PRESENTATION The Work of Stories (May 2005) The forth Media in

I
Institut für Kommunikations- und Medienwissenschaft
Abteilung Allgemeine und Spezielle Journalistik
Dr. Sebastian Köhler, M.A.
Tel.:
0341 – 97-35754
0341 – 97-35750 (Sekretariat)
Fax:
0341 – 97-35799
E-Mail: sebkoe@uni-leipzig.de
URL:
www.uni-leipzig.de/journalistik
Sitz: Burgstraße 21, 04109 Leipzig, Zimmer 2.16
Postanschrift: Ritterstraße 24, 04109 Leipzig
PRESENTATION
The Work of Stories (May 2005)
The forth Media in Transition Conference
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Foil 1
Dear Colleagues,
Thank you very much for the invitation. I am very pleased to be here
in Cambridge.
My special issue today is:
Narrativity and narrativism as important factors in modern
journalism:
That means: Storytelling in appropriate or in exaggerating ways?
I want to discuss for that purpose some current aspects of TVcoverage of crisis and war
2
Foil 2
At first a short overview:
1.) Introduction
2.) Two Stories revisited
2.1.) The Story of Little Red Riding Hood and ...
2.2.) the Story of the Bad and Ugly - the Wolf
3.) Towards (more) communicative competence in modern societies
Foil 3
I continue with my INTRODUCTION:
Within living memory wars and their accompanying crises have
played a crucial role in the development of media and especially
mass media.
Wars and crises have high news value not least for journalists. There
is a tendency of "militainment“ to be observed. News factors as
intensity, nearness, conflict, reference to elites, and negativism
(damage, victims, failures) as well as the recently described factor of
"visuality" sum up to constantly high news values and the respective
presence in media coverage. On the one hand, the use especially of
broadcasting has significantly increased during wars and crises. On
the other hand, in the context of the Iraq-War there were relevant
3
deficits of the US media system to be observed, so that, for instance,
BBC World got new record ratings in the USA during the wartime (1).
Foil 4
My analytical approach is the increasing role of a particular kind of
Storytelling, which I call "narrativism": Narrativity is an integral part
of our communication and also of modern journalism, as long as it is
ONE PART besides other ways and modes of journalistic
communication like matter-of-fact news, comments, interviews,
documentaries etc. in all their diversity of content, form and
perspective. Problems arise if narrativity becomes (more and more)
exaggerated, one-sided (self-referential) and displacing. If thereby
the appropriate use of narrative techniques (narrativity) turns into
narrativism, then we can observe in particular communicative deficits
caused by over-simplification and excessive emotionalisation.
Foil 5
Meanwhile, there exist different paradigms which analyze especially
the journalistic field of “news coverage” as a field with increasing
narrative features, as “a kind of storytelling“ (LIEBES 1994-1, see
also GUREVITCH, HESS etc.). In as far as the role of modern
journalism is to offer democratic publics space and voices for
1
See KIEFER 2004-567
4
contesting perspectives – a tendency towards narrativism should be
questioned: The structural one-sidedness of storytelling restricts
opportunities to publish opposing or at least alternative perspectives.
The tendency is the dominance of „the establishment and its story“
(LIEBES 1994-2). Thereby especially „television’s storytelling or
narrativizing function“; see GUREVITCH 1994-10) is one of the main
channels through which meanings and sense are created, changed,
sent out and globalized.
Foil 6
The strength of both, of storytelling as a very well-tried cultural
technique of humankind and of television as a modern mass medium,
lies in its interplay of entertaining AND informing, of reducing the
complex world around us emotionally AND rationally. Not surprisingly
television provided and provides a “renaissance” of storytelling by
using (or by exploiting) their quite similar ways of offering order and
orientation.
Narrativity seems to lead to less quality mainly in TV-News coverage,
for instance Stephen Hess observes an increasing lack of background,
while violence and prominent persons are reported very intensively
and very extensively (HESS 1996-100f.): „Yet TV’s tales (sic!) are
usually gratuitous; they tell us where and how, rarely why. They are
too episodic, too lacking in context, to provide coherent information.
Indeed, they provide just the opposite: undifferentiated mayhem.”
5
Foil 7
Why do TV-news seem to evolve towards more narrativity and even
narrativism? Well, on the one hand, news is rather unpopular
compared with explicitly entertaining, fictional formats like “television
drama“ (LIEBES 1994-2pp.).
