What makes a narrative?

It is a known trait of the media industry that some events will become news while others will simply occur and then fade away with no more attention than that of the people directly involved. It sometimes seems arbitrary and unfair which occurrences become news. Certainly in the documentary hosted by Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent, it seems that the invasion of East Timor should have received the same amount of coverage as the similar atrocities happening in Cambodia at the same time. However, the majority of people have not even heard of a place called East Timor. (1)

While the documentary suggests that the story was in fact deliberately not shared by the media as a result of the United States government in the invasion, most selection of news is oriented on the audience’s reception in a very different way. Modern news media is a marketplace, and as a result news is filtered on the basis of the audience’s approval, and therefore the story’s marketability. Gatung and Ruge have developed a list of qualities that make a narrative worth telling, which essentially boils down to the most intense, and easy to understand events. (2) This represents the fundamental shift in an interest in news for the purpose of information and meaning to the interest in news for entertainment value.

It seems very calloused to consider the news of the recent Japan tsunami as entertainment, but it would be very similar to the consideration of a serious movie, such as Schindler’s List. Entertainment does not necessarily have to be positive and upbeat. Rather, the characteristics of negative events such as a natural disaster or death of a political figure are usually more intense and simple, making them a “better” story. (3)

(1) Chomsky, Noam, Perf. Manufacturing Consent. Dir. Mark Achbar." Perf. Chomsky, Noam. Zeitgeist Video: 1992, Film.

(2) Galtung, Johan/Ruge, Mari Holmboe: The Structure of Foreign News. The Presentation of the Congo, Cuba, and Cyprus Crises in Four Norwegian Newspapers. Journal of Peace Research, vol. 2 (1965), pp 64-82.

(3) Galtung, Johan/Ruge, Mari Holmboe: The Structure of Foreign News. The Presentation of the Congo, Cuba, and Cyprus Crises in Four Norwegian Newspapers. Journal of Peace Research, vol. 2 (1965), pp 64-82.