Multimedia Storytelling in Journalism: Exploring Narrative Techniques in Snow Fall
Open Access
- 16 May 2018
- journal article
- research article
- Published by MDPI AG in Information
- Vol. 9 (5), 123
- https://doi.org/10.3390/info9050123
Abstract
News stories aim to create an immersive reading experience by virtually transporting the audience to the described scenes. In print journalism, this experience is facilitated by text-linguistic narrative techniques, such as detailed scene reconstructions, a chronological event structure, point-of-view writing, and speech and thought reports. The present study examines how these techniques are translated into journalistic multimedia stories and explores how the distinctive features of text, image, video, audio, and graphic animations are exploited to immerse the audience in otherwise distant news events. To that end, a case study of the New York Times multimedia story Snow Fall is carried out. Results show that scenes are vividly reconstructed through a combination of text, image, video, and graphic animation. The story’s event structure is expressed in text and picture, while combinations of text, video, and audio are used to represent the events from the viewpoints of news actors. Although text is still central to all narrative techniques, it is complemented with other media formats to create various multimedia combinations, each intensifying the experience of immersion.Keywords
Funding Information
- Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (275-89-038)
This publication has 21 references indexed in Scilit:
- Revisiting Narrative Journalism as One of The Futures of JournalismJournalism Studies, 2014
- THE NEW, OLD JOURNALISMJournalism Studies, 2012
- Convergence CallsConvergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 2008
- Affective NewsCommunication Research, 2004
- The Processes of Adopting Multimedia and Interactivity in Three Online NewsroomsJournal of Communication, 2004
- What is multimedia journalism1?Journalism Studies, 2004
- News and its communicative quality: the inverted pyramid—when and why did it appear?Journalism Studies, 2003
- "You Had to Be There" (And They Weren't): The Problem With Reporter ReconstructionsJournal of Mass Media Ethics, 1999
- Linguistic perspective in short news storiesPoetics, 1993
- Quotations as DemonstrationsLanguage, 1990