On the other hand a gap in between the “news items“ themselves is
to be observed: The rather “universal“ (informative, neutral, open)
items often achieve smaller ratings in comparison with “particular“
(mythical, ideological, closed) news items (GUREVITCH 1994-13ff.).
But “mass media narratives“ (ibid.) tend to that effect that they, as
hegemonial constructs of social reality, serve mainly to address the
needs of the establishments, as at least so critical theorists like
Edelman, Gitlin and Hall underline (LIEBES 1994-7).
Foil 8
From that theoretical and normative point of view I will analyse in
detail the audiovisual Storytelling of two events during the Iraq-War
2003 and its aftermath: The coverage about the "Saving" of Jessica
Lynch in April 2003, and the coverage about the "Capture" of
Saddam Hussein in December 2003.
I argue that this kind of Storytelling - constructing and exploiting a
contrast between "Good" and "Bad" at new levels of efficiency –
drives (appropriate) narrativity into (exaggerated) narrativism.
6
Let us watch again and carefully the following one-minute-sequences
about the “Saving” of Jessica Lynch:
Foil 9 Film by Reuters 1st of April 2003
Foil 10
As US-Military-Spokesman Jim Wilkinson declared on that day: „It is
good news. But we need more of this“ (2).
The video was sent out by the world news agencies like Reuters. It
seemed to show how US-Soldiers – heavily armed – saved Jessica
Lynch. For explanatory purposes I classify this short story as a kind
of post-modern “Little Red Riding Hood“ (in German: “Rotkäppchen”,
or, on the other hand, and probably more popular in the United
States, the story of little Dorothy in Frank Baum’s “Wizard of Oz”).
This classification should become evident after a detailed look at the
surface and structure of the story:
Foil 11
We are accompanying the obviously very authentic, literally „moving“
work of a cameraman with his special „vision-by-night“-device – an
2
See „Berliner Zeitung“, 3.4.2003, S.1
7
extreme version of “subjective camera”. The shooting seems to take
place rather incidentally besides the survival fight of the cameraman
himself. We look down from upstairs - the pictures are very blurred
and might underline the impression of NOT being staged - on a
defenseless young woman with a hood on her head. Obviously, good
guys are rescuing her. Everything is done in quite a hurry – maybe
because of the great danger around, maybe because of the bad
health of the woman.
Cut: The field outside seems to be a real battlefield. The good guys
are even more martially armed. Now the haste increases;
unfortunately, we are unable to catch even a short glimpse at the
rescued person.
Last cut: The airplane with the saved Jessica Lynch flies out of the
darkness into the light, a classical “heavenly salvage”
Foil 12
What is structurally comparable to popular fairy-tales like “Little Red
Riding Hood” or “Wizard of Oz”?
Well, the main person – a little, defenseless young woman – seems
to be in a hopeless situation, but at the happy end of the story she is
rescued.
The hard facts of the story are still debated and questioned - even
today. But the point here is: The story worked in a quite coherent
manner. Jessica Lynch appeared very trustworthy and authentic, also
8
in later stages of that evolving story. During that time, early in April
2003, the publics in particular in the war-leading countries U.S. and
Great Britain appeared to be at least divided in their opinion about
war, but consent to war then rose during April (3).
Important to know concerning the background of production of the
sequences (following research work e.g. of BBC 2, 18. May 2003,
„Saving Private Jessica: Fact or Fiction“ by John Kampfner and Sandy
Smith; 4) The cameraman of the spectacular “vision-by-night”shootings is supposed to have Hollywood-experience – he apparently
worked e.g. for the war movie „Black Hawk Down“ as assistant to
director Ridley Scott. Ironic point here: Later on in September 2003
the U.S. press criticised the „Pentagon“of exaggerating the story. But
Secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld turned the tables: The mass
media itself played an important part in developing that heroic tale
(5).
Foil 13
Now to another TV-story, a quite complementary one: The story of
the “capture” of Saddam Hussein, or, to stay in the metaphor of
“Little Red Riding Hood”: The story of “the Bad and Ugly”, the ”wolf”.
Like the story of Jessica Lynch this is a story with a very clear “main
3
See e.g. „El Pais“ 28.9.03, page 4: Following a „Guardian“-poll the consent to war had rised in Great Britain during April
significantly to then 63 per cent of the population.
4
following research work e.g. of BBC 2, 18. May 2003, „Saving Private Jessica: Fact or Fiction“ by John Kampfner and
Sandy Smith; 4)
5
See Eva Schweitzer in „Berliner Zeitung“, 4.9.2003, page 3.
