be off-putting for the interviewee.

In this clip Grace Jones is being interviewed by Russel Harty. Russel Harty shows extremly bad body language as he has his back turned to grace jones and focusing more on the other interwiewee, this makes Grace joins feel isolated and less involved in the conversation. It later on becomes even worst when she points out his closed body language towards her and tells him she does not appreaciate his lack of engagenment with her, this cause Russell Harty to rudely repond back and put his hands on her face. This is a high level of bad body language and should never be practiced by anyone. 

Active listening:

Active listening is a blatant communication technique in which the interviewer gives a positive or assuring feedback on what the interviewers just mentioned on. This means avoiding interruption and getting a word on edgeways in thinking about the audience’s perspective.  Active listening is also a knowledgeable way to engage the interviewee more in an interview. As an interviewer it is your task is to listen carefully to what the interviewee is saying during an interviewee as it makes the interviewer feel though they have the power to speak freely, often prompting them to reveal more. Active listen could be shown by the interviewer nodding and smiling in agreement to the interviewee and to also make sure the next question follows on from the previous answer in order for the interview to flow smoothly throughout. Very few interviews go the whole way with no active listening involved, even fewer good interviews experience this. The interviewer's prepared questions may not involve everything they possibly planned to find out, sometimes they have to evaluate the answer given to them by the interviewee and ask a question relatable to what just been said by the interviewee. They might not even know something that the interviewee will reveal in the interview. So with active listening questions can be asked that the interviewer had never planned on asking. Not only can the interviewer and interviewee feel less comfortable when the interview doesn't flow as well, but the audience who will in turn listen to the interview may feel slightly uncomfortable as well.

In this clip of Oprah Winfrey and Lindsay Lohand i can identify Active listening by Oprah Winfrey body language. Oprah Winfrey is mirroring Lindsay Lohan and showing a hign level of interest as she nods to what Lindsay is saying and making eye contact with her, this shows that Oprah is listening carefully to what Lindsay is saying which encourages Lindsay to open up more.

Journalistic Context

Print:

       Print interviews are in the format of text which are mainly found in newspapers and magazines, but are now lately becoming more popular on the Internet to reach a wider audience. Print interviews cover different purposes depending on their context. For example, a magazine such as “OK” magazine context is known for sharing the latest gossips and pictures of celebrities, the purpose for this magazine will be promotional as the interviews in the magazine will be based on celebrities, magazines are mainly  informal and has more visual context. On the contrary a newspaper interview will often be hard news as they are more likely to be interviewing politicians or witnesses for a certain topic. In terms of the internet, it will be an analogy to a newspaper or magazine, depending on whether it is the website version of a newspaper, like the Daily Mail magazine version. Within print interviews you have feature-writers and editorials. Feature-writers are pieces of print that are usually a double page spread. Editorials are people who write create print on a timed basis and usually express their opinion. Editorials can be the main editor of a magazine writing their words on the first page or someone who writes for a paper on a weekly basis or month depending on how the Print is published.

 

Television:

Television interviews cover a wide variety of interviews massively. These could be news, real-life people, documentaries and sport. Television interviews cover a variety of purposes and styles. In comparison, to chat show and radio interviews, news is extravagantly meant to inform the public on current on-going situations and affairs, regional and world issues. A news program will often have interviews which cover hard-news topics, with witnesses, politicians, or someone who is an expert in the news topic being discussed. This will be in order to inform the general public, and to also show them an emotional response from some of the people most affected by what happens in their region and the world. In news interviews, the questions will often be quite closed as they are usually on an extremely strict time frame necessarily only lasting around 30 minutes by going straight to the point in order to not waste any time, particularly with politicians.

 For example David Cameron is interviewed by Andrew Marr, most the interview on issues to do with Europe. Andrew mars do not waste time by starting with development questions or confidence building questions, he automatically goes straight to the point asking questions the public are most concerned about, and in this case the issue is whenever or not the public can trust David Cameron to negotiate a transformed relationship within the EU and give Britain a referenda, for this kind of topic the interviewee will straight away start with key questions which are open questions as the issue is something that affects the public and the interviewer task is to gain as much information as he possibly can for the public benefit .

 

Radio:

Radio interviews have various different topics and subjects, used to entertain the viewers and listeners at home. Like television interviews, radio is divided into genres, in which the audience can tune in and listen to, depending on what they preferably like. For example Key103 or Capital FM hardly covers hard-news and rarely have interviews. The majority of the time is mainly for the audience entertainment, however they also use closed questions when asking witnesses or experts on a particular incident, as the news is of less priority than entertainment interviews so therefore have a much smaller time slot. Radio stations often cover a more entertainment based interview style, as they will invite artists onto their show to interview them. It is vital to introduce the interviewee as on the radio no one can see who the interviewee is before the start of the interview, so this will make the audience to have more knowledge on the artist who is being interviewed. The artists will use this interview for promotional reasons, to promote their new single or album. Radio stations like Key 103 often play a long interview with someone popular over five weekdays. In these interviews the questions will often be open questions as the interviewer will want to get as much as possible from the interviewee in order to maintain the audience's interest and for the interviewee to promote themselves as much as possible. Despite it being a radio interview interviewers still have to use and maintain good body language and say the occasional 'yes' or nodding to prompt the interviewee and so they sound interested to the listeners, this is the key to have a successful interview and also smiling is an attribute from a journalistic context.

