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Additional file 2. Legends of supplementary Figures.

We argue that the field of extracellular vesicle (EV) biology needs more transparent reporting to facilitate interpretation and replication of experiments. To achieve this, we describe EV-TRACK, a crowdsourcing knowledgebase (http://evtrack.org) that centralizes EV biology and methodology with the goal of stimulating authors, reviewers, editors and funders to put experimental guidelines into practice.

Despite current therapy improvements for mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) and diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL), most MCL patients and ± 40% of the DLBCL patients experience relapses. Both MCL and DLBCL are aggressive B cell lymphomas, characterized with a higher proliferation rate. The anaphase promoting complex/cyclosome (APC/C) is an important checkpoint in mitosis, regulating the onset of the anaphase and cell cycle. This E3 ubiquitin ligase becomes activated upon interaction with the co-factor CDC20. CDC20 is frequently overexpressed in different human cancers (prostate cancer, breast cancer, multiple myeloma ...). This overexpression is associated with an aggressive course of the disease and a shorter overall survival. So far little is known about CDC20 in B cell lymphomas. Here, we investigated the inhibition of APC/C-CDC20 MCL and DLBCL. Using publicly available gene expression profiling data, we found that the majority of the DLBCL patients (>77%) exhibits a high CDC20 mRNA expression and that this overexpression is correlated with a worse prognosis, indicating that CDC20 is also involved in . Next, we evaluated the anti-lymphoma activity of the APC/C-CDC20 inhibitor proTAME (pT) using human MCL (Jeko-1, Mino and Rec-1) and DLBCL (OCI-Ly1, OCI-Ly7, SU-DHL-6, OCI-Ly3 and OCI-Ly10) cell lines. The pT treatment significantly increased the percentage of cells in metaphase. This metaphase arrest was accompanied by a strong reduction in MCL and DLBCL viability and a significantly increase in apoptosis. The induced apoptosis was found mediated by phosphorylation of the anti-apoptotic proteins Bcl-2/Bcl-XL, degradation/cleavage of the anti-apoptotic protein Mcl-1 and activation of the pro-apoptotic protein Bim. In addition, pT treatment induced phosphorylation of H2AX, suggesting that pT could also induce DNA damage. Finally, APC/C-CDC20 inhibition significantly enhanced the sensitivity of MCL and DLBCL cells the BH3 mimetic ABT-737 and ABT-199, as evidenced by a strong increase in caspase 3-dependent apoptosis compared to either agent alone. In conclusion, we identified APC/C-CDC20as a promising new target in the treatment of the aggressive B cell lymphomas MCL and DLBCL. In the future, the potential of specific CDC20 targeting, either alone or in combinations with currently available anti-cancer therapies, will continue to be investigated.

Multiple myeloma (MM) is a virtually incurable clonal plasma cell malignancy which mainly resides in the bone marrow. Like in other cancers, numerous epigenetic aberrations have been described in MM, resulting in deregulated gene expression, disease progression and drug resistance. Targeting epigenetic modifiers involved in this deregulated epigenetic landscape therefore represents an interesting therapeutic approach. G9a (EHMT2) and GLP (EHMT1) are 2 histone methyltransferases which catalyze mono- and dimethylation of histone 3 lysine 9 (H3K9). Importantly, G9a is overexpressed in several cancers, correlating with a poor prognosis. Currently, data about the expression and role of G9a/GLP in MM is lacking. The aim of this study is therefore to investigate the functional role of G9a and GLP in MM pathogenesis.

