Information - Storytelling - Attraction

SELECT POINTS from

Media Culture Society 2000; 22; 465 DOI: 10.1177/016344300022004006
Mats Ekstrom, Information, storytelling and attractions: TV journalism in three modes of communication

Introduction

Journalism is communication in a market: a market of news, images and stories.

The distinction between information and entertainment is one of the most common distinctions in analyses of media and journalism. But it lacks analytical precision and cannot be used to distinguish between specific modes of communication.

Another distinction which has guided analyses of journalism is that between information and storytelling. I propose a perspective based on this dichotomy but add a third concept: attraction.

In this article, I will demonstrate how trends in journalism, differences between various forms of productions, the strategies followed, and the ways audiences are involved may be understood in terms of these three concepts.

As an illustration of what I hope to do, we might use the following three communicative phenomena as metaphors:

·         the bulletin board (information),

·         the bedtime story (storytelling), and

·         the circus performance (attraction).

The concepts point to significant differences relating to three aspects of communicative events and processes:

(1)     the producer's intentions and the forms of production and communicative strategies which are used to fulfil those intentions;

(2)     the basis for audience involvement, the dimensions of audience appeal and gratification;

(3)     the roles which are offered actors in a communicative event/process and the relations which are established between these roles. Let us first briefly review these aspects.

TABLE 1 Communicative intentions in different modes of communication
Modes of communication	Basic communicative intentions
Information	Offering information that appears to be relevant enough, interesting enough and reliable enough to appeal to presumptive viewers
Storytelling	Telling a story which is exciting or dramatic enough to engage presumptive viewers.
Attraction	Offering attractions that are spectacular, shocking or extraordinary enough to attract and fascinate presumptive viewers.
Ekstrom, Information, storytelling and attractions

 

TABLE 2 The respective bases for audience involvement in three modes of communication
Modes of communication		Bases for audience involvement
Information		Thirst for knowledge, a need to know, to keep oneself informed.
Storytelling		Lust for adventure, the pleasure of hearing a story, the propensity to empathize, to experience suspense and drama.
Attraction		Lust to gaze, the allure of pictures that make a strong impression, seeing something out of the ordinary, something spectacular, suppressed and/or forbidden.
Ekstrom, Information, storytelling and attractions
TABLE 3 Roles in different modes of communication
	Journalism		Audience7	'Third parties' (persons interviewed, guests, etc.)
Information	Informant8		Knowledge- seeker (citizen)	Source
Storytelling	Storyteller		Listener	Characters
Attraction	Arranger/exhibitor		Spectator	Performer/exhibit
Ekstrom, Information, storytelling and attractions

 

From an analytical and communicative perspective, I will conceptualize TV journalism in terms of: TV journalism of information, TV journalism of storytelling and TV journalism of attractions.

 

The TV journalism of information

Characteristic of what I call the TV journalism of information is its intention to present knowledge (in the form of news, reports of events, documentaries and debates) about things of significance, relevance and interest. Information is taken to include teaching and general edification.

Strategies are used to convince the audience that the programme offers important, interesting and reliable information. This is accomplished in part via the way TV newscasts and other current events programmes publicize, introduce and compose their contents. This is also achieved through the design of the programme: the signature melody/vignette, and the form of address conform to the conventions of one or another genre, which generate the appropriate expectations.

The intention to inform is also apparent in the production process. Production is organized in such a way as to maximize the opportunities to gather relevant information to report. Interviews with knowledgeable people and reliable sources are accorded high priority in this kind of journalism. The priorities regarding what kinds of knowledge and what contents should be included are decisive. This is not to say that form considerations lack importance, but form is not valued in its own right, but only in relation to how effectively it presents given content.