9
character”, who is now in enormous trouble. But the basic difference
is also quite obvious: Now the “main character” (Saddam Hussein) is
described as unpleasant, untrustworthy and cruel, or even as
inhuman.
Here the CNN-live-coverage of the press conference in Baghdad on
December the 14th in 2003:
Foil 14
CNN-Video December 14th in 2003
Foil 15
The “height of the fall” as the central dramaturgic momentum of
every story is here very clear to be seen, namely in two aspects:
Firstly, as demonstrated by the difference between the dirty earth
hole under the farm house from the beginning of the video, where he
was alleged to be captured, and, on the other hand, the implicit
image of Saddam Hussein’s pomp and luxury during his time in
power.
Secondly, there is another aspect in the direct and explicit contrast
between the two persons to be seen: We see the back and the
10
shaved neck of an obviously military physician. Und then we see why
he has to carry his professional coat and gloves: It is the total
contrast program – a totally disheveled mop of hair, an obviously
very, very ragged person. The height of the fall: The former ruler
Saddam Hussein falls down to a tramp, a “hobo” (American slang for
“Pennbruder”). The physician seems to look for vermin, and then he
examines the teeth. The “Tramp” seems totally acquiescent and
tamed.
Foil 16
Structurally speaking this is also an example of very effective
storytelling: An effective story can also work very well with a wellknown “bad guy“ as the main person. The story appeared very
convincing and trustworthy and not “staged”. On the threshold of the
electoral year 2004 the percentage in the opinion polls in favor of
Bush rose above-averagely (6).
Ironic dirty point of that story: Late in 2004 a version by Saddam
Hussein of the same events was published: According to his lawyer
Al-Duleimi Saddam Hussein was reported to have said, the USversion with the earth hole near Tikrit was stupid faking like in a
“cowboy story”. And last not least a third version of this controversial
story was published in March 2005: A former US-Marine said, neither
6
Following a AP-Poll said late in december 45 per cent of the US-population, they would definitely vote for Bush, only 31
per cent said the opposite. Early in december the relation was 37:37 per cent. (see „Freitag“. Die Ost-WestWochenzeitung. Berlin. Heft 1-2/04, S.9)
11
the Pentagon nor Saddam Hussein was right. He suggested his story
as more or less in the middle of the two already existing versions (7).
Foil 17
Let me come to a short outlook:
Storytelling in the described exaggerated ways can be criticized in
terms of “Infosuasion” (Rosella Savarese (8)) as degeneration in
professional journalism, impeding self-control and self-regulation in
modern societies.
But especially if the question of war or not arises we need definitely
(more) “relevant journalism” (9) (Robert Jensen, University of Texas,
Austin). That means: 1.) to publish many-sided information
transparently, 2.) to discuss backgrounds and contexts, 3.) to
improve social communication with many-sided opinions globally and
intergenerationally.
The Storytelling in particular in the aftermath of September 11th in
2001 seems to correspond with dominant, already existing “news
narratives“ (10) (Michael Griffin). Effective videos are produced to
7
See „Saddam resisted arrest, former marine says“ bei Associated Press, 10.03.2005, also coverage bei
UPI from 09.03.2005.
8
See GLEICH 2003-144
9
See JENSEN 2003-15
10
See GRIFFIN 2004-22
12
accompany given “news narratives“. The journalistic re-construction
of our world becomes one-sided, exaggerated and displacing.
So I plead for a broad spectrum of voices in modern democratic
societies, for an open diversity of media branches, institutions,
perspectives, contents and forms, for (more) communicative
competence towards (more) successful social communication,
towards a (more) democratic culture of communication.
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Brief biographical note:
The author Dr. Sebastian Köhler, M.A. (born 11/13 1967 in Erfurt, Germany), has been working as a lecturer and
researcher at the Department of Journalism, Institute for Communications and Media Science at Leipzig University
(Germany) since 1/2002. Parallelly he has been serving since 1997 as a TV Producer (Reuters, German Public
Broadcasting "RBB", news channel "n-tv"). In 2001, he completed his PhD at Potsdam University (Germany) in the
field of "Theory of Communication", concerning new cultural and social potential related to the internet as compared
with classic media. He is a certified "Audiovisual Journalist" (University of Applied Sciences Kiel 1996-1998) and
studied (M.A.) Philosophy (Logic) and Communications Science in Berlin and Brighton from 1990 until 1995.