Epigenetic regulation mechanisms - such as histone marks, DNA methylation and miRNA - are often misregulated in cancers and are associated with tumorigenesis and drug resistance. Multiple Myeloma (MM) is a malignant plasma cell disease that accumulates within the bone marrow. Epigenetic modifications in MM are associated not only with cancer development and progression, but also with resistance to chemotherapy. This epigenetic plasticity can be targeted with epidrugs, nowadays used in treatment of several cancers. We recently identified a significant overexpression of the lysine histone methyltransferase SETD8 in MM cells (HMCLs; N=40) compared with normal plasma cells (N=5) (P

Multiple myeloma (MM) is a hematological malignancy characterized by a plasma cell accumulation in the bone marrow (BM). Pre-clinical research showed that epigenetic modulating agents have promising therapeutic and prognostic applications in MM. Early clinical work however has been disappointing. To provide new possibilities for combinatory therapies, reduce side effects and identify biomarkers, better understanding of the therapeutic and prognostic features of HDACi and DNMTi is needed, especially in vivo where MM cells are protected by the BM microenvironment. Therefore, we aimed to characterize the transcriptional response of MM cells after in vivo treatment with the HDACi quisinostat or the DNMTi decitabine using the syngeneic immunocompetent murine 5T33MM model. 5T33MM mice (n=4/group) with established disease were treated with quisinostat or decitabine for 5 days after which tumor cells were subjected to microarray analysis. Quisinostat or decitabine deregulated respectively 61 and 25 genes with a prognostic value in newly diagnosed patients. The prognostic value of these genes was then implemented in a murine (Mu)-DM and Mu-HA score. The score values were significant higher in MM patients and human myeloma cell lines compared to healthy bone marrow plasma cells. In addition, the scores could separate newly diagnosed as well as relapsed patients into a low risk and high risk group. A high score was furthermore identified in the proliferation subgroup, in patients with a high gene-expression based proliferation index and in immature plasma cell stages. Gene ontology analysis showed that the deregulated genes encoded for proteins involved in apoptosis, regulation of cytoskeleton, immune regulation, metabolism, development and regulation of transcription. Pathway analysis revealed associations with lymphocyte activation and proliferation, immune-effector mechanisms, T-helper-1 development and elevated signaling of interferon, tumor necrosis factor, interleukin-1 (IL-1), IL-2 and IL-12. In conclusion, the in vivo transcriptional response to epigenetic modulating agents provided a prognostic gene signature and was significantly associated with immune regulation. This provides the rationale for testing epigenetic modulating agents in combination with immunotherapies.

Political television interview and debate programmes have increasingly been recognised as "a fundamental act of contemporary journalism" (Schudson, 1994: 565) and as "a key moment in the political news cycle" (McNair, 2000: 84). While the existing body of research on political broadcast talk has predominantly focused on the interactional dynamics in the on-air encounters between journalist-anchors and public figures (e.g. Ekström et al., 2006; Ekström & Patrona, 2011; Hutchby, 2006; Montgomery, 2007; Tolson, 2006), it has seldom dealt with the routine practices of pre-mediation that precede these live, on-air media performances. This paper partly builds on and extends the scope of these studies by relating insights on the performance of media professionalism to preparatory activities in the backstage production setting. Taking an interactional and dramaturgical perspective, it specifically deals with the situated processes through which media professionalism is performed, negotiated and reproduced in the run-up to on-air broadcasts. The central question is how journalist-anchors define and achieve professionalism in and through their daily routine practices in the newsroom. More specifically, the analysis seeks to find out the constitutive cornerstones of journalist-anchors' professional identity in political television production. Therefore, it draws on fieldnotes of six weeks of ethnographic observations at the newsroom of Terzake, a political programme daily broadcast on Flemish public service television (Canvas), in 2012. Overall, the study indicates that the accomplishment of media professionalism in the backstage settings of political television production is always the result of interactional processes, team performances, collaboration and journalistic agency. Media professionalism turns out to be partly articulated in the ways journalist-anchors and their team members can show a competence to align with the programme's identity and create a unique, independent and actual broadcasting offer; and is partly expressed in the extent to which journalists can show a competence to script spontaneity and create a continuous and coherent broadcast flow.

