Tag Archives: journalism

Looking for Multiple Narratives

Models, Problem Practices, Rhetorical Mastery, , , , , , , , ,

 

Wikimedia.org
    Five Witnesses Will Usually Have           Divergent Accounts of the Same Event                          Wikimedia.org

 

We should be impatient if the reporting from a given medium asks us to settle for just one “story.” The better option is to expect that there are at least several.

As people in my line of work are fond of saying, ‘language sometimes does our thinking for us.’  Word choices are tracks that inevitably point us in specific directions.   So when we talk about “media”—because it is a plural term—we are primed  to acknowledge significant differences between individual outlets.  That’s as it should be, and a way of thinking we need remember when we are acting on the basis of any single version of events.

For most of us, the concept of a “story” could not be clearer, setting up an expectation that we will take in a running version of events that can stand on its own. This is all well and good if we are talking about one individual’s experiences.  We are all entitled to our stories. They function to make life understandable and meaningful. They are also useful barometers of our own mental states.

Narrative fiction and films have our attention because they fulfill what we seem hardwired to need: figures to empathize with, and the continuity and simplicity of a single of perspective. This is the rhetorical form of the synecdoche: when one example stands in for a whole class of people or events.

The mistake is when we accept the adequacy of  singular form as a tool for understanding the real world. The cable-news anchorperson asks a reporter in the field, “What’s the story?” A headline launches a short version of events usually defined by its internal coherence.  An editor or producer presses a reporter to find a single experience that encapsulates a larger trend. As news consumers we are attracted to narrative continuity over reports that ask us to consider “competing realities.”  Complexity tends to get written out of accounts that need to be boiled down to one and half minutes of air time or 600 words of reporting.

But in actual fact, human events usually contain multiple and contradictory stories: accounts that  are often diverse in their details and frequently inconsistent with each other. We easily recognize this when we compare notes with family or friends about key events that we’ve shared about some earlier experiences of our ancestors. We expect to add details another missed, or to add alternative interpretations of a participant’s motives, or  to pass on an observation that is completely new to others. In those settings we are not surprised to learn that one version of events is not enough.  Eventually all the pieces put together form a kind of intersubjective truth that works at least for those who participated.

The same is true in the current news environment. The ongoing conflict between the state of Israel and Palestinians living on its borders does not permit the luxury of one narrative, but many. The controversial implementation of the Affordable Care Act cannot be contained in one  personal experience.  We know there must have many, reflecting the range of responses by individuals and the states where they reside.  Even when we think we have some clarity on the “aggression” of the Russian Federation in reclaiming Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, we can easily be surprised by long-form accounts from the region that can force us out of what seems  like a settled narrative.

We are smarter if we expect that news reports and other kinds of nonfiction accounts should come to us in uneven waves. In terms of conventional communication analysis, we usually look for a “preferred narrative:” the kind of account that comes from official sources and takes hold of the popular imagination.  But we also expect to find that there are “alternate” or “counter-narratives” as well, and often a series of them. These may come from the less powerful or the marginalized who were caught up in the same event.  It’s not unusual that years later they emerge as the new preferred narratives.

Charles Dickens started a novel with the famous lines, “It was the best of times.  It was the worst of times.”  The thought reflects his savvy as a narrator of the human condition.  We need to expect that there may be a plurality of perspectives that will undermine the coherence and psychological comfort that comes with a single account. “Reality” is often best represented in a Venn diagram of overlapping accounts. We need to remind ourselves to be impatient if reporting about human events seeks an unearned consensus by insisting on a single truth.

Comment at woodward@tcnj.edu

bar from header 2

“Mere?” Not so Much.

Models, Problem Practices, Rhetorical Mastery, , , , , , , , , ,

 Individuals who flatter themselves by being about “action” must ultimately face the undeniable fact that survival in American life depends on the water of communication.  What we say matters. A lot. 

In parched California, getting caught watering the sidewalk rather than a patch of grass is likely to annoy neighbors.  And a clueless homeowner’s response that what is involved is “merely” water won’t help.  Everyone understands  what’s at stake.  Water makes life possible.

My incredulity matches those neighbors when I hear someone dismiss another’s comments by noting that those expressions are “mere rhetoric.”  In my field this is the professional equivalent of a thumb in the eye.  I’ll give the phrase it’s due; it hangs around our public discussion like mosquitoes in a Michigan summer.  But it’s a misguided thought.

We use the “mere” put-down to devalue someone’s words, usually on the mistaken assumption that we have other means for understanding each other.  In the usual form, the preferred reality is to preference “deeds” over words.  And that is sometimes the case.  For example, we generally expect that people will act on their stated intentions: that their behavior matters. But even in such cases we are also interested in making conclusions about character based on spoken promises.  Individuals who flatter themselves by being about “action” must ultimately face the undeniable fact that survival in American life depends on the water of communication.  What we say matters.  A lot.

The “mere rhetoric” mistake is often spoken by reporters and politicians, the very folks who most need to acknowledge the debt they owe to the fluency of others.  Their fuzzy thinking sometimes comes with a statement such as this:  “For the moment let’s set aside all the rhetoric about this subject and get to the point about what’s at stake.”  This supposed set-aside is then followed by. . . well. . . more language. Staring at each other in complete silence isn’t much of an option. Not understanding our debt to words shows the same kind of lack of self awareness that allows someone to worry about the government “taking over” Medicare.

Over the centuries thinkers have wondered if there isn’t a better cure to misunderstanding than via verbal pathways.  Most have usually ended up with a synthetic symbol system that mimics mathematics.  No one ever misunderstands what “2” means.  And we don’t think others are hurling abuse in our direction if they talk about a “dozen.”  Mathematical language has the virtue and liability of being completely stipulative.

Football on television is functionally as much about the announcing as the action on the field.  Try watching an entire game without the sound.

But our expressive needs require more.  We revel in rhetoric that is loaded, judgmental, evocative and sometimes rude.  We seek out people who use beautiful constructions that engross and engage.  And this isn’t just in the realms of the novel or poetry. Football on television is functionally as much about the announcing as the action on the field.  Try watching an entire game without the sound.  Similarly, a judgment in the form of a letter grade often matters more to a student than their actual work.  And parents rejoice when their young children begin to pass through the threshold of literacy.

To be sure, we are theoretically capable of stepping back from the rhetorical world.  But the requirements are harsh and, for most of us, not very welcoming.  Lock yourself away in a silent place.  Don’t talk. Don’t listen to others.  And try to control the verbal chatter of a rhetorical mind that can probably run circles around  even your most loquacious relative.  It’s not fun to be denied the gifts of utterance.

The scholar Kenneth Burke reminded us that “Language is equipment for living.”  We are toilers and pleasure seekers in the information age, often allowing our bodies to wither while our heads surf through endless waves of verbiage.  Even social scientists who pride themselves on being rigorous empiricists usually end up studying verbal behavior most of the time.  As for the neuroscientists who often use brain scans to seek the origins of our actions?  Well, that’s mere neuroscience.  The human mind is more than the organ of the brain.  It’s the source and signature of our verbally constructed selves.