A narrative is the way that a story is presented considering the limitation that every fact of a story will not be given audience. There is an infinite amount of details in a story, so the author, publisher, writer, or general decision maker will have to choose which information is important for the narrative, which means that there is always an inherent bias, but not an automatic malicious intent. If an important event happens in the world, news organizations will report with a "story" of what happened, but they ultimately decide what gets distribution. Various organizations and people are commonly accused of being biased, but what is really important is how biased they are. If an organization continuously features stories that serve a particular agenda, then may be considered too biased to be considered as a trustworthy source.
The positive effect of a narrative is that it can narrow down an enormous amount of information to what is important to know and to remember. People have a limitation on time and memory, so there is no expectation that anyone can know everything. Narratives isolate the details and shows "those events as represented". This ultimately gets the message, the context, and the meaning across in an efficient manner.
Works Cited:
Abbott, H. Porter. The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
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