The information function makes certain requirements of the composition and structure of the texts/programmes. Text should be composed so that the content is comprehensible to the viewer. Journalism which tries to appeal to viewers by presenting reliable, accurate information often gives priority to text constructions which make clear references to factual relationships and sources. The text should convince the viewer that what is said is well founded. Unfounded, exaggerated or biased accounts are not useful to people who wish to use the information in real life. These are ideals that can be approximated in various ways. Too great a contrast between ideal and praxis undermines the validity of the journalism as source of information.

In the informative mode of communication journalism seeks to satisfy the audience's desire to know. One important piece of information which newscasts can impart is that nothing of significance to the viewer's life has happened. This knowledge produces a feeling of security.

The output of information in society today is enormous, and it is difficult to compete on the information market. But there are other ways to appeal to the audience.

 

The TV journalism of storytelling

Storytelling is a mode of communication which represents one of the prime selling points in television productions in general, and not least in TV journalism. The strength of televised narratives is that the plot, dramaturgy, sound and visual effects together can form a whole which is difficult for the viewer to turn away from due to the ambience and atmosphere of suspense which has been created. Such narratives exploit the dramatic potential of the medium, i.e. what Corner (1995: 13) describes as its 'capacity to show "real" action . . . within a tight and powerful grammar

Some posit that all journalism is a form of storytelling (Bird, 1990).

When I speak of the TV journalism of storytelling, I am referring to a journalism which is

·         strongly oriented toward telling stories,

·         devising a plot and

·         utilizing the medium's dramaturgical potential.

It is journalism which addresses the viewer as story-listener and applies the communicative strategies of narration. Characteristic of these strategies - this rhetoric - is the decisive importance of formal aspects (the structure of the narrative and the form of presentation) in the appeal to the audience.

A story has at least five characteristics which may be present in the construction of the journalistic text .

(1)          The elements in a story occur in a given order, the order itself influences the content and its meaning; the order indicates relationships and causality, what leads to what; the order may, for example, create suspense prior to a dramatic crescendo and resolution or ending.

(2)          A story contains certain more or less distinct characters or roles; characters are typically constructed within the framework of archetypical contrasts: good-evil, perpetrator-victim, hero-villain.

(3)          A story has one or more points, which give clear cues regarding how the story is to be interpreted, i.e. what it is about and the message it conveys.

(4)          A story has a resolution or ending which usually shows, or suggests, a solution to the problems or conflicts around which the story revolves.

(5)          Stories take place simultaneously on multiple levels; the concrete story in a text may be formulated within the framework of a more general narrative or myth about society and culture.

 

In the case of TV journalism of storytelling, the production has a particular orientation. The production is adapted to the overall goal of transforming real events into good stories - something quite different from good information. A vital part of the process is finding a good case to dramatize. Frequently, it is access to a potentially good story (a case and a main character) which decides the choice of a topic to be followed up and reported.

The desire to tell a good story also influences the way a production is photographed.

Editing plays an important part in storytelling journalism. It is in the editing that the producers can form the material they have assembled into a powerful dramaturgical sequence. An elaborated narrative structure is enacted.

Studio conversations, too, may be staged as narratives

Journalism as storytelling, whether live studio production or reportage, requires a high degree of control over the editing and staging. It also requires that journalism allows itself considerable leeway to use factual data, interview persons and studio guests in ways that are congenial with the story being told.

Stories have a potential to involve the audience in ways only this mode of communication can achieve.

(1)          First, the stories elicit empathy, identification and excitement and a desire to find out how the story ends. They may be entertaining in the sense of pleasing, but they can also be ugly and frightening.

(2)          Second, stories, perhaps more than other modes, offer models which help us understand reality, other people and ourselves. Clear-cut plots and well-defined characters help viewers create order in reality and reinforce established interpretations of real-life phenomena and relationships.

Good stories need to be credible and within reason, but they need not be factual or all-inclusive. Stories include the elements that 'fit' and tend to ignore the rest.

One common problem is that the events journalists are to depict have already happened and cannot be visualized. For storytelling journalism, for which the dramatization of the course of events is crucial, a variety of production styles have been developed to compensate for this. The two most important are: (1) to create a new event and then report it, and (2) to reconstruct and re-enact an event which already is past.

