SMC103Y1 Lecture Notes - Gilles Duceppe, Hairnet, Walter Lippmann
Document Summary
Valpy starts by asking what sort of narrative the newspapers have given us up til now and their coverage of the election --> has it been an aid to understanding; an obstacle to understanding. G1 (andrew) has said this election is not particularly enlightening --> says we are prisoners of narrative in coverage. We as human beings are pushed to arrange events of our own lives into narrative to take an order. This can be overwhelming when taken on by the media. Narrative: arrangement of events in a coherent story line where one thing leads to another; technically a hero/villain; ritualized communication; characters fit in a story line. We cover the campaign more than we cover the election. Problem is there isn"t alot of news in election campaigns. They are meaningful to parties, but basically campaign events. We tend to invest more significantly than they warrant.