This paper deals with the virtues and shortcomings of conversation analysis (CA) in relation to the study of social-cultural categories in institutional forms of interaction and claims for bringing issues of power and identity more explicitly into its analytic frame. As an endogenous and inductive methodology, CA provides the analytic tools with which to scrutinise how interactional participants are constantly engaged in showing dynamic orientations to the local relevancies of interaction. Instead of considering social-cultural categories such as power and identity as incontestable and fixed presumptions of talk-in-interaction, CA intends to show how such categories are being made relevant within routinized local practices. Paradoxically, however, CA practitioners have predominantly shown a reticence towards the explicit study of "power" or "identity" within interactional settings, as such contextual phenomena are allegedly all too often associated with deterministic approaches to context. As a consequence, CA lacks concrete guidelines on how to deal with the analysis of social-cultural features in a given social context, not at least in institutional settings. This paper brings this contested practice of "ethnomethodological indifference" (Garfinkel & Sacks, 1970: 345) into question and proposes an alternative framework that opens up new possibilities for analysing contextual features as members' accomplishments. In line with authors as Hutchby (1996 & 2006), Silverman (1997) and Thornborrow (2002), the paper explicitly opts to bring issues of power and identity on the agenda of CA and proposes an alternative framework. It is suggested that an analytic distinction between the structural and interactional orders of institutional talk can make room for a more realistic and balanced approach to the analysis of social-cultural categories in talk-in-interaction. Hence, the study takes an inclusive approach situating power and identity at both a structural and interactional level, i.e. as being partly embedded within social context and as needing to be interactionally achieved and negotiated in order to be effectuated. The aim is to propose a heuristics for the micro-analytic study of power and identity in institutional contexts that allows for uncovering what is regularly "seen but unnoticed" (Garfinkel, 1967: 57), while not being blind for the structuring power of institutions. References Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in Ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall. Garfinkel, H., & Sacks, H. (1970). On formal structures of practical action. In McKinney, J. D. & Tiryakian, E. A. (Eds.), Theoretical Sociology (pp. 337-366). New York: Appleton Century Crofts. Hutchby, I. (1996). Confrontation Talk. Arguments, Asymmetries, and Power on Talk Radio. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum. Hutchby, I. (2006). Media Talk. Conversation Analysis and the Study of Broadcasting. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Silverman, D. (1997). Discourses of Counselling: HIV Counselling as Social Interaction. London: Sage. Thornborrow, J. (2002). Power Talk: Language and Interaction in Institutional Discourse. Harlow: Pearson Education.

Epigenetic modulating agents, including DNA methyltransferase inhibitors (DNMTi) and histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACi), are of interest for their anti-tumor properties. Decitabine (DAC) is a FDA approved DNMTi for treatment of myelodysplastic syndrome, while JNJ-26481585 (JNJ-585) is a HDACi with potent anti-myeloma activity. Several studies revealed that DNMTi and HDACi exert their anti-tumor response by reversing epigenetic changes resulting in alterations in the transcriptome. In addition, DNMTi and HDACi exert direct cytotoxic effects. Limited studies are available on DAC alone and in combination with HDACi in multiple myeloma. Therefore we assessed the potential synergistic effect of DAC and JNJ-585 in MM. For in vitro experiments, we focused on human (OPM-2, RPMI 8226) and murine (5T33MM) cell lines. Using Cell-Titer-Glo, DAC and JNJ-585 showed synergistic anti-myeloma effects. This was confirmed by an AnnexinV-7AAD apoptosis assay. In general, apoptosis was associated with H2AX phosphorylation, caspase- and PARP-cleavage, which was more pronounced in the combination. In the OPM-2 cells, we also observed Mcl-1 cleavage and Bim upregulation. DAC and JNJ-585 also affected cell cycle progression. In the 5T33MMvt cells, DAC induced a G2/M-phase arrest while JNJ-585 induced a G0/G1-phase arrest. Combining both agents cancelled out the observed arrests and resulted in subG1 increase. In OPM-2 cells, DAC did not induce an arrest while JNJ-585 induced a G0/G1-phase arrest, which was maintained in the combination. In support of the cell cycle arrest, p21 and p27 were upregulated in both cell lines. Lastly, in the 5T33MM murine model, combination treatment resulted in significant lower serum M-spike, bone marrow tumor load and increased survival probability compared to single agent treatment. In conclusion, we demonstrated a synergistic anti-myeloma effect of DAC and JNJ-585. This was associated with a DNA damage response, cell cycle arrest, caspase activation and disruption of Bcl-2 family balance. DAC and JNJ-585 treatment in vivo resulted in slower disease progression suggesting clinical relevance.