Any given current events programme may be constructed so as to constitute an independent story, but journalism can also appeal to its audience by offering an ongoing story, a feuilleton, bit by bit, one episode at a time. So-called media scandals offer prime examples of this tactic.

News journalism, too, communicates with stories. Sand and Helland (1998: 231) find that storytelling has become increasingly common in television news.

The advent of commercial television channels has meant a sharpening of the competition for viewers' eyes and ears, which has made it necessary to find or devise styles of presentation which appeal to viewers.

The marked adaptation of TV journalism to the storytelling mode of communication should also be viewed in relation to the characteristics of the medium. The reception of television is specific to the medium.

(1)          It follows a given order and a standardized tempo. A written text can be read quickly or slowly; we can go back, read again and reflect on what it says. But we follow a televised text (programme) from beginning to end at a given pace.

(2)          As a rule, the medium also addresses mass audiences. What is said should be comprehensible to a large number of viewers, whether or not they have prior knowledge of the subject at hand. Together, these factors mean that sophisticated and complicated presentations, subtle arguments based on logical chains of reasoning, are not likely to make 'good television'. Simple, easy-to-understand messages, reportage built up around a clear-cut story line - this is the stuff of 'good television'.

(3)          Television is also a relatively ephemeral medium. Images and statements take one another's place in a steady, fast-moving stream. Before we viewers have had a chance to think about what we just saw, television is already trying to get our attention with something else. This makes major demands of programmes that have to vie for viewers' attention.
Storytelling is a communicative strategy that TV journalism uses for precisely this purpose. Storytelling techniques are used to create moods, excitement, suspense, conflicts and contrasts; to give viewers powerful experiences and arouse their emotions .

 

The TV journalism of attractions

One of the principal strategies that is applied to appeal to viewers is the staging of attractions. Current events programmes are often introduced (as the quotes above illustrate) primarily as attractions. On television, everything from aerial bombing attacks and rocket launches to individuals with sexual deviations and criminal pasts, everything from sensational pictures to staged debates, can be made into attractions.¹⁵

 

(1)      Attractions represent a specific way of using language in social interaction. In essence, it is a question of putting something or someone on display.

(2)  The intention, which is specific to attractions, is to arrange an event where something is displayed which will attract and fascinate an audience. These strategies require that the producers have a high degree of control over the production process, not least the staging and editing. The influence of this mode of communication leads journalism into kinds of practices that differ in significant respects from traditional concepts of journalistic work.

(3)     The attraction is intimately related to deviations from normality. The norms as to what kind of content is acceptable vary between channels; commercial channels stage some attractions that would not be acceptable on the public service channels.

(4) Attractions have a style of expression and aesthetic all their own. They represent a special form of verbal representation; the shocking and extraordinary is brought out through expressive images, drastic, oversized headlines, bright colours and loudness. The potential of the audiovisual medium is used to the full to attract attention.

(5) The attraction is closely tied to a specific mode of reception, a particular kind of audience involvement. It is the fascination and allure of seeing something unusual, sensational, perhaps taboo that makes vivid impressions and arouses strong feelings - which, in short, involves the audience. Attractions mainly appeal to our immediate, spontaneous perceptions and feelings: laughter, surprise, revulsion, consternation, fascination. The important thing is for the attraction not to leave its audience unmoved. From the spectator's point of view, attractions are in a sense unreal, something out of the ordinary which one experiences for a time and then returns to ordinary everyday life.

(6) Attractions represent events that are finite in time and space. The TV journalism of attractions is closely related with the production of so-called media events.
It is not the kind of journalism that reflects or reports, but journalism that creates events in the media, for the media, and to achieve a specific form of audience involvement in the media.

