This volume demonstrates the relevance of talk and its analysis to understanding the communicative process in television and radio. As the contributors to this book illustrate, the study of talk on radio and television addresses central questions of how institutional authority and power are maintained, how the media construct audiences and how audiences make sense of programme output. In terms of styles of discourse, the book covers the range of broadcast talk, both formal and informal. Theoretically, it draws on ideas from discourse and conversational analysis, pragmatics and critical linguistics, and on the ideas of Goffman, Garfinkel and Habermas.