Richard Fitzgerald
Biographic Data
| ID | 3671837 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Richard Fitzgerald |
| GIVEN NAMES | Richard |
| FAMILY NAME | Fitzgerald |
| SIGNATURE | FITZGERALD R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Macau |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8508-4394 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 70 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 428 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 70 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1976 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Making sense of AI: How lay users negotiate the shifting human–machine boundaries in talking about AI
This paper examines how lay users make sense of artificial intelligence (AI) in everyday encounters and through practical reasoning and situated categorisation practices. Drawing on data from digital diaries and in-person group discussions, the study explores the local and situated ways lay users determine what kind of “thing” AI is, what it does, and how it should be judged. Rather than approaching AI as a fixed defined entity, the paper centres…
‘Come on, all the girls’: ‘Girlfriends’ as a multimodal strategic device for selling on live e-commerce in China
Learning the rules of rules in disputes in family interaction
Parents might deal with a child’s non-compliance to a directive by invoking a behaviour rule, for example, ‘We need to share’. While the design of such rules is to appear as normative or universal, children often find that in some situations where one rule might apply, some different rule is invoked as being operative this time in this situation. Children then, are not only exposed to the normative expectation of rules, but also that rules are co…
The danmu discourse of user engagement with cross-posted broadcast interviews in Chinese social media
Along with new forms of mediated communication, social media technologies have created new forms of audience engagement with traditional broadcast talk formats. As forms of content creation and audience engagement continue to evolve, Chinese social media have developed innovative ways for users to engage with broadcast videos, especially through what is known as ‘ danmu’ technology. Danmu is a popular commenting system that allows users to post t…
Environmental Justice and Mental Health Equity in the Provision of Nature: Stakeholder Views From Seven Countries
Exploring the Implementation of Green Care to Support Mental Health in Barcelona Province
A Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn-Taking for Conversation’: Commentary on Sacks, Scheglof, & Jefferson 1974
The publication of ‘A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation’ by Harvey Sacks, Emanuel Schegloff, and Gail Jefferson in Language in 1974 marked the beginning of what was to be a major shift in the way social interaction was to be conceived of and how it was to be studied across the social sciences and linguistics. Widely regarded as the foundational paper of CONVERSATION ANALYSIS (CA), it remains the most cited …
Humor, culture, and compliance in health crisis communication: A multimodal analysis of government-produced memes for a local community during a global pandemic
Government social media accounts have become vital tools for disseminating health information, encouraging public compliance with health policies, and maintaining communication during health crises. Moving beyond traditional formal announcements, this study examines internet memes as a form of government health crisis communication by drawing upon a case study of 1,867 internet memes produced and circulated by the Shenzhen Municipal Health Commis…
Selling China’s story: The multimodal semiotics of positive symbolic communication in national image building through Laowai Wanghong ’s vlogs
On Algorithmic Time and Daily Contingencies in the Lived Work of Food Delivery Service
Occasioned Semantics and Membership Categorisation Analysis: Fields of meaning, categorial consistency and omni-relevance
Drafting A Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn-Taking for Conversation
The Sage Handbook of Digital Society
Internet memes and the mobilization of a “One-China” cyber nationalist campaign: The case of the 2016 Diba Expedition to Taiwan
This study examines the 2016 Diba Expedition to Facebook, a mass collective organized campaign directed at independence-leaning Taiwanese individuals and institutions, as an example of cyber nationalism through a highly organized meme war between anti- and pro-Taiwan independence users on Facebook. Drawing upon a social semiotic multimodal discourse analysis of the nationalist campaign, this study examines the ways Diba members deployed multimoda…
Sage Handbook of Digital Society
Time structures in ethnomethodological and conversation analysis studies of practical activity
Time is regarded as the immanent dimension for the social experience. This phenomenologically informed perspective of time is built into the ethnomethodological programme jointly proposed by Garfinkel and Sacks as they set out to uncover social orders through examining the temporal sequence in practical activity. However, Garfinkel and Sacks took different paths from this initial proposal in their separate development of Ethnomethodological Studi…
Chinese social media: Technology, culture and creativity
Populating ‘solidarity’ in political debate: Interrelational strategies of persuasion within the European Parliament in the aftermath of the Brexit
The article examines the various ways in which ‘solidarity’ is invoked and signified through narrative and categorial devices in a political debate following the UK’s vote to leave the EU in 2016. Analysing a floor debate in the European Parliament concerning a white paper released by the European Commission on the future of the EU held in March 2017, we investigate how politicians deploy references to ‘solidarity’ in service of different politic…