These media events and attractions are characterized by a combination of both interchangeability and uniqueness or non-interchangeability. In contrast to daily reports of news journalism and other informative programmes, an attraction is non-interchangeable, it is an extraordinary media event. Programmes do what they can to advertise their exclusiveness; as the number of channels and media increases, it naturally becomes increasingly difficult to make such a claim.

Meanwhile, on another plane, attractions are eminently interchangeable. Neither the producer nor the receiver is primarily interested in the precise content of the attraction, but rather its allure, its powers of attraction. The content is interchangeable. There is a tendency not to pay very much attention to the values or information conveyed in this mode of communication. Attractions are not created by people who have something important to say on an issue. The substance of the content is not focal. An attraction is created by an arranger for the express purpose of attracting spectators. In other words, the inverse of the situation in the informational mode.

The TV journalism of attractions is the product of at least five structural conditions:

(1)     the institutionalized division between producers (arrangers) and mass audiences (spectators);

(2)      the audiovisual characteristics of television, and technological potential of the medium to convey events more or less instantaneously over vast geographic distances;

(3)     the power and control of media organizations over the production process and journalists' ever-increasing liberty not only to report, but also to create and edit media events;

(4)     journalists' well-known interest in extraordinary, spectacular and sensational phenomena;

(5)     the increasing commercialization of the media and sharpening competition for viewers' attention.

Attractions are always a matter of some form of exploitation of the object or person displayed. This is not necessarily either negative or morally/ethically suspect. When the extraordinary becomes 'normal' and loses its singularity, media producers must break new ground and find new objects to exploit in new and different ways.

I am not arguing that journalism is solely a question of attractions - on the contrary.

What I am saying is that this mode of communication is used  (alongside others) in media production under the pressure of competition.

 

Staged conflict

Certain American talk shows are what one might call archetypical attractions. Here we, the audience, witness extraordinary events: a couple breaks up on camera, a woman admits her infidelity, family members are at each other's throats, or someone relates a remarkable or shocking experience. Deviation from the norm - the element of sensation or shock - is constitutive of the genre. The programmes present spectacular stories, oddities, garish vulgarity, tearful confessions and staged conflicts.

Conflicts are staged applying the aesthetic that is typical of the mode. The entire studio is designed to resemble an arena or theatre. Spectators are encouraged to clap loudly, cheer, jeer and whistle. In some cases, guests are placed on a stage or dais. Like a master of ceremonies, the programme host welcomes the audiences - those in the studio and those in their homes - to the show, announces the line-up of attractions, introduces the guests and takes up position between the guests and the audience/camera.

In the production of staged conflicts producers and research journalists use numerous strategies to ensure an exciting, spectacular 'happening' on camera. The guests are chosen carefully; they are provoked to make statements which will (most likely) provoke their adversaries, a script of questions which can be used to bait the guests (to 'push their buttons', as the Americans say) has been prepared, etc. (Ekstrom, 1997). The conflicts may be of different kinds; on occasion guests have come to blows. Normally, the abuse is strictly verbal.

 

Private-life-made-public

In the ever-keener competition for viewers' attention, television producers are looking high and low for new subjects to make attractions of. One of the new fields that has been exploited to an unprecedented extent in recent years is individuals' private lives. This occurs primarily in talk shows, but it also occurs in other kinds of programmes, formats that may be characterized as a kind of mixture of intimate, private conversations and public confessions or therapy sessions.

Oddities as attractions

The practice of putting people with exotic talents, odd physical appearance or abnormal personalities on display is nothing new. Long before television, amusement parks, fairs and circuses offered such attractions. 'Documentary' films made by adventurer-explorers and missionaries in the early years of the 20th century frequently display 'natives' whose physical appearance, it was expected, would astound the public back home. Some film analysts have coined the term, 'the cinema of attraction' to describe such films (Jernudd, 1998; Gunning, 1992).

Television, too, has come to exploit the potential allure of seeing and meeting persons with abnormal characteristics of one kind or another. Current events programmes invite us to meet murderers, or their siblings, parents or best friends; people who have tattooed their entire bodies; Siamese twins; people with odd sexual preferences, and so forth.

