Page 294 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

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narratiVe Power and Media inFluenCe

Pluralistic democracy depends on a contest of competing public narratives. Media
present a variety of different and sometimes conflicting stories within a multi-
culture and, thereby, mirror the distribution of political power in society. Nar-
rative analysis can provide a critical lens for understanding media power and
influence.
Narrative communication is as old as bards and as contemporary as blog-
gers. Whether stories are told by word of mouth or transmitted by satellite, they
help to shape community and to define culture. Narrative communication is
an interactive collaboration between speaker and listener, writer and reader, or
producer and viewer, situated in a particular social context. The tellers of tales
ascribe meaning to behavior, foundation to belief, and root to ritual. They wield
great power even when committed to neutrality or objectivity.
A narrative is composed of two elements: story and storyteller. These are
so tightly interconnected as to seem inextricable (“Who can know the dancer
from the dance?”). Yet, when one hears the caution to “consider the source,” an-
alytical distinctions have already emerged. Story consists of four components—
character, event, place, and time. No story can exist without at least one
character, although that character needn’t be human or even familiar to human
experience. (Think of the fabled Chicken Little or Ray Bradbury’s Martian.)
Further, any story must include at least one event: something happens. Not
every action needs be visible, as in a person’s thinking process that leads to a
difficult decision. Characters and events are necessarily located some place—
real or imagined, internal or external, recognizable or alien. Finally, the char-
acters, events, and locale of a story are situated in time, whether measured by

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