curs 12 news stories as narratives

7/27/2019 Curs 12 News Stories as Narratives

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NEWS STORIES AS

NARRATIVES

ALLAN BELL


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NEWS STORIES AS

NARRATIVES

Features of stories

- structure

Direction

Point

Viewpoint

Fairy tales, fables, parables, legends, epics,

sagas - the role of storyteller important in language

behaviour and society at large


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NEWS STORIES AS

NARRATIVES

Once upon a time

Fifteen people were injured today when a

bus plunged


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NEWS STORIES AND PERSONAL

NARRATIVES

Labov:

1. Abstractsummarized the central

action and main point of a narrative Why is

this story being told

2. Orientationsets the scenewho,

when, where and initial situation or activity

of the story


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NARRATIVES

3. Complicating actionwhat happened

4. Evaluation so what? A directionlesssequence is not a narrative. Narrative has

points, it is the narrators intention to justifythe value of the story

5. Resolutionwhat happened finally

6. Codaand that was that it wraps upthe action, returns the conversation fromthe time of narrative to the present


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NARRATIVES

- The structure of press stories longer and

more detailed

- For TV news the written text remains

paramount

- Few differences between printed and

broadcast news styles


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NARRATIVES

US TROOPS AMBUSHED IN

HONDURAS

Tegucigalpa

United States troops in Honduras were put

on high alert after at least six American

soldiers were wounded, two seriously, in a

suspected leftist guerrilla ambush

yesterday, United States officials said


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NARRATIVES

Six or seven soldiers were wounded when

at least three men, believed to be leftist

guerrillas, used high-powered weapons in

am ambush of bus carrying 28 passengers20 kilometers north of the capital

Tegucigalpa, United States embassy

spokesman Terry Kneebone said.


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NARRATIVES

The bus was carrying the soldiers from apleasure trip at a beach on the AtlanticCoast.

It was a surprise attack. SouthernCommand spokesman Captain ArtHaubold said in Panama City.

The US forces did not return fire. Theykept going to get out of the area as quicklyas possible.


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NARRATIVES

Tegucigalpa radio station said an

unidentified caller said the leftist group

Morazanista Patriotic Liberation Front

claimed responsibility for the attack.NZPA-Reuter


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NARRATIVES

- Lead/first paragraph

the same function in the news as the abstract inpersonal narratives

The device by which the audience can get themain point of a story from reading a singleopening sentence, and on that basis decidewhether to continue

In the article? -In hard news the lead is obligatory, in personal

narratives optional


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NARRATIVES

Press news also has headlinesan

abstract of the abstract

The lead is the journalists primary

abstract of a story, the headlines the

subeditors

Broadcast newsno headlines, except in

so far as stories are summarized at the

beginning or end of a news bulletin


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NARRATIVES

Orientation - obligatory for journalists to

answer who, what, when and where

The article?

Deicticshere, today, yesterday

Where do they appear in the article?


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NARRATIVES

Evaluation

Establishes the significance of a story

Often the point is self-aggrandizement It pre-empties the story question so what

In newsto justify claiming the audiences

attention Article?


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NARRATIVES

Evaluation

In stories often concentrated at the end

In the news in the leadnewsworthy ACTION

Narrativetemporal sequence of events

News storiesnot temporally presented The article?


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NARRATIVES

A complex time structure

RESOLUTION

Personal narratives move to a resolution

In news storiesthe result is in the lead,and not always clear cut.

The news is more like a serial than a short

story They finish in mid air because articles are

cut


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NARRATIVES

CODA

In personal narrativesan optional

conclusion; returns the tense from

narrative time to the present

In newspapers- no coda

Broadcast newsthis is the end of thenews


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NARRATIVES

In the article as opposed to personal

narratives

- relates the narrators personal

experience

- a range of sources is cited

- news gives accurate numbers - complex syntax


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THE STRUCTURE OF A

POLITICAL NEWS STORY

Read the following article and identify thefollowing:

1. Abstract, headline and lead attribution

and the story proper. 2. Actors

3. Time

4. Place of action 5. Source of specific information (media or

non-media)


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THE STRUCTURE OF A

POLITICAL NEWS STORY

6.The significance of events

7. 6 events.

7. What is the relations between thehappenings (chronology, cause-effect, etc)


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TROOPS TAKE OVER

LITHUANIAN OFFICE

Moscow

Stepping up the pressure on rebel

Lithuania, Soviet troops sized a

government office in the capitaland

neighbouring Byelorussia threatened to

claim a slice of the republic if ir secedes

from the Soviet Union


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The parliament in Lithuanias sister Balticrepublic of Estonia meanwhile announcedyesterday it wanted to break away with

Moscow too, declaring the beginning of atransitional period that would end in fullindependence.

Moscow has refused to recogniseLithuanias march 11 declaration ofindependece.


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Instead if has waged what Lithuanians call

a war of nerves, with soldiers occupying

public buildings and arresting Lithuanian

military deserters.

United States President George Bush sent

Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev a note

urging peaceful settlement of the dispute.


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A few hours later, Interior Ministry troopsmoved into the public prosecutors office inthe Lithuanian capital Vilnius.

It was the first Lithuanian building to beoccupied by Soviet troops sinceWednesday, when the Communist Partyheadquarters was sized.

It was also the first to be taken over fromthe government as opposed to the party.,


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Lithuanian President Vytautas

Landsbergis went on television yesterday

to denounce the move, saying it would

bring shame on Moscow.

We have endured all these years we

sill this time as well he said.

What the USSR is doing now will bring

only shame in the eyes of all the world.


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Earlier yesterday, deputy Soviet prosecutor

Alexei Vasilyev told staff at the prosecutors

office that Moscow had relieved their boss,

Alturas Paulaskas from his post. In his place Mr Vasilyev announced Moscow had

appointed Antanas Petrauskas, who quickly told

journalists he did not recognise Lithuanian

independence.


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Control of the prosecutors office is

considered crucial for Moscow to enforce

Soviet Law which it says still holds sway in

Lithuania, including penalties for armydesertion.

Vilnius Radio said Interior Ministry troops

had also taken over the history institute ofthe Lithuanian Communist Party,.


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Chief military prosecutor Alexander

Katusev said yesterday that a defence

ministry amnesty announced on Friday for

any Lithuanian deserters who returned totheir units was invalid.

They would be considered on a case-by-

case basis.


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Lithuanian was also set upon by its neighbour

Byelorussia, where the parliamentary leadership

said it would lay claim to Vilnius and six other

districts if Lithuania seceded. We shall be obliged to insist on the return of

Byelorussian land to the Byelorrussian Soviet

Socialist Republic the presidium of the

republics supreme soviet, or parliament said,according to the official news agency Tass -

NZA-Reuter


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CONCLUSIONS

- Any news test consists of an abstract,

attribution and the story proper.

The attribution can include source of the

story, agency credit, journalists byline,

place and time

The abstractlead , a headline

The lead - the main event, the second

event, attribution and evaluation


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CONCLUSIONS

The story one or more episodes, which in turns

consists of one or more events

Eventsactors, action, setting, attribution,

which perform the orientation Additional categoriesfollow-up (verbal or non-

verbal reaction), commentary (the journalists

observations on the action, explicit evaluation, or

expectations) and background (events prior to

the current action, previous episodes).


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CONCLUSIONS

Follow up reactions or consequences may

become full stories tomorrow.

curs 12 news stories as narratives

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