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Chapter 9. Civic voice in multimodal news narratives

  • Yrjö Tuunanen and Heidi Hirsto
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Crisis and the Media
This chapter is in the book Crisis and the Media

Abstract

In this chapter, we examine civic voice in visual news narratives about the economic crisis. We discuss how the possibility of voice may be linked to particular practices in multimodal news discourse. We analyze captioned stock photo galleries depicting anti-austerity protests in Greece, and demonstrate how these narratives create a simplified grouping of actors with narrative necessity and a loose connection to the “real”. Thus, they reproduce the dominant master narrative juxtaposing financial pragmatism with emotioned expressions of civic voice. We discuss how this kind of doing the crisis tends to muffle civic voice and naturalize the establishment story of the crisis. We conclude by proposing how multimodal online news narratives might better realize their potential in mediating civic voice.

Abstract

In this chapter, we examine civic voice in visual news narratives about the economic crisis. We discuss how the possibility of voice may be linked to particular practices in multimodal news discourse. We analyze captioned stock photo galleries depicting anti-austerity protests in Greece, and demonstrate how these narratives create a simplified grouping of actors with narrative necessity and a loose connection to the “real”. Thus, they reproduce the dominant master narrative juxtaposing financial pragmatism with emotioned expressions of civic voice. We discuss how this kind of doing the crisis tends to muffle civic voice and naturalize the establishment story of the crisis. We conclude by proposing how multimodal online news narratives might better realize their potential in mediating civic voice.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Contributors vii
  4. Crisis or the media? 1
  5. Part I. Crisis? What crisis? Theoretical perspectives
  6. Chapter 1. Rehearsing the crisis 17
  7. Chapter 2. Reconceptualizing crisis 33
  8. Part II. Constructions of crisis and responsibility in the print and broadcast media
  9. Chapter 3. Expressions of blame for the Global Financial Crisis in US, UK and Australian opinion texts 59
  10. Chapter 4. ‘We – will – go – bank – rupt’ 85
  11. Chapter 5. “All good people have debts” 107
  12. Chapter 6. The image of the empty hands 127
  13. Chapter 7. The visual construction of political crises 151
  14. Chapter 8. Impending crisis in Scotland 177
  15. Part III. Crisis constructions in the on-line and social media
  16. Chapter 9. Civic voice in multimodal news narratives 205
  17. Chapter 10. Gender in “crisis”, everyday sexism and the Twittersphere 231
  18. Epilogue 261
  19. Index 267
https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.76.10tuu

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Contributors vii
  4. Crisis or the media? 1
  5. Part I. Crisis? What crisis? Theoretical perspectives
  6. Chapter 1. Rehearsing the crisis 17
  7. Chapter 2. Reconceptualizing crisis 33
  8. Part II. Constructions of crisis and responsibility in the print and broadcast media
  9. Chapter 3. Expressions of blame for the Global Financial Crisis in US, UK and Australian opinion texts 59
  10. Chapter 4. ‘We – will – go – bank – rupt’ 85
  11. Chapter 5. “All good people have debts” 107
  12. Chapter 6. The image of the empty hands 127
  13. Chapter 7. The visual construction of political crises 151
  14. Chapter 8. Impending crisis in Scotland 177
  15. Part III. Crisis constructions in the on-line and social media
  16. Chapter 9. Civic voice in multimodal news narratives 205
  17. Chapter 10. Gender in “crisis”, everyday sexism and the Twittersphere 231
  18. Epilogue 261
  19. Index 267
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