Online:

 As the years have progressed everything can now be seen and read online. Many newspapers and magazines now have their articles published on their official websites online, this was done in order to reach a wider audience, it is update, a lot faster and also sometimes free which enables people to do it on the move since technology has massively progressed.  Online interviews can be written or filmed. They can appear on websites or blogs which the context can often be hard-new or light-hearted. Websites such as YouTube enables many people to upload famous events interviews such as the red carpet. Catch up TV is also often found on the internet nowadays, where you can be able watch programs such as Match of The Day, Jonathan Ross Show, etc. after it has been broadcast on Television. Furthermore, celebrities often have their own website where there will be interviews published. This will be a way of them interacting with their fans and promoting anything new they might have coming out.

 

In this interview Jennifer Lawrence is interviewed at the red carpet for being nominated for the Oscars award, this interview gives her fans the opportunity to see and hear how Jennifer Lawrence felt before she won the Oscar and also the type of outfit she wore for the ceremony. 

 

Questions Types

Open Questions:

An open question is designed to encourage a full, meaningful answer using the subject's own knowledge and/or feelings; it heavily relies upon answering a question that just does not stop at the response of “NO/YES.” It is the opposite of a closed question, which encourages a short or single-word answer. Open questions are designed for the interviewee to elaborate on their answer and give in full descriptive details, Open-ended questions typically begin with words such as "Why" and "How", or phrases such as "Tell me about..." so the 5ws are the fundamental multiple choices of interviewers can pose questions, often they are not technically a question, but a statement which implicitly asks for a response. Open questions also have a negative side to them, one of which is it can be time consuming, the interviewee can start going off topic and talk about something else that wasn’t asked because an open questions allows an interviewee to express themselves freely, the question can also be flipped through the repetition of the original question, this method is affiliated with politicians in avoiding the initial question.

An example for this is the interview of David frost and Nixon, David Frost asks Nixon about the Watergate incident which Nixon continuously refused to answer and avoided the question by going off topic, talking about irrelevant issues which did not answer to David Frost question, this can be frustrating for interviewer as he wants to gain more details but the interviewee has a good strategy to keep off topic, politicians are trained to think like  journalist which allows them to easily master the way they can answer to questions they do not want to give any information about.

Closed Questions:

Closed questions are used in interviews and are usually used to get a short response or a yes or no answer from the interviewee. They invite a short focused answer; answers to closed questions can often be either right or wrong. Close questions are usually easier to answer – as they are restrictive and can be answered in a few words, an example of a closed question can be “May I help you?” or “Have you searched elsewhere?” these types of questions allows the interviewee to answer briefly, which could be a positive thing as it is Quick and require little time investment. However a closed question also can be negative as you may gain incomplete responses, not gain enough information. These brief responses could be due to the way the question is not phrased well enough or a pointless questions which doesn’t have enough quantitative or qualitative research which may lead the interviewee to simply answer yes or no because your questions isn’t clear enough for them to understand. Closed questions are ideal for Vox Pops.

Leading Questions:

 Leading Questions are phrased in a manner that tends to suggest the desired answer, such as “what do you think of the horrible effects of pollution?” This leads the interviewer to get the answer he/she wants to hear. Leading questions are generally undesirable as they result in false or slanted information. Leading questions are ideal for investigative interviews. For example: “do you have any problems with your mother” This question prompts the person to question their relationship they have with mother. In a subtle way it raises the prospect that there are problems. Whereas “tell me about your relationship with your mother” This question does not seek any judgment and there is less implication that there might be something wrong with the relationship.  

In this show Oprah Winfrey interviews mothers who killed their own children. One of the questions she asked was “what purpose does it serve to beat a 3 month old child?” this question could be considered as a leading question as it suggesting that the interviewee may had a purpose for killing her child which enables Oprah to get a full on answer from the interviewee explaining herself, it prompts the interviewee to think whenever or not she did have a purpose for killing her child.

Interview Techniques- Structuring

Introduction:
 

It is vital for interviews to begin with an introduction. An introduction will help to introduce the interviewee to the topic being discussed. The introduction is also an opportunity to make the interviewee feel more comfortable. Introductions are often used to introduce the interviewee to the audience or reader. The introduction is the first time the interviewee will get a feel for what sort of interview they are participating in. Having a good introduction will get the interview off to a good start and make the interviewee at ease because of the warm welcome he or she is receiving from the audience and interviewer.