In the mediated interactions between media and politics, complex struggles over meaning making and power are involved. This paper aims to study how power relationships are routinely and jointly negotiated within the institutional frames of political broadcast talk. Central are televised political debates as strongly genre-specific, asymmetric and role structured analytic contexts, in which journalists and politicians are engaged in a mutual and permanent struggle over power and signification. The study takes an inclusive approach to power in the sense that power is situated at both a structural and interactional level, i.e. as being partly embedded within social context and as a dynamic feature of interactions that needs contestation, negotiation and resistance. Building on a Foucauldian understanding of power as circulating and productive phenomenon and the methodological and theoretical insights of conversation analysis, the paper reflects on and analyses how power operates within the local orientations of journalists and politicians in the immediate context of their interactions (e.g. Hutchby, 1996, 1999; Silverman, 1997; Thornborrow 2002). The illustrative analysis draws on transcripts of the political television debates broadcast on Flemish public service television (VRT) in the three weeks prior to the regional and European elections of 2009. By means of a turn-by-turn analysis of the interactions between journalists and politicians, it is shown how power relationships can be connected to the techniques used by these social actors to organise their interactions and make utterances meaningful. It is argued that, generally, political television journalists have access to four structural power domains: (1) Power over territory; (2) Power over the agenda and framing; (3) Adversarial power; and (4) Power of the TV programme as a media product. Within each of these domains, it is shown how the structurally privileged positions of the journalists as media professionals are dynamically dealt with - i.e. maintained,negotiated or resisted - at an interactional level.

The mediated interactions between journalists and politicians in political television programmes increasingly occur under the premises of new, attractive and stringent formats. This contribution explores how these formats are related to the interactional achievement of the journalists' roles of respectively interactional manager, political journalist and television producer. The data consist of transcriptions from five election programmes broadcast by the Flemish public service broadcaster (VRT) prior to the 2009 regional and European elections. The analysis shows how journalists invoke programme formats and production frames as strategic resources to deal with their complex institutional roles. The chapter demonstrates the relevance of prearranged formatting processes for the journalists' accomplishment of a media professional's identity.

On the interactional achievement of journalistic neutrality in political TV debates In political television debates, journalists are required to play out a number of roles in order to achieve a legitimate position as media professional. They are, for instance, responsible for managing the interaction, critically questioning politicians, and moderating the discussion, and this from a neutral, balanced and impartial stance. As representatives of the institution of political journalism, journalist-anchors in political television programmes are faced with a difficult tension between being critical and preserving a neutral and objective stance, without coming off as over-adversarial. It has been argued before that the achievement of journalistic neutrality is very peculiar in the context of live television programmes: in contrast to print news media, the journalistic practices in political television talk are broadcast 'live' and are, thus, open to immediate critical evaluation of diverse societal actors (e.g. Clayman, 1992: 163-164). As a consequence, journalists fall back on a number of strategic interactional activities in an attempt to overcome this professional difficulty. The work of Steven E. Clayman (1988, 1992, 2002) on journalistic neutrality is especially relevant in this context. He notices, for instance, that, in news interviews, journalists can very strategically shift their interactional 'footing' when producing risky or evaluative assertions to achieve a formally neutral position. This paper partly builds on and extends the scope of Clayman's studies by focussing on how journalists achieve a neutralistic posture in the context of political television debates. Special attention will be given to the ways programme formats and production frames are closely related to and strategically invoked as resources in this interactional achievement of neutrality. The paper's corpus comprises transcriptions of the 2009 pre-election television debates of the Flemish public service broadcaster VRT. The dataare analysed from a mixed-method approach including analysis of media formats and CA-oriented analysis of on-air interactions between journalists and politicians. It is argued that the presence of prearranged production frames - such as reportages, citizen testimonies, and expert contributions - can help journalists in maintaining a defendable neutralistic stance in the interaction and successfully achieving an identity as competent media professional. References Clayman, S. E. (1988). Displaying neutrality in news interviews. Social Problems, 35(4), 474-492. Clayman, S. E. (1992). Footing in the achievement of neutrality: the case of news-interview discourse. In Drew, P. & Heritage, J. (Eds.), Talk at Work. Interaction in Institutional Settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 163-198. Clayman, S. E. (2002). Tribune of the people: maintaining the legitimacy of aggressive journalism. Media, Culture & Society, 24(2), 197-216.