Discourse, context & media: Relevance in a changing world
Reaching for the stars: DingTalk and the Multi-platform creativity of a ‘one-star’ campaign on Chinese social media
Hidden in plain sight: Expressing political criticism on Chinese social media
While the proliferation of social media technologies in China has empowered the public with new opportunities for public expression and political engagement in a ‘virtual public sphere’, Chinese Internet censorship has meant that users have to develop creative ways to engage in political criticism. In a context where both mechanical and human censors are employed, Chinese users have become adept at utilizing the affordances of technology, Chinese…
A stranger in a foreign land: Identity transition in blogs about transnational relocation
The art of illusion as government policy. Analysing political economies of surrealism
This article advances a critical approach to the analysis of social policy texts drawing on the philosophical perspectives of hyperrealism, surrealism, ethics, and Critical Discourse Analysis. Drawing on official government texts and speeches on the continuing development of Singapore’s education policy, the paper examines the way metaphors of flexibility, diversity, choice, and opportunity are used within an evolving ideological context that wor…
On Sacks
Understanding chinese internet and social media: The innovative and creative affordances of technology, language and culture
In this chapter we set out to briefly sketch out a description of Chinese internetculture from its historical development through to some of its current characteristics.From the early roll out of the internet through to the use of social media Chineseinternet cutlture should be understood as emerging from the interplay of a numberof forces: technological changes, software development, user-generated interactionalpractices, and government censorsh…
Membership categorization, culture and norms in action
In this article, we examine the extent to which membership categorization analysis (MCA) can inform an understanding of reasoning within the public domain where morality, policy and cultural politics are visible (Smith and Tatalovich, 2003). Through the examination of three examples, we demonstrate how specific types of category device(s) are a ubiquitous feature of accountable practice in the public domain where morality matters and public polic…
Identity, categorization and sequential organization: The sequential and categorial flow of identity in a radio phone-in
Radio phone-in programmes have been the subject of a number of studies using the methodology of conversation analysis. Although this has been successful in making apparent the sequential organization of this type of interaction, little has been said about its categorial organization. Adopting an ethnomethodological approach, it is demonstrated in this article that interaction on public access radio can be seen to rely upon categorial and sequenti…
The reconsidered model of membership categorization analysis
This article briefly investigates the role that ethno-methodology has played in sociological analyses of language and interaction. The work of Harvey Sacks is investigated in relation to membership categorization and the analysis of talk-in-interaction. More specifically, the authors focus on how this strand of work has been developed in recent years and now represents a powerful apparatus for conducting sociological analyses of interaction in a …
Membership-in-action: Operative identities in a family meal
Certainty and speculation in news reporting of the future: The execution of Timothy McVeigh
This article explores the temporal organization and manipulation of time in the production and presentation of news reports. Time is often cited as one of the most central organizing concepts of news production; indeed one of the major features of news reporting is the breaking of stories and the reporting of events `as they happen'. However, whilst much emphasis is placed upon time within media production, much of this pertains to the reporting …
Talkback, Community and the Public Sphere
This paper explores the relationship between the audience of commercial talkback radio and the actual existing democratic public sphere in Australia. Drawing upon Anderson's (1987) notion of an imagined community and Warner's (2002) discussion of publics, the paper suggests that two different but entwined modes of address operate around the talkback audience. The first centres on the active creation of an imagined community brought into being and…
Categorization, Interaction, Policy, and Debate
During the course of this article the themes of public accountability, government policy, and interaction in media settings are examined. In particular, we examine empirical instances of media discourse as a means of exploring the use of identity categories, predicates, and configurations as a means of accomplishing policy debate in participatory frameworks such as radio phone-ins and the accountable frames of political interviews. This paper res…
Membership Categorisation Analysis. Technologies of social action
Membership categorization analysis: Wild and promiscuous or simply the joy of Sacks
The recent resurgence of Sacks’ work on membership categorization has highlighted the growing analytic interest in how members’ social category orientations operate at multiple levels of interactional work. One of the outcomes of this, highlighted in Stokoe’s discussion, is the re-emergence of the question of whether membership categorization analysis (MCA) has been, is, or can be an approach in its own right. In this brief discussion I consider …
