Russian TV News: the Experience of Narrative Analysis Abstract

<p>This thesis is devoted to the exploration of narrative structure of Russian television news. Empirical basis includes evening news program of&nbsp; &laquo;Channel One&raquo; and channel &laquo;Russia-1&raquo; for 2 periods: 1) 14.11.2011-25.12.2011 to 25 and 2) 04.02.2012-18.03.2012. Narrative theory of V. Propp and A.-ZH. Greimas, and discourse theory of T. van Dijk represented our theoretical base. Major research methods are narrative and comparative analyzes.</p><p>The aim is to reveal the specifics of narrative structures of Russian television news.</p><p>The Hypothesis: a modern TV news is look like soap opera narrative: news stories are grouped together by common topics and characters who play constant roles during the story, so these groups can be read as a union text.</p><p>To achieve the aim, and сheck the hypothesis &nbsp;several tasks were performed:</p><p>1.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;Considered the various narrative theories from classical research to the most modern concepts.</p><p>2.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Considered different sources about news discourse in general and television news in particular.</p><p>3.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Revealed the basic principles of soap opera.</p><p>4.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Prepared and systematized empirics</p><p>5.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Made a comprehensive narrative analysis of selected materials and check their compliance with the principles of soap opera</p><p>6.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;Compare the features of news narrative structures of the both channels.</p><p>7.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;Compare features of news narrative structures of the both periods.</p><p>In the theoretical chapters of this graduated work we examined the features of&nbsp; theory of narrative in different socio-humanities science, determined the notion of television news and the principles of soap opera.</p><p>Then we made a multilateral narrative analysis of empiric base, during the parliamentary and presidential election campaigns and elections. In particular, we have compiled actantial models of little news and newsgroups , compared main features of two channels , and revealed the similarities and differences&nbsp; between narrative strategies of two periods.</p><p>We&#39;ve achieved the aim and the hypothesis has been fully confirmed.<br />The main conclusions of the work:</p><p>1.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Peculiarity of modern Russian news &nbsp;utilizes the soap opera&rsquo;s principle of organization of news narratives.</p><p>2.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; It is achieved by connecting the stories and newsgroups of common topics and permanent &nbsp;persons who plays the constant actantial role.</p><p>3.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Stories about the main Russian political leaders D.Medvedev and V.Putin are formed a base of long news soap operas. Their constant actants &ndash; primary holders.</p><p>4.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Big newsgroups on the same topic of one time period is connected with news on the same topic of other historical periods, which is formed a multi-level &laquo;soap opera&raquo; narrative structure of TV news.</p><p>5.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Schemes of actants of news programms of &laquo;Channel One&raquo; and channel &laquo;Russia-1&raquo; are often identical , but they have a differences on local levels.</p><p>Everyone can analyze different media news for every periods using our experience. This work can be useful for journalists, who take part in editing of news texts , political scientists, sociologists , linguists, examining different types of discourse , and for marketing , PR and political leaders, who interested in exploring ways of language influence to audience.</p>