Central in this PhD-research are the interactional dynamics and complex power relationships that are apparently manifest in political television interactions. Whereas in traditional and conventional media studies, political television programmes have often been approached as 'texts' to be analysed in relation to ideological concerns, institutional hierarchies, or political-economic considerations, more recently, a number of media researchers (e.g. Scannell; Tolson; Montgomery) have emphasised the relevance of approaching these and other television or radio programmes as 'talk' to be analysed as full-fledged and legitimate objects of study (e.g. Hutchby, 2002: 11). The peculiarity of political broadcast talk (as well as its analytical relevance) has to be found in its doubly institutional character. In political interviews and television debates, journalists and politicians engage in a communicative contract from an identity as representative of a social institution with attached responsibilities, rights and entitlements. At the same time, their interactions are institutional also because these are inherently driven by specific roles, goals, patterns, and norms. The specialised and recognisable turn-taking system, turn design and sequential organisation in political television interactions have considerable implications for the course of the encounter, especially in terms of creating mutual expectations regarding the roles-to-be-played and the actions-to-be-performed. Moreover, the journalists' and politicians' joint interest in keeping - what has been called in Goffmanian terms - 'face' in front of the 'overhearing audience' makes the dynamic subtleties and negotiations in these interactions even more interesting. As a result of the journalists' and politicians' status as institutional actors with their own roles, motives, and interests in creating a positive self-image, the interaction is an inherent strategic interaction that brings along pertinent questions on the play of power and the negotiation of power positions and relationships.

Both journalism and politics have a powerful impact in society and are at the same time inextricable connected to and mutual dependent on each other. Journalism, on the one hand, has the power to frame, interpret, and stage political processes, and affect audience's perceptions. Politics, on the other hand, has the power to articulate stirring social interests and effectuate policy. These two complex institutions are bound together in a system of political communication. The instant mediated interactions between journalism and politics in the form of political television interactions is just one important aspect of this system. In this paper, the focus is on political television debates as one of the most outspoken meeting points between the institutions of journalism and politics. In these mediated interactions, journalists and politicians enter into a dynamic interaction, in which an interesting operation of power can be identified. In traditional political communication studies, questions of power within the mediated interactions between journalism and politics are often placed against the background of some broader processes of professionalization, commercialisation and tabloidization to contextualise the changing nature of political television programmes and the interactions therein (e.g. Bennett and Entman, 2001; Blumler and Kavanagh, 1999; McNair, 2003). Changes in format and content of political television programmes are then, for instance, said to have a negative impact on the quality and legitimacy of the political journalism that is enacted within this genre (e.g. Rosenstiel, 1992; Street, 2001; Turner, 2005). Although such a 'macro' approach has a considerable relevance for understanding the broader contextual frameworks in which these programmes take place, it fails to address how power actually comes into play in the local interactions between journalists and politicians. Political communication research often only takes account of the broader power considerations between the fields of journalism and politics, without taking the level of the actual interactions into consideration. A top-down approach risks ignoring the interactional dynamics and complexities and assuming a simple determination 'from above'. Therefore, a close and detailed analysis of journalists' and politicians' mediated interactions can render relevant and thorough insights in their dynamic power relationships at a 'micro' level. This paper attempts to show how the roles of and power relationships between journalists and politicians can be analysed at the micro level of political television debates as a form of institutional interaction. In political television debates, interactions are characterised by a built-in power asymmetry in terms of a differential distribution of interactional roles and resources implied in the institutional setting. While some scholars already pointed out a similar asymmetry in the context of the news interview format (e.g. Clayman and Heritage, 2002; Greatbatch, 1992), this paper will go a step further by claiming for an explicit formulation of the operation of power in institutional interaction instead of merely 'asymmetries' (for a similar claim, see also Hutchby, 1996, 1999a, 1999b, 2006; Hutchby & Wooffitt, 1998; Silverman, 1997; Thornborrow, 2002). It therefore builds on the theoretical and methodological insights of conversation analysis and focuses on the value of deviant cases to reveal normative and prevailing interactional patterns that bring about expectations regarding the power relationships between interactants. The interactions in political television programmes have been metaphorically described as a 'game' being played by journalists and politicians in their sequencing questions and answers (Clayman & Heritage, 2002). Questions can be wrapped up in a number of ways, going from polite, deferentially and purely information-eliciting to criticising, challenging and hostile. Likewise, politicians have a number of options available in their answering turns such as ignoring, avoiding or refuting questions. Although most people will acknowledge such a strategic and often subtle play of questions and answers in debates and interviews, few will actually manage to appoint what is essentially going on in the course of such an encounter. An analysis of the actual moment-to-moment, turn-by-turn interactions is, then, illuminating. In taking account of the complex ways in which journalists and politicians constantly acknowledge, resist or negotiate their roles and relationships in their interactions, one can develop an understanding of the subtle operation of power in these specific encounters in political television debates. Rather than giving an overall account of the debating strategies through which politicians can resist journalistic agendas and persist their own goals, this paper aims at providing an analytic framework for the study of power-in-interaction. As a result, the data used here must be seen as appropriate illustrations for the wider purposes of the central argument in this paper: bringing forward a valuable approach to the study of power as a dynamic phenomenon being situated, produced and constantly negotiated in the local organisation and development of institutional interactions.