Radio Leaks: Presenting and Contesting Leaks in Radio News Broadcasts
This paper analyzes the discursive construction and contestation of ‘leaked’ stories in news broadcast programmes. Drawing on a sample of BBC Radio 4 news programmes recorded between May and June 2000, we analyze four items of news presented as leaks about upcoming events. We suggest that these examples highlight the leaking of information as a valuable newsworthy commodity in that it not only allows news organizations to report what is going to …
Categorisation, Narrative and Devolution in Wales
Within this paper we examine the use of extended story turns, within the accomplished context of a radio news debate, that display various accounts of national identity in relation to a proposal for devolved democratic institutions within the United Kingdom. In this sense, they display a 'world view'. These various positions are displayed through the use of various categories, inferences and connections in order to lend support to and promote pos…
Internet memes and the mobilization of a “One-China” cyber nationalist campaign: The case of the 2016 Diba Expedition to Taiwan
This study examines the 2016 Diba Expedition to Facebook, a mass collective organized campaign directed at independence-leaning Taiwanese individuals and institutions, as an example of cyber nationalism through a highly organized meme war between anti- and pro-Taiwan independence users on Facebook. Drawing upon a social semiotic multimodal discourse analysis of the nationalist campaign, this study examines the ways Diba members deployed multimoda…
The data and methodology of Harvey Sacks: Lessons from the archive
Grab a pen and paper: Interaction v. interactivity in a political radio phone-in
In this paper we analyse the discursive frameworks for interaction in a UK political radio phone-in between 2001 and 2010, and the implications of those frameworks for public engagement with politicians. The BBC Radio 4 phone-in program Election Call, broadcast in the run-up to a general election, has experimented with ‘new’ interactive technology (TV simulcast, web broadcasting and e-mail) in its attempt to provide listeners with the opportunity…
The categorial and sequential work of 'embodied mapping' in basketball coaching
Inequality as Meritocracy: The use of the metaphor of diversity and the value of inequality within Singapore's meritocratic education system
This final chapter highlights the contributions of the philosophical-analytical methodology with a commitment to a systematic interdisciplinary investigation of educational discourse in interpreting empirical material. The specific aim of the research was to examine how an ability-driven system can function as a major mechanism through which inequality of educational opportunities is transmitted and maintained. To go beyond commentary and critiqu…
Groundhog Day: Extended repetitions in political news interviews
In this paper we focus on the use of extended repetitions in political news interviews. Drawing on conversation analysis and discourse analysis we examine a corpus of examples where particular forms of repeated questions and/or answers appear within two main practices of political interviewing. We refer to these as the spectacular live interview and the non-live interview. Our analysis shows that the design of repetitions, which we describe as ei…
Time structures in ethnomethodological and conversation analysis studies of practical activity
Time is regarded as the immanent dimension for the social experience. This phenomenologically informed perspective of time is built into the ethnomethodological programme jointly proposed by Garfinkel and Sacks as they set out to uncover social orders through examining the temporal sequence in practical activity. However, Garfinkel and Sacks took different paths from this initial proposal in their separate development of Ethnomethodological Studi…
Populating ‘solidarity’ in political debate: Interrelational strategies of persuasion within the European Parliament in the aftermath of the Brexit
The article examines the various ways in which ‘solidarity’ is invoked and signified through narrative and categorial devices in a political debate following the UK’s vote to leave the EU in 2016. Analysing a floor debate in the European Parliament concerning a white paper released by the European Commission on the future of the EU held in March 2017, we investigate how politicians deploy references to ‘solidarity’ in service of different politic…
Hidden in plain sight: Expressing political criticism on Chinese social media
While the proliferation of social media technologies in China has empowered the public with new opportunities for public expression and political engagement in a ‘virtual public sphere’, Chinese Internet censorship has meant that users have to develop creative ways to engage in political criticism. In a context where both mechanical and human censors are employed, Chinese users have become adept at utilizing the affordances of technology, Chinese…
Entering the liminal zone: Generating news with occasioned objects in live TV news reporting
On 2 December 2015, Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik attacked a Christmas gathering in San Bernardino, California, killing 14 people and wounding 22. On 4 December, the news media were granted access to the couple’s home by the landlord. The ensuing news scrum entering the house was broadcast live to air, with reporters in the house identifying objects. In this paper, we use Membership Categorisation Analysis and particularly categorial inferencing…
You Gotta See Both at the Same Time’: Visually Analyzing Player Performances in Basketball Coaching