 

'Crazy' happenings

Current events programming also features various kinds of 'crazy' happenings, which are not organized conflicts, but are motivated by the principle that something fun or absolutely unexpected - something highly unconventional - should occur during the programme.

Exposes and scandals

The anthology, The Journalism of Outrage (Protess et al., 1991) presents several interesting studies of American investigative journalism. A common denominator of the journalism discussed in the volume is a focus on Outrages', i.e. scandals that defy social mores. The contributors to the volume primarily treat their material in the perspective of what I have called the journalism of information. Investigative journalism means the kind of journalism where reporters have exposed or revealed information that, for various reasons, has been kept from the public. The social consequences of this kind of material are analysed in terms of opinion formation and political reform. Given this perspective, scandals are the result of journalistic 'digging', and they appeal to the audience in their role of active, political, sentient citizens. The authors also discuss the material as a form of storytelling, where events are reconstructed as narratives on the theme of moral disorder.

I would argue that the 'outrages' disclosed through investigative journalism should also be considered in the perspective of the journalism of attractions. Investigative journalism is often critical scrutiny, storytelling and the production of attractions, all in one. Staged events are common ingredients in these media scandals; journalists have deployed strategies involving dramatic direction and aesthetic form to give the scandals the character of spectacular and extraordinary media events.¹⁷ This may be done using a hidden camera - not only to gather evidence, but also to show how influential figures lie and squirm and, ultimately, make fools of themselves. The reportage is often presented so that the viewer is prepared to, actually expects to, see this happen. Another example is when interviews with individuals who are suspected of wrongdoing are set up as interrogations, and the journalist saves the decisive evidence as a trump card, causing the 'suspect' to reveal himself to be dishonest and unmasked. Meanwhile, we viewers have been privy to the evidence against the person all along. Our studies indicate that viewers are fascinated and entertained by seeing influential figures publicly humbled (Ekstrom and Eriksson, 1998). A third example is the kind of press conference where accused individuals either try to defend themselves or confess their sins. Such occasions are often billed as major media events, events not to be missed. The media's staging of the events helps give them the character of attractions, which is not to say that the accused figures do not contribute, as well.

 

Closing remarks

Neither storytelling journalism nor the journalism of attractions is anything new. The various communication strategies, forms of addressing the public, which I present here often occur side by side. The communicative strategies associated with storytelling and attractions both differ from those associated with the journalism of information in that they put greater emphasis on form than on content. The formats and techniques used to achieve excitement, drama, spectacular and fascinating content are applied to non-fiction as well as fiction. The trend away from the journalism of information may in fact be seen as an expression of how TV journalism, competing for viewers' attention, has sought to develop new formats and programme concepts, in which fact and fiction are combined

Dramaturgy and composition are important in news journalism, too, sometimes taking precedence over traditional news values (Sand and Helland, 1998). This raises a lot of questions that I have chosen not to address in this article, for example: where does journalism stop, and 'non-journalism' begin?

Judging from what seems to be given priority in the production of current events programming on television, it appears that commercial channels especially have greater faith in the journalisms of storytelling and attractions than in the journalism of information. How are we to explain this?

One partial explanation probably lies in the role television viewing plays in our daily lives. Many viewers do not look to television primarily for information, but rather for entertainment, diversion and escape. Good stories and attractions serve these purposes well. It is hardly uncommon behaviour to flop down in an armchair, pick up the remote and 'zap' between channels until we find something that attracts us. This should not be taken to imply that TV viewing is trivial or lacks importance.

One problem with a form of communication based on viewers' fascination with extraordinary phenomena is that things that have been 'extraordinary' long enough, tend to become 'normal' and lose their powers of attraction.

There is not enough information of urgent importance to warrant daily consumption of journalism. Judged solely from the point of view of information, we might manage quite well with considerably less journalism than we actually consume. But journalism cannot get by without a mass audience.