In the working paper to be presented at the workshop, the dynamic achievement of power in media talk is central. More specifically, the paper focuses on how power comes to operate in the interactions between journalists and politicians in political television debates. The concept of 'power' is approached as an interactionally negotiated phenomenon, rather than as a pre-determined or static macro-feature of social context. The paper builds on the methodological and theoretical framework of conversation analysis to reflect on and analyse how power can be maintained, negotiated or resisted within the local orientations of journalists and politicians in the immediate context of their mediated interactions. The value of conversation analysis for the development of an understanding of the in situ construction and operation of power in institutional interaction has begun to be elaborated by, especially, Hutchby (1996, 1999), Silverman (1997) and Thornborrow (2002). In line with these authors, the working paper claims that the focus of conversation analysis on the local management of talk-in-interaction can be useful to study the ways power is achieved at a micro-level in and through social interactions. In order to illustrate this point, transcripts of political television debates broadcast on Flemish public television during the regional and European elections of 2009 are analysed. It is argued that, in their public encounters, both journalists and politicians have access to multiple strategic resources to enact, express and legitimate power and persist individual goals at an interactional level.

In this paper, the public television coverage of the 2009 European and regional elections in Belgium is central. More specifically, the paper focuses on the series of political television programs of the Flemish and Walloon public service broadcasters (respectively, VRT and RTBF) in the pre-election three-week period. One of the main starting points of this study is the remarkably different perception of Flemish and Walloon social actors on the televised campaign coverage. Whereas in Flanders, members of the audience publicly aired a number of worries about the public television's election programs - criticizing the tight formatting, lack of in-depth elaboration, over-active role of the journalists, and celebration of form at the expense of content, such strong critical voices were far less common in Wallonia. In the paper, we aim to analyse this apparent different campaign coverage more closely, at the level of the actual televised election programs. The study shows a particular interest in connectionsbetween program format and content and examines the alleged negative influence of new formats on the delivered content and journalistic styles. Two main research questions run through this study: 'What differences and similarities can be discerned between the Flemish and Walloon election programs on public television in terms of format, style and content?' and 'Can the characteristics attached to the program formats and styles be connected to matters of content?'. As regards the theoretical framework, the paper is mainly based on studies involving analyses of genre, format structures, and framing strategies. Moreover, we take account of some general tendencies characterizing much of contemporary political television programming, such as spectacularization, politainment and confrontainment. By means of a content analysis, we give an account of the situational context of the Flemish and Walloon election programs on public service television; i.e. profoundly analyse the participation frameworks, program formats, characteristic structural sequences and topical agendas. Special attention is given to the spatial positioning of the interactional participants, the interactional roles of the journalists and their interrogative styles, the role of the public, the use of conflict frames and the content under discussion. It is argued that the election campaign coverage of both VRT and RTBF was not blind to some widespread trends in political television programming, but instead showed a considerable interest in the use of more flashing, varied and technologically strong formats, in which conflict and 'horse race' features are prevalent. However, the ways and the degree in which both public service broadcasters approach this, differ according to the specific situational context of Flemish and Walloon televised election programming.

