Discourse, Context & Media 56 (2023) 100742 Available online 30 November 2023 2211-6958/© 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. “Say, are you a little ashamed?” – Shame allocation and accountability in Israeli news interviews Yael Gaulan a, * , Michal Marmorstein a , Zohar Kampf b a Linguistics Department, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel b Department of Communication and Journalism, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Accountability interviews Conversation analysis Discursive psychology Emotion discourse Moral discourse Shame ABSTRACT In light of the growing emotionalization of public discourse, this article deals with the action of shame allocation in Israeli accountability interviews. A qualitative analysis of tokens of the Hebrew verb lehitbayesh ‘to be ashamed’ in political interviews was conducted using Discursive Psychology and Conversation Analysis methods. The fndings show that in this public context the verb lehitbayesh is mostly not used to convey an emotional state, nor can its meaning be explained by the classic theoretical conceptualization of shame. Instead, lehitbayesh is mobilized to allocate shame to another actor, and portrays the allocator as morally superior and as someone who sacrifces for what is right. Lehitbayesh is part of the negotiations between journalists and politicians over the question of who is accountable for a transgressive act, what the desired response is, and who the relevant audience for the moral lesson is. 1. Introduction In recent decades, an “emotionalizing of the public sphere” has taken place in Western societies (Pantti, 2010), as more areas of public discourse, including news journalism and politics, are infused with the display and scrutiny of emotion (Furedi, 2004; Lupton, 1998). This can be considered part of a general growth of the personalization of discourse, and the movement towards the conversational or the informal found in various felds of public life, which favors a rhetoric of authenticity and sincerity (Holmes, 2004; Thornborrow and Mont- gomery, 2010; Van Leeuwen, 2001). Scholars explain this trend with reference to a postmodern weaving of popular culture into the political sphere (Richards, 2004), as well as the rise of a dominant ‘therapeutic culture’ (Illouz, 2008; Pantti, 2010). The articulation of emotions is shaped by culture and governed by social rules (Hochschild, 1979, 1983). Public expressions of emotions by po- litical actors and journalists are therefore a fascinating means of un- derstanding performances of cultural identity and constructions of morality and social norms (cf. Ahmed, 2004; Edwards, 1999). This article focuses on the communicative action of shame allocation in political news interviews on Israeli radio, which is achieved through the use of the Hebrew verb lehitbayesh (‘to be ashamed’). Through a qualitative analysis of its derivations, as articulated by the interviewer, the guest, or both, the article examines the strategic use of emotion discourse in news interviews as a conventionalized means with which morality and accountability are discussed and negotiated. The article deals with the following questions: (1) what are the rhetorical functions of lehitbayesh in the context of political radio interviews? And (2) in what ways does the use of lehitbayesh in those mediated journalistic contexts differ from the traditional conceptualization of shame? The discussion starts with an outline of defnitions of shame in psy- chological and sociological theory, and then continues with approaches to the study of emotion in public interaction and in political interviews in particular. Following is an analysis of news interviews data which shows that the verb lehitbayesh is typically not used in its refexive (self- addressed) sense, but is rather recruited for emotional condemnation of another party’s wrongdoing. A description of shame allocation is sug- gested, which explicates how shameful acts are constructed and attrib- uted to different actors, thereby confguring their moral status. We conclude by discussing the contribution of the analysis to the study of emotion expressions in contemporary mediated political discourse and the multiple rhetorical functions they achieve, as part of the general trend of conversationalization of broadcast media. 2. Shame Widely discussed across disciplines, shame is defned in various ways. However, consensual is the idea that shame is a self-conscious * Corresponding author. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Discourse, Context & Media journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/dcm https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2023.100742 Received 7 March 2023; Received in revised form 15 October 2023; Accepted 25 October 2023