Micro–meso–macro movements; a multi-level critical discourse analysis framework to examine metaphors and the value of truth in policy texts
This paper presents detailed methods for constructing a flexible philosophical–analytical model through which to apply the analytic principles of CDA for the interpretation of metaphors across policy texts. Drawing on a theoretical framing from Foucault and the augmentation of Nietzsche’s views on valuation, we sketch a framework for examining ways in which evaluative semantic categories can be linked to sociological theories in order to bring ou…
Moral Discrepancy and Political Discourse: Accountability and the Allocation of Blame in a Political News Interview
During the course of this article we intend to explore some issues surrounding government policy and actions and the moral organisation of political discourse surrounding the recent enquiry into the BSE crisis and the publication of the Phillips Report in the UK. More specifically, we wish to develop the concept of moral discrepancy and it's use in politically accountable settings, in this case the political interview. The paper, through the use …
Categories, norms and inferences: Generating entertainment in a daytime talk show
Art and Politics: Cartoonists of the Masses and Liberator
Art and Politics: "Cartoonists of the "Masses and Liberator
Categorisation, Narrative and Devolution in Wales
Within this paper we examine the use of extended story turns, within the accomplished context of a radio news debate, that display various accounts of national identity in relation to a proposal for devolved democratic institutions within the United Kingdom. In this sense, they display a 'world view'. These various positions are displayed through the use of various categories, inferences and connections in order to lend support to and promote pos…
Identity, categorization and sequential organization: The sequential and categorial flow of identity in a radio phone-in
Radio phone-in programmes have been the subject of a number of studies using the methodology of conversation analysis. Although this has been successful in making apparent the sequential organization of this type of interaction, little has been said about its categorial organization. Adopting an ethnomethodological approach, it is demonstrated in this article that interaction on public access radio can be seen to rely upon categorial and sequenti…
From problematic object to routine `add-on: Dealing With E-Mails in Radio Phone-Ins
This article investigates the new phenomenon of e-mailed questions to a radio phone-in programme, BBC Radio 4's `Election Call'. Our interest in this phenomenon arose for several reasons. First, as a new form, e-mails were singled out at the beginning of each broadcast for special instructions to listeners, although there was evidence that as the series progressed, dealing with e-mail became more of a routine event in each subsequent programme. S…
The reconsidered model of membership categorization analysis
This article briefly investigates the role that ethno-methodology has played in sociological analyses of language and interaction. The work of Harvey Sacks is investigated in relation to membership categorization and the analysis of talk-in-interaction. More specifically, the authors focus on how this strand of work has been developed in recent years and now represents a powerful apparatus for conducting sociological analyses of interaction in a …
Certainty and speculation in news reporting of the future: The execution of Timothy McVeigh
This article explores the temporal organization and manipulation of time in the production and presentation of news reports. Time is often cited as one of the most central organizing concepts of news production; indeed one of the major features of news reporting is the breaking of stories and the reporting of events `as they happen'. However, whilst much emphasis is placed upon time within media production, much of this pertains to the reporting …
Moral Discrepancy and Political Discourse: Accountability and the Allocation of Blame in a Political News Interview
During the course of this article we intend to explore some issues surrounding government policy and actions and the moral organisation of political discourse surrounding the recent enquiry into the BSE crisis and the publication of the Phillips Report in the UK. More specifically, we wish to develop the concept of moral discrepancy and it's use in politically accountable settings, in this case the political interview. The paper, through the use …
Radio Leaks: Presenting and Contesting Leaks in Radio News Broadcasts
This paper analyzes the discursive construction and contestation of ‘leaked’ stories in news broadcast programmes. Drawing on a sample of BBC Radio 4 news programmes recorded between May and June 2000, we analyze four items of news presented as leaks about upcoming events. We suggest that these examples highlight the leaking of information as a valuable newsworthy commodity in that it not only allows news organizations to report what is going to …
Busy saying nothing new: Live silence in TV reporting of 9/11
News of the attacks on New York and Washington on September 11th 2001 spread fast, mainly through dramatic images of the events broadcast via a global television media, particularly 24-hour news channels such as BBC News 24 and CNN. Following the initial report many news channels moved to dedicated live coverage of the story. This move, to what Liebes (1998) describes as a ‘disaster marathon’, entails shifting from the routine, regular news agend…
Busy saying nothing new: Live silence in TV reporting of 9/11
Categorization, Interaction, Policy, and Debate