Development:

Developmental questions are generally light-hearted questions to get the interview started. Developmental questions are often crucial in setting the mood for the rest of the interview, in particular making the interviewee feel more relaxed. It is a lot like an introduction to the interview, but in a way it moves the interview on a bit better before the key questions are asked. An example of a developmental question would be asking ‘How are you today?’ or ‘We are very pleased for you to be here today’ these types of warm welcoming questions will automatically make the interviewee feel at home and be comfortable throughout the whole interview. 

Confidence Building:

Confidence questions are built to make the interviewee a lot more confident with questions being asked, before getting to that stage the interviewer will ask various random questions and say numerous of things to get the interviewee even more comfortable.  This will be done in order for the interviewee to give more detailed and long responses answers when it comes to the key questions. A good strategy to build confidence is to share a few laugh occasionally with the interviewee and compliment them frequently, for example if a celebrity is being interviewed then the interviewer would most likely compliment them on the clothes they are wearing or the project they have recently worked on which can be a film or a new album, depending on the celebrity profession. 

Key Questions:

Key questions are the main and most important questions asked during an interview, it  what the interview is based on. Key questions are mostly asked in the middle of an interview because that’s when the interviewee is now more familiar with the questions and comfortable with being asked more complex questions. Key questions can differ depending on the topic of the interview. 

Sounbites:

SoundBits are small bits of an interview cut out to show a short section of the interview as a mini trailer on television used to advertise the interview in order to crab the viewers’ attentions to watch the full interview.  Sound bites can be used to show up coming episodes or things such as reactions from an interview faces. 

Summary:

Summary is to used to sum up the interview; all the questions the interviewer has asked, this is the part where the interviewer concludes the topic being talked about in a good warming way.  This is done at the end of the interview.

Wind up:

Wind up is the very end of an interview.  A wind up gathers the whole interview to a close. The interview is most likely to end with a light hearted question to brighten the mood and give it one final humour or if it’s a celebrity interview then the artist may end up performing at the end for the audience entertainment.

The structure of this interview first starts with an introduction which is at the beginning  of the show when Oprah (Host) introduces Beyoncé (celebrity) in a very pleasant manner and the audience clap, she then begins the interview by naming the places Beyoncé has been in the past one week for touring and asks her when she gets a break from work, this automatically puts Beyoncé at ease because she asks the question in a very quirky manner which makes Beyoncé chuckle and explains herself and even elaborates on her answer by telling Oprah of her upcoming holiday she will have for a moth in December, this allows Oprah to then pick from that answer and asks her what she will be doing during that holiday in a curious silly voice which again makes Beyoncé chuckle and once again explains what she will doing which includes boating, Oprah again picks up on what she likes doing and tells her how much they  are similar in some way because of the love they both share for boating, by the time they finish this discussion it completely makes Beyoncé feel comfortable because of the way Oprah approaches on the topic which is very friendly and welcoming.   

We then start to hear Oprah begin to ask the developing questions which is when she asks “New York Times says you have everything you want” although this question isn’t exactly a hard question or interesting question for her to answer it prepares Beyoncé for the key questions which is mostly going to be about what has been said about her on tabloids or about things her fans want to know. 

 We then later on see the confidence building questions being asked such as “how did you find time to get married”  then moves one to ask Beyoncé about where the wedding was held,these questions can make Beyoncé become even more confident because she is being asked something that’s already happened in the past, she probably would not have answered it if it was during the time of the wedding, so being asked about it now is a lot easier for her to explain herself as she is talking about getting married to the man she loves which she can comfortably answer because of the love she has for her husband . 

Eventually we come to the key questions which is when Oprah asks Beyoncé about her latest albums which she has combined together to make it into one,  then goes  more into details explaining why she chose to call her albums’ Am and Sasha Fierce’ and explains the difference between the both. Oprah then moves on asking her about her marriage to her husband Jay Z and how they manage to keep their lives so private, she then asks her about the movie she featured” Cadillac record”  in which she plays as Etta James, she explains her role and how she felt acting such a role, all these questions are key questions as they are the questions the audience want to hear the most and then reason why Beyoncé is there, which is to promote and talk about her latest project. 

The soundbites in this interview could be when Beyoncé talks about her helping her mum cook during thanksgiving saying “I can cook, I am very good at seasoning food” and bits of her laughing at something’s Oprah said, this could crab a viewer’s attention because it’s probably something so casual they didn’t imagine or expect an A star celebrity such as Beyoncé could do because of her hectic busy career, so this might interest them to tune in to hear more about her everyday life and know why she was laughing in some bits of the sound bites.

Summary will be near the end of the interview when Oprah asks one final questions which is if she’s pregnant which Beyoncé briefly replies no.

Wind up is at the end when Oprah thanks Beyonce and the live audience for joinging her on the show and introduces Beyoncé starting to perform her new song from her latest album.