PRESENTATION The Work of Stories (May 2005) The forth Media in
Transcription
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: [email protected] 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. 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VIRILIO 1997 – Virilio, Paul: Krieg und Fernsehen. Frankfurt am Main. WEISCHENBERG 1994 - Weischenberg, Siegfried; und Klaus-Dieter Altmeppen/Martin Löffelholz: Die Zukunft des Journalismus: technologische, ökonomische und redaktionelle Trends. Opladen. Westdeutscher Verlag. ZIZEK 2004 – Zizek, Slavoj: Die Amerikaner kontrollieren gar nichts! Nicht einmal sich selbst! In: „Berliner Zeitung“, 23.6.2004, S. 30 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.