Journalism and politics both have a powerful impact in society and are at the same time inextricable connected to and mutual dependent on each other. Journalism can act upon the political process and decide on its democratic functioning, whereas politics has a power to articulate stirring social interests and effectuate policy. These two complex institutions are bound together in a system of political communication. The instant mediated interactions between journalism and politics in the form of political interviews and television debates is just one important aspect of this system. In this research, the focus is on such political television interactions as one of the most outspoken meeting points between the institutions of journalism and politics. Within political communication studies, it has been claimed that processes of professionalization, increased competition, populism, centrifugal diversification and changed audience receptions have altered the ways in which media and politics in general relate to one another (Blumler & Kavanagh, 1999). Likewise, in the context of political television interactions, more and more critical voices loom ahead about the interviewing styles of both journalists and politicians. This PhD-research aims to shed light on the interactional dynamics and complex power relationships that are apparently manifest in political television interactions. Such interactions have been metaphorically described as a "game" being played by journalists and politicians in their sequencing questions and answers (Clayman & Heritage, 2002). Questions can be wrapped up in a number of ways, going from polite, deferentially or purely information-eliciting to criticizing, challenging or hostile. Likewise, politicians have a number of options available in their answering turns such as ignoring, avoiding or refuting the question. Although most people will acknowledge such a strategic and often subtle play of questions and answers in debates and interviews, few will actually manage to appoint what is actually going on in the course of such an encounter. In my doctoral research, I therefore attempt to cope with this defect by carefully scrutinizing the moment-to-moment unfolding of interactions between journalists and politicians. The aim is to discern, analyze and describe the range of interactional strategies and techniques both actors develop and employ in order to keep up a positive image in front of the so-called 'overhearing audience' (Heritage, 1985). In this attempt to disentangle the interactional "game" in political interviews and debates, the methodological framework of conversation analysis is being invoked. This methodology allows for a detailed and turn-by-turn analysis of this particular kind of institutional interaction and will be elaborated more profoundly below. Three main research questions run through this research: (1) How do journalists and politicians orient themselves to their situated identities in their interactions? How are these identities interactionally negotiated and resisted? (2) How are the journalist's legitimacies being sustained or resisted? (3) How does power play in the local practices of interactions? Do participants show an orientation to power in the maintenance, negotiation or resistance of identities and legitimacies? And if yes, how? Although interactional data have been widely used before in studies on identity, legitimacy and power (Fairclough, 1995), such data often served to show how certain macro phenomena such as race, gender and class are represented in them. This present research, however, explores institutional interactions in their own right. It attempts to show the relevance of the methodology of conversation analysis for the study of power relationships in interactions between journalists and politicians. Power relationships are then approached as locally produced in the orientations and understandings of the participants, rather than imposed from an external macro context. Over the past year and a half, I mainly analyzed political television debates from the Flemish program De Zevende Dag (The Seventh Day), a political talk show broadcast on the first net of the Flemish public television (VRT) since 1988. The present corpus exists of transcriptions of 44 episodes from 1994 to 2006. In the very near future, I plan to focus more on the dynamics in political interviews (see 5. for an elaboration of future research options). In this paper, I attempt to introduce my research intentions and map out the most important and persistent theoretical and methodological considerations that go along with it. I close this paper with some reflections on future research options and some questions and doubts with which I'm currently coping.

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