During the course of this article the themes of public accountability, government policy, and interaction in media settings are examined. In particular, we examine empirical instances of media discourse as a means of exploring the use of identity categories, predicates, and configurations as a means of accomplishing policy debate in participatory frameworks such as radio phone-ins and the accountable frames of political interviews. This paper res…
The Role of Talkback Radio in Hong Kong and Singapore: An Initial Exploration
Politicians increasingly treat radio talkback as a valuable resource through which to communicate directly with the public. Whilst research has examined the role of talkback in the public sphere in the United States. United Kingdom and recently Australia, little is known about the use of talkback in Asia. This paper begins an initial examination of the role of talkback in Singapore and Hong Kong as a vehicle for public opinion and political engag…
Talkback, Community and the Public Sphere
This paper explores the relationship between the audience of commercial talkback radio and the actual existing democratic public sphere in Australia. Drawing upon Anderson's (1987) notion of an imagined community and Warner's (2002) discussion of publics, the paper suggests that two different but entwined modes of address operate around the talkback audience. The first centres on the active creation of an imagined community brought into being and…
Motives and social organization: Sociological Amnesia, Psychological Description and the Analysis of Accounts
During the course of this article we explore the sociological tradition of analysing motives and accounts. In doing so we contrast this with more recent methodological developments that have analysed similar phenomena as part of a strategy of respecifying psychological theories of cognition. Through the use of analytic examples we demonstrate how accounts and the invocation of 'inner' or 'underlying' states must be understood not only in terms of…
Beyond the discursive: The case of social organization — a reply to Edwards, Hepburn and Potter
Membership categorization, culture and norms in action
In this article, we examine the extent to which membership categorization analysis (MCA) can inform an understanding of reasoning within the public domain where morality, policy and cultural politics are visible (Smith and Tatalovich, 2003). Through the examination of three examples, we demonstrate how specific types of category device(s) are a ubiquitous feature of accountable practice in the public domain where morality matters and public polic…
Membership-in-action: Operative identities in a family meal
My f***ing personality”: Swearing as slips and gaffes in live television broadcasts
This paper examines instances of swearing in live television broadcasts. While some cable television shows routinely involve swearing without censorship and recorded shows may include swearing “bleeped out,” our interest is in instances of swearing in contexts where swearing is prohibited. We look at live interviews and panel debates where swearing is clearly noticed and reacted to strongly — and in all cases retracted or apologized for in some w…
Just like home: Remediation of the social in contemporary news broadcasting
Categories, norms and inferences: Generating entertainment in a daytime talk show
Membership categorization analysis: Wild and promiscuous or simply the joy of Sacks
The recent resurgence of Sacks’ work on membership categorization has highlighted the growing analytic interest in how members’ social category orientations operate at multiple levels of interactional work. One of the outcomes of this, highlighted in Stokoe’s discussion, is the re-emergence of the question of whether membership categorization analysis (MCA) has been, is, or can be an approach in its own right. In this brief discussion I consider …
Groundhog Day: Extended repetitions in political news interviews
In this paper we focus on the use of extended repetitions in political news interviews. Drawing on conversation analysis and discourse analysis we examine a corpus of examples where particular forms of repeated questions and/or answers appear within two main practices of political interviewing. We refer to these as the spectacular live interview and the non-live interview. Our analysis shows that the design of repetitions, which we describe as ei…
Grab a pen and paper: Interaction v. interactivity in a political radio phone-in
In this paper we analyse the discursive frameworks for interaction in a UK political radio phone-in between 2001 and 2010, and the implications of those frameworks for public engagement with politicians. The BBC Radio 4 phone-in program Election Call, broadcast in the run-up to a general election, has experimented with ‘new’ interactive technology (TV simulcast, web broadcasting and e-mail) in its attempt to provide listeners with the opportunity…
Controversial New Sciences in the Media: Content Analysis of Global Reporting of Nanotechnology during the Last Decade
The potentially controversial science of nanotechnology is only now beginning to infiltrate mainstream public consciousness through media channels. This article suggests the infiltration is taking different forms, depending on the nationality of journalists reporting on the science. Having completed analysis of a large longitudinal international sample of news and feature articles about nanotechnology, we report that journalists in Australia and …
Sociology (51 works) · Political science (34 works) · Computer Science (32 works) · Epistemology (25 works) · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies (25 works) · Discourse Analysis in Language Studies (22 works) · Law (21 works) · Politics (21 works) · Psychology (21 works) · Law (20 works)